In addition to military landlords, during the Warring States period, there were some ordinary landlords without political privileges. The "ordinary guest" employed by civilian landlords has much looser personal attachment than the "ordinary son" and "guest" to which military landlords belong. Han Fei once said that only by providing "delicious food" and paying remuneration will owners try their best to cultivate such "farmers who sell mediocrity and sow". Some ordinary landlords rent their land to farmers who have no land or little land, and collect rent at the rate of five tenths of the harvest. Dong Zhongshu said that since Shang Yang's political reform in Qin Dynasty, land can be bought and sold, and the polarization between the rich and the poor has accelerated. "Or cultivate the land to enrich the people, see taxes, so the poor often wear clothes of cattle and horses and eat the food of dogs." . The tenancy system of this feudal mode of production has been widely developed since the Han Dynasty.
Different from the land relations in medieval Europe, China has not only been able to buy and sell land since the Qin and Han Dynasties, but also bought and sold land more and more frequently, and a certain format of transaction documents appeared, which was protected by the laws of feudal countries. During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the government stipulated that all the purchases and sales of farmland houses needed "paper coupons" for tax signing. By the Song Dynasty, the "official deed paper" made by the government had appeared. At that time, there were two popular sayings, namely, "the land of a thousand years has 800 owners" (1) and "the rich and the poor have no orientation, and the farmland houses have no fixed owners; The saying "buy if you have money, sell if you don't have money" (2) is a reflection of the growing private ownership of land and the accelerated involvement of land in circulation. However, we can't regard the sale of land in China feudal society as the free transfer of land ownership, because feudal land ownership is conditional and illiberal private ownership, and it does not have the free and pure economic form of land ownership under capitalist conditions. Therefore, the sale of land in China feudal society was often interfered and restricted by political power and patriarchal tradition. According to the Tang Dynasty, land sales can only be carried out after applying to the government for dispatch. Moreover, land sales should "ask real relatives first, and then ask neighbors, neighbors don't want it, and others want to trade." In the Song Dynasty, the traditional custom of asking relatives and neighbors before selling land was loosened, but it was still binding. Only in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, land sales did not need to apply to the government first, and people who sold land did not need to ask their neighbors first. In some backward areas, political power and patriarchal clan system interfere with land sales in not fade away.
Although the land in China feudal society can be bought and sold, poor farmers rarely have the opportunity to get rich and buy land. The interference of political power and clan forces in land sales made it possible for the landlord class to annex land through various legal and illegal means. As far as its identity is concerned, the feudal landlord class in China can be divided into three main classes: aristocratic bureaucratic landlords, powerful landlords and merchant landlords, which respectively embody the combination of political power, clan power, monetary power and land power. These three grades
Although their status is different, they are basically big landlords. Xiao He, the prime minister in the early Han Dynasty, "bought tens of millions of farmland houses at low prices"; The prime minister of Emperor Hancheng, "bought up to 400 hectares of land, all irrigated by the Jingwei River, which was the most productive of Jia (price)". Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty once gave his favorite Dong Xian more than 2,000 hectares of land. The policy of emphasizing agriculture and restraining commerce was implemented in Han Dynasty. Many wealthy businessmen use their accumulated wealth to buy land. Among them, "Ren Hao is a land of goods and farming, with buildings distributed in counties and counties, and the land is connected with the country". The farmland occupation system was promulgated in the Western Jin Dynasty, and the first-level officials could occupy 50 hectares of farmland, and the farmland below five hectares was reduced to ninth-class farmland 10 hectares. In the Tang Dynasty, princes, officials and rich families set up land estates in succession and wantonly merged. "People's land was annexed by the rich, more than one third". In the Song Dynasty, "the powerful officials and rich surnames occupy infinite fields, and mergers and acquisitions are forged, which is used to it" (5); Hui Zong warlord Zhu Xian's estate is "a few and a half Wu Jun, all from Shu Ren". The Ming Dynasty captaincy Zhu Youxing had thousands of hectares of fertile land in Huguang, the great bureaucrat Dong Qichang had fertile land in Suzhou and Huzhou, and Jiangnan had "70,000 hectares of fertile land". In the Qing Dynasty, Manchu princes and nobles owned large granges through enclosure, and Han bureaucrats, gentry and landlords also occupied a lot of land. For example, Xu has a large field in Wuxi. In addition to aristocratic bureaucratic landlords, tyrannical landlords and merchant landlords, there are also some ordinary landlords who were neither tyrannical nor merchant in previous dynasties. They usually occupy less land, ranging from tens of acres to hundreds of acres. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the number of civilian landlords and the land they owned developed greatly.
The land management mode of feudal landlord class is mainly to rent to farmers who have no land and little land, and collect land rent; However, some run their own farms and serve ordinary customers or servants in production. At the end of the Warring States period, Han Fei said that "shallow people cultivate themselves", which
A kind of mediocrity is the employee of future generations. Bobby Chen was a poor farmer when he was young. In the Western Han Dynasty, Ningcheng borrowed money to "buy more than a thousand hectares, pretend to be poor, and treat thousands of people" (1), while in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ma Yuan's service belonged to a guest field, and "shared with farmers" (2), all of which were operated by tenancy. "Divide with farmers" means to divide the harvest in half and charge 50% of the rent in kind. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Fan Chongyou had more than 300 hectares of land, and "class servants changed to children, each with its own place" (3), which seemed to be slave production. In the Western Jin Dynasty, it was stipulated that the clothes, food and tenancy of aristocratic bureaucratic landlords could be exempted from taxes, which prompted a large number of poor farmers to take refuge in powerful landlords as their tenants to avoid taxes. The gentry landlords in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties occupied mountains and rivers and managed country villas. In addition to tenants and folk songs, their direct producers also used handmaids and employees. In the late Tang Dynasty, many poor people "relied on their families for personal gain, borrowed their grain, rented their fields, and worked all the year round without a day off", and "owned a family and collected grain rent tax". The household registration in Song Dynasty was divided into principal households and customers. "Some people don't occupy land, some borrow cattle from others, some are farmed, and some are servants. This is called a guest." ⑤ Some landlords have hundreds of customers. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the feudal tenancy relationship further developed. Gu once said: "Wuzhong people have fields and 19 points are sharecroppers." 6. Although this statement is somewhat exaggerated, it is a fact that tenancy system prevails in southern Jiangsu. According to some scholars' estimates, the tenant farmers in the south accounted for about 50%-60% of the total local farmers in the late Qing Dynasty, and the north accounted for about 30%-40%. ⑦ During this period, commercial landlords used less slave workers, and the status and treatment of employees also improved. Some landlords even treat employees well as an important means to increase the economic income of the grange. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, a new phenomenon appeared, that is, businessmen rented land and used employees to manage agriculture, especially cash crops.
The form of land rent of feudal landlord system in China is mainly product land rent rather than labor land rent. Product land rent allows farmers to control their own labor time, so it can mobilize farmers' enthusiasm for production more than labor land rent. However, product land rent also has disadvantages for farmers, because in this form of land rent, necessary labor and surplus labor are no longer separated in time and space, which makes it possible for landlords to exploit all surplus labor of farmers and even embezzle part of their necessary labor. Before the Tang Dynasty, subletting was basically implemented, and in most cases it remained at 50% or slightly higher than the farmers' harvest. Because the harvest of crops is directly related to the amount of land rent income, many landlords are often concerned about the agricultural production process. Fixed rent appeared after the Tang Dynasty. For farmers, the exploitation of fixed rent in famine years is heavier than sharing rent; However, in normal years, fixed rent leaves them more surplus products than shared rent. In order to increase the balance of surplus products left to them, farmers who pay fixed rents are usually more willing to increase the production input of land. However, the amount of fixed rent is not fixed. With the increase of land production, landlords will also ask for an increase in rent. If farmers refuse to increase rents, landlords will deprive them of their lease rights. After the Southern Song Dynasty, fixed rents gradually became popular, and the incidents of landlords "pulling tenants to increase rents" and "seizing tenants to increase rents" also emerged one after another. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the permanent tenancy system appeared in many areas. After the landlord sells the land, it does not change the tenant's farming right, and the latter can continue to pay rent to the new landlord for farming. The tenant can also transfer the lease right with the permission of the landlord; Some even grant the lease right without the consent of the landlord. The origin of permanent tenancy system can be traced back to Song Dynasty, and its origin is very complicated, but it is obviously related to the development of commodity economy and the struggle of peasant class to safeguard their farming rights. Tenants who enjoy permanent tenancy rights have turned their farming rights into "farmland rights" that can be operated for a long time, while the land ownership of landlords has become "farmland rights" that cannot be fully realized in the form of economy. When subletting land, the direct producer should pay both "big rent" and "small rent" to the landowner. As a result, there is a complex tenancy relationship of "two owners in one field" and "two rents in one field".
Before the Tang Dynasty, the formation of feudal land ownership mainly depended on privileged annexation, and the feudal dependence of tenant farmers on landlords was mostly manifested in direct personal subordination. This subordinate feudal tenancy system has obvious super-economic coercion on direct producers. In the Han Dynasty, the followers of the Party acted arbitrarily in rural songs, and the prestige of the people was more important than that of the county guards, while the peasant family was "father and son bowed, slaves were rich, and wives and concubines served". The shadow tenant system in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and the system of "all tenants attach importance to their homes" further show that this subordinate tenant has completely become the private property of the landlord in legal status. Until the Tang Dynasty, many tenant farmers were still "relying on the strong family for private ownership, working hard all the year round and often suffering from insufficient supply". However, from the documents unearthed in Dunhuang and Turpan, it can be seen that the contractual tenancy relationship has appeared in the Tang Dynasty. After the Song Dynasty, tenancy contracts became more and more common. This kind of contract usually stipulates the amount of land rent and the rights and obligations of both parties. Generally speaking, the super-economic compulsion and personal attachment of the contractual feudal tenancy relationship are relatively loose compared with the subordinate feudal tenancy relationship. However, the contractual feudal tenancy relationship cannot be understood as an equal relationship between the owner and the tenant. From some tenancy contracts, we can still see that there are different degrees of personal attachment and super-economic coercion between the owner and the tenant. Moreover, due to the unbalanced economic development in various regions, from the Song Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there was still an obvious super-economic compulsory subordinate feudal tenancy system in some backward and closed areas. For example, the road in Chuanxia in the Northern Song Dynasty, "the home of the rich, with vast land and buildings, attracts mobile guests, divides fields, whips them and regards them as slaves". During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the manor servant system prevailed in Huizhou, and there was a tenancy relationship between manor servants and landlords, and there was a title of master and servant. When they accept the lease, they should write a "guarantee to join the service". Not only are they not allowed to move to other places without authorization, but their personal identity can be resold and given away with the owner's house and land. This status of servants is not much different from that of serfs.
Unlike the European lords in the Middle Ages, the landlords in China feudal society had no administrative power and judicial power. The super-economic coercion of the landlord class on farmers was largely realized through the intervention of the feudal state. As a tool for the landlord class to oppress peasants, feudal countries vigorously safeguarded the exploitation and slavery of peasants by landlords, and even legally granted landlords certain rights to rule peasants. However, feudal countries are very aware of the importance of farmers as the main labor producers in feudal society. In order to maintain social stability, they sometimes have to properly limit the cruel exploitation and oppression of farmers by landlords and give due blows to landlords' acts of undermining feudal ruling order. Due to the needs of feudal economic development and the pressure of farmers' resistance struggle, after the Song Dynasty, the super-economic coercion of landlords on farmers gradually relaxed. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Renzong abolished the old rule that customers in the vast area south of Jianghuai were not allowed to move to other places without the owner's "reason". After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that "tenants should see the landlord, regardless of the order of their teeth, for a long time as a gift". By the early Qing Dynasty, the feudal countries had admitted that there was no "title of master and servant" between them when dealing with the lawsuits of both parties. Kangxi and Yongzheng also explicitly prohibited landlords from oppressing tenants into slaves and illegally torturing tenants. Of course, the law is one thing, but it is another to know that many farmers will be brutally oppressed by landlords in real life.