Rebirth of the Ming Dynasty: Sixth Generation of Glory, I don't want it

[Gua said: As I adjust to my day-night schedule, updates may not be very stable. The previous chapter will be the first to introduce science.]

The Four-Class System runs through the long ancient history of China.

The so-called four classes of people originally originated from the theory of "scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans" first proposed by Guan Zhong, the prime minister of Qi State.

To put it in today's terms, they refer to citizens engaged in four major professions: scholars, farmers, workers, and merchants.

Compared with these four types of citizens, the others are basically regarded as untouchables and classified as "lowly people".

Among these four types of citizens, the "scholars" evolved from soldiers to scholar-officials.

I have mentioned it before, so I won’t repeat it.

Anyway, later on, the commonly accepted concept of "scholars, farmers, merchants, artisans and workers" was formed.

However, these eight words actually fall into three categories.

The scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans are in one group, the three religions are in one group, and the nine classes are in one group.

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Scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans——

"Shi" - the scholar-official class, in a broad sense, includes officials, including all celebrities, such as scholars, juren, xiucai, tongsheng, and even just a scholar who is still reading and knows a few words. In most feudal dynasties, as long as you know a few words and have read books, you will be looked up to.

"Nong" means farmers. In an agricultural society, farmers are the largest group and the foundation of everything. Even though they are actually at the bottom of society and are exploited the most, the feudal rulers gave them a false name to elevate their status. No matter which court, there will be policies to reward farmers. Only when the farmers are stable can the court be stable.

"Gong" means craftsman. Artisans from all walks of life. In other words, they are a group of ordinary people who have skills but no land. Purely skilled workers had a decent status in the early days, but almost none in the later days. No matter how skilled they were, they were still considered inferior and often had to work for the court for free.

"Shang" - Merchants. On the surface, they were ranked the lowest. In most dynasties, merchants were openly or implicitly classified as lowly. The superficial reason was that merchants were only interested in profit. The fundamental reason was that money and power were separated. The scholar-official class only allowed merchants to have money and did not want these rich people to get promoted. In addition, in order to survive and live well, merchants could only curry favor with the powerful and provide financial support to them.

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Three religions

It comes from the Book of Zhou: "On the day of Guisi in the twelfth month, the emperor gathered his ministers, ascetics, Taoists, etc., and ascended the high throne to explain the order of the three religions, with Confucianism being first, Taoism second, and Buddhism last."

Translated into vernacular and adding the subject, it means - During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, Yuwen Yong, summoned everyone on the day of December in the second year of Jiande to discuss the pros and cons of the three religions. Finally, he concluded that Confucianism was the best, Taoism was second, and Buddhism was last.

Confucianism - also known as "Confucianism" and "Holy Teaching", takes "benevolence" as its highest belief and "establishing a mind for heaven and earth, establishing a destiny for the people, inheriting the lost knowledge of the saints, and creating peace for all generations" as its ultimate goal.

Gua summarized the teachings of Confucianism as "cultivating others, from being unkind to being benevolent, as for being truly benevolent or falsely benevolent, that is not in the slightest bit up to humans."

Taoism - takes "Tao" as the highest belief, belief in immortals as the core content, alchemy and magic as the path of practice, and attaining Taoism to become an immortal, achieve immortality, and become one with Tao as the ultimate goal.

Gua summarizes "cultivate this life and cultivate yourself".

Buddhism - one of the three major religions in the world, was introduced into my country from India during the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Gua summarized it as "cultivate for the next life, seek for the next life.".

A special note here:

A long, long time ago, before Buddhism was introduced into our country, there was no Buddhism among the "Three Religions".

Legend has it that the ancestor Hongjun passed on his teachings to three friends, Laozi and Yuanshi Tianzun founded the "Chanjiao", the master Tongtian established the "Jiejiao", and the three human emperors ruled the world, which was called the "Humanitarianism", together they are the "Three Religions".

However, these three religions are heavily mythological, and basically belong to another system.

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Nine classes——

It comes from "Han Shu·Xu Zhuan Xia": "After the six schools were established, they were not widely spread in the world, and various opinions were confused and various schools of thought emerged. The Qin people destroyed them, and the Han Dynasty completed the deficiencies. Liu Xiang was in charge of the records, and the nine schools were divided. Here I write a catalog and briefly describe their great achievements."

Translated into vernacular: The six books of Yijing, Shangshu, Shijing, Liji, Yuejing and Chunqiu survived the book burning disaster of the Qin Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, they were reorganized and collected. Liu Xiang, the official in charge of records, classified these classics and wrote a book called Bielu, which opened the division of nine schools of thought, including Confucianism, Taoism, Yin-Yang School, Legalism, Mingjia, Mohism, Diplomacy School, Miscellaneous School and Agricultural School.

The original nine schools referred only to various academic schools, without any praise or criticism.

In the later period, especially after being frequently used in vernacular novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Nine Classes gradually evolved into various specific occupations, which tended to be lower-level occupations.

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In addition, there are the three religions and nine classes popular among the people, which actually represent 27 kinds of professions.

It is divided into the upper nine classes, the middle nine classes, and the lower nine classes.

The upper nine classes: first-rate Buddha, second-rate immortal, third-rate emperor, fourth-rate official, fifth-rate distillery, sixth-rate pawnshop, seventh-rate merchant, eighth-rate guest, and ninth-rate farmer.

Among them, the fifth level "shaoguo" refers to brewing wine, the sixth level "pawn" refers to running a pawnshop, the seventh level "shang" and the eighth level "ke" refer to doing business, where "shang" means shop, "ke" refers to mobile vendors, and the ninth level "zhongtian" refers to farmers.

The middle nine classes: first-rate scholar, second-rate doctor, third-rate feng shui master, fourth-rate critic, fifth-rate painter, sixth-rate physiognomist, seventh-rate monk, eighth-rate Taoist priest, and ninth-rate musician and chess player.

Among them, the fourth-rate "pi" refers to fortune-telling, the fifth-rate "danqing" refers to painters, and the sixth-rate "xiang" refers to fortune-tellers.

The lower nine classes: first-rate legal advisor, second-rate servant, third-rate promoter, fourth-rate matchmaker, fifth-rate errand boy, sixth-rate witch, seventh-rate prostitute, eighth-rate thief, and ninth-rate thief.

The reason why legal advisors and yamen runners also became the lowest class of people was mainly because these two professions basically did nothing good during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Most of them were accomplices of evil forces, bullying the common people and had a very bad reputation.

The "Shengcheng" in the third-rate Shengcheng refers to a profession in ancient times that was specifically responsible for looking at scales. The fourth-rate is a matchmaker, and the fifth-rate is a errand boy. The fifth-rate is a witch.

The seventh, eighth, and ninth classes here are also what people commonly call the lowest class.

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Before the Yuan Dynasty, there was no such term as "the three lowest classes" and "the nine lowest classes".

These two words were officially formed as noun concepts after the Mongols entered the Central Plains during the Yuan Dynasty.

Because the Mongols once degraded the Han people to the lowest level! So the Han people of different identities began to despise each other!

"Xia Sanlan" originally referred to three professions:

The first type of bad people: pedicure practitioners.

The second abuse: massage.

The third one: Tony the barber...

The reason why barbers are ranked the best is simple:

First, our body and hair are given by our parents.

Second, the Qing Dynasty entered the pass and shaved their heads and changed their clothes. The barbers who carried out the operation were forced to bear the hatred of the people towards the Aisin-Gioro family of the Qing Dynasty! Therefore, Tony teachers in ancient times were collectively called "the lowest of the three" by all industries!

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Finally, Guashuo will write back about the relationship between this popular science article and this article.

Throughout the Ming Dynasty, the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang said that he hated businessmen, but in reality, he was not harsh on them.

The tax rate was low, and officials and runners were strictly prohibited from oppressing small merchants and vendors without reason.

Moreover, when the dynasty was founded, there was no option of commercial registration or merchant households in the household registration system.

Merchants are classified as part of the civil population.

As long as the family owns land and is cultivating it, they are considered to be civilians and can take the imperial examinations and enter officialdom normally.

In the later period, merchant status was available, but not everyone could obtain it. Only some big salt merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions were eligible.