During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the traditional society in China experienced a period of economic system reform, from the feudal system in the Western Zhou Dynasty to the landlord system. After hundreds of years of development and changes, the landlord system was established in Qin and Han Dynasties. "People get business" in abandoned ore fields has created a new era of economic operation. The economic system of landlord system is composed of various economic components, including state-owned economy, yeoman economy, tenant economy, handicraft economy and commercial economy. Among them, small-scale peasant economy (including yeoman economy and tenant farmer economy) is the basis of landlord economy. When the local main economy expands infinitely, the balance between various economic components under the landlord system will be broken, the yeoman economy will be greatly hit and decline, and the vast number of yeomen will become tenant farmers, or dependent farmers of landlords, or hire workers. Tenant farmers' economy was squeezed by the bankruptcy of yeoman farmers, and a considerable number of original tenant farmers were excluded and became refugees. With the destruction of the small-scale peasant economy, the dependence between the main tenant farmers and the tenant farmers is strengthened, and the social status of the whole peasant class is declining. At the same time, craftsmen also closed down because the small-scale peasant economy went bankrupt and the products could not find a way out. At this time, the landlord economic system will retrogress, or even retrogress. Unwilling to go bankrupt, small farmers and craftsmen will struggle for the economic interests they once had, and a huge peasant war broke out with farmers and craftsmen as the main body. Under the washing of the peasant war, the landlord's economic system will return to the normal track, the interests of various economic components will be temporarily balanced, the enthusiasm of labor producers will be greatly exerted, and the social economy will be restored and developed in the new round of economic relations, leading to prosperity.
After a great peasant war and the establishment of the new dynasty, a series of measures were taken to stabilize social order and restore and develop production. For example, encourage land reclamation, hand over land ownership to land reclamation people, ask them not to raise Kona grain within a specified period of time, reduce the burden of corvee, give financial subsidies to those who have no cattle and seeds, vigorously build water conservancy projects, or help farmers dig wells to irrigate their fields and encourage farmers to develop household sideline businesses. In the year of famine, part of the land tax can be exempted, or reduced, or the land merger behavior of landlords can be suppressed, and so on. At this time, the small-scale peasant economy has been restored and developed under relatively loose social and economic conditions. Driven by the development of small-scale peasant economy, the whole social economy has also moved from decline to recovery and prosperity. All this is influenced and restricted by the landlord economy.
Under the restriction of the landlord's economic system, land can be bought and sold, and it is not fixed in the hands of one person. Because of the different land ownership, the social and economic operation in China is quite different from that in western Europe. In western Europe, under the yoke of feudal economic system, manor implements division of labor system and produces various products to meet the production needs of manor, which is not closely related to the market. Restricted by the economic system of landlord system, China has obvious China characteristics because of its small scale, single products and strong dependence on the market.
Under the restriction of the landlord system, every household is an independent economic unit. Because the land they manage is not large, farmers with more cultivated land in the southern region only occupy dozens of acres, while families with less land only occupy three or five acres of cultivated land, or even a few acres. Although the cultivated land area of farmers in the north is larger, ranging from a few hundred acres to a dozen or several acres, the output per unit area is lower than that in the south. Judging from the demographic structure of the family, there are not many family members in both the south and the north. There are usually four or five family members. Although several generations live under the same roof, there are only a few. Landlords occupy a lot of land, many of which are tens of thousands of pieces, but most of the land is divided into small pieces and rented to farmers to collect land rent for a living. Land harvest is mainly based on grain, which is very single and cannot fully meet the needs of production and life. All economic units must realize their own economic reproduction through exchange. The existence of thousands of economic units and the coexistence of various economic components provide a very broad space for the development of market economy.
However, the development of market economy also depends on the purchasing power of society at that time. The traditional society in China was dominated by agricultural economy, and the prosperity and depression of market economy depended on the development of agricultural economy, the activity of rural economy and the prosperity of farmers' lives at that time. Some people think that the market development in some areas is driven by the concentration of local bureaucrats and high consumption level. However, judging from the national social and economic development, this is only a very rare case and cannot be expanded. The number of handicraft workers, businessmen and bureaucrats is also small. According to research, in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the urban population accounted for less than 10%, that is, only one tenth at most. Although these people are closely related to the market, highly dependent on the market economy and have high consumption, there are few people. For the whole social economy, their purchasing power is still limited, which can't play a pulling role in the market economy as a whole. Therefore, the development of rural economy is the key to the development of market economy. Instead of this, looking for other reasons is to pick up sesame seeds and throw watermelons, grasping the small and not grasping the big.
China's feudal society was dominated by agriculture, which was the most basic condition for farmers to survive. The development and decline of agricultural economy in Ming and Qing dynasties, the prosperity and decline of rural economy, and the historical process of increasing or decreasing farmers' needs vividly depict the relationship between agriculture, rural areas, farmers and markets. If there is more water, there will be more fish. When the water is dry, the fish will die. Farmers have more money in their pockets, but the market is booming. When the local economic system is operating normally, the yeoman economy exists in large quantities, farmers' enthusiasm for production is fully exerted, agriculture is developed, the volume of commodities is increased, farmers' money bags are gradually enriched with the development of production, farmers have more money, the market is prosperous, and businessmen are rich. At the end of the dynasty, the market gradually shrank and enterprises closed down. The reason is that the government's policy of attaching importance to agriculture finally failed to persist. With the rapid rise of the landlord economy, the policy of attaching importance to agriculture has changed to the policy of giving up agriculture, and farmers have been slaughtered at will like lambs. The yeoman couldn't bear the exploitation of hard labor, abandoned the land, and the tenant couldn't bear the heavy rent and plunder, and left the land, which destroyed agricultural production. At this time, farmers' money bags become empty, and the market loses its driving force. If the goods cannot be sold, the market will be depressed. At this time, businessmen will go bankrupt, businessmen will be unemployed, handicrafts will close down, and social and economic depression will occur. This is the easiest truth to understand. In the past, when talking about the underdeveloped business in China, many people always liked to simply attribute the problem to the policy of "emphasizing agriculture and restraining business" of the dynasty, which may be a misunderstanding. Except that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty suppressed the development of businessmen by donating money, the subsequent dynasties did not adopt the policy of cracking down on or depriving businessmen. Although there are political restrictions on businessmen's participation in the imperial examination, it does not affect businessmen's being an official. There have been people who bought officials and businessmen in past dynasties. Moreover, the policy of giving money adopted by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty is mainly aimed at unscrupulous businessmen who evade taxes, not at people, not at whether they want a commercial system. Law-abiding businessmen were allowed to operate as usual, small traders and hawkers were not hit, and salt and iron trading continued as usual. At that time, the government's behavior was not to ban the market and prohibit transactions, which is still very clear. We should not generally exaggerate it as "suppressing business" just because we punish unscrupulous businessmen.