明代“农民”新考

A New Study on“Peasant”in the Ming Dynasty

农民作为传统“四民”之一,向来指从事耕稼的百姓。不过,在明代,由于官府胥吏是从识字的农民中佥充,导致后来“农民”概念出现了分化。在赋役制度中,“农民”常常专指那些识字、可以佥充为胥吏的群体,与一般种地的“农夫”有区别。到了明代中后期,随着“捐吏”的普遍化,“农民”逐渐与“胥吏”群体合流,并一度成为胥吏代名词。明末小说中对于“报做农民”避之不及的态度,为我们重新审视明代胥吏提供了另一种视角。而“农民”一词的演变,也成为了明代“配户当差”赋役制度的一个注脚。

As one of the traditional Four People,the peasants have always referred to people engaged in cultivating crops.However,the concept of peasant was later divided in the Ming Dynasty because government staff were appointed from the literate peasants.In the land tax and corvée service system,the peasants often referred exclusively to those who could read and write and could be legitimately filled as government staff,as opposed to the general peasants who cultivated the land.In the middle and late Ming Dynasty,with the generalization of the donation of Xuli,the peasants gradually merged with the group of Xuli and became a synonym for Xuli.The attitude of avoiding“reporting to the peasants”in the novels of the late Ming Dynasty provided another perspective for us to re-examine the Xuli of the Ming Dynasty.The evolution of the term“peasant”also became a footnote to the land tax and corvée service system of the Ming Dynasty.