What are the commercial activities in the Northern Song Dynasty?

The Song Dynasty was one of the most active periods in China's ancient economic legislation. Moreover, the economic laws and regulations of the Song Dynasty unified the distribution of interests between the state and economic activists, which conformed to the laws of commodity economy and was a very scientific law. These correct policy orientations have enabled the commercial tide to flourish, the commerce and trade to develop rapidly, and the handicraft industry to develop rapidly, making the Song Dynasty the earliest banknote (jiaozi) bank in the world, which is unique! Even banks can make loans and pay in different places, which is a very advanced economic management system even in modern times. Geographically, the development of the Song Dynasty was not limited to the established areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Sichuan, and the social, economic and cultural development in mountainous areas and ethnic minority areas was also greater than that in the Tang Dynasty, which is also surprising. From handicraft industry, mine mining, tea salt, shipbuilding, paper making, sugar making, textile, porcelain making and so on. Much more advanced than the Tang Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, the handicraft industry not only expanded its production area and increased its output, but also improved its technology significantly. For example, the production technology of "sugar ice" (rock candy), the excavation of "single-barrel well" and the sophistication of Song porcelain all reflect the maturity and innovation of technology, while the rise of commerce and handicraft industry has liberated a large number of farmers who have been captured on the land and put them into business. Handicraft began to mine a large number of gold, silver, copper, iron, coal and other mineral deposits in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, which first appeared in all parts of the country in the history of the world. Such as shipyards, paper mills, printing houses, weaving mills, firearms factories and official kilns in various places. It can be seen that the prosperity of handicraft industry at that time was unprecedented! As early as the Northern Song Dynasty, China knew how to employ hundreds of full-time industrial workers in coal burning, steelmaking and large-scale handicrafts. And the government's two military industries employ 8 thousand workers-this is already the scale of heavy industry! Taking 1078 as an example, the annual output of iron and steel industry in northern China reached1250,000 tons, while that in Britain was only 76,000 tons at the beginning of the industrial revolution. In addition, mining and metallurgy, paper making, porcelain making, silk weaving and navigation are also well developed. The Song Dynasty was truly a "high-tech" home before modern times. It was also the overlord of the world handicraft industry at that time! From the commercial point of view, cities in the Tang Dynasty tended to be administrative centers, while towns in the Song Dynasty tended to be industrial and commercial. The trading areas in the Tang Dynasty were strictly controlled by officials, while in the Song Dynasty, they were more free. Due to the further development of commodity economy, the breakthrough of "housing system" and the rise of market towns, the boundary between residential areas and commercial areas has gradually disappeared. In the Song Dynasty, some of these "new" cities developed to a considerable scale. For example, Kaifeng and Hangzhou have reached a population of one million, and the latter is an "unprecedented" city that Kelpolo saw in the early Yuan Dynasty. Even at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the largest city outside China was Baghdad, with a population of only 300,000 to 500,000. Hundreds of years later, the Arab traveler Ibn Betuta also called Hangzhou "the world". The population engaged in industry and commerce is gradually increasing, the output is increasing, and the investment capital is greatly expanded. Therefore, it is not only agriculture that constitutes the main body of national fiscal revenue. The proportion of industry and commerce has surpassed that of agriculture, and advertisements printed on copper plates have appeared in its commercial operation, which is more than 300 years earlier than advertisements of western capitalism. As far as bachelor Su Dongpo is concerned, he once wrote an advertisement poem for an old woman who cooked oil, which made it prosperous. More interestingly, in the Song Dynasty, there were tabloids similar to modern newspapers and the earliest trademarks in history. The small trademark is of great significance, which marks the gradual improvement of the commercialization system in Song Dynasty. In addition, On the Velocity of Money Circulation written by Shen Kuo, a famous scholar, also reached the level of modern monetary theory, which was a powerful commercial wave in the Song Dynasty and the earliest mother of capitalism in the world. The rapid economic development in the Song Dynasty created unprecedented wealth and prosperity.