After Zhen Qian moved to Luquan County, under the slow accumulation, he now has four or five hundred slaves and maids in his hands, a very small number of which are slaves and maids brought out from the Zhen Mansion at the beginning, some of them are Zhen Mansion's own slaves and maids, and some of Zhen Qian's mothers brought slaves and maids from the Wang family, all of which now belong to Zhen Qian's private ownership.

Here I have to talk about the marital property system in the Tang Dynasty?

First of all, the legal age of marriage in the Tang Dynasty, the first year of Taizong Zhenguan of the Tang Dynasty was set as: "20 years old for men, 15 years old for women" to get married; In the twenty-second year of Xuanzong's reign, in order to increase the population, Xuanzong of Tang lowered the age of marriage to "15 years old for men and 13 years old for women".

The first step in establishing a marriage relationship in the Tang Dynasty was to make a "marriage certificate". Because the law of the Tang Dynasty stipulates that the elders can arrange the marriage of their children, and if the children do not obey, the law stipulates that they will be punished with a hundred rods, so it is determined that the marriage in the Tang Dynasty is not free love, and generally cannot reflect the personal wishes of young men and women.

In addition to the establishment of "marriage letters", due to the influence of marriage customs during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, marriage was very common in the Tang Dynasty. According to the "New Tang Dynasty Book - The Biography of Gao Jian", the marriage in the Tang Dynasty was: "Marrying must have more goods, so people call it selling marriage".

In the Tang Dynasty, there were restrictions on the marriage of people of different ranks: "Tang Law Shu Yi" said: "People have their own couples, the color must be the same, the good and the low are different, how to marry", that is, everyone should have a spouse, but they must be the right person, since there is a difference between the noble and the low, it is not possible to get married. The Tang law also stipulated that if a lowly person marries a woman from a good family, he will be sentenced to one and a half years in prison. The Tang Dynasty forbade the marriage of close relatives. Tang Dynasty law forbade marrying cousins with the same surname, such as violating the sentence of imprisonment or caning. The Tang Dynasty allowed widows to remarry, and Tang Taizong issued an edict in the first year of Zhenguan: "Women who have passed the period of filial piety can remarry."

It was legal to take concubines in the Tang Dynasty, and the Tang law stipulated that a maidservant girl who was favored by her master and had children could be accepted as a concubine; If the wife is over 50 years old and has no children, the husband may take a concubine.

The marriage system in the Tang Dynasty mainly consisted of three aspects: the conclusion of marriage, the dissolution of marriage, and the restriction of marriage. In terms of the conclusion of marriage, the Tang Law stipulates that "the order of the parents, the words of the matchmaker" and the traditional "six rites" procedure are the necessary conditions for the establishment of marriage, and stipulates the specific conditions for the establishment of marriage, such as "marriage report" and "private contract". In terms of the dissolution of marriage, there were two ways to dissolve marriage in the Tang Dynasty: forced divorce and divorce by agreement. The former is divided into "separation" and "divorce", and divorce by agreement is "divorce".

According to the provisions of the Tang Law, there are two main situations in which the government breaks off, one is "marriage in violation of the law" or "marriage in violation of the law", and the other is the occurrence of "righteous renunciation", which is forcibly dissolved by the government. In terms of restrictions on marriage, it mainly includes restrictions on entering into marriage and restrictions on dissolution of marriage.

The circumstances under which marriage is prohibited in the Tang Law are mainly "marriage in violation of the law" and "marriage in violation of the law", and the restrictions on the dissolution of marriage in the Tang Law are still the traditional "three no-gos".

The wives of the Ming media in the Tang Dynasty had a very high status, and the tradition of male dominance and female dominance has continued to this day.

It is recorded in "The Book of Rites: Duyi": "Probably because of the complicated cost of marriage. I heard that the people married daughters, all of them were prepared, there were hundreds of taels of silver, thousands of taels, and at least hundreds of gold. Even if you sell your land and borrow debts, you have to make up for it. The male family is proud of marrying thickly, and laughing at it if it is thin, and even Aunt Weng treats her daughter-in-law, and loves and hates the thickness of makeup. ”

The Tang Dynasty system was inherited from the previous generation, and the woman spent a lot of money to marry her daughter, and some even sold her land or borrowed debts to marry her daughter, because the amount of the daughter's dowry was related to her status in her husband's family, and the woman with too thin dowry would be despised in her husband's family.

The "Household Order" in the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty: "All should be divided into fields and property, and the brothers should be divided equally." After the death of his father and ancestors, they lived separately, and they were not the same Gong, after three years of self-reliance, and after six years of escape. If there is no father's and ancestor's old field house, mansion, mill, ministry, and women's card, see that it can be divided, and it must not be divided. The wealth of the wife's family is not limited. Although the wife is dead, all the assets and slaves cannot be taken care of by the wife's family. If a brother dies, the son inherits the father's share. The same is true for succession. When all brothers die, the sons are divided equally. If he does not marry a wife, do not marry him. If the aunt or sister is in the room, half of the man's salary will be reduced. If the widow and concubine have no man, the husband shall be divided. If the brothers are all dead, they are the same son. If there is a man, he shall not be divided, and he who is said to be in the husband's house, if he is adapted, he shall not be allowed to pay for the ministry, the slave card, or the farmland, and shall be divided equally."

That is to say, after a woman marries into her husband's family, if her husband who is the spouse is the owner of the property, and when he dies, the wife and concubine have no children, the wife and concubine can inherit all the property of the husband; If the deceased husband is the heir to the estate, the widow and concubine may inherit the husband's share by subrogation, i.e., "equal sharing of the sons" with the husband's other brothers.

If a widow or concubine has a son, the son is subrogated to inherit the father's property, and the wife "has no other share." If the dowry and other property brought by the wife from the mother's family within the same large family has no recourse, the husband inherits all of them.

Of course, the "dowry" that a woman brings to her husband's house when she marries exists as a woman's "private property". When a husband and wife divorce, the husband should return his wife's dowry. What is more humane is that after the husband and wife of the Tang Dynasty divorced, the husband not only sent good wishes to his wife, but also gave his wife food and clothing for three years, which is obviously a little compensation and help from the husband's family to the woman financially.

Zhen Qian got a large amount of property after separating from Zhen's house, a large part of which was left by his mother, that is, the "dowry" brought by his mother when she married into Zhen's house, this part can only be inherited by Zhen Qian and his sister, but because his sister has been married, he has lost the right to inherit.

This huge wealth, including slaves, real estate, land and shops, provided the first pot of gold for Zhen Qian's entrepreneurship.

Zhen Sheng, who did not have to start from scratch, first bought a large amount of land in Sendai Village, Luquan County, plus the inherited land, and is now one of the largest landowners in Sendai Village, with a land area of four or five thousand acres, as well as mountains and forests and lakes.

The feudal "imperial power does not go to the countryside", only the clan under the county, the clans are all autonomous, the autonomy depends on ethics, and ethics creates the squire.

For a feudal dynasty, China's land area was too large and the population was too large, and it was almost impossible for the ancient centralized government to infiltrate the state power into the regional society like the modern state.

When it comes to feudal dynasties, officials will be mentioned, in fact, there is an insurmountable gap between officials and officials, officials must pass the imperial examination, and officials do not need to. The most basic officials, that is, county magistrates, have a population of as few as a few thousand or as many as tens of thousands of households.

Interestingly, in order to avoid suspicion of the prefectural order, it is necessary to avoid the ancestral hometown and go to other places to take office, so the most serious problem faced by the prefectural commander after taking office is the language barrier. At this time, the officials had to rely on the power of the local elites, the officials and the squires, who were in the local society all the year round. The tenure of officials is extremely short, on paper they are changed every three years, but in fact they are transferred every two years on average.

During the tenure of officials, as long as they can ensure that the tax revenue is in place and there is no turmoil/chaos, the others will turn a blind eye. Since the officials were ignorant of local affairs and did not have much interest, the common practice was to "arrange" and cede part of the public power to the officials.

Most of the officials were locals, and unlike the officials, the officials stayed in the same yamen all the year round and assisted different officials. Most of the officials speak official language and can communicate with officials, but they basically have no salary, and can only support themselves through the part of power transferred by officials. For example, suppose the official needs to pay 1,000 taels of silver because he does not understand the local situation, does not know who has money and who does not, and does not understand the language. He had no choice but to cede public power to officials who were familiar with the local society and let him take care of it. As for how to pay these taxes and silver in the future, how much to pay, and how much the officials themselves put in their pockets, these officials will turn a blind eye, as long as the officials can pay 1,000 taels on time, and there will be no turmoil/chaos. At the same time, China's ancient centralized government can basically be regarded as a government with "low taxes and low welfare".

Unlike the feudal countries of Europe and Japan at the same time, China's centralized government had a certain distance from the regional society, and was unwilling to intervene in the regional society unless there were special circumstances. Correspondingly, the proportion of taxes to income was much lower than that of the feudal states of the same period.

Officials rarely go to the countryside, and even taxes are apportioned to the villages, so it is not surprising that it is difficult to notice what is happening in Sendai Village for a while.

Since it is a secret, there will be a day when it will be leaked, but it doesn't matter anymore, soon the Anshi Rebellion will plunge the entire Tang Dynasty into chaos, and who will notice what happened in the small Sendai Village.