 Important political policies of ancient Japan also derived from Confucian philosophical teachings. The handen system of equal land distribution in Japan was an outgrowth of the Mencius’ account (3 A/3) of “humane government.” Mencius explained that people cannot be expected to be good law-abiding members of society if they do not have the basic material needs of life including food, clothing, and shelter. To ensure that people have these, Mencius advocated the “well-field” (C: jingtian) system of land distribution, allotting an equal share for all families. According to Mencius, humane government begins with this system of land distribution. Although promulgated in the wake of the Taika reforms of the seventh century, this idealistic approach to land distribution was incrementally compromised by special allowances of semi-permanent land holdings for Buddhist temples, Shintō shrines, aristocrats, and samurai rulers. Still, the very attempt at its implementation reflected the extent to which the ancient Japanese initially sought to realize egalitarian Confucian thinking about landholding as a means of establishing the ethical foundations of political society.