Distinguishing the Jingtian and the Gouxu in The Rites of Zhou

Abstract: Since Zheng Xuan first advocated that the land system of the "Xiangsui"(乡遂) and "Dubi"(都鄙) in The Rites of Zhou(《周礼》)was different, it has become the mainstream view in the academic circles to advocate use of the "Gouxu "(沟洫) in Xiangsui and the use of the "Jingtian"(井田) in Dubi, and the Jingtian reflect the relationship of ownership. In fact, the Jingtian system in Rites of Zhou is only a method of managing cultivated land in agricultural areas, and it has no direct relationship to the system of land ownership. The Jingtian and the Gouxu refer to two aspects of the same thing, which are not methods of farmland improvement, but also methods of road traffic and water conservancy. The Western Zhou bronze inscriptions prove that the Western Zhou Dynasty did excavate canals in the Dubi, and that the plough belonged to the subjects of the King of Zhou, and the unit of calculation of fields was only the tian(田) (hundred mu of land), which is not far from the record in The Rites of Zhou, but it is not enough to deny Mencius's "system of Jingtian".