A Study Of The Tuntian System During The Ruling Period Of Emperor Gaozong In The Southern Song Dynasty

In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty,the frequent wars caused great damage to the social economy of various places in the southeastern areas.The peasant people were displaced and the land was wasted.In the early years of Emperor Gaozong,with the support of him and many of his officials,the activity of tuantian took place several times in areas such as Hubei,Huainan,Henan and Jiankangfu.In general,most of these activities were led by the local military governors in different places,thus the scale is relatively small,and there is also a lack of unified planning for the tuntian activities from the Southern Song Dynasty court.Except for achieving some results in very few places,the tuntian activity on the whole did not turn out to be successful,and produced very little effect especially in the Yangtze-Huaihe river area.As the Southern Song Dynasty regime grew more stable,the voices of officials at all levels to start tuntian activities were also becoming more and more enthusiastic.Therefore,at the beginning of the sixth year of Shaoxing Period,a large-scale tuntian activity under the government’s unified schedule,which was initiated by Zhang Jun and spread across several areas,was started in the southeastern area.In the early stage of the tuntian period,the activity was directed by the Military Command,and later was instead directed by a special authority called Tiling Jianghuai Yingtiansi which was in charge of the tuantian work in the Yangtze – Huaihe river area.During the tuantian period,state-owned farms were set up in the Yangtze-Huaihe river area to manage the tuantian activity,while in Jingxi and Hubei area Yuefei was in charge of the activity for a long time.This time the tuntian system led to the establishment of Lu-level(Lu means a section of the country that has its own administration in the Southern Song Dynasty)tuantian management system based on various military commanding agencies.In the summer of the seventh year of Shaoxing Period,the dismissal of Tiling Jianghuai Yingtiansi marked the end of the Tuntian activities on the whole.However,most of the tuntian that had been developed in various places was retained,and had been instead managed by Lu-level transporting departments and military governors.With the signing of Shaoxing Peace Treaty,the situation of Song and Jin tended to ease,and the removal of the military power from senior generals and the establishment of Dutongzhi(A military official who was temporarily appointed to govern generals at wartime)and Zonglingguan(A military official who was in charge of the military expenditures)changed the military management system in the Southern Song Dynasty.These changes produced a certain impact on tuntian system at that time.On the one hand,after the dismissal of Tiling Jianghuai Yingtiansi,the Southern Song Dynasty did not have any major development on peasant tuntian,but had some development on military tuntian;on the other hand,the establishment of Dutongzhi and Zonglingguan led to the tendency to separately manage military and peasant tuntian in the Southern Song Dynasty.In the later years of Emperor Gaozong,the tuntian system in the southeastern areas gradually declined,and situations occurred where tuantian transformed into private land.Due to the relatively remote geographical location and the relatively backward level of transportation and communication technology at that time,the tuntian system in Sichuan was different from that in the southeastern areas.From the perspective of time,before the signing of Shaoxing Peace Treaty,Wu Jie was mainly in charge of the Sichuan and Shaanxi border tuntian matters.After the signing of Shaoxing Peace Treaty,Zheng Gangzhong made great contributions to the tuntian development along the border of Sichuan and Shaanxi.Little intervention from the Southern Song Dynasty court and the long-term existence of Sichuan Xuanfusi(military commanding officer)led to the fact that most of the Sichuan and Shaanxi border tuntian was controlled by Xuanfusi.Overall,Sichuan and Shaanxi border tuntian has achieved certain results.However,in the late years of Emperor Gaozong,tuntian was gradually controlled by senior generals and slowly went downhill.