Shen Chenai's Different Life in Ancient Times

Most of the books that Luo Ding brought back to Shen Chenai were textbook-level reading materials, which introduced the history of each dynasty in detail, and the words and sentences were written in an easy-to-understand manner.

Shen Chenai learned from these books that the history from the Tang Dynasty onwards was no different from the time and space he was in, and the history of the early and middle Tang Dynasty was not much different from the history he had learned. The turning point of the war came after the Huangchao Uprising.

According to the records in the official history, after the Huangchao Uprising, according to the words in the history books, it was "the county generals were selfish, the regular endowments were exhausted, the feudal towns were abolished, and the court was not self-reliant."The royal family is humbled day by day, and orders do not come out of the court. ' Literally, it means that the guardian envoys and generals in various places have begun to obey the orders of the imperial court.At that time, the Tang Dynasty basically existed in name only in terms of political power.

Later, Zhu Quanzhong killed Tang Zhaozong and made his 13-year-old son emperor. This was Li Zhu, the last emperor of Tang Dynasty.Four years later, Zhu Quanzhong abolished Tang Shengzong and established himself as emperor, with the name of Liang as the country. This is the Back Liang in history, and the Tang Dynasty also perished.

However, the historical books that Luo Ding bought for Shen Chenai did not record this way. It said that after the Huangchao Uprising was wiped out, the reigning emperor at that time was Tang Xizong Li Xuan.

In Shen Chenai's memory, this is a young emperor who was born in a deep palace and grew up in the hands of eunuchs. Li Xuan was only 12 years old when he became the throne, and he was the youngest emperor in the history of the Tang Dynasty. After the death of Tang Yizong, he He was supported by the eunuchs in the palace and ascended to the throne.

The evaluation of Emperor Xizong of the Tang Dynasty in the official history is that "Emperor Gong is in charge of the calendar, and he is in charge of eunuchs, vigilant and reverent, cautious and cautious."The world is in mourning, Haixian is in chaos, red eyebrows are swaying in the Central Plains, yellow houses are wandering in Xia, Qianli is devastated, and Zongshe Qiuxu. 'This is the original words in the "Old Tang Book", which shows how dark the government affairs were at that time, and how difficult the lives of the common people were.

But the content written on the history books here is extremely inconsistent with the official historical data in Shen Chenai's memory.

The general meaning recorded in the historical books here is this, Xi Zong Li Xuan, Xiongcai Dalue, both civil and military are prosperous.All his life, he lived in the southwest, fixed the northeast, eliminated violence, and settled the world, inherited the foundation of the ancestors, and rejuvenated the people of Li.With one hand, he commanded thousands of troops, pacified the soon-to-be-collapsed Tang Empire, and with one hand, splashed ink to formulate strategies for the prosperity of the country and the people. Under his leadership, the Tang Dynasty revived the style of the Han and Tang Empires.

The Tang Dynasty started from Xizong and passed down for more than 600 years. It was not replaced by the current Dagan Dynasty until a few years ago.

Seeing this, Shen Chenxi silently calculated in her heart that Emperor Xizong of Tang should have succeeded to the throne in 862 A.D. After that, there were more than 600 years of inheritance and more than ten years of turmoil. After adding these years together, the current year should be around 1500-1550 A.D. According to the official history Shen Chenai learned, this time should be in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

Since there are too few materials that can be used for research, this conclusion can only be a rough guess, but it is already certain that the Tang Dynasty will rise again at this time. Shen Chenyu thought to call this unreasonable dynasty the Later Tang Dynasty for the time being. .

The person who wrote this historical classic in Shen Chenai's hands should be a person from the later Tang Dynasty, because when writing the later Tang Dynasty, this person's pen and ink are all about exaggerating the wisdom and wisdom of Emperor Xizong of Tang Dynasty and the prosperity and prosperity of the country at that time.

Shen Chenyu was stimulated by the aria-like praise in the book, and she felt goosebumps all over her body. According to the author, this Tang Xizong is simply a combination of Han Wudi + Tang Taizong + Qing Shengzu. There is no second Mingjun Shengzhu.

If it is placed in the starting point, the emperor's life will be an epic masterpiece of the traveler, but time will not stop because of anyone, so when the great emperor left, what he created After many years, everything has finally become history.

After reading the history books, Shen Chenai picked up another "General History of Folklore", thinking that since it was still a dynasty of the Han family, the Confucianism culture of the Han family was naturally promoted, so why do men here marry brothers or even marry? My widowed sister-in-law has become something that can be accepted by the general public?Shen Chenai, who couldn't figure it out, decided to continue looking for the answer.

The "General History of Folklore" that Luo Ding bought for Shen Chenai should be dated very close to the present, about a year or two ago, because the whole book is written in the tone of a person from the dynasty, Writing the story of a dynasty.

Because of the author's relationship, the description of the "Later Tang" in this "General History of Folklore" should be more objective. In the author's own words, Tang Xizong of the previous dynasty was indeed a wise emperor with great talents and general plans.During his reign, the government was in harmony with the people, the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, and the barbarians from all over the world came to pay homage. Envoys from various countries called the imperial court at that time the "Heavenly Dynasty".

With such achievements, it is no wonder that people in later generations will have such a high opinion of him, but the author of this book mentions a very cryptic sentence at this time, saying that Xi Zong should have something wrong, so that he can be called Tianxiang The culprit lies in the people of Kyushu.

It turns out that from the day Tang Xizong ascended the throne of God, the birth rate of female babies in the entire Tang Dynasty began to decrease slowly. Because the rate of decrease was extremely slow, everyone did not notice it at first. The number of males in the family increased and I felt very happy, but after three or four generations of the population, the disadvantage of too few females began to gradually emerge.

It is said that the household department of the imperial court made special statistics at that time. Based on the registered population, the ratio of male to female population has reached four to one, and this number is still increasing.

In the society at that time, apart from the rich and powerful families, it was very difficult for ordinary people to marry a daughter-in-law. In many families, the girls were already married at birth, and their husbands were at least It's someone who wants to be ten years older than himself.

Even if this is the case, the husband's family is still worried, asking the mother's family to send their daughter to the husband's family to raise, and the husband's family will provide the daughter-in-law with good food and drink until she is [-] or [-] years old, so she hurriedly picks an auspicious day for the happy event No, the little daughter-in-laws who have passed by don't dare to let them go out easily, because they are afraid that there will be too many idlers in the streets and alleys, and their daughter-in-law will be kidnapped and run away.

In view of this, the imperial court at that time also thought of some methods, such as promulgating a decree, stipulating that officials below the fifth rank cannot take concubines, and officials above the fifth rank can only have at most two concubines according to their rank.

And the emperor set an example, not only letting a large number of court ladies out of the palace, but also reducing the number of concubines in the palace.It is stipulated that from now on, the number of concubines in the palace cannot exceed 20.

However, these measures have not fundamentally solved the problem of the reduction of women. On the contrary, because of the introduction of regulations, women have become a rare resource in the eyes of everyone.

In the human market at that time, even the most common female slave would cost 50 taels of silver, and a beautiful or younger lady would be even more expensive.As for those who want to marry a wife, let alone, basically don’t even think about the dowry, if the dowry is less than 100 taels, then there is no need to talk about it.

For common people's families, this kind of dowry is almost all the savings of a dozen or so members of their family who have worked hard for half their lives. For families without girls, there is only so much money, but there are several brothers in the family. Those are all things.

In order to prevent the incident of brothers fighting against the wall, many common people simply save money together with the brothers, and then they all become grooms together and marry the same daughter-in-law. Anyway, the children born are all of their blood and have the same surname. There is not so much to care about.

For those widows who lost their husbands, as long as the husband's family agrees, the imperial court will support them to remarry. Such women can receive a lot of dowry if they remarry to their husband's family.

However, the husband's family is more willing to marry the widow to her man's brother. This will not only save a lot of money for the family, but also allow the children left by the previous family to get better care. Fertile water does not flow into outsiders' fields.

Such an arrangement was originally extremely unreasonable, but the reality of the people was indeed the case, and the court had no choice but to acquiesce in the end.

But the situation didn't end there, because the birth rate of baby girls was still decreasing, so many men who really had no money and didn't want to be single began to form brotherhood contracts with each other, and they lived together as partners.

As time passed bit by bit, more and more families entered into a contract, and people's attitudes changed from being cold-eyed to seeing the excitement, until later even the imperial court recognized this form of husband and wife. exists.

Decades after the demise of the "Later Tang Dynasty", the birth rate of female babies has been greatly improved compared with the previous dynasty. The phenomenon of brothers sharing wives is not too common now, but the contract between brothers and the death of brothers Brother and this way of marriage have been preserved among the people.