Speaking of Zhuge Liang, the big man of the Three Kingdoms, it is nothing more than marching to fight, attacking the city strategically, and so on, many people have heard enough and are tired of seeing it. Today, I will not talk about the war, but talk about Zhuge Liang's salary problem and look at his real living standards.
In various dynasties in history, the composition of officials was different, not only gold and silver money, but also a lot of grain and in-kind distribution. The so-called Feng Lu, "Feng" refers to coins, "Lu" refers to grain, so historical sources often use Feng Silver and Lu Rice to calculate the officials' Feng Lu. From the Warring States to the Qin Dynasty, the officials were mainly in physical form, to put it bluntly, to give grain.
When Confucius served as a sikou in the state of Lu, he "bought 60,000 (buckets)", weighing about 15 kilograms of grain in one bucket, and 60,000 buckets was 90,000 kilograms! If the people at that time at a family of three, that is, eat nine catties a day, a year is only more than three thousand catties, Confucius a year of Feng Lu can let a family of three eat for decades, which shows that the official Feng Lu at that time was still very impressive. In the Western Han Dynasty, the official Feng Lu began to be formalized, and the size and rank of the official were represented by "stone", and the payment method of "half of the qiangu valley" was adopted until the Eastern Han Dynasty.
At the end of the Three Kingdoms of the Han Dynasty, war was endless, and inflation in many regions, and grain once again became a "hard currency" that everyone could accept, and at this time, Feng Lu also used grain instead. According to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang's feng lu came mainly from four aspects, namely his three official positions and one title:
First, lieutenant colonel, this official position is 2000 stones per year; second, Yizhou Pastor, the annual FengLu is also 2000 stones; third, Xiang Xiang, this is an official position above ten thousand people under one person, Feng Lu is naturally also high, about 4,000 stones per year; fourth, Zhuge Liang also has a title of "Marquis of Wuxiang", enjoying about 2,000 stones per year. It can be seen that Zhuge Liang's basic Qilu has reached about 10,000 stones.
For the convenience of calculation, we directly used today's grain prices to convert Zhuge Liang's one-year Feng Lu into RMB. Before we calculate, though, we first have to figure out one thing. What kind of grain did Liu Bei and Liu Chan send to Zhuge Liang? To put it simply, during the Qin and Han dynasties, the people mainly ate drought-tolerant millet (millet), so Zhuge Liang's Feng Lu was also distributed in the form of millet.
The Book of Han records that "thirty pounds are jun, and four jun are stones", that is, one stone is equivalent to 120 pounds. However, in the current society, 1 kilogram = 10 two = 500 grams, and according to research, in the Qin and Western Han Dynasties, one kilogram was equivalent to 258.24 grams, and one or two was equal to 16.14 grams. Wang Mang and the Three Kingdoms of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Wei and Jin Dynasties, one pound is equivalent to 222.73 grams, and one or two is equal to 13.92 grams. For the convenience of calculation, taking 1 kilogram during the Three Kingdoms period is equal to 250 grams now, that is, half a kilogram.
It can be concluded that Zhuge Liang's annual salary is 10,000 stones of millet, equivalent to 1.2 million jin at that time, equivalent to about 600,000 jin today. The current price of millet is about 5 yuan, which leads to Zhuge Liang's annual grain supply of about 3.6 million yuan, which is a salary level that absolutely crushes more than 90% of people in today's society. Of course, this is only the basic salary, and Liu Bei still has another reward for the New Year's Festival or the achievement of war.
Regarding the acceptance of rewards, there are two times clearly recorded in the history books, one is when Liu Bei entered Chengdu and rewarded the courtiers.
Zhuge Liang received 500 catties of gold, 1,000 catties of silver, 50 million pieces of money, and 1,000 horses of gold.
The second time was after Liu Bei ascended the throne,
Admire Zhuge Liang's 800,000 grain grain grain.
In fact, even if it is not a salary, just by virtue of these two rewards, Zhuge Liang has eaten and drunk without worry in this life, but in the "Book of Li Yan again", Zhuge Liang described his own situation like this."
Now there is no surplus of wealth, and there is no concubine
”。
Zhuge Liang means that his family has no savings, and even his wife has not changed her clothes. Not only that, Zhuge Liang also carefully reported his family property to Liu Chan in the article "After the Table": "The Lord after the Table":
The subject was initially appointed to the former emperor, and he was subordinate to the official, and did not give birth to himself. There are 800 mulberry trees in Chengdu today, fifteen acres of thin fields, children and children to clothe and food, their own surplus, as for the subjects in foreign posts, there is no other dispatch, carry food and clothing, rely on the officials, do not rule life. In long sizes. If on the day of death, there shall be no surplus within, and no wealth shall be gained outside, and His Majesty shall be defeated.
”
Zhuge Liang said very clearly that all his expenses were supplied by the government and were no longer commercial farmers. The family property is only "eight hundred mulberry plants, fifteen acres of thin fields", "do not rule the life, with a long size", never operate the industry, in order to seek the slightest private interests. However, Zhuge Liang's salary is extremely high, there are many rewards, and he lives a simple life, but after his death, "there is no surplus inside, no winning money outside", what about money?
Therefore, it is said that after his death, Liu Chan did not believe what he said in the "Self-Watching Lord", and sent someone to check Zhuge Liang's family property, which was completely consistent with his self-reported situation, only "eight hundred mulberry plants, fifteen acres of thin fields", and really "there is no surplus inside, no wealth outside". Liu Chan's heart could not be calm for a long time, and he could not imagine that the elder who respected him as his father was really living such a hard life, and he was angry that he had not treated his "father" well.
As for where Zhuge Liang's family wealth went, it is speculated that there are only two possibilities: one is that the reward has not been honored; the other is that the reward has been honored, and Zhuge Liang has used these properties to make up for the financial deficiency of the Shu Han, after all, the Shu Han has been in the Northern Expedition for many years, and the needs are very great. A chaotic celebrity like Zhuge Liang did not care about personal income at all, and when Emperor Liu's uncle San Gu Maolu invited Zhuge Liang out of the mountain, Zhuge Liang did not even talk about his salary and started a business.
Zhuge Liang's self-reliance on his family property certainly showed his loyalty to his successor, but his frugal and self-disciplined demeanor of being an official and being willing to be indifferent was even more admirable. "Non-indifference has no clear aspirations, non-tranquility can not go far", Zhuge Liang has practiced this proposition with his life, and his honest and honest thinking and character have been deeply admired and praised by posterity. As a subject, only Zhuge Liang can hear such an ear!
Note: Due to the calculation caliber problem, the data conversion in the text may be somewhat different.
(References: Book of the Later Han Dynasty, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, etc.)