The Study On Agricultural Management In The Warring States Period In Bamboo Slips

During the period of Warring states, agriculture developed at a very fast pace and began to become the decisive production department of the society, with the promotion of iron tools and ox ploughing, the advance of agricultural science and the revolution in agricultural production relationship. The increasingly fierce annexation territory war brought a huge waste on agriculture and imposed a higher demand on national economic strength. Because of the need of agricultural-war strategy, the kingdoms all strengthened the control over agriculture. The agricultural management during that period not only born clear hallmarks of the times and also had an important influence on the future generations. The thesis, with bamboo slips as the major research material, has researched agricultural management during the period of Warring States and traced agricultural management to the years before the period. Agricultural management during the period mainly had the following contents: household registration for the subjects---government built a registration system to control the population to be the basis for farm granting, and that stroke could strengthen national control over the small farmers; grant fields to the registered families---the government granted state-owned fields to the individual farmers by the standard of “100mu of field for each farmer”, and the famers should pay taxes to the government based on the amount of land; agricultural official system---government established a complete agricultural management system to make sure national policies can directly deepen into specific production, so that the government could more thoroughly interfere into agricultural production; agricultural production management---the government formulated strict management system for the production process, production materials and grain storage; agricultural management ideas---guaranteed farming hours, promoted advanced agricultural technology, protected natural resources and made precautions against disaster. All these were the theoretical basis for agricultural management during the period of Warring States. The characteristics of agricultural production during the period included: rising the thought of valuing agriculture to national strategy, more thoroughly interfering into agricultural production, realizing systematism and legalization of agricultural politics, reducing the impact of business on agriculture, and forcefully implementing the thought of valuing agriculture. The period of Warring States set a foundation for our traditional agriculture. The systematic, standard and legal management over agriculture provided an important basis for the future generation, especially for the period of Qin and Han dynasties.