Ancient Chinese Economic Legal System

Abst r actOur ancient economic legal system was an organic part of the Chineselegal system, which got developed with past dynasties succeeding to eachother .In POint of its legal form, our ancient economic law not only lied inthe comprehensive statUtes of the past dynasties but also scattered inemperor's orders, separate edition of decrees and various regulations.Classified according to its content, it failed into the following parts:agricultUra1 economy management, handicraft management, marketmanagement, money management, forced labor management and foreigntrade management.The core of agricultUral economy legal system was the ownership ofland. From the legal point of view,It was public ownership of land during theXia Shang and Xi Zhou dynasties. "The land of the whole world belongs tokings" was a literary description form of ownership of land. After Spring'AntUmn and Warring State,private ownership of land occupied thelending position and became the base of feudal relations of production inChina, with which agricultUral production, in the form of small scale,developed into main part of Chinese feudal economic structUre. Apart fromthe ownership of land, past dynasties made a series of decrees such as therules related to water conservation,seeds. poultry and barn. FOr example,the Qin's Law on Fim land Law on Live-stock and bo on Barn; the twoHan's Decree on weter. Decree on Farm Innd and Decree on ContractS tybease; and the Song's haw of water Conservation. LaW of GreenCrops,which were pursued during the period Of Anhi-Wang's lega1 reform.As for the legal system about handicraft management, from the writtenMaterial, we can find ZhouLi on Handicraft was the earliest regulation,which made more rules about the methods of goods production andspecifications. TO the Qin and Han, with the enlargement of the scale ofhandcraft, the decrees of handicraft management had included the set--up ofmanagement organization, the assessment of re1ated officials and orders andquota of goods production, and so on. In the fields permitted my currentauthorities, working people, with their industry and wisdom, continued toexplore and renew handicraft production and invented many kinds oftechnology such as paper-makings, astronomical instrument, printing andgun--powder so that they made great contribution to the human being.There appeared trade relations early in ancient China. Later, legalsystem of markets. That was to say during the period of the Spring andAntUmn, there came markets. After the Qin and Han, with the developmentof indusny and business, the number of marketS in city became larger andappeared special markets of certain fields. Organizations and officials incharge of marketS also were set up, decrees about which provided fordifferent rights and aIso stipulated detail rules of rewards and punishInents.Money management legal system, fOrced labor management legalsystem were dripormnt parts of ancient economy legal system. Thereexisted Mone} bo in the ancient of the Xizhou dynasty. According tohistorical materials, thc decrees of every dynasties were haId as to tropunishInent of the act of money-casting in private .Especially, after thereappeared "Jiao Zi" in the Song dynasty, printing right got controlled morestrictly by the courtS. Tax and forced labor were the bases for the existence ofthe state powers. In the period of the pre-Qin Dynasty,there were trvy onCotton. cloth beVy on FOxtail Millet and hevy on Forced Labor. In the Qinand Han dynasties, there were different kinds of poll taxes and fOrced labors.In the time of the Sui and Tang, there was Law of Lease. Late Tang, togetherwith the Song and Yuan, there was TWO Taxes Law. The Ming, OneWhip Law. And the Qing, Scattering Taxes on Farm Land. With those, Chinaancient system of forced labor got evolved and developed.Our ancient foreign trade legal system began earlier .The Han's.' Fu Chuan" was a kind of p...