With the population of the Dynasty (32 million-25 million) northern Zhou "left" 6.9 million households and a large number of concealed population hukou (according to the research of scholars Cen Zhongmian, Yang Zhijiu and others), and there was no major war, the Sui Dynasty reached 8.6 million households in the kaihuang year by taking over the large population of Northern Zhou and Chen and checking the hidden hukou they left behind, (and the great chaos in the late Sui Dynasty" left more than 2 million households for the Tang Dynasty (the Tongdian records that Du Zhenglun played "In the last year of the rebellion, there were more than 2 million households in Wude)," and many powerful enemies inside and outside, an unprecedented mess of destruction), by the fifth year of the Sui Dynasty Emperor's great cause (609), there were 8,975,36 households and 4,601,999,560 mouths.
In the Sui Dynasty, which was built on the basis of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the hukou still had the problem of the previous generation. In view of this, Emperor Wen of Sui took the throne and used a series of means to sort out the household registration as a long-term policy.
Emperor Wen of Sui first practiced light and thin endowments. Not only will the amount of silk be reduced by one-half of the tenants, but also one-third of the force service will be served, and the service period will be shortened. This method is mainly to attract "floaters". The so-called "floater" refers to the tenants who are attached to the powerful family.
Since the Wei and Jin dynasties, the most common means for the people to evade servitude is to throw themselves into the family clan, rent their land, and become tenants. Such people are hidden by powerful families and become "black market populations" without household registration, and they only need to pay taxes to their masters, not to the state.
Emperor Wen of Sui's practice of lightly dispensing small sums of money was to make those tenants or those who were preparing to become tenants understand that instead of being a tenant and being "half of the gifts received by the strong family", it was better to become a state household, not only to share the land, but also to pay less tax. This trick really worked, many tenants have come out of the powerful family, automatically declared the hukou to the state, and re-became the state household, the number of registered households and the population naturally increased, of course, the tax revenue also increased.
At the same time, Emperor Wen of Sui also used political power to cooperate with the "light and thin endowment" and ordered the prefectures and counties to "read the big picture". That is to say, throughout the country, the age, gender, appearance, etc. of each person are checked one by one with the household registration information to find out the hidden population that is not registered and re-registered.
Emperor Wen of Sui also encouraged the people to report each other, and as long as a person was found to be reported, the taxation and servitude of the informant were all reported by the informant. Emperor Wen of Sui did this for a simple purpose, that is, to prevent the people from concealing and deceiving each other.
Prime Minister Gao Ji also formulated the "Law on Transmitting Nationality," stipulating that on the fifth day of the first month of each year, the county orders the people to go out and organize the three or five hundred neighboring households together, and then re-evaluate the households according to the situation of each family's assets. In this way, it is more difficult for the hukou to conceal and impersonate, and the level of the household is also investigated and adjusted, "self-adultery is not tolerated."
Therefore, the fifth year of Daye (609) was the largest registered year of the Sui Dynasty.
As a result of this time, the household registration population increased by 640,000. Pei Yun was also credited with suggesting that Mao Yue be credited, and was soon promoted to the rank of Imperial Grand Master and took charge of secrets. However, at that time, the government was in turmoil, and the world was rebelling one after another, so in the next few years, it was no longer possible to conduct a look.
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, due to wars and other reasons, the registered population decreased sharply, and the rulers implemented early marriage in order to increase the population. Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty stipulated that a woman over the age of 13 needed to marry.
To put it simply, according to Xue Ruize's "Examination of marriage age in the Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties", the average marriage age of women in the Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties was 13 years old.
Early marriage was originally a wartime strategy, but over time, a trend developed. The Sui Dynasty was affected by this wind, and the age of marriage for women was also very small. For example, Princess Nanyang, the daughter of the Sui Emperor, was only 14 years old when she married Yuwen. Princess Lanling, the fifth daughter of Emperor Wen of Sui, was only 18 years old when she remarried Liu Shu, which shows that the age of first marriage must be very small. According to the statistics of relevant scholars on the marriage age of women in the Sui Dynasty epitaphs, it was found that the most people married at the age of 14 to 16. It is enough to prove that the Sui Dynasty was also popular for early marriage.
The unification of the country, social stability, and the prevalence of early marriage in the Sui Dynasty should also be a factor that cannot be underestimated in the population surge of the Sui Dynasty.
After the Sui Dynasty unified China (589), there were about 4 million households in the country, and the registered population was about 32 million, but by the fifth year of the Sui Dynasty (609), the country reached 8.9 million households and a registered population of 46 million. That is to say, in just 20 years, the Sui Dynasty increased its registered population by nearly one-third.
The war at the end of the Sui Dynasty caused the population to drop by more than 50%, and by the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, there were only 25 million.