306 LAND REFORMreformer in Chinese history, opposed confiscation of land from the rich for redis-
tribution to the poor and landless not simply because of fear of political oppo-
sition - he certainly did enough to invade the privileges of the rich in many other
ways - but because of what he deemed as the indispensable role played by the
landlords in the local, agrarian economy. Since the Sung government lacked a
full fleet of agricultural promotion officials (what we might call an agricultural
extension service), the landlords functioned to preserve dikes and waterways,
encourage planting and harvesting, and provide seed and food to the peasants
during the cultivation season. 100
A more assertive defense of the role of the rich landlord was put forward by
Yeh Shih of the Southern Sung, not because he was totally oblivious to the suf-
ferings of the poor, the injustice of unequal tenure and tenancy, or the corrup-
tion of the bureaucracy, but because he was thoroughly skeptical of well-field
Utopianism. In his view, for all the talk of restoring the well fields of the Chou
or "repressing the rich" (by confiscating their land), neither had been done since
the founding of the Northern Sung, and for good reason. Even if the Sung had
been able to gain total control of all land in the empire, the well fields could
never be restored even if the sage kings Wen and Wu and the Duke of Chou were
around to administer the system because the system was too complex to work.
In ancient times emperors had only small states to govern and could leave the
fiefs to the feudal lords; in the Sung the officials of the central bureaucracy had
responsibility for the whole empire but were unable to perform their duties
because of the frequent rotation of magistrates. For that matter, even in the Chou
period it had not been possible to adopt the well-field system everywhere. The
well fields were inseparable both from the feudal system and the complex sys-
tem of ditches and dikes of Chou times and the former could not survive the
demise of the latter. The problem for contemporary times was thus not a literal
restoration of the well-field system but the elimination of poverty.
The other popularly advertised means to this end was the "suppression of the
rich," that is stopping the accumulation of land by confiscation and redistribu-
tion to the poor. The ruler would have to be fully secure politically to carry this
out; otherwise he would be inundated by protests and suits by the rich landlords
and forced to devote all his time to adjudicating such cases. Furthermore, since
the Sung government had lost the power and ability to support the common peas-
ant, the rich landlords were indispensable to the agrarian and peasant economy.
It was the rich who rented land to the peasants, loaned them what they needed
to plant the fields and get through the planting and harvesting seasons, provided
them with relief during famine, or employed them as slaves, artisans, and enter-
tainers. The rich supported the people for the emperor and paid the lion's share
of public taxes. To be sure, they profited from their activities, but what they got
out of the system was equivalent to what they put into it. Officials should there-
fore not attempt to control or restrict their accumulation of land; they should
only admonish them to reform their ways.