On Nong Bing(Agricultural Problems) of Liuchun

Liuchun(1792-1850) was a frustrated scholar in officialdom in the latter of the Qing Dynastry,but he wrote an “NongBing”(“Agricultural Problams”) which hit the social maladies with a sense of responsibility to the national affairs and the livehood of the people as a scholar.The essay recorded the peasants'wretched existence and the agricultural predicament,and he also proposed the concrete means to settle these “agricultural problams”.Liuchun maintained the policy that the government should give a subsidy to the peasant and agriculture to make the peasants receive material benefit to achieve the aim of compensating encouraging peasants.In order to improve the peasants' social status,he advocated that only those who had the peasants'househould register had the qualification of entering court and acting as officials;only the peasants'juniors can take imperial civil service examination test ;the skilled peasants have the hournor of “bestowing nobility”.He proposed that only the childen of the peasants can be officials and the official juniors must go to the countryside.However,Liu's thought has obvious limitation.He thought only the agriculture was the social original profession,other occupations all were “false “,he also had the illusion to get back to the primitive society in which the emperor and his people were peasants.And,his thought is very unrealistic and thoroughly impractical in the latter stage of feudal society in China,but we neglect in no way the value of his thought and underestimate its far-reaching influences.We also see that “Nong Bing” is a precious historical literature in the latter of the feudal society,his thought has a distinct characteristic and contains the rudimentary democratic thought.It has important value in the agricultural history and ideological and cultural history in China.We can draw lessons from it to settle our “three agricultures”.