Chapter 42 Section 6 Two Antiques: Ida and Slave

Entering September, the state of Qin is boiling again. In previous years, when wheat was planted after the autumn harvest, it would be cold day by day.When the white autumn frost has passed, the people of Qin have entered a long period of nesting and winter.It was not until February of the following year that people came out of the kang heads in the huts and tile-roofed houses in the earthen kilns to spend the spring famine and prepare for spring plowing.In a normal year, there is no war, no corvee, and no labor for the first half of the year, which is almost the hibernation period for the entire country.People at that time lived a simple, dignified, free and easy life.All major events begin in spring and end in autumn.With the scorching heat in summer and the snow and ice in winter, people hibernate and seldom do big things when their hands and feet are not stretched.It is also because of this that Confucius named the historical event he recorded as "Spring and Autumn".So some people said that people at that time did not know that a year was divided into four seasons, but only knew spring and autumn.One of the proofs is that nothing about summer and winter can be found in ancient books.The cumbersome posterity has forgotten that the astronomical observations at that time were able to discover and record most of the stars in the sky, and they could also invent the binary "Book of Changes" gossip, and the calendar could already determine a year as three hundred and sixty-five. On the 25th, how can we be unaware of the only four climate changes in a year?

In the final analysis, it is the descendants who have forgotten the wisdom and grace of the ancestors-what is the point of the dormant period? The dormant tradition of the Qin people was disrupted by Wei Yang's new decree.Because before winter comes, Qin State will fully implement the new field law.What could be more disturbing than the land?Land is not only the basis for farmers and herdsmen to live and work, but also clan nobles and honored ministers and elders also have their own fiefdoms and dependent peasants, state government also has mountains, forests, water surfaces and cultivated land, and many businessmen and craftsmen also have land left by their ancestors.With the implementation of the New Field Law and the redistribution of land, the ruling and opposition parties were really excited.Compared with the turmoil and resentment after the promulgation of the first batch of decrees, this time it was much calmer, but it was also much deeper.People saw the strong determination of the government to reform the law from the Weishui court, and began to truly believe in the majesty of the new law.The most important thing is that hardworking and loyal farmers, herdsmen, and countrymen have felt the benefits of the disappearance of harassment after the punishment of tired people and private fights, and the great stability of the villages and neighbors, and they have truly supported the reform from the bottom of their hearts.The grievances between the ruling and opposition parties that were raging in the spring and summer gradually subsided with the arrival of autumn.With the implementation of the New Field Law, the people are more excited and uneasy, while the feudal nobles are more worried.

For Wei Yang's Zuoshu Changfu, autumn is a busier season. The abolition of well fields and the implementation of the new field system are the central link of all reforms and the fundamental cornerstone of the success or failure of reforms.The entire mansion has been intensively preparing since August. Officials from various government offices shuttled in and out of Zuo Shu Chang's mansion, and messengers traveled between Liyang and various counties like meteors.Wei Yang's study room was lit all night.In the State Affairs Office, Jing Jian led a team of civil servants around the clock day and night.In the face of this great change through the ages, there are too many things to do.

Well fields and slaves are two old antiques.From Dayu, the last of the five emperors, to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period, the well field system and slavery have been standing tall for three thousand years. They are the Taishan Beidou of the classical Chinese social framework, and the pillars of the central royal family and vassal states.Well field system and slavery co-exist, well field system is the framework of slavery, and slavery is the attachment of well field system.To understand these two old antiques, we must first talk about the well field system. The initiator of the well field system was Dayu who controlled the water.At that time, the land of Huaxia was in the era of floods, the climate was hot and humid, rivers and streams overflowed, large and small rivers and mountain streams all collided and flowed blindly and aimlessly, forming countless huge eddies on the land of mountains and plains.All over the ocean, people fled hurriedly from thatched huts, castles and earth kilns, and hid in high caves and woods.The lands for farming, grazing, pottery and hunting have all been reduced to water towns.If the flood cannot be tamed, the ancestors of the entire land of China will go back to the ancient times when they were as raw as hair and drank blood, and competed with the beasts in the forest for survival.Fortunately, the leader of the tribal alliance at that time was the great Emperor Shun. He was not frightened by the flood, but resolutely ordered his assistant Yu to take up the mission of flood control.Yu is a water control genius beyond the imagination of ordinary people.He abandoned the method of intercepting and controlling the waters of his ancestors for generations, and invented the great method of "guiding the water to flow into the sea".He persuaded the tribal leaders who had fled to the high mountains to ask their tribesmen to bring their own dry food and meat, and to guide the flood with him.After thirteen years of wind and rain, he went through the house three times without entering. Yu's two thighs were covered with thick calluses. Thousands of people were killed and injured in flood control. Finally, all rivers entered the sea and the flood was subdued.

Yu's great deeds are passed down by everyone, and people call him Dayu.At this time, Emperor Shun was old, and Dayu became the leader that the ancestors scrambled to support.Dayu established the first country, the country name is "Xia". The flood receded and the earth was revealed.The flood entrained soil, filled the gullies and ravines, and created a large area of ​​plain land, which is boundless and flat as far as the eye can see.People came out of the mountains and forests, vying to occupy the fertile land, fighting and fighting, and the chaos was out of control.However, Dayu was the first head of state, firm and resolute, he did not shrink back in the face of chaos and contention, but determined to establish a farming order that would enable people to live in harmony.He invented a farming method called well field system.That is, on the vast, flat and fertile plain, the land is divided into countless large squares in the shape of a "well". Every eight families have a "well".The only well in Bajia is located in the center of the public land.People come to fetch water every morning and exchange leftover items at the well.Around the eight fields (one well) are irrigation canals and roads.Ten wells, one village, ten villages, one commune, people formed a non-aggressive village and commune in the flat fields.At that time, the population was small, and the square well fields drawn by the alluvial plains were enough for the population at that time to live and cultivate.

At that time, the well field system was a great invention.It weaves scattered and disorderly farmers into a framework, making them work together to cultivate, resist disasters, live in harmony, and harvest more and more things.However, there are also predatory tribes who do not obey the rules and still rely on violent killings to rob other tribes of food, livestock and property in the well fields.Dayu met the princes (tribal leaders) in Kuaiji Mountain, publicly killed the Fangfeng clan who did not abide by the rules of the well field and was late for the meeting, and announced the establishment of an army that would never be disbanded, specifically to crusade against the tribes that disrupted the order of the well field.

Since then, the well field system has really gained a firm foothold. One thing to be clear is that the well fields allocated to ordinary farmers (free people) can only be cultivated, and cannot be bought or sold or disposed of arbitrarily.In the words of later generations, it is "state-owned private farming".It is said that "under the whole world, is it the land of the king. On the shore of the land, is it the king's ministers", which is exactly the relationship between man and land in the era of the well field system.When the king needs it, he can confiscate the cultivated fields of common farmers and give them to others.When civilians commit crimes, it is even more natural to confiscate their land, even confiscating the offender and his family as government slaves.In other words, the right to dispose of land rests with the central government.The well fields cultivated by common people can never be transferred and inherited like real private property, let alone free trade.

The well field system also has a twin system, which is slavery. At that time, kings, princes (tribal leaders) and patriarchs, big and small, all owned large tracts of land, which were private well fields.Although the owner of this kind of private well field does not have the legitimate right to dispose of the land, it is a step ahead of the common people's only farming right.As long as the masters (lords) of the rich clan do not commit crimes, invite the emperor to crusade, or fail in wars, these lands are actually their own private property and can be transferred, gifted or even bought and sold.With land, someone has to cultivate it.Kings, princes, and patriarchs forcefully arranged prisoners of war, criminals, and poor people who depended on them for various reasons to cultivate their land.Except for what is left to the cultivator just enough to survive, all the harvest is turned over to the owner of the land.Kings, big and small princes, patriarchs and their families relied on the harvest from these "slave well fields" and the public lands of free farmers to maintain the army, officials and a comfortable and wealthy life.Workers in private wells are slaves, also called slave farmers.They do not have the status of free citizens recognized by the government, and the government's "Liangmin" (household registration) does not register them in the register.Their identities only exist in the "slave status" of the masters (lords) of the rich family.Slaves from prisoners of war and criminals have the unique emblem of the master's family branded or tattooed on their faces. Even if they escape, they have nowhere to go.For generations, slaves could only work for free in the well fields of their masters.The only difference between the private wells cultivated by slaves and the wells of free people is that there is only a well in the center of the private wells and no public fields.For thousands of years, the well field system and the subordinate farming system attached to the well field system have become an inseparable whole.As far as the amount of land is concerned, the amount of land occupied by the typical well fields cultivated by freemen (there are public fields and self-cultivated fields) is far less than that of private well fields cultivated by slave farmers.Later, private well fields were gradually recognized by the king, and they were called "fiefdoms", that is, personal land granted to nobles.

This kind of farming slaves (slave farmers) who were forcibly imprisoned in the well fields was the main part of slavery. Another kind of slave is labor slave.This kind of slavery is divided into government slaves and domestic slaves, and its sources are also prisoners of war, family members of criminals, and impoverished people.In addition to being servants, government slaves are also hard labor in government projects.This slavery, a minor part of slavery that lasted until the early twentieth century AD, is not the topic here. After more than 600 years in the Shang Dynasty and 700 to 800 years in the Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou Dynasties, with the increase of population, the development of commodity exchange, the deterioration of land quality, frequent wars, coups and other factors, the land of the free people became less and less, and the subordinates There are more and more private well fields that farmers rely on, and disorderly competition reappears in society. The well field system is already riddled with holes.At this time, some official families used means such as plundering by force, buying and selling money, and confiscating criminals to steal a large amount of land and became a new landlord force in many vassal states.Another part of the big businessmen also bought a lot of land and dependent slaves with money, and became new landlords at the same time.The emerging landlords occupied a large amount of land and population, and gradually dominated the regimes of many vassal states, which naturally formed a huge threat to the old way of existence of "royal power-well fields-slaves".The emerging land mainly creates the foundation of private government, and it is necessary to continuously expand the number of free civilians, and it is necessary to make land a mobile wealth.In order to maintain the foundation of its own existence, the old royal power must fix the well field system that "the people are not allowed to buy or sell", and turn the mobile land into the "king soil" that is solidified in the well field framework, otherwise, the world will not be peaceful.

This kind of great competition has led to long-term turmoil, continuous killings and conquests, and the world is in chaos! As a result, many people of insight put forward various proposals for salvation.Confucianism firmly advocates the restoration of the well field system. From Confucius to Mencius, Confucianism has been running around the world for hundreds of years, and it has made unremitting appeals for this.Lao Tzu of Taoism also put forward the idea of ​​returning to the ancient times that "a small country has few people", "the voices of chickens and dogs are heard, and the people do not communicate with each other when they are old and dead". In fact, he also supports the restoration of the well field system.

The newly emerged landlords, aristocrats and legalists strongly opposed the return to the ancient era of well field system.They advocated the abolition of the well-field system and the subordinate farming system, and the establishment of a new land system that can better motivate farmers to work hard, and a new land system that enables new landlords to expand their land freely by relying on wealth. . However, talk is all about talk, quarrels are all quarrels, and the only one who really realized the new field system was the half-new and half-old "Wuchengtian System" promoted by Li Kui's reform in the state of Wei.Li Kui only carried out the "land acquisition and sale" on the well fields cultivated by the free people and the official well fields of the Wei State, and abolished the fiefdom and slave farming.The private well fields of the old nobles who played an important role in Wei State still retain the fiefdoms (private well fields) and slave farmers.The more or less reforms of other countries like Chu, Qi, South Korea, and Zhao did not exceed the limits of Wei.Yan Guo and Qin Guo, two old vassal states, did not touch the old land system in any way.The remaining more than 30 small vassal states, not to mention the abolition of the well field system. The fact is that until the reform of the Qin State, the well field system was not completely abolished in any country. Now, Wei Yang wants to completely abolish the well field system in Qin State, which will inevitably end the slave farming system. How can it not cause shocks in the government and the public?How can it not arouse the panic and uneasiness of the nobles who rely on the fiefdom to pamper them?