Land Tenancy System In Modern Western Songjiang

This article investigates and analyses the land tenancy institution changes of modern westernSongjiang rural society, using modern Songjiang land documents from Shanghai Archives as thecore empirical material. Then, it discusses the influence factors of the land tenancy institutionchanges of modern western Songjiang rural society. Furthermore, it presents the characteristics ofthe land tenancy institution changes of modern western Songjiang rural society.Through the textual research and data statistics of land sales contracts, land tenancy contracts, rentbooks and land tenancy operating books from modern Songjiang land documents at ShanghaiArchives, this article investigates the land transaction condition and land tenancy operating statusof Songjiang “MaChongYiTang”, Songjiang “MaSanWeiTang” and SongJiang “DianYuJi” fromthe beginning of the1860’s to the end of the1940’s, namely after the war of the Taiping HeavenlyKingdom and before the founding of new China.With the investigation of the land transaction condition and land tenancy operating status ofmodern Songjiang “MaChongYiTang”, Songjiang “MaSanWeiTang” and Songjiang “DianYuJi”,this article holds that there have been some changes of western Songjiang rural society’s landsales, land tenancy, rent collection and land tenancy management income from the beginning ofthe1860’s to the end of the1940’s, namely after the war of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom andbefore the founding of new China.This article discusses and analyses the influence factors of the land tenancy institution changes ofmodern western Songjiang rural society. It suggests that some social economy factors, such as theland property rights institution, landlords’ urbanization, and town commodity economy of theregions south of the Yangtze River, as well as some social political factors, such as the war of theTaiPing Heavenly Kingdom during the late Qing dynasty and the war of Japanese aggressionagainst china during1937—1945, have made profound influence on the change of land sales, landtenancy, rent collection and land tenancy management gains of western Songjiang rural society.At last, this article further presents the characteristics of the land tenancy institution changes ofmodern western Songjiang rural society. It hypothesizes that there are two different charactertypes of the land tenancy institution changes of modern western Songjiang rural society. One is toadapt to the social economic evolution of the regions south of the Yangtze River. The other isunder the modern national political changes, especially the impact of wars. The former is long,slow and irreversible inner evolution, while the latter is short, intense and reversible externalevolution.