LAND REFORM: COMPROMISES 279Tung Chung-shu of the Former Han dynasty condemned the heinous destruc-
tion of the well-fields and pointed out that the purchase and sale ofland enabled
a few individuals to accumulate large amounts of land (kyombyong) while the
mass of poor peasants were left with hardly enough land to "stand an awl on."7
In other words, the replacement of the well-field system with private property
was even more destructive of Chou standards than the Ch'in abolition of the
Chou system of education and recruitment on the basis of moral standards because
the Han regime at least sought to maintain those institutions. But in Yu's view,
during the Han dynasty and after there was no attempt to restore the well-field
system. "In the later age [huse] there were those who wanted to allow private
land [sajon, obviously private ownership here] and permit the purchase and sale
[ofland] and yet establish controls over it by limiting [the amount that could be
owned], but this was lacking in the correct principle."g
Yu also cited the argument of Hsiin YUeh of the Later Han dynasty that because
private property allowed landlords to charge tenant cultivators exorbitant rents,
it had subverted the benevolent intention of the Han dynasty rulers to reduce
tax burdens on the peasant population. Although the legal land tax in his own
time was only I percent of the crop, a mere fraction of the ancient tithe, the large
landlords were collecting over half the crop from the peasant cultivators as rent
(literally, pu), while the officials were only collecting one part in a hundred for
taxes (se). "Although the benevolence of the [Later Han] officials is superior to
that of the three dynasties of antiquity [san-tail, the tyrannical exactions of the
great and powerful are worse than the fallen Ch'in dynasty."9
Hsiin Yiieh also castigated landownership in pejorative terms, what he called
"exclusive control over land" (chon ki-ji). In his opinion, even though the feu-
dal lords in the Spring and Autumn period of the Chou dynasty were granted
fiefs, they were not given exclusive control over them (chonbong), and the offi-
cials were likewise not given exclusive control over land (chOnji). That is, feu-
dallords had neither the right to sell or dispose of their fiefs. By Later Han times,
however, private owners occupied as much as several hundred or several thou-
sand kyong of land, surpassing even the princes and marquises (wanghu), because
of the system of purchase and sale and the failure of the former Han to estab-
lish limits on landownership. 10
Yu also noted that Tu Yu, compiler of the T'ung-tien in the early ninth cen-
tury, pointed out that Han dynasty rulers failed in their attempt to maintain sur-
veillance over cultivated land by investigations of hidden or unregistered land
because investigation and survey depended on the probity of an army of clerks
for proper implementation, and the clerks were not to be trusted. Even the severe
punishments used by Shen Pu-hai and Shang Yang of the Ch'in dynasty could
not have rectified this difficulty because the fundamental problem was the exis-
tence of private property and the exclusive control by landlords over land, which
had been avoided in the Chou dynasty. I I
In discussing the complex plan to limit the maximum size of private land-
holdings put forward by Lin Hsiin (fl. I I 27-30) of the Sung dynasty, Yu noted