Landowners and peasants ,
ceramic figurines from the Western Han Era After
Shang Yang () of the
State of Qin abolished the communal and aristocratic
well-field system in an effort to curb the power of nobles, land in China could be bought and sold. Historical scholars of the Han dynasty like
Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BC) attributed the rise of the wealthy landowning class to this reform. More numerous than tenants, small landowner-cultivators lived and worked independently, but often fell into debt and sold their land to the wealthy. Officials at the court of
Emperor Ai of Han (r. 7–1 BC) attempted to implement reforms limiting the amount of land nobles and wealthy landowners could own legally, but were unsuccessful. When
Wang Mang took control of the government in 9 AD, he abolished the purchase and sale of land in a system called King's Fields (王田). This was a variation of the well-field system, where the government owned the land and assured every peasant an equal share to cultivate. Within three years, complaints from wealthy landowners and nobles forced Wang Mang to repeal the reform. By the late Eastern Han period, the peasantry had become largely landless and served wealthy landowners. This cost the government significant tax revenue. Although the central government under
Emperor He of Han (r. 88–105 AD) reduced taxes in times of natural disaster and distress without much effect upon the treasury, successive rulers became less able to cope with major crises. The government soon relied upon local administrations to conduct relief efforts. After the central government failed to provide local governments with provisions during both a locust swarm and the flooding of the
Yellow River in 153 AD, many landless peasants became
retainers of large landowners in exchange for aid. Patricia Ebrey writes that the Eastern Han was the "transitional period" between the Western Han—when small independent farmers were the vast majority—and the
Three Kingdoms (220–265 AD) and later
Sixteen Kingdoms (304–439 AD), when large family estates used
unfree labor. The
Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184 AD, the
slaughter of the eunuchs in 189 AD, and the
campaign against Dong Zhuo in 190 AD destabilized the central government, and
Luoyang was burnt to the ground. At this point, "... private and local power came to replace public authority." In the 120s BC, Emperor Wu had attempted to establish agricultural colonies in the northwestern frontier of the newly conquered
Hexi Corridor (in modern
Gansu). 600,000 new settlers farmed on these state lands using seeds, draft animals and equipment loaned by the government. An imperial edict in 85 AD ordered the local governments of commanderies and
subordinate kingdoms to resettle landless peasants onto state-owned lands, where they would be paid wages, provided with crop seeds, loaned farming tools and exempted from rent payments for five years and poll taxes for three years. The edict also allowed peasants to return to their native
counties at any time.
Subsistence Many scholars claim that Han farmers were generally living at subsistence levels, relying primarily on two documents from the
Hanshu (
Book of Han). The first is attributed to the Warring States minister
Li Kui 李悝 (455-395 BCE); the second is a memorial written by the Han-era official
Chao Cuo 晁錯 (200-154 BCE). Both appear in
Hanshu Chapter 24, the
Treatise on Food and Money 食貨志. Li Kui and Chao Cuo both emphasize the extreme precariousness of Han agricultural life, a view summed up by Cho-yun Hsu, who writes that Han and pre-Han farmers had only "a relatively small margin left to meet other expenses": "An account of the income and expenditures of a small farm in the pre-Ch’in (Chan-kuo) period cited in the Han-shu gives a deficit of 10 percent of the annual income, presumably in a year of mediocre crops… In the time of [Chao Cuo] the situation remained very much the same." According to Hans Bielenstein, the physical requirements of subsistence in grain can also be calculated from the
Hanshu: "a family consisting of an old woman, a grown man, a grown woman, an older child, and a younger child, annually consumed 127
hu of unhusked grain. This comes to about 10.5
hu per month." (According to Swann, one
hu 斛 equals 0.565 of a US bushel, which is about 5 gallons or 20 liters). Bielenstein also examines salary tables given in both the
Hanshu and the
Houhan shu (
Book of the Later Han) that list official salaries half in cash and half in unhusked grain. Based on these tables, he derives a conversion between cash and
hu: a "generally accepted average is 70 to 80 cash for Former Han and 100 cash for Later Han." Based on this conversion, the cash value of the grain needed for subsistence was about 8,890 to 14,000 coins per year during the Han dynasty. We can also estimate the amount of land needed to produce this amount of grain, thanks to Wolfram Eberhard who "estimates the average yield as being 1.0 to 1.5
shih per mu," though Hsu notes that, "Very high yields could reach as much as 6.4
hu per
mu." Swann gives 1 shi 石 (which she translates as "picul" with a weight of "64 lbs. 8.8 oz.") as between 1 and 2
hu, depending on the type of grain. Based only on Eberhard's yields and Swann's range of conversion between
shi and
hu, a farmer would need between about 85 and 254
mu (between about 9.7 and 29 acres) in order to produce the 127
hu of grain Eberhard deems necessary to the subsistence of a family of five. Other scholars give other numbers, however. Hsu claims that 50
mu (about 5.7 acres) was in fact "the acreage needed for subsistence living," while Wang Zhongshu calculates that "there was on the average 24.6 mou per family, or less than 6 mou per person (with each mou equivalent to 456 square m)." Both Li Kui and Chao Cuo claimed that 100
mu was the amount of land required to support a family, though the amount of land denoted by the word
mu had changed between Li Kui's time and Chao Cuo's.
Tax reforms Because small landowning families represented the mainstay of the Han tax base, the Han government attempted to aid and protect small landowners and to limit the power of wealthy landlords and merchants. The government reduced taxes in times of poor harvest and provided relief after disasters.
Tax remissions and crop seed loans encouraged displaced peasants to return to their land. The
land tax on agricultural production was reduced in 168 BC from a rate of one-fifteenth of crop yield to one-thirtieth, and abolished in 167 BC. However, the tax was reinstated in 156 BC at a rate of one-thirtieth. At the beginning of the Eastern Han, the land tax rate was one-tenth of the crop yield, but following the stabilization following Wang Mang's death, the rate was reduced to the original one-thirtieth in 30 AD. Towards the end of the Han dynasty, the land tax rate was reduced to one-hundredth, with lost revenue recouped by increasing the
poll and property tax rates. The poll tax for most adults was 120 coins annually, 240 coins for merchants, and 20 coins for minors aged between three and fourteen years. The lower taxable threshold age for minors increased to seven years during the reign of
Emperor Yuan of Han (r. 48–33 BC) and onwards. Historian
Charles Hucker writes that underreporting of the population by local authorities was deliberate and widespread, since this reduced their tax and labor service obligations rendered to the central government. of a mounted
cavalryman, 2nd century BC Though requiring additional revenue to fund the
Han–Xiongnu War, the government during
Emperor Wu of Han's reign (141–87 BC) sought to avoid heavy taxation of small landowners. To increase revenue, the government imposed heavier taxes on merchants, confiscated land from nobles, sold offices and titles, and established government
monopolies over the minting of coins,
iron manufacture and salt mining. Tax rates for almost all commodities are unknown, except for that of
liquor. After the government monopoly on liquor was abolished in 81 BC, a property tax of 2 coins for every was levied on liquor merchants. The sale of certain offices and titles was reintroduced in Eastern Han by
Empress Dowager Deng Sui—who reigned as
regent from 105 to 121 AD—to raise government revenues in times of severe natural disasters and the widespread rebellion of the
Qiang people in
western China. The sale of offices became extremely corrupt under the
eunuch-dominated government of
Emperor Ling of Han (r. 168–189 AD), when many top official posts were sold at the highest bidder instead of being filled by vetted candidates who had taken
Imperial examinations or attended the
Imperial University.
Conscription Two forms of mass
conscription existed during the Han period. These were civilian conscription (
gengzu 更卒) and military conscription (
zhengzu 正卒). In addition to paying their monetary and crop taxes, all peasants of the Western Han period aged between fifteen and fifty-six were required to undertake mandatory conscription duties for one month of each year. These duties were usually fulfilled by work on construction projects. At the age of twenty-three years male peasants were drafted to serve in
the military, where they were assigned to
infantry,
cavalry, or
navy service. These non-professional conscripted soldiers comprised the Southern Army (
Nanjun 南軍), while the Northern Army (
Beijun 北軍) was a
standing army composed of paid career soldiers. During the Eastern Han, peasants could avoid the month of annual conscripted labor by paying a tax in commutation (
gengfu 更賦). This development went hand in hand with the increasing use of hired labor by the government. In a similar manner, because the Eastern-Han government favored the military recruitment of volunteers, the mandatory military draft for peasants aged twenty-three could be avoided by paying a tax in substitution.
Merchants bronze animal figurines from the Han dynasty, including a horse, elephant, cow, and unicorn There were two categories of Han merchants: those who sold goods at shops in urban markets, and the larger-scale itinerant traders who traveled between cities and to foreign countries. The small-scale urban shopkeepers were enrolled on an official register and had to pay heavy commercial taxes. Emperor Gaozu passed laws levying higher taxes, forbidding merchants from wearing silk, and barring their descendants from holding
public office. These laws were difficult to enforce. Emperor Wu significantly reduced the economic influence of great merchants by openly competing with them in the marketplace, where he set up government-managed shops that sold commodities collected from the merchants as property taxes. ==Crafts, industries, and government employment==