The productivity problem of thin soil layer and poor drought tolerance exists in the purple soil area.The potential to improve its water conditions lies not only in the soil itself，but also in the parent rock.A hillslope in thin purple soil with growing tobacco was selected as the experimental site in the hilly areas of Sichuan，China.Deep vertical rotary tillage was used to loosen the soil and break the underlying parent rock at the same time，referred to as integrated tillage of soil and parent rock(ITSPR).Three treatments were set up:the tillage depth of ITSPR was 50(T1)and 40 cm(T2)，respectively，and rotary tillage was 12 cm(T3).The effect of ITSPR on water holding capacity of tobacco planting soil was studied.ITSPR broke the loose mud shale and increased the soil depth.The soil depth on the upslope of T1 and T2 increases by 147.9% and 67.9%，respectively，compared with T3，while that on the lower slope increased by 65.7% and 9.0%，respectively.Compared with rotary tillage，ITSPR caused a significant decrease in soil bulk density and soil compactness(P<0.01)，but a significant increase in soil water content，especially below the plough layer.The order of soil water storage of different tillage treatments from large to small was T1>T2>T3.The upslope of T1 and T2 were 125.69% and 66.02% higher than that of T3，and the downslope of T1 and T2 were 34.99% and 6.58% higher than the lower slopes of T3，respectively.It is suggested that ITSPR is a fast and effective way to expand water capacity and enhance water storage capacity，and can break the constraints of flue-cured tobacco production in the sloping land of purple soil，such as shallow soil layer，small water capacity，poor water retention and drought resistance.