Study of Institutional Culture in Ancient Tujia Society—Economic System Culture (II)
Section 2: Economic System Culture during the Jimi Prefecture and Chieftain Periods. In Tujia history, politically, the Qin-Han through Tang-Song period is called the Jimi prefecture period, and the early Yuan to early Qing the chieftain period; socially, however, both belonged to feudal manorial society, so their land ownership relations and taxation forms...
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Section II: The Economic System and Culture of the Jimi Prefectures and Counties and the Tusi Period
In Tujia history, in terms of political system, the period from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Tang and Song dynasties is called the jimii prefectures and counties period, and the period from the early Yuan to the early Qing is called the tusi period; however, in terms of social nature, these two periods both belonged to feudal lord society. Therefore, the land ownership relations and forms of taxation in these two periods had many similarities, but the development conditions of the main sectors of social production differed.
I. Land Ownership Relations During the Jimi Prefectures and Counties and Tusi Periods
(1) Land Ownership Relations During the Jimi Prefectures and Counties Period
In 316 BCE, Qin destroyed Ba and established Ba Commandery in the former territory of the Ba state, beginning to implement the prefecture-county system: "King Hui of Qin annexed Ba and Zhong, and made the Ba clan chiefs of the Man and Yi." In the early Western Han, the prefecture-county system was further implemented in the Tujia areas, to the point that "the chiefs of the southwestern Yi numbered in the hundreds." By the Zhenguan period of the Tang, more than a hundred prefectures and counties had been established in the Tujia areas. Due to the implementation of the prefecture-county system, from the Qin onward, after being enfeoffed and appointed by the central dynasty, tribal leaders inherited their positions from generation to generation and dominated their own regions, forming powerful local clans and great surnames. Feudal separatism was the fundamental characteristic of the social formation of this period. Therefore, the feudal lord economy became the main economic form replacing the serf economy and occupied a dominant position in Tujia society.
When the feudal dynasties enfeoffed the hereditary official posts of Tujia leaders, they also granted them the right as feudal lords to possess their fiefs. Therefore, during the jimii prefecture-county system period, the manifestation of land ownership in Tujia society was that the "Man and Yi" chiefs possessed most of the land within their territories, with the land under their jurisdiction reaching hundreds or even thousands of qing. At the same time, in this period there appeared a new form of land ownership—small private land, namely a small plot of self-cultivated land owned by self-cultivating peasants. Because the court implemented a policy of garrison farming and wasteland reclamation, households participating in civilian garrison farming could receive a small plot of land as their own to cultivate themselves. "For all commoners, paddy fields were taxed one dou of polished rice, and dry fields five sheng each of beans and wheat in summer and autumn. If after two full years there were no arrears, it was given as perpetual property." "One man was granted one hundred mu of land... In granting land, five people formed a jia, and additionally five mu of vegetable land was given for dwellings and garden plots... Civilian garrison farming was overseen by the county magistrate." If within two years there were no arrears in land rent or tax, such garrison-farmed land could become the household's own land. From the record in the Yuanfeng Jiuyu Zhi of the sharp increase in the number of civilian garrison-farming guest households in Chen, Li, Gui, Xia, and other prefectures, one can also see that the number of households participating in civilian garrison farming and the land they possessed were very large.
(2) Land Ownership Relations During the Tusi Period
The tusi regime was a feudal "independent kingdom" established by tusi of various sizes within their own hereditary domains, lasting from the early Yuan to the early Qing. The tusi was virtually a local emperor ruling one region, holding military and political power within his jurisdiction. The tusi possessed all fields, mountains, and forests within his territory and could dispose of the land at will. Documentary records state that all the fields of the Sinan Xuanwei Office "belonged to the private estates of the Tian clan of the xuanwei." The Tian clan divided them into eighteen "estate fields," managed separately by eighteen subordinate native officials of various ranks. Within the territory of the Peng clan tusi of Yongshun, "all mature fields, the most fertile were mostly selected for their own cultivation and harvest, and the rest were again divided and occupied by sheba and headmen," while the broad common people were not permitted to occupy even a blade of grass or a tree; without the tusi's permission, even level and fertile land overgrown with thorns could not be reclaimed. Thus most common people had no land or only "scattered odd corner plots." Common people spent most of their time cultivating the domains of the tusi, sheba, and other native officials of various ranks, "like slaves." The common people were in fact serfs without personal freedom, and their source of livelihood depended only on the grain produced on those poor "allotted plots."
Throughout the era of tusi rule, the economic life of Tujia society had its particularity: the tusi not only possessed large amounts of land, but also possessed large numbers of "guest households," that is, domestic slaves. "In tusi times, the tusi and native subprefects all had mountains and fields, worked by tenant households. The tenant households were all purchased by them, and people were like servants." "For native officials in relation to native people, the distinction between master and servant was the strictest, for from ancestral times for a thousand years, officials were always masters and the people always servants." The tusi often used two methods to seize land and tenant households. First, relying on the power of the tusi regime, they took large amounts of land and Tujia commoners as their own. Second, they took as their own the wasteland reclaimed by incoming vagrants; after losing their land, the vagrants were reduced to the tusi's "guest households" and were used by the tusi at will. It can thus be seen that the economic relationship between the tusi and tenant households or "guest households" was one of exploitation and being exploited, built on feudal land ownership. Tusi headmen regarded large numbers of Tujia commoners and incoming vagrants as their family property and domestic slaves. These landless "guest households" had no personal freedom and became serfs bound to the land. Volume 57 of the Yuan Dianzhang, in "Memorial Submitted by Shi Zeshan, Transport Judge of Xiazhou Circuit," records: "The households under the jurisdiction of this circuit dare to count their tenant guests by head and draw up contracts, either mortgaging or selling them, without fixing a term, no different from buying and selling livestock. Some who slightly fear public law attach small distant wasteland fields and sell them together with tenant households, calling them tenant guests attached to the land. They openly draw up contracts and separately establish private agreements, as in the lawsuit of Liu Fengji and Duan Botong over the tenant household Huang Kangyi. The matter dates from the Song-Yuan period and has lasted more than thirty years.... There are also cases where tenant guests, male and female, wish to marry, and the host household often blocks them, demanding gauze, cloth, and ceremonial gifts before allowing the marriage.... How can there be, among the king's people north and south, host households who treat tenant guests as slaves, using and selling them, with all corvée duties coming from the tenant guests' households?" This intense personal control and dependence in fact became an important part of the socioeconomic structure of the Tujia tusi era and an important feature of the economic system of the Tujia tusi era.
From the perspective of land-ownership characteristics, the economic form of the Tujia people during the Tusi era was not a feudal landlord economy in the full sense, but rather a feudal manorial economy combining feudalism and slavery. The particularity of this economic form was closely linked to the particularity of its political structure. The establishment of the Tusi system laid a firmer foundation for the Tusi's position in regional social development activities, and their autonomous rights received reliable institutional guarantees, so that the original primitive and slave-related obstacles in the social development process of the Tujia region were not eliminated but instead preserved. As a result, the Tujia region did not enter a fully feudalized era in step with the Central Plains. Therefore, in the Tujia region, the special form of land ownership and the particularity of personal dependency were inseparable from the feudal separatist character of the Tusi system. The Tusi was both a local magistrate appointed by the imperial court and a "great manor lord" on the feudal domain, and at the same time a "chieftain" of the ethnic community. The fixed "trinity" identity of the Tusi determined the patterned social structure and economic production of the Tusi era, and this should serve as the historical basis for our understanding of the social existence and land-ownership characteristics of Tujia feudal serfdom.
II. Forms of Taxation during the Jimi Prefectures and Counties and the Tusi Period
(I) Forms of Taxation during the Jimi Prefectures and Counties Period
In the ninth year after King Huiwen of Qin (316 BCE), the state of Qin destroyed the state of Ba and established Ba Commandery in its territory. "When King Hui of Qin annexed Ba Zhong, he made the Ba clan chieftains of the Man and Yi. Generation after generation they married Qin women, and their people were ranked as equivalent to the rank of Bu Geng, and those who committed crimes could have them expiated by rank." From then on, the Qin dynasty began to levy taxes in the Tujia region and implemented the taxation system of the feudal dynasty. During the Qin, although taxes were levied on Ba Commandery, they were much lighter than the tax quotas of the interior commanderies and counties. According to the "Book of the Later Han: Biography of the Southern Man": "During the Qin, for the Linjun Man chieftains, a tax of 2,016 coins was levied each year, and once every three years a voluntary tax of 1,800 coins. Each of their households paid eight zhang and two chi of jia cloth and thirty strands of chicken feathers." For the Bandun Man, "a hundred mu of fields were not taxed, and ten wives were not counted." The Han dynasty followed the old Qin precedents. In the early Han, because the Ba people had rendered meritorious service in attacking Qin, the Ba chieftains of the seven surnames Luo, Pu, Du, E, Du, Xi, and Gong were exempted from rent and taxes, while the chieftains of other surnames and the Ba people paid forty cong coins each year. For the "Wuling Man," each adult paid one bolt of tribute cloth annually, and minors paid two zhang each year, called "cong cloth." "Cong" was the special term for taxes in the Tujia region during the Qin and Han periods, and all those who paid taxes were also called "Cong people." The "jia cloth" paid was the jia cloth of the Man and Yi of Nan Commandery. "Jia cloth" and "chicken feathers" both belonged to local tribute and were another form of taxation. But in the late Eastern Han, due to corrupt official administration and inequitable taxes, the "Man people" were often provoked into tax-resistance struggles. In the thirteenth year of the Yongyuan era of Emperor He of the Eastern Han (101 CE), "the Wu Man Xu Sheng and others, because the commandery collected taxes unequally, harbored resentment and gathered together in rebellion." In the second year of the Yuanchu era of Emperor An (115 CE), "the Man of Fengzhong, because the commandery and county corvée and taxes were inequitable, harbored resentment and joined with more than two thousand people of various clans in Chongzhong, attacked the city and killed the chief officials."
After the establishment of the Western Jin, the different taxes of the Three Kingdoms period were unified into the same categories of taxation, and the taxes levied on the Tujia region were very light. "A household with an adult male paid annually three bolts of silk and three jin of cotton; a household headed by a woman or a secondary adult male paid half. For the various frontier commanderies, two-thirds; for the distant ones, one-third. The Yi people paid cong cloth, one bolt per household, or for distant ones perhaps one zhang." "Distant Yi who did not cultivate registered fields paid voluntary rice, three hu per household, or for distant ones five dou; for the most distant, they paid poll money, twenty-eight wen per person." The Western Jin dynasty levied different household levies and land rents on the Yi and Han respectively, and granted the Yi tax reductions and exemptions, mainly because the court's control over the Yi was weak. During the Eastern Jin period, because of the north-south confrontation and frequent military activities, taxes in the southern minority regions seemed difficult to maintain at the original standards: "After the Yuan Emperor crossed the Yangtze, military affairs were in their initial stage, and the dan cloth of the Man regions had no constant standard."
During the Southern Dynasties, the "Man" people had "no miscellaneous levies" and "no corvée," so their burden was lighter than that of the Han people. "For the Man people who submitted and attached themselves, one household paid several hu of grain, and the rest had no miscellaneous levies, whereas the taxes and corvée of the Song people were severe and bitter, and the poor could no longer bear their fate and mostly fled into the Man regions. The Man had no corvée, and the strong did not supply official taxes either." However, sometimes the tax burden on the "Man" people was quite heavy. For example, during the Yuanjia era of the Song (424-453), "Song Jiaozhi, the magistrate of Louzhong in Tianmen, imposed excessive corvée and taxes, and the Man could not bear their fate."
In the Tang dynasty, tribute was an important aspect of the economic connection between the imperial court and the Tujia region. In the second year of the Tianshou era of Empress Wu Zetian (691), the local tribute of Lingxi Commandery in Xizhou included cinnabar, rhinoceros horn, and tea. In the first year of the Tianbao era of Emperor Xuanzong (743), the local tribute of Qingjiang and Jianshi in Qinghua Commandery of Shizhou included rhinoceros horn, coptis, wax, and medicinal herbs. The local tribute of Qianzhong Commandery in Qianzhou included rhinoceros horn, bright cinnabar, wax, and so on. The tribute of Shizhou: "Kaiyuan tribute: clear oil, honey, coptis, wax. Yuanhe tribute: ten jin of coptis, two hundred medicinal seeds."
In the Song dynasty, tribute and return gifts had already become established practice. Generally, tribute was brought every year, and the local products offered were mostly mercury, candles, musk, coptis, native cloth, flower mats, and so on. "It was decreed that when Man people from the Xi caves were sent back after court audience, the Kuizhou Route Transport Commissioner was to verify those who had presented tribute articles: each person was granted two bolts of colored silk and twenty jin of salt; those without tribute articles, each person two bolts of colored silk and half a jin of salt; and for the higher-ranking chiefs, an additional silver bowl of two liang was granted." Because the Tujia region maintained a tribute-and-gift relationship with the court, the court no longer levied other taxes. In the first year of the Xianping era (998), "Xiang Tonghan, the prefect of Fuzhou, again requested that rent and taxes be fixed, but Emperor Zhenzong did not permit it. The edict said: 'You, from afar, have respectfully followed the court and repeatedly submitted sealed memorials, wishing to redefine the number of taxes on the fields of your remote settlement. Although your loyalty and diligence are fully observed, it is understood that the suitability of sowing differs. The former statutes are very clear, and it is difficult to follow the one-tenth rule. Your sincerity is indeed commendable, but you have troubled us repeatedly; you should understand our pacification and cherishing, and we shall further comfort you. What you request should not be allowed.' Tonghan repeatedly submitted memorials requesting fixed taxes, but the emperor, because the wild frontier was not to be taxed, and also fearing that treacherous schemes might cause disturbance and rebellion, refused him."
(II) Forms of Taxation during the Tusi Period
In the collection of taxes during the Tusi era, in the Yuan and Ming periods, in addition to paying tribute to the court, the Tusi also imposed tax exploitation on the Tujia people. There were three forms of taxation: labor rent, rent in kind, and money rent, among which labor rent was the main form of taxation.
Labor rent. In addition to using their own production tools to cultivate fields for the native officials without compensation, the broad masses also bore corvée of many names. "It was the established practice of the Tusi that whenever laborers were needed, the Sheba were ordered to assign them according to households, and there was no payment for labor." The "rice-house banner" was specially engaged in grinding flour and husking rice; the "inlay banner" was specially engaged in making various kinds of jewelry and vessels; the "wind-and-drum banner" was specially engaged in musical service for weddings and funerals; and the "companion banner" became attendants of the Tusi, subject to the Tusi's dispatch. If one cultivated fields with certain special names, one had to bear the corvée corresponding to the name of that field. For example, those who cultivated "soldier fields" had to send people to serve as soldiers at the Tusi office; those who cultivated "water-carrying fields" had to carry water for the Tusi. Another example is the Tian clan Tusi of Sizhou, who stipulated that those who cultivated the land of "Mayuan Cave" had to raise horses for the Tusi; those who cultivated the land of "Yaoping Cave" had to raise falcons for the Tusi, to be used when the Tusi went hunting.
Rent in kind. The Tusi stipulated that their subordinates had to pay a certain amount of goods in kind: "Each year, each household was required to deliver food rice as well as chicken, duck, meat, and pork joints. From the native official, the household manager, the prime minister, and the responsible Sheba in the four places, none could be omitted; even poor and powerless people had to scrape together to supply them." The food delivered differed according to the agriculture and sideline occupations engaged in. Moreover, once all regulations were promulgated, they could not be changed without the Tusi's permission. For example, Tujia farming households that kept bees had to pay a certain amount of honey and yellow wax to the Tusi each year. If a beekeeping household no longer kept bees, it was still required that "because they had once raised them, they were all ordered to buy honey and wax to supply." When the Tusi toured the countryside, the corvée laborers had to apportion food by household; when newly appointed officials such as Sheba took office, they had to send congratulatory gifts. For merchants doing business within the territory, the Tusi ordered them to "present gifts to the native official, the household manager, the Sheba, the prime minister, and others" at the New Year and festivals. This was called "festival gifts." If merchants did not send "festival gifts" at the New Year and festivals, "either their goods were forcibly taken, or their capital was plundered."
Money rent. "If the Tusi had arbitrary exactions, they blamed the banner heads, who collected them household by household." Such arbitrary exactions mostly took the form of silver money. For example, the people under the Yongshun Tusi had to pay two qian and two fen of silver money for each fire pit they established (meaning a stove), called "fire-pit money" or "smoke-household money." The Baojing Tusi stipulated that when Tujia farming households reclaimed a piece of wasteland, each hoe entering the mountains required payment of three to five qian of silver money, called "hoe money." When the Tusi collected silver money, they often used old steelyards kept in the household for weighing, and such old steelyards, compared with ordinary steelyards, made one qian actually weigh as much as three to four qian. Tusi officials at all levels arbitrarily extorted money from the people: "pointing to one and apportioning ten, hoping to take it for themselves." The arbitrary levies and exactions of the native officials made the lives of the broad Tujia masses extremely difficult, and they often lived a miserable life of "official runners came yesterday, soldier grain apportioned household by household," and "hungry bellies are hard even to fill, let alone speak of worn-out clothes."
III. Conditions in the Main Fields of Social Production during the Jimi Prefectures and Counties and the Tusi Period
(I) Conditions of the Main Sectors of Social Production during the Jimi Prefectures and Counties Period
From the Qin and Han to the Tang and Song, this was the period of commanderies and counties in Tujia history. During this period, agriculture gradually developed into the pillar industry of Tujia society, while handicrafts and commerce also developed to a certain extent.
1. Conditions of Agricultural Production Development
After the Han dynasty, iron farm tools such as iron axes, iron hoes, and iron knives were already used in some Tujia regions, which played a very important role in increasing grain output. At that time, agricultural production was mainly based on rice, with livestock raising and hunting as supplementary activities. According to the "Book of Han: Treatise on Geography," in Nan Commandery and Wuling, agricultural production involved "burning fields and weeding with water; the people ate fish and rice, and took fishing, hunting, and mountain felling as their occupations; with melons, fruits, and clams, food was often sufficient." According to the "Records of Huayang State: Ba Zhi," Jiangzhou in Ba Commandery during the Han dynasty "had rice fields and produced imperial rice." Because the Han dynasty built water conservancy projects, irrigation techniques were applied in some Tujia regions, solving irrigation problems in some mountainous and hilly areas, and the area cultivated with crops expanded greatly. The main varieties of crops included rice, sorghum, and beans. During the Three Kingdoms, Two Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, the central dynasties all attached importance to agricultural development in the Tujia region. They adopted measures such as building water conservancy projects, migration, and "establishing Yi markets" (that is, markets for exchange between Han and "Yi" people) to promote the sustained development of agriculture in the Tujia region, bringing great progress to Tujia agriculture at that time; the grain produced showed a surplus and was exported elsewhere. Historical records state that in the twenty-seventh year of the Yuanjia era (450), when Shen Qingzhi, the governor of Jingzhou, attacked the Five Streams, he found that "the Man fields were abundantly ripe, with grain piled up on steep cliffs, and there was no hunger or exhaustion." The Song army "from winter to spring, relied on the Man grain for food," and obtained "more than eighty thousand hu of rice and millet." However, agricultural development was extremely uneven. For example, in some areas of western Hunan such as Huayuan, Guzhang, and Longshan, "the great chaos had not yet been opened, and it was wild and overgrown," still in a primitive economic state of fishing and hunting life. "The people did not engage in agriculture but specialized mainly in fishing and hunting. They piled up wood against trees and lived above them, calling it a ganlan; the size of the ganlan depended on the number of people in the household."
The Tang dynasty was a prosperous period of highly developed feudal economy. Advanced production tools and techniques from the Han areas were continuously introduced into the Tujia region, such as plows and hoes, well sweeps, and ding and cheng vessels, as well as production techniques such as using natural rivers and streams to irrigate fields, which were widely used in agricultural production in the Tujia region. During the Northern Song period, ox plowing techniques were also spread in the Tujia region. Therefore, during the Tang and Song periods, grain output in the Tujia region increased greatly: "They often accumulated several hundred thousand shi of grain, and successively presented more than two hundred thousand shi of military grain." Precisely because grain was surplus, residents of the Tujia region began to use surplus grain to make wine, so the custom of drinking gradually became prevalent, and people often drank to add to the fun, "taking a dou of wine as their capacity." Agricultural products in this period were extremely rich. Grain crops mainly included rice, millet, and beans; cash crops mainly included tea, hemp, cotton, and mulberry; and the cultivation of watermelon, melon, and fruits also began to be introduced into the Tujia region. But in terms of the overall level of productive forces, agricultural development in the Tujia region was still at the stage of slash-and-burn cultivation.
2. Conditions of Handicraft Development
From the Qin and Han to the Tang and Song, handicrafts in the Tujia region achieved considerable development, and on the basis of relying on local resource advantages, began to form ethnic characteristics.
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, textiles and bronze manufacturing were the most prominent handicrafts in the Tujia region. At that time, textile production had already spread throughout urban and rural areas and had formed a certain scale. According to the "Book of Zhou: Biography of Zhangsun Jian": in the land of the "Jing Man," they "devoted themselves to extensive cultivation of grain and mulberry," and "the people were content in their occupations." They could "make fine cloth, and the towns were extremely fresh and clean." According to the "Commentary on the Water Classic: Jiang River," in Bailizhou of Zhijiang, "mulberry fields and sweet fruits reflected on the river and leaned against the islet," and in Yidao County "mulberry and hemp darkened the sun." Liu Xiaowei, a man of the Liang dynasty of the Southern Dynasties, saw women weaving silk in Ruo County (south of present-day Yicheng) and once wrote a poem: "The bewitching lady harbors resentment, weaving white silk as autumn sounds arise. The shuttle moves and jade rings tremble; stepping on the treadle, pearl ornaments chime. The warp is sparse, and she suspects the loom is stiff; the weft breaks, and she resents the lightness of the silk. The grapes are just about to be finished, but the mandarin ducks are still not complete." From this, it is enough to see that textile production at that time was already quite common, and spinning and weaving had become a craft of women at home. The patterns of silk weaving included grapes, mandarin ducks, and other designs. In Liang Xiao Gang's poem "Yongzhou Song: Great Dike," when describing the silk patterns woven by the women of Yicheng, he said they "skillfully wove white silk." In bronze manufacturing, the Tujia people could "cast copper into vessels, with a large mouth and wide belly, called 'copper stoves,' both thin and light, easy for cooking food." This reflects that the craftsmanship and level of Tujia bronze manufacturing at that time had already reached a fairly high standard.
During the Tang and Song periods, handicrafts in the Tujia region included textiles, printing and dyeing, mining, smelting, and winemaking, and many products had strong ethnic characteristics. As far as the development of textiles is concerned, the Xi cloth produced in the Tujia region mainly included white cloth and patterned cloth, and was a major tribute item presented to the court during the Sui and Tang periods. The "Book of Sui" says: "Therefore, clothing and ceremonial adornment mostly used patterned cloth as decoration." It also records: "The peacock cloth presented as tribute by Chuzhou in elegant Tang times was of the same category as southern patterned cloth." In mining and smelting, the cinnabar produced in Chen (Yuanling), Yuan (Zhijiang), Jing (Baojing), and Jin (Jinhe) prefectures had already become famous for a time and was also one of the main items presented as local tribute to the court during the Sui and Tang periods. In addition, iron, tribute gold, bran gold, and other precious metals were already mined in large quantities in Jinzhou, Nanzhou, Chenzhou, and other places. What is noteworthy is that when Ma Xifan, the King of Chu, and Peng Shichou formed an alliance at Huixiping in Xizhou, they cast a bronze pillar as a record. The bronze pillar weighed more than five thousand jin, was one zhang and two chi high, about three to four chi in circumference, hexagonal and hollow, glittering, with extremely exquisitely engraved characters. This shows that the smelting technology and handicraft skills of the Tujia region at that time had already developed to a certain level.
3. Conditions of Commercial Development
Beginning in the Han dynasty, commercial market towns had already appeared in western Hunan and eastern Sichuan, located at the "key crossing of Chu and Shu." According to the county gazetteers of Yongshun, Baojing, and Sangzhi, after the Han dynasty was established, three counties—Youyang, Qianling, and Chong—were set up in western Hunan, and county seats were built in what is now Wangcun Town in Yongshun County, Yaoba Village in Baojing County, and within Sangzhi County as centers of political rule. These were the first group of commercial market towns to appear in Tujia history. From then on, the Tujia people could rely on market towns to develop commerce and began commodity exchange centered on market towns.
During the Three Kingdoms, Two Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, commercial exchanges between the Tujia region and surrounding areas were relatively frequent. At that time, commercial interaction mainly took two forms: first, commodity exchange among ordinary people, with "Man people" and Han people exchanging daily necessities such as salt and rice. According to the "Biography of the Man," "Since the Taishi era of the Song, the Ba Jian Man Xiang Zongtou rebelled, and the governor Shen Youzhi cut off his salt and rice, but repeated seals failed to subdue him." Also according to the "Biography of the Prince of Wenxian of Yuzhang": "Shen Youzhi demanded dan payments and attacked the various Man within the borders of Jingzhou, eventually reaching the Five Streams, and prohibited fish and salt. The various Man were enraged, and Tian Toumi, king of the Youxi Man, killed Youzhi's envoy, and Youzhi demanded ten million in dan payments." Second, commodity exchange between officials and the people, in which government officials used special commodities produced in Han areas to exchange for weapons and implements produced by the "Man people." According to the "Book of Southern Qi: Biographies of the Seventeen Princes of Wu," Yu Fu Hou Zixiang, governor of Jingzhou, "ordered people in his household to privately make brocade robes and crimson jackets, intending to give them to the Man in exchange for weapons and arms."
During the Tang and Song dynasties, the economic development of the Tujia region led to increasingly abundant agricultural and sideline products. As a result, commodity exchange activities became unprecedentedly active, which in turn stimulated the development of the commercial economy in the Tujia region. During this period, large numbers of merchants poured into the Tujia region, eagerly buying up the mountain goods and local products of the local residents. At the same time, they transported farm tools such as plows, hoes, well sweeps, and tripods, as well as daily necessities produced in Han Chinese areas, to the Tujia region for sale. Historical records state: "During the Xiantong era (860–874), there was a man surnamed Erzhu who lived in the Wu Gorge and traded in Jing and Yi every year." Due to commercial prosperity and the "circulation of a hundred goods," rural market fairs, known as "grass markets," began to appear in the Tujia region during the Tang and Song dynasties. "During the Baoli era (825–827), there was a man named Lu Shanren in Jingzhou who often sold oak bark and lime, traveling to and from the Baidi grass market." Commercial prosperity brought another new change to the economic life of the Tujia region: currency began to enter the commodity circulation sphere of the Tujia region. The "Jingyun Zhongbao" minted during the reign of Emperor Ruizong of Tang (710–712), the "Kaiyuan Tongbao" from the third year of the Xiantian era to the first year of the Tianbao era of Emperor Xuanzong (714–741), and the "Qianyuan Tongbao" minted in the third year of the Qianyuan era of Emperor Suzong (760) were all used in the Tujia regions of Guizhou.
(II) Conditions in the Main Spheres of Social Production During the Tusi Period
During the Tusi period, Tujia society and economy developed to varying degrees. Agriculture still relied primarily on "slash-and-burn cultivation" as its main form of production, but household handicrafts had begun to take shape, and commercial trade developed further in rural areas.
1. Conditions of Agricultural Production Development
During the Tusi era, because the ruling class pursued policies of ethnic discrimination, agricultural cultivation and production management methods in the Tujia region lagged behind. The "slash-and-burn" method prevailed, and the use of ox-drawn plows and iron farm tools was not widespread; in some areas, "oxen and plows were unknown." Some areas still practiced "slash-and-burn cultivation." The Tujia would "in the second and third months cut grass and fell trees, set fire to burn them; after heavy rain, hoe the soil and sow seeds, and when ripe, pick the ears and return home." "The mountains are many and the fields few; they practice slash-and-burn cultivation. In early spring, they cut trees and grass, set fire to burn them, calling it 'duo she.'" During spring plowing, they used knives to cut thorny bushes and trees, burned them with fire, and used the ash as fertilizer, sowing corn or millet seeds in time for the farming season and waiting for the autumn harvest. This extensive "slash-and-burn" production method was the primary mode of production in the Tujia region during the Tusi period. Compared with the ox-plowing method commonly practiced in the interior during the same period, it was clearly very backward. The Tujia's agricultural harvests were entirely without guarantee: in years of favorable weather, the harvest might be passable, but in years of drought or flood, there was often no harvest at all.
During this period, the backwardness of production methods in the Tujia region was also manifested in the following two aspects: First, water conservancy facilities were inadequate, which led to crops being predominantly dry-land grains. Although the technology for using simple waterwheels had gradually been introduced to the Tujia region, it was not further promoted. For example, "The fields of Laifeng are all on mountain slopes. Where the long river waters flow below, at places near streams and ravines where the water level is even, waterwheels and tube waterwheels are occasionally used to draw water for irrigation, but slightly higher places cannot be reached... Unfortunately, the mountains are many and the land vast, and drawing water up is difficult; those who rely on rain and dew for their livelihood are still many." Because insufficient attention was paid to building water conservancy works, paddy fields were few, and people could only "widely plant buckwheat, corn, millet, beans, peas, and sweet potatoes, even cultivating them on cliff faces." Second, farmers had not yet fully mastered fertilization techniques. Although farmers used plant ash as fertilizer in "slash-and-burn" cultivation, they had not learned to use manure when farming. The result was that the land became increasingly barren the more it was cultivated, affecting crop yields.
During the Tusi period, the main grain crops in the Tujia region included rice, barley, wheat, millet, sorghum, corn, beans, and tubers; the main cash crops included oil plants, raw lacquer, tea, and medicinal herbs.
2. Conditions of Handicraft Development
During the Tusi period, household handicrafts in the Tujia region had begun to take shape, with production mainly focused on weaving and textiles. The raw materials for weaving were mostly bamboo, wood, and mountain vines, and the products included baskets, wicker baskets, back baskets, bamboo hats, bamboo sieves, and winnowing baskets. The weaving craftsmanship was fine and reached a certain level. For example, bamboo sieve products had bamboo strips as thin as hair, with holes only a little over a millimeter wide, and were essential household items. Textile products used cotton and ramie as raw materials, and the craftsmanship was of an extremely high level. The local cloth produced, also called "Xilankapu," was hailed as a gem of Tujia art: "The cave quilts are like brocade, woven from local silk; the expensive ones are priced the same as satin, with golden dragons and phoenixes, worthy of being used as bedding."
In addition to weaving and textiles, household workshop-style metal processing also developed to a certain extent. The main metal products included cast knives, axes, and hoes. They could also smelt scrap iron for reuse, a process called "stir-frying iron," but they could not directly smelt ore.
During this period, although household handicrafts in the Tujia region developed to varying degrees, they were mainly produced for self-use within the household, not for the purpose of commodity exchange. Sometimes barter exchanges occurred between neighbors, but such exchanges had fixed locations, "the place for their transactions called a chang." The "chang" was the rural "grass market." Later, as outside merchants began entering rural areas in large numbers to do business, trade between local Tujia people and outside merchants gradually increased. "Guest merchants rushed to market to trade, with market heads and guest managers appointed; natives made up only twenty to thirty percent, the rest were all from other provinces." "Mountain goods such as tung oil, tea, lacquer, paper mulberry, Wu taro, indigo, and buckthorn bark were mostly monopolized by outside itinerant merchants."
3. Conditions of Commercial Development
During the Tusi period, commercial trade in the Tujia region developed to a certain extent on the foundation of previous dynasties, and the content of commercial activities became richer and their forms more extensive.
During the Yuan dynasty, the Yuan court attached great importance to commercial trade in this region. In the second year of the Zhiyuan era (1265), to facilitate mutual trade between the Xi and Dong peoples, the court established the "Huguang Mint Supervisory Office." In the eleventh year of the Zhiyuan era (1274), the Huguang Provincial Administration again established the "Baoquan Intendant Office" in the Tujia region to oversee commerce, and at the same time set up mutual trade points in Shizhou to facilitate trade between Han Chinese and the Tujia. In this way, the economic exchange activities of the entire Tujia region were incorporated into the unified commercial sphere of the Yuan dynasty, which was conducive to promoting the economic development of the Tujia region.
Entering the Ming dynasty, new changes appeared in the commercial trade of the Tujia region, and large numbers of commercial market towns sprang up in rural areas. During the Chenghua era of the Ming dynasty, in Sizhou City, "the four gates were bounded to open thoroughfares, and public offices were built according to the terrain. Fugitives returned from all directions, merchants and commoners gathered, and inside and outside the city walls, they clustered like comb teeth and swarmed like bees, with scarcely any empty space. The sound of stringed instruments and recitation overflowed, and chickens and dogs thrived." In Wangcun and Longjiazhai of Yongshun; Liye, Longtou, Xichehe, and Guzhang Luoyixi of Longshan; and Longtan of Youyang, commercial market towns or commercial wharves for the distribution of goods all sprang up. Going to market for mutual trade and exchanging goods became an indispensable part of Tujia life. The local people "engaged in commerce and trade... When it came to going to market, goods consisted mainly of grain and livestock. Among grains: beans, wheat, and miscellaneous grains were all available. Among livestock: cattle, pigs, chickens, and ducks were all available. In addition, cloth, silk, and utensils could all be sold at any time during the market period."
The expansion of the scope of commercial activities and the increase in the variety of traded goods inevitably stimulated the widespread circulation of currency in the Tujia region. During the Yuan dynasty, paper money flowed into the Tujia region in large quantities. In the Ming dynasty, coins such as those after the "Hongwu Tongbao" were also frequently discovered. In the early Qing dynasty, Tongbao coins from the Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong periods were also widely used in the Tujia region.