Judging from the process of land property right system reform in ancient China, the reform of land property right system in Tang and Song Dynasties is of great significance. If Shang Yang's "Abandoning Mine Field and Opening a Pavilion" is the first time to admit the legitimacy of private ownership of land, it was private ownership of land that established its dominant position in the Tang and Song Dynasties. This is manifested in: (1) making the allocation of land resources tend to be market-oriented, thus making the land more and more purely economical; (2) Move land ownership from top to bottom. From ancient times to modern times, China's land ownership has gone through the process from the state down to the landlords and then down to the peasants. Tang and Song Dynasties were in the middle of this downward movement. Judging from the historical background at that time, the establishment and development of the main position of private ownership of landlord land should be an important historical progress at that time.

The reform of land property right system is, first of all, an important development of land private ownership, and it is to establish sacred and inviolable authority, which is highlighted by the public recognition of the legitimacy of land ownership by the whole society. On the occasion of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Gu concluded: "When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu said: Or the land of cultivating the people, see Tax Five. In Tang Dezong, Lu Zhi said: In today's capital city, the official tax on an acre of land is five liters, while the private rent of an acre to a stone is twenty times higher than the official tax. Down to the middle, the rent is still half. The husband's land belongs to the king; Planting crops is a farmer's business, and the merged people actually benefit. I hope all the occupied land is limited, and rent reduction will benefit the poor. Zhong Shu is talking about today's sublease contract, and he is talking about today's charter. However, he is still called a noble man, and he is called a merger. After the Song Dynasty, he was publicly called Tian Zhu. " (1) Looking through the historical records of the Song Dynasty, the word "Tianzhu" frequently appears in various documents, indicating that this title has indeed been widely recognized by the society. From "Hao Min", "merger" to "landlord", the change of appellation reflects great historical changes. "Hao Min" and "merger", as the name implies, mean that their possession of land is mainly arbitrary, not legal, while "land owner" emphasizes the owner of land, that is, acknowledging its legal ownership of land. At the same time, this passage also reflects that the land distribution in the Han and Tang Dynasties mainly depended on political power, that is, taking, seizing and merging, but it was quite different in the Song Dynasty.

The private property right of land establishes sacred and inviolable authority, which is also reflected in people's understanding of land rent. "The possession of land rent is an economic form to realize land ownership." ② During the Han and Tang Dynasties, people often confused "rent" with "tax". This is actually a reflection that the private property right of land is still unclear and its main position has not been fully established. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, people not only expressed them literally, but also defined "rent" and "tax" in essence. According to Gu quoted above, "tax" is a part of the labor income paid by the land owner to the state, and "rent" is a part of the labor income paid by the land lessee to the land owner. In the Song Dynasty, people made a more concise summary of this. Year number since Yan was founded: "Your own land is called tax, please rent it." Whoever occupies land should pay taxes to the state, and whoever rents land should pay rent to the landowner. Whether it is "tax" or "rent", it must be based on a clear relationship with the land.

The imperial examination system is the main way to select officials in China feudal society, and it is also the main ladder for scholars to go to officialdom. It was founded in the reign of Emperor Kaidi in Sui Dynasty and abolished in the 31st year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty, and lasted for 1300 years in China history. In this long historical period, it has played different roles in politics, economy and culture of society at different stages. The early imperial examination system played a positive role in maintaining the rule of feudal landlord class and promoting the development of feudal society. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the imperial examination system became a tool to oppose social reform, resist progressive ideas and hinder social development. Although the eight-part essay is empty in content and rigid in form, at the same time, we should also see that there are internal and external reasons for selecting people with eight-part essay. In a word, we should not take a simple negative attitude towards the imperial examination and stereotyped writing, but make a concrete analysis based on facts and make clear the gains and losses.

China's talent selection system, from "moral integrity" in the Han Dynasty to "poetry and prose" in the Tang Dynasty, essentially replaced the recommendation and selection system with the imperial examination system, which is undoubtedly progressive in historical development.

The imperial examination system was originally a means for the bureaucratic empire to realize universal power and a tool for the expansion of imperial power. After the collapse of the equal-field system, there appeared a gentleman class in the Chinese empire who mastered economic resources but did not have a stable political position. Due to the resistance of the gentry group, the attempt to further expand the state power through the reform of the imperial examination system in Song Dynasty failed. Confucian scholars' plan to expand their cultural influence in schools could not be adopted by the empire, and finally gave up the requirements of leading cultural education and recommending officials. They only proposed to improve the political status of gentlemen through the rationalization of the imperial examination, which pointed out the direction for the development of the imperial examination system.

With the further development of hierarchical official positions, a three-level system was formed, which was particularly prominent in the Tang and Song Dynasties. Take the Tang system as an example. At that time, all officials were composed of officials. The ranks of civil and military officers are all 29, and they are named "doctor", "lang" or "general" and "captain" respectively. Anyone who has a thorough understanding of ancient history will know that these doctors and generals are no longer official positions, but just mark the rank numbers of grades like modern ranks. There is no consistency between official ranks and official ranks, so some terms such as "doing" and "keeping" have been developed to standardize them. At the beginning of his career, officials first obtained the rank of sub-officer; When he was removed from office at the end of his term, his rank was still maintained; When awarding professional officials, the degree of grade separation is a factor that must be considered. In the past, many benefits were subordinate to the third level, such as salary, exemption from classes in abel tamata, punishment, class orders, cars and clothes, and so on. In addition, it also involves the treatment of officials, titles, weddings, funerals, discussions and so on. At a time in the early Northern Song Dynasty, "escort officials" were rank officials. The narrative hierarchy and advanced system in the Tang and Song Dynasties are so complicated that people are dizzy. The system of scattered ranks in Tang and Song Dynasties inherited the system of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Due to the warmth of the gentry politics, the flavor factor in the official system has been blooming since the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Wu Zhi, the "general" who led the troops in the Qin and Han Dynasties, soon became a rank in name only. Various redundant officials, titles and honors have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. In the Han dynasty, doctors who were scattered officials just didn't have fixed jobs, but they often took on temporary tasks. Below Wei and Jin dynasties, it is almost redundant or noble. The original functional significance of adding officials in Han dynasty was also obviously diluted during this period. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the system of east-west provinces was formed, and the main functions of civil and military officials in the two provinces were to provide initial official ranks, move ladders and serve as titles. In addition, officials who work as secretaries, attendants of the East Palace and government bureaucrats are mainly used to start their own businesses because they have nothing to do, and they also have a "taste". Under the famous Jiupin Zhong Zheng system, Zhong Zheng decided the quality according to the family status. Scholars had a kind of "gate quality" as official capital before they even entered the official position at the beginning. All kinds of related examples, including the difference between clear and turbid, the difference between ordinary people, the difference between civil and military, and the difference between officials, all have a strong flavor. During this period, many hierarchical settings were developed for future generations, such as the system of valuing literature over martial arts, the system of internal flow and external flow, and so on. The civil and military officials in the Tang Dynasty originated from the prose officials and generals in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and had an evolutionary relationship with the prose officials in the eastern and western provinces.

The historical result of the frontier ethnic policy in the Tang Dynasty was the difficulty of founding the country in the Northern Song Dynasty. When it was strong, the Tang Dynasty, as the political, economic and cultural center of East Asia, promoted cultural exchanges and the progress of civilization in a peaceful way. 1. At the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, the original regime was weak, and those frontier nationalities who had enjoyed a high degree of autonomy for a long time took the opportunity to move inward and establish their own country. Liao in the north and summer in the northwest are all the same. During the Han Dynasty, all ethnic groups in the border areas lived together in the form of tribes. When the Northern Song Dynasty was established, the northern alien regime developed in the Tang Dynasty was already waiting to compete with it. Ethnic events in the western jin dynasty. Because the government mishandled it; There is still a problem in the Northern Song Dynasty, and we must face the historical results. The scale of the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty was not comparable to that of the Han and Tang Dynasties, nor was it comparable to that of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but its frontier pressure was very heavy. In order to defend the northern regime from going south, a huge standing army must be established, and the cost of raising troops is unprecedented. But keeping an army for 1000 days may not be needed for a while. Song Jun was almost always defeated when dealing with the military power of the North. Because the thought of building the army in the Northern Song Dynasty borrowed too much from the lessons of the separatist regime in the Tang Dynasty, it fell into serious limitations. The reason why the buffer zone in the Tang Dynasty was too big to fail was also because of its frontier policy. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was fooled by treacherous court official Li, and stubbornly trusted An Lushan, who was born with miscellaneous Hu, which led to the Anshi Rebellion and the subsequent self-respect of the buffer region. This left a deep impression on the founding fathers of the Northern Song Dynasty, so that the emperor was extremely suspicious of the generals. As soon as the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, the command of the war generals was lifted. Usually soldiers don't know generals, and generals don't know soldiers. When fighting, the generals should fight according to the plan made by the emperor in advance, and there is no reason not to fail.

Taboo soldiers, changed careers as book writers in the Northern Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty basically continued the imperial examination system in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and made more improvements to make it more rigorous. The number of people who take the exam every time is much higher than that of Dundai. Those who pass the exam will be hired immediately, and those who fail can be "given" by the emperor as a scholar. The gift to the scholar-officials is also unprecedented. First of all, the salary is generous, and both serving and retired officials have generous salaries; Secondly, all civil servants who have reached a certain level can enjoy the privilege of supplementing officials with their grandchildren. This is the so-called "shadow" system, which not only "shadows" descendants with the same surname, but also "shadows" relatives with different surnames. All these have created a huge bureaucratic class, who are well-paid and pampered. There were hostile regimes outside, and the Northern Song Dynasty had to raise a large number of soldiers. Taboo military commanders, raised a very rich class. These two, together with other extravagance and waste, caused extreme financial difficulties in the Northern Song Dynasty. This, in turn, triggered a wave of reform and aroused fierce partisan struggle among gentry. All this, traced back to the source, has a direct chain connection with the open frontier policy of the Tang Dynasty. In fact, the Northern Song Dynasty had to face the situation after the demise of the Tang Dynasty. Conceptually, we have to attach importance to the experience and lessons of the Tang Dynasty. Both sides contributed to the situation that it was difficult to establish a country in the Northern Song Dynasty. The civilization of the Tang Dynasty is open and romantic, while the culture of the Song Dynasty is inherent and implicit. There was open romance in the Tang Dynasty and implicit connotation in the Song Dynasty, among which there was inevitable historical cause and effect.

Social changes and economic and cultural prosperity in Tang and Song Dynasties

The social changes from the mid-Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty began with the decline of the old nobles since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and even disappeared from history. The reason has long been thought to be caused by the imperial examination system, but it is difficult to explain the problem. The imperial examination only opened the way for the middle and lower intellectuals to make progress, but the old aristocrats can also show themselves through the imperial examination, and there are many such burials. Some people say that Wu Zetian's attack on the forces of nine officials and dragons with the imperial examination is not enough to explain the problem. A powerful class is not destroyed by an emperor, but at best suppressed; Besides, Wu Zetian vigorously cracked down on the old forces of Guandong and Guanlong. What is the inside story? The reason for the decline of the old aristocracy should be to find an answer to the changes brought about by the implementation of the whole social system, especially the two tax laws, since the middle Tang Dynasty. The provisions of the two tax laws on the collection and blessing of property grades are extremely unfavorable to the existence of large families and will inevitably lead to the trend of separation. This can be confirmed from the history books. Secondly, the two tax laws have loosened farmers' personal dependence, which is not conducive to the big family economy. Unemployed farmers can become small businessmen or lease the land of landlords instead of being attached to extended families. Coupled with the attack of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty and the invasion of the northern nationalities in the Five Dynasties, it dealt a fatal blow to this dying class. Looking through the history books, scholars in the Tang Dynasty always show their family background by looking at counties from the standard. By the literati of the Song Dynasty, this habit basically disappeared, and people were more willing to show how hard they worked. Another important social change during the Tang and Song Dynasties was the substantial increase of market factors. Prosperous cities are all over the country, and new cultural phenomena attached to the market emerge one after another. This is the result of sustained high social economy, especially the southern economy.