On The Reasons Of Land Annexation In Western Han Dynasty From The Perspective Of Land System And Small-scale Peasant Economy

At the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty,the phenomenon of land annexation was not obvious.The country is at a stage of rapid population and economic development.But in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty,the situation of land annexation began to be serious.In response to this phenomenon,Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty adopted a series of policies to suppress rich businessmen,and banned people from engaging in the second industry and businessmen from touching agriculture.At the end of the Western Han Dynasty,Emperor AI of the Han Dynasty adopted the policy of restricting the occupation of land,directly limiting the number of fields occupied by the people.Although the policy was terminated just after its promulgation,it also shows the importance of the Western Han government on land annexation.Throughout the Western Han Dynasty,the Western Han government adopted the policy of migrating the rich eight times.The policy of migrating the rich is to move the rich people to the imperial mausoleum,so as to directly curb land annexation.From these policies,we can see that land annexation was an important issue that the Western Han government had been trying to solve.Therefore,the land annexation in the Western Han Dynasty,especially the factors affecting and leading to land annexation,has a deep research value.Before studying the reasons of land annexation in the Western Han Dynasty,this paper first introduces the situation of land annexation in the Western Han Dynasty,including the policies of the western Han government to suppress land annexation and the degree of land annexation in the later period of the Western Han Dynasty.In the past literature,there is no quantitative expression of the degree of land annexation.This paper makes a supplement in this aspect.Then,this paper discusses the relationship between land system and land annexation in the Western Han Dynasty.The origin of land system in the early Western Han dynasty can be traced back to Shang Yang’s reform and Qin Dynasty.During this period,the Mingtian system(Mingtian system refers to the system of owning land under the household registration name)was implemented,and the Mingtian system was linked to the military meritorious service system: the title was accepted according to the level of military meritorious service and the land corresponding to the title was occupied.At the beginning of the Han Dynasty,part of the system inherited from the Qin Dynasty was the possession of land by title,including the granting of land by title,limited trading and inheritance of land.Then this paper analyzes the abolition of this system and the implementation of feudal land private ownership,and then demonstrates that feudal land private ownership is the existing condition and basic reason of land annexation in the Western Han Dynasty.For the relationship between small-scale peasant economy and land annexation,the existing literature has related the vulnerability of small-scale peasant economy to land annexation,but there is a lack of quantitative analysis in such literature.In view of this,this paper quantitatively analyzes the small-scale peasant economy.Small farmers are divided into owner farmers,semi owner farmers and tenant farmers.Because the self-employed farmers are the most typical,this paper selects the self-employed farmers to make the economic income and expenditure statement.Thus,three characteristics of small-scale peasant economy are analyzed: first,the Engel coefficient is greater than 0.6,reaching the state of poverty;The second is the heavy tax,in which the poll tax is 2.28 times of the land rent and silage tax.It is conservatively estimated that the tax deprives 58% of the profits of small farmers;The third is the low level of production.For self-employed farmers,75% of the grain produced should be used for rations consumption,and the situation of semi self-employed farmers and tenant farmers is even worse.Moreover,the production efficiency of cattle farming is 2.78 times higher than that of small-scale farming,and the efficiency of small-scale farming is low;According to the above three characteristics,it can be seen that small-scale farmers have low income,poor production conditions,difficult life,difficult to have a surplus and difficult to face external shocks,so they are vulnerable.The vulnerability of small-scale farmers and the frequent natural and man-made disasters in the Western Han Dynasty led to the intensification of land annexation.Therefore,the vulnerability of small-scale peasant economy is an important reason for land annexation.