![]() Iron replaced more and more bronze as the main metal. Handicrafts and industry were mainly producing iron and bronze tools, utensils and weapons. ![]() Lacquerware ( qiqi 漆器) came the region of modern Sichuan and the south and was made coated wooden, bamboo or wedged fiber body, some decorated with golden color ( kouqi 釦器). Silk was used as currency and as tribute ( kuici 餽賜) to the nomad peoples of the northwestern steppe who often sold the silk farther to the west along the silkroad. The textile fabric of the south was linen ( ma 麻). Spinning, weaving and dyeing had acheived a certain quality standard, tomb excavations we know that Han people wore raw silk ( juan 絹), fine silk fabric ( jian縑), twilled figured silk ( qi 綺), gauze ( sha 紗), light fabric ( luo羅) and already simplier types of brocade ( jin 錦). It was almost only produced in the north in private households as well as in state manufacturies. Silk as an agricultural product had already a long history. Canals ( caoqu 漕渠) like the Baiqu 白渠 and Longshou Canal 龍首渠 connected the Yellow River 黃河 with the Wei 渭水 and Jing 涇水 rivers. Apart the free peasants, there were many tenant farmes ( diannong 佃農) that often had to sell their own land to a rich person and now worked their own fields as tenant the third group of peasants were landless persons - often refugees ( liuwang 流亡) - that were employed as field workers ( gunong 雇農) on the lands of an estate owner.Īlthough the north relied on a dry field culture and the wet paddy field culture in the south developed later, irrigation projects were crucial for agriculture and the supply of the capital region (Guannei 關內 "within the pass", Jingji 京畿). The next year the positions of furrows and ridges were reversed ("replaced"). The field were ploughed with alternating furrows ( quan 甽) and ridges ( long 壟), seedlings placed into the furrows were protected wind and could be nourished the earth and pulled out weeds the ridges by midsummer ridges and furrows were level with each other. During the rule of Emperor Wudi 漢武帝, Zhao Guo 趙過 invented a new cultivation method called daitianfa 代田法 "replacement-field method". There were also some ploughs combined with a sawing equipment ( louche 耬車) In southern China agriculture was still quite backward, and people used simple step-on ploughs ( zhilei 蹠耒), "ploughing with fire and weeding with water". These use of such ploughs gradually spread within northern China and to the northeast and northwest, following the territorial expansion of the Han empire. During the first century of the Han Dynasty technological changes took place in agriculture: Oxen and horses became more and more important as draught animals, the most advances ploughs were pulled by two oxen and mastered by three men we have presentations of agricultural activities in tomb mural paintings and brick reliefs. On this base, it was possible for merchants to accumulate substantial wealth during the next decades and to acquire land estates.įar the most part of the population were peasants, and their production output was the base for the tax revenue. Although merchants were still prohibited taking office they were rewarded if they substantially contributed to the economic output. Field taxes ( tianzu 田租) were lowered to 1/30 of the harvest, labour corvée was reduced to once every three years and could be avoided by paying a tax ( gengfu 更賦), the taxes on merchants ( suanfu 算賦) were lowered to 40 qian 錢 a year, and the production of salt and iron was promoted. ![]() ![]() The only steps they undertook was to abolish suppressive laws of the Qin Dynasty and to lower taxes imposed on peasants and merchants. Nontheless, the first few rulers of the Han Dynasty did not politically interfere into the economy but rather relied on a laissez-faire policy. ![]() The next four years after the downfall of Qin in 207 were characterized by a civil war between several feudal lords that strove for the imperial power. Although the economy was heavily damaged as a result the suppressive policy of the Qin Dynasty 秦 that had imposed a heavy burden of taxes and labour corvée on the peasant population that had to serve in the military and for the construction of the fortification wall in the north (the Great Wall 長城). ![]()
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