What does China’s largest existing landowner’s estate look like?

The Mou Family Manor in Qixia City, next to Yantai, Shandong, was first built in the 13th year of Yongzheng reign (1735). After many years of continuous construction, it reached its current size in the 20th year of the Republic of China (1935). It is estimated that the entire building complex cost about 430,000 taels of silver and is now a key national cultural protection unit.

The manor now covers an area of ??about 200,000 square meters, with more than 480 rooms, divided into three groups and six courtyards. This is the largest and most complete feudal landowner's manor in existence in our country. The picture above is the main entrance of the manor. As an important cultural tourist attraction, the author’s visit seems to be too rare even during non-epidemic periods?

Mou’s Manor, as the largest existing landowner’s manor in China, has At its peak, it owned more than 60,000 acres of farmland, more than 200,000 acres of mountains and forests, 153 villages, and collected 6.5 million kilograms of grain and rent annually! In addition, there are workshops and industries such as grain, oil, and medicine. The main reason why it has been preserved relatively intact to this day is that during the land reform in 1947, the manor was occupied by the county government and was not divided among tenants and poor farmers. This building complex and its original features were able to protect Halong. However, the grain, oil and medicinal materials workshop areas belonging to the original manor were destroyed and demolished, and are now being rebuilt.

China is a big country with thousands of years of farming tradition, and rural areas have always been an important theme in Chinese novels and film and television creations. How to express the violent turmoil and changes in rural society over the past century has become a hot topic in literary and artistic creation in recent years.

Some time ago, when the TV series adapted from the novel "White Deer Plain" was released, there were a lot of comments about it. Previously, Wang Quanan's version of the movie of the same name was also popular (note: Zhang Yuqi starred as Xiao Bai'e). But this complex and intertwined story of several generations that happened on the Weihe Plain and the 800 Qinchuan River almost became the love story of Xiao Bai'e in the movie. Not many people are satisfied with this adaptation, and there are many voices of criticism. Compared to Zhang Yimou's movie "To Live" adapted from Yu Hua's novel, which won the international award and was recognized by everyone, there is a huge gap between the two.

However, the protagonist of "Alive" (note: played by Ge You in the movie? See the picture above) is a small landowner with only more than 200 acres of land. The story line and character relationships are relatively simple, and the plot of the movie is easier to control. In China, generally speaking, rural-themed dramas about suffering do not do well at the box office. For example, Feng Xiaogang's movie "1942" depicts the disaster in Henan, involving tens of millions of victims, and millions of people died tragically! For such a heavy film, its box office seems to be somewhat tragic, making it difficult to make back the money. Therefore, why Wang Quanan wanted to make "White Deer Plain" almost as a love story of Xiao Bai'e? It is not difficult to see his "strategy" in the movie box office.

As a traditional agricultural country, China has suffered from frequent and severe disasters in history. It was once called a "famine country" by Western scholars. As a result, there are many scholars in my country who specialize in studying the history of natural disasters, because this is a very exploratory window for studying the laws of social and political changes in the past dynasties.

Those who have read some history books know that for four thousand years, natural disasters have occurred one after another in China, and records of tragic disasters are full of history! Floods, droughts and locusts, these three major disasters of destruction, are often described as "the countryside is deserted and ten houses are empty". The tragic scenes are horrifying!

The reason why Mou's Manor became so rich in the past was precisely because of the great disaster. The most important time point for the Mou family's fortune was between the 16th and 17th years of Daoguang's reign. At that time, Shandong was hit by a severe drought. Under the leadership of Mou Molin, the Mou family exchanged grain for land to rapidly expand their land area. In the most severely affected areas, the Mou family had a record of replacing a thousand acres of farmland with only two hoards of sorghum! From this, the Mou family exploded rapidly in a few years, but for the farm family, it was a history stained with blood and tears!

It took the Mou family about 200 years of business operation for nine generations to acquire such an industry. Its management methods are very traditional: in addition to a small amount of self-cultivated land (land cultivated by hired long-term workers), a large amount of land is released for farming by tenants. Earlier, the Mou family gave land to tenants, and the land was divided into three grades. Among them, the medium-sized land is rented to each farmer for about 20 acres, and each mu of land is paid 27 jins of grain (about one bucket) every year.

As long as 60 buckets of grain are handed over, farmers can get surplus grain to maintain their own lives. But then the rent was gradually increased, and finally it was increased to three measures of grain per acre. In addition, when collecting accounts, they have to endure deductions from their employers in aspects such as measuring tools and moisture calculations, making it increasingly difficult for farmers to make ends meet. In addition, the tenants had to work for their owners for about two months without compensation?

Some people today may think that it is not too much to pay one or three bushels of grain for one acre of land. But you must know that in the past, when growing grains, without the support of advanced technologies such as chemical fertilizers and improved seeds, the yield per mu was far from as high as it is today. Furthermore, anyone who has been to the Yantai and Qixia areas will feel that the soil in the hilly areas is not fertile, and it may not be easy to grow the land to produce food.

Here, we will describe Mou's daily business model as described in the existing information. It mainly employs accountants and accountants to maintain daily operations: there are 4-5 accountants in each small manor. Mr. Account. In addition to free food and accommodation, these gentlemen can receive 500 coins per year, about a hundred silver coins. This is roughly equivalent to the annual income of 6-7 long-term workers in Mou's manor (note: each long-term worker earns about 13-15 silver coins in addition to food and accommodation). In this way, a hierarchy of jurisdictional connections among tenants, long-term workers, accountants, and accountants was formed to carry out business activities.

Of course, the story about Mou’s wealth is far beyond what the author can explain in just a few hundred words. I can only briefly draw a rough outline here? Those who are interested may wish to do it themselves. In-depth visit