A Study On The Rural Economy In Southwest Zhejiang Mountainous Area During Ming And Qing Dynasty

Since Ming and Qing Dynasties,the development of commodity economy in mountainous areas of southwest Zhejiang province,the evolution of rural socioeconomic relations and social conflicts,the growth of family organizations and the changes of social structure have obvious regional characteristics and times characteristics.In 2015,the discovery of contract documents of villages around Yanfu Temple provided favorable support for relevant researches on villages around Yanfu Temple in The Ming and Qing Dynasties.The villages around Yanfu Temple are located in Wuyi County,Jinhua City,Zhejiang Province.This paper intends to study the villages around Yanfu Temple through contract documents,and restore the changes and development of the villages around Yanfu Temple and the mountainous areas in southwest Zhejiang during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.During the Ming and Qing dynasties,the main content of the social and economic life of the villages around Yanfu Temple was the production and circulation of land.In traditional Chinese society,the importance of land as a means of production is selfevident.Land reclamation and population are two productive factors of society,which constitute the basis of rural society and economy.During the Ming and Qing dynasties,the scale of land reclamation and population in this area showed an increasing trend,and the contradiction between man and land became increasingly fierce.The possession and use of land is the key to comprehensively understand the productive relations of rural society.Since Ming and Qing Dynasties,private ownership of land has occupied a dominant position.Because of the profound change of land ownership relationship,land tenancy management has become the main mode of rural society.With the development of rural commodity economy and the prosperity of agricultural economy,the commercialization degree of land rights is deepened,and the differentiation and circulation of land rights are increasingly complicated.This paper aims to explore the development trend and characteristics of rural economy through the diversification of land ownership transfer forms,namely land tenancy,land buying and selling,land mortgaging and borrowing.In rural settlements,complex social relations have arisen around the distribution and circulation of land and other economic activities,prompting the crowd relations to form dynamic game in the change of property rights,and conflicts and disputes occur frequently.The settlement of disputes is usually guaranteed by state power and mediated by folk "customary law".In this process,contractual documents play an important role.This paper discusses the identity of monks and the nature of temples through two economic lawsuits involving Miaoxian monks,and further analyzes the interaction between local government,township organizations and temple monks and their influence on village social order.