| A universal guide for China studiesChinese History - The Sixteen Kingdoms 五胡十六國 (300~430) |
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The Sixteen Kingdoms |  period before (Jin Dynasty)-- Southern Dynasties -- Northern Wei next period (Sui)  | |
| Map and Geography | ||
 |  The warfare activities of the Non-Chinese and Chinese soldiery during the end of the 3rd century AD brought deep suffering for the population in northern China. Robbing, murder and natural desasters afflicted the population, generals and warlords carried off the peasants their needed to support the existence of state and economy, and settled them down around their capitals. To flee these calamities, a huge part of the population of northern China (around one million people or one eighth of the northern population) migrated to south or northeast China or sought the protection of magnates that had erected fortificated settlements (wubao 塢堡). Although this kind of castle-estate already came up during the Eastern Han Dynasty, the urgent need for protection against the Non-Chinese warlords lead to the mushrooming of fortified farms. The magnates possessing these farms often controlled more than thousand households (baohu 堡戶) and were supported by hundreds of tenant farmers, clients, servants and slavs. In case of a plundering attack, people and goods could flee into the fortification that was in most cases erected upon a hill and could be defended against a larger number of enemies. Although in most cases self-subsistent, such a fortified farms was duty to pax taxes to the respective ruler if it had submitted. Some of the magnates (wuzhu 塢主) obtained eminent positions as generals or commanders. The resettled peasants especially in the area of the old capital Chang'an 長安 (modern Xi'an) had not only to work their fields and to pay taxes but also to tribute corvée labour like for the palaces and the tomb of Northern Han 北漢 (or Former Zhao 前趙) ruler Liu Cong 劉聰. There are a couple of Sixteen Kingdoms rulers who tried to enforce agriculture in order to promote economy, welfare and tax revenue, like Later Zhao 後趙 ruler Shi Le 石勒 who issued edicts as incentives for the population to engage in private farming and as a means of population increase. Relatively low taxes should attract farmers to till their own fields instead of submitting to a large estate owner - because only a private peasant would pay taxes. Similar positive attempts to reconstruct the economy can be found under Fu Jian 苻堅, a Former Qin 前秦 ruler who promoted again changing crops (quzhongfa 區種法), the construction of irrigation systems, dykes and canals, trade especially with the western regions, and the education of officials as a base for state administation. In the relatively peaceful regions of Former Liang 前涼 and Cheng-Han 成漢 (modern Gansu resp. Sichuan Prov.) the tax and tributes (fudiao 賦調) of grain and silk seemed to work quite effective. As successor states of the great Chinese dynasties, most of the Sixteen Kingdoms also casted coins (in China, coins are casted, not minted). the second third of the 4th century, measures to rob and resettle the population took extreme dimensions because the warfare activities between the many kingdoms (eight kingdoms around 420 AD) multified. After being resettled to a capital, peasants often took escape back to their homelands. While young and strong men had to serve as soldiers, the old and weak people had to till the fields. Only seldom - like under Southern Liang 南涼 - there was a political separation beween Non-Chinese fighting in war and Chinese people tilling the fields. To highten the number of tax-paying and producing peasants, some rulers proclaimed the abolition of slavery. Peasants were forced to register in official household registers (huji 戶籍), like under Southern Yan 南燕. To gain the political support of the magnates and their own officers, rulers like the Later Qin 後秦 emperor Yao Xing 姚興 granted them tax-exemption - a pattern that imitated the defective tax system of the Jin Dynasty. During the almost two centuries 270 to 440 AD, the old agrarian landscape of the Yellow River Plain ("Central Plain Zhongyuan 中原") was for the most part irrevocably ruined, and the population had to suffer tremendously. | |
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