Study On The Burden Of Farmers In South Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty always take the"piled-up poverty and weakness"presence inour mind. Apart from this, the South Song Dynasty also has a mysterious sense for us.The reason for this is that we have done a few researches on it. Because of this, theauthor try to do a preliminary work. Based on the previous research, the paperdiscussed the burden of the farmers in South Song Dynasty.The introduction recounted these questions: the worth and value of the paper, theexisting state on this question, the precise meaning of the terms and so on. Thesemade a good prepare for the text. The text was divided into three parts.In the first part, the author discussed the structure of the landowner class and thefarmer class in South Song Dynasty, and their land-ownership.In the second part, the author discussed the main burden of the farmers. This partdiscussed the burden of the farmers in five aspects: the tax burden, the corvee burden,the Usury burden, the compulsory acquisition of Government and the strengtheningpersonal dependence. From this, the heaven burden of the farmers in South SongDynasty was intuitive showed. This part was the main of the article, and the taxburden was the top priority and was described most detailed. The reason that took thestatus declined of the farmers in South Song Dynasty and the increasing personaldependence into the burden of the farmers were that on these happened the Landlordstransferred the tax and the corvee to the farmers continuously so that increased theburden of the farmers.The third part discussed the roots of the heaven burden on the farmers in SouthSong Dynasty. From the discussion in five aspects in South Song Dynasty: themilitary spending, the officials salary and the expenses, the royal expenses, the rewardof the State expenditure, the outlay of Suibi and the religious ritual expenditure, theauthor showed the roots of the heaven burden on the farmers. Of course, theexpenditure of the South Song Government not only these six aspects, apart fromthese, there were the expenses for the transporting grain by canal to Capital and forthe disaster relief. The reason that we only discussed the six aspects was that thesix aspects was not only the major financial expenditure of the South SongGovernment, but also was the main root of the heaven burden on the farmers in SouthSong Dynasty. On the contrary, the expenses of the government on the transportinggrain by canal to Capital and on the disaster relief could bring benefits for the farmers.Therefore, they were excluded.In Conclusion, on the basis of summing up the full-text, the author furtherpointed out that the purpose of selecting this topic was not to create something new and gain notoriety by shocking statement, but to guide the people pay attention to theburden and the living conditions of farmers in reality and to the issues of Rural areas,farmers and agriculture, and to the policies of the government.