Speaking of the housing system in ancient China, many people may think that the officials of feudal society ate the imperial food, and their housing problems were of course also managed by the emperor. This idea is only half right. During the Qin and Han dynasties to the Wei and Jin dynasties, generally imperial court officials did not have their own houses; during the Tang Dynasty, the emperor would divide the land among officials, regardless of whether they built houses; the Song Dynasty government sold public houses by way of bidding; the Ming Dynasty raised funds to buy houses...
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Wei and Jin dynasties
During the Qin and Han dynasties to the Wei and Jin dynasties, the average court official did not dare to expect to have his own house. The salaries of officials in the Qin Dynasty were "ranked stone system", and grain was directly paid as wages. The larger the official position, the more he could receive, and no other privileges. Beginning with the Western Jin Dynasty, in order to give preferential treatment to officials, it was officially occupied according to official products.
Of course, not all ancient civil servants were homeless as soon as they retired. Some people already had land in their homes and never had to worry about housing; when the emperor was happy, he would reward officials with land and houses; in addition, fake public welfare and private affairs also happened from time to time. There is such a record in the Book of Jin, saying that the previous official was transferred, and the official residence lent by the government to him and his family was privately owned, and the new official took office and had to be rebuilt.
During the Tang Dynasty, land was allocated to officials
During the Tang Dynasty, the emperor would divide the land among the officials. However, the land given by the emperor was often inconsistent with the place where the officials served. Moreover, according to the rules before the end of the Tang Dynasty, once an official retired, all the fenglu when he was in office was suspended, and the land had to be returned to the emperor. Therefore, the stupid thing of building a house on the ground temporarily given by the emperor and finally giving it to others, of course, no one is willing to do.
In order to save a lot of trouble, but also for the needs of the office, many officials have directly installed their homes in relatively superior conditions in the offices - or more suitable for government dormitories. As an official in a different place, the family moved to a new dormitory. If you are unfortunate enough to be eliminated from the official field, you will have to find a way to make another living or go back to your hometown to live.
After the end of the Tang Dynasty, retired officials were fortunate enough to receive half of the Feng Lu, but the government still did not care about the housing problem after retirement.
The office space of the Song Dynasty was not very exquisite
In the Song Dynasty, it was difficult for officials to occupy public houses. At that time, the system stipulated that the finances of all state armed forces outside the usual practice could not be decided by the local government without authorization, and it was necessary to report in advance to the Department of Transport on behalf of the central finance and apply for approval. For example, during the Northern Song Dynasty, when Su Shi was serving as the Governor of Hangzhou, he gave the central government a "Prayer for the Blessing of The Degree of Cultivation of Yu Yu". Su Shi said that most of the organ buildings in Hangzhou are buildings left over from the Five Dynasties period, "all of which are rare woods, known as majestic." For more than a hundred years, the lawsuit was unable to be repaired, nor could it be demolished into a hut, and the wind and rain rotted, and the day was destroyed." As for how bad the office building of the organ was, according to Su Shi, the houses had become crooked buildings, "but they were supported by small logs, and every time they passed, they were cold and did not dare to walk in peace." And asked the judges, etc., every time there was a heavy storm, they did not dare to sleep on the main hall. ”
During the Song Dynasty, suffering from harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, many people flocked to monasteries to become monks. To become a monk requires government certification, that is, to have a proof of identity, the degree, and the government issues the degree according to a certain proportion of the population. Therefore, at that time, the degree became a "negotiable security" and could be sold for 170 yuan. Su Shi asked the central government for 200 degrees, which could be sold for about 34,000 yuan, plus 500 yuan from the financial expenditure according to the custom, barely enough to make up for the repair costs.
The government compound of the Song Dynasty, although a little dilapidated, was still much better than the housing of ordinary people. However, as in the previous dynasties, officials had to give up their homes once they retired. As for where to live after retirement, the emperor does not care, the emperor is worried, but after the official retires, he should not live where. For example, the Southern Song Dynasty stipulated that local government officials at all levels were not allowed to reside in their place of office for three years after they had suspended their posts, and if they had relatives or property in the local area, they were not allowed to live after three years, and those who violated the law were sentenced to one year in prison.
The Song Dynasty government tendered for the sale of public housing
In the Song Dynasty, the government not only sold land, but also began to sell houses. The original intention of the government to sell houses is not to invigorate the economy, nor to solve the people's housing problem. In the past, some people violated the criminal law, cut off the door, and the family's house was naturally confiscated. There are also some people whose families are not prosperous and have become extinct, so the house will also be confiscated. In addition, homes like those who have been in arrears in taxes for many years and have been on the run for a long time may have their houses confiscated by the government. Once the government confiscated the houses, they became public housing. What does the government do with these public housing? There are three ways: one is to renovate it and become an office building; the other is to lease it out and collect the rent back to the national treasury; and the third is to sell it.
In order to prevent corruption in the sale of public housing, the Song Dynasty government specially designed a bidding system - all buyers went to a place to bid in writing, and after a period of time, the bid was opened to see who paid the highest price, and then sold the house to whom. When the Song Dynasty government opened bidding, it would post a notice at the entrance of the gate, writing on the location of the house, the number of houses, the place of bidding, the bidding period, and so on. The bidding period can be long and short, two months long and one month short. In order to prevent individual buyers from keeping their promises, the Song Dynasty government required bidders to use their own houses as collateral, if they did not have a house, they had to find someone to guarantee, have a mortgage and a guarantee, and then they could participate in the bidding. In this way, buyers must bid rationally, otherwise they will suffer losses.
Whether intentional or unintentional, objectively, the housing policy of the Song Dynasty government took into account the people at the bottom of society.
The Yuan Dynasty strictly forbade Mongolian officials to buy houses
At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, there was also an interesting purchase policy: no official buyers were allowed to buy houses.
Strictly speaking, it is not forbidden for all officials to buy houses, but Mongolian officials are forbidden to buy houses in the former Southern Song Dynasty rule areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and other places. Why is this stipulated? Or two reasons:
The Mongols destroyed the Jin Dynasty, western Xia, Dali, and southern Song dynasties, and inherited many state-owned properties from the former dynasty. In the process of destroying the country, many civilians died under their iron hooves. The houses of the civilians were also nationalized because they were left unattended. In this way, in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, the government had a large number of public housing in its hands, which could be distributed to officials at all levels as their office buildings or family homes. In other words, most Mongolian officials were given a house and didn't have to buy it. Second, when the Southern Song Dynasty had just fallen, a group of Mongols ran to Jiangnan to become officials, and some officials felt that the public housing they were allocated was too small, and went out to borrow or buy private houses. Some people who borrowed private houses not only forcibly took and forcibly demanded them, but also raped and killed people; some people who bought private houses were also very arbitrary, forced to buy and sell, and forced the original owners to sign and pledge, and the house became his. In doing so, they aroused great public indignation, and rebels everywhere rose up against the Yuan. In order to soothe Jiangnan and resolve the people's grievances, Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, issued a strict decree prohibiting Mongolian officials from purchasing property in Jiangnan.
Ming dynasty
House prices are super expensive and there is a collection of funds to buy houses
During the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty, housing prices in Nanjing were unusually high. How high is it? On the banks of the bustling Qinhuai River, a room can sell for six hundred taels of silver. The average person absolutely does not dare to pay attention to buying a house. The second volume of the "Yutang Congyu" records the story of buying a house at that time for the Nanjing Guozi Supervisor to sacrifice wine, which is quite shabby.
At that time, the Nanjing Guozi Supervisor was named Xie Duo, and he had more than 30 people under him, all of whom had no houses and had to rent public houses. Renting more than 30 people is an expensive expense. So Xie Duo moved the idea of buying a house. According to Xie Duo's rank, he can be regarded as a high-ranking civil servant, but his annual salary is only 200 taels of silver, and he does not eat or drink for three years, so he reluctantly buys a house. The income of those under him is even worse than his.
Xie Duo came up with a brilliant idea - pooling funds for group buying. Where does the money come from? Province from between teeth. The attendants, grooms, groomsmen, janitors, and scribes assigned to them by the government are all gone, save a large amount of money, and save up to buy a house. Finally, I saved enough money, bought more than thirty sets of public houses, and lived a happy life without paying rent. Compared with Xie Duo, Lin Han, who was the right attendant of the Ceremonial Department and the superintendent of the Beijing Guozi, was even more powerful, and he gave a strong practical action in order to let his subordinates have a house to live in—he donated his ten years of income to build a house for the organ.
Lin Han and Xie Duo, one of whom were the chiefs of the highest schools in Beijing and the other of the highest schools in Nanjing, not only made it difficult to buy a house with the little money they took, but even felt difficult to pay the rent. The high housing prices of the Ming Dynasty can be seen.
Qing Dynasty
Only the flag people can buy houses in Beijing
After the Ming Dynasty, because of the development of the city, the housing of urban residents became more and more a problem that the rulers had to pay attention to.
In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, a large number of Bannermen came to Beijing to settle down, and the Qing government moved all the Han people to live in the outer city and vacated the inner city for the Bannermen. After the houses in the inner city were built, the Qing government assigned them to the flag people according to their grades, including 20 first-class officials, 15 second-class officials, 12 third-grade officials, 10 four-pin officials, 7 five-pin officials, 4 six-pin seven-pin officials, 3 eight-pin officials, nine-pin officials and ordinary flag officers without grades.
During the Qianlong period, there were more and more flag people, and the territory of the inner city was not enough, and the houses were not enough. What is even more infuriating is that some flag people who have divided up their houses eat, drink, gamble, eat and drink nonsense, and do not receive enough money and grain, and secretly sell the houses allocated to them by the government. Qianlong was very angry, and on the one hand continued to build houses for the flag people, and on the other hand, he began to carry out housing reform. What kind of housing reform is being carried out?
First, the state no longer gives flag people free houses, which flag people think that the house is not enough to live, can apply to the government to buy. Second, the house that was originally allocated can be sold, provided that it must be bought from the state, from public housing to private housing, from only the right to use to ownership.
Therefore, the flag people spent very little money to turn all the houses that originally belonged to the public into private property. According to historical records, there were at least 500,000 flag people who could enjoy housing during the Qianlong period. In the Qing Dynasty, not only a huge number of houses were built for the flag people in the city of Beijing; throughout the country, north and south of the great river, there were qi people living areas that enjoyed special preferential treatment everywhere.