There was an article circulating on the Internet called "The Inside Story of History You Don't Know", and one of them said:
During the Tang Dynasty's most powerful "Kaiyuan Rule" period, the national population was 8.2 million households, the highest value of the Tang Dynasty, while during the "Kaihuang Rule" period of the Sui Dynasty, the national population was 8.9 million households.
In this age of eyeballs, such a conclusion without cause and effect can easily stir up people's emotions, thinking that they have seen the covered up inside, and even pointing the finger at the whole education.
Speaking of which, in fact, there is nothing wrong with that passage, according to official records, the population and treasury of the Tang Taizong period are far inferior to those of the Sui Dynasty. One is a model of the Ming Emperor of the Ages, and the other is a model of the Emperor of the Ages, and history is so unreasonable.
However, that passage is bad in that it only tells you one result, but does not tell you why it happened. In fact, as long as you know the reasons for this, you will also know why the Tang Dynasty is much more powerful and enduring than the Sui Dynasty.
Let's take a look at the comparison of two sets of data:
In 581 AD, the last year of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the registered population of the whole country was about 9 million; in the same year, the Sui Dynasty was established, and by 589, the registered population had surged to 40 million.
In 618 AD, the last year of the Sui Dynasty, the registered population of the country was about 9.2 million; in the same year, the Tang Dynasty was established, and by 726, the registered population reached 41 million.
That is to say, from 9 million to 40 million, the Sui Dynasty took only 8 years, while the Tang Dynasty took 108 years.
No matter how much people who don't like to use their brains, they should also see that with a population base of 9 million, 30 million people cannot be born in any case in just 8 years. So, how did the Sui Dynasty do it?
First, we need to be clear about what happens to the 9 million registered people. As we all know, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, there was a great chaos in China's history, years of war, the number of deaths was innumerable, but this is not the key, the most critical thing is that the people at that time were displaced, resulting in very troublesome demographics, coupled with the fact that government officials were fighting for power and profit during the war, no one would seriously do the census, so the figure of 9 million is very inaccurate.
After Yang Jian established the Sui Dynasty, the society stabilized, and only then began to reorganize the population data. In the year of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the registered population figure reached 29 million. In the following years, it was also "a big show of appearance", that is, each county sent special personnel to thoroughly check the people, including appearance and age, check them one by one, and let the people also expose each other, as long as there is an untrue situation, the whole family will be assigned to the frontier, and even the chief of the security guard will be implicated. As a result, in just a few years, the registered population of the country has reached 40 million.
In the final analysis, these 40 million people are not the credit of the Sui Dynasty, but the invisible property left by the previous dynasty, which was dug up by the Sui Dynasty.
So, why did the Sui Dynasty take such a harsh measure to check the household registration? Why don't ordinary people want to report their hukou?
There is no other reason, just two words – interest.
In ancient times, the poll tax was the most important tax, you have to pay the tax of several people if you have a few people in your family, as long as you underreport one person, you can save a person's money, naturally no one is active in the census. In the government's view, if you report less than one person, the government will have one less tax, so how can it be done, and we must not let such a "trickster" succeed, and even the harshest means must be used!
Let's look at the Tang Dynasty. In the last year of the Sui Dynasty, the world fell into chaos again, the census also fell into a trough, and the registered population returned to 9.2 million. The same problem was faced by the Tang government.
However, from 9.2 million to 41 million, the Tang Dynasty spent 108 years, consuming the lives of 7 generations of emperors.
Did the Tang emperor not know the inside story? Of course not, compared with Yang Jian's harsh "big suo appearance reading", Li Yuan adopted a rather democratic "hand reality", that is, letting the people fill in the household registration information themselves. According to statistics, the number of registrations for that year was 12 million. Then, relying on the taxes of these 12 million people, the Tang Dynasty began the rule of Zhenguan and the rule of Kaiyuan.
This is the reason why the Tang Dynasty was great.
Looking back at the opening paragraph, statistically speaking, it is no problem, but the "strong" Sui Dynasty died within a few years, and the "weak" Tang Dynasty achieved a glorious and prosperous period. There is no other reason, it is four words - to hide rich from the people.
Tibet is rich to the people, and people support it; when the people's wealth is plundered, people spurn it. It's that simple.