ABSTRACT
China has traditionally been an agricultural society. The vast majority of the country's settlements have been villages, and the overwhelming majority of the population have been farmers and agricultural laborers. During the peasant uprisings that market the closing years of the Tang and Yuan Dynasties, ballads with a rural flavor spread widely across the country. Li Yan, who later joined Li Zicheng's rebellion, wrote the poem The Song of Persuasion for Disaster Relief: Plagues of locusts happen frequently by the year-end, Destroying crops they make the harvest impossible. Li Yan was a native of Qi County in Henan Province, the son of an official of the Military Affairs Bureau. Rural folk songs saw another wave of popularity during the rebellion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom during the Qing Dynasty. Popular legends are an important part of rural literature. The famous legend of the cowherd and the weaving maid reflects the small-scale peasant economy.
