One Piece of Song Dynasty

"Sister Jing'er"

"Brother, how come you came out and recovered?"

"Yes, I have recovered. I have been bored at home for a month and I am almost sick. Now I want to go out and have a look. Will you come with me? .1kanshu"

"Okay, brother, I'll go out with you for a walk, and I'll call Huzi and Daniel. It'll be safer this way."

"Okay, go ahead and call me, I'll be waiting for you here."

After a while, my sister came over with two servants. A thin man was about six feet tall, and a slightly stout man was about five and a half feet tall. A foot in the Song Dynasty was about 3168 centimeters. The tall one was called Huzi, and the short one was called Huzi. Daniel, they both look the same.

The four of us went out and walked around Lijiazhuang. The Lijiazhuang's mansion is on the east side of the village. There are about 60 households in the entire Lijiazhuang, with about people. The village is not big, and my family's land is all in the village. On the east side, Lijiazhuang is located between Nan'an and Quanzhou, not far from Jinjiang. To be honest, it is very good to have acres of fertile land in mountainous Fujian.

Now is the time when spring and summer alternate, and the fields are planted with Champa rice. Champa rice was introduced to Fujian at the end of the Five Dynasties and the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty. It was not promoted on a large scale in the Song Dynasty until the Zhenzong period. Champa rice has strong adaptability and long growth. The period is short, and it only takes more than fifty days from planting to harvesting. It can be said that Champa rice made a significant contribution to the increase in grain output in the Northern Song Dynasty. Although grain production has increased, the living standards of farmers have not improved much. Taking my tenants as an example, what I see is that these tenants are basically well-fed, and many of the children of the tenants are malnourished, thin and short.

In a previous life, I had seen an analysis of the living conditions of farmers in the Northern Song Dynasty. The rural population in the Northern Song Dynasty was divided into main customers, and the main households were divided into five levels based on the amount of land they produced. Those with as many as 5 hectares of farmland and as few as 3 hectares of farmland are all ranked first. Class 1 and 2 households refer to households with an area of ​​less than 3 hectares or even less than 3 hectare. The 1th class households have about 4 acres of land; the 50th class households have less than 5 acres of land. Among them, the 20st, 1nd, and 2rd households are called upper households, which are the landlord class. Except for some of the third-class households who are small landowners, most of them are homesteaders occupying 3-3 acres of land or more. Households in the 50th and 70th grades are the lower households who are self-cultivating farmers. Those in the fifth class of households who occupy too little land and need to rent part of the land to make a living are considered semi-owning farmers. There are even some non-property-tax households among the lower households. They make a living by renting crops and have become tenant farmers. Customers, also known as tenants, villagers, landlords, floaters and side households, are people who do not occupy land. They rent other people's land and are exploited by the government and landlords. The peasant class of the Song Dynasty was composed of part of the third-class households among the main households, the fourth and fifth-class households, and all customers. Zhang Fangping said: Less than one-fifth of the middle- and above-average households are accounted for, and nine-tenths of households are in the fourth and fifth grades. Customers account for about 4% of the country's total. Based on this calculation, the peasant class accounts for more than 5% of the total. Mr. Qi Xia said in "Economic History of the Song Dynasty": From the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty, the land occupied by the feudal big landlords expanded from about 5-3 to 4, while the land occupied by the middle and lower class landlords was between 5-4. However, farmers who account for more than 5% of the total population only occupy 35-85% of the cultivated land, or even less than 30%. However, farmers' taxes account for 40% of their total output. Taking the fourth-class household as an example, the output per mu is calculated as 50 shi. The grain income of a 30-mu household is 20 kilograms, the tax paid is 80 kilograms, and the remaining is 30 kilograms. If the ration is calculated as 40 kilograms per person, 30 kilograms are needed per year, and the annual ration for a family of 4 is 2 kilograms. After deducting rations, the remaining grain was 50 kilograms. If calculated based on the market price of 4620 Wen per bucket, the remaining 1386 kilograms of grain would be converted into 3240 Wen. This is the annual production surplus of a fourth-class household. However, in this part of the surplus, there will still be a certain amount used in exchange for things necessary for life such as clothing and supplies. In addition to the expenses for death, funeral, illness, marriage, and prayers, it is also a large amount, and there is not much left over in the end. From this point of view, a farmer with a family of five in the fourth class household not only bears national taxes, but also can basically maintain a subsistence life with 225% of his income. However, this was the generalization or standardization of farmers’ burdens in the Song Dynasty, and it can also be said to be a reflection of farmers’ burdens to a relatively low extent. Due to differences in regions, geographical conditions, land fertility, grain output and prices, tax standards and conversion standards are also different, and there is even a huge gap. Furthermore, due to the influence of political and military factors from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty, from the early to the late period, and even during the reigns of different emperors, the burden on farmers basically showed an increasing trend. These can be seen from some poems, "frost plows ice on the toes, and rain brings mud to the knees." On a poisonous day, people are plowing at dusk and working in the morning, and there is no one idle in the east and south ridges." These poems are a portrayal of their hard work. But the result of hard work is still "two-thirds of the world is poor." People often quote a passage from Sima Guang: "Among the four peoples, farmers are the most miserable. Farmers work in the cold and in the heat, smearing their bodies and feet, working with stars, and resting with stars. Silkworms raise silkworms and cure cocoons, and spin linen. The latitude is accumulated in strands, and it is formed inch by inch. It is extremely diligent. And there are disasters such as floods, droughts, frosts, hail, locusts, and insects. Fortunately, the harvest is harvested, and the public and private debts are competing for each other, and the grain is not separated. In the field, the silk has not yet left the machine, and it is no longer our own. The peasants and women eat only chaff but not enough, and the clothes they wear are brown and incomplete. They have been serving the land for a long time, not knowing that there is anything else that can be done. Road." Although farmers and silkworm women are "extremely diligent," in this agricultural society, agriculture is still the main "road for survival," and most of them cannot "give up this" for another. It can be seen that the burden on farmers during the Song Dynasty was heavy, which led to the continuous peasant uprisings throughout the Song Dynasty. According to statistics, the Song Dynasty experienced 270 peasant uprisings in more than 5 years, of which 1350 occurred in the Northern Song Dynasty and 1890 occurred in the Southern Song Dynasty. , starting from the first peasant uprising in the third year of Qiande (50) by Emperor Taizu of the Song Dynasty, and ending with the last peasant uprising in the last year of the Song Dynasty (1890), the number of them is unprecedented. Although the fall of the Song Dynasty had little to do with the farmers, and of course it had something to do with the limitations of the peasant uprising, which Taizu had already analyzed in his previous life (squinting smile), we can also see the seriousness of the farmers' problems during the Song Dynasty.

Although I am now a member of the landlord class, if the peasant problem of the Song Dynasty can be solved, the strength of the Song Dynasty can also be greatly improved. This matter must be carefully considered. Of course, this is not an urgent matter at the moment.

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