Research On Tianjin Agriculture In Ming And Qing Dynasties(1368-1840)

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Tianjin agriculture production faced with asomewhat terrible natural environment which mainly showed in cold climate,frequent flood and drought, comparatively sterile land. All the above preventedagriculture production from developing collectively. Nevertheless, Tianjin agriculturedeveloped continuously in Ming Dynasty. The developments of Tianjin agriculturemainly displayed in several ways: first, some advanced agricultural technologies hadbeen introduced into Tianjin which provided technical support for agriculturedevelopment; second, a large number of new crop strains had been brought in whichboost the escalation of crop strains and the increase of agriculture yields; third,uninterrupted water conservancy and reclaimed land in both official and civil onespropelled the development of agriculture. But even so, due to the comparativelyterrible environment, Tianjin agriculture developed insufficiency in Ming Dynasty.The government occupied a great deal of unexploited land and semi-exploited land.Accordingly, Guan-tian predominated in land possession system and Min-tian wassituated as supplementary. Along with the change of political power and theamplification of agricultural production, much more land in Tianjin had beenexploited; ordinary farmers occupied much more land. As a result, Min-tian began tooccupy a principal place in Qing Dynasty.Because Tianjin is close to the capital, Tianjin common people bore heavy taxand much heavier corvee. Corresponding to the land possession system, Guan-tiandominated in Ming dynasty tax levy. At the same time, common people bore ratherheavy corvee burden. Along with the change of political power, the old landpossession system was transformed. However, However, the land system and thesystem of tax and corvee in early Qing Dynasty were still deeply hit the mark of MingDynasty. As time went by, the system of tax and corvee was changed. Therefore,taxes and corvee collection focused on min-tian gradually.In the course of agriculturedevelopment, the famine relief policies and social security system constantly improved which supported the development of agriculture.All in all, Tianjin agriculture development in Ming and Qing Dynasties is aprocess in which Tianjin people constantly adapted to natural environment. Duringthis period, agriculture has had great development and support Tianjin urbaneconomic development. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Tianjin cityappeared and developed. In this significant period, Tianjin gradually shifted fromWei-suo system to regional economic city. The development of Tianjin city took agreat success, not only thanks to its geographic location and water transport of grain,salt transport etc, but also should thanks to the agriculture production. When theagriculture developed, there would be sufficient foundation to support urbaneconomic and provided much more employees, both of which promoted thedevelopment of Tianjin urban economic. The urban economic development alsopromotes the development of agriculture and sets new and higher requirements foragriculture constantly. In a word, urban development and agricultural developmentsupport each other and neither can exist effectively without the other.