The Analysis On The Relation Between Population And Land With The Rural Common People's Livelihood State In Zhili Of Qing Dynasty

The common people's life in Chinese traditional agricultural society is closely related tothe relation between population and land. The natural and social characteristics of the relationrestrict people's livelihood state that changes with agricultural production changing. AfterQing entering the Shanhai Pass, the government used the political and military means toredistribute the land so that the ownership of common people's land changed, which led tothem drifting from place to place and life being in privation. In the middle period of Kang Xi'sruling, the movement of enclosures had stopped basically, so the order of social productiontended towards being stable. Population and land had been increasing interdynamically.Because the speed of population's growth is greater than that of the cultivated area'sexpansion, the occupancy volume of the cultivated land per people in Zhili district decreasedyear by year and " population pressure " to a certain degree appeared in the period ofDaoguang and Xianfeng's ruling. The development of a large amount of land made thecultivated area increase, which had alleviated the kind of " population pressure ", instead ofbecoming serious population crisis, and which made the total amount of grains increase inZhili district under the situation that the traditional crops was in domination, the high-yieldcrops had not been popularized, and the grains of per mu's yield did not change much , so alarge amount of newly-increased population could maintain the basic life state. During theprocess of agricultural production, the famine brought the serious negative effect to people'slivelihood, and it was the key reason that the common people was in privation, they driftedabout, and the relative "population pressure" turned up. The government fostered small-scalepeasant economy through encouraging and protecting the land development of the peasants,improved the working conditions of agriculture, and took steps to relieve the famine, whichplayed a key role in balancing the relation between population and land and alleviating theoutstanding " population pressure".