Land System. The large amounts of land concentrated in the hands of the great families contributed to the collapse of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.). Realizing that unequal land ownership was a key cause of dynastic decline, the regimes succeeding the Han nationalized and then distributed land to the taxpaying peasants. In 485 the Northern Wei (386-535) instituted an "equal field" system that assigned uniform amounts of agricultural land to all adult peasants. The Sui dynasty (589—618) continued to practice the equal field system and applied it to the entire country; this policy was further implemented by the Tang dynasty (618-907). In theory, the system depended on the periodic redistribution of land among the taxpaying farmers, but it is questionable whether the policy was ever equitably applied.

Taxation. During the Tang dynasty, under the equal field system, a peasant was expected to pay the government...