The original meaning of the character articulated as Shui was similar to Tuo in meaning, being extended to mean to give or release. As a result, when being used for levy, it implies to get and take in initiative aspect. From the side receives this act, it means to give and lose some belongings. It was studied that the so-called Ji Er Bu Shui in ancient China was the earliest tax for the land with the form of labor force service, which has been processed for a relevantly long process.

In the clan commune of the primitive society, there was a public farmland that the leader of the clan commune should plough first to show the emphasis to the agriculture as well as regard it as the place to pray for a good harvest, hence being called JI Tian. And the cultivation of crops should be undertaken by the commune members who got the loments. But the grain harvested belonged to the clan commune to be the expenditure for the public services and facilities such as preparing against natural disasters, sacrificing and water conservancy and so on.

If you attend to Chinese school in China for language learning, you might be told that the form of the public farmland remained the same when it stepped into the class society. But the income was managed by the administration of the clan commune because the administration was responsible for the public affairs at that time. In fact, the income of such form was equivalent to the tax of the government.

In addition, people at that time had a kind of religious consciousness that earth produced myriads of things and the public farmland and the lotment were also gifted by earth. Therefore, some of the income from the public land should be used to sacrifice the God of Earth to pay back. Later, the idea of “all this territory belongs to the King” appeared so that the income of public land was owned to the government, which became natural. This notion was implemented until the tax policy in the feudal society.

In the Spring and Autumn period, the system of pubic farmland plough was abolished gradually. One point that the students should know when they learn Chinese online free is that the tax system of levying according to the size of the farmland the peasant owned was implemented since then. That is to say, the taxation system was established officially.