A Brief History of the Tujia: The Tujia in the Late Qing and Early Republican Period (Part 2)
II. The Economy of Tujia Areas After Imperialist Invasion — After the Opium War, capitalist powers forced the Qing government to sign unequal treaties, gradually dissolving China's feudal society into a semi-colonial, semi-feudal one, profoundly affecting the Tujia border region.
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II. The Economy of the Tujia Region After the Imperialist Invasion
After the Opium War, the capitalist powers forced the Qing government to sign a series of unequal treaties, and China's feudal society gradually disintegrated, reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. The gradual penetration of imperialist aggressive forces and the drastic changes in Chinese society all affected the Tujia region bordering Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou, bringing great changes to the Tujia people's politics, economy, culture, and other aspects.
(1) The Dumping of Capitalist Goods
After the imperialists forced the Qing government to open Hankou, Shashi, Changsha, Chongqing, Yuezhou, Wanxian, and other cities as treaty ports, goods from Western capitalist countries were successively transported to the Tujia region for dumping. The invasion of capitalist goods into the Tujia region mainly followed the Xiang River from Changsha, passing through Changde, Jinshi, and Yuanling to western Hunan; from treaty ports such as Hankou, Shashi, Yichang, and Wanxian to Yidu, then via the Qing River to Enshi, Xuan'en, Lichuan, and other places; and from Chongqing down the Yangtze River to Fuling, then up the Wu River to the Youyang, Xiushan, and Qianjiang areas of southeastern Sichuan. By the late Xianfeng reign of Emperor Wenzong of the Qing Dynasty, goods from capitalist countries had already been sold in places like Laifeng.
Between 1861 and 1911, foreign goods sold in the Tujia region mainly included cotton cloth, cotton yarn, woolen fabric, kerosene, soap, matches, cigarettes, quick indigo, soda, hardware, and other commodities from Britain, the United States, Germany, Japan, and other countries. Taking cotton yarn as an example, Changde was the trade hub of western Hunan and an important market for cotton yarn distribution. Of the foreign yarn imported through the Yuezhou Customs, 7/10 was concentrated in Changde and distributed to the upper reaches of the Yuan River and nearby counties. The sales markets in the upper reaches of the Yuan River included Yongshun Prefecture city, Wangcun, Longtou in Baojing County, and Xiche and Liye in Longshan County. Shinan Prefecture in Hubei, Maodong in Laifeng County, Longtan in Youyang, Sichuan, Shidi in Xiushan, and Chadong in Huayuan, Hunan, were all markets for Changde foreign yarn distribution. According to statistics, in 1900, the Yuezhou Customs imported 573 dan of foreign cotton yarn, valued at over 14,800 customs taels; by 1914, the import of cotton yarn surged to 58,398 dan, valued at over 1,463,600 customs taels, a 100-fold increase in 15 years. Around 1900, the import of foreign yarn at Yichang increased exponentially, with British yarn rising from over 2,000 pounds to over 2,600 pounds; Japanese yarn from over 28,000 pounds to over 141,000 pounds; and cotton yarn from India also grew rapidly. According to the "Industrial Records of Hubei Province," in 1918, foreign goods transported from Hankou to treaty ports such as Yichang and Shashi included over 130,000 bolts of foreign cloth, over 160,000 dan of cotton yarn, over 5,900 dan of foreign indigo, over 46,800 dan of foreign soda, 4.78 million gallons of kerosene, over 269,000 cigarettes, and over 200,000 gross of matches. A large portion of these foreign goods was dumped in the counties under Shinan Prefecture.
In addition, Britain established a postal branch in Yongshun County in the late Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, directly operating postal services.
With the deepening of foreign aggressive forces and the yearly large-scale dumping of goods from capitalist countries, the feudal self-sufficient natural economy of the Tujia region was gradually destroyed, reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal economy. The Tujia people of Yongshun County originally mostly wore homespun cloth that they planted, spun, and wove themselves, and supplied surplus homespun to nearby counties, even selling it to other provinces. After the dumping of foreign yarn and cloth from Britain and Japan, handicraft workers were severely hit, homespun gradually lost its market, production declined day by day, and some family handicrafts and manual weaving workshops were forced to stop production and go bankrupt. Yongshun changed from an exporter of homespun to an importer of yarn and cloth.
The native indigo that the Tujia people grew in mountain fields and spare land for their own cloth dyeing was one of the famous local products of the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou border region. Due to the import of quick indigo from Germany and Japan, dyehouses mostly bought quick indigo, native indigo was squeezed out, and the number of growers dropped sharply.
The Tujia people have a long history of producing yellow wax and white wax, and their products were always sold elsewhere. However, due to the import of foreign wax, the market for native wax was gradually occupied by foreign wax. In addition, cigarettes from the British Tobacco Company sold well in the Tujia region, causing the cultivation of tobacco leaves to decrease year by year.
(2) Massive Plunder of Raw Materials
While dumping large quantities of goods, the imperialist countries also plundered cheap raw materials on a large scale. The famous local products of the Tujia region, such as tung oil, tea, timber, and medicinal herbs, became their main targets of plunder, with tung oil being the largest and tea next. The Tujia region is an important producer of tung oil in China, with the tung oil of Xiushan, Sichuan, being the most famous. In the past, tung oil was not exported, and overseas sales were limited. After foreigners discovered that tung oil could be used for paint, they plundered and shipped it away in large quantities, and it sold well in Europe and America.
After Hankou was opened as a treaty port in 1885, Britain, the United States, and other countries established oil refineries, and merchants from various places flocked to the Tujia region. During the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, merchants from Hubei, Jiangxi, and other provinces alone set up eight large trading firms in Xiushan County, specializing in the tung oil business. Chinese merchants bought tung oil, transported it to Hankou, sold it to foreign merchants, and after processing and refining, it was exported to Britain and the United States. After Yuezhou was opened as a treaty port in 1899 and Changsha in 1904, the two places became important distribution centers for Hunan's tung oil exports. In 1911, of the tung oil exported from all customs nationwide, 15.58% was exported through the Changsha and Yuezhou customs, and the Yuezhou Customs alone declared exports of over 300,000 dan of tung oil annually. Of the tung oil exported through the Changsha and Yuezhou customs, western Hunan's tung oil accounted for a considerable proportion. In order to plunder more tung oil, Britain also established the Anliying Foreign Firm in Changde, specializing in tung oil. Since then, Changde and Jinshi became the tung oil distribution markets for the Yuan River and Li River basins.
Wanxian, located along the Yangtze River, became a center for goods distribution after it was opened as a treaty port in 1915. The United States established the Mobil Oil Company in Wanxian, specializing in buying tung oil and selling kerosene. Tung oil produced in counties south of the Yangtze River, such as Enshi, Lichuan, Xianfeng, Xuan'en, Hefeng, Wufeng, Badong, and Shizhu, was concentrated in Yichang and Wanxian for export. In 1918, the trade value of the Wanxian Customs was over 5.58 million customs taels, with tung oil being the major export commodity. Tung oil from Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, and other counties was mainly concentrated in Fuling, at the mouth of the Wu River where it joins the Yangtze, and then 2/3 of the tung oil was transported to Wanxian, and 1/3 to Chongqing. According to the "Overview of Sichuan's Tung Oil Trade," Fuling "concentrated oil from inland areas such as Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, and Pengshui, and sold it in Chongqing and Wanxian, reaching 40,000 to 70,000 dan annually, making it a major transshipment market for Sichuan tung oil." In addition, tung oil from Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, and other counties also passed through western Hunan and was concentrated in Changde and Jinshi markets, in considerable quantities.
Although tung oil sold well abroad, the Tujia people did not benefit much, because the price of tung oil was controlled by foreign firms in Hankou, Wanxian, Changde, and other places, and was completely at their mercy. Foreign merchants often bought large quantities of tung oil at low prices, reaping huge profits. In the nearly twenty years from 1892 to 1911, a catty of tung oil in western Hunan was worth only 60 to 80 wen, equal to the price of kerosene. Originally, the value of tung oil was much higher than that of kerosene, and the imperialist countries, by manipulating prices, plundered and exploited the Tujia people through unequal exchange. In the early years of the Republic of China, the international market demand for tung oil increased daily, and the imperialist countries continuously built more railways in China, requiring large amounts of tung oil for painting train cars, so the price of tung oil began to rise, selling for 600 wen per catty, twice the price of kerosene in the same period.
Tea is one of the major local products of the Tujia region, with the tea from Hefeng and Guzhang being of the finest quality. In the early years of the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, merchants from Guangdong had already reached Hefeng Prefecture, where they established the Taihehe and Qianshenzhuang firms in Wuliping, specializing in black tea, which was transported to Hankou and then resold to foreign merchants for export, and was praised by foreigners as a high-grade product. Merchants from imperialist countries employed their usual tactics, seizing every possible opportunity to drive down the price of tea. In the spring of 1892, due to climatic irregularities in Hunan, the black tea crop was damaged, and the exported tea occasionally varied in quality. The British merchants seized upon this as a pretext to find fault and took the opportunity to force prices down. Hunan tea merchants were compelled to sell at reduced prices, and as a result, Hunan tea suffered a loss of over one million taels of silver, while the foreigners reaped enormous profits. In 1893, the British merchants, by monopolizing tea prices, left Chinese merchants with no recourse. Once again, Hunan merchants lost over one million taels of silver, with some ruined and bankrupt, and some even drowning themselves in rivers.
Under imperialist exploitation, Chinese tea merchants were helpless and suffered greatly; however, the merchants passed their losses on to the tea farmers by purchasing at depressed prices, which made the exploitation of the tea farmers even more severe. In Xiangxi, one of Hunan's tea-producing regions, tea farmers and tea merchants of all ethnic groups were among those who suffered.
(3) The Widespread Cultivation of Opium
During the Xianfeng reign of the Qing Dynasty (1851-1861), opium, as a special commodity of the British aggressors, invaded the Tujia region along with goods from other capitalist countries. By the Tongzhi and Guangxu reigns (1862-1908), opium cultivation in the Tujia region had become relatively widespread. In Youyang Prefecture, because opium "fetched a very high price, it was planted everywhere in the countryside." However, the corrupt and incompetent Qing court not only did not strictly prohibit opium, which poisoned the bodies and minds of all ethnic groups, but instead set up likin stations throughout the Tujia region and nearby areas, collecting opium taxes as an important source of revenue. Taking the eastern Sichuan area as an example, in 1861, the Qing government set up a native likin bureau in Fuzhou, and successively established native likin bureaus in Lianghekou at the border of Pengshui County and Youyang Prefecture, Longtanchang within Youyang Prefecture, Yushanzhen at the border of Qianjiang County and Pengshui County, Yangduxi and Wujuzhen within Shizhu Ting, and Beidichang, to collect opium taxes. The opium likin collected by the Fuzhou native likin bureau alone was about 33,000 taels in a poor year and around 46,000 taels in a good year.
Some landlords and rich merchants also made dealing in opium an important means of getting rich. Opium firms such as Fudaxiang, Hecheng, Xujunfu, and Xiangfenghou, opened in Fuzhou, bought opium from Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, and other places, entrusted foreign merchants with transportation, and made huge profits.
After the Xinhai Revolution, warlords fought among themselves, and warlords big and small all used opium as the greatest source of wealth to strengthen their power, expand their territory, and fill their own pockets. The Sichuan warlords Liu Xiang and Yang Sen, who long occupied eastern Sichuan and western Hubei, and the warlords Zhang Xueji and Tian Yingzhao, who entrenched themselves in western Hunan, each forced farmers in their defense zones to grow opium. Huang Fusheng, the Daoyin of eastern Sichuan, even sent people everywhere to encourage cultivation and collect donations. As a result, opium cultivation became even more rampant in the Tujia region, especially in Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, and other counties. The transportation and sale of opium were directly manipulated and controlled by warlords big and small, who created a bewildering variety of taxes and levies, such as the poppy seedling tax, stamp tax, departure tax, transit tax, sales tax, domestic sales tax, red lamp tax, and surtax, to extort money. What was especially vicious was that they imposed a "lazy tax" on farmers who were unwilling to grow opium, or doubled their taxes. If a farmer only grew grain crops and not opium, then growing grain for one year would require paying three years' taxes; if the next year they still did not grow opium, they would owe five years' taxes. Under such high-handed coercive measures, Tujia farmers were forced to convert large areas of fertile land to opium cultivation.
The widespread cultivation of opium brought endless disasters to the Tujia people. Agricultural production was severely damaged, grain output plummeted, and they could not support themselves, relying on grain imports from outside every year, and the entire rural economy was on the verge of bankruptcy. Various kinds of opium taxes made the Tujia people "unable to pay the levies with the opium they harvested, and with no way to borrow, some sold their plowing oxen, pawned their green crops, sold their houses, married off their wives and sold their children, and some committed suicide individually or even the whole family committed suicide."
(4) The Development of the Commodity Economy
The massive dumping of goods from capitalist countries destroyed the self-sufficient natural economic foundation of the rural Tujia region, gradually bankrupting some farmers engaged in household handicraft production and urban handicraft workers. After being forced to give up household handicraft production, some farmers had to sell part of their agricultural and sideline products in exchange for daily industrial goods, increasingly linking agricultural production with the commodity market, thus stimulating to a certain extent the development of the commodity economy in the Tujia region.
In the early period of the invasion of capitalist goods into the Tujia region, due to high mountains, dangerous roads, and inconvenient transportation, foreign goods arrived intermittently, and the traditional manual textile industry could still develop slowly in the gaps when foreign yarn and cloth sometimes did not arrive. Tujia women spun yarn in their spare time from farming, and "in both town and countryside, the sound of spinning was continuous throughout the four seasons. Every village and market had weaving workshops, and cloth was made by weavers. At every market day, women from near and far brought yarn to exchange for cotton, shoulder to shoulder and heel to heel." The handicraft workers of Laifeng County could not only weave and dye various colored patterned cloth that was "beautifully mottled," but also weave cotton thread into patterned blankets, and use cow hair as raw material to weave cowhair blankets for sale in the market. In the late Qing Dynasty, with the massive import and dumping of foreign yarn and cloth, native yarn and cloth lost their market, the market was occupied by foreign goods, and the manual textile industry in the Tujia region gradually declined.
However, due to the increasing development of commodity exchange, the paper used for packaging goods increased, which in turn stimulated the development of the manual papermaking industry. The Tujia people in Yongshun, Enshi, Lichuan, Xianfeng, and other counties used local materials, using tree bark and rice straw as raw materials, making paper by traditional methods and selling it to merchants for packaging goods. The native paper made by paper mills in Waibaishaobao, Baiyanggou, Chuandong, Laoyanggou, and other places in Yongshun County was mostly sold to Baojing and other counties. In Changyang County, the people raised funds to establish Doufang paper mills and leather paper mills. The Doufang paper mill employed over 40 workers and produced over 200,000 blocks of paper annually, worth nearly 20,000 yuan.
With the large-scale export and sale of local products such as tung oil, tea oil, tea, and medicinal herbs, small-scale manual oil pressing mills and tea processing factories were continuously established. At the same time, the demand for boxes, barrels, baskets, and crates for shipping goods greatly increased, thus stimulating the development of the wood and bamboo handicraft industries. The woodworkers of Lijieping in Xianfeng County had high skills; the wooden barrels they made did not use wood chips and could hold oil without leaking for a long time. These handicraft industries developed to meet the needs of imperialist plunder of raw materials and actually became subsidiary processing factories for foreign firm compradors.
The handicraft iron industry, which produced iron farm tools and daily utensils, also developed. The blacksmiths of Dingzhai in Xianfeng County could even imitate new methods to make very fast breech-loading guns. In 1919, Yongshun County established a comprehensive craft factory of rough scale, with a machinery department for manufacturing guns and repairing machine parts, a sewing department for weaving cloth and tailoring clothes and socks, and a printing department for carving seals and lithographing books and forms. Because of insufficient funds, it operated intermittently. Later, although the Huayang Fundraising and Credit Society allocated 3,800 yuan to the factory and further raised donations, gathering funds with great momentum for revival, in the end it again came to a halt.
Under the influence of the Westernization Group's idea of "seeking wealth" in the late Qing Dynasty, some landlords and rich merchants among the Tujia people raised funds themselves, pooled shares for joint operation, or jointly operated with prominent gentry to exploit the region's rich mineral resources. During the Tongzhi reign, a Tian family of Longjiazhai in Yongshun County trial-mined iron ore at Erwanjie and "often obtained substantial profits." Jianshi County invited merchants to mine saltpeter in caves such as Zimi, producing over 30,000 jin of refined saltpeter annually, sold to the six counties under Shinan Prefecture, so that silversmith shops no longer needed to buy saltpeter from provinces like Henan and Hunan. The cinnabar mined in Xiushan County—"factory owners transported it out of the region, earning tens of thousands of gold annually." Some factory owners "evaporated the liquid into mercury, also earning two or three thousand gold." The cinnabar factory operated by Chen Jitai made great profits, "within a few years becoming a wealthy household." By the Guangxu reign, the mining of coal, iron, copper, lead, antimony, gold, and other mineral resources became even more active. Hefeng Prefecture, with the approval of the Bureau of Invitation to Merchants, raised funds from merchants to establish a bureau in Jiutai Township to mine copper and lead, and results were soon seen. The iron ore of Dapang Mountain in Baisha Bao, Yongshun County, and the antimony ore of Chexidong Mountain were mined by merchants and people pooling shares, but because of backward technology, the iron was of low quality, or because the mineral deposits were small and unprofitable, they were not continued. In 1906, Guzhangping Ting "renamed the formerly vacant Planting Bureau as the Mining and River-Dredging and Planting Bureau," appointing City Qianzong Xiang Tianjue as general manager and Bazong Chen Jichun to be in charge of operations. Gold mines were run by the government, while coal and antimony were jointly operated by the government and shareholders. The share-invitation method was: mountain owners contributed mines as shares, and those unwilling to contribute shares had their land valued publicly; merchant shares were set at 5,000 wen for a large share and 1,000 wen for a small share, with sixty large shares and two hundred small shares initially invited; profits were divided according to shares, and shares could be freely bought and sold. Successively, in Guzhangping Ting, the gold mines of Menkanyan and Dongping, the iron mine of Yajiao Mountain, the coal mine of Sandao River, and the antimony mine of Guniu Rock were mined. Because Qing officials were muddleheaded and incompetent, abused personnel, and managed poorly, three months of mining at Sandao River produced no coal. Yet the antimony mine at Guniu Rock, run by pooled merchant shares, yielded antimony worth thirty to forty taels to fifty to sixty taels of silver per ton. From 1916 to 1918, companies such as Minxin and Jianhua, pooled by merchants, mined antimony, lead, and copper in places including Wangshuitai in Hefeng County, Liudaguai Mountain in Jianshi County, and Damaopo, Chayuangou, Sunjiaping, and Tianbaocang in Xianfeng County, and Wanhutuo in Badong County.
In the rural commodity economy, besides the relatively rapid development of bulk export commodities such as tung oil, tea, lacquer, and gallnut, sericulture also developed accordingly. In the past, the Tujia people did not engage in sericulture, or if they did, the quantity was extremely small. With the development of the commodity economy, it became increasingly common for Tujia peasants to plant mulberries and raise silkworms during agricultural slack seasons. The Tujia, Miao, Han, and other peoples of Guzhangping Ting bought mulberry saplings from Changsha and other places and planted them around their houses to expand the source of silkworm feed. "Of those near the city who raised silkworms, six or seven out of ten households... each jin was worth one thousand five or six hundred wen." "In this city and Luoyi Stream, mulberry leaves were formerly taken by anyone; recently they must be exchanged for several jin of salt, showing a growing awareness of their value." In Youyang, Sichuan, there were formerly very few sericulture households, "but recently they have gradually increased, and the raw silk woven is also quite tough," "such as the glaze of the E'chi area south of the prefecture, which is not inferior to Sichuan glaze." In addition, some peasant households planted kapok and wax trees and raised wax insects, which could also yield profits.
The development of the commodity economy also promoted the further development of commerce. As economic exchanges between the Tujia region and Han regions became increasingly frequent, Han merchants came one after another, transporting large quantities of daily necessities to the Tujia region for sale, and then purchasing local specialties to transport out of the region. In Laifeng County, "merchants set up shops, selling various goods from Hankou, Changde, and the Tianjin and Shashi markets; Cantonese and Sichuan goods were available in all four seasons, and Beijing and Shaanxi goods also arrived from time to time." Commerce grew increasingly prosperous, and rural market trade scattered at key water and land transportation hubs was very active. Besides regular markets and fairs where trade could be conducted, in important towns there were also "hundred-day markets" that were not restricted by market periods and could exchange goods every day. At the same time, new markets continuously appeared in the border areas between counties, such as Sanxing Market newly established at the junction of Enshi, Lichuan, and Xianfeng Counties, and Bajiaotai Market newly established at the junction of Lichuan and Xianfeng.
Whenever there was a market day, Tujia peasants would go to nearby markets and fairs to sell their agricultural and livestock products and buy production tools and daily necessities such as cloth and salt. Rural markets, large or small, all had active trade. At the Qingji Market of Guzhangping Ting, whenever the peak season opened, the Tujia, Miao, Han, and other peoples participating in trade numbered "over a thousand people daily."
In commerce, whether resident merchants who opened shops or itinerant merchants who traveled between various markets, the vast majority were small merchants with limited capital, a limited range of goods, and small profits. However, to meet the needs of imperialist plunder of raw materials, there also appeared some wealthy merchants with relatively abundant capital who specialized in tung oil, tea oil, tea leaves, timber, and medicinal materials, buying and hoarding for resale. Oil merchants such as Sanfu and Yecheng in Guzhangping Ting had annual business revenues of tens of thousands of gold. Taihehe and Qianshen'an in Hefeng Prefecture were wealthy merchants specializing in black tea. These great merchants were mostly Han people from other places, while wealthy Tujia merchants were extremely few.
Whether merchants could profit, and how much, from the large quantities of local specialties transported out and the various goods brought in depended directly on the prices set by foreign firms and their agencies in Changde, Yuezhou, Hankou, Wanxian, Fuling, and other places. Foreign firms and their agents often used price suppression to purchase local specialties, while reselling foreign goods destined for the Tujia region to merchants at raised prices, so that merchants made very little profit and sometimes found it unprofitable. To protect their interests and strive for greater profits, merchants in Yongshun County struggled against the arbitrary price suppression or raising by foreign firms and their agencies. They jointly established a general agent for import and export goods in Changde, "to supervise the buying and selling of the agency, or to cancel the agency and set up a warehouse. In this way, export goods could obtain considerable profits, and import goods could reduce their high profits."
With the development of the commodity economy and commerce, various guild organizations successively appeared in the county towns and important trading towns of the Tujia region. These were protective measures taken by handicraftsmen and merchants of various trades to safeguard the interests of their own trades and prevent merchants from Han regions from monopolizing the profits. Tailors had the Xuanyuan Guild, carpenters had the Luban Guild, shoemakers had the Sun Bin Guild, and coppersmiths and blacksmiths had the Ouye Guild—"for all crafts, there was no guild that did not exist." These guild organizations were spontaneously formed by handicraftsmen and merchants of various trades and had strict trade rules; those handicraftsmen who violated the rules were punished by the guild according to regulations. However, as large numbers of handicraftsmen went bankrupt, the guild organizations gradually disintegrated.
In the late Qing Dynasty, unified chambers of commerce appeared on the basis of various scattered guild organizations. The emergence of chambers of commerce played a certain role in protecting the interests of handicraftsmen and merchants in the Tujia region. "In recent years, as chambers of commerce have sprouted, local merchants and people have also been able to share profits by buying lacquer and gallnut." However, after the Revolution of 1911, warlords fought in prolonged chaos, and the Tujia region became an important area contested among the warlords of Hunan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces. The flow of goods in and out suddenly stagnated; troops came and went, levying funds and demanding donations, and local chambers of commerce were busy entertaining and raising money, causing commerce to decline increasingly, "so that whenever a disturbance arose, the market immediately closed."
(5) The cruel exploitation of the landlord class and the bankruptcy of peasants
Although the aggression of capital-imperialism destroyed the feudal self-sufficient natural economy, stimulated the development of the commodity economy, and brought about some capitalist industrial and mining enterprises and commerce, the Tujia region, situated at the junction of the four regions of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, and Guizhou, with high mountains, dangerous roads, and inconvenient transportation, still had a feudal economy in the dominant position. Most of the good farmland and fertile soil in the countryside was owned by the landlord class. The landlord class used the large amount of land it possessed to rent out to poor peasants with no or little land, or directly managed part of the land itself, cruelly exploiting peasants through land rent, hired labor, and usury.
Land rent was mainly in kind, generally calculated on the year's output, with landlords and tenant farmers sharing on a "four-six" or "half-half" basis; under the "half-half" principle, some landlords even took "one out of every ten" from the tenant's share, and some even went as high as a "six-four" split. In addition, there was a distinction between "dead rent" and "live rent." "Dead rent" referred to "fixed rent," meaning that regardless of whether the annual harvest was good or bad, or even if there was no harvest at all, the tenant had to pay a fixed amount of land rent to the landlord. Live rent meant that both parties determined the rent amount based on the actual annual output. Regardless of the form of land rent, all were premised on conditions favorable to the landlord class.
In addition to high land rent exploitation, the landlord class also engaged in usury, carrying out extra-economic exploitation of peasants. Whenever poor Tujia peasants encountered natural disasters or personal misfortunes and faced difficulties in production and livelihood, they were forced to borrow from landlords; the landlords would take advantage of their plight, lending money at a high annual interest of three-tenths and grain at an added interest of five-tenths, fleecing the peasants. Some peasants, unable to repay debts when due, had to painfully mortgage their only land and houses at reduced prices to repay the debt. "Good tenants who borrowed grain found interest accumulating endlessly, sometimes even one or two dou of grain being converted into claims on houses." Whenever there was a famine year, the landlord class would hoard grain, arbitrarily raise grain prices, and amass wealth on a large scale.
The landlords and local tyrants who controlled the baojia power in the countryside also used the opportunity of purchasing "military grain" to harm peasants. The Qing government allocated special funds year after year for purchasing military grain, which local officials handed to baozheng to requisition by mu. However, these silver funds were mostly embezzled by the officials in charge of purchasing and the baozheng, and peasants who delivered grain never received a single cent of the grain price. Whenever military grain was purchased, the baozheng and local tyrants ran rampant in the villages, seizing the opportunity to extort and blackmail, "even detaining debtors and extorting protection fees many times the amount owed. The people suffered greatly from exploitation, and public opinion seethed." Peasants "thus ruined their families and lost their property, one after another."
The continuous influx of foreign goods and the development of the commodity economy stimulated the landlord class's greedy desire to expand wealth. Some landlords used the proceeds from land exploitation to invest in factories, open mines, or concurrently run businesses; at the same time, they used the profits from industry, mining, or commerce to purchase large amounts of land, causing land to become increasingly concentrated in the hands of feudal landlords. For example, during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, the landlord Xiang Renfeng of Mengxihu in Longshan originally had land yielding only over a thousand dan of rent grain. Some of his sons ran rice and tung oil businesses, and some became officials. By the end of the Guangxu reign, the land he purchased and annexed reached an annual rent of over ten thousand dan, and most of the land in Tasha, Badu, Zhaozhai, Mengxi, and other places in Longshan County was owned by his family. Other landlords such as Lei Wandai and Chen Kaidi, who owned two or three thousand dan of grain, also increased, while the vast number of peasants lost their land one after another and became tenant farmers and hired laborers of landlords.