The land contracts of the Mongolian Banner of Rehe were numerous and can be divided into three broad categories: rental contracts, mortgage contracts(dianmai) and sale contracts. These contracts reveal that Mongolian nobility and monks were the principal renters of banner land, although Mongolian commoners also rented out a small amount of land. Han Chinese land merchants and “monopolists”(lantou) were the middlemen in the tenancy process and the major resellers of surface rights in land. Tenants were mostly Han Chinese peasants. Those who mortgaged land were mostly impoverished Mongolian owner-peasants and Han Chinese tenants. In the process of mortgaging land the price of tenancy rights steadily increased and the control of Mongolian banner land gradually fell into the hands of those who owner the tenancy rights.