As the saying goes: The people take food as the sky. He also said: The soldiers and horses have not moved, and the grain and grass have gone first. Grain has been the foundation of survival since ancient times, and in ancient warfare, grain and grass were also the lifeblood of the army. During the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao burned Yuan Shao's grain and grass at a critical moment, creating conditions for a comprehensive victory later.
Cao Cao himself had always been troubled by the shortage of grain and grass, and in order to solve this problem, Zao Qi and Han Hao offered Cao Cao the strategy of Tun Tian, and Cao Cao adopted this suggestion and set up a special official position in charge of Tun Tian. The famous general Deng Ai in the later period of Cao Wei was promoted by Sima Yi step by step from the beginning of the Tuntian official. Coincidentally, both Shu and Wu also implemented the Tuntian system, with the famous General Lu Xun of the State of Wu serving as the Governor of Tuntian, and the famous general Jiang Wei of the Shu State also taking refuge in Tuntian. So what exactly is the Tun Tian system?
Tun tian refers to the government's use of labor such as soldiers and displaced people to open up wasteland in order to obtain military supplies or taxes and grain. This move was not the first initiative of Cao Wei, but Cao Wei was undoubtedly the largest and most widely promoted in Tuntian.
As early as the time of Emperor Wen of Han, criminals, slaves, and recruited peasants were allowed to carry out tun fields on the frontier. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, at the suggestion of Zhao Chongguo, one of the eleven heroes of the Qilin Pavilion, he ordered his pawns to be in Tuntian in the Western Regions, which on the one hand could avoid the inconvenience of long-distance transportation of soldiers' food, and on the other hand, he could use idle labor such as soldiers when there was no war. At that time, the social environment was stable, and tuntian was mostly limited to remote areas such as frontier areas.
By the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the princes were in strife, social turmoil, the population had decreased sharply, many farmlands were deserted, food was extremely scarce, and the army's food had become a problem. After Cao Cao defeated the remnants of the Yellow Turban Army, he recruited many Yellow Turban soldiers and captured many agricultural tools and cattle. In order to solve the problem of grain and grass for the army, but also to make full use of the agricultural tools, cattle cultivation, and labor resources in Cao Cao's hands, Cao Cao adopted the suggestions of Zao Qi, Han Hao, and others, and began to implement the TunTian policy near Xudu (present-day Xuchang, Henan), appointing Zao Qi as a lieutenant of Tuntian and taking full responsibility for Tuntian affairs.
Zao Had a great interest in Tuntian for a long time, and this time he was finally able to practice it himself. He first took over the barren land and other terra nullius to the government, recruited displaced people and other laborers to cultivate, and the government provided land, seeds, cattle and agricultural tools, and the harvest was divided proportionally. The results of the pilot project in Xudu were very obvious, and it was "a million grains" that year. Cao Cao was pleasantly surprised by the success of Tuntian, who then extended Tuntian to other prefectures and counties, and ordered the tuntian system to be implemented in the army.
Thanks to the implementation of the Tuntian system, Cao Cao's grain and grass problems have been greatly alleviated, agricultural production has gradually recovered, displaced people in the territory have also been resettled, and a large number of people have been won over, creating material conditions for his unification of the north.
Both Wu and Shu also implemented the Tun Tian system, but the scale was not as large as Cao Wei.com.
In his twenties, Lu Xun served as the Governor of Tuntian in Haichang County (海昌县; present-day Haining, Zhejiang). In the spring of the fifth year of Huang Wu (226), Lu Xun, due to the shortage of grain in the place where he was stationed, ordered the generals to open up farmland. Sun Quan praised it and said that his father and son would personally claim a piece of farmland to work with everyone.
The Shu Han general Jiang Wei also avoided being framed by the eunuch Huang Hao and Tun Tian Yuzhong.
References: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Book of Wei