Research On Food Security In The Tang Dynasty

Food is the basic necessities of human life and the foundation of national economy and people's livelihood.Food security is directly related to the national economic development and social stability.Research on the food safety problems in Tang Dynasty can not only strengthen the study of economic history of Tang Dynasty to deepen the understanding of society in Tang Dynasty,but also provide the beneficial reference for solving the problems of food security in the new period.On the basis of predecessors'research,this paper makes a multi-dimensional and comprehensive discussion of the food safety problems in Tang Dynasty.The paper is divided into five parts:The first part is the introduction which aims to clarify the basic concept of "food security" and summarize the research achievements of predecessors to show the necessity of this problem research and the research methods to be used.So far,there has been no special research on food security of Tang Dynasty in the academia.Only a few scholars have mentioned it in related works.From the historical and realistic point of view,the research on food security problem in Tang Dynasty has an important academic value and practical significance.In the second part,the paper analyzes the relationship between the food production and the food security in Tang Dynasty.Food crops were widely distributed in Tang Dynasty.The wheat and millet were primarily planted in the north and Yellow River Basin and the rice was planted in some areas.The rice was primarily planted in the south of the Yangtze River Basin,Pearl River Basin and the southwestern provinces and the multiple cropping of rice and wheat were conducted in some places.The agricultural acreage has been increased by private development and opening up wasteland and growing grain and camp field.Due to the obvious improvement of production technology in the production tools,farming,cultivation,etc.and the remarkable achievements in water conservancy construction,the agricultural production was developed.The crop yield per acre(mu)varies from area to area and different varieties,with the average yield per mu reaching more than one dan(unit of dry measure for grain).Although the crop failure occurred in 289 years of Tang Dynasty,but on the whole,the agricultural production developed to some extent.Agricultural development has become the most important economic mainstay to primarily guarantee the food security in Tang Dynasty.In the third part,the paper discusses the various factors affecting the food security.In general,the following factors including the natural environment,the national food policy,the development of food production technology,population scale and growth,the destruction of war,natural disasters,dietetic consumption custom etc.and even the people's cognition of the food security have affected the food security.The rulers in Tang Dynasty had a clear understanding on the importance of food and they clearly realized that the food security is the foundation of national security,the food production is the premise of food security,food regulation is a measure to guarantee the food security and the food consumption is a necessary element of food security.Therefore,they tended to keep pace with the times and introduced various measures to promote food production.Equal-field System and Tax-Labor-Substituion System carried out in the early Tang Dynasty and Two Tax Law carried out in the late Tang Dynasty provided the political guarantee for food production and regulation.The land given by the rulers of Tang Dynasty to the people could guarantee their tax payment as well as their own family's consumption.However,there existed certain differences between the reality and policies;for example,the land area owned by people in the countryside with dense potulation was difficult to meet the needs of government taxes and their own survival.Population also has a relation with the food security,because the population size determines the quantity of labor force,the labor force input determines the scale and benefit of food production and the population size determines the total food consumption.With the economic and social development,the population in Tang Dynasty increased rapidly,but due to the unevenly-distributed population,all this intensified the conflict between food distribution and consumption.Therefore,the government of Tang Dynasty had to massively allocate and transport food or migrant the consumers to solve the food problems.War also seriously affects the food security.In Tang Dynasty,several battles for the food broke out and several food crisis caused by the war occurred.In addition,the natural disasters were also important factors to destroy the food security.People in Tang Dynasty came up with many ways to respond to the disasters and food shortage to minimize the losses brought by the disasters and to reduce the food security hazards.In the fourth part,the paper discusses various measures to protect the food security.The food security should be on the basis of the development of food production and total food increase.The rulers of Tang Dynasty implemented the preferential agricultural policy(i.e.agriculture-oriented,encouragement and supervision of agriculture production)to promote the natural increase of population and the return of the non-agricultural population and to reduce the government's recruitment of the forced labor which could ensure that there was not any interference during the farming season.Meanwhile,they also issued the Livestock-killing Prohibition Order to protect the animal force for agriculture and established the prevention mechanism to prevent the food crisis to ensure that the government could store enough food.In addition,the government advocated the social food stocks and household food stocks to deal with the possible crisis and relieve the food pressure on the government.The government issued several relief policies to quickly recover the social agricultural productivity by the relief for the farmers to minimize the disaster losses and rationally guided the sound social consumption,food conservation to form a sound mode of production,storage,consumption and reproduction.In order to ensure adequate food supply and to prevent and relieve the possible food crisis,the government of Tang Dynasty also adopted various measures like transport channel dredging to increase the food allocation ability,promotion of opening up wasteland and growing grain and camp field to relieve the pressure on military food supply,implementation of food purchase and sale to control the food price and balance the food supply-demand relationship and migration of consumers to respond to the occurred famine.In the fifth part,the paper illustrates the various social attributes of food and indicates special functions of food as the national taxes,royal supply,officials' salaries,financial attributes of relief materials,munitions and foreign media.Meanwhile,it objectively evaluates the food security in Tang Dynasty and believes that the effective policies to strengthen the food security were carried out,harmonious,balanced man-land relationship and rich variety of the food structure were held in Tang Dynasty.People's life was simple and frugal and the production and consumption of food were in a safe state in the most of time.Finally,the paper summarizes the enlightenments given by the food security in Tang Dynasty.It points out that we should attach importance to the food security,develop our citizens' food safety awareness,greatly develop the food production,set up a complete food storage system,promote the food control ability of our government on the basis of seeking truth from facts,make careful calculation and strict budgeting to avoid the misunderstanding of food security and establish a national food security system with production development,stable yield,adequate storage,reasonable consumption and happy citizens.There are three innovations in this paper.First,it carries out further multi-angle,comprehensive discussion of the food security in Tang Dynasty with the multi-disciplinary method to make up for the deficiency of previous studies.Second,it carries out the comprehensive and systematic investigation of food security in Tang Dynasty,further discuses the relationship of food production and food security in Tang Dynasty,studies the various factors affecting the food security in Tang Dynasty,analyzes the measures to guarantee the food security in Tang Dynasty and summarizes the experience and lessons in the food security in Tang Dynasty.Third,it presents some new views in the process of research.Although some views are not really mature,they will have some enlightenment for the future research.