Significance of Farming and Farmers
This is the way that I conceive of essay structure. It is in the traditional form of Introduction/Body/Conclusion, but I feel that there are other structural possibilities as long as the following points are covered:
expression of the problem and possibilities inherent in the issue
organization of the relevant data and related analysis of that data
synthesis of all of the elements in a coherent conclusion.
Question: How have farming and farmers played a role in defining Chinese history through the Han period?
1) Setting up the essay (expression of the problem and possibilities inherent in the issue)
The issue raised in this question is as broad as the development of civilization itself because civilization and the written history inherent therein evolved out of agriculture -- farming and farmers. However, the role of farmers and farming in Chinese civilization is unique and there are specific ways that agriculture has helped develop the unique qualities of Chinese civilization and history. Divination, the Dynastic Cycle, Confucianism, Taoism, and even revolts if not revolution, are a part of China's early history of agriculture.
2) organization of the relevant data and related analysis of that data
2a) First of all, the Yellow River, the birthplace of Chinese History and Civilization, was a violent river that was difficult if not impossible to predict. Shamen of the great flood plain of the Yellow River guided their people through astronomical observations and divinations (oracle bones) to help manage the farming process. A written language thus evolved out of the needs of agriculture, but with it came a monopoly on its use through the designated shamen and his supporting military rulers.
2b) Over centuries during the Shang period, the rulers' legitimacy came to be viewed in terms of the relative success of the harvests and the predictions regarding the Yellow river. The concept of the Dynastic Cycle as well, then, came out of the earliest views of agricultural successes and failures and related floods and droughts.
2c) Between the Shang and the Han dynasty, there is evidence that farming influences the birth of at least two major philosophies: Taoism and Confucianism. In both philosophies, farming is a sacred occupation putting the farmer in touch with the forces of Yin and Yang, the heavens and the earth. In the Confucian moral/political order, the farmers are the ruler's prime concern as his legitimacy, or Mandate from Heaven depends on their success.
2d) The farmers however, were also the chief source of taxes for the government and due to traditions of land inheritance during the Han and the equal field system, this source of taxes was not dependable. Throw into the picture the increasing number of droughts and floods during the later Han dynasty, it is easy to see how dissatisfied farmers would become a source for revolt and revolution. The Yellow Turban movement was largely fueled by disaffected farmers suffering during the later Han years and using Daoist symbols that a New Age that must come.
3) synthesis of all of the elements in a coherent conclusion
One could argue that the farming and farmers had as much if not more influence on Chinese history than other segments of society like the military and the Confucian scholar-officials. Underlying the military and the elite was the dynamic relationship between the rulers, their diviners, and the farmers. The climate and strong chance of flooding reinforced this dynamic even more and in the end, Chinese philosophies and a scholarly elite evolved to explain and appease it. Even the military legitimized its campaigns on the contradictions within this dynamic.