Literature Research On Agricultural Production Incentives In The Song Dynasty

The literature on persuading farmers in the Song Dynasty refers to the written materials about the activities of emperors,officials,and scholars in persuading farmers.As an important part of traditional agricultural administration,the system of persuading farmers was gradually perfected in the Song Dynasty.The emperor,officials and scholars all actively carried out activities of persuading farmers,leaving behind valuable literature on persuading farmers.This paper argues that the edict to persuade farmers is the content of persuading farmers in the edict issued by the emperor of Song Dynasty.The reason for its creation is closely related to the need to restore and develop agricultural production in the early stage,the monarch’s personal thought of emphasizing and respecting agriculture,and political decision-making.The specific content is generally to express the emperor’s thought of governing the country with respect to agriculture,to discuss the problems existing in the development of agriculture,and to promulgate targeted measures to persuade farmers,etc.It is of great help to understand the agricultural thoughts of the emperors in the Song Dynasty and the agricultural policies during the emperor’s reign.Encouraging Farmers’ Memorials are memorials written by ministers and bureaucrats around agricultural issues.Most of the main authors of these exhortations to agriculture were agricultural officials,and some were related to agricultural affairs.The basic content is to state the importance of agricultural administration,measures to solve the problems encountered in agricultural development and famine administration problems.Judging from the time distribution,there are many more memorials to encourage agriculture in the Northern Song Dynasty than in the Southern Song Dynasty,and they are more concentrated.In the period of Renzong and Shenzong.The reasons are closely related to the different agricultural environments in the Song and Song dynasties,the personal reasons of the emperor,ministers,and scholar-bureaucrats,and the maturity of the agricultural persuasion system.The documents of Song Dynasty’s persuading farmers mainly deal with the issues of persuading farmers to become officials,officials asking to reduce the burden on farmers,the system of archers’ farmland,and the issue of returning pastures to farming.The literature on persuading farmers is an important historical material for studying the thoughts of officials on agriculture in the Song Dynasty,the implementation of agricultural policies by the ruling class and the activities of persuading farmers.Proposals persuading farmers include Jitian rites,notices and articles persuading farmers.Therefore,this part mainly discusses Jitian rites related to the emperor’s persuasion to farmers,documents persuading farmers issued by local governments,and articles persuading farmers written by officials or scholars..Advising farmers is a document that expresses the official ideas of emphasizing and supervising agriculture and implementing agricultural policies in the form of articles persuading farmers.It records the will of the emperor,officials,and scholars to attach importance to agricultural development and promote agricultural production technologies.Officials and scholars began to write standardized persuasive essays on agriculture and became very popular in the Song Dynasty.These persuasive articles reflect the positive attitude of scholars to attach importance to agricultural development,and they are an important manifestation of scholars’ deep understanding of rural society and people’s sentiments.The Song Dynasty persuasion to agriculture documents concentratedly recorded the agricultural policy thoughts and feelings of the Song Dynasty emperors,ministers,officials and scholars,and it is an important material for the study of the Song Dynasty agricultural policy thoughts.It describes the procedures and ways that the officials and private individuals in the Song Dynasty actively carried out agricultural administration work.It records that from the emperor’s holding the rituals and customs of the land,promulgating the edict to persuade farmers,to the local officials and scholars carrying out activities to persuade farmers in the form of proclamations,forming a top-down government operation and management system to persuade farmers.In the system of persuading farmers in the Song Dynasty,the agricultural teachers,the department of persuading farmers,the local officials with the rank of persuading farmers,etc.,were set up in the system of persuading farmers.The decline is a unique and special content in the history of traditional Chinese agricultural development,and it has had a certain impact on the agricultural culture of the Jin,Yuan,Ming and Qing Dynasties.