Hankyung. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Qianmen Street.

The people of Hanjing now call the south gate of the inner city of Hanjing, Zhengyang Gate, the front gate, and the Zhengyang Gate Tower, called the Qianmen Building. At the beginning of the planning of Hanjing, the south gate of the inner city was planned as a commercial center.

Zhengyang Gate is the south gate of the inner city, there are city towers, arrow towers, urn city as a whole, five holes and five coupons, very tall and majestic.

The street in front of Zhengyangmen, also known as Qianmen Street, is flanked by silk and satin cloth, jewelry, shoes and hats, paper and ink bookstores, restaurants, pharmacies and medical halls. There are also many guild halls built in Beijing by merchants from various guilds and merchants from all over the world, so it has become one of the most prosperous and lively commercial streets in Hanjing.

In addition to maintaining the dignity of imperial power, it is stipulated that green buildings and gambling houses are not allowed to be opened in the inner city, so there is no shadow of Qianmen Street, and many other industries have settled here. However, those who can open stores on Qianmen Street are basically high-end stores, such as luxury goods, and some people who kill pigs, sell vegetables and sell fish, but they can't come.

The storefront here is also surprisingly expensive.

But the traffic here is also huge, and the ability to set up a store here is the best in the industry. Even the back alleys on the left and right sides of this street have become lively and full of shops.

"Sell the newspaper, sell the newspaper, Hanjing News today's news, His Majesty the Emperor rewarded King Yue with 8 million guan!"

"Opening big rewards, walk through and come in to take a look, today's small opening is a ninety-eight discount big reward!"

"Rock sugar gourd, sweet, crisp and sour and refreshing!"

・・・・・・

Li Chao and Cheng Qian, dressed in white shirts, walked on this lively Qianmen Street, feeling the atmosphere of the market.

Qianmen Street is wider than ordinary streets, there are sidewalks on both sides of the street, and the pavement decoration of each shop is even planned according to the unified planning of Hanjing Mansion, maintaining the overall style. However, the signboards of each family are colorful.

The apricot yellow flag in front of the restaurant, the colorful flag in front of the silk village・・・・・・

"It's only been a year since the capital was moved, and Hanjing is so prosperous." Cheng Qian was amazed.

"That's because everybody has money on hand now."

"Why do you have money now?" The prince asked.

Li Chao rolled his sleeves and strolled down the street, looking at the signboard of that family, "Why is everyone rich now?" This is actually multifaceted, first of all, of course, the Tang Dynasty ended the chaos since the end of the Sui Dynasty, and finally unified the world, the Central Plains ended the war, the people were stable, and life was naturally good. ”

"Secondly, now in the Tang Dynasty, the strong enemy Turks in the north have perished, and the Tuyuhun in the northwest and Goguryeo in the northeast have become vassals, even the surrounding Khitan, Xi, Zhenla, Nanzhao, Tubo, etc., none of them dare to provoke and harass the prisoners, and if there is no external trouble, the war will be reduced, and the burden on the people will be reduced a lot."

"I'm talking about the big picture, and there's a lot more to it. For example, since Zhenguan, the imperial court has implemented a new policy, first rectifying Buddhism and Taoism, cleaning up a large number of temple and view fields, and cleaning up their loans. A large number of impoverished tenant farmers, who had been attached to them, were also given land, and many more moved to the border lands and divided the land. ”

"Later, the two taxes were reformed again, the rent adjustment was abolished, and the people's ding tax, Ding service, and apportionment of the land to the mu were exempted, and the actual burden of the people was greatly reduced."

"There is another one, now that the imperial court is vigorously developing industry and commerce, all parts of the country are in full swing, and the people are finally having more opportunities to make money in addition to holding on to a few acres of land. There is also a very important reason, that is, the passage of paper money today, but also greatly prospered commerce, you see now, which people have no cash? ”

Cash is a very important thing, in the past, money was scarce. The people in the countryside basically have little cash in their hands. Usually when the merchant goes to the countryside, everyone also trades in kind, and the needle and thread also take some grain or fur in exchange, which actually greatly hinders the transaction, and the business is naturally not prosperous.

And now, not to mention this Qianmen Street, if you go to a rural area, you will find that the rural market is also very lively. The shops in the city, and even some merchants, will regularly go to the countryside to set up markets, and the people in the countryside will also rush to the markets on the day of the market, bringing their own handicrafts, or grain, game, and even their own chickens and ducks.

Because everyone now has cash in hand, all of them greatly facilitate these transactions.

"Is money so important?"

"It should be said that money is important, and money is actually a kind of commodity equivalent bargaining chips, which greatly facilitates transactions. And banknotes, which are the equivalent of money, have credit. Banknotes are more convenient to use, and naturally, commerce is more prosperous, and business is prosperous, which will inevitably drive the handicraft industry, the processing industry to drive the mining industry, and even the transportation industry and service industry. ”

"It's like playing chess, one chess piece is alive, and the whole game is alive."

Cheng Qian didn't know much about the economy, and he didn't quite understand the entire social and economic development model, but listening to Li Chao's words, it seemed to be very reasonable.

"An ordinary peasant family, in the past, they did not have their own land, they were tenants of the temple, every year for the temple tenant land, after harvesting, they had to hand over half of it to the muli, but because they had the protection of the temple, they did not need to pay taxes to the imperial court, nor did they have to serve, he was not even above the household registration of the imperial court."

Li Chao said slowly, "This family has worked hard for a year, and half of the money earned from cultivating dozens of acres of land has been given to the temple. The rest is their own, if it is a good year, the family still has a surplus, but there is not much surplus, because they only grow grain, but also grow some mulberry hemp, the husband takes the child to farm, the wife takes the daughter to raise silkworms and weave, the family's food and clothing, are self-sufficient, but oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, all have to need money. ”

"People also need money. In addition, although they did not need to pay taxes to the imperial court for service, they were indispensable for some local apportionments in peacetime. Therefore, even if it is a good year, they actually live a very tight life. ”

"And if it's a disaster year, you may have to borrow money from the temple. If you borrow a debt once, it may take many years to pay it off, and you can't even pay it back with interest, so you have to sell your children or even sell yourself into slavery. ”

Li Chao is talking about the real situation of many peasants in the past, small landlords with land and homesteaders have a stronger ability to resist disasters, but ordinary tenants are much worse, and even the death of a large livestock in the family can make the family's hard work for a year in vain.

They have no savings and are struggling to survive.

Heavy rents, harsh apportionments, high interest rates, sickness, wars, and disasters were all mountains that weighed on their heads.

The common people can't afford to get sick, get married, or die.

The imperial court's uniform land system has alleviated a little, but in fact, the Central Plains region is too densely populated, and a large number of fields are concentrated in the hands of landlords and bureaucrats, plus they have to give the bureaucrats job fields, public fields, etc., so in the end there are not many lands that can be used to equalize the land, and the imperial court stipulates that the upper limit of the average land is 100 mu per ding, but in fact, the people in many places have no land to equalize, and it is good to be able to average 20 acres.

However, the farming techniques of this era were all widely harvested and thinly planted. A family can barely make ends meet by planting 100 acres, and 20 acres is enough.

"But now it's very different." Li Chaochang exhaled, Zhenguan New Deal, one new deal after another, the people's lives are indeed improving rapidly.

Just one two-tax law, one apportionment into the mu, the combination of the tax and the service into the acre, and the levy of land tax according to the acre, this alone has relieved the huge pressure on countless ordinary people.

In the past, the basic tax of the imperial court was calculated according to Ding, and this tax was actually calculated according to the average amount of land of 100 mu per court in the imperial court. But in fact, there are not so many fields at all, so all the people who have not allocated enough land for 100 acres are actually overtaxed and paid heavy taxes.

And the military service is even heavier than the tax. The two taxes were changed, and the tax was included in the land, and the tax and service were included in the field, and in the future, they were all taxed according to the acreage, and the tax was levied on how many acres of land. There are 100 acres of tax, and 20 acres of 20 acres are taxed.

Even in fact, even if the people still have 100 acres of land, the tax they pay is lighter than the past 100 acres, and this is the benefit of apportioning the land into the mu.

Moreover, the imperial court continued to expand the borders, rectify the Buddhist road, and also rectify the household registration, the population of the Central Plains was no longer as dense as in the past, and the imperial court also recovered a lot of fields by replacing the fields for the relatives, and then gave them to the people, so that the people of the Central Plains greatly increased the number of fields in their hands.

Of course, the benefits brought about by the opening up of industry and commerce can also be seen and touched. During the slack period, they went to work in nearby workshops, and even the government engaged in some water conservancy and civil engineering projects. Many of the older children of the common people also had the opportunity to go to the city to work as apprentices, and even girls could go to work as women.

These opportunities are only available after the development of industry and commerce today, and they were not available in the past.

The people have cash in their hands, of course, they have also increased consumption, and consumption has led to the rise of industry and commerce, breeding, industry and commerce, and naturally the rise of transportation, services and other industries.

For the imperial court, the rise of industry and commerce greatly increased the natural finance and taxation.

It's a virtuous circle.

Walking around, I looked up, but I arrived at a teahouse.

The teahouse is two-storey, and the shops on both sides of Qianmen Street are basically two-storey.

"Let's go in and have a cup of tea."

Two young men stood at the gate to greet them, and when they saw them coming, they immediately shouted, "Visitors, two! ”

As soon as the curtain was lifted and the door entered, a guy from the hall immediately came to greet him.

"Two guest officers, what kind of tea to drink, we have all kinds of famous teas here, as well as all kinds of refreshments, you are satisfied."

"Downstairs is a scattered seat, and upstairs there is a private room."

"We can listen to the book for free downstairs, today is about the legend of the heroes of the Tang Dynasty, and we will talk about the heroic deeds of King Qi Jun. The upstairs box can play the piano and sing songs, all of them. ”

Cheng Qian said, "Then let's find a seat downstairs, come to a pot of black tea from Wuyi Mountain, and serve some refreshments." ”

"Okay, two guest officers, please come with the little one!"