What is the ancient "warehouse warehouse"? On the development history of the emperor's small treasury!

What was the ancient "warehouse"? On the development history of imperial library! Interested readers can pay attention to Bian Xiao.

Economy determines the superstructure. The operation of a country needs financial support. In ancient feudal society, the emperor, as the ruler of the country, also needed to establish his own "finance" to pay for daily expenses. The hidden treasury in Song Dynasty was the private "finance" directly under the emperor. Because its direct emperor has direct control over it, it has independent characteristics, and government agencies and ministers are not allowed to interfere most of the time. It can also be called the emperor's treasury. Due to the historical environment of internal troubles and foreign invasion and the far-sighted strategic vision of the founding emperor Zhao Kuangyin, the hidden finance in Song Dynasty has the dual financial attributes of the emperor's private wealth and national finance, which is closely related to the rise and fall of imperial power and the country.

"Hidden Shop" before the Song Dynasty

In fact, this kind of hidden vault with the nature of emperor's small vault is not the first time in Song Dynasty. This kind of private wealth of emperors can be traced back to the Western Zhou Dynasty.

In the Western Zhou Dynasty, there were three points of wealth in the world, namely nine taxes and nine taxes. In addition, "there are only three dollars left to be fun." The rest is the so-called royal money. Thus, the concept of imperial private wealth appeared at this time.

Royal plays need a lot of money.

The real prototype of the library appeared in the Han Dynasty. According to Han Shu, "big farmers are used by militarism and small houses are used by emperors". Shaofu in the Western Han Dynasty is the embryonic form of the library.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the emperor's treasury began to swell. In addition to changing Shaofu into Zhongfu, Zhongyu Garden and Xiyuan were added as the emperor's private hiding places.

By the Tang Dynasty, there were more institutions to manage the emperor's private wealth, such as Qionglin, Daying, Fengde and Beifang. When they arrived in Tang Dezong, they were collectively called Neiku.

In 1950s, the internal library of the Tang Dynasty continued to be established. Although the name is different, the nature remains the same.

As can be seen from the above, before the Han Dynasty, the concept of emperor's private wealth appeared. Since the Han dynasty, the emperor's exclusive treasury began to appear. In the Tang Dynasty, the number of libraries increased and the scale began to grow.

Although the inner government has developed, in terms of its nature, the inner government since the Han, Tang and Five Dynasties is purely for the consumption of emperors and members of the royal family. Although extravagant and wasteful, compared with the family sector, its scale and quantity are very small. It is even unlikely to compete with the Ministry of Family for local financial contributions. It can't even be said to be a complete financial system, and its institutions have no close ties with foreign countries.

The Development of Hidden Stores in Song Dynasty

In the early Song Dynasty, after the establishment of People's Republic of China (PRC), Song Taizu and Zhao Kuangyin directly inherited Zhou Wang's treasury, the money in the palace, and renamed it the Treasury of the Wind. Later, in the process of reunification, Jingnan, Houshu, Nanhan and Nantang merged, all of which were brought into the treasury of the Song Dynasty, completing the original accumulation of the small treasury of the Song Dynasty.

In the process of the great unification of the Song Dynasty, the original accumulation of hidden libraries was carried out.

However, the pile-sealed silo built in Song Taizu is different from the "hidden silo" of the previous generation. Song Taizu's sealed pile warehouse is not only its own private warehouse, but also has another purpose: "The army and famine should be prepared in advance." This means that the library in the Song Dynasty began to have new functions and became a national military and disaster emergency reserve. Since then, the Song Dynasty has basically followed this ancestral motto. Therefore, the treasury of the Song Dynasty had dual functions, namely, the emperor's small treasury and the national reserve treasury.

Song Taizong sealed pile warehouse was renamed as hidden warehouse, and gradually embarked on the track of institutionalization and standardization on the basis of inheriting Taizu sealed pile warehouse. Mao's treasury only inherited the money from the Zhou government and demanded repayment.

Song Zhenzong, Injong and Zhong You are the stages of the formation of the daily management system of the national treasury. Hi-Tech has two records in Song Yao.

In February of the sixth year, he wrote: "Money and silks in the national treasury shall not be declared to the outside world, and offenders shall be executed." In February of the first year of Dazhong Xiangfu, the real emperor, a minister of finance, said, "The old system, announced, has been reduced to the wealth of the empire. As a result of this treaty, the Ministry of Finance was also ordered to pass these three departments. I hope you can issue another decree to stop the introspection and inspection of ministers. " From there.

As can be seen from the above historical data, the daily managers in charge of the hidden warehouse must strictly abide by the relevant regulations and keep secrets, which also means that the hidden warehouse is completely privatized in the hands of the emperor and has been completely isolated from foreign dynasties, highlighting the control of the imperial power over finance.

Of course, some ministers will not be satisfied with this. On the 50th anniversary of Emperor Zhen's accession to the throne, the third Sima resigned from the post of the third department because of his direct conflict with the purpose of seclusion and the relationship between seclusion and the left bank of the third department.

In Song Renzong, there is a case where a hidden warehouse supports three departments to a great extent.

"Injong used to hide in a warehouse, and 43 of the 60 expenditures clearly pointed out that it was military pay, which was mainly used for military expenses in Hebei, Shaanxi and Hedong. On the whole, the remaining 17 times helped these three departments for 6 times, while purchasing funds for 2 times, relief expenses for 3 times, palace bells and hills for 3 times, and places for 2 times. "

This fully embodies the function of the national fiscal reserve, including a hidden bank.

In the early days, because the emperor was young, the party group, with the support of the high queen, handed over the state treasury to the Taifu Hall. Since the Northern Song Dynasty, the built-in library has been controlled and supervised by the emperor, and foreign courts are not allowed to supervise or interfere. However, this time it was supervised by the foreign court agency Taifu Hall, which led to the temporary relocation of the built-in vault. It was not until Song Zhezong came to power that he recovered the imperial power of the Old Party clique and the Empress Dowager of the Yuan Dynasty.

Due to the plunder of the Jin people, all the treasures of the Northern Song Dynasty were lost. The treasures of the Southern Song Dynasty were not preserved until after the Shaoxing Peace Conference. During Qin Gui's independence, the hidden treasure once again possessed a lot of money.

The gold digger plundered the property.

During the period of Song Xiaozong, the phenomenon of exemption from service often appeared in library buildings. The following is a brief explanation of exemption. The so-called tax exemption refers to the measures that all or part of the tax should be paid in order to reduce the tax and service burden after the disaster. The frequent exemption of the national treasury during the period of filial piety shows that the national treasury has played a role and actively participated in post-disaster relief.

Because Zhao Kuangyin's "Zuxun" invisibility is not an example of participating in disaster relief, the previous invisibility was used to borrow money or loan, or to pay it back after use. However, tax exemption is completely different from this method. The most prominent thing about tax exemption is "exemption", that is, no refund.

Many historical materials believe that money and goods were frequently exempted during the period of filial piety to show the political prestige of saints and others. In fact, this is only a superficial phenomenon. The real reason is that the overall deterioration of fiscal revenue and expenditure forces these measures to be taken.

Since the establishment of Yanshou, various records have been recorded:

, Feng, Miao and Yi taxes, and the income even exceeds 60 million yuan. At the beginning of Yuan You's establishment, despite the emergency, its annual income still exceeded 48 million pounds. At the beginning of crossing the river, the tax revenue in the southeast was less than 10 million yuan. After Xichun was arrested, he increased by more than 65.3 million yuan.

In contrast, the annual income in the early Southern Song Dynasty was only 6.5438+million yuan, which rose to 65.3 million yuan in the last year of Xiaozong.

The prominent feature of finance in Southern Song Dynasty is the substantial increase of property tax. The direct result is the obvious embarrassment of local finance, followed by the complete exhaustion of financial resources.

At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the outbreak of the Song-Mongolian War further aggravated the financial exhaustion of the Southern Song government. Although the government has carried out a series of reforms in order to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, such as the Law of Commons and the Law of Planning implemented in Jia Sidao. However, due to various unrealistic problems in implementation, the situation of financial exhaustion in the Southern Song Dynasty has not changed.

As mentioned earlier, the invisibility of the Song Dynasty played a role in financial reserves. Due to the exhaustion of national finance, the income sources of hidden banks have been greatly reduced. At the same time, hidden banks have to continue to export and support the national finance. Spending for a long time will dry up.

Not just the emperor's vault.

Throughout the Song Dynasty, in addition to the treasury consumed by the emperor and members of the royal family, the hidden treasury was also used for military support and disaster relief.

In essence, under the control of the emperor's private power, although the management of invisibility showed the characteristics of the imperial court, the financial support for North Korea highlighted the characteristics of the state's financial reserve power, which made invisibility closely linked with the finance of the whole country. As a national financial reserve bank, it has become a complete financial system together with traditional national financial banks.

In addition, from a historical perspective, hidden banks are not only financial banks, but also closely related to imperial power and national wealth.

From the establishment of the national treasury to the division of the three financial powers, to the ouster of Ma, to the temporary change of external forces and the return to the emperor's control, it reflects the desire of the imperial power to absolutely control the financial power, and also reflects the way that the Song Emperor sought the national public power through imperial power and private power.

Song Zhenzong iron and steel company

As we all know, the fate of a country is directly related to its reserves and talents. The control of national financial reserves can determine the rise and fall of national destiny, especially in the Song Dynasty. Although the Song Dynasty was the peak of China's feudal society and economic development, the problem of financial embarrassment always accompanied it. In this context, the rise and fall of the country's destiny depends on the emperor's direct control over the country's financial reserves.

Although North Korea has many records of hidden treasury expenditure, on the whole, the expenditure is not timely and mostly happens after the incident.

Besides consumption, there is also waste.

During the Golden War, hidden banks accumulated a large amount of gold and silver in the late Northern Song Dynasty, but Song Qinzong would rather use them to achieve peace than organize military mobilization and fighting. Song Xiaozong, known as the last emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty, refused to support Keith and asked craftsmen to repair his copper coins. By the end of the Song Dynasty, Song Lizong was still reluctant to allocate funds from the bank, but was keen to donate money to build a temple.

Copper coins in Song Xiaozong

Although the hidden treasury in Song Dynasty had the advanced nature of national reserve, it did not control the stored wealth of the hidden treasury in time and effectively. It can be said that the financial difficulties of the Song Dynasty were largely caused by this reason. The main reason for the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty was the ineffectiveness and passive control of financial reserves. The final collapse of the Southern Song Dynasty was also directly related to the long-term depletion of fiscal reserves.

Conclusion: With the development of the treasury in Song Dynasty, the function of the treasury changed from a single emperor's private treasury to a dual-function treasury. With its function of storing financial resources, hidden banks began to oppose and cooperate with the formal financial and family departments of the three departments. This development is the epitome of the contradiction between the high centralization of the central government and the separation of various financial powers in the financial development of the Song Dynasty in 320 years.

Although the function of the national treasury in the Song Dynasty was improved, it still had the attributes of an emperor.