"Hanshu Food and Goods" is a large article that expounds the problems of agriculture, agriculture and agriculture in the Han Dynasty and the financial means of the state. The definition of food is: "Hong Fan Eight Politics, one is food, and the other is goods." The food is the edible things of the agricultural Jiagu, and the goods are the cloth and cloth, and the gold, knives, turtles, and shells, so the wealth is also divided. The two, the foundation of the people, prospered from the world of Shennong. ”

Today there is a fashionable word called new rural construction. "Food and Goods" talks about the construction of China's old countryside. In the past, the historian was an official who recorded the history of the country, and he was also an expert in making top-level designs for the country. In "Food and Goods", Bangu planned a blueprint for a village:

Eight households, one side of the well field, 900 acres for a village. Each household "receives 100 acres of private land, 10 acres of public land, is 880 acres, and the remaining 20 acres are considered houses". Each of the eight households has two houses, one in the field during the busy farming season and one in the euphem after the autumn harvest. "In the wilderness, in the city. "In the spring, the people are in the wilderness, and in the winter, they are in the city. "Each household receives 10 acres of public land to prevent disputes between neighbors. Whose house base is wider, whose crops have climbed into someone else's field, this kind of hidden grievance can be avoided. "Friends go in and out, watch and help each other, save each other from the sick, and the people are in harmony. ”

In the past, the common people were not called citizens, but people, and the emperor was the head of the family, and it was the duty of the state to provide for the old and educate the young. "Twenty years of the people will receive the field, and sixty will return to the field. Seventy years old or above, the upper one is raised, under ten years old, the upper director is also, eleven years old or above, the upper is strong. "People are rare in their seventies, and the state must support the elderly over seventy. For children under the age of 10, it is the responsibility of the local government to protect their healthy growth. Before the age of 11 to 20 "receive the field", the local government should urge them to work hard and be strong. Education is an important job. "There is an orderly and rural area. The order is to teach Mingjiao, and the Xuan is to salute and visualize. "I entered elementary school at the age of eight, learned Liujia, Wufang, and books, and knew the festival of parents and children. Fifteen entered the university, learned the first sacraments, and knew the court's courtiers. There are those who show off their differences, and they move to their hometowns to learn in the order. Those who are different from the order of the Xuan will move to the country to learn from less. The princes are different from the Son of Heaven. "In elementary school, students learn the principles of being a person and doing things, and only after the age of 15 do they carry out patriotic and party love and professional education. Bangu's design is reasonable, learn to be a person in primary school, and learn something else when you are older. The primary school stage is not suitable for the training of "revolutionary successors".

"The way of managing the people, the land is the foundation", farmers can produce and live with peace of mind, and live a down-to-earth life, so that the country will be stable and stable. How can we make the peasants feel at ease? Ban Gu spoke for the peasants and calculated a conscience account for the peasants, which was both shocking and contemplative. Take a family of five as an example, if you farm 100 acres, the yield per mu is 1.5 stones, the harvest is 150 stones, and 10% of the agricultural tax is paid, 15 stones. The monthly per capita ration is 1.5 stones, and the whole family needs 90 stones a year to fill their stomachs. The surplus grain is 45 stones. In that year, the market price of grain per stone was 30 yuan, and after the sale, the income was 1,350 yuan. Excluding daily expenses, clothing, etc., per person per year: 300 yuan, 1500 yuan. The cost of education and sacrifice (Shelu Taste New, Spring and Autumn Ancestral Hall) is about 300 yuan. The family of five worked hard for a year, with a net loss of 450 yuan, and "the expenses for death and death due to unfortunate illness, and the upper endowment, have not been related to this".

In the face of this survival pressure of farmers, it is necessary to intervene, which is the duty of the peasants. Ban Gu listed the "Wei model" during the Warring States Period, which encouraged the combination of increasing production and income and leveling grain prices. In the harvest year, the grain is purchased at a price higher than the market price as a national reserve, and in the disaster year, the warehouse is opened at a low price to help the people save the market. Ban Gu clearly understands that the biggest beneficiary of the market price is not the farmers, but the first. "It hurts the people and the peasants. The people's injuries are scattered, and the agricultural injuries are the country's poverty, so they are very expensive and very cheap, and their injuries are also one. Those who are good for the country will not harm the people and benefit the farmers. ”

The "Food and Goods Journal" also introduces in detail several advanced farming methods, including the newly invented agricultural machinery, which should be regarded as the agricultural high technology of the time.

Emperor Wen of Han's great move was to reduce or exempt agricultural taxes. First reduced from 1/10 to 1/15, and then listened to Jia Yichao's wrong advice and was exempted from all of them, "It is half of the 12-year tax for the people." Next year, the tax on private land will be abolished." Thirteen years later, in the second year of Emperor Jing, it was sharply reduced to 1/30, "making the people half of the land rent, thirty and one tax".

In 2004, some provinces and municipalities in China were exempted from agricultural tax on a pilot basis, and since 2006, the national agricultural tax has been exempted, and the tax on special agricultural and forestry products other than tobacco has been abolished. This is a great policy. But there was a comment in a major newspaper at the time: "China's 'imperial grain and national tax', which has lasted for more than 2,600 years, has entered the history museum." "This author may not have read "Food Journal".

Another point to be vigilant is that the current indiscriminate price increase of agricultural materials is to discount this good national policy.