Traditional Chinese rural land rights distribution

Author: Zhao Gang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: This is a monograph on land markets and land distribution in Chinese history. The author emphasizes two viewpoints in the book. , The landlords who emerged after the Qin and Han dynasties were not "enfeoffed" by emperors or established by the government, so the term "feudal landlordism" is indeed an inappropriate name. The majority of landlords were determined by the land market. Mainstream scholars have long believed that the transfer of land rights has always been through various forms of land consolidation, with land rights becoming increasingly concentrated, which is logically untenable and practically impossible. Second, regarding the land tax records that remain from the Ming and Qing dynasties, their value cannot be entirely denied. Mr. Huang Renyu once said that the government in Chinese history "did not understand numerical management," and even more so, that the fish-scale maps drawn during the Ming and Qing dynasties "were not historical facts but legends." These land tax records are naturally incomplete, but if used appropriately, they are still very valuable empirical materials. This book utilizes these official land tax records from the Ming and Qing dynasties, supplemented by rural survey data from the Republican era, employing standard statistical methods to conduct a clear quantitative study of rural land rights distribution since the Ming and Qing dynasties, and provides a specific analysis of the long-term and short-term cyclical changes in land rights distribution. This is a monograph on land markets and land distribution in Chinese history. The author emphasizes two viewpoints in the book. , The landlords who emerged after the Qin and Han dynasties were not "enfeoffed" by emperors or established by the government, so the term "feudal landlordism" is indeed an inappropriate name. The majority of landlords were determined by the land market. Mainstream scholars have long believed that the transfer of land rights has always been through various forms of land consolidation, with land rights becoming increasingly concentrated, which is logically untenable and practically impossible. Second, regarding the land tax records that remain from the Ming and Qing dynasties, their value cannot be entirely denied. Mr. Huang Renyu once said that the government in Chinese history "did not understand numerical management," and even more so, that the fish-scale maps drawn during the Ming and Qing dynasties "were not historical facts but legends." These land tax records are naturally incomplete, but if used appropriately, they are still very valuable empirical materials. This book utilizes these official land tax records from the Ming and Qing dynasties, supplemented by rural survey data from the Republican era, employing standard statistical methods to conduct a clear quantitative study of rural land rights distribution since the Ming and Qing dynasties, and provides a specific analysis of the long-term and short-term cyclical changes in land rights distribution.