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영어

The purpose of this study is to understand general economic conditions of Kroean peasants in Manchuria during the 1930s, or the early period of Manchukuo. To achieve this goal, a special report on the economic conditions about a Korean county in the District of Yenchi, Chientao Province in Manchuria in 1934 has been analyzed. This special report is included in “An Investigation Report on the Rural Economic Conditions”, published by a special Investigation Bureau of Manchukuo in 1936. The county investigated was a settlement composed of 24 Korean peasant households. Most of them were immigrated from the same village in a northern province of Korea, Hamkyongbukdo. The rice field among the cultivated land was reached 70%. As a result, the rice was the main product in the county. The average size of the cultivated land as well as the owned landof each household was very small. Most (90%) of the landlords were Chinese and were living outside the county. Each tenant had to give a half of his one year product to his landlords as the tenant fee. Oneinteresting finding was the opium cultivation by the Korean peasants in the county. All of opium product were sold to the opium collection office located in the near city. Using the result of ‘cash income and spending’ analysis, we might conclude that two groups- the owner cultivators and the part owner and part tenants – were maintaining the most sound economic life among Korean peasants in the investigated county.