Charity is a long tradition of our people. Friendship and mutual assistance between us are voluntary acts of giving love and helping others. Moreover, charity has existed since ancient times. The names of charities in ancient China are different, and the sources of charitable funds also come from folk and royal behaviors.

In fact, the best charity in ancient times was social relief. When we watch some TV dramas, some foreign public servants and officials often come to deliver porridge. These are also charitable acts voluntarily done by some rich people and officials. The earliest philanthropy in China can actually be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty, and this traditional virtue has a long history. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, more attention was paid to social relief, and those princes and princes also paid attention to charity work. According to Zuo Zhuan, He Lv, the king of Wu, visited the people in the disaster area every time he encountered natural or man-made disasters, to appease them and help some poor households. During the reign of Emperor Xian of Han Dynasty, they also arranged for their ministers to cook porridge for the victims. Folk porridge is also common. In the seventh year of Taihe in the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 483), there was a famine in Jizhou and Dingzhou, and the local sages "lived on porridge". According to the biography of Emperor Wen of Shu Weixiao, this saved hundreds of thousands of people.

Moreover, in addition to porridge, the ancients also made some other main contents of charity. Provide basic medical services for the victims, the elderly, the sick and the disabled. Every period, every dynasty has this kind of charity behavior, and we can't help but give an example. However, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the organization of folk charity was further expanded, which was of course related to the sufficient economic resources of everyone. We see that there are many villages in TV series, which are actually charities. Guild halls set up by Huizhou merchants often include "funeral homes", "righteous graves" and "righteous villages" to provide free services for the dead and patients. In addition to individual voluntary donations, these funds also obtain funds through sharing and commission extraction. Of course, most of the commissions are also workshop businessmen.

In addition to folk charity, ancient charities were mostly done by temples and specialized agencies set up by the government, and some also formed systems to start relief mechanisms regularly or in emergencies. After reading these, do you know how ancient charitable funds came from?