The Positive Role of Household Registration System Reform in Song Dynasty

Song Taizu said: "Immigration for the college entrance examination" is strictly prohibited.

Emperor Wendi and his son made great contributions to the system construction of household registration management in ancient China. In addition to "having pictures and truth", they also combined the household registration system with the imperial examination system and allocated examination places by region. Historically, this means "the household registration is local" and "taking part in the imperial examination". If you apply the current words, you must take the college entrance examination at the place where you are registered.

The system of "official residence" originated in Sui Dynasty and was really established in Tang and Song Dynasties. In November of the fifth year of Kaibao (AD 972), Song Taizu issued a decree, which stipulated three contents: First, all candidates should take the exam locally with their household registration; Second, it is not allowed to take the exam in the name of living in other States; Third, special circumstances should be handled. Under the guidance of its basic principles, the household registration requirements in the imperial examination system run through the whole process of the imperial examination.

Candidates should submit a form to the state government for registration, including their names, township affiliation, three generations, etc. According to this, local officials conducted a review, and the household registration requirements under the township were very strict. According to the public regulations, only household registration is not enough, and you must actually live in the local area. "Long-term household registration" (although there is a local household registration, but not living in the local area for a long time) must be guaranteed by a famous minister. In the seventh year of Tiansheng (A.D. 1029), it was changed to "those who have been registered for more than seven years are allowed to vote", and those who have not lived in Kaifeng for seven years are "not accepted."

The significance of household registration in the imperial examination system in the Song Dynasty has been mentioned above. In order to ensure the quality and justice of the imperial examination, the Song government had strict requirements on household registration. But the formulation of the system is one thing, and the implementation of the system is another, not to mention that the height of the Tao is one foot and the height of the devil is ten feet. In order to win the imperial examination, many scholars will do whatever it takes to be an official. The root of the problem lies in the "relief amount", that is, the amount allocated to a quota. It is equivalent to the fact that under the current college entrance examination system in China, the admission scores and enrollment quotas of each province are different. Because the proportion of candidates and credits varies from place to place, candidates from areas with more candidates and fewer credits will try to move to areas with fewer candidates and relatively more credits to take the exam, so as to increase their chances of winning.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the most corrupt place was Kaifeng Prefecture in Tokyo. First of all, it is because Kaifeng has the most money. Secondly, the imperial examination system in Song Dynasty allowed foreigners to take exams in Kaifeng according to certain requirements and procedures. Thirdly, Kaifeng is a cultural center and the most developed first-class place, where fashion and first-class culture can be directly obtained. As Sima Guang said, "In every imperial examination, the ratio of poor examiners is two systems and three pavilions." Those who are not good at poetry, fu, theory and strategy are out of reach; Those who don't study in the capital are not good at poetry, fu, theory and strategy. As a result, scholars from all four directions abandoned their hometown, left their second relatives, and stayed in the capital forever ... Because every time they took part in the imperial examination, they were sent away by imperial academy and Kaifeng, which is human nature. Who wants to go here and who wants to go there? This passage in classical Chinese is relatively simple, so it will not be translated into modern Chinese, because ancient Chinese has its own charm, and readers can taste it themselves. )

Kaifeng is the location of Longmen, which is both the starting point and the end point of the imperial examination, thus attracting a large number of foreign students. In Song Renzong, "scholars from all directions visited the capital to be tested, and there were six or seven thousand people." Among them, people in the Fei camp will certainly venture through Kaifeng. For example, the person who was titled in "Seven Years of Tiansheng" revealed: "There are more than 9,000 Jinshi in Kaifeng this year, and how dare they enter the house." That's the beauty.

If we look at it from the present perspective, I'm afraid that anyone who has been admitted to Peking University from other places has had a similar experience: local children in Beijing are walking around the school ... because of ancient and modern reasons.

Song Zhenzong: City people pay, while country people contribute.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the urban commodity economy developed rapidly, and the citizen class grew unprecedentedly. According to textual research, during the Chongning period in the Northern Song Dynasty (Zhao Ji year in Song Huizong, ***5 years), there were about130,000 households in Kaifeng, Tokyo, with a total population of about1500,000. It can be seen that there were a large number of urban residents in Kaifeng, Tokyo, and it was the most populous metropolis in the world.

With the rapid increase of urban population, household registration management has encountered new problems. Song Taizong ordered several times to sort out the household registration, but failed to solve the problem of chaotic household registration. Because there were too many people without real estate at that time, it was not easy to register. In December of the 3rd year of Tianxi in Song Zhenzong (A.D. 10 19), Miao Zhen and Xue Tian, the Henan magistrate, were appointed as imperial envoys.

At that time, there were about 980,000 families in China with a population of about 5 million. The families of these countries are listed separately and divided into ten grades according to their property. The national hukou is the so-called urban hukou today, which is the inevitable product of the development of commodity economy. Its appearance not only shows the prosperity of commodity economy in the Northern Song Dynasty, but also marks the formal formation of the citizen class, which is of great significance in the history of social and economic development in China.

Since the embryonic form of the household registration system in the Western Zhou Dynasty, the basis of government taxation is population and land, and the economic life of farmers is relatively simple. Local governments collect taxes and send corvees, and the operating procedures are simple. However, residents in the city have all kinds of property, and houses and shops are tangible. In the Song Dynasty, when the commodity economy was developed, personal property in the form of money could not be counted.

In view of this situation, the Northern Song Dynasty specially created household registration for urban residents, which was divided into several categories according to the verified property, and the taxes were also diverse, such as property tax (similar to today's property tax); Local tax refers to the basic tax of urban shops and houses (similar to today's land tax), salt money and temporary apportionment. These taxes are collected in the form of money, which is called "payment"; In rural areas, corvee and military service, that is, "output", are combined into one, that is, "city people pay and country people contribute."