Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 42 0040 [Field Scrambling]

"Auntie, Auntie, there is something very good!"

This morning, Grandma Yan was cooking, and Shen Yourong quickly ran back from outside.

Seeing her daughter-in-law's happy appearance, Grandma Yan couldn't help asking: "What good things can happen? But brother Qi's study in the official school has been settled?"

Shen Yourong said: "It's the five Baiford brothers. The whole family has disappeared. Some neighbors in the village said that the Bai family brothers committed crimes, and the government wanted to arrest them, so they fled to other places overnight."

"He really ran away?" Grandma Yan was a little in disbelief.

Shen Yourong said: "They really ran away, and they even robbed the fishing boat. Liu Sanshu said that it rained lightly last night, so it was time to fish at night. He only cast two nets, and he heard the Bai family brothers shouting on the shore. I don't know what they were shouting. What, afraid of offending the five brothers, they drew the net and rowed to the shore. Before the boat stopped, Byford jumped on board and pushed him into the water. Several other fishing boats in the village were also snatched by the five brothers. gone."

Grandma Yan hated and said: "These bad guys will harm people even if they run away. If they rob another fishing boat, what else do they have to live on?"

"The village neighbors whose land has been usurped are all moving back to the field boundary at this moment, let's go too!" Shen Yourong said eagerly.

Seeing the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law going out with a hoe without even cooking breakfast, Zhu Guoxiang couldn't help asking about the situation.

Asked clearly, Zhu Guoxiang said: "We will also help."

The father and son took Bai Qi and went out to the fields together.

Zhu Ming deliberately walked very slowly, falling a few meters away, and said in a low voice, "It is estimated that they were sent to Yaqian. These five brothers knew that they would not be spared, so they simply packed up their belongings and fled with their families. Poor villagers, they don't know how to make up for their debts." Tax, everyone is happy to get back the property."

"I asked Mrs. Shen that the villagers have generally paid the land taxes over the years." Zhu Guoxiang couldn't understand, "Why are there still so many tax arrears to pay?"

Zhu Ming guessed: "The people fled, their household registrations were not canceled, and their land properties were annexed by big households. This kind of merger basically belongs to hidden land. The big households don't want to pay taxes, so they owe them all the time. Now that the government is investigating, it will make all the people equal. There is also a possibility that certain taxes have been embezzled by officials and villagers, and they will be counted on the people's heads when they are traced."

Zhu Guoxiang fell silent, becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the Song Dynasty government.

At this moment, Shangbai Village seemed to be in a carnival.

The villagers rushed to tell each other, and went out with hoes on their shoulders.They all said that they were oppressed and their fields were taken by five brothers. In fact, many people were fishing in troubled waters.

When they came to a dry field, Grandma Yan pointed to the edge of the field and said, "This ridge belongs to my family, and the field boundary was moved by Baiford."

The father and son immediately brandished a hoe, dug out that field ridge, and then built a new field ridge outward.

Two men and two women worked together, and the child Bai Qi also helped to move the soil. It took nearly three hours to get it done.

Looking at other villagers, most of them are messing around, not only taking back their own land, but also taking the opportunity to occupy more acres.Anyway, the five brothers of the Bai family have already run away, so if they don't occupy it at this time, when will they wait?

Even the villagers who had never been bullied pointed to a certain piece of land and said: This is the land of my ancestors, which was seized by Byford and his great-grandfather!

Facing the chaos, Grandma Yan warned her grandson: "Brother Qi, it is not my family's property, so you must not take it. It is not my family's field, so you must not take it. You must have a backbone, remember?"

"I remember." Bai Qi nodded seriously.

Suddenly a few villagers came over, looked at the field boundary in Xinlei, and asked, "Mrs. Yan, this land is next to your house, don't you want more?"

Mrs. Yan said: "I have already taken back the occupied ridge."

"The rest will be divided between our two families." The villagers were very happy.

These villagers belonged to two families, and they immediately divided the fields with hoes.

Not only the fields are divided, but also the crops in the fields. The wheat seedlings grow lush and green. As long as you take care of it a little, you can directly harvest the wheat in summer.

"Fight up, fight up!"

But it was two clan brothers outside the old white member, each with their families, fighting each other in the paddy fields near the river.

Of course they will not be bullied by Byford, they are purely here to grab the fields at this time.And he was too lazy to compete with the villagers for dry land, and directly aimed at the fertile paddy fields, and started fighting because of the uneven distribution of spoils.

When Zhu Ming went to watch the play, the fight had already been decided.

Both sides were injured, and some people had their heads broken, and their faces were covered with blood.There were two women lying in the paddy field, pulling each other's hair, their clothes covered in muddy water, cursing and refusing to let go.

Most of the children in their family were crying, and the older ones actually participated in the fight.

Because the matter was too big, the old lady Bai and the old Bai Yuanwai were both alarmed.

The old Bai member was carried to the edge of the field by his servants, and angrily scolded the two clan brothers: "They are all from our own family. They beat them like this for a paddy field. The Bai family's face has been completely humiliated by you!"

The two sides were chattering, waiting for the old white members to make the decision.

The old white member said: "From the middle of the road to the ridge, the family will share half of it."

The one who suffered from the fight said: "My Dalang, his head was broken, he must pay for the soup and medicine, or get an extra ten feet of land."

"It's a bad fart, and it will be fine if you bleed for a few days." Another family said.

The old white member was already full of anger, and didn't want to mess around anymore, so he directly judged the result: "Half of the family, whoever makes trouble again, will go to the wheel this year!"

No one spoke for a moment, but they were all dissatisfied in their hearts.

Those who won the game felt that they should take up more land if they won.

The loser felt that he should take more land if he suffered a loss.

But if you don't accept it, you can't do it. The old white members have already spoken, and they must strictly abide by it.

As for Bai Chongwen, the eldest son of the Bai family, this guy has already taken his servants to occupy the two fattest paddy fields, and no one who is not open-eyed dares to snatch it from him.

The battle in the paddy fields stopped for a while, and the farther mountains were fighting again.

At this moment, the law of the jungle is preying on the strong, and morality and law have to stand aside. As long as they don't kill or maim, no one will take care of them.

A peaceful countryside, revealing its most cruel and ugly undertones.

When the father and son returned to the courtyard, Zhu Ming moved a bench and sat down: "Dean Zhu, what do you think?"

Zhu Guoxiang said: "It's amazing. When I was young, there were occasional fights for land in the countryside, but only for corners. The main reason is that it is useless to fight too much. The land belongs to the village collective. When there is confusion, you can let it go. The production team re-marked the fields. In ancient times, there was no way to solve it. It all depended on who was more powerful, who had more men, and the ruling power of the government at the grassroots level was too weak."

Zhu Ming said with a smile: "I really admire the old white members. If it were those evil gentry, no one would be allowed to rob them today. The land is all owned by the landlords. The Bai family can hold back their greed and only occupy two pieces of fertile land, which is already very restrained." gone."

While they were talking, another group of villagers passed by, pushing and cursing.

It is estimated that the robbing of the fields did not yield any results, and they were clamoring to find the old white staff for comment.

This reflects the prestige of the old white member, and the villagers will only ask him to judge because they trust him.As long as the bias is not too obvious, the old white member can do whatever he says, and the villagers are willing to listen to him.

The more similar incidents are handled, the higher the prestige of the veterans.

Zhu Ming pointed to the villagers who had gone away, with a bit of sarcasm in his tone: "See, this is called the village sage, who takes the place of the emperor and shepherds the people. In the remote countryside, the emperor is a fart, and the village sage is what he says. "

"The grassroots is out of control." Zhu Guoxiang said.

Zhu Ming shook his head and said: "The grassroots have not completely lost control. In terms of the backward productivity in ancient times, the gentry class is a supplementary part of the state power. From a certain point of view, it can even be called a progressive force. The decline of the Northern Song Dynasty is due to problems with the upper structure. It is in the transformation period of ancient Chinese feudal society, and it has begun to transform, but it has not yet turned over."

"Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, it has been a county system, right? How else do we need to change?" Zhu Guoxiang couldn't understand what his son wanted to say at all.

Zhu Ming explained in detail: "It's different."

"Before the Song Dynasty, no matter what the actual effect was, the imperial court explicitly suppressed mergers. Under the whole world, could it be the king's land? This sentence belongs to the absolute main theme. Since the Song Dynasty, land has been completely commercialized. Even if the emperor gave ministers gifts Houses have to be demolished and relocated by the common people. Don’t care how much you pay, don’t care if you get it or not, even if it’s just a show, you have to pay for the demolition and relocation.”

"The release of land mergers led to drastic changes in the social structure. The landlord class, as a force, entered the stage of Chinese history for the first time. At the same time, the improvement of agricultural technology can feed more people. The cities of the Song Dynasty began to prosper, and the social division of labor became more refined. Citizens Classes have also stepped onto the stage of history.”

"Confucianism in the Tang Dynasty and before could not explain the social structure of the Song Dynasty, so it gave birth to Confucianism innovation. It was against this background that Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism was born. In the late Northern Song Dynasty, Neo-Confucianism was not yet mature, but many new Confucianisms one of them."

"Coincidentally, printing and imperial examinations also took shape, cultural transmission methods have undergone qualitative changes, and the educated group has expanded rapidly. It can be seen from academic works that academic works in the Tang Dynasty and before were mainly in the form of classical Chinese, and the audience was the social elite. ; while the academic works of the Song Dynasty are getting closer and closer to the vernacular, which is oriented to the entire citizen class and landlord class."

Zhu Guoxiang thought about it seriously: "Hearing what you said, the Song Dynasty has a bit of a renaissance flavor."

Zhu Ming said with a smile, "Isn't the Six Classics the Renaissance? A hundred schools of thought flourished in the Song Dynasty, and academic leaders of all schools wanted to seize the right to speak in the field of thought during the period of social transformation. In the end, Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism won the victory."

"In the Ming Dynasty, Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism ruled the country, marking the success of the transformation of ancient Chinese society, and since then it has entered the model of rural China."

"In the Song Dynasty, it was only halfway through, and the situation was very embarrassing. It not only continued the social problems of the Tang Dynasty, but also developed the social problems of the Ming Dynasty. Famous ministers and Confucians were all looking for a way out. Wang Anshi was one of the radical explorers."

"By the way, the concept of family and country, ethics and morality of Chinese people in later generations was completed during the Song Dynasty."

Zhu Guoxiang smiled and said, "It's interesting."

Zhu Ming said: "We often ask this question: Do you speak reason? Dao is reason, Taoism is Neo-Confucianism, and truth is the core of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism! The point of self-knowledge.”

After his son said so much, Zhu Guoxiang quickly summed it up in one sentence: "The Song Dynasty is a dynasty that connects the past and the future in China. Its government structure and official thinking have not yet adapted to the drastic social changes, so it is difficult to deal with various conflicts."

Zhu Ming gave a thumbs up: "Dean Zhu, you are so smart!"

To do great things, we must grasp the main contradiction.

Analyzing the social structure of the Song Dynasty is the first step in grasping the main contradiction.

(End of this chapter)