Regional Social Structure And Commercialized Agriculture During Ming & Qing Dynasties In South Of Yangtze River

The Tai Lake area has been one of the most important economic regions for a long period, where the developments in many fields have been superior to other regions'. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the development of commercialized agriculture was superior in the whole country; agricultural production became more intensive and kept sustained increase. The cultivated area of economic crops expanded steadily and high-quality subsidiary agricultural products increased rapidly, which contributed a lot to the local prosperity then.From angles of agricultural history and social history, the author analyzes the development of commercialized agriculture in Taihu Lake area during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and then mainly researches important functions of non-technical factors in the agricultural commercialization in the south of Yangtze River. Non-technical factors contained two parts, one was regional social organizations, such as clans, chambers of commerce, merchant guild, local commercial groups and organization of Li-jia; the other was social groups, inclusive of scholar groups, peasant groups and merchant groups. Researching the factors mentioned above in a certain regional and social background helps learn clearly the importance of humanities' factors in the development of commercialized agriculture.In detail, this thesis firstly expounds regional organizations' effects on agricultural transformation, focusing on genetic organizations, geographic organizations and local basic-level organizations. And then the author researches the social ranks and classes, including scholar groups, peasant groups and others. Concerning scholars, the author takes a typical case for an example: Zhang Luxiang's learning and farming practice as well as his agricultural work named Bu Nong Shu, through which the thesis expounds scholars' important effects on demonstrating, summarizing and spreading agricultural technology. In conclusion, peasants were basic forces of agricultural development, as well as positive labors in intensive-farming agriculture, while, owing to advantages in information and funds, merchants and handicraftsmen together with their organizations were also powerful promoters to the commercial agriculture in the south of Yangtze River. Through analyzing all social ranks and classes, humanities' factors causing highly developed commercial agriculture are revealed clearly.