The impact of poverty alleviation policies in the Song Dynasty

Looking at the major dynasties in our country, you can actually easily find that the demise of each dynasty often cannot be escaped from one sentence, that is, "the emperor is ignorant and ignorant, the people are not living, and the people are doing the opposite." What does it mean? To put it simply, the emperor did not go to court properly, drank and had fun all day long, and imposed a lot of exorbitant taxes and levies, leaving the common people with no way to survive. They had no choice but to rebel and rob big families to get food to survive.

So in fact, in general, a very important point in the demise of major dynasties is that they failed to do a good job in poverty alleviation and poverty alleviation, leaving the people at the bottom with no way to survive and endless poverty. Therefore, any dynasty that does better in this regard will eventually be passed down for a longer period of time, such as the Song Dynasty. A lot of efforts have been made to solve the poverty problem of ordinary people. So, how did the Song Dynasty alleviate poverty? How to determine who needs help?

1. Establishment of the social poverty alleviation line

As for poverty alleviation work, if you look through history books, you will find that in fact, relevant work was carried out in all dynasties, but before the Song Dynasty, Dynasty, in fact, did not have an accurate definition of the poor when carrying out poverty alleviation, and most of the time it was a temporary behavior.

1. Classification of the poor

Generally speaking, in our country’s definition, the poor are composed of two categories of people. One is the “poor people”. What does it mean? There are four types of people: widowers, widowers and lonely people. The other group of people are actually the "poor people" we are going to talk about today. What is the concept? It is the economically deprived. Research shows that before the Song Dynasty, "wealth and poverty were only general economic classification concepts, and the poor did not constitute a specific social category. In the minds of people at that time, the reason why the poor formed social problems was usually not simply due to economic deprivation." , but due to the lack of help from the family village. ”

2. Poverty alleviation line

To simply understand, the assistance targets at that time were not based on economic standards. Rather, it is considered more from the perspective of social attributes. As for why, it is actually not difficult to understand. American scholar Du Boan once explained this. Judging from the social conditions at that time, everyone was a small farmer economy, self-sufficient, and everyone had a similar living standard, so naturally there was nothing to do with poverty. concept, so it is naturally impossible to consider oneself as poor, and the country is even less likely to do so.

This last point did not change until the Song Dynasty. We all know that the Song Dynasty was a very wealthy era. This can be seen from "Along the River During the Qingming Festival". People during this period had economic aspects. the basis of. In addition, the Song Dynasty was actually established after the turmoil of the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties. The previous wars left many people homeless and all their belongings. In order to maintain long-term stability, the Song Dynasty would naturally choose to increase poverty alleviation efforts to ensure that the poor would not rebel because they did not have enough to eat.

2. Perfect system

1. Food relief system

Set up Changping warehouse, charity warehouse and social warehouse. After the founding of the Song Dynasty, its rulers fully learned from the experiences and lessons of previous dynasties. Many previous grain reserve systems have been introduced. For example, the Changpingcang system was originally a system used to balance food prices, but it was changed here and became exclusively used to relieve civilians, and other government agencies were not allowed to appropriate it.

As for the Shecang, it was a great innovation in the Song Dynasty. In the past, no matter what the relief system was, it was generally located within the city, and the numerous rural areas outside the city were not considered. Therefore, it is easy for refugees to appear in rural areas. In order to solve this problem, Zhu Xi, a master of Neo-Confucianism in the Southern Song Dynasty, created this system in Kaiyao Township, Chong'an County, Jianning Prefecture in the fifth year of Qiandao (1169). The specific method was to let the local government join forces with local wealthy households to donate grain to the local area. in the granary, and use this part of the grain specifically to lend money to the poor to help them tide over their difficulties.

This measure allows the poor to avoid seeking loans from unscrupulous businessmen or wealthy households when they encounter difficulties in making a living. It is also a perfect channel. It is of great help to poor farmers. In order to allow more poor people to receive relief, Zhu Xi later persuaded Emperor Xiaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty to issue a decree and let local governments follow this initiative to set up granaries. The rapid expansion of the social warehouse system allowed more poor people to enjoy benefits, solved the hidden danger of unrest among the poor, and maintained the stability of the Song Dynasty at that time.

2. Green seedling method.

In addition to the perfect relief warehousing system, the Green Crops Law also played an important role in the relief of the Song Dynasty. During the Xining period of the Northern Song Dynasty, during Wang Anshi's reform, which was known as "taking the world's wealth to provide for the world's expenses", Wang Anshi also specifically proposed the "green seedling method", a creative method based on his own experience, in order to solve the problems of the poor.

At that time, due to various annual taxes and the low food production at that time, many poor people had a very difficult time every year. At this time, their rations were excluding growing grains. It will be unsustainable in the future, so they have only one option, borrowing money from local wealthy households, but this is often a road of no return. In order to obtain profits, wealthy households pay very high interest on the money they lend. This makes it impossible for the poor to survive through dismantling.

In the long run, this will lead to the fact that after the future food harvest, the food harvested by the poor will basically have no surplus after paying off the debt. If they continue to farm, their families will not have enough food rations, and they can only continue to borrow. A vicious cycle was formed, and in the end they had no choice but to sell their own fields and give them to wealthy households to complete the land annexation. Faced with this situation, Wang Anshi was well aware of the suffering of farmers, and at the same time, in order to curb land annexation, he launched the Green Crops Law to address this situation.

What is the Green Seedling Method? In fact, as the county magistrate, Wang Anshi made official loans in the spring when the poor were unable to survive, lending the grain stored in the official warehouse to the poor, and then "agreed to pay a small amount of interest in the county after the autumn harvest" (Deng Guangming's "Political Reform in the Northern Song Dynasty") Wang Anshi"), because it is an official loan, the interest rate is controlled to a reasonable range, and the poor will not be trapped in a vicious circle and have no way out.

3. Perfect treatment system

1. Elderly care system

According to the data, not only the poor have corresponding systems to ensure their survival. There is also a complete system for the poor. The nursing home system we are familiar with now existed in the Song Dynasty, and it was called a nursing home at that time. "The capital has set up a nursing home to accommodate the orphans, but it still uses the household's property to support them" (Volume 19 of "History of the Song Dynasty"). In addition, there are also relevant regulations on specific matters. For example, for the elderly over 50 years old, they can receive daily necessities according to the regulations of one liter of rice and beans and ten coins of money per day. In addition, considering that the elderly may have difficulty moving, they will be distributed uniformly every five days. In addition, the older they are, the more they receive. The higher the salary, the more effective it was in solving the pension problem of the poor and vulnerable elderly people in the Song Dynasty.

2. Child protection system

At the same time, due to the previous war, many people may not be able to raise their own children, which has led to many newborns or young children. Children being abandoned or killed is very detrimental to the long-term development of a country, and it is also contrary to human nature and unacceptable to the rulers of the Song Empire who governed the country with Confucianism. Therefore, in order to help poor families have children, the Song Dynasty government at that time issued a special decree, which was similar to the current maternity leave. During pregnancy, money and food were subsidized by the state. In addition, after you gave birth to the child, more The government will distribute food through permanent storage facilities such as Changping warehouse and free warehouse for pregnant families to raise their children.

Moreover, in October of the 14th year of Shaoxing (1144), the government announced: "Because many people in Yongdao, Chenzhou, Guiyangjian and Chaling counties do not raise their children, they will always be young. Money, silk, rice and wheat" (Volume 30 of "History of the Song Dynasty"). In this way, families who cannot afford to raise their children will be more effectively relieved from their worries.

3. The system of recruiting hungry soldiers to replenish troops

In addition to these measures, the Song Dynasty also implemented a method similar to the current work-for-relief method to ensure the survival of disaster victims and poor people. How to do it? At that time, the source of the Song Dynasty's army was once a big problem for the government. After all, those who could join the army were the strong laborers from their families. The absence of this group of people will definitely make the situation worse for the poor.

In order to solve this problem, the Song Dynasty government decided to let poor people join the army, which not only supplemented enough soldiers, but also allowed these homeless or poor people to get regular jobs. As long as they With these people alive, most of the unstable factors in society have been removed, and the trouble of providing disaster relief and aiding the poor has been eliminated. Kill three birds with one stone. It not only achieves the effect of alleviating the poor, but also recruits soldiers and eliminates potential social risks caused by homeless people.

In the late Northern Song Dynasty, during the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, he "recruited hungry people to supplement the imperial soldiers" many times, recruiting and selecting imperial soldiers from the hungry poor, which effectively solved the problem of disaster relief and aiding the poor. However, this move also laid the foundation for the subsequent destruction of the Song Dynasty. After all, these disaster victims and poor people entered the army. Although the livelihood problem was solved, their combat effectiveness was very problematic due to lack of training. Therefore, many historians believe that this may be one of the factors that caused the Song Dynasty's army to have low combat effectiveness.

Looking through history, you will find that it is difficult to find another dynasty that can catch up with the Song Dynasty in terms of relief measures for the poor. Moreover, the Song Dynasty was one of the few dynasties that established a complete social security system. It was the implementation of these measures at that time that allowed the Song Dynasty to achieve a high degree of prosperity after surviving the wars of the Five Dynasties. At the same time, these measures also allowed the Song Dynasty to maintain a high degree of stability. Even in the later Southern Song Dynasty, the overall southward movement still had many people following the Song Dynasty government, allowing the Song Dynasty government to maintain the main body of government after experiencing wars.