This article was written in response to the letter sent by a northeastern girl to the Premier of the State Council, published in the blog of a netizen, Black Star Man, in view of the fact that her family's land had been encircled and she had no way of making a living. Thought the lifeblood of the world's farmers - land, seeking the future.
"Enclosure movement" as a historical term, originated in the seventeenth century industrial revolution in Britain. Landowners and large capital owners in order to as soon as possible to woolen textile industry and a new type of farm (sheep farming) as a leader, the development of the commodity economy, rapid wealth, the use of their own constitutional monarchy, in the form of parliamentary decree (through the 2,208 enclosure of the land act), in the 1700-1801 this 100-year period, *** enclosure of the farmers land of three million four hundred and ninety-nine million acres. In the last forty years the enclosure was ten times as great as in the first sixty years. Enclosure bankrupted large numbers of peasants into cheap labor without the means of production, and provided a wide domestic market for the new capitalist industries. Although, the process was coercive and even bloody. But it did provide a large pool of labor for the early strength of the old British empire, as well as soldiers and manpower for overseas colonial raids.
But the real "Enclosure Movement" in world history did not begin in the British Empire, but in the Mongolian Empire, the Mongols are the thirteenth century A.D., the ethnic minorities in the desert north, in the forest tribes living on the shores of Lake Baikal and the Huamuq River basin, and the steppe tribes living in the Eerzina River to the stone river between the Yer Shi River, the main body, formed a group of people who lived on the grasslands of the desert. Steppe tribes as the main body, the formation of a new ethnic group with **** the same title. Because the original nomadic people are used to hunting and nomadic herding, to tribal drawing land to live and graze, roughly hunting and nomadic herding each follow the agreed routes and boundaries, only the war and the force of plundering, may change this state of the ancestor to continue down. Therefore, the first Mongolian tribes took the enclosure as the basic way to recognize their own rights and interests and land, pasture, mountains and forests. In 1206 A.D., Temujin of the Dayan tribe, after many years of war, united the Mongolian tribes by force of arms, and was honored as Genghis Khan (Mongolian Ocean) at the meeting of the tribal alliance held in the meadow on the banks of the beautiful Meduska River, and he created the Mongolian state by grass. Started by the grasslands outward expansion of the journey. In accordance with the old system, all the new cities and land raided by the generals in charge of the army were in principle owned by the generals. That is to say, each general in accordance with the military order to attack the city, roughly, the new occupation of the territory, let the horses run for a day to capture the scope of the generals to carry out the military order all. This system, has been continued until the Mongolian army south to raid the gold and the Song Dynasty to be corrected.
1312 AD, Genghis Khan by autumn high horse fat, waving division into the strategy of the Central Plains, its purpose is to regard the Central Plains as Mongolia's inexhaustible wealth of the permanent treasure trove, and regularly to be plundered. Under his tent "four dogs" one of the brave general Kubilai suggested: the attack on the central plains, drive away the residents, the vast plains of the mountains and fields for pasture. Genghis Khan's two younger brothers Beilegutai, Hazar simply suggested that the inhabitants of the Central Plains will be driven into slavery, for its cattle and sheep. So Genghis Khan below the Mongolian generals are very happy. Two years later, the Mongolian army captured the city of Jin Zhongdu (ancient Yanjing), to live in the city of the famous Khitan scholar Yelu Chu Cai. For its elegance, knowledge, temperament, Genghis Khan's western expedition with its Khan's clerk, Division astrology astronomy, divination, admire its talent, only trust. 1227 Genghis Khan dying, told his second son wuqatai, the day after should be commissioned by the yelu chuzai to rule the country. Since then, yelu chu material with its outstanding talent, in the reign of wu guatai, presided over Mongolia on the governance of the central plains, so that the Mongolian rulers from the nomadic civilization to the agricultural civilization took a big step forward. Reversed the Mongols' barbaric move to burn and pillage to claim financial revenues to support wars. The non-violent collection of taxes and the strict and orderly political system and the strategy of ruling the country through literature aided the Mongols in building an empire that spanned the oldest of Europe and Asia.
In 1228, after Wukodai succeeded to the throne, he sent his army south to attack the Jin state, which had moved its capital to Bianliang for twenty years. The generals circled all the way, killing innocents indiscriminately. The nobleman Baidian Jiandi saw the Chinese people, suggested, why not just kill them all, let the land grow grass, as Mongolia pasture. Yelu Chu Cai advised Wukodai that with the people's cultivation and production, Mongolia would have an inexhaustible supply of taxes to meet the needs of military and luxury life. So, thought of his father's last words of the Wukwatai ordered to adopt its recommendations, the preparation of the Central Plains household registration, military and civilian households, each under its own, re-establishment of local officials to manage the civil affairs, tax collection, only to prohibit the Mongolian army flooded the burning and killing and enclosure of the land.
The second high tide of enclosure in Chinese history was after the eight banners entered the customs. The fertile land of the Central Plains, rich production, so that the Qing aristocrats are coveted. Regent dorgon to "east to the kings, lords, soldiers, etc., nowhere to settle" (qing shi zu shilu volume 12) for the reason, instigated shunzhi in the year of his succession (1644) in December issued an edict: provisions: near the capital of the counties of the han people all to be occupied by all the deserted land, so the eight banners of the aristocracy, hunqi in their own forces within the jurisdiction of the horse! encircle the land of the capital. Shunzhi four years, Shunzhi eight years, and twice by imperial decree, enclosure order from the capital of the states and counties to the Hetian, Luanzhou, Zunhua and other provinces and counties, and then extended to the Shuntian, Baoding, Yizhou, Yongping and other forty-two provinces. With the eight banners soldiers stationed around the military strongholds and capitals, enclosure range, expanded from Zhili province to Jinan, Shandong, Dezhou, Linqing, Jiangbei Xuzhou, Shanxi Taiyuan, Lu'an, Pingyang, Puzhou, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Ningxia and other places. According to statistics, the land occupied by the royal family, Manchurian nobles and princes of various banners during this period was about 22,000 piles (Volume 5), and the land occupied by the Eight Banners soldiers amounted to more than 140,000 hectares (Volume 21). Qing people Yao Wen Xie in the "circle occupation record" in the description of the situation, "to the village, the field drains, two ride before and after the Department of rope, to mark the Thursday round, and the total accumulation of the. Each circle **** get hundreds of ten zhuzu", and "the circle must be, then the hut, field and garden are all Tuen Yau" (Volume 31), "the circle of the field to the field, the owner of the time expelled, indoor all their own. Wife and offspring ugly people to take away, want to stay with the people do not dare to carry. The tenants, who had no livelihood, relied on them for farming" (1). The Qing dynasty into the first minister dorgon, the royal family doduo, ji erhalang, fierce general ao bai, etc., almost dominated the most fertile land around the capital. Until the Kangxi plan to earn Aobai, liquidate its and followers and servants of the evil, only one after another to return their land to the people. To the twenty-fourth year of the Kangxi Emperor, and issued a "subsequent never allowed to encircle the land" of the Oracle, only to the end of this history.
Whether Mongolia or the Qing Dynasty, they are backward nomads, or half-agricultural, half-hunting backward people, by the collapse of discipline in the Central Plains, the ruling class of the corrupt and degenerate at the time, by virtue of the powerful force to dominate the Central Plains. Because war and robbery by force were the basic ways of amassing wealth handed down from their ancestors. Therefore, they had a deep-seated contempt for the farming civilization and did not take active construction as the best way to rule and enrich the country. Therefore, no matter how powerful the countries they established were, they could not avoid destruction in the end. They conquered the Eurasian peoples by force of arms, but the peoples of those countries eventually assimilated and expelled them by civilization. This is the industrial revolution as a guide to the development of productive forces as the driving force to commercial trade, pioneering and enterprising for the wealth of the country of the British enclosure movement and Mongolia, the Qing dynasty enclosure movement of the fundamental reasons for the different historical results.
The history of the development of the reform and opening up, in order to attract foreign investment, expanding the scale of the city, the construction of square roads, a swarm of economic development, all over the country, as large as the capital of the capital city, as small as the county townships, from the eighties of the last century, began in the outskirts of the city, and even scenic areas, the transportation thoroughfare area of the new enclosure climax. According to statistics: China's total area of about 35,000 square kilometers of planned development zones (excluding unapproved areas without formalities and traffic), equivalent to about 23.31 million mu, if the per capita land for the calculation of 1 acre, the 35,000 square kilometers of development zones, so that 23.3 million peasants have lost their land. From the beginning of the 1990s, the high point of agricultural land use, to the present day, China's average annual loss of arable land is about 4 million mu. Since the 1980s to the present, industrial land and urban commercial and residential land has reduced at least hundreds of millions of mu of arable land to nothing. In accordance with the requirements of the State Council and the Ministry of Land and Resources for prudent use of land, all parts of the country have been investigating illegally occupied and abandoned land, and Guangdong alone has cleared out 8,000 hectares of illegal development zones, covering an area of more than 200 square kilometers, which is equivalent to the area of the administrative division of a large county. Looking back at the soaring prices that began at the end of 2006, it started with the insufficient supply of food and agricultural products and the tension between supply and demand, which led to price fluctuations. Because a large amount of arable land has been encroached upon and strong laborers have gone out to work, in recent years China's total grain production has been declining continuously, with the annual per capita possession of grain falling from 414 kilograms in 1996 to 333 kilograms in 2003. As a result of the sharp decline in food production, the annual formation of 0.25 billion tons to 0.35 billion tons of shortfalls need to be filled with imported food. If, the knowledge of the heart to the suburbs of the city to take a walk, you can see that the original inch of land is not deserted suburban vegetable base, at least 10% of the arable land is not willing to work, turned to business and labor in the suburbs of farmers abandoned, which and the suburbs of the land was captured for the development of the *** with the same constitutes the lack of supply of vegetables in the city, one of the reasons for the price rise.
The author does not mean to deny the initiative of industry, tourism and transportation to occupy arable land. However, the country a county a town regardless of resources, transportation, market reality, have mandatory enclosure of farmers' land, and how many acres of land without industry is still abandoned? And how many deprivation of farmers' land ownership practices caused by legal proceedings are not followed? How many "three nos" farmers who have lost their land, "no land, no job, no social security", do not know if they have a tomorrow? Historically, the powerful have plundered peasants' land with violence and bloodshed. We do not have the excuse of state ownership, so we can recklessly encircle the arable land, so that 1.3 billion Chinese people rely on the survival of the good land is diminishing, relying on imports to maintain the balance of the food supply?
The occupation of arable land should be favorable and moderate, to give full play to the role of land, produce real social benefits. The land on which our nation relies for continuity and reproduction should not be encroached upon or polluted to become uncultivated, and then we will be in danger of losing our children and grandchildren. Maybe when we encounter natural or man-made disasters, we will eat its own bad consequences.