The clan tian began in the Song Dynasty.
In the Huizhou area, the far-reaching influence is the stipulation in Zhu Xi's "Family Ceremony": "When the ancestral hall was first established, it was counted as a field acre, and one-twentieth of each niche was taken as a sacrifice to the field." ”
After the Song Dynasty, a type of field product such as Yitian and Sacrifice Field gradually developed, and the ming and qing dynasties set up large-scale fields, especially in the Qing Dynasty.
An important source of Huizhou ethnic fields is the purchase of hui merchants donating money. The clan land donated by rich merchants and giants often reached more than 1,000 mu at a time. Secondly, under the influence of Zhu Xi, bureaucrats and Taoists generously donated money to purchase.
In addition, the clan members who paid the sacred fee for sending the ancestral god to the shrine also used to purchase sacrificial land. There is also the fact that when large households are separated, anyone who steals and sells is punished as filial piety and punished by patriarchal rules. As a result of the continuous increase, the number of clan fields is increasing.
Before liberation, the clan field reached its highest peak in history. In 1949, the cultivated land area of Huizhou was 1183477. 46 acres, of which 169431.49 acres are ethnic fields, accounting for 14.32% of the total cultivated land area.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the feudal land ownership system that existed in Huizhou was dominated by the patriarchal landlord land ownership system. The land occupied by the clan has many names, such as ancestral hall field, temple field, tomb field, sacrifice field, righteous field, school field, guild field, etc. are all clan fields.
The sacrificial field is the land where sacrifices are placed.
Yi tian is the property of the ancestral hall of the ancestors.
Ancestral hall fields, temple fields, and cemetery fields are exclusively for the expenses of their respective sacrifices.
Yitian is for the sake of supporting the poor in the clan and unable to work on their own.
Gakuda serves as a fee to encourage the education of children within the clan.
Cross-clan regional township party association fields often bring together the clan fields of several clans to be used for the cost of meals to connect the feelings of the township party, as well as the cost of improving the name of the church, resolving local disputes or arguing with other places.
Although the purposes of the various names of the clan fields are different, they can also be used interchangeably when necessary.
The clan field is the material basis for realizing the three principles of patriarchal respect, respect for the ancestors, and the collection of the clan, and provides expenses for the tomb worship sweeping, the worship of the gods, the singing of operas, the repair of the ancestral hall and the enhancement of the genealogy, thus playing a role in strengthening the spiritual ties within the clan.
Secondly, supporting the poor is conducive to cultivating the feelings of the clan for the dependence of the clan, so as to strengthen the feudal patriarchal dependence of the clan to the patriarch and other powerful groups.
Third, it is used to open a righteous school, subsidize the funds and corresponding road fees needed by the children of the ethnic group to enter school, so as to cultivate feudal patriarchal talents; some are also used to repair bridges and roads, punt boats and ferryes, open the shengjun pond and other clan public welfare undertakings.
According to the available data, there were 12 cases in the Song Dynasty, of which 6 cases were recorded as mu, with a total of 10,400 mu. For example, the Fan clan field in Suzhou only survived to 1,000 mu at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, and increased to 2,000 mu during the Chongzhen period.
During the Ming Chongzhen period, the five surnames of Fan, Shen, Wu, Chen and Jiang in Wu County had 8,078 acres of clan land. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Wu County covered an area of more than 500 acres of ethnic fields, reaching more than 140.
There are about 6400 acres of ethnic land in Changshu. It is estimated that there are at least 300,000 or 400,000 mu of ethnic land in Jiangsu Province. In Jiangxi Province, the above-mentioned 6739 ethnic fields are counted at one or two hundred mu per place, when it is more than one million mu.
In Guangxi Province, Daoguang has an average of 30,000 mu of ethnic land in the county, and the province is also nearly one million mu.
Successive generations have taken protective measures for the clan land.
Ming Law: Descendants of the clan surname who have violated the prohibition of surrendering and selling ancestral graves and mountains, ask the border guards, and always fill the army. Between Xuande and Jingtai, the Jiangsu local government once cleaned up Fan's Yizhuang, and all the land that was invaded and stolen was restored.
According to the Regulations on the Sale of Ancestral Land by theft and sale of ancestral land, all descendants who steal and sell ancestral relics up to 50 acres shall be punished according to the law of selling ancestral graves and mountains, and send them to the far side to fill the army; those who are inferior to the previous number, and those who steal and sell righteous land, shall be punished according to the law of stealing and selling official land.
The income from the rent of the clan's land is used for sacrifice and support for the clan.
For example, the purpose of the Song Dynasty Fan clan to set up a righteous field was to make the people of the clan have food every day, clothing for the years, and marriage and burial.
In the Ming Dynasty, Zhanwen Jianyitian of Zengcheng County, Guangdong Province, stipulated that the clan members who were married and buried and the readers were given a difference to Gu You.
In the Qing Dynasty, Anhui Lujiang Zhang's Yitian stipulated: Those who are poor in the Zhou clan, the old and the sick, the young who cannot be born, and those who are widowed and do not marry; those who pay for the daughters of the Zuo clan who cannot marry, widows who cannot marry wives, those who have no support for learning, and those who cannot be buried after mourning.
There are two kinds of clan fields.
One is that a family allocates a part of the land, collects the rent, and dedicates itself to the family's ancestral worship expenses, also known as the sacrificial property and the ancestral field. This kind of sacrificial field is generally small in number, but it is extremely common.
One is donated by officials and rich people within the clan or in partnership to help the poor, to help the orphans and widows, and to help the people of the ethnic group to study and take the exam. This kind of ethnic field is also known as Yitian and Yizhuang. Yizhuang originally referred to the institution in charge of the distribution of clan land and rented rice, but later, without distinction, Yizhuang and Zhan clan tian became a common name for land with clan surnames.
In the second year of Emperor Renzong of Song (1050), Fan Zhongyan set up more than ten acres of land in Changzhou and Wu County, Suzhou, and rented rice every year to provide clothing, food, marriage and funeral for the people of various houses, which was originally called "Yizhuang".
Fan Zhongyan personally set thirteen rules, stipulating that men and women under the age of five in each room should be given one liter of white rice per day; one horse per person in winter clothes, and five to ten years old should be halved. Clansmen marrying and funerals are paid cash in equal proportions. In the subsequent rules, it is also stipulated that the economic management of Yizhuang has relative independence: the honorable chief shall not interfere with the people in charge of Yizhuang in acting in accordance with the rules; the clan may not borrow the manpower, vehicles, boats and utensils of Yizhuang, may not rent the tenants, must not privately exchange the houses and houses of the yizhuang for pawns, and must not occupy the yicang.
Yizhuang shall not buy the land of its own people. During the Southern Song Dynasty, Fan's Yizhuang field production gradually increased. During the reign of Emperor Ningzong of Song, the clan purchased land and set up another "small village" to make up for the deficiencies of Yizhuang. During the reign of Emperor Zhao Yun of song, the field of Yizhuang produced more than 3,000 mu.
Fan's Yizhuang set a precedent for the Song dynasty clans to set a precedent for land, and officials from all over the world competed to follow suit. The purpose of Yizhuang's agricultural products is not only to support the people of their own ethnic groups, but also to cultivate their own scholars and to help the local poor people. Since then, the establishment of righteous villages has become a means for the landlord class to maintain clan rule. After the Song Dynasty, Yizhuang became more prevalent.
The clan Tian Yizhuang increased during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, but it was not much. In the Qing Dynasty, it developed rapidly for more than two hundred years, and there are records of ethnic fields and righteous villages in various provinces.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, especially in the Qing Dynasty, with the development of the commodity money economy, patriarchal relations tended to be relaxed, or "since the patriarchal law is not good, the scholars and doctors cannot collect their clans, and Zhaomu is far away, and is regarded as a passerby."
In view of the above changes, the official gentry landlord built a shrine to strengthen patriarchal relations, and at the same time built a clan field and a village to restrain the clan by economic means. The Qing people advocated the sayings of "respecting the ancestral hall and respecting the sect" and "receiving the yitian clan", which originated from this.
When discussing the Yizhuang of the Fan clan in Wu County, Fang Bao clearly pointed out that the reason why the patriarchal law of the Fan clan surname has not fallen for a long time is that "gai yiwen is placed in the righteous field, and the poor are all dependent on it, so the teaching law can be obtained and practiced."
During the Qianlong period, Zhang Xuecheng said that the establishment of Yizhuang could "make up for the poverty of the king's government", that is, strengthen patriarchal relations through the clan Tian Yizhuang and play a role in stabilizing social order.
Therefore, in the Qing Dynasty, under the conditions of lax feudal patriarchal relations, intensified class differentiation in rural areas, and increasingly turbulent social order, the clan field Yizhuang once became an auxiliary to local administration and played a certain role in maintaining social stability.
Source 丨Jiangshan Ten Sons lamb culture research society