Japan took the Tang Dynasty as its teacher, sending envoys to China to study the equal-field system and the rent-labor-tax system. Upon returning home, they implemented the handover system, establishing the equal-field system. However, as royals, nobles, and court officials enthusiastically exploited legal loopholes, using their power to aggressively annex land, it took only a few generations for Japan's independent farmers to start going bankrupt in droves.
By the mid-to-late tenth century, the state-owned equal-field system had become completely unenforceable; the Court had no more land to allocate. Yet, paradoxically, Japan's sixty-six countries saw the emergence of a great many private manors.
