#头条创作挑战赛 #
The establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty was a unified dynasty that relied on the imperial family of the previous dynasty to regain its feet in the fires of war. Liu Xiu paid special attention to avoiding some chaotic government and drawbacks in the late Western Han Dynasty from the establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, carried out economic and administrative reforms, and paid attention to talent training, so the policy continued by the first three emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty was relatively clear and successful, and the entire national strength was booming, and by the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was even enough strength to support Dou Xian to cross the desert north to defeat the Xiongnu and return the merits.
However, there is a comment on the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty in historiography, called "the country Heng is destroyed by weakness, and the Duhan is destroyed by strength". What does that mean? It is that many countries gradually perished because of poverty and weakness, but the Han Dynasty perished when it was at its peak and powerful.
Why did Wang Fuzhi comment so much about the Eastern Han Dynasty?
It is because the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty was very rapid, similar to a company suddenly breaking the capital chain and collapsing, falling into the present. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Emperor Huan of Han and Emperor Ling of Han were able to organize armies to conquer and pacify the Qiang people, but within two or three decades, Emperor Xian of Han had been imprisoned and detained by Cao Cao, unable to control and organize the central army, let alone revive it, which is rare in successive dynasties.
The main reason behind this was the sudden collapse of the Eastern Han Dynasty's finances, which were not only unable to maintain the central army in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, but even the official Yulu was difficult to issue, and the local princes rose together, in fact, the financial resources were completely exhausted.
The collapse of the Eastern Han Dynasty's finances was actually a black swan that had been waving its wings since the era of Liu Xiu, the emperor of Han Guangwu, but the contradictions accumulated over time and finally broke out, leading to the complete demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
(This article is about 4000 words, it takes 3-5 minutes to read)
01
The first hidden danger of the Eastern Han Dynasty's finances was related to Liu Xiu's design, which was the "Dutian system" led by him.
In the early Eastern Han Dynasty, due to the decrease in population after the Great War, the contradiction of land ownership was relatively eased, so Liu Xiu, the emperor of Han Guangwu, did not adjust the land system, and still followed the old system left over from the Western Han Dynasty, "making the head of Qianqiang from the real land", allowing the landlord to occupy and trade the land, and also allowing the yeomanry to give up the land to the landlord.
However, Liu Xiu soon discovered that the land tax collected by the imperial court did not match the number of fields in his possession, so in the nineteenth year of Jianwu (39 AD), the Han court issued the "Dutian Order", requiring prefectures and counties to find out the facts of cultivated land and the number of households, as well as the situation of civil litigation cases involving fields.
"Zhaozhou County inspected the reclamation of acres and the age of the household registration, and tested the two thousand stone chief officials who were unfair." Book of the Later Han
This edict not only required the rulers of the Eastern Han Dynasty to grasp the exact land situation, but also implied the purpose of restricting the acquisition of land and slaves by the powerful and powerful nobles, but Liu Xiu underestimated the energy of vested interest groups, and when the Dutian Decree was issued, not only was it not well implemented, but it sowed the bane for future generations of financial revenue.
The image of Liu Xiu, the emperor of Hanguangwu in film and television dramas
First, although the starting point of the Dutian Order was good, it violated the interests of large landowners and powerful groups, so it was obstructed by them in every way, and the actual controllers of these lands began to try their best to conceal the true data of the fields.
Liu Xiu started his army in Nanyang, and he himself was nostalgic for old letters and appointed many talents from Nanyang. Therefore, most of the powerful squires in Henan, especially in the Nanyang area, were in the same breath as the "imperial princes" and "close ministers", and once there was some investigation of the crimes involved, they would take care of each other and eliminate them, and the Dutian order became a dead letter, and the false data reported was far lower than the actual situation.
Petroglyphs reflecting cultivation during the Eastern Han Dynasty
"The history of thorns is too uneven, or the good and the right, the encroachment is weak, the people complain, and the shouts are shouted." (Book 22 of the Book of the Later Han)
Second, a large number of peasants also spontaneously resisted the order of cultivating fields. Because most talents had just gone through the troubled times, had a strong dependence on the field, and were full of distrust of the policy, the imperial court issued the edict of the field meant that the tax should be re-taxed according to the land, and the peasants instinctively began to resist the statistical inventory, only willing to underreport, not to report more, and finally the field could not be solved, and the grassroots officials were exhausted but could not solve it.
The official reclamation data recorded in the "Eastern Han Dynasty" has always been tacit and stable at an order of magnitude
Liu Xiu has been working in the field for more than ten years, with little results. From the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the national population was less than 20 million, and the population of the Han and Emperor times increased to 2.2336 million household registration, with a mouth of 59 million people, it is reasonable to say that the population doubled, at that time, the mu output was less than 50-100 catties of grain, and the reclaimed land should be more than doubled, but in fact, the reclaimed land has always hovered around 6.9 million hectares to 7.3 million hectares, and concealing the land has become a common practice in the localities, and the imperial court is simply unable to control it.
This reality had a great impact on the fiscal and tax base of the imperial court, directly reducing the proportion of field tax in the finance. By the time of Emperor Hanling, the contribution of Tian tax was too low, forcing the entire imperial court to think of other ways to open a tax source, and as a result, the emperor fainted one after another, making the financial problem worse.
02
The financial collapse of the late Eastern Han Dynasty was directly related to the emperor's mediocrity, the most typical being the sale of official titles, which led to the extreme expansion of the official system and the vicious circle of related financial expenditure.
From the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the Qiang ethnic group located in the northwest gradually grew, and the friction with the Central Plains dynasty was fierce, and the history was called "Qiang Affliction Han Incident". In order to quell the Qiang rebellion, Emperor Han'an and Emperor Huan of Han had to repeatedly send troops to conscription, this protracted war of peace consumed the Eastern Han Dynasty's already not rich treasury, in order to migrate the Qiang people, the Eastern Han also took out a lot of money from the treasury to resettle the victims, making the treasury more empty.
According to incomplete historical statistics, the imperial court spent tens of billions of money.
"Since the Qiang rebellion for more than ten years, the soldiers and divisions have not been resting for the time being. The expenses of military travel were lost by the transshipment commission, and more than 24 billion yuan were used, and the government funds were exhausted. "Book of the Later Han
Flowers out of holes, always have to be filled.
As mentioned earlier, the field tax was insufficient, and the random tax increase was always dissuaded by hundreds of officials, and the emperor had to think of some way to get out of the way.
By the time of Emperor Ling of Han, the lazy and lustful emperor listened to the advice of the eunuchs and began to sell official positions on a large scale in order to obtain temporary income.
In fact, from the time of Emperor Guangwu of Han, it was allowed to sell officials within a certain range, but only limited to honorary titles, as well as some grassroots official positions, with a grade of no more than six grades, mainly used to reward the children of martial generals who followed Liu Xiu to fight the world. Emperor Han Ling quenched his thirst and released all restrictions:
Officials below the original fifth grade, as long as they pay the corresponding money and grain, can obtain the official titles of Guan Neihou, Wu Dafu, and Hu Ban Yu Lin Lang sealed by the imperial court, and when Emperor Xian of Han, even "Jiuqing" and "Sangong" can be taken out and sold, Jiuqing is priced at 5 million yuan, and the Third Duke (the third duke of the Eastern Han Dynasty is the imperial lieutenant, Situ, and Sikong) is priced at 10 million yuan;
Butchers, craftsmen, and merchants in society (the lowest status of merchants in the Qin and Han dynasties) could serve as county officials or become military citizens as long as they could afford the price, and their families were exempt from conscription and reduced taxes.
"Emperor Songling bribed the lieutenant and lost 100 million yuan in Xiyuan, so he was crowned as a lieutenant." "The Book of the Later Han and the Biography of the Eunuchs"
As a result, the bureaucratic class of the entire Eastern Han Dynasty swelled rapidly. Emperor Ling of Han and his eunuchs sold thousands of positions in a few years in the name of "supporting the country for urgent use", and although the income rose, it caused irreversible destruction to the entire Han Dynasty's bureaucracy, fiscal and taxation system.
Those who spend money must recover their costs in official positions, and when they arrive in office, they will start to make money up and down, corrupting the rulers; The number of officials increased significantly, and the expenditure borne by the imperial court's finances also increased greatly, and in the end, the whole society paid for the expansion of the official ranks, and the people complained. The finances of the Eastern Han Dynasty continued to lose blood and became weaker, so they had to embark on a vicious circle of "selling their jobs - not making ends meet - only selling again".
When Emperor Ling was in Jizhou, there was a famous man named Cui Lie, who spent 5 million to buy Situ. On the day of his canonization, Emperor Hanling saw Cui Liechun full of light and no burden, and even muttered to the eunuchs around him that the price of selling to him was low, and he should quote more for a sum of money. After Cui Lie returned home, he asked his son, today he was knighted, what did his old friends in his hometown think? His son Cui Jun answered honestly: "Everyone thinks it smells of copper." ”
03
The third reason for the rapid collapse of the Eastern Han Dynasty's finances was the imbalance between the imperial expenditure and the expenditure of the national treasury.
This hidden danger was actually relatively well isolated before Emperor Wudi of Han, but with the emergence of foreign Qi government at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the imperial financial expenditure increased, and the Eastern Han Dynasty simply broke the balance in the isolation system.
Since the Western Han Dynasty, fiscal expenditure has always been separate from public and private, in which the imperial family separately set up the secretary of the young government as the competent official, and the state treasury expenditure separately set up the big sinong as the competent official, and the two did not interfere with each other.
"(Shaofu) Palm the taxes of the mountains and seas of Chize, in order to give common support, there are six cheng... The servants, the director, and the Zhonghuangmen are all Yan. "The Book of Han
"(Da Si Nong) subordinate officials include Taicang, Jun Lose, Pingzhun, Dunei, and Gutian Wulingcheng, and the two chiefs of Tiecheng and Tiecheng. And the county state of the cang, the agricultural supervisor, and the sixty-five officials of the capital water, Cheng are all under Yan. "The Book of Han
After the establishment of the Han Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu, in order to take the lead in practicing thrift, he deliberately abolished the privilege of the royal family's separate expenditure, and assigned the mountains, rivers, forests, swamps and ponds under the jurisdiction of the royal family to the jurisdiction of the state treasury.
But he also did not expect that at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, foreign Qi interfered in politics so seriously, and his system became a breakthrough for the royal family to increase expenses.
In the past, the royal family's natural resources were those, and there was a ceiling on the use of expenditure, and if it was spent, there was no way, it could not be broken, but now it is all included in the national treasury budget, and when the foreign qi is in power, the foreign qi has the final say, and it is better to spend the national treasury and give priority to protecting the interests of the royal relatives.
The related expenses of foreign aristocrats accounted for an increasing proportion of the expenditure of the national treasury, and by the time of Emperor Ling of Han, it was no longer exhausted, and the money and grain consumed by various royal nobles accounted for about half of the national treasury every year.
After the stability of the world in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the annual financial revenue of the imperial court reached more than 4 billion yuan, and half of the salaries paid to the officials were accounted for; As the institution responsible for the royal family's income and expenditure, Shaofu receives an annual income of 1.3 billion yuan; After the merger, the total income of the two remained at the level of 6 billion yuan.
Emperor Guangwu of Han to Han and Emperor, can still maintain the style of thrift, even to the management of Empress Dowager Deng's dynasty, can also guide thrift and diligence, history records that Empress Dowager Deng led the abolition of "eunuchs" and "tang officials" such as departments that served the life of the royal family, saving more than 100 million yuan a year, but with the death of Empress Dowager Deng, the foreign relatives behind were basically flying and extravagant.
It was not easy for Emperor Han Huan to get rid of Liang Ji in isolation
The Hejian Liang family behind the general Liang Ji had three empresses (nominally); The Ma family of Emperor Ming, Empress Dou of Emperor Zhang (later cut off as a lord due to rebellion), Emperor Shun's Empress Liang, Emperor Huan's Empress Dou's clan, Emperor Ling's Empress He, etc. all controlled the imperial government, and the wealth of the foreign aristocracy behind them expanded at an equally astonishing rate, and the fiefs, farms, and slaves they enjoyed each increased geometrically, and everything had to be paid for by the state treasury.
Taking Liang Ji as an example, the Liang family was an imperial prince, and Emperor Han Huan saw that he was powerful, and his two younger sisters were empress dowager and empress respectively, and did not dare to offend, and successively gave Liang Ji the general mansion and increased the fiefdom, and made Liang Ji's brother and son the Marquis of Wanhu. His wife Sun Shou was made a prince of Xiangcheng and also ate taxes from Yangzhai.
The consequence of this is that during the period of Emperor Ling of Han and Emperor Xian of Han, the country's finances were seriously unable to make ends meet, and most of the interests were already divided among the imperial family members, and the entire national treasury could be called "strong outside the middle".
04
The history of the Eastern Han Dynasty is actually not complicated, nothing more than military founding, the co-rule of the Hao family, the dictatorship of eunuchs, foreign struggles, and natural disasters during the Xiaoice River period, but as a dynasty that was forced to give way, the root cause of the end of its rule was the comprehensive collapse of finance, which is essentially similar to the sudden rupture of the capital chain of a large multinational company.
Several irresponsible emperors in the late Eastern Han Dynasty made repeated unconscious moves, constantly eroding the country's financial foundation, especially the Han Huan Emperor and the Han Ling Emperor engaged in personal enjoyment, causing great financial chaos, drinking and quenching thirst, and no longer able to carry out systematic changes and adjustments.
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the dynasty collapsed, and finally the world was divided into three parts
After the outbreak of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the imperial court was unable to organize the central army to suppress the rebellion due to weak financial resources, and power was forced to fall into the hands of local powerful princes, and since then the Eastern Han Dynasty began to sound the death knell of its demise, opening a situation in which the princes were divided and the world was divided.
Emperor Hanzhang had considered changing salt and iron back to monopoly and increasing tax sources, but the opposition was too loud and the policy was not implemented after implementation, which also reflected the strong local powerful forces in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the weak control of the dynasty.
The financial bankruptcy of the Eastern Han Dynasty had a great influence on those in power at the time, especially Cao Cao, who learned lessons and tried to avoid foreign interference after establishing the Cao Wei regime, and before and after him, Cao Wei never had a situation where the Empress Dowager came to the dynasty, ending the evil tradition of foreign interference in government.
Cao Cao paid special attention to avoiding foreign interference and deliberately appointed several empresses to disperse foreign forces
After the establishment of the Jin Dynasty, the imperial financial system was also adjusted and designed, and the institutions of the young government were completely abolished, and changed to "the commander of the official school, the three shangfangs of the middle and the left, the left and right of the middle and the yellow, the left school, the Zhen official, the pingzhun, the Xi official, etc., and the left school fang, the left and right of the Ye Zhonghuang, the oil official and other Cheng." From then on, the jurisdiction of the treasury was centralized in Shang Shutai, which was managed by Shang Shuling (later evolved into the Prime Minister's direct command), responsible to the emperor himself, and reduced the financial pressure of imperial expenditures. Although the Jin Dynasty enjoyed a relatively short period of national success, it did learn many lessons from the Two Han Dynasty in the design of the financial system, and many of the Jin Dynasty's systems were inherited by later generations, which is of great significance in history.