For now, civil servants are a good job, stable and well-off, so many people dream of this job. However, in ancient times, "civil servants" were not as easy to do now, the risk was too great, and if they slightly provoked the dissatisfaction of the emperor, they would be dismissed tragically, and even the heads would fall to the ground.
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Which of the ancient dynasties had the best benefits for the "civil servants"? And which dynasty's "civil servant" treatment is at the bottom?
Image: Stills of the Dynasty's "Civil Servants"
When it comes to a dynasty with good welfare, we have to say the Song Dynasty. During the Song Dynasty, the rulers gave many benefits to the ministers. Depending on their rank, officials receive different kinds of waiting. Officials were not only able to receive the money, but also a variety of benefits.
"Nine pins and eighteen levels", that is, the "official hierarchy" implemented in various dynasties,
The Song Dynasty also adopted this system.
Officials at the highest level had four hundred yuan per month, which was ten times more than the officials of the Han Dynasty, and about two to six times more than the officials of the Qing Dynasty.
In addition, senior officials also receive gifts such as "white noodles and polished rice", which is an affirmation of their work. Such a good treatment, there is only the Great Song Dynasty.
Photo: Stills of officials of the Song Dynasty
In addition, the Tang Dynasty treated officials relatively well. For example, during the Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi also had a lot of monthly Feng Lu, which was converted into about fifteen thousand yuan today.
At first, when Bai Juyi was serving as a school scrivener, the monthly salary was not high, and the conversion to RMB was only about six thousand yuan. However, after being promoted to Zuo Shiyi, Feng Lu was also greatly improved, equivalent to 15,000 yuan, which shows that the Tang Dynasty's Feng Lu has a very large room for improvement.
At the age of fifty-four, Bai Juyi was promoted to Suzhou Assassin History, and Feng Lu was more than ten times more than when he was originally an official. When Bai Juyi became a guest of the crown prince, Feng Lu was even more elevated and reached its peak.
Moreover, after Bai Juyi returned to his hometown, the imperial court also issued a large amount of money to commend his merits. In addition, when Bai Juyi was more than seventy-five years old, the imperial court would also give another sum of money as a reward for appeasement.
Image: Stills of a sum of money acquired after retirement
It can be seen that during the Tang and Song dynasties, the imperial court treated hundreds of officials very well. Moreover, during the Song Dynasty, the emperor's tolerance for officials was also higher. For example, Wang Anshi, the prime minister of the Northern Song Dynasty, was the first person to change the law in the Northern Song Dynasty.
Wang Anshi hopes that through the reform, the people of the world can live and work in peace and contentment, and further narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. This ideal, though noble, is less realistic. Wang Anshi served as prime minister twice in his life, but unfortunately the second time he had a greater conflict with Song Shenzong and lost his official hat.
It can be seen that in the Song Dynasty, as long as the general direction is consistent with the emperor and does not commit too many mistakes, it will generally be tolerated by the emperor, and the feng lu is also very rich.
Let's take Wang Anshi as an example, when he was the prime minister, the monthly Feng Lu was converted into about 90,000 yuan today. This is not counting some additional subsidies, such as meal allowances, daily necessities, etc.
At the same time, the imperial court not only specially distributed money to Wang Anshi to buy clothes, but also gave away many silk silks. In the winter, silk cloth and cotton would be distributed to keep him warm. There is also some edible salt, which is common today, but in ancient times, salt was relatively scarce.
It can be seen that the imperial court thought very thoughtfully, and all aspects were considered for the officials. So after Wang Anshi resigned, is there a pension?
In fact, according to the current rules, the natural pension for resigning from the official position is gone. However, Wang Anshi has a pension, and the amount is not small. Compared with the pension of the prime minister during the Ming Dynasty, Wang Anshi's pension was five times more.
It can be seen that the Great Song Dynasty was really generous, perhaps because of these costs, but also led to the Northern Song Dynasty gradually appeared "poor" situation.
Image: Stills of the Generous Great Song Dynasty
Let's look at another person's Feng Lu, this person is the well-known Song Dynasty Qing official: Bao Zheng. As an incorruptible official, how many of Bao Zheng's servants are there? In fact, it is even higher than many people think, and a month of Bao Zheng is equivalent to a state's tax revenue, which is really a large amount of income.
Feng Lu is so high, mainly because Bao Zheng's official position is very high, second only to that of the prime minister. Moreover, one person held multiple official positions, and Bao Zheng had held three positions. Therefore, Feng Lugao is also because Bao Zheng has this ability. In addition, the imperial court not only issued high amounts of money, but also gave rewards such as cloth.
Reportedly
During the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, Bao Zheng ruled over twenty states. At that time, the tax paid by these twenty states in a year was 300,000 yuan, and the average tax paid by each state was 15,000 yuan. And Bao Zheng's annual salary is about 20,000, which means that Bao Zheng's annual salary is higher than the tax revenue of the state capital.
This greatly surprised us, in many film and television dramas, Bao Zheng was living a poor life. It turns out that we have been deceived by these film and television dramas.
Photo: Stills of Bao Zheng's year of Feng Lu
The above dynasties treat "civil servants" with high salaries and high benefits, and let's look at some of the dynasties with poor salaries of "civil servants". Speaking of which, the Northern Wei Dynasty is definitely worth mentioning.
The "civil servants" of this dynasty were the worst paid, with no benefits, not even basic salaries. And this is still the explicit provision of the imperial court:
Officials did not have any money.
This rule seems unbelievable to us, but it is real.
Because the Northern Wei dynasty was founded by the Xianbei people, a people on horseback, they liked to plunder wealth in war. Of course, it is possible to plunder some materials in times of frequent wars, but what about in times of peace? Naturally, it is impossible to plunder on the battlefield.
Officials had to embezzle or rob the people of their wealth. In this way, corruption prevailed in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Although the dynasty has carried out many anti-corruption campaigns, it has not achieved much success and has not solved the problem from the root cause.
Image: The Northern Wei Dynasty did not even have stills of the basic Feng Lu
In 495, Emperor Xiaowen carried out some reforms, and the officials had Feng Lu. At this time, Emperor Xiaowen believed that the dynasty had already realized the System of Qilu and that corruption should be better.
But to his surprise, these officials have a deep sense of corruption, and although they now have Qilu, it is difficult to correct their corrupt habits. Therefore, Emperor Xiaowen decided to strike a heavy blow and escort the assassins of Qin and Yi prefectures to the capital and execute them in public.
Subsequently, Emperor Xiaowen once again stressed that anyone who discovered the corruption of officials should be dealt with severely and punished with a capital offense. But the officials were helpless.
Although the "Feng Lu system" was implemented, the Feng Lu was too low to support the family at all. Therefore, many ministers jointly signed a letter hoping to change back to the original no-qi system.
However, the request was ultimately rejected. It can be seen that the treatment of "civil servants" at the time of the Northern Wei Dynasty was really too poor.
Also, during the Ming Dynasty, the minister's salary was not high. However, although the Ming Dynasty's Hundred Officials and Officials were low, fortunately there were some other subsidies.
In addition, Ming officials also had some privileges, such as "tax exemption". In fact, the "Feng Lu" of each dynasty is different, mainly because of the different economic strength of the dynasty.
Article author: Dahui
The entire graphic was produced by the team of the Big Cafe Say History Studio!