Ten years ago, in 2009, there was a niche movie: "My Tang Dynasty Brothers". It is about the conflict between bandits, villagers and officers and soldiers in the Tang Dynasty: the bandits initially planned to rob the village, and the officers and soldiers came to kill Liang Andonggong, so the villagers and the bandits resisted the officers and soldiers together - this film is regarded as a film full of black humor, and at the same time, it is also a film that looks at Tang Dynasty society from the perspective of small people. In the film, there is also a satire on poets like Li Bai.
At present, many best-selling historical books look at ancient society from the perspective of emperors and courtiers, and there are very few works that look at society from the perspective of civilians, so that many people have misjudged the living conditions of the ancients, believing that everyone can have three wives and four concubines and have subordinates to serve in ancient times.
So, how bitter were the living conditions of ancient civilians? Personally, I feel that this needs to be looked at from the following aspects:
Basic necessities of life
Clothing. In ancient times, clothes made of silk were for dignitaries and dignitaries, and ordinary people could only wear clothes made of coarse cloth. When farming, most of the rural farmers wear short brown with many patches.
Food aspect. In contemporary times, many remote rural areas still have a tradition that women cannot eat at the table. In fact, this is a remnant of the ancient habit of food scarcity, women and children can only eat less, and the limited food is provided for men to eat. Most of the food eaten by the ancient people throughout the year was coarse food. As for polished rice and white noodles, you can only eat a meal during the New Year's Festival.
In terms of living. Shantytown renovation is only more than a decade old. In ancient times, most people could not even live in shantytowns, but only in thatched huts. What's more, many people can't even live in thatched huts, which requires them to work as long-term workers for landlords.
In terms of travel. Ancient transportation is not more convenient than the present, and the ancients could only rely on walking. And because Mandarin was not popularized in ancient times, many people may not be far from the village and fall into the embarrassment of language barriers.
Medical aspects
At present, with the improvement of the medical insurance system and the continuous development of the medical industry, the health of the Chinese people has been guaranteed as never before.
But in ancient times, the poor did not have much wealth to accumulate. Asking a doctor is likely to result in ruin. And even if you can afford a doctor, you may not be able to afford medicine. Therefore, most poor people, when they are sick, do not consider going to a doctor, but consider visiting a bodhisattva. Friends who know history know that the Yellow Turban Rebellion at the end of the Han Dynasty and the White Lotus Sect Uprising of Song Ming were all rural gods who gathered their strength through the free treatment mode, and then had the capital to oppose the imperial court.
In terms of servitude
In the Han Dynasty poems, "Fifteen Conscriptions from the Army", it is about a fifteen-year-old Han Dynasty teenager who was conscripted into the army and was able to return home in his eighties.
During the Three Kingdoms period, shu Han repeatedly northern expeditions against Cao Wei. The Shu Han state had few people, but it was necessary to support constant wars, which led to the men of the Shu Han Dynasty all becoming soldiers, and women were responsible for agricultural production and paying agricultural taxes - in ancient times, without hybrid rice and fertilizers, grain yields per mu could not be compared with modern times, so it is conceivable that the people of Shu Han can be described as extreme poverty.
In fact, a heavy burden of servitude like that of the Shu Han was the mainstream phenomenon of ancient society.
Therefore, whether it is the Old Book of Tang, or the History of Song, or the History of Ming, if you make a careful count, you will find that local peasant uprisings will exist from the early days of the establishment of any dynasty, and then sporadically, and continue until the fall of the dynasty. This is often caused by the scourge of agricultural production and the persistence of taxes. The common people could not afford it, so they had to rise up and rebel.
Educational aspects
At present, twelve years of education is already in the stage of popularization. In ancient times, families who could afford private schools were often peasants with a certain family foundation. The truly poor, the poor, are illiterate all their lives. Even until the 1990s, there was still an industry of ghostwriting letters in our society. This industry is actually a reflection of the vast majority of people in ancient times who could not read and could not write.