Ancient Crafts & Commercial Development Causes and Effects

I. Causes?

1, political aspects:

National unity, social stability to lay the foundation for economic development.

2. Economic aspects:

The high development of agriculture and handicrafts provided a solid material foundation for the development of commerce.

3. State policy:

The relatively liberal policy of the rulers relaxed the restrictions on commodity trading.

4. Transportation:

The convenience of land and water transportation facilitated the development of foreign trade.?

5. Finance:

The emergence of monetary and financial institutions contributed to the prosperity of commerce.

2. Impact

1. Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period:

Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period by the government control of the commercial situation was broken, the emergence of many commodity markets and merchants.

2. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, business has been difficult to develop:

The Qin and Han Dynasties practiced a policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, and business was limited by time and place, so the overall level of business was not high. But there is still some development, "the law is cheap merchants, merchants have been rich."

3, sui and tang dynasties commercial development:

(1) diyi store in the major commercial cities continue to organize, urban business continues to develop;

(2) rural market trade also developed, appeared in the grass market;

(3) appeared in the cabinet workshop and fly money. Ark Square was the earliest form of banking in China, and Flying Money was similar to bills of exchange in later times;

(3) Prosperity of cities: Chang'an, Luoyang, Yizhou, Yangzhou;

(4) Development of the market: in cities, the "city" (commercial area: Chang'an had an east market and a west market) and the "workshop" (residential area) were separated, and commerce was subject to spatial restrictions. Residential areas) were separated, and commerce was limited by space;

(5) "The market was in the middle of the day", and commerce was limited by time;

(6) Foreign trade: Guangzhou became a port for foreign trade, and the Tang Dynasty set up a city ambassador.

4, Song and Yuan commercial prosperity

(1) performance:

1) urban prosperity, completely breaking the "city" "neighborhood" boundaries (this is the biggest difference between the Sui and Tang cities and Song and Yuan cities). "grass market" is more common, commercial activities are not limited by space;

② appeared "morning market", "night market", commercial activities are not limited by time;

②The emergence of "morning markets" and "night markets";

③The rapid increase in the variety of commercial exchanges and the introduction of many agricultural and handicraft products into the market;

④The emergence of the world's earliest banknotes and the popularization of coins;

⑤The emergence of places of entertainment, such as the Hooker's House and the Wah Wah Restaurant;

6The development of trade, such as the development of border and overseas trade.

(2) the reasons for the unprecedented prosperity of commerce in the Song and Yuan dynasties:

① the end of the division of the Song Dynasty and the completion of the unification of the Yuan Dynasty provided the conditions for economic development;

② the high degree of development of agriculture and handicrafts, which provided a solid material foundation for the prosperity of commerce;

3 ZF gradually relaxed the restrictions on commodity trading;

④ the convenience of land and water transportation was conducive to the development of foreign trade;

6 facilitated the development of foreign trade;

⑤ the emergence and application of paper money contributed to the prosperity of commerce.

(3) The performance of the "Commercial Revolution" in the Song Dynasty:

①the development of commodity economy reached an unprecedented height;

②the boundaries of towns and cities were completely broken down, and the population of cities surged;

③the rise of commercial centers;

④the flourishing of overseas trade;

⑤paper money - a form of paper money, which was the most popular form of currency in the world.

⑤ The emergence of paper money, the cross-currency.

(4) The reasons why the Song Dynasty's "commercial revolution" failed to have an "explosive impact" on Chinese society:

①The traditional natural economy prevented the germination of new relations of production;

②The policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce hindered the development of commerce. The strengthening of authoritarianism and centralization of power made the localities lack of autonomy;

3) the conservatism of the science of reasoning (the survival of heaven's reasoning, the extinction of man's desire; the emphasis on righteousness and not on profit) made the social ideology confined to rigidity;

4) China was a continental civilization and lacked the aggressive spirit of the oceanic civilization.

Expanded information:

I. Heavy agriculture and suppression of commerce

1, the policy introduction

In the two thousand years of China's long feudal history. "Agricultural and commercial" policy has always been accompanied by history.

It arose in the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period when the feudal system was consolidated, and developed in the Qin and Han periods when the feudal system flourished, and then it was inherited by the later dynasties. In the Middle Ages, China was an oriental, authoritarian, feudal and agricultural empire similar to those of Persia, Burma, India, and Egypt, which was very different from those of Europe and America.

Successive feudal dynasties emphasized the importance of agriculture.

The adoption of such a policy by the Chinese feudal society was ultimately determined by its economic base. The economic basis of the feudal state was a self-sufficient natural economy, and the main sector of this economy was agriculture.

Agriculture was the decisive sector of production in ancient times, providing people with the most basic means of subsistence. Successive rulers took agriculture as a fundamental matter and adopted a series of measures to supervise, encourage, and organize agricultural production, which bound the peasants tightly to the land.

2, the reason

The agricultural policy and the feudal system has always been is by no means accidental, but the inevitable product of the feudal natural economy. What kind of economic policy is practiced by a country or a regime is in the final analysis determined by its economic base.

The economic foundation of Chinese feudal society was the natural economy of self-sufficiency, so successive rulers took the development of agriculture as the "foundation of the country" and treated industry and commerce as the "last industry" to be suppressed.

In fact, caused by the Chinese feudal society for a long time "agriculture and business" is the root cause of China's "closed continent" of the unique geographical environment. "The main body of the Chinese nation has been living in the Yellow River and Yangtze River Basin since ancient times.

About 6,000 years ago, the Chinese people gradually got rid of the hunting and gathering economy, and entered the primitive agricultural economy, which was mainly based on planting. The continent where the ancestors labored, lived and prospered was bordered by the sea in the east, the Gobi in the northwest, and the extremely treacherous Tibetan Plateau in the southwest.

On the eve of entering the threshold of civilization, under the condition of extremely inconvenient transportation, this was an isolated world, similar to the Indian subcontinent. Until the Opium War in 1840, the Chinese knew little about the outside world.

The predominantly primitive agricultural economy in such an environment is the baseline for recognizing the development of China from a clan society into a state." (From Wang Limin's A History of the Chinese Legal System) Obviously, this was a very different geographic environment from the Mediterranean region, the birthplace of Western civilization.

Second, Ancient Chinese Folk Crafts

In the feudal society, folk crafts provided a certain amount of necessities and basic production tools for the society, which, together with agriculture, created China's splendid ancient civilization with numerous inventions and exquisite handcrafts.

And it also promoted the development of social division of labor, commodity and monetary relations, and even the entire social economy. By the late feudal period, the embryo of capitalist production relations had begun to be nurtured in the folk handicraft industry.

But its development was at the same time severely restricted by the feudal economic relations. Within the folk handicraft industry, there were also still problems such as craftsmen's adherence to rules and regulations, the blocking of technology, the bondage of the late guilds, and the feudal exploitation and oppression within the large-scale workshops, which stifled technological progress and hindered the development of the folk handicraft industry.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Heavy Agriculture and Suppression of Commerce

Baidu Encyclopedia - Ancient Chinese Folk Crafts