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Buying and renting a house was a major social issue in the Song Dynasty. Some of the most common sayings are that "it is not easy to live in Chang'an", and you can only live in "low-rent housing" and live far away in the suburbs, even if you are a big man like Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi, you can only live in a snail's nest, or even can't afford to buy a house at all...Do these statements reflect the truth of the history of the Song Dynasty? Was there an official policy on buying and renting houses in the Song Dynasty? Let's take a look at the history of this issue of the People's Forum!
Uncover the historical truth of Song ** house.
The residents who settled in Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty and Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, in addition to high-level magnates such as the emperor and the emperor's relatives, were also some of the largest businessmen, as well as a large number of civilians who could be fed and clothed. A large number of ordinary people living in the cities and villages have enough to live in, and they should build their own houses and rarely buy or rent houses.
The Song Dynasty was an epoch-making period in the history of ancient Chinese architecture, and the construction of city walls and houses increasingly used brick and stone structures. There are two ways to build the houses of the Song people: official and private. The government will build houses at various times, generally funded by the state, with the soldiers as the main force, and build houses on the vacant land of the government. These houses became the main part of the official house. Of course, there are also phenomena such as the government buying private houses and becoming officials, and the real estate of people who have not committed crimes or derogatory ** are nationalized. These offices were either used by the government or for the officials to live in. In the Song Dynasty, there were frequent phenomena such as the emperor "giving the first" and "giving the house", in other words, those who were valued by the emperor were exempted from the trouble of building, buying and renting houses after receiving this favor and glory.
* There should be many cases of self-built houses, such as the Northern Song Dynasty scholars Yan Shu, Li Qingchen, Chai Yuqing, Cen Zongdan, He Zhizhong, the early Southern Song Dynasty favored minister Zhang Jun, and the medical officer Wang Jixian, etc., all tried to build houses, and most of them were used for rent. During the Song Dynasty, commerce developed by leaps and bounds, and during this period, merchants and wealthy families also built a large number of houses and participated in market competition by virtue of their strong financial resources. Historical documents such as "Haoyou, annexed houses occupy official land, build corridors, and re-lease people" indicate that these houses were mostly used for rental profits.
Most of the ** at all levels in the Song Dynasty bought property and land, bought houses and built houses after Zhishi retired, and lived for a long time. For example, Wang Anshi lived in Jinling (Nanjing) in his later years, and persuaded Su Shi to buy a house and settle down in Jiangning, and the two lived next to each other and often corresponded with each other. From "persuading me to try to ask for a three-acre house, it can be seen that Su Shi also has the plan to "buy Tianjinling, and I have to accompany the cane to walk and grow old under Zhongshan Mountain".
In the spring of the eighth year of Chunxi (1181), Xin Qiji started to build a new residence and manor with a lake. According to the topography around the lake, he personally designed the manor pattern of "building houses on high places and cultivating fields at low places", and said to his family: "Life is diligent, and you should give priority to Litian." Therefore, he named the Daihu Manor "Jiaxuan", and called himself "Jiaxuan Jushi".
In the Song Dynasty, where property taxes were prevalent, houses were counted as family property and taxes were required to be paid to the state. The Song Dynasty had a large number of policies and regulations for housing
First of all, set up a special agency to manage the housing problem. Originally placed in the Song Dynasty, the "shop house", also known as the "building shop", was originally mainly used to manage the official houses and residences in the capital, and later also set up shops and residences in various states to manage the sale and repair of official houses, and was also responsible for collecting profits and taxes on the sale and purchase of houses.
Secondly, for the purchase and sale of private "self-managed houses", the Song Dynasty stipulated that relatives and neighbors had the right of first refusal, and the purchase and sale process was communicated by professional operators "Yaren", and there must be government supervision, signing contracts, and collecting profits and taxes. The Song Renzong Dynasty once issued an edict: "If you sell your land and house as a pawn, if you don't ask your neighbors for a deed from the beginning of the transaction, you will be exempted from the crime and only collect the tax money." Of course, in real life, there are also those who do not ask their relatives and neighbors, forge contracts, and forcibly buy fraudsters, and a large number of disputes over land and houses have arisen.
Finally, when real estate was inherited as an inheritance, the policy of the Song Dynasty was relatively clear, and the inheritance rights of legitimate children, illegitimate children and widows were clearly stipulated. If a brother dies, the son inherits the father's share. When all brothers die, the sons are divided equally. If he has not married a wife, do not hire him. If the aunt and sister are in the room, half of the male talent will be reduced. If the widow and concubine have no man, the husband shall be divided. Although this regulation was fine-tuned from time to time and from place to person, it generally continued to the Southern Song Dynasty. Perhaps the most striking of these is the codification of women's private property rights.
The "strange image" of renting in the Song Dynasty
There were a large number of "immigrants" and merchants in Song society, who frequently changed their places of work, which made renting a strange and prominent historical phenomenon for the Song people. Mr. Zhou Baozhu, a well-known expert on Song Dynasty history, said: "The housing rental industry has become one of the most profitable industries in Tokyo. ”
Generally speaking, the bureaucrats and doctors who work in the capital, as well as those who come to the capital from other places to do business and survive, are the social groups that have the need to buy and rent houses. However, a strange phenomenon occurred in the Song Dynasty, that is, many bureaucrats and doctors obviously worked in the capital, but they only rented houses, not houses.
Wang Yuyan, who served as a bachelor of Hanlin in the Northern Song Dynasty, described the situation of renting a house in Kaifeng, Tokyo in his later years, and it can be seen in his poems that he rented a house for a long time and lived in a simple place. Its detailed cloud: "The old illness is described as declining day by day, and he has rented a house in Beijing for ten years. The pavilion phoenix allows three enters, and the wren nests only one branch. It was not long before there were many books hanging on the walls, and the reeds were also frequently planted. The glory and cheapness of life must be divided, and you will buy a thatched hermitage and a hibiscus fence. ”
Song Zhenzong once personally went to the house of Yang Li, the privy deputy envoy, to mourn, and after arriving, he found that Yang Li was renting in the "committee alley", and the emperor's public opinion could not enter at all, so he had to walk in the rain. The emperor also visited the residence of Chen Pengnian, then the governor of the government, and "saw the ugly room of his house", and could not help but sigh again and again. The privy deputy envoy and the governor of the government were second only to the prime minister in the Northern Song Dynasty, and the Hanlin scholar was the official of the Qing Dynasty in the imperial court, but Yang and Chen were still renting in simple houses when they died, which shows that renting a house in the Northern Song Dynasty should be a relatively common phenomenon.
Su Shi's cousin, Wen Tong, was only a magistrate, and he recited a long poem complaining about the ugliness of his residence; During the demotion of the Southern Song Dynasty, Fang Yue wrote a poem lamenting the poor conditions of his residence: "The house is really like a leaky ship, and there is a storm and a commotion." From the beginning to avoid the table and sit all over, and the hand to move the book has been extinct. Sigh and dare to be a three-night love, and Zhiwu has a bag of money. There are more things in the world like a house, and we can talk about the present. ”
These collective memories are all too similar. What's more, for example, when Yang Jian was serving in Zhejiang, he once described the house he rented: "The house is narrow, the outside is low, there is no place for feasting, guests are not allowed to stay, and they are not allowed to serve relatives." Occasionally, in the official monk's house on the top of Baolian Mountain, the handsome gentleman Yalishi, in order to make more of his residence, and make a certain intention to copy it, is to create a study room in a cool place. "All of this reflects the crampedness and crampedness of the local government's rented houses and dwellings.
In general, if the ** and prefectures and counties of the Song Dynasty did not deliberately show that the officials were honest, their renting and accommodation conditions were poor, and they seemed to abound. Why is this so?
*Why do you choose to rent more?
The Song Dynasty was an era of emphasizing literature over military force. Since the beginning of the Song Dynasty and the early Song Dynasty, they have vigorously promoted the imperial examination and expanded the number of scholars. In the Song Dynasty, the quadrennial examination was changed to a triennial examination, which became a custom for nearly a thousand years since then, which greatly increased the number of admissions. Coupled with the large number of people who made up for the official position due to grace, the number of ** increased dramatically, and when Song Renzong and Song Shenzong were arrested, the whole society began to show the dilemma of "three redundant and three expenses", among which redundant officials are an important aspect.
The Song Dynasty adopted management measures such as the law of avoidance and the law of relocation, most of them could not serve as officials in the city where they were born and had a farmhouse, and they needed to adjust their jobs every three years, and even there was a situation where "the supervisor and the county guard often changed the number, or they arrived for less than a year, or they only went for three or two months". From this, it can be seen that the frequent transfer of the Song Dynasty was a common phenomenon, and it was not as long-term as an official in a state and county as in the previous dynasties and later generations. Even if you are an official in the court, you will often encounter the situation of changing guards, degrading for some reason, and going back and forth between the government and the opposition.
For example, Fan Zhongyan, who we are familiar with, has been degraded three times and is known as the "Three Lights"; Ouyang Xiu successively served in Chuzhou, Yangzhou, Yingzhou, Yingtianfu, Bozhou, Qingzhou, Caizhou and other state capitals; Su Dongpo's "Self-titled Portrait of Jinshan" said "Huangzhou, Huizhou, Danzhou", and "Huangshi is sending crisp wine in the snow at night in Sizhou", "chasing guests like monks, how can there be a home", and so on, are all clear evidence. In short, the first scholar doctor of the Song Dynasty, similar to Su Shi, "I have no home and more peace, and my hometown has no such good lakes and mountains", "The old mountain returns to no home, and I want to be adjacent to the West Lake".
The salary of the ordinary ** in the Song Dynasty is not high, and the salary income is used to buy a house, most of the ** are not comfortable and comfortable, and the place of work is facing the possibility of changing at any time.
Candidates are also renters.
In addition to the strict system and the expansion of the quota, the most important difference is that those who were admitted to the Jin Scholar in the Song Dynasty could be directly released as officials. In this way, it has stimulated a wave of reading for the whole people, and even Fuzhou's "people in the city read half of the books", which shows the large number of candidates attracted.
The famous historian Chen Yinke asserted that "the culture of the Chinese nation has evolved over thousands of years and was created in the Zhao and Song dynasties", and Mr. Deng Guangming even issued the theory that "the height of material civilization and spiritual civilization reached during the Song and Song dynasties can be said to be unprecedented in the entire historical period of China's feudal society", which is closely related to this huge group of people who have succeeded one after another "to learn for the sake of the saints".
Since the Tang Dynasty, the provincial examination has been held in the capital, as well as in the Song Dynasty, and the palace examination was set to be customized, and the provincial examination was held in the Beijing Division. In this way, every time the examination year comes, the mighty imperial examination army flocks to the capital, making Kaifeng and Lin'an crowds of people surging and lively. The number of people in this group is so large that historical records record that "in the first year of Xuanhe, tens of thousands of people went to the province to take the test." Every time the examination season comes, Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty "Zhulu scholars, ten times more than usual, 100,000 people accept papers". With such a large number of candidates pouring into Beijing, accommodation has become a big problem. Many candidates choose to live in rented houses, while others live in monasteries and suburbs temporarily.
There are many records about the candidates' rented houses to live, and there are too many to mention, such as: Luoyang Wang Shu, originally according to the teacher Wanju County Zhang Yi Tokyo should be raised, there was no news for a long time, so he "rented to live in the east of Xiangguo Temple"; In the fourth year of Jing You, Li Congzhou went to Beijing to participate in the imperial examination, "from the number of people to the same people in Ma Straw Lane"; During the Chunxi period of the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Guo, a native of Xiangyang, "will go to the provincial test, enter the capital, and be in the same secret room in the Lane of the Committee"...There are a large number of these taxis who rent houses for the exam, but they can stand out and leap over the dragon gate, after all, there are only a few on the list, and those who fall behind Sun Shan can only prepare for the next exam. However, some candidates travel long distances from the capital to their hometowns, and the cost of time and money is quite huge, so these candidates will choose to rent a long-term residence in Beijing and study diligently to prepare for the next year's exam.
Slightly abridged above.
Excerpt from |People's Tribune Magazine, November (II).
Original title |The policies and customs of renting and buying houses in the Song Dynasty.
Author |Diao Peijun, a professor at the School of History and Cultural Heritage, Xiamen University.
NewEdit |Wang Sinan.
Editor-in-charge of the original article|Zhou Xiaoli.