Harry collected 1 suite for the official 18, and wrote an epitaph for his life after retirement > Subtitle #e# Core Tip: Why did Harry buy a house after 18 years? He is not putting on a show, but he can never afford it. At the age of 57, he served as the deputy minister of the Ministry of Supervision (right-Han is the governor's ambassador, and the governor of grain storage should be ten days). A year later, he applied for resignation, retired early and went to his hometown of Hainan to buy a house and settle down. However, in addition to his salary, Harry should have other income, such as writing epitaphs, and he can get the manuscript fee. This article is taken from Liberation Weekend 20 1 1, originally published in Liberation Daily. Author: Li Kaizhou, original title: Hai Rui: eighteen years as an official, bought a house. A few years after Harry's death, his nephew Liang Yunlong, an official living in Huguang, recalled that Hai Gong had been an official for eighteen years before using his accumulated salary. According to the chronicle of Harry, at the age of 28, Harry was a scholar in the middle school, and at the age of 34, he was appointed in the middle school. At the age of 465,438+0, he officially stepped into the officialdom and became the director of the county education bureau and the principal of the county middle school (Nanping education guidance). At the age of 46, he was promoted to the county magistrate (Chun 'an magistrate), transferred to the Ministry of Finance (Yunnan household director) at the age of 52, and was ordered to go to South India (Polo) at the age of 57. He used to be the deputy minister of supervision (You-Han was the governor, and the governor of grain storage should be ten days). A year later, he applied for resignation, retired early and went to his hometown of Hainan to buy a house and settle down. From 4 1 year-old to the director of education bureau, to 58-year-old governor, no more or less. Harry just became an official in 18, and Liang Yunlong's memories are correct in time. Four reasons why Harry didn't buy a house until 18? He is not putting on a show, but he can never afford it. There are four reasons: first, the wages in the Ming Dynasty were low. When Harry was a county magistrate, in theory, he could get the salary equivalent to 90 meters a year, but in fact, because of "fading", he could only get the salary equivalent to 54 meters a year. At that time, every two stones of rice were converted into silver, and 54 stones of rice could only be converted into 27 ounces of silver. Compared with the annual salary of county officials in the middle and late Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty, the legal income of county officials in Ming Dynasty is pitifully low. Second, the cost of marriage is high. Harry is an honest official and not greedy for money, but he has been married at least three times in his life and has married two concubines. Marrying a wife requires a dowry, and concubinage requires a silver price. According to the custom of Jiajing period, it takes several hundred taels of silver to get married at a time. Assuming that Harry is thrifty in taking a wife and concubinage, the cost of taking a wife is no more than three hundred and twenty pieces of silver, and the cost of concubinage is no more than five hundred and twenty pieces of silver, then his old man's house has entered the bridal chamber six times in his life, and the total savings spent by * * * is also around two thousand and two hundred. Third, the whole family spends his own money. After Harry became an official, the family population has remained above 10. For example, when he was an official in Nanjing at the age of 55, his old mother, his wife Wang, Wang's two sons and one daughter, his first wife Xu's two daughters, his concubine Han, and at least four maids who served the big family to eat and drink all accompanied him. These dozen people have no income, and they are all raised by Harry alone. Of course, the economic burden is very heavy. Fourth, Harry is not greedy and has no gray income. Among the Ming officials, there were many wives and concubines in Bihari, and people who spent more money in Bihari were everywhere. But in the end Harry was too poor to buy a house. I'm afraid Harry was the only one in the Ming Dynasty. Are other officials well paid? Of course not. They are greedy, but Harry is not greedy, that's all. According to Liang Yunlong's description, after Harry's death, his former best friend Wang Yongji handled his affairs. All he found was a dozen taels of silver and two or three pieces of clothes, which added up to less than twenty taels of silver, not even enough for burial. If Wang Yongji hadn't organized donations, Harry might have "come to a bad end". At the age of 58, Harry retired from the position of governor in advance and returned to his hometown in Hainan. At the age of 72, Zhang, the iron-blooded prime minister, died, and Emperor Wanli invited Harry to come out of the mountain, so Harry re-entered the officialdom and became the right ambassador of Nanjing Duchayuan, and later became the right assistant minister of Nanjing official department, acting as the official minister. His position, equivalent to the vice minister of personnel, is a real senior cadre. Although the salary of officials in the Ming Dynasty was low, it was more than 700 stones a year when they reached the level of deputy director of personnel. In fact, they receive hundreds of taels of silver every year. Even if Harry is not greedy, he should have some savings when he dies, so as not to leave a meager legacy of only a dozen taels of silver. It must be because Harry spends too much money and likes to help people. Whenever he has more money, he takes it out to help his relatives, so he can't save any money. Those senior officials of Harry's contemporaries have amazing savings on hand. Yan Song and Yan Shifan are both greedy. Their movable property market value is nearly/kloc-0.8 billion yuan, and they also own more than 6,600 properties in Jiangxi province. Zhang, the first assistant of the cabinet, has accumulated so much property that he can scare people. According to legend, after Zhang's death, Emperor Wanli raided his property and found 2,426 taels of gold, 2 taels of silver 107790, 6 sets of gold utensils, 746 pieces of gold jewelry, 986 sets of silver utensils, 3l pieces of silver jewelry, as well as rhinoceros horn, tortoise shell, crystal, ivory and amber. Real estate officials also estimated the price of Zhang's existing mansion. "Living in Beijing is worth 10672." . According to the estimate that one or two pieces of silver were converted into RMB in 800 yuan at that time, Zhang's house was worth at least 8 million yuan, which is definitely a star-rated mansion in today's skyrocketing housing prices. Yan Song and Zhang, of course, have big positions in Bihari and high salaries in Bihari, but I'm afraid they won't believe it if they say that these amazing movable and immovable properties are their legitimate income, earned by "scrimping and saving" or "investing in real estate speculation". The salary is not enough, and the manuscript fee is used to support the family. Harry is an honest official. This article is true and impeccable. However, in addition to his salary, Harry should have other income, such as writing epitaphs, and he can get the manuscript fee. Wu Cheng, magistrate of longnan county County, Jiangxi Province, died. His descendants asked Harry to write an epitaph, and Harry wrote thousands of words. Lin Hongyu's mother who participated in Zhejiang's political affairs died. Harry was asked to write an epitaph, and Harry also wrote thousands of words. Liang, a lecturer at Yushan College in Guangzhou, died many years ago, and local officials rebuilt his grave. At that time, Hai Rui was the county magistrate of Chun 'an, Zhejiang. People went to Chun 'an and asked Harry to write an epitaph for Liang. Harry readily agreed and wrote thousands of words. The ancients valued fame, and when a person died, it was enough to make a biography as an inscription. As long as there are conditions, we should ask someone to write a line, make a historical biography, carve an epitaph, record his life story and pass it on. Please, of course, the more outstanding the literary talent, the better the fame. Many times, an unknown deceased will be famous all over the world because of an excellent epitaph, and the descendants of the deceased will be respected from generation to generation because of this epitaph. Because of this, from the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the epitaph style lasted for a long time, and the people who wrote the epitaph were richly rewarded. Tingzhi Zhao, Li Qingzhao's grandfather, used to write epitaphs to support his family. In the Tang Dynasty, the standard of epitaph payment was higher. Bai Juyi wrote an epitaph for his good friend Yuan Zhen, whose family wealth was six or seven hundred thousand yuan. Apart from Bai Juyi in the Tang Dynasty, Fan Zhongyan in the Song Dynasty and Hai Rui in the Ming Dynasty are all famous epitaph writers, so I don't need to go into details. They're all looking for their families. I don't have specific data on the standard of epitaph payment in Ming Dynasty, but I know that Zhao Ziang, a painter in Yuan Dynasty, commissioned a famous artist to write an epitaph for the eunuch's father, and the payment was 5,200 yuan, which was quite considerable. Yuan and Ming dynasties are not far apart. Harry wrote an epitaph of several thousand words magnificently. The manuscript fee may not be as much as 5,000 taels, but it should be 50 taels, right? Liang Yunlong only used the word "communication" to describe the financial source of Harry's hometown in Hainan after his early retirement. As far as I know, this "communication income" probably refers to the manuscript fee that Harry got for writing the epitaph. Gentlemen love money: the economic life of celebrities, published by Shanghai Bookstore) 2.