According to historical records, "the son of heaven can't be ambitious, but must take an ox cart." In other words, even the living conditions of the upper rulers are far from those of the previous generation. It is conceivable that the living conditions of farmers at that time must be very miserable. This objective reality forced the rulers of the Western Han Dynasty to adopt the method of "letting people live and work in peace and contentment" to resume production and improve the economic situation. This policy is a "rest and recuperation" policy, which is characterized by not levying corvee (tax) and sharing the interest with the people. It is the objective reason for implementing this policy.
On the other hand, the subjective reason for practicing self-cultivation is the rulers in the early Han Dynasty, including Emperor Liu Bang and his important ministers. Most of them came from ordinary people or petty officials at the lower level, and they all participated in the peasant uprising at the end of Qin Dynasty. Therefore, they were well aware of the sufferings of the people and learned the lesson that Qin died of tyranny, so they adopted the policy of "rest and recuperation" in view of the urgent needs of the people, which was the subjective reason for implementing this policy. Farmers need land to produce food, houses to live in and less taxes to ensure their living needs. To this end, the measures taken by Emperor Gaozu can meet or partially meet these requirements:
(1) Soldiers are demobilized (increasing the number of farmers) and exempted from several years of corvee (guaranteed working hours).
(2) Let the people who fled in the war go home and restore all the land and houses (productive land).
(3) release the people (male) who sold themselves into slavery because of hunger and the people (female) who sold themselves into slavery as civilians (who can own some labor products).
(4) The land rent is set at fifteen taxes (the products kept by farmers have increased greatly). These measures enable farmers to settle down; "Living in peace" has aroused farmers' enthusiasm for production; "Happy". Therefore, the social order is stable and the social economy is gradually recovering.