The man-land relationship in Qing China: an overview

ABSTRACT

The Qing era witnessed a continuation of the man-land problem that had haunted Chinese history. Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, China has developed a unique mode of small-scale peasant production, which required enormous manpower on the one hand and could support a huge population on the other. Taking the Taiping Rebellion arising in 1850 as the watershed, this paper examines the changes in the man-land relationship during two periods of the Qing era and criticizes both the Malthusian Theory of Population from the West and the “overpopulation” argument indigenous in China. This paper concludes that the Malthusian Theory cannot fully explain the complexities of man-land relationship in China and that “overpopulation” was not the root cause for the collapse of dynasties in the Chinese history.

KEYWORDS:

• Qing dynasty
• man-land relationship
• overpopulation
• the Malthusian Theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Glossary

Anhui 安徽

Changzhou 常州

Chizhou 池州

Daoguang 道光

Dongfang zazhi 《东方杂志》

Fengtian 奉天

Fengxiang 凤翔

Gansu 甘肃

Guangde 广德

Guangxi 广西

Guangxu 光绪

Guangxuchao donghualu 《光绪朝东华录》

Guanzi 《管子》

Guiping 桂平

Hainan 海南

Han 汉

Hangzhou 杭州

He Bingdi 何炳棣

He Liangjun 何良俊

Henan 河南

Hong Liangji 洪亮吉

Huaihe 淮河

Huating 华亭

Huaxia 华夏

Huizao gesheng minshu gushu qingce 《汇造各省民数谷数清册》

Huizhou 徽州

Huoshan xianzhi 《霍山县志》

Huoshan 霍山

Huzhou 湖州

Jiangnan 江南

Jiangsu 江苏

Jiangxi 江西

Jiaqing 嘉庆

Jiaxing 嘉兴

Jin 晋

Kang Tai 康泰

Kangxi 康熙

Li Hongzhang 李鸿章

Liu Rong 刘蓉

Luo Ergang 罗尔纲

Ming 明

mu 亩

Nanjing 南京

Ningguo 宁国

Niulang 牛郎

Qianlong 乾隆

Qianzhou 乾州

Qin 秦

Qinghai 青海

Qingshigao 《清史稿》

Qingshilu 《清实录》

Qinling 秦岭

Shaanxi 陕西

Shandong 山东

Shanxi tongzhi 《山西通志》

Shanxi 山西

Shunzhi 顺治

Songjiang 松江

Sui 隋

Suzhou 苏州

Taicang 太仓

Taiping tianguo geming beijing 《太平天囯革命背景》

Taiping 太平

Tang 唐

tianxia 天下

Tongzhi 同治

Tongzhou 同州

Waiguo zhuan 《外国传》

Wang Shiduo 汪士铎

Wang Ya’nan 王亚南

Wu 吴

Wuchang 武昌

Xi’an 西安

Xianfeng 咸丰

Xinjiang 新疆

Xu Guangqi 徐光启

Xuantong 宣统

Xuxiu Shaanxi tongzhi gao 《续修陕西通志稿》

Yan Fu 严复

Yanzhou 严州

Yashan 崖山

Yili 伊犁

Yongzheng 雍正

Yuan 元

Zeng Guofan 曾国藩

Zhang Taiyan 章太炎

Zhejiang 浙江

Zhinü 织女

Zhongguo jindai renkou shi 《中国近代人口史》

Zhongguo shehui jingjishi jikan 《中国社会经济史集刊》

Zuo Zongtang 左宗棠

Notes

¹ “Dili yi,” 1891.

² See Quanguo nongye guihua weiyuanhui Zhongguo ziran quhua gaiyao bianxiezu, Zhongguo ziran quhua gaiyao,70–71.

³ “Mengzi Jinxin shang,” 310. Please also see “Mengzi Lianghuiwang shang,” in which “a compound of five mu” (page 5) and “a farmland of 100 mu” (page 7) are also mentioned, but they are slightly different in expression.

⁴ See “Shi xiaoya dadong,” 562–567. According to some ancient Chinese poems, Niulang (literally “cowherd”) was not a cultivator but an ox-cart man and Zhinü (literally “Weaver Girl”) was not his wife. As late as during the East Han dynasty, however, they were believed to be husband and wife in the Chinese folklore.

⁵ See Liang Fangzhong, Zhongguo lidai hukou tiandi tianfu tongji, 547.

⁶ Kang Tai’s “Waiguo zhuan” was lost in the Tang and Song periods. This quotation is from Shiji, vol. 10, 3809.

⁷ See Chen Shaoxin, “Xingshi zupu zongqinhui,” 423–424.

⁸ This table is from Jiang Tao’s Renkou yu lishi, 84.

⁹ See Jiang Tao, Renkou yu lishi, 85–86.

¹⁰ See Zhu Kezhen, “Zhongguo jin wuqian nian lai,” 475–498.

¹¹ Jiang Tao, Zhongguo jindai renkou shi, 19–20.

¹² We calculate the r (correlation coefficient), which equals 0.960. We mark the population with y (unit: million people) and the land with x (unit: million mu), and thus we arrive at the following regression equation: y = 5.229 + 0.025x (290.4 ≤ x ≤ 897.0).

¹³ Qingshilu, vol. 10/130, 893.

¹⁴ Jiang Tao, Zhongguo jindai renkou shi, 142.

¹⁵ Qingshilu, vol. 27/1441, 249–250. The Qianlong Emperor’s estimates (a population ten-times larger than that in the past) were not accurate, as he obviously took the “registered taxpayers” as actual population.

¹⁶ Hong Liangji, “Yiyan zhipingpian diliu,” 49.

¹⁷ Wang Shiduo, Wang Huiweng yibing riji, 26–27.

¹⁸ Marx, and Engels, “Guoji shuping,” part I (1850), 264.

¹⁹ I have specifically discussed the problem of missing and under-reported population statistics before the outbreak of the Taiping War. Not only was there a lack of registration in remote areas such as the Southwest and Northeast China where there was a large influx of immigrants, but there was also a lack of registration (especially for women and children) even in densely populated areas in the interior where the census was more rigorous; plus the Manchu clan and nobility, the Eight Banners Green Battalion military population, and the Mongolian and Tibetan populations were not included in the population statistics. Therefore, this period of the population was reported lower than the actual population. Taking all the above factors into account, it can be concluded that the degree of under-reporting of the statistical population around 1850, to take a conservative estimate, may be set at about 5 percent. In this case, the actual population around 1850 should be at least 450 million. See Jiang Tao, Zhongguo jindai renkou shi, 54–61.

²⁰ Please see Liu Rong’s “Chen Shansheng diaobi qingxing shu,” 23.

²¹ “Hukou,” 1.

²² “Hukou” (appendix), 23.

²³ For records of population decline at the end of each dynasty, see Jiang Tao, Zhongguo jindai renkou shi, 8–11; and Jiang Tao, Renkou yu lishi, 15–83.

²⁴ See Jiang Tao’s Zhongguo jindai renkou shi, 243–244.:

²⁵ Malthus, Renkou yuanli, 7.

²⁶ Xu Guangqi, “Xuanhu xiansheng jingtian kao,” vol. 4, 5.

²⁷ Sun Yet-sen, “Shang Li Hongshang shu,” 16.

²⁸ Zhang Taiyan, “Qiushu,” 26.

²⁹ Yan Fu, “Baozhong yuyi,” vol. 1, 6.

³⁰ “Sheshuo: lun Zhongguo zhiluan yu renkou zhi guanxi,”129–131.

³¹ Luo Ergang, “Taiping tianguo geming qian,” 89–154.

³² Wang Ya’nan, Makesi zhuyi de renkou lilun, 30.

³³ Simon, Renkou zengzhang jingjixue, 247.

³⁴ “Bayan,” 10.

³⁵ See Luo Ergang quanji, vol. 6, 155–249.

³⁶ There are many related records, the most prominent of these is the “Request for the Sea Border Harvesting and Cotton Planting” by Gao Jin, the Governor-general of Jiangsu and Jiangxi in 1775, see Xuxiu Siku quanshu 473 shibu zhaoling zouyilei, 514.

³⁷ He Liangjun, Siyouzhai congshuo, vol. 13, 12.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tao JIANG

JIANG Tao is professor at the Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His main research areas are political history and demographic history of modern China. His main publications in the field of population history include: Zhongguo jindai renkou shi (A History of Modern Chinese Population, Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1993; Taipei: Nantian shuju, 1998) and Renkou yu lishi: Zhongguo chuantong renkou jiegou yanjiu (Population and History: A Study of Traditional Chinese Population Structure, Beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1998).