The dignitaries and middle class people of the Tang Dynasty all ran out of the city.
On the one hand, it is because of ancient traditions: Traditionally, except for officials, businessmen and other groups who work in the city, in fact, more ordinary gentry do not live in the city, but stay in the countryside.
The Tang Empire seemed to be industrialized, but it was still a traditional feudal empire and still retained many traditional habits.
The rich and powerful still like to live in mansions in the countryside or suburbs!
The middle and upper classes naturally follow suit. For them, they cannot afford to build or live in luxury houses in the countryside. After all, there is no house covering an area of tens or hundreds of acres, with dozens of maids and servants to serve you.
I’m embarrassed to say that I live in the country!
So they basically live in some wealthy areas on the outskirts of the city.
But the reason for this phenomenon is not because of tradition.
Tradition is important whether it is important or not.
The main reason why the dignitaries and the middle class of the Tang Dynasty made this decision is: the environment in big cities these days is really not good!
If ancient cities before the Industrial Revolution were dirty and messy at best, then it would be a bit strange here in the Tang Empire.
Since the Tang Empire attached great importance to urban sanitation, no city was dirty or messy.
On the surface, it actually looks pretty good.
But the premise is that you hold your breath. As long as you can't help but open your mouth to breathe, you will smell the pungent smell of soot!
This is the period of the steam engine revolution, and factory chimneys can be seen in almost every city, spraying smoke into the sky.
It's not just the steam engines used in a large number of factories, power plants, etc. that burn coal.
Most of the fuel for ordinary urban residents now uses coal. Anyway, Li Xuan is already regretting the briquettes he made.
Even though there are no heavily polluting industries in Jinling City, residents throughout the city are using coal to make fires for cooking, and the smell...
For his own life and the health of the royal family members and senior officials, Li Xuan built a resort garden on the outskirts of the city a few years ago, called Shelter from the Cold. In fact, when the air was not good in autumn and winter, he would go there
Ran away outside the city!
The combination of industry and domestic coal has made the skies above many medium and large cities in Datang gray and full of the smell of coal smoke. The more industrially developed cities, the more populous the cities.
That's true.
Shanghai, the pearl of industry and commerce in the empire and the most prosperous city in the empire, is a typical example. Throughout the year, the moon can be seen only a few nights in the city, and the smell of soot from coal burning can be found in almost every corner of the city.
Since the living environment in the city is so poor, those rich people will naturally not choose to live in these places every day. Not to mention the rich and powerful, even the ordinary middle class live as far away as possible.
Live in the suburbs.
So these days, although there is such a thing as real estate development in the Tang Empire, they tend to develop wealthy suburban areas far away from the city center. Relatively speaking, the price of houses in the city center is even lower.
Some.
These days, urban areas are often where the middle and lower classes live.
The middle and upper classes generally live in affluent areas on the outskirts of the city. Naturally, there is no shortage of various facilities for the rich, such as consumption places, medical care, education and other facilities, and they are often better. It’s just that
They're all very expensive.
The choice of tradition and natural environment has led to a large number of wealthy people running away!
The government will not impose policy restrictions. In principle, where you live will not have any political impact.
After all, the Tang Empire did not need to rely on the degree system, the household registration system and other messy things to raise housing prices. It did not need to gather all the rich people and build a magnificent prison for them, and sell each cell at a sky-high price!
Because even if housing prices are raised, the profits are still made by the landlords, who have nothing to do with the government, because most of the land is in private hands, and the government does not have much.
As soon as businessmen see that the government has raised the land price in a certain place, they will immediately follow up and compete with others...
If the state does not directly monopolize all land resources, then there is no land finance that can be expected to drive up land and housing prices.
Therefore, the government sometimes prefers to build railway lines far away and expand the scope of urban areas, rather than concentrating resources in one place.
Speaking of degree household registration, in fact, Datang also had household registration and degree systems. However, Datang did not have rural or urban household registration. Moreover, if you like to live in the countryside, live in the countryside, or if you like to live in the city, household registration is just a kind of registration management.
It's just a means, not a means to restrict rights and interests.
At the same time, although there is a student status, it is basically the same as not having one, because you can study wherever you like in every state across the country, and there are no official restrictions.
There are no restrictions on the admissions of each school. In theory, candidates from all over the country can apply and they can recruit. For example, after you graduate from middle school, as long as you are willing, you can apply for any of the many preparatory courses across the country. In theory,
Everything is possible...
It's just that the Tang Empire did not adopt the unified enrollment and examination model, but adopted the school's independent enrollment. It is hard to say whether others will admit you.
Prestigious schools must have higher requirements for the quality of their students. If you rush there to apply, you may not even be qualified to take the entrance exam.
For example, at Jinling Preparatory School, more and more people come from far away to take the entrance exam every year, but how many of them can pass?
Moreover, each school's admissions season has a fixed number of days, so it is impossible for candidates to try one by one. They must select a few schools that they like and are sure of in advance, and then apply for admission one by one within those days.
take an exam.
Otherwise, you may not be admitted to any school and end up having to waste a year repeating your studies or simply drop out of school.
The education system of the Tang Dynasty had nothing to do with fairness. It was heavily skewed towards geniuses and children of powerful people. It would be good if ordinary people could go to elementary school.
After so many years of doing it, sometimes Li Xuan feels that he has gone too far.
It is clear that there is enough spare capacity to better popularize middle school and even preparatory education without spending a few dollars, but the empire still has not done so.
This is how Han Zhongkai, the Education Department of the Ministry of Rites, privately evaluated Datang’s current education system!
"It's very good now. Why do so many people go to college? Who will farm the land? Who will go to the factory when they are all in college?"
One sentence explains the essence of the education system of the Tang Empire!