Japan: Taika Reforms

The state that emerged during the reform of Taika maintained contacts with China. From 630 to 838, 18 official embassies were sent to China, official relations with the state of Bohai were maintained. In 752, official representatives from China and India arrived in Japan for the opening ceremony of the giant (16 m tall) metal Buddha statue to Japan. However, gradually formal ties with China were curtailing, since 838 more than a century and a half the embassy in China was not sent. This was due to the weakening of the Tang Empire from the middle of the 9th century. And its subsequent collapse. After the new unification of China under the Song dynasty, a Chinese mission arrived in Japan, but the Japanese did not send the return embassy. However, cultural and trade contacts did not stop. Japan: Taika reforms ...

The borrowing of the foundations of the Chinese state system was not complete, under the influence of local conditions, various changes were made in them. In particular, the principle of appointing to positions as a result of exams was not brought in, in Japan the decisive role in obtaining posts was played not by abilities but by origin. Founded in 710 on the Chinese model, the capital Nara did not have the traditional Chinese city walls. Even the system of allotment of land use has not been implemented everywhere. The transformation of land into private ownership, the lack of trained bureaucratic personnel for the registration and redistribution of land - all this led to the fact that already in the VIII century. The redistribution of land was irregular, and in remote areas did not occur at all.

Nevertheless, the first time after the Taika reform, the provision of a guaranteed piece of land to the peasant, the establishment of a fixed taxation, the spread of new methods of cultivating the land, and the wider use of iron implements created favorable conditions for the rise of the productive forces.

As the concentration of land in private ownership decreased, the number of state lands, and, accordingly, the revenues of the government. The latter sought to compensate for their increased tax burden. This caused the expansion of peasant struggle, in the 9th-11th centuries. There were mass shoots, peasants did not pay taxes, rebellions occurred repeatedly, peasant detachments attacked even the capital. _ Peasants also moved to privately owned estates (soyen), where initially the tax burden was weaker. The estates gradually not only stopped paying taxes, but also acquired judicial and administrative immunity. To the XI century. They have become the dominant form of land ownership.

Japan: Taika reforms