Take the payment and collection of salaries of officials of Beijing Normal University as an example: the salary payment budget is compiled by the finance, and the vouchers for receiving salaries are also issued by the finance. The role of the units to which officials at all levels belong in this process is only to carry forward and fill in information. For example, the Yuan Zhi Pavilion of Song Hui Yao Ji recorded the specific practice of the Northern Song Dynasty: a unified "empty calendar" was issued to all units on a regular basis every month, that is, the salary report to be filled out by the organs, which were the Qian Bo case and the Guan Bai case, branches of the Third Division (the highest financial organ); Accounting personnel of all units should fill in the names, grades and positions of officers and workers of their own units one by one, and return them to the three departments after being examined and approved by the leaders. This completed salary report, commonly known as "Ber Ber", has to go through the audit of the clothing record and hook office (audit office of the third division of the household) and other departments to prevent being cheated. Audit is correct, approved by the hook, transferred to the third division affiliated food institute. The Grain Bureau is divided into three parallel units, among which the unit corresponding to the salary payment of civil servants in the capital is called Zhusi Grain Bureau. According to the calendar and "salary scale" established after the audit, that is, the salary standards of officials in different grades and positions, more detailed distribution reports of grain materials in various departments, such as some money, some grain, some coupons, etc. , also known as "please accept the calendar". After the approval, the "voucher calendar", that is, all kinds of vouchers for receiving money and goods, can be officially issued. The author speculates that the "voucher calendar" was issued to individuals by the third division through various units.
As vouchers for receiving wages, there are different types such as cash exchange and physical collection, as well as physical differences such as clothing, silk and food, which must be collected by recipients in designated warehouses. The practice in the Northern Song Dynasty was that the salaries of officials in the capital were paid by Sansi Zuoku. However, when checking historical materials, the state treasury only cares about coins, gold and silver, silks and silks, and may also pay half a catty of mutton and two bottles of wine vinegar, and have to go to other warehouses to collect them. Volume 19 of Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty describes the responsibilities of Taicang Division (affiliated to Sinong Temple), including the saying that "all officials and money are given to Jingcang", and there are also words such as "the official name of millet harvest should be set as its inscription" and "those who give public grain should bear the responsibility of ministers", because they know the practice of the Song Dynasty or inherited it from the Tang Dynasty. This "symbol of Shangshu Province" is probably a payment voucher issued by Shangshu Provincial Household Department to individuals through various units. According to the book, Taicang Company also distributed food and condiments to students in imperial academy and Medical College.
Imagine that if modern public teachers are paid monthly, they all have to go to the same department. What will it be like? Don't say that Kyoto, where hundreds of divisions gather, is in front of the provincial treasury, and there is also a long queue. On the other hand, I think the salary paid by Taicang Company in Tang Dynasty is mainly grain, and all the operating procedures such as handling and weighing are more time-consuming than counting money. In addition, princesses, relatives, college students and government civil servants all come here to "make trouble" and eat the imperial grain. Isn't that a scenery of fair trade? In this regard, the appendix to the Six Codes of the Tang Dynasty has specific provisions on the installment payment of each unit: "Zhongshu, Menxia, Yushitai, Shangshu Province, Central Yunnan Province, Ministry of Interior, Jiu Si, Sanjian, Zuoyou Chunfang, Zhanshifu, Jingzhao and Henan First General (class) give it early; Eighteen guards, Wang Fu, rate more, family order, servant hall, director of Gyeonggi, inner square, second-class (class), middle gift; The princesses' government departments, the ten-rate government in the East Palace, the director of Jiucheng Palace, the two officials in Gyeonggi County, and the third class (class) were given later. I have no money. I'm going to be late. "So Taicang Company can arrange the payment work in an orderly way, and we don't have to worry about the ancients anymore. Beijing officials in other dynasties also had similar regulations on salaries.
Can officials use their working hours when they are paid, or is it stipulated that they must take a day off? This point is not clearly recorded in official history and political books, and needs to be found in Zi and Ji. In the third volume of One in One's Hand, there is a story that producer Li Shao asked Taicang Department to send Mi Lu to your home, and Li Shao's mother weighed it and signed for it. When he had to pay the foot money, the warehouse clerk said, "Imperial rules don't repay the foot money." "Li's mother is pure and chaste," and she insisted on clearing enough money to let them take away the three stones of rice that they deliberately gave her so that her son could go home. Li she returned to the unit and mentioned that "all censors are ashamed". This is a special case for Taicang to please the discipline inspection officials, but it also reveals the possibility that wages can be collected by the family members, servants and even others of the operators. In this way, the system that officials must receive wages within the prescribed time limit may not contradict the implementation of attendance.
The story also shows that Taicang can also send Lu to your door, but you have to pay enough money. For example, the income of Bai Juyi and Zhao Jing Hu Cao is "40,000 to 50,000, and the month can be served in the morning; Lu Lu has two hundred stones and can make a profit at the age of eighteen. " After the promotion step by step, it is even more "100,000 households are extremely expensive, and two thousand stone roads dare to talk about poverty"? Rice is measured by stones, and money is made of copper. Its weight and volume are by no means comparable to a salary bag of modern civil servants. Suppose a person doesn't prepare animal-drawn heavy trucks at home, and the subordinate units don't act as agents, so it is difficult to get a monthly salary, which leads to the need to ask Taicang to deliver the goods to the door or hire their own feet to transport the goods. In fact, the active servicemen in Taicang are also compiled. In order to meet this demand, we should hire a service person outside the staff. According to Su Ge, assistant minister in the preface of Old Tang Book, tens of thousands of bankrupt farmers died in Chang 'an because of famine or tax evasion. None of them have "indigenous jobs" and become "vagrants", enough to form a labor market waiting for employees in front of Taicang every day. After a long time, with the bad officials in the warehouse department as the backing, or local tyrants as the followers, all kinds of things that dominate the market and pull gangs have appeared. This is a view from the way of official salary distribution to ancient society.
The salary payment procedures for local officials and serving soldiers are roughly similar to those in Buys, Shi Jing, but there are two differences:
First, the location of the contract was changed from Cang Jing to the local treasury (that is, the "warehouse"). If there is no warehouse in the local area, you should go to the warehouse of the administrative unit at the next higher level or the warehouse of the neighboring county to collect it. For example, in Dunhuang documents, there is a copy of Cangnagu Valley in Dunhuang County from August to September of the ninth year of Tang Tianbao, which reads: "Sunrise at the same time, the millet is 340, and the county magistrate ordered Wei Mo to leave on August 20. An empty document is as good as before. On September 12, the ninth year of Tianbao, Shi Suo Xiuyu died. " To explain the general meaning in vernacular, a county magistrate named Wei Mo received a voucher for the salary of 34 masters (Shuo is a capacity unit in Tang Dynasty, which can hold ten buckets). The calculation time began on August 20th, when he took office. The manager was an official named Suo Xiuyu, and the processing date was Tianbao September 12. Because at that time, there were no official positions in the counties under Dunhuang's jurisdiction, from the county magistrate to the official pawn, they had to go to the county treasury to receive their salaries, which was much more troublesome than Beijing's official salaries.
Second, the power to compile and review payroll is delegated from the central government to local governments. For example, in Dunhuang literature, there is a passage "Dou Lujun was sent to Hexi Branch and its rice warehouse in the fourth year of Tang Tianbao", which is about paying an official salary to an assistant named Li Jingyu in spring and summer. The ambassador was originally a quartermaster, but in Dunhuang County, which is controlled by Israel's military town, he is actually a financial official, and most of them are concurrently held by our ambassadors. In other words, this is a subordinate of the military and political leadership, including his own salary report. The county warehouse is led by the central finance in the system, so there is also the word "quasi-grid" in the expression of the account. "Grid" is the issuance standard issued by the central finance, which indicates that the warehouse department operates according to the rank and position of the deputy. The practice in the Northern Song Dynasty was that state-level organs paid salaries, and regional grain materials compiled statements and issued vouchers, but they had to be audited by the judges of the Department of Supervision to prevent cheating, which was an improvement over the Tang Dynasty. However, the payment of county-level officials' salaries is presided over by the county magistrate and audited by the supervisor (director of industry and commerce taxation). Upon arrival in Song Huizong, it was pointed out that this procedure was flawed, because in the administrative system, the supervisor was subordinate to the county magistrate. "Although it is human nature to sit back and watch illegal services, how dare you do some inspection?" ("Song Yaoyao's manuscript officer")? So the system was changed, and the supervisor presided over the payroll. "Linking with signing is to appoint the county magistrate" (ibid.), which is closer to the division of labor wages, accountants and heads of organs in modern payroll procedures.
From the "real name registration system" to the universal exchange system and then to symbolization, the history of government issuing paper money began with the salary reform of civil servants in the Song Dynasty.
The salary vouchers of Tang officials in the Dunhuang documents mentioned above are also recorded in the Han bamboo slips unearthed in Juyan. For example, there is a simple article that reads: "Give the Governor of the East King Yan 1600 yuan." Because it is known that the forms of wage payment in the Han and Tang dynasties are basically the same. However, the author believes that the Song Dynasty inherited the Han and Tang Dynasties and made some innovations at the same time. Specifically, the change began with the pension certificate.