1. Different Wu Dalang.
After reading this passage by Wu Dalang in Water Margin, I believe many people will feel wronged by Wu Dalang's tragic experience. But not long ago, I saw a netizen with different views:
Wu Da can raise a stunner. Wu Dalang's house is still upstairs and downstairs, with a duplex structure and a single floor. It is not a pigeon's nest of high-rise buildings at all, and the place is not biased. It should belong to the CBD area of the county, because it is next to the coffee shop opened in Wang Po. It can be seen that at that time, Wu Da lived fairly well by selling sesame cakes! When the Song Wu family comes, Pan Jinlian can also put down the rich dining tables and seduce Song Wu. ...
After reading the Water Margin, the biggest discovery is Wu Dalang's residence. Wu Dalang lives in Zishi Street, yanggu county, a building facing the street with at least two floors and a living area of more than 200 square meters.
So, how did Mr. Wu Dalang, a native of Qinghe County, Song Wu's brother, Pan Jinlian's husband, Ximen Qing's rival in love, a famous pastry chef, a good young man with strong body and strong will, and a winner of the May 1 ST Labor Award in the Song Dynasty live?
2. Living standard in Wu Dalang
The fact is that a disabled self-employed person can live in a duplex building with a single house and a single courtyard by selling sesame cakes every day. What is particularly enviable is that he can still raise a beautiful wife who doesn't go to work. Especially now, if you want to find a wife without a house, you have to be a bachelor, not to mention a beautiful wife like Pan Jinlian.
In addition, the wife is still a full-time wife, taller than the white-collar workers in China in the rocket era of the 20th century. Although Wu Dalang is short and ugly, people's housing conditions are much better than most people in our modern society.
First of all, Wu Dalang's living room is quite spacious, and there is a studio behind it (where Wu Dalang makes baked wheat cakes). Later, Pan Jinlian took a fancy to Song Wu, tried to let him live at home and cleaned up a bedroom. That bedroom is at least 20 square meters.
Moreover, this small building is connected with other families. In layman's terms, it is called a conjoined villa. What's more, this small building is also facing the street, and the first floor can be used as a shop-a typical commercial and residential building with high commercial value. Isn't Wang Po just using the first floor to do business?
This small building covers an area of at least 200 square meters. According to the plot ratio 1, the building area is also 200 square meters. What's more, people have small yards. There should be no mortgage loan at that time, so it can be sure that it was paid in full. If it is rented, the rent is absolutely considerable!
It seems that the legendary poor and weak Song society should be very rich, the social security system is also doing well, the house price is not very high, and the poor can afford to buy a house.
If such a high-end house were put aside today, which girl wouldn't cry and jump on it? Even if the other person is a dwarf, it will grow taller and taller. If Wu Da hadn't buried the cake, raised his wife white and tender, and hit the west gate with a bamboo pole, it would have caused great disaster. Wu Da's life in his later years should still be very happy.
3. Social life in Song Dynasty
Literary works always reflect some social reality, but people will react so strongly after a thousand years, perhaps because they are too envious of Wu Dalang's happy life, and their anxiety and embarrassment can be seen.
Behind Wu Dalang, people envy the happy and stable life of ordinary people in the Song Dynasty and the times when Wu Dalang lived. There seems to be no dispute that the Song Dynasty was undoubtedly a very wealthy society. The prosperity of the cities in the Northern Song Dynasty depicted in The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is not backward in the process of marching towards the modern society.
Moreover, the official social welfare guarantee for the poor and vulnerable groups in the Song Dynasty is mainly manifested in medical relief, pension relief, funeral relief and so on.
In the year of Fu Yuanyuan (1098), the Song Dynasty officially promulgated the Law on Living Support, which stipulated that Mi Dou and the sick and the disabled should be given medicine every month, and the elderly and the disabled should be buried free of charge. And set up different social welfare security institutions, such as nursing homes and beggars' places; Anjifang has a place to treat diseases; Louzeyuan, a place to be buried after death.
After death, the official is also responsible for hiring monks to cross over for the dead. The annual cost is about 5 million yuan, which is borne by the central finance. It is worth mentioning that Cai Jing, a powerful minister at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, made great contributions to this. At that time, he ordered all counties to set up nursing homes and Anjifang, which were funded by the central government and opened to the whole society, further improving the social security system.
The Song Dynasty was not only an era when the poor were guaranteed, but also an era when scholars came forth in large numbers and enjoyed themselves.
If you don't see the temple, the monarch and the minister will fight endlessly; In rivers and lakes, scholars give directions. Which dynasty and generation of literati had such status and status?
On the court, Bao Zheng was spitting, and Emperor Injong wanted to try his face with silks and satins, but Lao Bao just ignored it and was still talking nonsense. Above the rivers and lakes, Fan Zhongyan wrote well: "The world is worried first, and then the world is happy."
The Song Dynasty was the most abundant period of intellectuals in China. It is also a society in which China intellectuals have political ideals, cultural innovation, moral pursuit and guaranteed life.
Corresponding to the life of people in the Song Dynasty, I thought of the life recorded in the diary of a modern "North drift" netizen on the Internet:
He said he hadn't been to a theater, a movie, a concert or a park in Beijing for at least ten years ... no money? No. Is there no time? But not all. The main reason is: not in the mood! I'm afraid of getting sick at the thought of tens of thousands of monthly mortgage, the cost of various training courses for children and the great pressure at work ... Do you think I'm in the mood to buy tickets and sit in the magnificent hall and listen to elegant symphonies?
Comparing the hatchback, a feeling of reverence arises spontaneously.
So, please allow me to pay my deep respect to Mr. Wu Dalang. If I lived in his time, I would write a long letter of condolence for him and read it out at the memorial service myself.
In addition to paying tribute to this disabled and determined "model worker". Also told him not to feel bitter, 1000 years later, many people still envy him so much!