The high housing price is a long-standing problem in modern society, so the term house slave has become a hot topic of common concern. House slaves, as the name implies, are slaves to the house. After choosing a loan to buy a house, they work hard all day to repay the loan.

a typical feature of house slaves is to borrow money to buy a house, or to put it bluntly, to borrow money to buy a house and run around for a long time to pay off debts. From this perspective, there were actually house slaves in ancient times. The first house slave in the history of China was Tang Yin Tang Bohu, the famous first wit in the south of the Yangtze River.

Some people will say that Tang Bohu is a master of Xie Yuan and a great artist. His poems, books and paintings are called three wonders. Isn't it enough to write more than a dozen words? That's true, but according to Tang Bohu's own records, he really couldn't make up the purchase price.

The house that made Tang Bohu a house slave is a villa abandoned by a previous family. It is almost a dead building, so it should not cost much. And for this property, Tang Bohu is very careful. He named it Peach Blossom, and later spent a lot of money on decoration. It is said that Tang Bohu personally decorated this house and built it into a famous private garden in Suzhou.

influenced by Tang Bohu's reputation, there is a place name in Suzhou now, which is called Taohuawu; There are two streets named Taohuawu Street and Taohuawu Bridge Lane. This shows that it is not a myth that Tang Bohu once bought a house here.

According to records, when Tang Bohu decided to buy this property, he first borrowed a large sum of money from an official friend in Beijing, and this money was used as a mortgage loan with part of his own books. Later, it took him more than two years to make plans and sell plans before he raised enough money to buy the house. It seems that his behavior is also a mortgage, which can be regarded as a typical performance of house slaves.

Why did Tang Bohu fall in love with a house so much that he even became a house slave? This is related to his life situation at that time.

Tang Bohu was gifted since childhood. He was familiar with the Four Books and the Five Classics, and read historical records. At the age of 16, he won the first place in the scholar's exam, which caused a sensation in Suzhou City. At the age of 29, he went to Nanjing to take the provincial examination and won the first place in Xieyuan. Just as he was full of ambition, when he went to Beijing for the exam the next year, he was unlucky because he was involved in the fraud case in the examination hall.

As for the case of leaking the exam questions, one theory is that Xu Jing, the son of Jiangyin's richest man, secretly bribed the examiner's furniture and got the exam questions in advance. When the story came to light, Tang Yin was also implicated in prison.

There is also a saying that there is something hidden in this case. The scientific research topic that Tang Bohu participated in was so uncommon that many candidates couldn't answer it. Among them, there are only two papers, which are not only appropriate in answering questions, but also elegant in wording. As one of the examiners, Cheng Minzheng blurted out with joy: These two papers must belong to Tang Yin and Xu Jing. This sentence was heard by the people present and spread out.

In addition, Tang Yin and Xu Jing visited Cheng Minzheng many times after they arrived in Beijing. Especially after he was appointed as the chief examiner, Tang Yin asked him to preface one of his poems. This has raised doubts in others' minds. This time, when I heard Cheng Minzheng say this in the examination room, I was caught by people who usually hate him. A group of people started to talk about the Emperor, saying that Cheng Minzheng had taken bribes and leaked the topic. If we don't pursue it strictly, it will be beneath the hearts of scholars all over the world.

Emperor Xiaozong believed it, and was very angry. He immediately ordered that Cheng Minzheng should not be allowed to read papers. All the papers read by Cheng Minzheng were reread by Li Dongyang, and Cheng Minzheng, Tang Yin and Xu Jing were taken to Dali Temple Prison to be tried by special personnel. After Xu Jing went to prison, he couldn't afford to be tortured. He confessed that he used a piece of gold to buy off Cheng Minzheng's relatives and stole the test questions and leaked them to Tang Yin. After the joint examination of punishments and official departments, Xu Jing overturned his confession, saying that it was a confession made under duress. The emperor decreed that Tang Bohu, who was the top three popular candidates, had a job as a local beadle in Zhejiang, and Tang Bohu could not bear such insults and returned home in anger.

After this case, Tang Bohu gave up the idea of being an official, and from then on, he devoted himself to mountains and rivers, painting poems. Although Tang Bohu in history was a talented painter with outstanding talents, ideals and ambitions, his cynical and arrogant personality was not suitable for this society.

His family life is not as happy as rumored, and there is no such affair as San Xiao Jiumei. When he was over 25 years old, his family suffered successive misfortunes. His parents, first wife and younger sister died one after another, and his family declined. After he was frustrated in the imperial examination, his second wife forced him to divorce his wife. When he settled in the Peach Blossom Temple, his third wife, Shen nine niang, was a typical good wife and mother. They repaid the loan together and spent the rest of their lives in Peach Blossom.

As for the difficulty of buying a house, there are many famous poets who are similar to Tang Bohu.

For example, Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty was a scholar at the age of 29. At the age of 32, he worked as a school librarian in Beijing. I estimate that this position is equivalent to a clerk who specializes in proofreading red-headed documents in the Office of the State Council. He is definitely a national civil servant. However, at that time, the housing price in Chang 'an was so high that Bai Juyi couldn't even afford the house. For a long time, he rented several huts in the eastern suburbs of Chang 'an.

The same is true of Su Men's Third Bachelor in Song Dynasty. For example, Su Dongpo was a middle-level and high-level cadre in Song Dynasty, but he could not buy a house in Kaifeng all his life. His son got married in Kaifeng, and he didn't have a new house. Su Dongpo was very anxious. Finally, he borrowed a friend's house, which was considered as a happy event. In contrast, Su Dongpo's younger brother Su Zhe is obviously more determined to buy a house.

Su Zhe worked as a civil servant for decades, and finally bought a house at the age of 7, and bought it in Xuchang, south of Kaifeng. Before buying a house, Su Zhe can't help but write poems and complain: I am half-white, and I have no feet in the world. I have never had a house. The philosophers think that it means that I have lived for most of my life and my hair is gray. I haven't got a house yet, so I can't lift my head in front of my sons. They always complain about me. It is estimated that Mr. Su Zhe's son is also counting on his father's house to continue to gnaw at the old.

in 1523, Tang Bohu, aged 53, died of poverty and illness. A generation of talented people is just like what he himself said: in this life, I am willing to share with Lao Wu, and there is no madness left in favor and humiliation. And the house he bought for being a house slave is probably the symbol of his madness in the world! Just like his poem:

Peach Blossom Temple in Taohuawu, Peach Blossom Fairy in Taohuaan;

Peach Blossom Fairy breeds peach trees and picks them for drinks.

When you wake up, you just sit in front of the flowers, and when you are drunk, you come to sleep under the flowers.

half awake and half drunk day after day, flowers bloom year after year.

I hope I die of old age, and I don't want to bow before the horses and chariots;

cars, dust, horses and feet are interesting, while wine and flowers are poor.

if wealth is compared with poverty, one is in the ground and the other is in the sky;

if I am poor, I have to drive away my leisure.

others laugh at me for being crazy, and I laugh at others for watching * * *;

No flowers, no wine, no hoes, no fields.

A generation of gifted scholars died and were buried in the north of Taohuawu, which is not far from his former residence.