A Study Of Population Problems In Wei,Jin,Southern And Northern Dynasties

There must be a certain gap between the number of registered population and the actual population,but as official statistics,it represents the main population groups that the country can grasp,which is related to the collection of farm rent,taxes,corvee and military services.To some extent,it can better reflect the formulation and implementation of some policies at that time than the actual population.Most of the numbers of population in the historical materials of Wei-Jin and Southern and Northern dynasties which can truly reflect the scale of household registration of the regime.Such as the numbers of households or populations of Wu kingdom,Shu Kingdom,Former Yan State,Northern Qi Dynasty or Chen Dynasty,that all of them came from the household registration documents when the regime collapsed.Therefore,there is no doubt that these data are reliable.The population records of the Wei state of the Three-Kingdoms Period was obtained by subtracting the number of Shu Kingdom's household registration from the national household number of the state when Shu was merged with Wei.This data is consistent with what people said at that time that the size of the population is no more than that of a big county in Han Dynasty.The number of households of Northern Zhou Dynasty in the last year is clearly recorded in historical records.which This is undoubtedly the data obtained after the Northern Zhou Dynasty unified the north.The total number recorded in the geographical part of Jin Dynasty Book is should be the result of adding up the population numbers of each district.So the total numbers of households and population can still reflect the scale of household registration at that time.In addition,the geographical part of Southern Song Dynasty Book generally retains the data of the eighth year of Daming.However,the data of the fiefs came from the last year of Shengming.There are two numbers of total households in some later historical records which are are the total number of households in each state and the total number of households in counties.t.So there are some differences.There are also inconsistency on stylistic rules and layout in the geographical part of nothern Wei Dynasty Book.In this book,household registration information of Wuding period are used for the population development in territory of Eastern Wei Dynasty.However,the population development in the territory of the Western Wei Dynasty can only be supplemented according to the disabled nationality of Yongxi period in the Northern Wei Dynasty.As for the population in the last years of the Northern Wei dynasty recorded in Tongdian,which is the total number of households in the administrative districts listed in the geographical part of Wei Book,not the actual number of households in the late Northern Wei Dynasty.Although there are some problems in the records of the geographical parts of Song Book and Wei Book,however,it is no problem to use these data for roughly estimate the development level of households at that time.And there are obvious errors in the figures in historical books,for example,the number of households in third year of Taikang of Jin Dynasty cited in Pei-Songzhi's notes on the Book of Three Kingdoms is obviously wrong,and it can not reflect the level of household registration third year of Taikang of Jin Dynasty.Analysis of the changes in the number of households in the Wei,Jin,southern and Northern Dynasties shows that at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty,the number of households in the whole country fell sharply due to the turmoil.During the Three Kingdoms period,the number of registered population in the South and north areas was generally low,and the growth was slow.The number of registered households in the south is slightly lower than that in the north,and its proportion in the whole country has increased.Compared with the Three Kingdoms period,the number of registered households in the Western Jin Dynasty increased significantly,but the main growth point is in the north.Meanwhile the number of the South remains in a low growth state.In the last years of the Western Jin Dynasty,the country was divided into different development routes from south to north.The number of the households in southern Eastern Jin Dynasty is around 1 million.And the largest number of the households is in the Southern Song Dynasty and Yuanjia period,which is less than 2million.The territory of the Chen Dynasty is the smallest in size.So there were only600000 households in her heyday.Throughout the Six Dynasties in the south,the number of registered households remained low for a long time.However,although the north has been ravaged by war many times,the number of its population has always recovered rapidly after dropping to the bottom.The number of household registration in the late Zhao dynasty may have reached or even exceeded that in the same area of Taikang period of the Western Jin Dynasty.In the last yesrs of Qianyan,the number of the households in its administrative region has reached more than 2.45 million.After the unification of the north by the former Qin Dynasty,the largest number of the households peaked at about 4 million.After the Feishui war,the northern region fell into the division again,and the population depletion was inevitable.The situation was improved with the unification of the Northern Wei Dynasty.In the yeaes of Zhengguang,the number of households in the Northern Wei Dynasty reached its peak,with more than 5 million households.The state of Wei was divided into East and West,and the number of registered households remained low.The Northern Zhou Dynasty annexed Northern Qi and occupied Shu land,with only 3.59 million households.With the unification of the Sui Dynasty,the number of households increased on a large scale again.The comparison shows that the population and growth rate in the northern region is far higher than that of the south.The focus of national household registration has always been in the north,and did not shift to the south.That contradicts the facts: the north has been in a long period of turmoil,the south is relatively stable and the north migrates to the south in large Numbers.Some scholars insist that the number of hidden population in south is larger than that in north.However,I do not entirely agree with them.The migration of northerners to the South affects the fluctuate of the number of population between the north and the south.The central plains were destroyed by wars,and many people in the North took refuge in exile in the south.Since Yongjia,the southward migration of the Jin royal family intensified the trend of this migration.The northerners who moved to the South deeply influenced the southern regime in politics and culture.However,in terms of population growth,the effect is not as great as imagined.This is mainly because not all the southbound migrants can reach the south of the Yangtze River,Most of them can only stay in Huai River,Mian River and Han River areas.These areas are on the front line of confrontation between the north and the south,and the lives of migrants are not stable.Besides further southward,many people fled back to the north.And many of the population in these areas were plundered back to the north when the northern regime attacked the south.In addition,during the southern turmoil,a large number of people from the south of the Yangtze River migrated to the north.These conditions weaken the effect of southbound migrants on the population growth in the south.Whether the minority population can be included in the national statisticsis,wich is an important reason for the difference in the number of households in the northern and southern regimes.Although the turmoil in the Wei,Jin,southern and Northern Dynasties led to a large outflow of population from the Central Plains,the loss was quickly made up.With the northern ethnic minorities entering the Central Plains,a large number of minority population and Han people in the original border areas moved in,and the Central Plains population who fled to the border areas followed them getting back.So,the actual population size of the Central Plains region was rapidly restored.At the same time,compared with the Han regime in the past,its control over the border areas was more in-depth,and the controllable population of the northern regime increased significantly.With the integration of various ethnic groups,these people either consciously or forced into the national household registration system.Therefore,the number of households in the northern regime increased rapidly.Although the southern regime also fought against the ethnic minorities in the vast mountains of the south,its main energy is still on the defense and attack of the northern regime.In fact,the southern regime did not form absolute control over the Man tribes,Li tribes and Liao tribes in the vast southern areas,except for the strong conquest for Yue tribes located in the political heartland and the Man tribes along the Yangtze River.All wars were just for the purpose that let the tribes acknowledge allegiance to the central government.So it is impossible to integrate their population into the national household registration system.Even the people plundered in the process of conquest,most of them entered military camps or became slaves of the government or private.Moreover,under the background of unstable political power and heavy taxes,some Han household registration population may escape from the household registration and flee into the ethnic minority areas,which caused the decline of the number of national registered households.