River North And South, The Simin Jue Soil: The Historical Period, Henan Population And Land (1368-1953)

In a sense,the history of the human society is the history of population and land.Henan is significant in the history of China's regional population and economy,whichmakes the studies of the changes of its population over time and the relevant issues ofland meaningful both within and beyond the academy.Situated in China proper,Henan is one of the most densely populated and firstexplored and developed regions in ancient time. Since the Tang-Song Period,Henanhas declined not only economically,but also politically and culturally.The attributes of the populations in Henan since the Ming Dynasty are largelydefined by how the demographic information is collected. From the early Ming to theRepublican Era,the approach of census and registration constantly changed to meetthe needs of civil and financial administrations. Sometimes the whole region wascovered,sometimes not. In that sense,only a few statistical data such as thosecollected in the reigns of Ming Taizu,Qianlong,Jiaqing and Daoguang can behistorically reliable. The first modem census in Henan was launched in 1953 whichmarked the beginning of the accurate statistics of its population.Since the Early Ming Period,the population in Henan has kept growing for sixcenturies,except during the Ming-Qing transition. In the year 1391,the populationwas 2,782,670,and 11,498,942 in 1630. The year 1776 saw a population of19,858,053,while the year 1935,34,573,236. According to the census conducted in1953,the population reached 44,214,594. Hence,the graph of the population inHenan from the Early Ming to the year 1953 is an"N"curve. The proportions of sex,profession,and city planning went through some significant changes along with theincrease of population.The vase deserted land had been turned into agrarian land due to the years longreclamation since the early Ming. In the reign of Wanli,the cadastration demonstrateda considerate vast agrarian land up to over 100 million Mu. A good deal of it wasdeserted again due to the devastating wars during the Ming-Qing Transition. In thereign of Kangxi,it was reclaimed up to 87 million Mu. And almost all the desertedland was exploited in reign of Qianlong,yielding about 111 million Mu of agrarianland in total. The continual war in the Late Republican Era resulted in the shrinkageof the agrarian land from 114 million Mu in 1935 to 98 million Mu or so in 1946. Tosum up,the degree of the agrarian exploiture in Henan swung between the twoextremes of under-cultivation and cultivation.The changes of population and agrarian land resulted in a decline of the averageacreage per person,from 14.6 Mu in 1391 to 10.0 Mu in 1600,again from 6.2 Mu in1767 to 2.9 Mu in 1953. The tension of the relationship between population and landwas never relieved for good. This partly led to some evident changes of the elementsconsidering productivity and productive relationships such as agrarian technology,thevariety of planting,the output of the grain,ownership and tenancy.