Peasants In The Qing-Era Essay

If given the choice to be a peasant in the Tokugawa-era (1603-1868), or a peasant in the Qing-era (1644-1912), I would choose to be a peasant in the Tokugawa-era. Both peasants faced many hardships, including poverty, infanticide, and famine. However, peasants who lived in the Tokugawa-era had slightly more opportunities for economic growth, freedom, and job growth than the peasants who lived during the Qing-era. During the Qing-era, the Chinese population grew from 130 million to 450 million. Peasants in the Qing-era accounted for roughly 80-90% of China’s population. With that, and China being as large as it is, peasants who lived in the northern region of China lived a slightly different lifestyle than those who lived in the southern

The Sankin Kotai was established the Shogunate as an alternate attendance system. This system required daimyo to travel to Edo every other year, as a way to keep the daimyo poo and less liable to revolt against Tokugawa. Samurai and daimyo traveled mainly along the Tokaido road, which lay south of Edo. This became a large trading spot for peasants to sell their specialized crops, such as strawberries, to the daimyo and samurai. Peasants in Japan had a slightly more equal family structure than their counterparts in China. While sons were still preferred in Japan, daughters could be sent to work in the city, or like in China, to marry a man in another village. In Japan, families also had the option to try to find a Yoshi, a man who married into families to help keep their fields productive. In China, if no males were born in a family, typically that would be the end of their fields and legacy. While Tokugawa peasants still faced poverty and other hardships, it was the Sankin Kotai and less rigid tenant system that allowed some peasants to be better off than others. In Qing China, many peasants did not have the same opportunities, if any at