The Prince-owned Farmlands Of Ming Dynasty In Shanxi

During Ming Dynasty, farmland is an important part to the land institution. Properties of farmland belong to the politic privileged class, like Princes, bureaucratic stratum, and some eunuchs. And Prince-owned farmland is one of the most representative farmlands.In duration establishing of Ming Dynasty, many arable lands became ownerless land for endless wars. When Ming Dynasty was established, Hongwu Emperor (1368-1398), the founder and first emperor of Ming, began to canonize his sons as Princes and gave them some lands as permanent income resources, namely Prince-owned farmland. In the earlier period, the scale of Prince-owned farmland is restricted strictly and negative effect of Prince-owned farmland to economy is slight. Unfortunately, since period of Ming Yingzong (1427-1464), the scale of Prince-owned farmlands was expanded rapidly. More and more civilian-owned lands were taken to be farmlands using the politic privilege. Large amount of peasants lost their lands and became tenant farmer or vagrants. In other hand, the expansion of Prince-owned farmlands also increased the tax burden of other lands owner, because the farmland is tax-free. The heavy taxes substantially impaired the economy of Ming Dynasty. Thus, the excessive Prince-owned farmland was considered as an important reason which resulted in the collapse of Ming Dynasty.In this work, the author analyzes the change of Prince-owned farmland in Shanxi province during Ming Dynasty. Based on the data, Jin Prince, Dai Prince and Shen Prince are the major Prince families in Shanxi. According to their politic privilege, the three Prince families occupied large amount of lands, mostly depended on non-economic ways. In later period of Ming Dynasty, the Prince-owned farmland covered most well-irrigated lands in Shanxi, including Taiyuanfu, Pingyangfu, Lu'anfu, Fenzhoufu, Datongfu, Ningwufu, Puzhoufu, Liaozhou, Qinzhou, Pingdingzhou, Xinzhou, Daizhou, Xiezhou, Jiangzhou and Jizhou areas. However, the distribution of Prince-owned farmland was few in Shuopingfu, Baodezhou, Zezhou and Yinzhou areas which were barren. Land over-concentrated in the hands of a few markedly damaged the economy and social stability, and caused the death of Ming Dynasty finally.