Chapter 53 Section 6 The Difference Between Peasants and Serfs

Chinese peasants are called "min", "common people", while western peasants are called "serfs".Literally, the social status of Chinese farmers is much higher than that of the West.However, the reality is the opposite. Chinese farmers are the most tightly controlled group in the world. As early as the era of Shang Yang and Mencius, politicians had already determined that only by keeping the peasants in a situation where they would neither "turn to death" nor have "surplus millet", "surplus power" and "surplus wisdom" could "abandon the basics and end the matter" Only by making them "deadly immigrated without going out of their hometown" from generation to generation can the peace of the world be guaranteed.From very early on, Chinese politicians invented the dual control system of the "hukou system" and the "Baojia system". Every village, every family, and every person in the ends of the earth were woven into the empire within the administrative network.

In this control system, residents are registered upon birth, are not allowed to move at will, are not allowed to change occupations at will, and monitor each other, and sit together.One family is guilty, and the neighbor suffers. This kind of control is actually much stricter than that of the manor serfdom in Western Europe. At the same time, the governments of successive dynasties have unremittingly blocked the channels of civil society's spontaneous organization, and cracked down on civil religious organizations and assembly and association behaviors, leaving farmers in a state of political disunity forever.For example, the Yuan Dynasty government prohibited Han Chinese from rowing dragon boats, going to markets, and lighting lamps at night.Zhu Yuanzhang, who started his career with the Red Scarf Army of the White Lotus Sect, banned the White Lotus Sect immediately after he ascended the throne.The law of the Qing Dynasty clearly stipulates that it is a crime for common people to sworn brothers.

The purpose of such strict social control is of course for the "one line of life", in order to deprive the peasants of their wealth to the maximum extent so as to support themselves.The various taxes levied on farmers by the Chinese regime always far exceed the official limits such as "one tax per 15" and "one tax per thirty". From the Warring States period to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, for more than two thousand years, Chinese peasants had a little more than enough food and clothing in the first 30 years of the new dynasty established after the peasant uprising.In most of the rest of the period, they were in the situation of struggling for food and clothing for life.The living standard of Chinese peasants was much lower than that of European serfs.

According to scholars' calculations, after deducting taxes, Chinese farmers usually have less than 640 catties of grain per capita.In medieval Europe, the annual grain consumption of a serf reached 1,070 catties.Moreover, even this low level of survival has been interrupted many times by major natural disasters and social unrest. The law of the development of authoritarian power can only be more and more greedy.Especially whenever a dynasty enters its middle and late stages, the huge bureaucratic machine and bureaucratic team will always enter the stage of unstoppable expansion like a tumor.At the same time, the population is increasing, the per capita possession of resources is decreasing, and more and more people are falling below the basic living standard.Starving and dying everywhere, and selling children and selling girls are tragic scenes that will inevitably appear at the end of every dynasty.