These depraved people, that is, the untouchables among ordinary people, have lived in Ningbo and Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province, Changshu and Zhaowen counties in Jiangsu Province and parts of Shanghai for generations. Their social status is very low, even lower than the last merchant class. They are rejected and disliked by the local people and can only live in cold ancestral temples and remote rural areas.
Who are these depraved people? There are many speculations, or Gou Jian sent the widow up the mountain and gave birth to offspring with the locals; Descendants of people who surrendered to other countries during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period; In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, after the defeat of Xiang Yu, all localities followed his descendants; After the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty was put down, they were sent to the children of Liyuan near the south of the Yangtze River. The descendants of the army sergeant of Jiao Guangzan, the general of the Great Song Dynasty who surrendered to the Jin people, and so on.
At present, the most credible statement is that the fallen people are descendants of prisoners left by the defeat of Mongolia, which first appeared in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the rulers defined these people as "beggars" and strictly stipulated that they should never be treated equally with the four classes of "intellectuals, peasants, workers and businessmen", and their status was humble.
In ancient feudal society, people's occupation and social orientation were very clear. You can only engage in the occupation of which class you are, and those who are not scholars and degenerate in industry and commerce naturally cannot set foot in these circles.
Therefore, if we put aside the origins of the degenerates for the time being, we can find that the society at that time had strict requirements for them. For example, if you can't study and study, you can only be illiterate, you can't follow the crowd to take the imperial examination and change your class, you can only wander for a living without your own land, you can't marry the local people, and you can't go from business to work.
Generally speaking, degenerate people can only do industries that scholars, farmers and businessmen are unwilling to do.
Among the degenerate people, men usually play drums and sing, or help large families carry sedan chairs and enter the troupe to sing big plays. Some people want to get married, the wedding needs musicians to play drums, or the funeral needs gongs and drums, and some large families will invite troupes to perform at home, even including social activities such as mourning for the twelfth lunar month, which are their daily sources of income.
Most degenerate women choose to be matchmakers or deliver babies for women. They often wear blue skirts in Tsing Yi, with hair styles like cicadas and empty ears. If they want to go out, they must carry a blue bag with squares and hold a blue rain umbrella in their hands.
They come to help ordinary women trim their eyebrows, or help their parents see off the bride, change clothes and make up for the bride, and so on. If any woman is going to give birth, they will come to deliver the baby. There is no fixed fee standard for these jobs, which depends on the mood and economic situation of the host family. Their women have no other source of livelihood, and the depraved without land can only rely on these irregular incomes to maintain their daily lives and not starve to death.
Some skilled degenerates will also do some jobs such as bamboo lanterns, beating brown ropes, helping people strike the iron and killing pigs. The work of degenerates depends on intellectuals, peasants, workers and businessmen. Some jobs are even indispensable to society, but in fact most people don't like them.
Here we will explain "beggar". Our understanding of "beggar" is generally considered as a beggar who is begging along the street, has no fixed address and is in a precarious situation. The difference between degenerates and ordinary beggars is that they have a main house with services, and their daily clothes are clean and decent.
Degraded people can't leave their place of residence at will, because they are rejected by most people, so they usually live together, communicate with each other or get married and reproduce. They are more like a family than the same class. They have different surnames and even different origins, but their political status in society is the same.
The house that depraved people live in is shorter than the civilian house and has a bright appearance. Even if the family has money to live in a better house, it is not allowed. In the 1940s, the relevant departments in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province conducted a general survey of local degenerates, and the data showed that there were more than 30,000 degenerates.
As for clothes, degenerate people also have strict rules. It is forbidden for men to wear dog-headed hats, horizontal skirts and robes. Women generally wear blue tops, and sleeves are forbidden to roll up. With a blue horizontal skirt, red shoes are forbidden. The bun on their heads must be higher than that of other women, and their hair can only be made of bone horns. You can't wear jewelry on your ears When you walk outside, you must take a long paper umbrella in your hand and put it under your arm.
Degenerate people with such a glamorous appearance can be seen outside, as long as their eyes and eyesight are all right, and people think it is unlucky to see degenerate people outside, and naturally they are even more reluctant to marry them, if they have to be scolded.
The Ming court expressly stipulated that anyone who degenerated could not hold grass-roots posts such as local officials, grain chiefs and village heads, and could not expect to enter the central government to hold senior posts.
In ancient times, it was often said to donate money to buy official positions. For some less important official positions, the Ming Dynasty is no exception. But this rule allows businessmen to participate, and they must not corrupt people, even if they have money. At that time, there was a doctor named Zhen in Zhejiang who was going to donate money to buy a small official position after leaving his hometown and change his status as a degenerate at home. However, he was unlucky and was sued by his fellow villagers in the local area and could not take office.
When the Qing army entered Shanhaiguan to establish the Qing Dynasty, the emperor decided to exempt beggars from household registration. The degenerates have to wait until the fourth generation after changing careers, and those relatives and friends do not have the status of degenerates, so they can start learning and be qualified to participate in scientific research.
The change of imperial edict-Qing rulers abolished beggars' household registration and allowed degenerates to change occupational diseases.
The social phenomenon that degenerate people are generally excluded cannot be formed overnight. Driven by the decrees of the rulers of past dynasties, at the same time, the local people gradually formed the concept of habit. It was not until the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty that the social and political status of the degenerates changed substantially.
In A.D. 1723, the superior finally succumbed to the pressure, chose to make a little compromise with the fallen people, and ordered the fallen people in Zhejiang to be exempted from beggar household registration and become good citizens. Seven years later, the fallen people in Changshu were allowed to change the lintel.
After the fallen people become civilians, they can no longer engage in their previous jobs and have to change to a decent job. During this period, no one can stop the degenerate people from choosing. After the fallen become good citizens, they should also pay taxes on time in accordance with state regulations and must not default.
The final effect of this law is not good. If a degenerate wants to change his identity, he must give up his current source of income. But after becoming civilians, they have no source of income and no money to pay taxes, eat and maintain their living expenses. Can they only starve to death? Between status and having enough to eat, many degenerate people choose the latter, unwilling to give up their jobs.
The people's thinking of discriminating against degenerates cannot be changed overnight. Even if the degenerate people change into unchangeable clothes and become good citizens, the local people will subconsciously reject them. Deep-rooted ideas and habits can't be changed by a decree from the top.
There is a huge gap between the two groups. Even if this trench is destroyed by law, it doesn't mean it disappears. It is conceivable that it is difficult for degenerates who have recovered their civilian status to find a job.
In addition, matchmaker, midwife and other occupations were all necessary occupations at that time. Despite their low status and being looked down upon by people, the importance of these jobs is undeniable. In that era when communication was inconvenient and men and women were on the defensive, a trusted matchmaker directly affected the marriage of the two families.
An experienced midwife is also very important for a pregnant woman who is about to give birth, living in an era when the medical level is not developed. Therefore, once they change careers, it is inevitable that they will not be used to it from the hall to the small family, and it is difficult to find a replacement. I don't want these degenerate people to change their identities and careers.
With the continuous development of economy and the in-depth development of bourgeois democratic revolution, more and more people begin to think-is it reasonable to oppress and discriminate against degenerate people? Some people even set up degenerate schools for degenerate people to provide them with education.
By A.D. 1904, more than 20,000 degenerate people were able to formally change their household registration. However, we must understand that ideological change is the most fundamental change compared with formal change. Until the eve of the revolution of the Republic of China, the fallen people were still unwilling to marry ordinary people, or insisted on earning income and maintaining daily expenses through the help of large families.
It can be seen from the history of fallen people that the hierarchical system in feudal society is very unreasonable. It oppresses humanity and enslaves ordinary people. Under the unfair treatment of the rulers day after day, people's thoughts are gradually persuaded by the hierarchy, so that they agree with the unreasonable hierarchy from the bottom of their hearts. This is very terrible.
All men are born equal, no one is nobler than others, and no one is lower than others! But now, we can still see some inexplicable discrimination. Even what brand of mobile phone you use, what brand of clothes you wear, what local accent you speak and what kind of stars you like may be discriminated against by another group.
Although degenerate people have disappeared in the long river of history, discrimination will continue with the history of human civilization.