At the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, due to the perennial war, the population was only about 20 million, and a large area of land was barren and no one cultivated it. In "The Ming Dynasty", when Zhu Yuanzhang asked the prince about his impression of being very prosperous, the prince's answer was: 100,000 yuan around his waist, riding a crane down to Yangzhou, when the prince arrived in Yangzhou, he saw that it was deserted and full of weeds. In 1368, when Xu Da was on the Northern Expedition, he saw the scene as if he were in a no-man's land.
"Taking Hebei Prefecture and County, when the soldiers have been revolutionizing for many years, the roads are blocked and the population is cut off."
In the first year of Hongwu (1368), Zhu Yuanzhang said when summoning local officials that the world was initially determined, and the common people were financially poor, like a bird that had just been able to fly, and could not pluck its feathers; like a newly planted tree, it could not shake its roots, and the important thing was to rest and recuperate.
"The world is at its beginning, and the people are in financial difficulty, for example, a bird that has just flown, must not pluck its feathers, and the newly planted wood must not shake its roots, but must rest in peace."
After the relative stability of the regime, the first task of the imperial court was to restore production and revive the economy. In order to quickly restore the national economy, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhongshu Province adopted four measures after studying to restore the national economy.
First, set up special agricultural institutions, formulate policies to benefit farmers, and replant wasteland
(1) Specific measures
1. In order to restore the cultivation of land that has been deserted for many years and has not been cultivated, Zhu Yuanzhang set up the Department of Agriculture to take charge of farming.
In terms of policy, it was decreed in 1370 that all those who reclaimed wasteland and resumed cultivation, regardless of the amount cultivated, would be exempted from taxes for three years.
2. At the same time, it is also stipulated that the fields abandoned in the war, which are cultivated by others and mature, become the property of the cultivators, and if the old owners resume business, they can only allocate the fields according to Ding.
"The people everywhere first left their fields because of the soldiers, and the mature people who were reclaimed by others listened to as having done so. The owner has returned, and there is a division in the nearby wasteland to make up for it. "The people who have resumed their work, seeing that there are fewer in the present and more fields in the old days, are not allowed to occupy and protect themselves as before, but are only allowed to do their best to cultivate and cultivate as a profession." Seeing that there are more dings in the present and fewer in the old fields, there is a division in the nearby wasteland to check the dings. "
(2) Results achieved
After the implementation of the agricultural policy of the imperial court, the peasants' concerns about reclaiming the land were solved, and the enthusiasm of the peasants was enhanced, and the peasants made every effort to reclaim the wasteland and restore planting, and through several years of development, in 1374, the number of acres of reclaimed land in various places reached 921,124 hectares.
It can be seen that the policy of the imperial court has achieved very remarkable results, a large number of wasteland has been replanted, the grain production has been continuously improved, the economic level has been raised, and the flow of Renhe Garden has been greatly reduced, which has facilitated the management of household registration and maintained social stability.
2. Tun Tian
In order to solve the problem of food shortage, the imperial court formulated a huge scale tun tian system, and the Ming Dynasty tun tian system was divided into mintun, military tun and shangtun tun.
1. Mintun
In order to cultivate the land in sparsely populated areas, Zhu Yuanzhang adopted the strategy of resettlement and planting, allowing peasants in areas with large populations and small land to migrate to places with large areas and sparsely populated areas, and those who were willing to immigrate had a very favorable policy. During the Hongwu period, there were many records of emigration in the history books.
In June of the third year, Hongwu immigrated more than 4,000 peasant households without land or less land in Jiaxing, Huzhou, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Songjiang to Haozhou to cultivate land, and then moved 140,000 households in Jiangnan to Fengyang.
In August of the tenth year of Hongwu's reign, the landless people who moved to Shanxi Ze and Lu'er Prefecture went to The idle lands of Zhangde, Zhending, Linqing, Guide, and Taikang, and set up tun cultivation.
In April of the 22nd year of Hongwu, the people of the two Zhejiang Provinces were narrow, and there were fewer people who took care of the capital and more people at the end of the matter, and ordered the people of Hangzhou, Hu, Wen, Tai, Su, and Song counties who had no land to cultivate south of the Zhuan River. The poor people of Shanxi who migrated to the three provinces of Daming, Guangping, and Dongchang were given 26,72 acres to Tian.
Hongwu ニ Eighteen years of Qing, Yan, Deng, Cai, Jinan five provinces, more than five dings, the field is less than one acre and small people have no land cultivators, so that the fen Ding reclaimed idle land in Dongchang.
2. Juntun
Juntun is the largest of Zhu Yuanzhang's tuntian system, and before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang established a militia wanhufu to implement military tuns, and the troops cultivated and fought. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the army's Tuntian was mainly to solve the problem of the shortage of food for the troops, and after Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he changed part of the army into a Weishou, which was cultivated by the Weishou Tuntian, and the fields were cultivated by the Weishou soldiers.
"Fifty acres of land per army is one point. Or one hundred acres, or seventy acres, or thirty acres, twenty acres."
It is recorded that Zhu Yuanzhang's troops were generally three points to defend the city and seven points to tun tian, and later during the Hongzhi period, there were sometimes notes that during Zhu Yuanzhang's period, there were about three million troops tun tian.
"At the time of the ancestors, there were more than 1.7 million former officers and soldiers in the World Capital Guard Institute."
According to the calculation of 50 mu of land planted by each army, there were more than 900,000 hectares of land planted by the army throughout the country at that time, which shows the huge scale of military tuns at that time.
"The Remainder of Chunming's Dream": "The original tuntian of the state is more than 892,789 hectares."
"Ming Shu Tsuchida Zhi": "The original amount of the country was 903,300 - 13 acres and 95 acres and zero."
The troops in charge of Tuntian had to pay taxes to the imperial court, and some places generally gave them to the imperial court and kept a part of it themselves, while others paid taxes according to the amount of land planted.
3. Shangtun
Speaking of Shangtun, we have to talk about the salt introduction system at that time, when the imperial court used the salt monopoly to let the merchants transport the grain to the prescribed granary in order to solve the problem of grain and grass in remote areas, and the government issued salt to the merchants, and then used the salt to lead to the designated salt yard to support the salt, and then to the designated area to sell.
In order to solve the cost problem, some salt merchants hired people to plant in the border fields and exchanged the harvested grain for salt in exchange for salt.
"Merchants who recruit themselves to cultivate and plug, and get millet to lose the side, pay for the benefits of salt, and do not have the pain of transporting salt, and they are one; The exiles are recruited by merchants and eat their own profits, and they are two; Soldiers and pawns are subject to millet on the spot, there is no disturbance of peace, there is no harm in invading fishing, and there is three; Do not bother to lose, such as sitting on the grain, to support the army, and the country is called the stool. "
(2) The results achieved
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the tun tian system expanded the planting area of land and solved the grain problem of the residents, and in addition to solving its own grain problem overseas, the military tun also paid taxes to the imperial court, reducing the state's expenditure on war and defense, and the state used the surplus money elsewhere. Shangtun played a certain positive role in supplying military food for border defense and in developing border areas.
Third, build water conservancy
1. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhu Yuanzhang attached great importance to water conservancy construction, and once issued an order throughout the country that if the people had a good water conservancy construction plan, they should immediately report to the Yamen, and after the Yamen was sorted out, they should be reported to the imperial court, and the officials who did not attach importance to the water conservancy cause would be punished, and this policy has been continued, and many records of large-scale organization of the masses to build water conservancy can be found during the Hongwu period.
In the first year of Hongwu, "Xiuhe Prefecture Tongcheng Weir Smell, Zhou Hui more than two hundred miles."
Hongwu spent four years repairing the "Xing'an County Spiritual Canal in Guangxi" and "Irrigation Fields".
In the eighth year of Hongwu, he "ordered Geng Bingwen to dredge the Jingyang Hongqu Weir, and to flood Jingyang, Sanyuan, Liquan, Gaoling, and Lintongtian for more than 200 miles."
In the nineteenth year of Hongwu, "the seawall of Changle County, Fujian Province was built." The field of changle is half of the coastal waters, and its fields are long and bad, and the fields are injured by the tide and brine." After the construction of the seawall, "ChangleTian did not suffer from the salt, but benefited from it"
In the twenty-seventh year of Hongwu, the Ming Government dispatched "Guozi Supervisors and Talents to divide the counties and counties of the world to repair water conservancy".
According to Hongwu's 28-year statistics, the country has a total of "40,987 open ponds and weirs, dredge 462 rivers, and build more than 5,000 embankments of pi canals."
After the end of the war, flood and drought disasters were natural disasters that posed the greatest threat to agriculture, and in addition to the extreme imbalance in the distribution of precipitation and runoff in the country, the practice of water conservancy can solve natural disasters in irrigation, flood prevention and other aspects, and play a role in promoting increasing grain production and maintaining social stability.
Fourth, the cultivation of cash crops
(1) Specific measures
1. Zhu Yuanzhang was born into poverty, knew the importance of money to ordinary people, and encouraged the cultivation of cash crops in the areas under his control when he was still in the country.
"Those who have five to ten acres of peasant land plant half an acre of mulberry, hemp, and kapok, and those who have more than ten acres are multiplied." Those who have many fields think that it is bad, and there is a priest who personally comes to supervise and advise, and those who are lazy are punished, and those who do not plant mulberry make one horse of silk, do not plant hemp and kapok, and make one horse of linen and one horse of cotton."
In 1368 (the first year of Hongwu), after the founding of the people's republic, an order to encourage the cultivation of cash crops was immediately issued to the whole country:
"Whoever plants mulberry and hemp shall be levied a tax in four years, and those who do not plant mulberry shall lose silk, and those who do not plant hemp shall lose cloth."
When Hongwu was twenty-five years old, he directly detailed the number of plants per household, and if he violated the regulations, he was sent to Yunnan to charge the army.
"The people of the world must have a variety of mulberries and dates, and each household, two hundred plants in the first year, four hundred plants in the following year, and six hundred plants in three years, planted a number of them, made a record of echoes, and violators sent Yunnan golden teeth to fill the army."
2. In addition to encouraging the cultivation of cash crops and reducing taxes, agricultural development is also included in the assessment of officials, and it is stipulated that agricultural development is a compulsory content for all local officials who have completed their term of office and go to the imperial court for examination.
"Local officials who go to Beijing for examinations at the end of their term of office must write about the achievements of nongsang schools"
The implementation of these policies, the planting area of domestic cash crops has increased geometrically, and the planting of mulberry and cotton has provided sufficient raw materials for the development of the textile industry in the Ming Dynasty, laid the foundation for the development of spinning and cotton spinning, and finally played a positive role in improving the economic level of the country and the people.
To sum up, after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, in the face of the situation of the displacement of the people, the people's livelihood withering, and the need for a hundred industries to be revitalized, through the formulation of policies suited to the national conditions, we encouraged the reclamation of barren land to restore land, the large-scale expansion of the planting area, the construction of water conservancy to solve agricultural contradictions, and the planting of cash crops to promote economic development. Through the implementation of the above four measures, the Ming Dynasty gradually got out of the plight of the people in a short period of time, the society tended to be stable, and the domestic population grew rapidly, and by the time of the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu (1393), the country reached 60.54 million people, laying a good foundation for the prosperity of the Later Ming Dynasty.