How high were the salaries of civil servants in the Song Dynasty? The salary of the Qing official Bao Zheng was more than the tax of a province
The Song Dynasty was an era of high prosperity in China's history of commodity economy, culture and education, and scientific innovation. In the three years of Xianping (1000), China's total GDP was 26.55 billion US dollars, accounting for 22.7% of the world's total, and the per capita GDP was 450 US dollars, more than the 400 US dollars in Western Europe at that time. Although later generations believed that the Song Dynasty was "poor and weak", the wealth and social and economic prosperity of the Song Dynasty far exceeded that of the Sheng Tang Dynasty. More than three hundred years after its founding, it overthrew it twice, all because of external troubles, and it was the only dynasty that did not die in civil strife.
The civil servants of the Song Dynasty were the most abundant in history compared to the various dynasties. For example, the monthly salary of the Zhengyipin officials of the Song Dynasty was 150 stones of Lu rice + 120,000 yuan of monthly money + 20 horses of the annual collar, 1 horse of Luo, and 50 taels of cotton. Converted into the current yuan, 10,000 yuan = 3,000 yuan, the monthly money alone is 36,000 yuan. At that time, a stone of rice could be exchanged for 400 yuan, and 150 stones was 60,000 yuan, 18,000 yuan. Of course, these are only the most basic, and all of them add up, and the monthly salary of a Zhengyipin official is definitely much higher than this.
The official system of the Song Dynasty was very complex, and there were a lot of people with real posts and no real posts. According to statistics, at the time of the most officials, the officials of the Song Dynasty exceeded the Han Dynasty by five or six times, and two or three times more than the Ming and Qing dynasties. Most of the officials are not the most deadly, and the most deadly is that the salaries of officials are so high that people cannot imagine it. In addition to the main salary, there were clothing, lu millet, tea and wine cooking, charcoal, salt, entourage clothing, horse shaving, additional (increase), job money, minister money and rewards, etc., and the magistrates were equipped with a large number of occupation fields.
Officials who have been assigned to a post are given an additional allowance as a post allowance. Such salaries are paid according to the difference in rank between the official's own official and the post of the official. It is estimated that the monthly income of the chief civil and military officials (prime ministers and privy councillors) of yipin in the current dynasty reached a huge 1.28 million yuan (converted into the current renminbi), with a yearly income of more than 15 million yuan, even the monthly income of officials equivalent to the current county magistrate level is nearly 130,000, and the annual income is more than 1.3 million!
When Su Shi's brother Su Rui participated in the examination of the Imperial Examination Hall, just at the age of recklessness, he mistakenly thought that the current emperor Song Renzong was old and increasingly faint because of his hearsay, so he wrote a big book of advice in the examination paper, in which he counted Renzong's crimes and scolded the emperor for fainting.
Su Rui's courage to dare to speak bluntly in the examination paper is indeed commendable, but the problem is that Song Renzong is known as the most perfect emperor in history, and Su Rui's insults and accusations against him are actually not true. However, after seeing Su Rui's examination papers, Song Renzong, instead of becoming angry and angry and killing him quickly, admired Su Rui's literary style and courage and praised him as the prime minister of the future generations.
When Bao Zheng was the prefect of Kaifeng at the time, he had 30 stones of grain, 60 bales of hay and firewood, and 1,500 guilders of public money every month, and the imperial court also divided him into 2,000 acres of land, which he could collect rent and did not have to pay taxes. A year is 360 stone grain, 720 bales of hay and firewood, 18,000 metric dollars and 2,000 acres of land rental tax. As for the title of Long Tuge Bachelor, he can also bring him 1656 yuan of money, 46 silk horses and 100 taels of cotton in kind every year.
If an acre of land gives him only 1 stone of income, the land will have 2,000 stones; Kaifeng Province still has 100 yuan of additions every month, 1200 yuan a year, and 15 scales of charcoal in winter. The salary received in a year is 21056 yuan, not counting other income in kind. The usual money is 1,000 yuan, which is equivalent to about 650 yuan now, that is, Bao Zheng can earn 13.68 million yuan a year. In the present, they are all amazing figures, talents with an annual salary of millions, and how many ordinary people need to struggle for a lifetime and can not be exchanged for wealth.
Officials of the Song Dynasty not only had a fixed monthly salary, but also a job with a tax reduction. The field of occupation is given from 1 to 40 hectares according to the height of the official product. However, this distribution system also has a noble name "salary system" and "supply system" combined. Although the Song Dynasty had abolished the "supply system" because of too many drawbacks, the Song government still used it in order to make the life of civil servants more happy and satisfying. It's very puzzling, so why abolish it.
In the fourteenth year of Hongwu (1381), a wage reform was carried out, and in addition to the rice, different amounts of cash were added, that is, feng banknotes. In addition, the "vocational land" was abolished and the subsidy of "raising incorruptible land" was introduced, and the object of its enjoyment was the official who guarded the frontier. In fact, the officials of the Ming Dynasty enjoyed many privileges as a privileged class, such as tax exemption, which was a disguised wage subsidy.
After all, the salaries of Ming officials were low, and there was no way to do it. The Song Dynasty was very rich, but there was also a Yuan Dynasty in the middle, overseas trade and commodity economy were relatively prosperous, but the overall productivity was not as good as the Song Dynasty; years of conquest and internal corruption, so there was not much family property left for the Ming Dynasty. Naturally, there was no way to give officials such a high salary as the Song Dynasty.