Since the Dong Zhuo Rebellion, Yanzhou has staged the chaotic battles of the Kwantung Coalition Army and the Western Liang Army, the continuous rebellion of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the Southern Xiongnu and the Black Mountain Army, the war between Cao Cao and Yuan Shu and the arduous Caolu War, and at the same time the man-made disasters continued, it was even more difficult to go alone, natural disasters and droughts, locust plagues raged, and even Liu Dai, the former royal family of Yanzhou Assassin History, was not spared.

In the first year of Jian'an (196), Yanzhou, which was once rich, was already full of desolation, and faced with many problems such as barren land, sharp decline in population, and food shortage, Cao Cao decisively adopted the suggestions of Zao Yi and Han Hao and implemented Tuntian.

Zao Yi and Han Hao both made outstanding contributions to Cao Cao's resistance to Lü Bu when Lü Bu invaded Yanzhou, which has already been mentioned above, so I won't talk about it here.

The origin of Tuntian is because in ancient China, the duration of some wars may be very long, as long as several years or even more than ten years, and then in some foreign wars, it is often decades or hundreds of years, at this time it is very necessary to establish a long-term and stable food production and supply base, and in order to reduce the loss of food on the road, this kind of base is often best established near the front line.

As early as when Qin Shi Huang was at war with the Xiongnu, there was "the first emperor made Meng Tian to send 100,000 people, north to attack Hu, learn about this Henan, because the river is blocked, build forty-four county seats, near the river, in vain to fill it." ". This is also the earliest record of Tuntian in ancient China, as for before the Qin and Han dynasties, because each war did not last long, there was no need for Tuntian.

In the Jian'an period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Mao Jue also proposed the strategy of "cultivating and planting, livestock and military resources" while persuading Cao Cao to serve the Son of Heaven, but unfortunately Mao Jue did not sort out specific measures.

In order to solve the problem of insufficient productivity, Cao Cao first adopted the "cattle and grain method" in order to solve the problem of insufficient productivity.

The Cattle Grain Export Law stipulates that the government rents the cattle to tenant farmers for use, and the tenant farmers pay grain (or servitude) according to the amount of cattle they rent. While this approach is possible, it is too slow to work. At that time, the commander of Dong'e County, Zao, only saw the shortcomings of the cattle losing grain method, so he proposed the method of tuntian to Cao Cao.

However, as soon as Zaoyi's plan for the tuntian system was proposed, it was opposed by many people, and the most energetic one was the military sacrifice and wine. He believes that the tuntian system is not enough to promote, and it is not beneficial to both the government and the people. The implementation of Tuntian is a play against the imperial court, which is whimsical. This made Cao Cao hesitate on the issue of Tuntian.

Zao was not intimidated by the criticism of the majority of bureaucrats in the DPRK and China, and lobbied everywhere to propagate the idea of the tuntian system. He told Cao Cao more than once that the implementation of the cattle grain loss method is to plant widely and harvest thinly, and cast a net all over the sky, and the effect is not great. If there is a flood or drought, it will not be able to harvest anything. Only by practicing the practice of tuning fields, concentrating a large number of manpower and material resources, and collectively cultivating and harvesting the fields, can we get a better harvest that year and can quickly change the current situation of insufficient food in the army.

As the saying goes, sincerity goes, gold and stone are open. At that time, Han Hao, a native of Hanoi, also supported Tuntian, Cao Cao had the pros and cons of it, and finally adopted Zaoyi's suggestion, and promoted Zaoyi from Dong'e County Order to Tuntian Governor, and also appointed Han Hao, who knew how to do agricultural production, as his assistant, and later sent his cousin-in-law Ren Jun as a pawn farmer Zhonglang to do this work specifically. In order to prevent the ministers from talking about it again, Cao Cao issued an order. The order said: "The fundamental plan for stabilizing the country lies in strengthening the army and having enough to eat. In the past, the rulers of the Qin State unified the whole country because they attached importance to agricultural production, and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty consolidated the border defense of the Western Regions because of the implementation of the Tuntian policy, which is a good experience left by the predecessors. ”

Cao Cao was the first to start Tuntian in the Xuchang area, when after the Battle of Cao Lu, the locust plague, and the rebellion of the Yellow Turban remnants, there was a large amount of ownerless and barren land, which was recovered by the imperial court as Tuntian land. Cattle and farm implements were also mainly captured by Cao Cao during the suppression of the Yellow Turban Rebellion in the same year, and as for the labor, some of them were recruited and the other part was forcibly captured.

Cao Wei Tuntian has two kinds: Mintun and Juntun. Every fifty people in Mintun are a tun, and Sima is placed in the tun, and the captain of the farmer, the captain of the farmer, and the general of the farmer are placed on it, and they are not affiliated with the county. The harvest is divided with the state: those who use official cattle, the official six and the people are four; Those who use private cattle are divided equally between the government and the people. Tuntian peasants are not allowed to leave Tuntian casually. The army is a battalion with 60 soldiers, and the garrison is guarded while tuntian.

It can be seen from Cao Cao's tax on Tuntian that Tuntian is completely profitable, you must know that the land rent set by Liu Bang was one-fifteenth, and even one-thirtieth was collected during the period of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, and Cao Cao collected at least half! Liu Bang's is about eight times, and Liu Qi's is more than fifteen times.

Under the careful management of Ren Jun, Zao Yi and Han Hao, Tuntian harvested millions of grain in less than a year, and even those opponents had nothing to say, but they all applauded Zaoyi. Under such circumstances, Cao Cao ordered that the counties and counties under Yanzhou should be equipped with some officials who were responsible for agricultural production, and the tuntian was comprehensively promoted.

The large-scale implementation of Tuntian brought a lot of grain to Cao Cao, and also solved the problem of the people having nothing to rely on to a certain extent.

During the period of confrontation between Wei, Shu and Wu, Wu and Shu also practiced tuntian, mainly military tun, but the scale and achievements were far inferior to Cao Wei.

It is a pity that Zao, who has followed Cao Cao since he was against Dong's rebel army, did not live long after the implementation of the tuntian system and died young.

However, Tuntian's shortcomings are also very large, and it is not unreasonable for Hou Sheng to oppose it.

1. The taxes in Tuntian are too heavy, it can already be called squeezing, half of it is only collected by the government, plus the possible unspoken rules, there is basically not much left in the hands of the common people;

2. The peasants of the tuntian were not allowed to leave the tuntian at will, they had to be confined to the tuntian, and there was no freedom at all, so there was little difference between them and the serfs.

3. Many of the laborers in Tuntian are forced from various places to reclaim these ownerless and barren lands, and they are not willing, they are basically forced.

The essence of the Cao Wei Group's Tuntian is to highly exploit the fruits of the people's labor for their own use, and this policy is bound to be unpopular.

Therefore, after Cao Cao implemented the large-scale implementation of tuntian, there were many incidents of a large number of peasant escapes, which were not smooth at all as Cao Cao imagined.

In the third year of Jian'an (198), Cao Cao had already recovered Xuzhou, defeated Lü Bu, and obtained Chen Qi, Chen Deng and his sons, Chen Qun and Yuan Lian. At this time, Yuan Jian put forward another valuable suggestion for the problems that arose in the tuntian system.

Yuan Jian said to Cao Cao: "The people are content with the homeland, unwilling to move easily, must not suddenly let them leave their homeland, it is easy to follow their wishes, it is difficult to go against their wishes, you should follow their wishes, let them go if they are willing to reclaim the wasteland, and those who are unwilling to go should not be reluctant." ”

Yuan's proposal alleviated the problems caused by Tuntian to a certain extent.

Later, the amount of exploitation in the tuntian area became more and more serious, and the distribution ratio reached the level of eight officials and two people, which caused a large-scale exodus and rebellion of the tuntian people. The land of Tuntian was constantly encroached upon by the wealthy clans, so the Tuntian system was gradually destroyed. In the first year of Xianxi (264), the imperial court announced the abolition of Mintun. Although Bingtun continues to exist, its role is no longer significant.

Moreover, although the results achieved by Cao Cao Tuntian in history are said to be very successful according to some sources, this point is doubtful from the process of the battle of Guandu.

It is true that Tuntian can have huge gains in the short term, but it is not suitable as a long-term national policy, on the contrary, Tuntian may have unexpected gains at a specific time and place.