In ancient times, many dynasties encouraged the common people to reclaim the land, and took many measures, such as immigration, the population of densely populated areas to sparsely populated areas, so that these new immigrants to reclaim the wasteland, the imperial court in order to reduce the burden of new immigrants will also reduce a certain amount of tax.
However, there is no exemption from military service and military service. Servitude is compulsory labor for the imperial court, which occupies the peasants' working hours for a long or short time, and has a greater or lesser impact on agricultural production. Speaking of military service, the ancient military service system was basically a lifelong system, and in the years when the war was more concentrated, the conscription of soldiers was very large, and even if only one person was recruited as a soldier, it was likely to be a soldier for many years.
This is very difficult for ordinary peasant households to bear, in the case of a small number of laborers in the family, once they are requisitioned for military service or military service, then the family has no labor force, who will cultivate the peasants' land? Uncultured farming can only be sold at a low price, resulting in the annexation of land and the extreme poverty of the peasants.
There is also a problem of disease, once the family has serious patients, it can quickly drag a family down, and the final result is to sell the land, in the face of such a situation, who is still willing to open up the wasteland? No matter how much wasteland is opened up for large landowners, sooner or later they will be acquired by these people at low prices.
Therefore, the peasants will try their best to choose a less risky way of life, that is, to rely on the big landlord class and become a sharecropper of the big landlord, although becoming a sharecropper carries a very heavy burden of rent, and many times the peasant has to pay more than half of the land harvest. But farmers still have to be sharecroppers, after all, such a life risk is less.
And the conscription and military service to be undertaken by the sharecroppers will be avoided by the big landlords through various means to ensure that there are enough laborers to cultivate the land for them. The large landlord class and the feudal bureaucratic aristocracy are inextricably linked, and through these connections they can buy off the bureaucratic aristocracy, thereby concealing the actual number of sharecroppers and land, and reducing or even exempting them from the conscription and military service to be performed.
For example, in dynasties such as the Ming Dynasty, the princes were all feudal kings, and they were always exempt from all kinds of taxes, conscription and military service, so the sharecroppers gave them land to cultivate, although the exploitation was very heavy, but they could be exempted from all kinds of taxes, conscription and military service, which was still cost-effective for the peasants. In this way, the sharecroppers only need to cultivate the land with peace of mind, and do not have to think about other things.
This choice is undoubtedly correct, and the lesser of two evils. Liu Zongyuan wrote an article "The Snake Catcher Says", which talked about this truth: The fields of Yongzhou produce a highly venomous snake, but it can treat some very serious diseases, so the imperial court requires the people to hand over these poisonous snakes every year, and those who hand over poisonous snakes do not have to bear taxes and military service. Therefore, some people dared to take the risk of catching poisonous snakes and handing them over, so as to exempt them from all kinds of taxes and military service. Finally, the summary quotes Confucius as saying that harsh government is fiercer than tiger.
At that time, the landlord was the poisonous snake, but the common people were desperate to catch this poisonous snake, because the obligation of self-cultivators was more dangerous than catching poisonous snakes, and the ordinary people were actually a choice that had no choice under the harsh government of ancient times.
The big landlord class and the bureaucratic aristocracy have one heart, and through the huge financial resources they have at their disposal and the collusion between the bureaucratic aristocracy, they formulate policies that are not conducive to the common people becoming self-employed peasants, force the common people to take the road of life of tenant farmers, achieve the goal of exploiting the ordinary people with heavy profits, further enrich their financial resources, consolidate their political position, and satisfy the decadent life of poverty and luxury.