说“九品混通”——附说陶渊明“不为五斗米折腰”

“九品混通”是西晋赋税的征收方法,与户分九等的户品制和《户调式》相互协调、配合。《户调式》,赋税的“标准样”,包括一个“一夫一妻占田百亩”的“户样”,即“标准户”,以及“标准户”交纳百亩之半的赋税额而构成的“赋税标准额样”:租四斛、绢三匹、绵三斤。“标准样”是划分户等时比照和折算的基样,“依样”定户上下为九等,每等税额各有差,但一等户和九等户(二等和八等、三等和七等、四等和六等)交纳税额相加再平均,仍然相当于“标准户”交纳的“标准赋税额”,这是“九品混通”的基本意思。“五斗米”,汉末魏晋时户等租差数额、赋税征收的最低租额、最低的加“俸”租额。不大的数额,却经常使用,十分流行并为人们所熟知。陶渊明借用“五斗米”这一广为流行的术语来比喻县令薪俸的不足道,“不为五斗米折腰”是说“不为当一个小小县令,拿那么一点薪俸而向乡里小人折腰”。

An interpretation of "Jiupinhuntong" and Tao Yuanming's "never bow down to five dou of rice"

Jiupinhuntong" was the way of levying land and other taxes in the Western Jin Dynasty. The implementation was to classify all families into nine degrees, and took the fifth degree as the levying criteria. The amount of half the taxes paid by a first-degree and a ninth-degree families( or by a second-degree and an eighth-degree, a third-degree and a seventh- degree, a fourth-degree and a sixth-degree families), equaled to the amount of taxes that a fifth-degree family paid. "Five dou of rice" was the lowest amount of taxes levied in the late Han dynasty, and in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Though it was the tax difference between degrees it was not a very big amount. Tao Yuanming used "five dou of rice" as a figure of speech to indicate that the pay a county magistrate received was too small to strive for. His famous line "never bow down to five dou of rice" means he would not yield to disloyal and cunning officials because of his private interst.