A Brief History of the Tujia: The Tujia During the 1911 Revolution and Republican Era (Part 3)
III. The Economy of Tujia Areas During the Republican Era — With the May Fourth Movement of 1919 and the CPC's founding in 1921, the revolutionary struggle entered the New Democratic period. Tujia economic and political life reached a new starting point, though KMT reactionary rule persisted.
This article has been compiled from historical materials on 'Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network' (33519.com · Specialty Foods / Cuisine / Customs section). Prices, business hours, administrative divisions, and statistical data mentioned in the text may already be outdated. Before traveling, please refer to the latest announcements from merchants, scenic areas, and local competent authorities; the parts involving folk legends and folk customs are local historical and cultural anecdotes, provided for cultural reference.
III. The Economy of the Tujia Areas During the Republic of China Period
In 1919 the May Fourth Movement broke out, and the working class stepped onto the political stage. In 1921 the Communist Party of China was born, and the revolutionary struggles of the people of all ethnic groups entered the period of New Democracy. The economic and political life of the Tujia people had a new starting point. However, with the connivance of the reactionary ruling class of the Kuomintang, imperialist aggression also further intensified. Japanese imperialism brazenly launched a war of aggression against China in July 1937 that lasted as long as eight years, and the flames of war spread to the border region of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Guizhou, causing the Tujia people to suffer deeply. In addition, the bureaucratic capital of the Kuomintang's four big families took the opportunity to penetrate deep into the Tujia areas for frenzied plunder. The Tujia people were plunged into dire suffering, inexpressibly miserable, and their desire for complete liberation became even more urgent, and the flames of struggle even more fierce.
(1) Plunder by Imperialism and Bureaucratic Capital
From June 1914 to November 1918, the First World War broke out among the imperialist powers. During the war, the great powers had no time to look east and for a time relaxed their oppression and plunder of China, and our country's national industry got a chance for temporary development. Imported goods that had once occupied the Tujia areas decreased in input, giving way to domestic goods from Shanghai, Wuhan and other places. Taking cotton yarn as an example, in 1920 more than 3,100 dan of foreign yarn were imported through the Yuezhou Customs, worth more than 239,000 Haikwan taels, most of which was transported to Changde and sold to Xiangxi and the Tujia areas of Laifeng in Hubei and Youyang and Xiushan in Sichuan; while in 1923 domestic cotton yarn passing through the Yuezhou Customs reached more than 88,000 dan, worth more than 4.14 million Haikwan taels, greatly exceeding the import volume of foreign yarn. Thereafter, foreign yarn sold to the Tujia areas through the Yuezhou Customs decreased year by year and was gradually replaced by domestic cotton yarn. But not long after the First World War ended, Britain, the United States, Japan, France and other countries came back again and strengthened their economic plunder of the Tujia areas. Foreign indigo, whose source had once been cut off, by 1924 saw more than 78,000 dan imported again at Hankou, part of which was sold to the Tujia areas of western Hubei, dealing a blow to the traditional local indigo production in the Tujia areas, causing it to lose its market, and the number of growers declined day by day. The American Standard Oil Company in Wanxian, and the Zhengda Company established by Britain through compradors in Suoli (present-day Jishou) in Xiangxi, dumped large quantities of kerosene in the border region of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Guizhou, and arbitrarily raised kerosene prices to plunder wealth. In 1934, kerosene in Xianfeng County sold for 3 jiao per market jin, while tung oil in Enshi County was worth only 1.76 jiao per market jin; the price of one jin of tung oil could not buy one jin of kerosene. This exploitation through unequal exchange was extremely severe.
The scale of imperialist plunder of raw materials in the Tujia areas expanded compared with before, and the quantity increased, making the traditional local and special products produced by the Tujia people closely dependent on the international market and turning them into a raw material production base. As international market demand for tung oil continued to increase, foreign firms from Britain, the United States, Japan and other countries swarmed in and purchased tung oil in the major commercial ports adjacent to the Tujia areas. Foreign firms such as Anyingli, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Rihua, Rehe, Fuzhong, Fuhe, Chengda and Fengli all rushed to Wanxian to buy large quantities of tung oil from western Hubei, Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang and other places. In the past, tung oil was purchased directly by Chinese merchants and transported to Hankou, then resold to foreign firms; now the foreign merchants replaced them, and Chinese merchants were squeezed out. Previously, the tung oil purchased by foreign firms was not processed or refined, but packed directly in wooden or iron barrels and shipped for export. In 1927, the American Shimei firm rented land in Wanxian and set up a factory, and tung oil was refined before being shipped directly to the United States. Afterwards, the Shengli firm and the Juxing Trade Department, Zhonghua Company, Tongyi, Huatong and other oil firms also successively set up factories in Wanxian to refine oil, so Wanxian's tung oil exports increased sharply, from more than 9,000 dan in 1912 to about 230,000 dan per year during 1922-1931. The net trade value of the Wanxian Customs (mainly tung oil) rose from 14 million customs taels in 1922 to more than 17 million customs taels in 1931. During 1922-1933, the imperialist powers successively set up foreign firms in Changde to plunder the tung oil abundantly produced in Xiangxi. According to Yuezhou Customs statistics, the annual export of tung oil was above 300,000 dan, and in three years tung oil exports exceeded 450,000 dan. Foreign firms not only squeezed out Chinese merchants from direct purchasing, but also went deep into the producing areas to investigate output, and according to changes in production and sales arbitrarily cut prices; whenever the situation was slightly unfavorable, they immediately stopped purchasing, causing tung oil growers to suffer deeply. After the War of Resistance Against Japan broke out, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hankou fell one after another, the Yangtze export route was cut off, and foreign merchants and compradors, seeing exports blocked and no profit to be made, immediately stopped buying; tung oil prices fell sharply, from forty-seven or forty-eight yuan per market dan to more than 10 yuan. Farmers were forced to destroy tung groves and switch to other crops, and thus tung oil output fell sharply, plummeting.
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, the black hand of the Kuomintang bureaucratic capital also reached into the Tujia region to plunder resources. In 1939, the Kuomintang ruling clique established the Commercial Revival Company to purchase tung oil in provinces such as Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou, using its own vehicles for transport. At the same time, it promulgated laws on unified purchasing and marketing, monopolizing bulk export materials such as tung oil, silk, and pig bristles, and stipulated that tung oil would be exclusively bought and sold by the Revival Company. From then on, the golden tung oil abundantly produced in the Tujia region once again became the wealth of bureaucratic capital. When the Revival Company purchased tung oil, it went to great lengths to drive prices down, so that the income farmers received from selling tung oil was not even enough to cover production costs. In Xiushan County before the war, every 100 jin of tung oil (each jin being 18 liang on the old scale) could be exchanged for 1.25 dan of rice (about 7 market dan). By 1944, the selling price of each dan of tung oil was worth only one-tenth of the price of one dan of rice. In western Hunan, farmers could not even exchange one dan of tung oil for 70 jin of salt. Under the strangling grip of bureaucratic-capitalist plunder policies, vast stretches of tung tree forests in Tujia areas were left to waste, with no one to reclaim or restore them; some were even destroyed for firewood. In western Hunan, western Hubei, and Xiushan and other places, tung oil production fell by about half.
The tea abundantly produced in the Tujia region was also an important target of imperialist plunder. In 1924, British merchants, through compradors, set up factories in the main tea-producing areas such as Hefeng and other places, using local cheap raw materials and labor to process black tea, which was exported via Guangzhou and Shanghai to Britain and the United States. When foreign merchants purchased tea, they drastically drove down the tea price, plundering large quantities of raw materials with a small amount of capital. In 1929, British firms in Hankou, taking advantage of the sluggish tea sales, did their utmost to force down the tea price, reducing each chest from the previous 40 taels of silver to fifteen or sixteen taels. Even Hankou was like this, so the situation in the tea-producing areas of western Hubei can be imagined. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, the 'China Tea Company,' controlled by bureaucratic capital, set up factories to process tea in places such as Bajiao Town in Enshi County, Changliangzi in Jianshi County, and Liujiashi in Hefeng County under the pretext of 'scientific inspection,' monopolizing tea processing and purchasing and sales, further intensifying the exploitation of the Tujia people. Under the severe devastation of imperialism and bureaucratic capital, tea production declined year by year. In the Enshi region, the annual output dropped from over 2 million jin before the war to only about 1.3 million jin before the founding of New China. In Hefeng County, long famous for tea, tea prices were low. In 1947, 40 jin of tea by the old scale could only be exchanged for one bolt of cloth, and 5 jin of tea for one jin of salt. The tea farmers' year-round earnings could not cover the expenses for tea workers and fertilizer. Unwilling to continue, tea farmers cut down tea trees and switched to growing miscellaneous grains, so that more than one-third of the tea gardens were left barren and production plummeted. Black tea alone, which had an annual output of about 400,000 jin before the war, had fallen to one-third of the pre-war output on the eve of the founding of New China.
Timber and medicinal materials such as gallnut produced in the Tujia areas were also important targets of imperialist plunder. Before the War of Resistance Against Japan, Xiangxi, one of the main timber-producing areas in Hunan Province, shipped timber via the Yuan River to Hankou, Nanjing and other places, with a sales value of 25 million yuan. Gallnut is an important industrial raw material for medicine and for making pigments, dyes and leather. Xiangxi's output accounted for 85% of Hunan Province's total, ranking first in the country. Among these, the counties under the Yongshun Administrative Office produced the most, accounting for about 73% of the province's output. Before the War of Resistance, Xiangxi's outward sales of gallnut reached more than 4 million yuan. After the war, under the strangling plunder of bureaucratic capital, the output of timber, gallnut and other medicinal materials declined day by day. From 1947 to 1949, Xiangxi's annual export of gallnut was only about 10,000 dan.
The result of imperialist commodity dumping and raw material plunder was that the natural economy of the Tujia areas was further destroyed, and rural hand spinning, weaving, printing and dyeing were severely hit. However, the degree of commercialization of agricultural and sideline products grew day by day. Taking tung oil and tea as examples, after the First World War, as imperialism plundered large quantities of tung oil and tea, their prices rose. Landlords who occupied large amounts of land and mountain forests, seeing profit to be made, rented land and hillsides to peasants to plant tung trees and tea, and thus "tung farmers" and "tea farmers" mainly engaged in planting tung and tea appeared, stimulating the development of the tung and tea industries. When poor peasants rented landlord land to plant tung trees, they had to sign contracts stipulating that each year they must pay tung seeds to the landlord, called "tung rent"; in some cases landlord and tenant split equally, in others the landlord took six and the tenant four, or even the landlord seven and the tenant three. Tung rent became one of the important sources of income for landlords. Each year after paying tung rent, tung farmers could only sell a small amount of remaining tung seeds to oil merchants or pressing houses to buy grain and other daily necessities.
The expansion of tung tree planting drove the development of rural hand-operated oil pressing. Wherever tung was produced, there were hand-operated pressing houses. These pressing houses were mostly run by oil merchants and landlords, hiring workers to press oil; some were set up with pooled folk funds, buying tung seeds to press oil for sale; or they pressed oil for tung farmers on commission, charging a handicraft fee. Youyang County had 5 large pressing houses, each able to press more than 300 jin of oil per day, and about 100 small pressing houses, each pressing about 150 jin per day. Qianjiang County had about 150 small pressing houses, pressing oil for 3 to 5 months each winter and summer, and switching to pressing rapeseed oil at the turn of spring and summer, averaging half a year to 10 months of pressing per year.
Raw lacquer from western Hubei and Youyang and Xiushan in Sichuan, ramie from Longfeng, Tunbao, Maoba and other places in Enshi County, and medicinal materials such as Changshan, Faxia and Maidong produced at Maodong in Laifeng County, and Coptis chinensis and Gastrodia elata from Shizhu County, had considerable output and were all important commodities shipped to other places.
(2) The Spread of Opium Cultivation
A serious disaster brought by Western capitalist aggression—the area of opium cultivation continued to expand, becoming one of the greatest social scourges in the Tujia areas. Opium was a vital source of revenue for warlords large and small, and also the foundation on which bandits depended for survival. Liu Xiang and Yang Sen, who long entrenched themselves in eastern Sichuan and western Hubei, and Chen Quzhen in Xiangxi, in order to buy guns and ammunition, increase troops and expand their strength, relied on armed force in their respective jurisdictions to force peasants to grow opium. Then they invented all kinds of pretexts to levy various opium taxes as their "legal" fiscal revenue. Under the violent suppression of these warlords, peasants of all ethnic groups in the Tujia areas were forced to switch large amounts of fertile farmland to opium, and the area planted with grain crops shrank.
The massive cultivation of opium brought endless disaster to the Tujia people; grain was difficult to self-supply, and the people's lives were unbearably hard. "In 1921, Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang and Pengshui in Sichuan suffered famine due to lack of grain, mainly because the land had been switched to opium." But the revenue from various kinds of opium taxes fattened warlords large and small. In 1932, the Hunan warlord He Jian, in order to deal with Chen Quzhen, who had carved out Xiangxi, planned countermeasures and set up a morphine factory in Fenghuang County, using opium entering from neighboring counties and counties along the Sichuan-Guizhou border to manufacture morphine and make a great fortune. Relying on the steady stream of opium revenue, warlords large and small bought guns and ammunition and expanded their troops; once their strength was sufficient and their wings full, they would launch wars, expand territory and fight one another. Thus opium and the chaotic wars among warlords became inseparably bound together. "The wars in Hunan for several years were entirely over the opium question, because most military men each occupied territory and forced farmers to plant opium and pay taxes. Among Hunan's tax-collecting areas, Xiangxi was considered the best; everyone wanted to be stationed in Xiangxi, and so they fought it out."
During the War of Resistance Against Japan and up to the eve of the founding of New China, opium once again became an important source of wealth for Kuomintang bureaucrats of all ranks, bandits, and landlords and local tyrants. Although the reactionary Kuomintang government ostensibly prohibited opium cultivation, in name it banned smoking but in reality it collected taxes, and opium cultivation in the Tujia areas did not decrease. The notorious local tyrant and bandit leader of Baojing County, nicknamed "Sweeping King," Xu Shidi, and his brother Xu Shifa, forced every peasant household to plant at least 1,000 opium plants and levied a tax of over 50 percent on the opium; those who did not plant it, besides being hung up and beaten, still had to hand over 2 liang of opium under the name of a "laziness tax." In Baojing County, "along the Shuizhen Township pass, opium seedlings covered the ground." At the junction of the three townships of Minzu, Minquan, and Minsheng in Wufeng County, and in Baiyanyuan, Chaqiu, and Maoping within Minzu Township, and in Tianyanping, Mazishan, Hengchong, and Baimacao within Minquan Township, there were quite a lot of opium seedlings, amounting to more than 1,000 mu. Landlords and local tyrants used armed force to protect opium cultivation. In the Mingxi, Sansuo, and Dada townships under the counties of Guzhang, Dayong, Sangzhi, Yongshun, and Longshan, "the annual output of opium was about 1,000 dan, ... at current prices, the annual income was at least between 100 billion and 200 billion." Opium was even more the greatest source of provisions and pay for bandits; they used armed force to compel peasants to cultivate it, and wherever bandits "entrenched themselves, opium was widely planted," and "the bandits depended on opium to survive, and opium depended on the bandits to grow." "Bandits and opium almost formed a close relationship of coexistence and shared prosperity." Therefore, "opium became the lifeline of the bandits; the bandits of western Hunan took opium cultivation as their sole productive undertaking, and strictly speaking, the people who became bandits truly had no way to live without cultivating opium."
The massive cultivation and smoking of opium spread poison far and wide and caused enormous harm, so that in some areas "in a village or a township, all trades were abandoned, and those who lost their families and fortunes were too numerous to count." Opium became a major social disaster in the Tujia areas and met with strong opposition from the people of all ethnic groups and condemnation from public opinion. Under the pressure of public opinion, the Kuomintang government sometimes had no choice but to order local officials to uproot the opium seedlings; however, the Kuomintang officials, thoroughly corrupt by nature, often stopped after accepting bribes, or the landlords and local tyrants put an end to it by resisting the uprooting with guns. Therefore, opium cultivation not only did not decrease, but the more it was banned, the more it increased.
(3) The Development of Handicrafts During the War of Resistance Against Japan
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, as Hankou and Changsha fell one after another, the Kuomintang Hubei Provincial Government moved to Enshi, and the Hunan Provincial Government withdrew to Yuanling. The population that moved into the Tujia areas increased sharply, sources of goods from outside were cut off, and daily necessities were in short supply, so handicrafts gained a brief opportunity for development.
Among the various handicrafts, the textile and papermaking industries developed most rapidly. Women in the vast rural areas used their slack farming seasons to spin yarn, and whenever there was a market day, they brought cotton yarn to exchange for cotton cloth; besides meeting their own families' needs, the surplus could also be sold. In the rural areas within forty li of Enshi County town, many women used single-type hand-cranked machines to spin yarn, and in the townships south and north of the county town there were also scattered weaving households that took weaving as their trade, with Longfengba having the most. In 1943, the Construction Department of the Kuomintang Hubei Provincial Government set up a textile factory at Hongmiao north of Enshi County town, with 30 Type 77 hand textile machines, 9 wide iron looms, and narrow wooden looms, with more than 120 workers and staff, producing more than 1,000 jin of yarn and nearly 500 bolts of cloth per month. The Bashih hemp-cotton textile cooperative, operated with funds raised among the people, was established in the rural area north of Enshi town, with about 44 iron-wood machines, narrow cloth low looms, and Type 77 improved spinning machines, 80 male and female workers, and a monthly output of more than 1,300 bolts of cloth. At Longfengba, a privately operated power cotton-fluffing factory had 2 sawtooth-type cotton-fluffing machines driven by water power, which could fluff more than 200 jin of cotton per day. The establishment of these factories spurred the development of rural hand-spinning; besides spinning their own yarn, they also lent cotton yarn to spinning households in nearby rural areas and then took back the homespun yarn, paying wages according to the quantity and quality of the homespun yarn. Some rural areas that formerly did not engage in spinning, under the impetus of these factories, also saw many rural women learn to spin and weave. The sock-weaving factory established in Yongshun County had 48 sock-weaving machines, and its products were sold in markets in nearby counties.
During the War of Resistance, as some cultural, educational, and news units moved into the Tujia areas, the demand for printing paper increased day by day, promoting the development of the handmade papermaking industry. In the past, peasants in the Tujia areas used their slack farming seasons and local materials to make only native bark paper for oil-paper lanterns, oil fans, and packaging, as well as fire paper for sacrificial use, while printing paper all had to be purchased from outside. In order to meet the needs of publishing newspapers, the Kuomintang Hubei Provincial Government sent technical personnel to use the abundant paper mulberry bark raw materials in the border area of the three counties of Xianfeng, Lichuan, and Enshi, and at Maoba in Lichuan County, the gathering market for paper mulberry bark, gathered bark paper workshop owners to improve techniques and make paper according to new methods. As a result, the papermaking industry in Maoba Township developed rapidly, with about more than 200 papermaking workshops, of which more than 20 had improved their techniques and produced products that could be used for printing newspapers, while the remaining workshops still made bark paper and fire paper. Among these papermaking workshops, only a few specialized in papermaking, while most were side occupations run by peasants during slack farming seasons, with small output; a skilled papermaker, working all day, could produce only 3.5 dao of paper. In 1943, Yongshun County, with official and merchant funds raised jointly and operated as a shareholding enterprise, opened a paper mill, raising a total of 270,000 yuan in legal tender, with each share worth 1,000 yuan; the Hunan Provincial Construction Department and the Yongshun County Government each contributed 90 shares, and the remaining 90 shares were raised among the people. In addition, handicrafts such as the manufacture of iron farm tools, printing and dyeing, and rice milling all developed to varying degrees.
However, the good times for the development of the various handicraft trades did not last long. After the end of the War of Resistance, under the devastation of Kuomintang rule, most were forced to stop production. Enshi County originally had more than 100 looms, but by the eve of the founding of New China only twenty or thirty were still in operation.
(4) The Building of Highways
In order to eliminate the Chinese Communist Party and the armed forces under its leadership, the Kuomintang recklessly plundered the economic resources of the Tujia areas and built highways on a large scale in the border areas of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou before and after the War of Resistance. In 1935, after deciding to build the Hunan-Sichuan Highway, construction was stepped up by sections, and after more than a year, the Hunan-Sichuan Highway, passing through the counties of Luxi, Qiancheng, Huayuan, Xiushan, Youyang, and Qianjiang, with a total length of more than 1,390 kilometers, was completed. In the western Hubei area, the highway from Badong through Enshi to Laifeng, and the highway from Yuanling around Sichuan to Enshi, were opened to traffic one after another.
The building of these highways not only became an important military supply line for the Kuomintang's encirclement and suppression of the revolutionary base areas and the main forces of the Red Army, but also became the main transport line for bureaucratic capital to plunder the local products of the Tujia areas, bringing deep disasters to the people of all ethnic groups along the routes. Under the policy of "building roads to suppress the Communists," the reactionary Kuomintang government conscripted large numbers of unpaid laborers. In the western Hunan section of the Hunan-Sichuan Highway alone, in the busy spring plowing season of 1936, "in order to take into account the hardships of the people," the labor service was reduced: "Qiancheng was reduced to 200,000 labor days, Yongsui to 200,000 labor days, Baojing to 150,000 labor days, Guzhang to 40,000 labor days, Yongshun to 115,000 labor days, and Fenghuang to 80,000 labor days, totaling 785,000 labor days." If the number of conscripted laborers was so great during the busy farming season, it can be imagined what it was like during the slack farming season. The vast numbers of Tujia, Miao, Han, and other ethnic laborers along the route not only had to bring their own grain and tools and undertake heavy corvee labor such as quarrying stone, transporting sand, and leveling roadbeds, but also often suffered beatings by overseers. On the Hunan-Sichuan Highway alone, the number of laborers who died from heavy labor, work accidents, and beatings by overseers reached 6,000.
Along the route, there were also no small number of peasants who fell into poverty after losing their land and means of production to the highway. Under the pretext of building highways, the Kuomintang government did everything possible to drive down land prices, requisitioned large tracts of land, and carried out brutal plunder of the peasantry. They set a low price of 4 yuan per mu to forcibly buy peasants' land, but even this meager compensation was long delayed and never paid by the Kuomintang government. The regulation became a mere scrap of paper, and the peasants who lost their land to the highway got nothing at all. "'The highway is built, but the people's fat and blood are drained'—such bitter words could be heard in almost every county along the route." As for the wealth the Kuomintang obtained by plundering resources, it was even more impossible to calculate.
In 1947, the units of the People's Liberation Army under Li Renlin and Wang Dinglie operated in western Hubei and from time to time struck into western Hunan. In order to prevent the PLA from entering western Hunan and to ensure "public order" in western Hunan, the Kuomintang again, under the name of "voluntary labor," forcibly conscripted large numbers of laborers and stepped up highway construction, attempting to establish a highway network in western Hunan. They planned to build lines from Yongsui (present-day Huayuan) to Yongshun, Cili to Dayong, Dayong to Yongshun, Cili to Sangzhi, Yongshun to Sangzhi, and Yongshun to Longshan. Some of these highways were completed under day-and-night rush construction by laborers, while others had to be abandoned because of the swift advance of the People's Liberation Army.
Although the construction of the highways in the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou border area was beneficial to Kuomintang rule at the time, objectively it also promoted the political and economic development of this region and provided favorable conditions for the Tujia people to build socialism after the founding of New China.
(5) Concentration of Land and the Cruel Exploitation of the Landlord Class
With the deepening of imperialist aggression, continuous internecine warlord warfare, and the reactionary Kuomintang government's sucking the people's marrow, the landlord class's oppression and exploitation of the peasants also intensified day by day. Taking advantage of the gradual bankruptcy of the rural economy, the landlord class bought up and annexed land on a large scale, causing large amounts of land to become concentrated in the hands of landlords. In the Tujia areas, landlords, generally about 5 percent to 7 percent of the total rural population, owned 40 percent to 50 percent of all land, and in some areas as much as about 70 percent. In Huangjindong, Xianfeng County, landlords accounting for 1.06 percent of the total population owned 63 percent of the land. In the second village of Miaoshi Township, Longshan County, 7 landlord households occupied 77 percent of the village's total paddy fields and 53 percent of its mountain land. Some big landlords' land spanned two or three counties; the puppet county magistrate of Guzhang County, Zhang Ping, annexed and seized more than 10,000 mu of land. The big landlord Feng Yuchi of Xintang, Enshi County, held land spanning the three counties of Enshi, Xuan'en, and Hefeng, with more than 60 tenant households; the big landlord Deng Lianxi of Bailiang held land spanning the two counties of Enshi and Lichuan. The big landlord in Laifeng County known as "Huang Tienaoqiao" owned fertile fields yielding more than 40,000 dan of grain annually, with land spanning the two counties of Laifeng and Longshan. Besides possessing large amounts of fertile land, landlords also owned large numbers of draft animals, farm tools, and other means of production, while the peasants, about 90 percent of the rural population, owned only 20 percent to 30 percent of the total land. The vast poor and hired peasants were forced to cultivate scattered small plots on mountains and in deep valleys, and many had completely lost their land and fallen into utter poverty. Relying on the large amounts of land they owned, the landlord class carried out cruel exploitation and oppression of the peasants, and the vast poor peasants with little or no land were forced to rent land from landlords for cultivation. To rent land, peasants first had to pay the landlord a deposit as a credit sum, otherwise it was difficult to rent land; even if they rented land, the land rent they bore was very heavy. In Wufeng County, Hubei, the deposit was called shangzhuang money, with no fixed amount; tenant households who were poor and unable to pay the deposit paid a heavier annual rent than those who paid the deposit, which the people called "heavy deposit, light rent; light deposit, heavy rent." Before the War of Resistance Against Japan, rent deposits in Sichuan gradually increased, rising by more than 10 percent over before, with the heaviest deposits in eastern Sichuan; in other areas, tenants renting land had to pay 60 percent of one year's land rent in advance as a deposit, while in eastern Sichuan they had to pay 80 percent. Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, and other places were no exception. The deposit was an important means by which the landlord class exploited the peasants; if peasants fell behind in rent or damaged trees, the landlord deducted it from the deposit paid by the tenant.
The main form of exploitation of peasants by the landlord class was the collection of land rent, chiefly rent in kind, though there was also money rent. Rent in kind had two forms, the share-rent system and the fixed-rent system, with the share-rent system predominating, and the division ratio between landlord and tenant determined according to the fertility of the land. For poor land it was a fifty-fifty split, for fertile land a sixty-forty split (landlord 60 percent, tenant 40 percent), and there were even cases as high as seventy-thirty (landlord 70 percent, tenant 30 percent). The fixed-rent system determined the division ratio between the two parties according to the annual harvest, and the rent was very high, generally accounting for half of the harvest, and in some cases 60 percent to 70 percent. When the currency value was stable and grain prices were low, some landlords often switched to collecting money rent.
Besides land rent exploitation, landlords also imposed numerous kinds of extra exploitation on the peasants. At festivals and on occasions of weddings and funerals, tenant households had to send gifts to the landlords; at every harvest season, when landlords inspected the fields and collected rent, tenant households had to prepare wine and meat to entertain them; when the landlord's household needed labor, tenant households also had to bear unpaid labor service. If tenant households did not bear these extra burdens, they ran the risk of having their tenancy taken away.
Exploitation through hired labor was also an important form by which the landlord class exploited the peasants. Poor peasants who had lost their land had no choice but to sell their labor power and work as long-term or short-term laborers for landlords and rich peasants in order to make a living. Hired labor was divided into yearly, monthly, and daily work. The wages of hired laborers were meager, and what they gained from a whole year of toil was only enough to barely maintain their own minimum subsistence. Some tyrannical landlords in Duogu Township, Longshan County, used their power to bully people; after a long-term laborer worked for a year, they not only gave him no wages but drove him out of the house and forbade other families to hire him.
Whenever there was a poor harvest or the lean season before the new grain came in, the vast poor peasants were forced to borrow from landlords, rich peasants, and rich merchants, enduring exploitation by usury. "In order to survive and continue farming, ordinary peasants could not but turn to those with capital for help. Thus usury became extraordinarily rapid and widespread in the countryside, burdening the peasants with mountains of debt." Landlords lent money, grain, and tung oil, and even opium became a form of loan. The interest rates were extremely high: generally 30 percent interest on money loans, 50 percent on grain loans, and even interest on interest, "rolling like a donkey," with rates as high as over 100 percent. The exactions of usury often made it impossible for peasants to repay, so they had no choice but to "repay debt with labor." Some poor peasants in Miaoshi Township, Longshan County, borrowed 20 jin of tung oil from a landlord, and as interest rolled on interest, they were forced to work as long-term laborers for the landlord for three years, which still did not cover the interest, and instead they owed the landlord 30 jin of tung oil. Some peasants in Dacun Township, Xianfeng County, borrowed money from a landlord, and three years later, as interest rolled on interest, more than 20 dan of their fields were all seized by the landlord, and they were forced to become long-term laborers for him.
Under the cruel oppression and exploitation of the landlord class, agricultural production remained stagnant for a long time, and the level of agricultural production was low. The vast poor peasants had only simple production tools such as hoes and firewood knives, and were very short of means of production such as draft oxen, plows, and harrows; they not only lacked the ability to expand reproduction, but even found it hard to maintain simple reproduction. As a result, agricultural output was very low: in normal years, paddy fields yielded two or three hundred jin per mu, and mountain corn yielded about one hundred eighty jin per mu. This was the inevitable result of the feudal landlord ownership system fettering the development of agricultural productive forces.