Think of yourself as a peasant in the Tang Dynasty, describe the productive labor and life of peasants in the Tang Dynasty

Peasants worked hard on the paddy fields. Rice cultivation was quite common in the Tang Dynasty. In addition to the traditional cultivation areas of Suzhou and Zhejiang, the Central Plains, Guanzhong, and Ba Shu (1), rice was cultivated in the Hetao Plain, Ningxia Plain, and Hexi Corridor in the northwest (2), as well as in the northeast region, and the Fujian and Lingnan regions in south China (3). Farmers then worked tirelessly in this huge range of rice-growing areas. Liu Yuxi's poem "Sending Li Zhongcheng to Chuzhou" (送李中丞赴楚州): "Ten thousand hectares of paddy fields are even with Guo Xiu, and the smoke and moon reflect Huaiqing at all times" (4) depicts the ten thousand hectares of rice planted by farmers outside of the city of Chuzhou (present-day Huai'an in Jiangsu Province) as growing vigorously. Li Zhong's poem "Climbing to the City Tower of Runzhou on an Autumn Day" (5): "The water spreads a distant color even to Haimen, and the rice is fragrant in autumn even to Jingkou" (5) is a portrayal of the large area of rice planted by farmers in Runzhou (present-day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province). Li Jiahu's poem "Sending my brother Yan Bojun back to Jiangzhou at the Rong Banquet on the East Peak of Zhaoyin Temple at Autumn Dawn": "Ten thousand beds of new rice are beside the mountain village, and several miles of deep pines are up to the door of the temple" (6) shows people the picture of the life of the farmers near Zhaoyin Temple (on Zhaoyin Mountain, southwest of present-day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province) who had just planted ten thousand beds of new rice around the mountain village. Wang Wei's "Sending a Friend Back to the South": "The water of Han is wide even in the sky, and the lone guest returns to Ying City. Utilitarian rice seedlings show, Churians Mushroom rice fat" (7) is an example of farmers planting a large area of rice that seems to be connected to the sky in Utilitarian State (present-day Utopia County, Hubei Province), which is located in the Han River basin. "Thousands of hectares of rice by the roadside everywhere, and a canal of lotus roots outside the door of every house" (8) is a scene of Pi Rixiu's seeing the rational arrangement of paddy fields in Fushu (present-day Shinyang, Hubei) where farmers planted thousands of hectares of rice by the roadside and a canal of lotus roots outside the door of their homes. Du Mu's poem "Solitary Drinking in County Zhai": "I love Zhu Shi, when the three Wu are in the center. *[Wo + Strike] 稏 hundred hectares of rice, the west wind blowing half yellow" (9) outlines for us the beauty of the hundreds of hectares of *[Wo + Strike] 稏 rice planted by the farmers in the area of the three Wu's that were about to ripen. Farmers in Yongzhou (present-day Zuling in Hunan Province) also planted a large amount of rice, and it grew exceptionally well. Lu Lun's "Sending From Uncle to Pastor Yongzhou" records this fact for us: "There is nothing to do in County Zhai, so it is good to sleep in idleness, and round-grained rice grows green all over the river" (10). Guanzhong is a historical farming area, and the farmers here certainly emphasized agricultural production and planted rice in quite a large area. Li Hua's poem "Eleven Songs of Poetry (10)": "Under the ancient city of Chengyang, ten thousand hectares of rice seedlings are new" (11) is an example. Wang Wei's "Rims of Rain" (积雨辋川作), "Desolate fields fly white herons, and shady summer trees warble yellow oriole" (12), also shows us the wide distribution of rice paddies in Rims of Guanzhong (under Zhongnan Mountain, Lantian County, Shaanxi Province, nowadays). Farmers in the Ba Shu region took advantage of the geography to divert mountain springs into their fields and planted a lot of rice. Du Fu saw for himself the landscape of rice irrigated by mountain springs in Kui Zhou. In his "Returning to the Rice Beds of Zhangwang, an Official on the Move", he wrote: "In the north of Dongtun Dajiang River, there are hundreds of hectares as flat as a case. In June, there are many green rice paddies, and a thousand beds of blue springs are in disarray. The rice planting has already been completed, and the water is being used to irrigate the rice beds." (13) and "Ten Extremities of Kui Zhou Song": "One hundred hectares of paddy fields in Dongtun, with streams of water leading to green seedlings in the north" (14) both illustrate the fact that rice is irrigated by mountain springs, and also point out that the farmers have planted a considerable area of rice in Dongtun. Wei Zhuang specifically depicted the farmers' "rice fields," and what he saw in his eyes was "green waves and spring waves filled the front bei, and the very sight of even the cloud course of the Harvest Asia fertilizer. More by the heron a thousand points of snow, broken smoke to come into the painting screen fly." (15), rice is not only planted in a very large area and grow particularly lush, an attractive scenery. Chizhou (now Anhui Guichi) around the Jiuhua Mountain, "ten thousand beds of fragrant rice Peng green, nine strange peaks Pua Ya green" (16), that farmers planted rice area is not small. Farmers in the Tang Dynasty not only in the area of "10,000 hectares", "10,000 borders", "100 hectares" of the vast paddy fields planted, but also in the small piece of paddy fields also left their cultivation of the figure. "In He Fu's writing, the scene of ten acres of lush rice paddies jumps off the page, "Ten acres of rice scent the new green field, a song breaks the old green building. Xue Feng's "The title of Duguushi's village residence": "A few acres of rice paddies are also known as the industry, and the two thatched cottages are also said to be home" (18) points out the Duguushi's several acres of rice paddies and two small thatched cottages of his family's business. Undoubtedly, Duguushi took these acres of paddy fields as his business and worked hard. "The rice seedlings in the small fields are fragrant with light rain, and the bubbles bubbling up at the clear stream by the field are cool." (19) Li Ying felt the fragrance of the rice seedlings planted by the farmers in the small paddy fields in the light rain when he was walking in the mountains.

In such a vast land, are the farmers laboring for themselves? Undeniably, there should be a little land belonging to the peasants themselves in the middle of it, but the vast majority of it belonged to the landlords, and what the landlords possessed was often good land. The Tang Hui Yao, Volume 8.5, "Bao Ying yuan year, April Edicts", recorded that "the people's fields, more than those who are rich and wealthy families, the officials annexed." (20) The whole Tang Dynasty also has a lot of records: "the beautiful land and agricultural products, all go to the rich and treacherous." (21) "Left and right, but the strong families and big families, the domain border system, moving involving thousands of hectares, the annual ten thousand boxes." (22) "Wen Yuan Ying Hua" said "on the fertile land, more to the rich and powerful" (23). It seems to be an indisputable fact that the landlords possessed a lot of land and good land. No matter how much land the landlords possessed, feudal society, as the ruler of the landlords, it is almost impossible to personally go down to the field of cultivation. In that case, it was only the peasants who cultivated the thousands of hectares or a few acres or tens of acres of land. The hard work of the peasants was to a large extent laboring for the landlords. The rice that grows well is invariably the labor and sweat of the peasants. Their hard work laid the foundation for a good agricultural harvest.

Peasant labor is arduous. Xue Feng has a poem "Neighboring Instead": "The east family has a son who is fifteen years old, and he only works hard in the fields. At night the ditch water surrounds the paddy field, at dawn scolds the plowing oxen to cultivate the barren soil." (24) It shows us the picture of a fifteen-year-old boy working hard in the field at night, holding the plow handle and yelling at the oxen. Cui Daorong's "On the Field" also has such a bitter scene: "The rain is enough to make the field white, and I plow in the middle of the night in a straw raincoat. People and oxen have exhausted their strength, and the east is not yet bright." (25), in order to seize the opportunity of the rain, farmers get up in the middle of the night to plow the field, and when people and oxen are exhausted, the sky is not yet bright. This kind of labor without darkness or light is a common thing for farmers. Meng Jiao said in "The Retreat", "What do I eat when I retire, but I can't be idle when I lose my strength. Planting rice and plowing white water, carrying a salary and hacking green mountains." (26), if you don't work, you don't have food, in order to make a living, farmers have to work day and night, both planting rice and chopping wood, they are always busy. Zhang Ji's "Journey to the River Village": "The water in the south pond is deep and the asparagus is all together, and the rice planting in the field is not made into a border. The plow field is phosphorous under the water, and the short clothes are half dyed with mud in the reeds." (27) It is a close-up of the farmers who rush to plant rice in Nantang regardless of the mud sticking to their clothes. Even monasteries had to be plowed. Yuan Zhen's scene at Dayun Temple reads, "The rice is rolled up in Zen clothes and burned in the fire. Fresh English bees pick up, barren grasses like plowing." (28), the people of the monastery also had to roll up their Zen clothes, go down to the fields to collect rice, and plow the fields with elephants.

One plow, one harvest. The hard work of the farmers is rewarded by the good growth of the rice and the beauty of the impending harvest. No matter how much of the harvest goes to the farmers, they are still overflowing with joy. In addition to "ten thousand hectares of paddy fields with Guo Xiu" and "ten thousand beds of fragrant rice with greenish color", "green waves of spring fill the front bei" and "ten acres of rice with new fragrance", etc., there are many other scenes in the poem "Green Field". In the eyes of poets, there are many more such scenes. Li Jiayou saw in Nanpu Ferry (in the west of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province), "the tide of the east wind is full of letters, and when it rains, the rice is ripe" (29), and in Chushu (present-day Huai'an, Jiangsu Province), he saw "there is no tide in Shanyang Guo Li, and the wild water flows towards the new bridge. Fishnets spread lotus leaves, herons walking rice seedlings" (30). It seems that the rice in the area of Chushu grows well under the hard management of the farmers, and even the herons are attracted to walk in the rice field. Li Chip not only appreciated the beauty of the rice field by himself, but also told his friends about the scenery of the rice crop. He said in "Send Wan Qi Rong" that "the maple is half of the village, and the fragrant rice is full of the fields",(31) and in "Send Qibu San" that "the fondue rice in Nanchuan is invaded by the flowers of the county, and the color of clouds in Xiling is full of color"(32). "(32). In Li's eyes, fragrant rice grows all over the paddy fields, and rice flowers reflect the whole county. This foreshadows the impending harvest. What a joy it would be to tell your friends about these scenes of the coming harvest and share them with them! When Wang Jian was passing through Kaifeng, Henan Province, he saw "frogs singing under the bushy leaves and fish in the rice flowers" (33), and wrote "Bianlu Shuiyi" (The Water Stage of Bianlu) in an impromptu manner. When Bai Juyi was serving in Hangzhou, he could not help but recite, "Early rice is drawn from the threads of the blue carpet, and new cattails are spread on the skirt of the green robe" (34). The joy of farmers before and during the harvest is even more captured by poets. Wei Yingwu, in Xiangwuguan Yufu (View of Xiangwuguan), writes "This is the time when fondue is ripening, and the fields look out to the west" (35), sketching the endlessness of ripening fondue rice. Liu Yuxi's "Seventy Rhymes for the Book of Riyang" (36) tells us that the late rice in Riyang (east of Hexian County, Anhui Province, on the north bank of the Yangtze River) is piled up in the rice fields after harvest. "The rice is yellow and pouncing on the corn oil, the wild trees are connected to the mountain streams flowing from the river" (37), and Lu Yin's poem "Raining Jijie Deng Bei Shishi Sending Friends" depicts the idyllic picture of a field where the rice is yellow, the corn seedlings are growing vigorously, the trees are connected to the mountain and the mountain streams are murmuring as the poet ascends to the bank of the river after the drizzle has just ceased. "Wei village autumn things should be so, jujube red pear red rice ears yellow", (38) Bai Juyi passed by Neixiang (now Henan Neixiang), see is the jujube, pear red, rice ears yellow delightful scene. "The water polygonum flowers are red and the ears of rice are yellow, and I am thrilled to be able to return to the pond by rowing on the orchids."(39) Luo Yin's "Accompanying Ambassador Cao on a Trip to the South Lake of Gusu City" depicts the imminent rice harvest in the watery townships of Suzhou (present-day Suzhou, Jiangsu Province), a situation to which the tourists have forgotten to return. "The yellow rice in the old stream is ripe, and it smells like a dream overnight." (Deleted from Qian Qi's "One Hundred Untitled Songs (98) on the River Journey", which describes the delightful feeling of seeing yellow rice ripening as he approached his hometown of Wuxing, Zhejiang Province, and dreaming sweetly at night. Wei Zhuang's "Two Songs on the Old Residence of Summer Rain}Du" (41) seems to let us see with our own eyes the beauty of the harvest in the countryside of fish and rice around Shandu (present-day Tuxian and Duyang counties in Shaanxi). Zhang Yan's Village Dwelling on the Day of the Society depicts a joy rarely seen on earth: "The rice and grain under the mountain of Goose Lake is fat, and the dolphins and chickens live under the cover. The shadows of the mulberry tops slant and the spring society disperses, and families help the drunken people to return" (42). On the day of the Spring Society, farmers get together to celebrate the harvest, drink, and get drunk. This scene is the farmers' best congratulations for their festival! It is the true feelings after hard work! "Rice ears yellow", "red rice ripe", "rice grain fat", is the crystallization of the hard work of the working people. The poets' chanting is actually an affirmation, praise and commendation of the farmers' hard work.

No matter how much of this harvest belongs to the farmers, but because they are personally plowing, planting, fertilizing and harvesting, they are also happy to watch. Farmers hard work in exchange for a good harvest of grain, but also for the development of the Tang Dynasty economy has laid a solid material foundation. It was this solid material foundation that provided the prerequisites for the development of religion, literature, art, science and technology in the Tang Dynasty, making the Tang Dynasty the pinnacle of the development of feudal society in China.

Getting a good harvest was not easy. Farmers had to fight nature's bad weather as well as prevent creatures that harmed the rice in the process of planting rice. Wang Jian's "Water Running": "There were no rice seedlings in June last year, and it has been said that people in the water towns starved to death. The county official's boat is counting the days, and the stormy winds and bad rains don't stop. ...... Hard cultivation is not a poison, but it does not enter the mouth of farmers. ...... expedition of the sea rice for border food, such as a variety of border headland." (43), because of the stormy rain, farmers planted rice seedlings almost no survival, even if more or less a little bit of harvest, but also by the government levied to supply the soldiers on the border. Even if there was a little harvest, it was levied by the government to supply the soldiers. The farmers did not enjoy the fruits of their hard work. Storms and rains brought disasters to the rice. In the preface of Xu Hun's "Hurting Crops in Han Shui", he said, "Although there is no rain in this county since summer, there are a lot of harvests in the riverside, which can be seen in oil. Autumn August, the sky is clear and sunny, Han Shui flooding, people are really a disaster. I feel sorry for the fatigue of the winners. Because of the four rhymes." One of them is "river village night rise floating sky water, ze garden fall vividly moving ground wind. The green seedlings under the height of a thousand hectares of exhaustion, the new red corn ten thousand granaries empty" (44) lines. Originally, "the oil can be seen", but a night of heavy flooding, the bank of the Han River, Jiangcun's thousands of hectares of green seedlings, and even the red corn all washed away. "Accumulated rain obscures the state, flowing waves floating rice and sorghum", (45) Pi Rixiu's "Poem on Lake Taihu" makes us see the remnants of rice floating on Lake Taihu due to the overflow of rainwater. Flooding brought incalculable losses to farmers. The opposite of this is drought. Lu Guimeng's "Five Songs - Mowing" "since the spring to feedback in the fall, the rain, Lian Lian early rice only covered mu. The grains of rice are sparsely ripe, and the heads of the grain on the ground do not hang together. I came to worry about building my heart as if it was blocked, and I listened to the farmer's words at night. The bad year is a disaster, and the wild mallards in a hundred rows and a thousand rats in a thousand holes. When I hold my staff and go into the field in the morning, ten spikes are depressed and nine spikes are empty." (46) from spring to fall, the sky has not been raining, early rice growth is not very good, coupled with wild eiders and vole spoilage, the vast majority of the ears of rice is no harvest. Bai Juyi describes another kind of natural disaster for us: "September frosts fall early in the autumn cold, the ears of grain are green and dry before they are ripe." (47) Because the weather was too cold too early, the rice ears dried up before they were ripe. Even if they could be harvested, the yield was greatly reduced. Szeto K'ung's poem "Eighteen Words on Yang Liu Zhi's Shou Cup": "The rice beds are divided into shadows toward the river village, emaciated by frost and only half survived." (48) Cold Mountain's poem "Three Hundred and Thirty-Three Poems, Sixty-Six": "Withering is not a vertical defense, and the winds and frosts have become a premature illness. The earth ox plows the stone field, and there is no day when I can get rice." (49) is also clear evidence. In the southeastern coast, there is another special phenomenon that jeopardizes rice, namely, the tide with salt. History records "Fuzhou Changle County, ...... Min (County), look. Five miles east of the sea dike, Daho two years to make Li velvet building. First, every June tide salty brine, seedlings more dead, dike into, retention of creek water to cultivate rice, the land of three hundred households are good land." (50) From this information, we can see that before the construction of the dike in the second year of Daho (828), the tidal water with salty water poured into the fields, causing many deaths of seedlings. If we only count from the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, i.e., the first year of Wude (618), there were 210 years until the second year of Daho (828). Then, in these two hundred and ten years, with the salty tide on the Min County rice can be imagined. In addition to natural factors, there are also biological infringements. An unknown poet sang in "Lucheng Folk Song" that "Ludi suppresses rice cultivation, and all of them are foamed by water. Year after year the crabbers are demanded, and the people cannot live." (50). The poet gives us the following information: all the rice grown in Ludi (present-day Yanzhou, Shandong Province) was flooded by water; and the government conscripted farmers to catch crabs every year, making it difficult for the people to live. Why did the government conscript farmers to catch crabs every year? It is because crabs are harmful to rice. The danger of crabs to rice can not be underestimated. Tang Yanqian specifically wrote "crab" this poem to remind us: "the lake field in October frost fall, the first fragrance of the late rice crab like a tiger". (51) He compared the crab to a tiger, which shows how harmful the crab is to the rice.

What's more, there are locusts. History, Xingyuan two years (784 years) "May, there are locusts from the East China Sea, west to ridge he, swarms of flying sky, ten days without stopping, to the seedling crop is not left"; Kai Cheng two years (837 years) "Wei Bo, Ziqing, Henan Province and played locusts damage crops" (52). Only from these two locust plagues can be seen, the wide range of locusts at the time of the great harm. According to scholars, only since the Anshi Rebellion, the larger-scale water, drought, locust plague there are more than ten times. (53) And throughout the Tang Dynasty, there were as many as 48. (54) Natural disasters on the one hand, and biological hazards on the other, coupled with the endless labor of the government, it is inevitable that "the people cannot live"! From the Tang poem, we can see that from planting to harvesting, the peasants may encounter natural disasters such as floods, droughts, frosts, etc., as well as crabs, wild eiders, voles and locusts at every moment. Thus, how hard it is for farmers to achieve the final harvest of rice!

The joy of the harvest did not last long, and the next rent and trickery pressed the peasants. "The Jumon government is at the mercy of the people, and the red people are suffering from the disaster. The country's horses exhausted their corn and beans, and the official pheasants lost their rice and grain." (55) In his poem "Strong Travels," Du Fu exposed the reality that the corn and rice plundered by the landlords were going to feed the government horses! Du's "Memories of the Past: Two Poems (II)" "I remember the days when the Kaiyuan Dynasty was in full bloom, and the small towns still hid ten thousand families. The rice was fat and white, and both public and private granaries were abundant. There are no jackals or tigers on the roads of the nine states, and it is not necessary to travel far to get out on an auspicious day; the Qi dandy, Lu Onyx, and the car are all in good order, and the men and women do not lose each other in plowing and planting. ...... Wouldn't you hear a silk straight ten thousand dollars, there are fields to plant grain now bleeding." (56) It describes the time of Kaiyuan, when there was a good harvest of grain and the people lived quite peacefully; while at the time of writing the poem, it was the time when the prices of goods were soaring and the fields could not be planted anymore. Another poem by Du Fu, "The Year of Peace", says, "Last year, rice was expensive to feed the army, but this year, rice is cheap and hurts the farmers. High motor officials are tired of wine and meat, and this generation of looms and shafts are empty." (57) Regardless of whether rice is expensive or cheap, to the farmers, it is a word "hurt"; the officials and nobles are tired of wine and meat, while the peasants have nothing to live on. Bai Juyi's "Three Songs of Miscellaneous Xing (II)": "The state of Vietnam is in the early stage of drought, and the drought in Vietnam is incessant. The wind dries up the paddy fields, and the water dries up and the dust flies up. The new order in the country is to prohibit the flow of water in the official canal. The water does not enter the fields, but flows into the palace. Fish and birds are nurtured in the remaining waves, and buildings and pheasants float in the shadows. Tanya's nine-pronged pool is more than ten miles away. In April, when the water lily was sprouting, the king of Yue was playing on the day. A good wind came from around, and the fragrance moved the hibiscus pistil. But I love the fragrance of hibiscus, and I grow hibiscus seeds. Do not miss the gate of heaven, a thousand miles of rice seedlings died." , (58) borrowed from the past to satirize the present, denouncing the rulers in the drought is extremely serious, even do not let the farmers to draw water irrigation, but the water into the royal palace, fish and birds, planting ornamental hibiscus, so that the princes and ministers to play. The rice seedlings of the peasants died because of the drought. The rulers "farmed during the hungry period and reeled silkworms in the cold",(59) and at this time, for the sake of their own fun, they also disregarded farming. Bai's another "self-titled small grass pavilion": "green spirits amount of alkaline drink, red rice about liter cooking. The nasty and luxurious family laughs, and the sour and cold rich room bullies." (60) depicts the scene of the landlord drinking wine and eating rice made of red rice, emitting dirty laughter from time to time. The nasty laughter is permeated with the oppression of the people! And his "Du Ling Sou": "The drought winds rise in March without rain, and the wheat seedlings do not show much yellow death. In September, the frost falls in the early cold of fall, and the ears of grain are all green and dry before they are ripe. The officials know that they are not in the wrong, and they are eager to collect money to pay for the examinations. The official's rent will be paid by the government, so what will happen to food and clothing next year?" (61) Let us seem to see Dulingsuo in the wheat and rice are not harvested in the case, but still have to be a mulberry sell the land to pay the official rent of the tragic scene. In the face of this scene, Bai Juyi can not help but ask: how to solve the farmers next year's food and clothing?! "October twilight every year, pearl rice want to hang new. Family does not collect the harvest, the race demon without wealth and poverty. Snow and frost at the end of the year, the rice beads with the Long Long annihilation. The officials come to the government to force the tax, and they ask for the quality to be doubled by the coins." (62) Yuan Zhen's poem "Sai Shen" also exposes the fact that officials came to collect taxes before the rice was received at home. We are familiar with Li Shen's "Two Poems of Ancient Winds (I)," which reads, "A grain of corn is planted in the spring, and ten thousand seeds are harvested in the fall. There are no idle fields in the four seas, and the peasants are still starving to death." (63) brings us a deep thought: why is it so? Liu Yunzhang, a Hanlin scholar at the time of Emperor Yi Zong of Tang Dynasty, unveiled the reason for this in his "Letter of Direct Admonition". He said, "Today, the people under the sky, where there are eight sufferings, your majesty knows it? The officials are harsh, one suffering; private debt levy, two suffering; taxes are numerous, three suffering; by the begging convergence, four suffering; on behalf of the fugitives, five suffering; injustice can not be extended, six suffering; freezing without clothes, hungry without food, seven suffering; sick without medical treatment, dead without burial, eight suffering. The people of the world, wailing on the road, fleeing in the mountains and swamps, husband and wife do not live together, father and son do not save each other ...... "(64) under such oppression and exploitation, even if the "autumn harvest of hundreds of millions of seeds", the people can not live!

The most convincing of all is Pi Rixiu's "ten pieces of positive music - oak old woman sighs": "Deep in the fall, acorns ripe, scattered hazelnut Wuhuoka. The yellow-haired old woman with hunchbacked hair picked them up and trampled on them in the morning frost. When the time came, she began to scoop up the acorns, and the basket was filled up by the end of the day. They are used as food for three winters after several exposures and several steams. In front of the mountain, there is ripe rice, with purple ears. It was carefully harvested and pounded, and the grains were like jade. I took it to the government, but there was no box in my private room. How can a stone be used as only five buckets? Crafty officials do not fear punishment, and corrupt officials do not shun stolen goods. The farm time for private debt, after the farm to the official warehouse. From winter to spring, the acorns deceive the hungry. I have heard of Tian Chengzi, who swindled the king. When I met the old woman, I did not realize that my tears were staining my clothes." (65) The farmers, represented by the oak old woman, used their hard sweat to bring in a good harvest of rice. They harvested the rice carefully, fearing that impurities would be brought into the pile; and they pounded the rice meticulously. The pounded rice was as round and crystal clear as a jade earring. With such a beautiful harvest, the old woman should not have to worry about food and clothing. Instead, the old woman was faced with the reality of feeding herself with acorns. How could these two very different scenes happen at the same time? Pi's answer is: First, the harshness of the rent. Farmers of all harvest, in addition to the "Na in the official" in addition, but there is nothing left. If this is the case in the year of abundance, it is even more unthinkable in the year of famine. Secondly, the extortion of corrupt officials. They take advantage of the harvest year to make a big profit. "How a stone surplus, only as a five-dou measure!" The officials exploited more than the official tax! Thirdly, the exploitation of "private debt". Late Tang society, "cunning officials do not fear punishment, corrupt officials do not avoid stolen goods," they use the "agricultural time" to official food to put private debt, "after the farm," their own profits, and then the capital back to the "official warehouse". They used "agricultural time" to put private debts on government grain, and then returned the capital back to the "official warehouse" after they had made a big profit. The official grain of the country became the capital for the officials to brutalize the peasants and harm the people and enrich their own pockets. This triple exploitation took away the peasants' food in their mouths, and the peasants had to "deceive their hungry stomachs from winter to spring, and from the rafters". Through the encounter of the old woman, the poet not only complained about the heavy exploitation of the officials, but also showed great sympathy for the peasants. So "I don't feel tears on my clothes".

In addition to the exploitation mentioned above, the peasants also had to pay tribute to the court. The New Book of the Tang Dynasty records a number of rice varieties as tributes: large fragrant WoKang, small fragrant WoKang, water-soil rice, sorghum rice, ChisongJian rice, HuangLu rice, section of rice, glutinous rice, rice, etc. (66). Unlike formal taxes levied by ding or assets, tribute in the Tang dynasty was usually levied not on a particular person or family in a compiled household but universally, and thus became a generalized form of exploitation of the peasants. At the same time, due to the differences in local specialties, the names and quantities of tributes were also different, which facilitated the local officials to take advantage of paying tribute to the court to make profits from it. Undoubtedly, the more the tribute, the heavier the exploitation suffered by the peasants would be.

On the one hand, the peasants were starving to death, and on the other hand, the wine and meat at the vermilion gate stank. The extravagance and corruption of the ruling class is based on the heavy exploitation and oppression of the fruits of the peasants' hard labor!

The heaviness of exploitation made it difficult for the peasants to survive, so they chose to flee in the first place. Li Bo, who was an official at the court during the reigns of Emperor Xianzong and Emperor Muzong, once said, "I went on a mission and traveled around the world, seeking benefits and illnesses. I know that the Weinan County Changyuan Township has four hundred households, now only more than one hundred households; Minxiang County has three thousand households, now only one thousand households. Other states and counties, about similar. Visits to find the accumulated shortcomings, starting from the equalization of fleeing households. Within dozens of families, most of them have fled, and they have to pay taxes to five families. Like a stone thrown into a well, not in the end more than the malpractice of amortization of fleeing, harsh and abusive as such. This is all the gathering of ministers, peeling down to pander to the top, only think of exhausting the zephyr, do not worry about the fish". (67) Li Bo not only pointed out the fact that the peasants fled, but also analyzed the reason: the ministers of convergence, deceive the lower and pander to the upper, endless, unlimited exploitation of peasants, resulting in the peasants have to flee from their homes. In terms of figures, the number of fleeing households is one quarter or one third, which is really quite a lot. Even if they fled to the mountains and forests, they still could not get rid of the exploitation by the rulers because "even if they were deeper in the mountains, they should have no plan to avoid the levies" (68). Secondly, even if they did not flee, the peasants had to leave agriculture. Bai Juyi's "Five Songs for a Friend (II)" says, "Silver is born in Chushanqu, gold is born in Poyangxi. Southern people abandon agriculture, and it is very hard for them to seek for it. They chisel stone and sand, and work hard without any winter or spring. Their hands and feet are all chapped, and they love profit but not their bodies. She field is lazy to hack, rice paddies are also lazy to plow. They were all traveling with each other, seeking gold and silver. After all, gold and silver are different from mud and dust. They are not food and clothing, and they do not help the hungry and the cold. Abandonment of the original to tend to the end, the day rich and years poor. That is why the first saintly king, abandoned the collection is not precious. Who can oppose the ancient style, and wait for the king to uphold the state. Donate the gold again against the jade, do not make the people labor." (69) provides us with examples. Reflected by the content of the poem, gold mining and silver mining is very hard, both sand and chiseling, from winter to summer day after day year after year, no rest time, and "hands and feet are chapped". As generations of farmers living on the land, they y know: gold and silver "and non-clothing food, do not help the hungry and cold people", but the farmers are still no longer engaged in dry agriculture for many years, "to abandon the end to tend to the end". The reason can be found from the author's last "do not make the labor of the people" sentence, that is, the ruler excessive "labor" people! This word "labor" includes all kinds of exploitation suffered by the peasants! This reminds us of the famous line "A tyrannical government is fiercer than a tiger" in Liu Zongyuan's famous piece "The Snake Catcher Speaks". The peasants had no choice but to rise up and overthrow the brutal rule of the landlord class. In the Tang Dynasty, according to Mr. Zhuge Ji, there were 36 small-scale peasant revolts (excluding the revolts of the border minorities and some anti-Tang struggles of an unspecified nature) (70). The Zhedong uprising led by Qiu Fu and the late Tang peasant wars led by Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao finally sounded the death knell of the Tang rulers towards their demise.