introduction:
In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, nearly half a century of large-scale wars and various natural and man-made disasters cruelly pushed many Li people to the brink of death, during which the entire Central Plains region entered an economic trough of "a sharp decline in population and cultivated land". According to relevant records: in the sixth year of the Ming Dynasty (1578 AD), the total area of the land recorded in the country was about 7.7 million hectares to 8.8 million hectares, however, it is unbelievable that this figure fell to 2908584 hectares by the eighth year of the Shunzhi dynasty (161 AD), which is only equivalent to 37% to 38% of the Ming Dynasty's Wanli period (data source: Qing History Series)
First, it is imperative to recruit people to reclaim the land
In the era of China's feudal dynasty, confined to the extremely single means of production, the development of the social commodity economy must also rely on land to a large extent, so the large-scale land delocation not only made it difficult for the people at the grass-roots level to maintain their basic livelihood, but also greatly aggravated the turmoil of the new regime of the Qing Dynasty, and more importantly, it also brought serious tax deficiencies to the Qing government.
Some historians have calculated such a set of data:
In the ninth year of Shunzhi (1652 AD), the annual tax deficit caused by the problem of land barrenness in the direct subordinate and provincial provinces was more than 4 million taels of silver, which accounted for nearly a quarter of the total income at that time (data source: Zhang Yushu: "The Amount of Money and Grain between Shunzhi")
。 It can be seen that the economic problems caused by the desolation of the land during the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty were severe. As the world said: "Landless is no people, no people are not endowed, but the right supply is at a loss, the fundamental injury", in the feudal period, although there are many tax titles such as "salt taxation" and "Yuguan", but in general, the two major names of "land" and "people" have always been an important source of tax collection by rulers, not to mention that most of the tax titles are based on the basis of "people", so once the amount of relying on these two major sources of taxation can not maintain the normal operation of the ruling mechanism, Then the stability of the feudal regime can be imagined. Under this grim situation, attracting displaced people and reclaiming wasteland became a major task of dominance on the shoulders of the Manchu rulers.
In fact, the rulers were also very clear about the above problem, so in the first year of Shunzhi (1644 AD), the Qing government launched a policy of recruiting people to reclaim the land. This can be indirectly confirmed by the fact that the imperial court agreed to a proposal by the Governor of Shandong, which was as follows:
Those who have no owner of the wasteland of the prefecture and county health centers are distributed to the displaced people and the officers and soldiers, and those who have the master order the original owner to reclaim it.
After history entered the middle of the Shunzhi period, in order to further restore production, the rulers even proposed that the number of people who had reclaimed the land should be used as the criterion for the evaluation of the official's "grand plan".
Throughout the Shunzhi period, the Qing government formulated measures in terms of "recruiting people to reclaim the land" were nothing more than the following three types:
First, relax the number of years of starting science. The so-called "Qike", that is, the imperial court formally collected taxes from land users, and the relaxation of the Age of Qike meant that the grass-roots Li people were given such a buffer period to turn wasteland into fertile land. It is worth mentioning that during the Shunzhi period, the imperial court relaxed the starting age to 3 to 6 years. It should also be noted here that although at a certain stage the ruler will relax the starting age slightly, but to a large extent, it will still make corresponding changes according to the needs of the development of the situation at that time.
Second, the provision of "cattle breeds" to the reclamation farmers is an important measure to further ensure the smooth development of the reclamation work. The so-called "cattle breed" refers to cattle, agricultural tools and seeds used for farming. To use a not very appropriate analogy, if the court is compared to an investor, then the peasant is like a small enterprise, and this practice of the court is like providing the necessary "start-up capital" to the peasants.
Third, some soldiers were thrown into the work of reclamation of Tuntian, "choosing their strong ones as soldiers, and the rest of the old and weak to order Tuntian." This measure not only effectively ensured the increase in the area of cultivated land, but also alleviated the grain and grass problem in the military camp to a certain extent, and made a non-negligible contribution to the promotion of the overall economy of the Qing Dynasty and the recovery of productive forces.
Second, the role played by landlords and squires in promoting "reclamation work"
It is true that relying on the grass-roots Li people who basically have nothing to carry out the reclamation work can indeed get a certain effect, and the quality is also guaranteed, but this move is extremely unfavorable to the Qing government, which was extremely depressed in economic development at that time, and the fundamental reason was that the Qing government at that time could not afford to spend time. Readers and friends who are familiar with this history in the early Qing Dynasty should be very clear that after the Qing army entered the customs, because the peasant army, the "Southern Ming regime" and the "Ming Zheng regime" forces located in the coastal areas still occupied a certain dominant position in the Central Plains, in order to cut off these forces in one fell swoop, the Qing government had to devote itself to the war for many years, and in this situation, the huge military expenditure required for the battle was a feared expenditure for the rulers. Based on this, in order to solve this expenditure, the imperial court, which had long been in a state of insufficient revenue from the national treasury, had to restore all available production in as short a period of time as possible in order to increase tax revenues.
The policy of "encouraging landlords and gentry to reclaim land" came into being in this special environment. As Zhang Dedi, who served as the governor of Sichuan in the early years of the Kangxi Dynasty, said:
Noble and rich families..., can reach dozens of poor people. When the poor return home, they must place their addresses and give them cattle; when the gentry return home, they will be spared, and the neighbors of the countryside will be accommodated and loaned, and they will be seen in this desolate area, but the powerful can be achieved.
What did Inspector Zhang Dedi mean by these words? To put it bluntly, it is certainly not enough to rely on the strength of one household to quickly restore the normal production of the field, a squire can reach more than ten households or even hundreds of ordinary peasant households, and the squire can directly provide the necessary materials for reclamation such as "cattle breeds" without the need for the imperial court under normal circumstances, in other words, the imperial court has saved a considerable amount of money on this basis. On the other hand, for the gentry landlords, after they have reclaimed the land, they can recruit tenants to carry out production for them, so that they can become greater tenants. Of course, the drawbacks of this method of reclamation are also obvious, such as the fact that land property rights still have a certain degree of centralization (which is in the hands of a small number of landlords and gentry), which creates favorable conditions for the further widening of the gap between the rich and the poor in the future.
All in all, in this complicated situation in the early days of the Qing Dynasty, using the strength of the landlords and squires to promote the overall reclamation work is undoubtedly the most advantageous and feasible way, the most obvious of which is to transfer and distribute the problem of the imperial court needing to provide "cattle breeds" and other reclamation funds to the various landlords and gentry, which in a sense achieves a "win-win situation" (beneficial to the imperial court, peasant households and landlord squires).
The reclamation results of three or two generations of emperors
The "reclamation work" in the early days of the Qing Dynasty was carefully guided by two generations of emperors, and by the end of the Kangxi Dynasty, it can be said that considerable results were achieved. According to the statistics of the second year of Yongzheng (1724 AD), the reclamation area of the entire Central Plains at that time had reached 6837914 hectares, an increase of nearly 1.34 million hectares compared with the last year of Shunzhi (which did not include 400,000 hectares of military tuns and more than 170,000 hectares of zhuangtian area, etc.). In addition, the number of reclaimed wasteland in many mountainous areas and in the northeast region of Guanwai is largely not included, so it can be said that after the history entered the late Kangxi Period, the total field area of the whole country in the Qing Dynasty has reached or even exceeded the level of the early years of the Ming Dynasty (about 7.7 million hectares to 8.8 million hectares). For this immortal feat, even the Kangxi Emperor, as the supreme ruler, said with great satisfaction:
The former provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, and Sichuan were subjected to rebellious changes, the localities were in ruins, and the fields and acres were abandoned, which was unseen. Since the pacification, the people have gradually increased, reclaimed, or sand and gravel accumulation is difficult for cultivators, and the rugged land of the valley has not been abandoned, and all the land has been cultivated.
Of course, it is difficult to guarantee the full authenticity of this self-praise remark of the Kangxi Emperor himself, but compared with the grim situation in the early Qing Dynasty, when displaced people had nowhere to live, it is indeed incomparable.
As mentioned earlier in the article, the taxation of "land" and "people" is fundamental, so the expansion of the area of arable land will inevitably lead to a further increase in the revenue of the national treasury. According to historical records, in the twelfth year of Kangxi (1673 AD, that is, the year of the outbreak of the "San Francisco Rebellion"), there were still more than 21.35 million taels of silver in the household department, and in the 31 years from the thirty-first year of the Kangxi to the sixty-first year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the annual inventory of silver in the household department was around 30 million to 40 million taels of silver, and the highest figure reached an astonishing amount of more than 47.36 million taels.
epilogue:
Thanks to the labor of the first two generations of emperors after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, a large number of fields in the Central Plains that were deserted due to war and chaos were effectively reclaimed, creating a good condition for the increase of the state's tax revenue. Further, the continuous growth of household silver deposits in the last years of the Kangxi Dynasty also shows the continuous enhancement of the economic strength of the Qing Dynasty government, and it is on this material basis that the "rule of Kangqian", which was once praised in history, was established on this material basis.