The Yuan Economy: Farming, Labour, Taxation and Money

The Yuan dynasty ruled China from 1271 to 1368, after Kublai Khan had begun consolidating Mongol power in China and issuing paper money in 1260. The conquest of the Southern Song was completed in 1279, bringing northern and southern regions under Yuan rule, but their farming conditions and local practices differed. Agriculture supported communities and the state, while craft production, service obligations, taxation, and market exchange connected rural work to government and commerce. In 1368, the Yuan court lost its capital and withdrew to the Mongolian Plateau; this later regime is known as the Northern Yuan and is distinct from the Yuan state in China discussed here.

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Farming across different landscapes

Farming relied on a range of crops, equipment, and techniques rather than a single system applied across the empire. Wang Zhen, a Yuan official who served in Anhui and Jiangxi, described this variety in his illustrated agricultural treatise, the Nong Shu, completed in 1313. It covered cereals and legumes as well as hemp, sesame, vegetables, gourds, fruit, bamboo, tea, cotton, ramie, and plants used for dyes. The treatise also addressed mulberry cultivation and sericulture, the raising of silkworms for silk production.

Wang contrasted northern methods suited to predominantly dryland cultivation with southern farming that made greater use of irrigation. His account discussed ploughing, sowing, weeding, water management, and the tools used for particular tasks. It also presented an agricultural calendar that connected seasonal work with months, solar terms, and observed natural changes. Such guidance offered a way to organise work around local conditions and the agricultural year.

The book described more than fieldwork. Its equipment included irrigation devices, grain stores, food-processing tools, carts, boats, and textile machinery. One example was an ox-powered milling installation: a large geared wheel turned smaller gears connected to eight mills. The work was intended chiefly as a reference for officials, rather than as a book for cultivators, many of whom could not read.

Labour, service, and production

Farm production required work to be organised around seasonal tasks, while the crops it produced could also support people whose obligations lay outside cultivation. An account of Mongol garrison families describes some as receiving income from harvests grown by Chinese tenants. The costs of equipping and sending men on military duty could consume that income.

The court also registered households for particular services. Artisan families could owe skilled labour for official production; military households supplied soldiers; relay households helped provide transport resources. Such assignments could pass to descendants, tying a household’s livelihood to a continuing state demand. Alongside these services, private workshops and farming families produced goods for sale. An artisan’s work could therefore support both market income and an official obligation.

State revenue, salt, and public finance

Taxes drew on the different systems inherited by the Yuan. Northern assessments combined household and land charges. In the south, summer and autumn levies remained important, though the Yuan altered their assessment rather than simply preserving Song practice. Grain and textiles could be collected in kind, or obligations converted into a money payment. For a cultivator, the form of collection mattered: paying money could require selling produce first, and conversion rates affected how much of a harvest had to be sold.

Salt production and sale supplied another major source of revenue. A merchant could buy a government certificate authorising the collection of a stated quantity from a salt-producing area, then carry and sell it. The state received revenue through this controlled trade in a necessity. Certificates could themselves pass between traders, connecting fiscal claims with commercial exchange. Customs and other commercial charges brought markets and long-distance trade into the revenue system as well.

Paper money and market exchange

During his consolidation of power, Kublai issued paper notes in 1260. The first issue, backed by silk, did not succeed; a later issue used silver as its standard. Under the Yuan, jiaochao, the name for these banknotes, became a principal means of payment. Notes were made from the inner bark of mulberry trees, printed with official designs and stamped with an imperial seal. Their denominations and official markings identified their value and authority. The central government managed issuance, while some regional capitals were also authorised to print money.

Paper offered a practical way to make payments over distance without transporting large quantities of heavy copper coin. It could support exchange across a wide territory, including trade connected by overland routes and waterways. Kublai’s government also supported merchants through infrastructure, a postal system, and loans for trade caravans, and expanded the Grand Canal linking the south with the capital region. These policies helped connect production and markets, although they did not ensure that paper money retained a stable value.

The currency changed as the court tried to manage its value. In 1287 the new Zhiyuan notes were officially valued at five times the older Zhongtong notes, which could continue to circulate. A later series issued under Külüg was withdrawn after his death in 1311. New reform measures in the early 1350s failed to restore confidence as note issuance expanded and rebellion disrupted government. By the middle of that decade, reports describe notes being refused and exchange reverting to coins or goods.

Official policy aimed to make notes acceptable in everyday transactions, but actual acceptance could vary as confidence weakened. The traveller Ibn Battuta described paper notes being used for purchases and worn bills being exchanged through an official office. As inflation eroded confidence in later issues, the gap between the court’s monetary policy and the choices of users became increasingly apparent.

For the wider setting, see The Yuan Dynasty: History, Institutions and Society in China.