In addition to salary, officials in the Song Dynasty also had various material subsidies. After comprehensive conversion, the monthly salary was about 1 million. Not only that, officials can assign servants according to their ranks, and the servants' food and clothing expenses will be fully reimbursed!
Qing Dynasty writer Zhao Yi once said, " The salary of the Song Dynasty was as high as the salary", which means that the income of officials in the Song Dynasty was the highest in the history of Chinese dynasties. It can be said to be the real "high official salary".
In the Song Dynasty, officials' salaries were mainly divided into two parts:
One part was basic salary, including salary and lusu, which can be understood as today's salary and material subsidies .
According to the records in "History of the Song Dynasty: Officials System", in the Song Dynasty, high-ranking officials such as prime ministers received a monthly salary of 300 guan, which is equivalent to the current salary, is about 300,000, which is the salary part.
In addition to wages, there are also clothing subsidies, including 20 pieces of silk and satin and 30 pieces of silk for spring clothes and winter clothes. There is also food subsidy , and the salary is one hundred stones per month. The two parts of
are added to by , which are various job subsidies, which can be understood as today's meal supplement and so on. Mainly include daily subsidies such as salt, tea, firewood, and wine.
Calculated in this way, in the Song Dynasty, high-level officials had about discounts of about 1 million per month, and low-level grassroots officials could also earn about 10,000 . They had no basic living expenses. Every official can be equipped with a servant. All the food and clothing of this servant are reimbursed to the court and are not deducted from the official's own salary.
For example, an official at the level of prime minister can be equipped with 100 servants , and the court will reimburse the food and clothing expenses of these 100 people . Low-level officials can have at least one servant.
It can be seen that in the ancients, one person was an official and could support a large family. It is not surprising that the ancients had "heads hanging from beams, cones and thorns " and only read the books of sages!
