introduction
In 209 BC, the fate of the Qin Dynasty came to a crossroads. The first nationwide peasant uprising in Chinese history was ignited by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang in the midst of a period delay caused by heavy rains for several days.
The long-standing harsh punishment and cruel law has given people a heavy and undeserved life, so that people have long been "the world has suffered for a long time." Just as the so-called "people are not afraid of death, why should they be afraid of death", since "indefinitely cut", then why not fight to the death? In this way, Chen Sheng and Wu Guangzhen in Daze Township shouted and lifted the pole.
Although this great uprising ultimately ended in failure, and Chen Sheng's time from becoming king to sacrificing himself was only six months, the anti-Qin uprising that ignited from it was in a burning trend and could not be contained. Only three years later, the Qin Dynasty collapsed. In 206 BC, Liu Bang's army reached Bashang, the Prince of Qin was forced to surrender, and the Qin Dynasty collapsed.
As a leader from a peasant family, Liu Bang was as good as a stream, knew people and was good at his duties, and finally laughed to the end in the Chu-Han War. In 202 BC, Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty.
It has to be said that in such an era, the times create heroes. Chen Sheng, Wu Guang, Liu Bang, Han Xin, Xiang Yu, Zhang Liang and others also showed us a grand heroic picture. But what we can't ignore is that behind these people is also the story of "rising and falling and suffering of the people". In the last years of the Qin Dynasty, the population at that time was about 30 million, and after just a few years of war, the population of the early Han Dynasty rapidly shrank to more than 10 million.
A hundred wastes to be revived, Liu Bang's measures
A lot of waste is waiting to be revived, and this word is apt to use here. The social situation at that time was so poor that even Liu Bang, who was the emperor, could not find horses of the same color when his carriage traveled, which also showed the seriousness of the destruction caused by the war at that time.
If so, in the face of such a social situation, Liu Bang also adopted a series of recuperation measures, and relied on these measures to lay a solid material foundation for future generations of successors.
In view of the serious taxation situation in the Qin Dynasty, Liu Bang changed the Qin Dynasty's "fifteen taxes and one tax" to "thirty taxes and one"; at the same time, he also distributed a series of unowned wastelands to the soldiers who participated in the great uprising at the end of Qin according to the size of their military merits, encouraging them to return to their hometowns to work as farmers.
Such a strategy not only gathered the hearts and minds of the people, but also achieved the short-term goal of "the inhabitants have their own land"; more importantly, it also laid a solid foundation for the recovery of population, the highly strategic data of this era of cold weapons.
However, for the restoration of the population, it was obvious that it was not enough to rely on the people's freedom to reproduce and live, so Liu Bang took another measure. The implementation of this measure is very helpful for population recovery, but it has to be admitted that as a thing, it also has its drawbacks, and its implementation has also made many women miserable. This measure can be called a "single tax".
In Chinese history, the provisions on the age of marriage and mating were not yet available in the pre-Qin period. It was not until after the Zhou Dynasty that it entered the era of xinshi that it was well documented. In the "Zhou Li", there is a provision: "Men marry at thirty, and women marry at twenty", that is to say, men must marry after they are thirty years old and women must marry after they are twenty years old, and once men and women exceed the prescribed age of marriage, they will be forced to go on blind dates.
However, this provision is obviously far from enough for the Han Dynasty, which is in ruins and awaiting rejuvenation, to quickly restore the population; not to mention the rise of the Xiongnu in the northern part of the Han Dynasty at that time, which is looking at the tiger. Although the Han Dynasty also adopted a policy of "peace and affinity", which briefly maintained peace, only a strong self was the best way to deal with the enemy.
Therefore, Liu Bang issued a decree on top of the Zhou Li. In the decree, Liu Bang stipulated that after a woman reaches the age of fifteen, a person who has not yet married needs to pay a "single tax".
This is a "miracle".
"One calculation" is a counting unit of the Han Dynasty Shangjia tax and the head tax, each of which is calculated as 120 yuan. In other words, if a woman is not married after the age of 15, she will have to pay 120 yuan. The purchasing power of this 120 yuan at that time could be equivalent to the basic expenditure of one person for three months.
Obviously, for ordinary people, such taxes can be said to be very serious, and it is precisely because of the need for "tax avoidance" that early marriage has become a trend at that time.
Cases of men marrying in their teens and women marrying in their fourteenth and fifth years abound, even in the royal family. Since its implementation, this measure can be said to have had an immediate effect on the recovery of the population. Even after Liu Bang's death, Emperor Hui of Han did not abolish it after he took the throne, and even Emperor Hui, in order to accelerate the recovery of the population, changed the original "one calculation" tax to "a woman does not marry for fifteen to thirty years, five calculations", which is increased by a full five times.
Emperor Zhao of Han, Emperor Ping/Emperor, Huo Shi, and Wang Shi were practitioners of this rule, and the age of marriage was even under the age of ten. It is conceivable that such an age is still in the period of ignorance; and even a woman who marries at the age of 15 is still developing, which will cause indelible damage to both physical and psychological, and this is also the embodiment of the further decline of women's status.
brief summary
After the implementation of such population restoration measures, by the time of the Han Wu Emperor Dynasty, the population of the whole country had exceeded the level of the late Qin Dynasty, reaching 36 million, which also provided rich human resources support for the economic development of the Han Wu Emperor Dynasty and the fight against the Xiongnu.
At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the population had even reached 60 million.
But what we have to say is that this kind of early marriage measure, supplemented by the Confucian "three from four virtues" atmosphere formed by it, is a kind of destruction for women's physical and psychological aspects.