Children
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| 485 • Emperor Xiao Wen Di institutes an "equal-field" system of agriculture, assigning each peasant family about 19 acres (140 mu) of land, of which a small portion is to be kept permanently by the farmer and his family with the rest reverting to the state upon his death or retirement. To make sure that the people supervise each other in implementing the new system, he divides the population into groups, with five families constituting a neighborhood (Jin), five neighborhoods a village (Ji), and five villages an association (tang) headed by a chief (chang). The land-reform system will discourage farmers from selling off their properties to large landholders and will be continued in essence for well over 1,000 years. |