Wen | Yao Yufei
Sun Yuwen (1834-1899) of Jining was born into a family of eunuchs, his grandfather Sun Yuting was the governor of Liangjiang, his father Sun Ruizhen was the official to Hubu Shangshu, and his cousin Sun Yushu was the twenty-fourth year (1844) of Daoguang.
Group photo of prime ministers. From right: Sun Yuwen, Xu Yongyi, Prince Yi of Qing, Xu Gengshen, Liao Shouheng, Zhang Yinhuan
Sun Yuwen himself was also a major minister of the late Qing Dynasty, and in his later years he served as the minister of military aircraft and the shangshu of the military department. But Sun Yuwen, a high-ranking official who has no worries about food and clothing, is not without troubles. Sun Yuwen's diary from his political career ("Sun Yuwen's Diary Letter Manuscript"), presents us with his daily travels and the troubles that arose during them.
Sun Yuwen once served as the chief examiner and scholar of the township examination in Sichuan, but the road from Beijing to Sichuan was not smooth, and although various officials along the way received him and delivered wine and food, the living conditions were sometimes very bad.
Just as in the sixth year of the reign (1867), on the seventh day of the first month of June, Sun Yuwen arrived in Baoding, staying next to the toilet, "The sunset is extremely hot, the smell is compelling, and the number of flies is difficult to count." "The accommodation conditions are so bad, Sun Yuwen is eager to hurry up and rush to Sichuan early to end this errand." However, at that time, the Twist army was very active, and he heard that some officials encountered thieves, the car was destroyed, the coachman was killed, and he could only send brave pawns to escort them forward. There is no way, Sun Yuwen does not dare to take the fast lane from Shaanxi to Sichuan, and can only enter the river through Hubei and take the waterway. However, the wind and food camping along the way is still inevitable.
Sun Yuwen's daily troubles come not only from the hardships and obstacles of the journey, but also from the coachmen, caravans and servants.
Palanquins in the Chengdu Plain in the late Qing Dynasty (old photo)
The road is far and difficult, the road is rough, and there are complaints from each other, and Sun Yuwen has already formed a bond with the servants. Sun Yuwen had long been dissatisfied, but there were no villages in the xiangfan countryside and no shops behind, and if the servants were driven away, he would not have a palanquin to sit on.
Therefore, Sun Yuwen, who had a black belly, "secretly remembered that the two of them, both taking the food of several people and playing lazy and cunning, planned to go to the East Lake tomorrow and decide to flogg it, so as to vent their anger for several days." The next day, Sun Yuwen arrived in Donghu County, hurriedly asked the county order to find a new servant, and that night he "scolded the two sedans" to vent his hatred.
However, Sun Yuwen soon realized that his behavior was somewhat reckless. After he beat the sedan with his staff, some of the servants fled halfway.
At this time, Sun Yuwen carefully inquired about the remaining caravans, and only then did he know that the townspeople were all "zhuangding" who had been forced to pull in: "The villagers' assistance to the army is not out of recruitment, and they work hard all day long, and they do not get a single money.
Sun Yuwen, who understood the reason for the incident, was suddenly sympathetic, and even "planned to make a spontaneous price, and give fifty dollars per person per paragraph." After Sun Yuwen paid his salary out of his own pocket, these servants "not only did not flee, but also worked extremely hard." After solving these troubles, Sun Yuwen's journey will be smooth.
The ups and downs of the eunuch sea are only a small part of Sun Yuwen's daily troubles, and the most laborious thing in his daily life is like us today, it is money.
Sun Yuwen Shuzha
He keeps accounts every three to five minutes, and the "Daily Flowing Water", which records his daily expenses, provides us with excellent material for understanding his family expenses.
At the beginning of each month, he needs to pay monthly fees to his family and pay dozens of servants.
For example, on the first day of June in the thirteenth year of Guangxu (1887), he paid a monthly fee of 62,000 yuan to the families of the Third Young Master, the Grandmother of the Great And the Young Master, the Grandmother of the Third Young Master, the Fifth Miss, and the Sixth Miss. In addition to the servant's salary, his expenses on this day were as high as 372,600 yuan, which was equivalent to spending more than 30 taels of silver. His monthly salary is more than 200 taels.
Why does Sun Yuwen spend so much money? Because he was a high-ranking official, he needed to set up a pomp, so he had to hire many servants to support the scene. And his family's income comes from him alone, and all the big and small expenses are out of him. Daily expenses such as shaving children's hair, buying watermelon, buying soy milk, buying stinky tofu, etc. are all out of his pocket. Other expenses also came from his salary, such as the record on October 5, 1887: "Monk at the Gate: Spending a Thousand".
However, although the family's monthly expenses are very large, under Sun Yuwen's careful calculations, his family's ledger can always save a few silver at the end of each month.
Moreover, Sun Yuwen's "Daily Flowing Water" probably did not record his "gray income," otherwise why would the Jining nursery rhymes sing like this: "The wealth of the half city is the Sun family, the half-city compound is the Sun family, the half-city article is the Sun family, and the half-city talent is the Sun family." Even with Sun Yuwen's "Daily Flowing Water" to do economic calculations, compared with many ordinary people under the extreme poverty line at that time, Sun Yuwen's life was really good.
It can be seen that although Sun Yuwen's daily life has troubles, compared with him, the troubles of the civilian families in the late Qing Dynasty are definitely more.