warring states careerist

Chapter 914 Why Change
More than twenty days later.

In a village on the north bank of the Eyi River Estuary.

The name of this village is Qi.

Achilles, water celery also.The riverside swamp here is rich in water celery, which is named after Qi, or Qichun.

In the history of later generations, the county had already been established in the Han Dynasty. In the Jin Dynasty, it was renamed Qiyang to avoid the taboo of Achun, the mother of the Emperor Jin. After several twists and turns, it was finally changed back to Qichun.

At this time, this is not a county yet, but a standard Chudi village, or town.

The commune, the god of the land, with the advent of the agricultural era, each village commune began to set up communes for hundreds of years to worship.

At this time, the village community can also be called a city, which just means a settlement. A hundred people can be called a city, and a thousand people can also be called a city, but according to the customs of the Central Plains, this place should be called Qichun Township.

This is the fief of a sergeant in Chu State, and it is a standard fief village.

The nominal land of the whole society is [-]% and [-]% wells, which is the original small mu of [-] mu of land, the so-called radius of ten miles.

The [-] mu is not the area of ​​arable land.

However, "if the land where the ditch is connected, it will be ten miles. If the land where the ditch is removed, it will be eight miles."

[-]% of the land in this village is nominally ten miles long, but in reality it is only eight miles after digging out the ditches and roads.

The cultivation technology in Chu land lags behind that of the Central Plains. Although some places have begun to learn the cultivation technology of the Central Plains, villages like Qichun, which are still in remote areas at this time, are still extremely backward.

Because of backwardness, "Yi Tian" fallow is needed.

The earliest agricultural area in history that did not need to change fields to fallow was Wei State, including some land in Wei State that needed to be rotated every two years, not to mention the backward Chu State.

Both land change and fallow are required, so that [-]% of the village's land can support [-] households if it is not fallow, but it takes three years to change the field and fallow, so theoretically it can only support [-] households.

Moreover, due to the existence of ditches, Shili Village has only eight miles of actual arable land. Therefore, such a standard village has only nearly [-] official members.

Count by household, not by person.

Two hundred households occupy a total of 65 wells of land, including land that needs to be fallow.

These lands cannot be transferred or sold, that is to say, these lands belong to the "King of Chu", and farmers only have the right to use but not ownership.

There are 65 wells in 35% of the land, [-] wells are occupied by the members, and the remaining [-] wells belong to the "Jiatian".

Borrower, borrow also.

Registered persons, books also.

These two memberships and borrowings are not the same thing.

The land at the beginning of bamboo is the land owned by each peasant household, which cannot be transferred and sold, and which is owned by the king of Chu and distributed to the people for cultivation.

The land at the beginning of the word "草田" is the public land that the whole village community needs to cultivate, and the borrowed land is the public land that is cultivated with the help of the people.

In other words, the entire village community is the fiefdom of the sergeant of Chu State. In theory, the sergeant cannot invade the people's land, but the people need to collectively cultivate the land.

Ten percent of the land requires a leather chariot, ten soldiers, 200 apprentices, and five horses.

This sergeant was enfeoffed in Qi, and his salary also came from the fief, including horses and carriages, which were nominally maintained on the 35 wells, or 350 mu of land, as military expenses.

In name, the village community has the right to allocate part of the grain from the public land to support these orphans, widows, old people and poor people.

Therefore, the village community in the backward Chu State has a strong remnant from before the Spring and Autumn Period. The village community is not only a military unit, but also a small-scale community. Of course, it can also be regarded as a noble fief.

But all of this is ideal.

This is not the case.

The sergeant went to war and owned his own family slaves. In the early stage, he relied on the public land system, so that the people of the village community reclaimed the public land, and then the sergeant used his family slaves to cultivate the "public land", turning the public into private. In fact, these lands became his own. private fields.

However, the labor obligation of the people has not been lifted, so the land needs to be continued to be reclaimed as public land every year.

It is impossible for a sergeant to have only himself, as well as his own subordinates, slaves, etc., as well as lower-level people such as the subordinates' two ministers and pawn leaders.

These people were yeoman farmers who were not required to perform labor obligations, but instead enjoyed a small number of privileges.

During the battle, the king of Chu ordered the recruitment of senior officials, and then the recruitment of soldiers. The sergeant relied on his two horsemen and pawn leaders in the village to organize civilian husbands, and prepared a leather chariot, several war horses, and the sergeant's own soldiers. The slave joined the army of the king of Chu.

The life of a slave is not necessarily worse than that of a farmer in a village commune, on the contrary sometimes it is better.

In particular, sergeants need elite private soldiers around them. These slaves often assume the role of elite soldiers around sergeants, and then there are a large number of apprentices and cannon fodder.

Farmers have to bear extremely heavy feudal obligations, not only to cultivate public land, but also to raise horses, mow grass, repair houses for sergeants, prepare thatch for sergeants, brew wine, make wood tools, and log a series of activities.

The cost of fleeing is slightly higher, so as long as they can survive, these people will not choose to flee.

One is that human beings are social animals, and it would be difficult for them to survive without society. Confucius said in Taishan that tyranny is fiercer than tigers. Here, we need to face a series of terrible animals such as alligators, rhinos, and tigers.

The second is to monitor each other. If they flee, the two Sima and the pawns will not agree.

This constituted a standard, similar to the fiefdom of low-ranking nobles under the well field system, a basic combat unit composed of military nobles, noble retinues, slaves, and peasant soldiers.

Of course, this is also a factor why Chu State was beaten by the Three Jins 30 years ago, and now it is easily attacked by the Mohists from the Yangtze River Estuary to Ezhou.

There is a good saying in "Yi", the so-called "change the city without changing the well, no loss, no gain", in fact, the "Yi" is regarded as a response to the social phenomenon of that era rather than such a mysterious meaning, in fact, it is very simple to understand : A town is a fief, and a well is a production relationship in the land system. A certain person changed the fief because of unpopularity, but did not change the production relationship. As far as the ruling class is concerned, there is nothing to lose and everything to affect the rule.

This primitive village community system conforms to the original tradition and is perfect in theory, but the problem is that reality is never so perfect in theory.

The sergeants who occupied the land turned the public land into their own private land, and then continued to open up new public land as a military support.

The farmers followed the campaign and abandoned their land. There was no food left, and no energy to cultivate more.

Sergeants can obtain rewards such as slaves for war, and then continue to expand their private fields, and continue to use feudal obligations to encourage farmers to cultivate their own private and public fields.

This is why there is so much opposition to the reforms in various countries: taxation according to the amount of land, recognition of the private system, sergeants who have so much land will pay more taxes; If you can't own land beyond 35 wells, then of course the nobles object.

As a vassal state, before the emergence of paper, private education, printing and other technologies and trends of thought, the nobles were the ruling foundation of the vassal state, so the princes and princes had no way to move. If there are not enough soldiers to be recruited, and there are not enough officials, what is there to rule?
Therefore, the previous wars were all about to be fought, and the recruitment began.

After the order was issued, the nobles of the various fiefs followed the expedition with their own military obligations.

After the war started, the military nobles charged in chariots, followed by the retinues and slaves, had a fight, won or lost, and then went home.

This has been the case until the improvement of productivity in the Central Plains made it unnecessary to change the fields every three years, making the production of agricultural tools gradually unsuitable for this system, and making farmers unwilling to cultivate public land and want to open up private land, so various changes began.

The luck of the Qichun Society is good, at least better than that of the peasants who were entrusted with land near Eyi. At least the impact of the progress of the times has little impact on this place, and the evil of the progress of the times first affected the land near the eunuchs of Edi.

The peasants in the villages and communities on the land there have endured great pain, and the peasants there have been double exploited by the feudal nobles and Sishang industry and commerce, making them prematurely bear all the crimes and darkness of the new era .

The princes of Edi need to buy handicrafts and arms from Sishang, and what can be exchanged is raw materials such as cotton, grain and indigo, in addition to copper.

So he began to enclose land and force labor, leaving three to five acres of land for each farmer in the village to plant crops such as sweet potatoes and potatoes from Shangsi to ensure that he would not starve to death, and then cultivate his rapidly expanding private fields.

On a large area, use some agricultural technology and machinery in Sishang to grow commercial grain or cotton, and go to Sishang to exchange for gunpowder; grow a certain amount of grain to ensure the food that is needed to feed the slave laborers who open the Dayeshan Copper Mine privately.

This is also one of the reasons why Sishang acquiesced to the nobles of the Song Dynasty to occupy the land at the beginning... The land reform for self-cultivation will not increase the commodity grain harvested. On the contrary, the self-cultivating farmers will choose to eat their own food first; Sishang places enclose land to sell grain, which is different. It is enough for cultivators to eat some potatoes and sweet potatoes, and a large amount of grain can be sold to Sishang.

After all, one person eats meat and a thousand people eat excrement. Compared with a thousand and one people eating food, the former provides more food that can be converted into commodities in the market.

Part of the reason why the peasant family has such a big opinion on the Mohists is because of this. From the perspective of the peasant family, from the standpoint of the interests of the small peasants, the road taken by the Mohist family will hurt the small peasants.

The so-called budding enlightenment that the Mohists like is the only way to the paradise, which is a disaster for the small farmers around Sishang.

Righteousness is profit, so the righteousness of the Mohist school is not the righteousness of the peasant family. The interests of the class represented by the Mohist school at this time are contrary to the interests of the class represented by the peasant family.

The unfortunate thing about Edi is that it suffers from both the development of deformed commodity economy and the severe feudal remnants brought about by the insufficient development of commodity economy.It is very similar to some places around Sishang, taking the first road.

The luck of Qichun lies in the fact that Qichun is located north of the Yangtze River and south of Dabie. Although it belongs to the jurisdiction of the princes of Hubei, it is not within the scope of the princes of Hubei, so it is remote and backward, and still retains a strong village community of the old era. remnant.

But his misfortune is that he is so backward that the remaining enfeoffment system of the primitive village can still be maintained.

(End of this chapter)