Zhu Yunwen knew very well that the land issue was the fundamental issue of the feudal dynasty. If land annexation could not be solved, the livelihood issues of the underlying people could not be solved.
As the emperor and the largest landlord in the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yunwen always needed to exploit farmers and protect the interests of the landlord class. This is an unchangeable fact.
Zhu Yunwen had no way and could not shout the slogan of "everything serves the masses" and could not put the "interests of the broadest masses" at the top of Ming Dynasty's interests. However, Zhu Yunwen must find a way to solve the excessive annexation of land.
The starting point for solving this problem is not purely for the survival of the people to express one's compassion, but more from the future of the Ming Dynasty, because land annexation is directly related to social stability and the change of dynasties!
If we don’t want the Ming Dynasty to perish in two or three hundred years, this crazy horse of land annexation must have a rein, otherwise, it will pull the Ming Dynasty and fall off the cliff.
Land is the most sensitive issue and the most troublesome issue for any dynasty.
It has made many treacherous ministers successful and dragged down many loyal ministers to death. It has supported the prosperity of each dynasty and dug the graves of each dynasty.
Ancient land relations were extremely complex and difficult to explain clearly.
In the primitive clan or tribe period, everyone was a pauper and didn’t even have any clothes. Naturally, there was no talk of private ownership. I could use the stones you picked up to kill dinosaurs, and I could take a bite of the fruit in your hand. Who will divide it among you?
The initial reason for changes in production relations is still related to fertility.
A hundred children were born here in twenty years, and five hundred were born there. When people greet each other, they are all seven aunts and eight aunts. There are a lot of relatives. There is no such thing as a clan commune. Whoever has the larger population will get the share. There are many things.
As a result, the original matriarchal commune gradually evolved into a family commune. Later, when the men saw that they had the strength to hunt and beat people, and had food and drink, why should they be bullied by women?
Thus, the era of the matriarch ended, the era of the male patriarch began, and the patriarchal family emerged.
Since they are all family members, the original clan property, such as meat, fruit, hair, and stones, will naturally become family property.
What is public ownership should be mine, it is mine, if it is not mine, it will be mine if I snatch it away.
This is how private ownership entered the stage of history.
This process is not a short-term mutation, but a long-term evolution.
During the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the land system was basically clan land ownership.
"Shang Shu Jiu Gao" records that during the Shang Dynasty:
"The more you serve outside, the marquis, Dian, Nan, Wei, and Bangbo; the more you serve at home, the more you serve like Bailuo, Shuyin, Weiya, Weilv, and Zonggong, the more you live among the people."
What needs to be explained is that the external administration here does not mean sticking a plaster on you, nor does the internal administration allow you to swallow it.
The internal service refers to the Gyeonggi area, the national capital, and the foreign service refers to the areas outside the capital.
This means that during the Shang Dynasty, it became the norm to enfeoff princes.
There are more records of the enfeoffment system in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which are recorded in "Zuo Zhuan":
"In the past, the prosperous king defeated the Shang Dynasty, became the king and brought peace to all directions. The Kang king calmed the people and established his mother and brother to protect the Zhou Dynasty with vassal vassals. In the past, the second uncle Gongang Ang of Zhou Dynasty failed, so the feudal relatives used vassal vassals to screen the Zhou Dynasty."
During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the population was not large and productivity was not high. Even if the country implemented a feudal system, most of them were centered around the cities. There were many fertile fields around them. Everyone worked on construction together. In addition, your land is yours and mine is Mine, build a road here, build a ditch there, stand on a high place and take a look, ah, isn't this the word "well"?
Well, the land relations during this period were based on the well-field system.
At that time, farmers were the ones doing the work, and the nobles were the overseers. When nothing happened, they would run to the fields and give random directions.
However, it should be noted that although it is a feudal system, the land belongs to the state and is not allowed to be bought, sold or transferred privately, and "tribute tax" is required.
This land system can be said to be the private ownership of aristocratic land under state ownership.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, in order to increase their strength, princes from all over the country cultivated a large number of private lands, and these private lands did not require taxes. Since these things were their own, the princes were naturally unwilling to invest manpower in "public lands", so there was The phenomenon of "the people are unwilling to devote their efforts to public land".
As private fields increased and public fields were left uncultivated, the well-field system naturally lost its foundation.
In 594 BC, the State of Lu implemented the "initial taxation per mu" law, which legally required that whether it was public or private land, taxation was per mu. In this way, private land was legally recognized.
Later, with Shang Yang's reform, the well-field system was officially abolished, and feudal private ownership of land was established.
Qin Shihuang's annexation of the six kingdoms was, to put it bluntly, a land struggle. Countless landowners rose up to resist in order to protect their land, but they could not stop Qin Shihuang's army.
During the unification period of Qin, some of the original landowners were killed and some were captured, leaving large areas of land deserted. In order to restore production, Qin Shihuang promulgated a land decree that "makes the capital of Guizhou return to its own land".
The head of Guizhou refers to the common people.
During the Qin Dynasty, the land grant system was no longer adopted, but farmers were encouraged to open up wasteland and occupy land without government restrictions. The existence of this system affirmed the private ownership of farmers' land and created new landlords.
After the Qin Dynasty, when the Western Han Dynasty was founded, the system adopted from the Han Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty was adopted, and the private land ownership of the Qin Dynasty was inherited.
The prominent features of the national policy in the early Western Han Dynasty were "the old man does nothing" and "recuperate and recuperate". The state did not care, local autonomy was independent, and private ownership of land developed rapidly like a wild horse running wild.
During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the problem of land annexation finally emerged, with the phenomenon of "sparing the network but enriching the people, overflowing with wealth, or even merging members of the powerful party to arbitrarily destroy the country".
Crazy land annexation has turned a large number of bureaucrats, nobles, powerful men and businessmen into land owners. Each of them "has many slaves and maids, many cattle and sheep, many fields and houses, all their property, no accumulation", and then there is the " The strong ones can be counted in the garden, but the weak have no place to live."
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty saw the problem of land annexation, and Dong Zhongshu made suggestions for him, proposing to "limit the land to the people, and use the insufficient land to block the way to annexation." That is to say, give a quota of land and clarify the maximum amount of land that can be occupied. The state has to take charge.
However, during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Guan Guan only existed in words. At most, he was reprimanded and fined a little money, which did not really solve the problem.
The drizzle of punishment and the booming benefits have led to further intensification of land annexation.
During the period of Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty, it had become the norm that "the people were derelict in their duties and suffered from severe poverty and insufficient resources". In desperation, Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty implemented the policy of "limiting the area". Officials could only occupy a maximum of thirty hectares, and merchants were not allowed to occupy the land at will.
However, Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty could only watch sadly as the land was being annexed little by little, because their punitive measures did not keep up. The result of the lack of control is the creation of powerful landlords and farms.
During the Three Kingdoms period and the Cao Wei period, the main land system was the private ownership of powerful landlords.
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the land system basically adopted the land equalization system. This system was relatively fair. The land was divided according to the head, and each person was divided into how many acres. It was simple, direct, and rough, but it was not long-lasting...
The reason is very simple. The land equalization system allows for over-occupation of land, and also allows for the sale and transfer of land. As for whether the sale is legal, illegal, or has been robbed, who among the landowners cares about this?
Besides, to give birth to a child requires dozens of acres of land. In the beginning, the land is vast and the people are sparse, so you can allocate it. You are making babies every day, and there are so many people, how can you allocate it?
Since they can't be equaled, it's better to be taken away...
This is the thinking of landlords.
Even in the late Tang Dynasty, laws were continuously enacted to prohibit land annexation, but it was of no avail. The landlords were all rich, powerful and influential. Who could control them?
The Song Dynasty did not learn the lessons of the Tang Dynasty's demise. The Song Dynasty was a very powerful dynasty. They adopted the policy of "no land system" and "no suppression of annexation" in land relations.
This means that as long as the imperial court can collect taxes, you can annex them however you want. It's up to you.
The existence of this kind of policy led to land privatization and land annexation reaching the highest level in history in the Song Dynasty. Even if the Northern Song Dynasty was finished, they did not think it was the fault of land relations, and the Southern Song Dynasty continued to play.
Because the land belonged to the landlords, during the entire Song Dynasty, there were very few farmers who actually owned their own land, while the majority were tenant farmers who had no land and were dependent on the landlords.
It is precisely because of this that the tenancy system in the Song Dynasty was extremely complete, and there were even special tenancy contracts and tenancy laws...
Of course, the main purpose is to protect the interests of the landlord's family. For example, if you tire the landlord's cow to death, then you are the landlord's cow. If the landlord beats your son, the family will not suffer any loss.
Later, during the Yuan Dynasty, the rulers were nomadic people of Mongolian origin. They were horsemen. Who would care about land issues? As long as there was grassland, that was enough.
Therefore, in the early Yuan Dynasty, no one cared about the land at all, and no one cared about how it was reorganized underneath.
Later, Kublai Khan also realized that it was not enough to ignore the land, so he promulgated some laws. However, the laws of the Yuan Dynasty were like the horse whips in their hands. They were used to beat others, not to whip themselves.
Therefore, decrees can be issued, but the Mongols do not need to obey them.
As a result, "nowadays, the princes and nobles have no homes, or occupy nearly a thousand hectares of people's fields, which are not cultivated or harvested. They are called pastures and are used only to breed livestock...".
The fall of the Yuan Dynasty was directly related to the over-exploitation of landlords and the lack of land for farmers.
Zhu Yuanzhang and his family were tenant farmers from the beginning. How miserable was that?
There is no place to bury him if he dies...
Later, in the first year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated a series of decrees to encourage farmers to return to work and return to farming. On the issue of land ownership, it was directly stipulated that as long as it is cultivated and reclaimed land by you, the land is yours, and it will be yours for three years. All taxes and corvees are exempted.
Therefore, in the early Ming Dynasty, there were quite a few homesteaders who owned land.
In the third year of Hongwu's reign, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Agriculture Department and "granted land to the people" and allocated some land to farmers. In the twenty-seventh year of Hongwu's reign, he encouraged land reclamation and gave them cattle and farm tools...
But Zhu Yuanzhang did not curb the annexation of land. He acquiesced in the annexation and the concentration of land. He enfeoffed vassal kings, which itself came with enfeoffing land. In addition, most of the vassal kings in the early Ming Dynasty were "ambitious" and occupied hundreds of thousands more. Ten thousand acres of land is also normal.
Some vassal kings even directly regard the city as their own home. Most of the entire city has become the property of the royal family. If the city can be occupied, occupying a piece of land is nothing...
Zhu Yunwen knew how severe the land annexation was in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, so he launched a "national policy to curb annexation." However, this national policy also had loopholes, that is, it allowed "legal" transactions.
Although the Agricultural Tax Department was set up to control the buying and selling process, the court could not control what others wanted to do, which led to a phenomenon:
The “national policy to curb annexation” has increased transaction costs, but it has not solved the problem of land annexation.
Ever since Yu Qian, the prefect of Hangzhou, presented the report, Zhu Yunwen has been thinking hard and looking for a solution. The five-year infrastructure plan is also a strategy for Zhu Yunwen to break the land annexation situation.
