LAND REFORM: COMPROMISES 287Emperor Ai's decree: "The emperor decreed limits on the possession of land
(myonRFJn) by the people [but] it really was not carricd OUt,"30 as if it were not
simply a statement oUact but as a cry of anguish, no doubt bccause of Chu Hsi's
conscious emulation of the laconic and didactic style of the SprinR and Autumn
Annals.il He also quoted Tu Yu's lament on Tung's land limitation proposal:
It was a great pity that they did not really carry out the imperial edict to limit
the amount ofland the people could possess rhan min myongjon)]. It was only
that they did not know how to regulate the limiting [of landholding]. If they had
taken land as the basis [of distribution and taxation], rectified the land bound-
aries, and in accordance with [the number of?j people graded the land received
[from the state, suin kwa suj, thereby equalizing taxes and military service
requirements, then even if it had not been the well-field system [that they
adopted], in fact they would have obtained the spirit Ilit.. the intent] orthe well-
field system. Once this system had been established, they could have ensured
that a hundred generations would have lived without problems."As we will sec, however, despite Yu's admiration for t!1e limited-field con-
cept, he did not regard it as optimum because it represented a compromise with
private property.THE EQUAL-FIELD SYSTEMChina: Northern Wei through T'angYu regarded the equal-field system of the fifth to eighth centuries in China as a
close approximation of the well-field system because it purportedly eliminated
private propcrty, nationalized ownership of land, distributed it on an equitable
or relatively equal basis to the peasantry in return for tax and service obliga-
tions, and provided for the support of officials." Nevertheless, the equal-field
system could not he taken as an ideal model because it had not endured, and its
flaws had to be remedied if a perfected system of kongjon (public land) were
to be created. Even though the equal-field system was one of public or national
ownership, the perceived cause of its eventual failure was related to the prob-
lem of private property. The historical description of the system revealed that it
had degenerated not once, but several times into private property relations.
Yu's historical account included a brief treatment of the equal-field system
as it supposedly functioned after its inception in the Northern Wei dynasty in
486, in the subsequent Northern Ch'i, Sui, and T'ang dynastics in China, and
in the early Kory6 dynasty in Korea.^34 The various Chincse systems had cer-
tain features in common. Land was divided up and allottcd to individuals with
the amounts varying according to sex, age, occupation, and sometimes status
(commoner or slavc J. This per capita grant, called the k 'oll~lel1-t 'icll (per capita
share land) and lu-t 'iell (open or treeless lowland fields) in Chinese (kubunjon