The housing supply in the capital was already very tight, and the nobles and big businessmen took the opportunity to stock up, which further caused the housing shortage. As long as new houses were built, according to the laws of the Tang dynasty, the nobles and the rich couldn't buy them. Even if each person bought a hundred houses, it was still reasonable.
In order to solve the difficult problem of poor people living in the capital, the imperial court originally planned to set the rental prices in different areas. For example, a house in the south of the city could only be rented for 500 copper coins a month, and a house outside the city could only be rented for 300 copper coins a month at most. However, as the housing prices continued to rise, this rule was immediately met with strong opposition from the nobles and big businessmen.
This was because the houses they bought cost a lot of money. If the rent was so little, it would take three to five hundred years to recoup the cost. How could they tolerate this? According to the thinking of ordinary investors, recouping the cost in three to five years was the most they liked. Twenty years was already the limit. If it took two hundred years to recoup the cost, they would absolutely not tolerate it. With such a low price, they would rather not rent it than rent it to the poor.
Therefore, the imperial court could only give in. Otherwise, these nobles would unite and not rent a single house. They would leave all the houses idle, leaving the poor with no place to live.
However, even if the price was increased, it was impossible for these nobles and big businessmen to recoup the cost quickly. This was because the income of ordinary poor people was there. No matter how expensive the house was, there was a limit to the rent, which was one-third to one-half of the poor people's income. If the rent was higher, the poor people would rather leave the capital and return to their hometown than work for the landlords in the capital.
Because they understood the bottom line of the poor, these nobles and big businessmen who had houses in their hands would set the rent at about half of the poor people's income. Those who had a conscience would set the rent at one-third. This was the limit that the poor people could bear, and it undoubtedly brought great pressure to the poor people.
According to Li An's understanding, one-fifth to one-tenth of one's income was a relatively small amount of pressure to pay the rent. It was only ten to twenty percent of one's income. More than thirty percent was already very high. Once it reached fifty percent, it would be a very huge burden. In Beijing, some of the more expensive houses would cost seventy percent of an ordinary poor person's income. This pressure could be imagined. Of course, there were also some poor people who had a slightly higher income. For the poor people with a slightly higher income, these high prices might only be thirty percent of their income, which was barely bearable.
In any case, due to the existence of high rent, it brought a heavy burden to the ordinary poor people who came to the capital to work. This made the ordinary poor people who were full of hope feel extremely disappointed.
Some of the officials who sympathized with the poor were also thinking of ways to solve the problem of the poor people renting houses. For this, they came up with a lot of ideas. In the end, the most feasible one was for the imperial court to build cheap rental houses and rent them to the poor people with low incomes. This method was very good at avoiding the interference of the nobles and big merchants. It was a good way to solve the problem of the poor people living in the city.
However, once the rental houses provided by the imperial court were released in large quantities, the houses hoarded by the nobles and merchants wouldn't be as valuable anymore. For this reason, all kinds of obstructions were naturally endless.
In addition to the delays and obstructions in the procedures, they even instigated the poor people whose land was taken back to cause trouble and demanded higher compensation. This brought a lot of resistance to the construction of cheap rental houses, which greatly slowed down the construction of cheap rental houses.
And even if the cheap rental houses were built, they didn't forget to take advantage of them. Although the imperial court stipulated that only the poor people of low status could rent cheap rental houses, and the nobles and big merchants didn't have the qualifications to rent them, how could this be difficult for these old foxes?
Although the nobles and big merchants were very rich, they had many poor servants in their mansions. There were a lot of male and female servants who lived in the servants' rooms in their mansions and were responsible for serving them. However, if the nobles let these servants rent houses, it was also in accordance with the imperial court's regulations. After these servants rented houses, they definitely wouldn't move in. They would still live in the nobles' mansions, and the empty rented houses would be sublet to the poor people who didn't have a house. From this, they would earn a small amount of money. If there were a hundred servants in the manor, it would be a considerable amount of wealth.
With regards to this kind of opportunistic behavior, the imperial court was helpless. Although it wasn't too difficult to obtain evidence, when the imperial court first formulated the policy, they didn't consider this point. Therefore, they didn't stipulate that subletting was not allowed. Thus, these people took advantage of this loophole. In addition, these people's status wasn't low. If they really wanted to punish them, the relevant departments really didn't have the guts to do so. If they offended some big Buddha, it wouldn't be a joke.
In short, the imperial court could be considered to have done its best, but this old problem couldn't be solved. No matter what policy the imperial court proposed, it would immediately encounter all kinds of obstructions. These vested interests didn't care about the lives of the common people. They only cared about their own interests. As long as their interests were protected, even if the common people all slept on the road, they wouldn't care.
Humans were selfish. The nobles and big merchants were the same. They wouldn't consider what a person who had nothing was like. It was as if a peasant should live on the main road or sleep under a bridge. Or, they could give them all the money and let the nobles give them a place to live. In this way, the poor should be grateful.
A lot of the open space outside the city was occupied, but there were still many open spaces without any buildings. As long as enough buildings were built on these open spaces, they would be able to solve the problem of living.
Unfortunately, the resistance from the imperial court was too great. There were too many vested interests. Every time they allocated land, they would be obstructed and delayed. This greatly slowed down the construction of cheap rental houses.
Ang Lee was worried about the current situation in the capital. If this situation was allowed to continue, it would definitely be very inappropriate. The greater the gap between the rich and the poor, the more chaotic society would be. This could be seen from the gradual increase in evil incidents in the capital in the past few years.
Some officials attributed the increase in evil incidents to the increase in the capital's population, or to a constable in charge of arresting thieves. They tried to cover up a huge fact, which was that the gap between the rich and the poor in the capital was too big. The rapid increase in all kinds of evil incidents had a lot to do with the continued expansion of the gap between the rich and the poor, as well as the difficult lives of the poor.
Ang Lee also personally went to check the files of many criminals and found that there were many thieves' confessions. They said that their lives were too difficult and they couldn't survive anymore. The money they earned from working was not enough to pay the rent. Because stealing money was fast and could allow them to live a better life, they went to steal. They didn't expect to be caught, and they regretted it very much. They hoped that the imperial court would give them a chance to turn over a new leaf.
The confessions of these cases could explain the problem very well. They could prove that the rising evil incidents in the capital had a lot to do with the gap between the rich and the poor, and the high rent was a very important factor that affected the gap between the rich and the poor. The high rent further increased the gap between the rich and the poor in the capital, causing the poor who couldn't afford to buy a house to become poorer and poorer. All of their income, excluding the high rent and daily expenses, would be gone at the end of the month. In other words, the existence of the high rent had robbed all of the remaining wealth of the poor. The poor spent half of their income, and the remaining half had to be paid for rent. Even if they could save a pitiful amount of money, they would be left with nothing because of occasional accidents.
Therefore, solving the housing problem in the capital was an urgent matter. Otherwise, all kinds of evil incidents would continue to rise, and this was obviously not in line with the imperial court's expectations. Many nobles could not see the high incidence of these evil incidents, but they were unwilling to give up their own vested interests. They forced themselves to push the responsibility of the high incidence of evil incidents to some petty officials, and the population of the capital continued to increase. Anyway, the nobles and big businessmen were surrounded by many people when they went out. The chances of them being robbed were not very high, so they were not worried about their own safety. On the contrary, many poor people who were already very poor would be robbed.
In the movies and TV series of later generations, they preferred to depict the great image of a hero who robbed the rich to help the poor. However, in the capital of the Tang dynasty, there were many robbers and thieves, but there was no such thing as a hero who robbed the rich to help the poor. They mainly stole and robbed poor people like themselves. The chances of the rich and the nobles being robbed were very small, and it would only happen once in a while.
Chivalrous heroes only existed in many works. Generally, thieves and robbers did illegal things for their own enjoyment. There was no such thing as robbing the rich for the slums. The stories in the martial arts world were all lies. It was too rare in real life.
At least, in the capital of the Tang dynasty, there was no such thing as a hero at all. There were only bandits who stole and robbed the poor. Moreover, the proportion of these guys was getting higher and higher, casting a shadow on the future development of the capital.
Ang Lee was quite anxious about this. Although he did not have to worry about food and drink, there were still so many poor people who lived so poorly. If this problem was not solved, even if there were bodyguards around him every day, he would not be able to live in peace. As the saying goes, "Don't be afraid of thieves stealing, but be afraid of thieves remembering." Only living in an environment where everyone was full of kindness could one live happily.
Before, Ang Lee had thought of a lot of ways, but due to the various obstacles of vested interests, the development of things was not very smooth. In other words, there was no good solution to this problem. Even with the continuous influx of people, the situation became worse.
This required Ang Lee to come up with better and more effective ways to solve the problems encountered.
Sometimes, Ang Lee also had doubts. Since the rent in the capital was so expensive, half of the income earned from working was used to pay the rent, then why were these original workers unwilling to leave the capital? Returning to their hometown, living in their own house, planting some food, and raising some livestock, wasn't this kind of life quite good? Why did they have to come to the capital to suffer? Wasn't this asking for it?
Ang Lee had already consulted a few men about this problem a few days ago. It turned out that their hometown was not easy to survive. With the high production of food, the price had fallen all the way. Coupled with the low price of the vendors, the food that was finally sold was not worth much. In addition to food, they also needed oil, salt, and seasonings. They also needed to buy clothes. If they were sick, they also needed to buy medicine. If the food that was sold was not valuable, it would be difficult to buy these.
In addition, as a farmer, it was better during the day. There were green mountains and clear waters everywhere, but once it was night time, it was dark everywhere. It was very boring. Other than counting the stars, there was no entertainment at all. Life was very difficult. If a person could not experience joy in life, then what was the point of living?
On the other hand, the capital was different. Not only was it bustling with traffic during the day, but it was also decorated with lanterns and streamers at night. Not only was the interior of the city brightly lit, but there were also many places outside the city that were brightly lit. There were also countless entertainment activities. Even if one didn't participate in it personally, as long as one watched others play, it was also a different kind of enjoyment.
In short, life in the countryside was too boring. As long as one had been to the capital, they would be attracted by the prosperity of the capital and would not be willing to return to the countryside where they grew up.
As for their income, it was too little, and half of it was taken away by the rent. The remaining was only enough to spend, and there was almost no surplus. It was not much different from when they were in the countryside, and there was even a little surplus. Although there was dissatisfaction and resentment in their hearts, they were unwilling to leave the bustling city and return to the countryside where they could only count the stars when it was dark.
To put it simply, many poor people were still enduring. They slowly endured in the big city of the capital. As long as they could survive, they were unwilling to give up their life in the capital. Even if they were exploited until they were only left with their underwear, they were unwilling to leave easily. It was as if as long as they stayed in the capital, they were superior to the people in their hometown. Just like some people in the city, they would rather sleep in coffins than leave the city and live in the vast world of the countryside.
Sometimes, people were so strange. They always liked to live in bustling places and were unwilling to live in places closer to nature. They would rather be a watchdog in the city than be a proud wolf king in the jungle.
Of course, it was precisely because many people were willing to stay in the city. No matter how difficult it was, they were willing to spend their time in the city. To a certain extent, this added a lot of strength to the prosperity of the city. It was a living person who added a continuous stream of moving forward to the prosperity of the city.
In short, although the capital was full of tricks, the roads in the countryside were also slippery. It was not so easy to survive. In order to survive, many people endured as much as they could. As long as they could barely make ends meet, they did not dare to consider the quality of life. In the hearts of the poor, living was victory.
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