1. Were Confucian scholars discriminated against in Yuan Dynasty?

In the Yuan Dynasty, what often made later scholars cry was that "Confucian scholars were discriminated against". Xie Fangde, a adherent of the Yuan and Southern Song Dynasties, described it as "nine sons and ten beggars". The saying that "the literati in the Yuan Dynasty were comparable to beggars" has since spread. But a closer look at yuan dynasty history makes people laugh and cry: Is there such a beggar who supports people?

In the division of social strata in the Yuan Dynasty, Confucian scholars were actually listed separately and classified as "Confucian households". Before the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, there were 3,890 Confucian merchants in northern China. After the national subjugation in the Southern Song Dynasty, the number of Confucian scholars in southern China exceeded100000 in one breath.

Compared with other household registrations in the Yuan Dynasty, "Confucian households" have many privileges: their status is hereditary, each household must have at least one child to study Confucianism, and students can enjoy two meals a day. The privilege of tax exemption is even more enviable-even the "Confucius House" with civilian status does not need to bear any responsibilities except paying basic taxes such as local taxes. And those rich "scholarly families" took the opportunity to annex land from generation to generation and exploit loopholes. Therefore, even though there was chaos in the world at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, all parties were starving everywhere. Scholars with Confucian identity in the south of the Yangtze River still had various receptions, poems and songs, and their lives were chic and comfortable.

Of course, the more real "discrimination against Confucian scholars in the Yuan Dynasty" in later generations is still because the imperial examination in the Yuan Dynasty is unreliable. The imperial examination in Yuan Dynasty was abolished and stopped, which lasted for 4 1 year. Officials born in the imperial examination were originally "non-mainstream" in the bureaucratic system of the Yuan Dynasty. Moreover, there are only 25 "* * *" and "Southerners" in this "non-mainstream" admission quota, each time 100 people are admitted. Most scholars want to enter the official career? Either spend money to buy an official, or start from a small official honestly.

However, even with such harsh "discrimination" regulations, the loyalty of scholars in the Yuan Dynasty was not bad. From the vigorous peasant war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, as many as 42 literati were "martyred" for the Yuan Dynasty. Even after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of nobles in the Yuan Dynasty either fled or surrendered without any pressure. On the contrary, many former literati who were "famous" in the Yuan Dynasty still refused to surrender.

Although compared with the torrent of peasant war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, these "rather die than surrender" bridges are not well known, but it is enough to show that the Yuan Dynasty-style "nurturing scholars" did earn a lot of unswerving efforts.

Second, Dayuan is the "best underworld"

In the Yuan Dynasty, banknotes were circulated all over the world, and the design of banknotes was also very scientific. In addition to sufficient reserves, a complete law has been enacted to crack down on counterfeit money. However, in front of a "underworld organization" in lead mountain, Jiangxi Province, the perfect "anti-counterfeiting measures" of the Yuan Dynasty once became vulnerable: the Youth League.

The Youth League is a "counterfeit money den" founded by Wu Youwen, a native of Lead Mountain, Jiangxi Province. Compared with previous generations, this "Youth League" has a strict organizational form, from manufacturing counterfeit money to issuing counterfeit money, and even wooing collusion officials, with a clear division of labor and even specialized armed thugs. At its peak, its membership has grown to hundreds. Its "produced" counterfeit money not only circulates in the mainland, but even crosses the Great Wall and sells well in Lingbei (Mongolia). Countless people have been fooled.

In this way, the "Youth League" will certainly earn a lot of money. With deep pockets, they also do many bad things to rob men and women every day. For example, Wu Youwen, the leader, has more than a dozen concubines, all of which he robbed from other people's homes. No one resisted? All the officials in Lead Mountain State were easily dragged down by him. Even the official errands are basically composed of his lackeys. Complain The front foot went to the yamen to complain, and the back foot paper fell into his hand, and the consequences could be imagined.

Such a diehard gang ran rampant in the Yuan Dynasty for ten years. It was not until the upright official Lin Xingzu became the leader of the lead mountain that he finally eliminated it with heavy punches. But how much counterfeit money has flowed into the market? It's already a muddled account.

However, Wu Youwen's operation is still a drop in the bucket compared with the senior officials of the Yuan Dynasty: Chu Sikun, the prime minister of the Yuan Dynasty, was also very optimistic about the oil and water of this "counterfeit banknote", but people didn't even bother to run away, just moved the imperial engraving, printed as much money as they wanted, and then put it in storage with gold and silver.

The Great Yuan Dynasty, with an unprecedented territory, was not eaten alive by this large and small mouse?

Third, the taxes in the Yuan Dynasty were very light?

A glorious aura of the Yuan Dynasty, often sung by later generations, is "light tax".

This matter, when the Ming Dynasty was just established, a large number of "adherents of the Yuan Dynasty" with the status of scholar-officials kept singing praises for the Yuan Dynasty. In the three hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, many "celebrities" of the Ming Dynasty followed suit. For example, Zhu Guozhen, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, said that in the Yuan Dynasty, "taxes were very light and corvees were extremely economical". Yu Yu, a politician in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, praised the taxation of the Yuan Dynasty as "simple and loose". It seems that the Great Yuan Dynasty, which did not last for a century, became a paradise on earth that cherished the strength of the people.

On paper, the taxes of the Yuan Dynasty did not seem to be heavy. When the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, the corvee tax in the Southern Song Dynasty was completely abolished, and the commercial tax was reduced to one thirtieth. After the reunification of the north and the south, the Yuan Dynasty levied Ding tax and local tax in the north and summer and autumn tax in the south. But surgery is another matter.

First of all, a serious problem is the "landless system" in the Yuan Dynasty. As an unprecedented dynasty in the history of China, the Yuan Dynasty did not even clear its land. What is the total area of cultivated land in China? How much land can the government tax? Throughout the yuan dynasty, the monarch and his ministers were paste from generation to generation. During Yuan Shizu's reign, Kublai Khan cultivated land on a large scale, but officials at all levels in the Yuan Dynasty kept it a secret. In the end, there was much thunder and little rain, and then it continued in chaos. So confused, the consequences are also very serious, land merger in the Yuan Dynasty has become commonplace, "cross-county and city private land does not count."

In this way, the more land is annexed, the less land is used by the state to collect taxes, and the taxes that cannot be collected will of course fall on the poor. Especially in Jiangnan, which is famous for its light taxes, those privileged Confucian families have merged a lot of land, so that "Wu people arbitrarily merged ... and little people have nothing to hide."

In addition, the various "tax increases" in the Yuan Dynasty were also numerous. Theoretically, the "one-thirtieth" business tax was levied repeatedly in Yuan Shizu's later years, and by the middle of the Yuan Dynasty, it had soared to 100 times. /kloc-At the beginning of the 4th century, the "tea class" tax in the Yuan Dynasty also soared 60 times. In addition, there are "extra classes" such as "River" and "Shan Ye". Lions ask for money almost every year, so that "the use of the country depends on it" and the national finance depends on this "unreasonable charge". Moreover, all the "arbitrary charges" are "hollowed out from the people". It is the bitter people who pay the bill.

There are even a dime a dozen corvees, who abolished the old system of the Song Dynasty when the People's Republic was founded, and then formulated various new corvees under various excuses. Even in the south of the Yangtze River, where taxes are relatively light, the right side of Zhejiang Province is beset with corvees. Moreover, the distribution is very uneven: "enriching the people may be superior, but being poor and weak cannot win, and it will go bankrupt and lose its job." Therefore, a disaster of 1334 alone caused as many as 570,000 victims in Zhejiang.

This is the reason of "light tax" in the Yuan Dynasty. Under the historical picture of "prosperity" on the surface, management is very inefficient and the people are miserable. In this era, why do people still cling to "light taxes"? Because for those literati, they are insensitive to such pain-the board didn't hit their own flesh, of course, they didn't know the pain.

However, for historical readers hundreds of years later, this kind of pain is not only painful, but also worth pondering and the alarm bell is ringing.