LAND REFORM: COMPROMISES 283Yu's admission "a system devised by the ancient sages."19 The details of Yu's
reasoning on the question of the 100-myo plot will be taken up later and it remains
to be seen whether his choice represents the triumph of reason or tradition.
Yu did not insist on the literal adoption of the nine-square layout of the Men-
cius, possibly because the classical literature left room for variation on this mat-
ter. In addition to Kija's four-square configuration, the History of the Han Dynasty
(Han-shu) by Pan Ku and the Kung-yang version of the Spring alld Autumn
Annals (Ch 'un-ch 'iu) stated that the well-field unit had nine squares of 100 myo
each (a total of 900 myo) and eight families but there was no central kongjon
or lord's field. Instead, each of the eight families possessed its own plot of 100
myo and an additional 10 myo of kongjon, the produce from which was uscd to
pay the tax. The combination of private plots and public lands totaled 880 myo,
and an additional 20 myo was set aside for house sites for the peasants.^20 While
two descriptions in the classical literature agreed on the TOO-I11)'O unit for the
private land (saji5n) of the peasant households, they differed on the pattern of
configuration. Yu, therefore, insisted on the 100-myo unit but not on the nine-
square pattern. and he claimed nonetheless that rationality and utility were the
basis for his selections.
It was also Yu's conviction that a land unit of fixed size had to be the basis of
any system of taxation and military service, but the inspiration for this idea could
not have come from a literal interpretation of the well-field system alone. The
standards for the land tax and military service that Yu favored were more gen-
eralized features of ancient Chinese institutions. Classical literature on the land
tax is ambiguous and contradictory; there were two basic concepts or models
that derived from ancient practice. One was the idea that the ideal tax rate on
agricultural production was one-ninth of the crop, derived from the well-field
model in which the kongj6n or central plot was one-ninth the area of the 900-
myo unit. The other standard was the tithe or collection of one-tenth of the crop,
a rate in usc on fields not organized under the well-field system during the Chou.^21
The tithe became the preferred rate in the Chinese literature because the Men-
cius contains the statement that it was the main principle of taxation for all dynas-
ties of the san-tai period despite differences in basic land units and methods of
land tenure. The Kung-yang commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals also
praised the tithe as the optimum tax, not on the principle that the lower the tax
the better, but because the tithe struck the proper balance between the needs of
the peasantry and the requirements of the state. More than a one-tenth tax would
be too oppressive, and less than one-tenth would mean that the state's revenues
needs were too low for a civilized country that needed funds to conduct proper
sacrificial rites.^22 As is well known, the tithe was believed to he the ideal tax
rate for a virtuous ruler throughout post-Chou Chinese history, a dogma that
derived not from the well-field model itself, but from other statements in the
classical literature about the sage institutions of antiquity.