Tuntian

Tuntian (屯田) or Tunken (屯墾) is a type of frontier "military-agricultural colonies"[1][2] over the history of China. Troops were sent to harsh landscapes at the Chinese frontier to turn uncultivated land into self-sustained, agrarian settler colonies. In other words, the soldiers doubled as farmers.

Tuntian
Chinese name
Chinese屯田
Literal meaning"garrisoning (on) farms"
Alternative Chinese name
Chinese屯墾
Literal meaning"garrisoning and reclaiming wasteland"
Second alternative Chinese name
Chinese农墾
Literal meaning"farming and reclaiming wasteland"
Vietnamese name
Vietnameseđồn điền
Korean name
Hangul둔전
Japanese name
Hiraganaとんでん

Han dynasty
Further information: Economy of the Han dynasty

The Tuntian system or "Strategy of military farms" evolved during the famous victorious campaign of 61–60 BC by Zhao Chongguo against the Qiang people, which presumed ancestors of the Tibetans.[3]

While the tuntian system was made famous by Cao Cao's administration (c. 196–220 CE), Cao Cao's writings show that the system had been instituted as early as the Western Han dynasty during the reign of Emperor Wu (r.  141–87 BCE), where soldiers on distant expeditions were set to work converting and farming the conquered land, both to provide food for the army and to convert the conquered land into agricultural land.[4] After the death of Emperor Wu, however, the system was only used sporadically and therefore less effectively.

The final years of the Eastern Han dynasty (c. 189–220 CE) witnessed great economic disruption and widespread devastation, particularly through the Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184 CE; agricultural production in particular was severely disrupted, and population movements from war-ravaged areas led to massive flows of refugees. It was under these circumstances that Cao Cao's use of the tuntian system made its impact on the economic revival of China after the damage suffered previously.

Method

The mechanism of the 'civilian tuntian' system as implemented by Cao Cao had its basis in government organisation, encouragement and, to some extent, coercion. Peasants without land, refugees and soldiers were assigned to plots of land which they were to farm, while the implements required (such as ploughs and oxen) were provided by the government at a low price. In exchange for this, the peasant was to give over half of his harvest to the government.

The tuntian system had its origins in the military, and for much of the Han dynasty the land in question was farmed by soldiers on orders of the military authorities; in this case all of the crop harvested was to be kept by the military for supply uses, following the example set by Emperor Wu. Cao Cao's innovation was the introduction of the 'civilian tuntian' on a large scale both for common people and for soldiers during peacetime, whereby he successfully solved two great economic problems facing his administration: the large number of unemployed refugees, and the great tracts of land abandoned by big proprietors in the preceding chaos.

Impact

The tuntian system was to have far-reaching effects, both for Cao Cao himself and for the overall economy of China. Once the scheme had proven successful initially, Cao Cao wasted no time in extending the scheme to all areas under his control; as a result the positive effects of this organised farming was soon felt all over northern China, which he reunified.

In the short-term, meanwhile, the tuntian system was also instrumental to the success of Cao Cao's campaigns, many of which were long-range offensives across the plains of northern China; with a massive and efficient agriculture to support his army, he was able to sustain these offensives and gain victory. Overall, the tuntian system, along with the repair of irrigation works, were among the foremost contributions of Cao Cao to the economy of the Han dynasty, and contributed to the enduring strength of the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period.

Ming dynasty

The tuntian in Ming dynasty had two variants, known as Tunpu (屯堡) and Weisuo (衛所制).[5]

Qing dynasty

Tuntian was widely practiced to fight the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877).[6]

People's Republic of China

Tuntian was known as tuanchang (团场, literally "Regiment farms"), a military-run polity established by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps since 1953. A large amount of other P&C Corps were established in 1968-1970 (see the Chinese Wikipedia disambiguation page for P&C Corps) and all were disbanded by 1976.[7]

The general concept of fully government-owned agricultural developments in the PRC is known as nóngkĕn. A Ministry of Nongken is part of the State Council of the People's Republic of China during the periods of 1956–1970 and 1979–1982. It controlled state-owned farms including tuanchang. Nóngkĕn in a broader sense would also include smaller-scale farms managed by government assets such as schools; these are outside of the Ministry's scope.[8]

Other countries

The term tuntian is exported to a number of countries in the East Asian cultural sphere, forming their own readings, some of which are Sino-Xenic.

Taiwan

The Han-led Kingdom of Tungning practiced a variant of the Ming-era Tuntian system. The system was established by Koxinga immediately after landing in 1661 to supply his troops. Many places in southwest Taiwan retain their tuntian names.[9]

Viet Nam

The Sino-Vietnamese reading is đồn điền in Vietnamese. During the Nam tiến (March to the South), Khmer and Cham territory was seized and militarily colonised by the Vietnamese. The Nguyen Lords established đồn điền after 1790.[10]

The South Vietnamese and Communist Vietnamese colonisation of the Central Highlands have been compared to the historic Nam tiến of previous Vietnamese rulers. The South Vietnamese leader Diem sponsored colonisation of Northern Vietnamese Catholic refugees on Montagnard land. The now Communist Vietnamese government introduced to the Central Highlands of "New Economic Zones".[11]

Japan

Tuntian is pronounced tonden as a Sino-Japanese word. It was most notably practiced during the Meiji Restoration in frontier Hokkaido under the name tondenhei ("tonden-soldiers").[12]

Korea

The Sino-Korean reading of tuntian is dunjeon (or tunjŏn in the North Korean Romanization). Dunjeon was a core part of the Korean military supply and was notable in the following instances:

Place names

Places with a history of tuntian cultivation may be named after the practice.

The following areas contain place names derived from a systematic tuntian designation:

See also
Look up 屯田, 屯墾, or 农墾 in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References
  1. Muscolino, Micah S. (2010). "Refugees, Land Reclamation, and Militarized Landscapes in Wartime China: Huanglongshan, Shaanxi, 1937-45". Journal of Asian Studies. 69 (2): 458, 459. doi:10.1017/S0021911810000057. ISSN 0021-9118. S2CID 162487893. To take advantage of these natural benefits, Shaanxi needed to "set aside Huanglongshan as a military-agricultural colony (tuntian) and transfer troops to cultivate it, imitating the ancient system of supporting the military through agriculture". [...] First priority in developing China's northwestern frontier was "research on military agricultural colonies (yanjiu tunken)".
  2. Frank, Mark (2021-04-22). "Chinese Empire after Empire: Agrarian Colonization on the Twentieth-Century Frontier". The Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. Archived from the original on 2022-01-08. Proponents of this strategy drew inspiration from the imperial institution of tuntian (colonial fields) in formulating a modern vision of tunken, which I interpret as agrarian colonization.
  3. L. Dreyer, Edward (2008). "Zhao Chongguo: A Professional Soldier of China's Former Han Dynasty". The Journal of Military History. Society for Military History. 72 (3): 665–725. doi:10.1353/jmh.0.0028. ISSN 1543-7795. S2CID 159687819. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  4. Elvin, Mark (1973). The Pattern of the Chinese Past. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 37. ISBN 0-804-70876-2.
  5. Liew, Foon-Ming (1984). Tuntian farming of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
  6. Liu, Ts'ui-Jung; Fan, I-Chun (2016). "The Tuntian System in Xinjiang under the Qing Dynasty: A Perspective from Environmental History" (PDF). International Review of Environmental History. 2. doi:10.22459/IREH.02.2016.04. ISSN 2205-3204. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-06-02.
  7. Rossabi, Morris (2005). Governing China's Multiethnic Frontiers. University of Washington Press. pp. 157–158.
  8. 张晋藩; 海威; 初尊贤, eds. (1992). 中华人民共和国国史大辞典 [The Grand Dictionary of the History of the PRC]. 哈尔滨: 黑龙江人民出版社. p. 595. ISBN 7-207-02281-6.
  9. "明鄭屯墾地區分布圖". thcts.ascc.net.
  10. Choi Byung Wook (2004). Southern Vietnam Under the Reign of Minh Mạng (1820-1841): Central Policies and Local Response. SEAP Publications. pp. 34–. ISBN 978-0-87727-138-3.
  11. Oscar Salemink (2003). The Ethnography of Vietnam's Central Highlanders: A Historical Contextualization, 1850-1990. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 151–. ISBN 978-0-8248-2579-9.
  12. Ivings, Steven (7 May 2020). "Settling the Frontier, Defending the North: "Farmer-Soldiers" in Hokkaido's Colonial Development and National Reconciliation". The Meiji Restoration. pp. 191–211. doi:10.1017/9781108775762.010. S2CID 218799685.
  13. "Dunjeon and Maetanteo". ggc.ggcf.kr (in Korean).
  14. "Yi sun sin, The Legendary Hero : VANK". prkorea.com.
  15. "地名應用 [menu: 地名故事 -> 鄭成功與台灣地名]". 地名資訊服務網 gn.geog.ntu.edu.tw.
  16. Ru-Chen, Niu. "屯垦地名学". inf.news.

Bibliography
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