How did the economy of the Tang Dynasty develop?

Promotion of Iron Cattle Plowing One of the important reasons for the rapid development of agriculture in the Tang Dynasty was the further promotion of iron plows and cattle plowing. In the Yellow River basin and even in the present Gansu and Xinjiang regions, iron plows and oxen plowing have been commonly used in agricultural production. About this situation not only in the literature, in some tombs and Dunhuang, Yulin Grottoes, many murals "oxen plowing map", are reflected. Most of them are two oxen lifting the bar, with a long single straight yoke plow; a few with a cow plowing, plow has a double long straight yoke, there are also short curved yoke. Plow are made of iron, more use of plow wall (鐴 soil). At this time in the south of the Yangtze River also promoted oxen plowing, and the use of curved yoke plows. (Tang) Lu Guimeng "Lei 耜经" recorded in detail the Jiangdong (now Jiangnan) used the structure and use of the efficacy of the curved plow. The curved plough is lighter than the straight plough, and the plough shaft is bowed to facilitate deep plowing; the traction point is low, and the plough frame is smooth; the plough shaft is shortened, and it is convenient to turn around. This is the most advanced type of ancient walking plow. But at that time, the use of this plow is very few, to use two oxen to lift the bar for the most. According to the literature and archaeological data proved that this time, the frontier areas are also promoting the iron plow cattle plowing.

Water conservancy Tang Dynasty water conservancy has developed greatly. Tang early in the record of the important water conservancy project has more than 160 places. Spread in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in the north and south, south to the Huai Shui and Yangtze River Basin. General canals and ponds, can irrigate hundreds of hectares of fields. Such as the Kaiyuan in Wenshui (now belongs to Shanxi) by repairing the Ganquan canal, irrigating thousands of hectares of fields. In pengshan (now sichuan meixian), wuling (now changde, hunan province) the weir canal, each irrigated field more than a thousand hectares.

The use of irrigation tools have also made progress, such as windlass, water pulley, turning the car and other traditional water-drawing tools, has been widely used. In addition, there are some new irrigation tools in the Jiangnan paddy field area, the main ones are waterwheel and tube car. Waterwheel and tube car is similar, are with a huge wooden wheel bound a number of barrels or bamboo tubes on the wheel, rotating with the current, will be drawn to the river water in the high trough, introduced into the ditch watering. Waterwheel in the north has also been promoted. Water pestle, water mill, water mill is also in widespread use.

The development of water conservancy has played an important role in the development of agricultural production and food processing.

Reclamation and production In the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, many fields were deserted, and then gradually reclaimed. By the Tianbao years, many high mountains and deep valleys were also reclaimed, reclaiming an area of 8.5 million hectares. Grain output also increased. In the eighth year of Tianbao, the official warehouse stored 96 million stones of grain. In the area of Qingzhou and Qizhou, the price of rice was only five cents per bucket at the lowest.

2. Handicrafts

The handicrafts of the Tang Dynasty could be divided into governmental and private ones.

Government-run handicrafts Government-run handicrafts occupied an important position in the handicrafts of the Tang Dynasty. The highest organization in charge of the central government-run handicrafts is the Ministry of Industry. The products of the government-run handicraft industry are generally not sold in the market, only for the royal family and the government consumption. The laborers in the government-run handicraft industry were craftsmen, criminal, official slave girl, official households, miscellaneous households and so on. The government handicraft industry is larger, the division of labor is more detailed, and the best craftsmen engaged in production, is conducive to the development of production and technical improvement. However, the mandatory labor of the government-run handicraft industry was prominent, which bound the labor enthusiasm of the craftsmen.

Private Handicrafts Private handicrafts were mainly cottage industries in the countryside, and their products were sold in the market when there was surplus for their own use after paying taxes. Most of the workshops were concentrated in the cities, including paper workshops, felt workshops, wine workshops, copper workshops, dyeing workshops, damask workshops, etc. Some of the workshops were very large in scale. Some workshops were very large in scale, such as He Mingyuan, a rich man in Dingzhou (present-day Ding County, Hebei Province), whose "family had a damask machine with 500 sheets". ①The development of private handicrafts was seriously hampered by the government's conscription of craftsmen to serve in government workshops.

Major Crafts Sections The major crafts in the early Tang Dynasty included textiles, ceramics, and mining and metallurgy.

The textile industry was most important in silk weaving and hemp weaving. The main production area of silk fabrics is still in the area of present-day Hebei and Henan. The main varieties of silk, damask, brocade, Luo, qi, yarn, etc., with a wide variety of colors, exquisite patterns, bright colors, and exquisite weaving. The vast majority of cloth produced at that time was hemp cloth, hemp fabrics produced in the south, Huangzhou (present-day Huanggang, Hubei Province) of the cost of cloth is one of the top quality. Woolen fabrics were mainly produced in the northwest. Cotton fabrics were mainly produced in Gaochang (present-day Turpan, Xinjiang) and Lingnan. At that time, cotton cloth was called white folding cloth, which was already sold in the mainland. Printing and dyeing technology in the Tang Dynasty also reached a fairly high level, clip val, wax val, twisted val and other printing and dyeing methods are widely popular, printing and dyeing patterns are very beautiful.

The ceramics industry had great development in the Tang Dynasty, and the technology of making porcelain also had great progress. Yuezhou (today's Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province) of celadon jade-like ice, Xingzhou (today's Xingtai, Hebei Province) of white porcelain silver-like snow, Changnan Town (today's Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province) of celadon, white porcelain, Danyi, Sichuan, white porcelain, are very famous. Pottery to Tang Sancai is the most famous. This is a kind of vivid shape, colorful lead-glazed pottery, because the main green, green and yellow, so the name of the three colors.

The Tang Dynasty mining industry is relatively developed, the main minerals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, alum, mercury, cinnabar and so on. The scale of the foundry industry to cast money industry. When Emperor Xuanzong, the government had ninety-nine money casting furnaces, casting 327,000 coins of money each year. In addition, there are many private individuals to steal the casting of money. The metal manufacturing and processing technology of the Tang Dynasty had reached a fairly high level. Wu Zetian had cast a hundred and five-foot-high heavenly pivot in Luoyang, under which there was a hundred and seventy-foot iron mountain around. Sheng Tang's some exquisite gold and silver, using casting, cutting, polishing, welding, riveting, plating, engraving and other processes. Simple lathes with hand-cranked foot pedals may have been available at that time.

3. Commerce and transportation

Tang pre-Tang, with the development of agriculture and handicrafts, commerce and transportation also developed rapidly.

Commercial and bazaar At that time, the city is still mainly political cities, purely commercial cities are very few, but all political cities are in varying degrees of rapid increase in the nature of commercial cities. The capital Chang'an was both the political center of the country and the largest commercial city. The city of Chang'an was surrounded by more than seventy miles and consisted of three parts, including the Palace City, the Imperial City, and the Outer Kuo Cheng. The outer city is a residential and industrial and commercial area, **** there are one hundred and eight square and the east and west of the two cities. Square is a residential area, the city is an industrial and commercial area. Stores selling goods in the city were called "wares", and wares of the same kind of goods were concentrated in the same area and called "lines". In the East City, there were 220 rows and thousands of wagons, surrounded by many diyang (邸店) that stored and wholesaled goods for merchants. The West City was more prosperous than the East City, and foreign merchants gathered there, and the "Hu Feng" was very prosperous. At that time, there were cities in all major cities and states, as well as in most counties. In the countryside, there were also regular trading places, called "grass markets", "markets", or "bazaars".

Domestic transportation Transportation in the Tang Dynasty was quite developed. Domestic land transportation to Chang'an as the center, east to Song (now Henan Shangqiu), Bian (now Kaifeng), as far as the Shandong Peninsula; west to Qizhou (now Shaanxi Fengxiang), Chengdu; northwest to Liangzhou (now Gansu Wuwei), as far as the Western Region; north to Taiyuan, Fanyang (now Beijing); south to Jing (now Hubei Jiangling), Xiang (now Xiangfan), as far as Guangzhou. Domestic waterway transportation has the Grand Canal through the north and south, the Yellow River, the Huaihe River, the Yangtze River and many rivers and lakes in the south to form a crisscrossing network of waterways. Domestic maritime transportation is also beginning to take shape, now Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and other places have coastal routes.

The Tang Dynasty stagecoach system also has great development. In the main land and water transportation routes, about every thirty miles set up a post, the country **** there are one thousand six hundred and forty-three post, of which one thousand two hundred and ninety-seven land post, two hundred and sixty water post, both land and water post eighty-six. The land posts were equipped with horses and the water posts were equipped with boats for the transportation of officials and documents. In the land and water transportation routes, there are also privately owned inns, receiving merchants, providing food, lodging and horses.

Foreign transportation Tang and foreign transportation is also very developed. The main transportation routes are the northwest land route and the southeast coast of the sea. Land from Luoyang, Chang'an through the Hexi Corridor, the Western Region, to Central Asia, West Asia, South Asia and Europe, which is the history of the famous "Silk Road". Southeast sea route from Guangzhou, Yangzhou, Dengzhou (present-day Penglai, Shandong Province), Chuzhou (present-day Huai'an, Jiangsu Province), Mingzhou (present-day Ningbo, Zhejiang Province) and other ports of Southeast Asia, as well as Silla, Japan, Persia, and Daqi and other countries.

Late Tang

Late Tang, the southern shipbuilding industry is very developed. The government-run shipbuilding industry was large in scale. Liu Yan had built more than 2,000 ships in Yangzi County (present-day Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province). Civilians also made a lot of large ships, the famous Yu Daniang sailing ship, loaded with tens of thousands of stones. Overseas trade in the merchant ships, the big one up to more than 20 feet long, carrying six or seven hundred passengers. In the Jingnan area, but also appeared with the foot moving two wheels forward ship.

The paper industry in the late Tang Dynasty is more developed than in the early Tang Dynasty, the important origin in the south. Hemp paper from Yizhou, rattan paper from Zhedong, bamboo paper from Shaozhou, yi paper from Xuanzhou, liuhe paper from Yangzhou, and slippery thin paper from Linchuan were all famous products.

The tea industry developed greatly in the late Tang Dynasty. Tea planting throughout the south, tea industry has a considerable scale. Such as Shezhou Qimen County, seven or eight of ten people to plant tea, tea industry. Tang Dezong, began to collect tea tax, tea tax later became an important government tax. Emperor Xianzong, only a county of floating Liang annual tea tax of more than 150,000 coins. In the tea industry continues to develop, the Tang Lu Yu wrote the book "Tea Classic", describing the traits of tea, quality, origin, harvesting and drinking methods and utensils, this is our country is also the world's first monograph on tea.

The late Tang Dynasty saw great commercial development, and the development of commerce in the south was particularly remarkable. The cities in the Yangtze River basin were more numerous and prosperous than before. Yangzhou was a distribution center for canalized rice, sea salt, tea, etc.; many foreign merchants from Da Yi, Persia, and other countries dealt with jewelry and other luxury goods here, and commerce flourished. Yizhou (now Chengdu, Sichuan Province) is the political and economic center of the southwest, the southwest production of silk fabrics, salt, paper, porcelain, etc., more than this exported to foreign countries, business is also very prosperous. So at that time, the proverb said "Yang Yi two". That is, Yangzhou is the first in the world, Yizhou is the second. Hongzhou (now Nanchang, Jiangxi Province), Ezhou (now Wuhan, Hubei Province) are prosperous cities in the Yangtze River basin. Suzhou and Hangzhou were emerging commercial cities. On the coast, in addition to Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Mingzhou began to become important cities for foreign trade.

Because of the development of cities and commerce, the old system of strict separation between the residential area, "Fang", and the commercial area, "City", began to break down in some cities such as Yangzhou, where commercial activities were no longer confined to the city. In Yangzhou and other large cities in the night market, breaking the old system of closing the market at sunset. In some big cities also appeared in the cabinet and fly money. Cabinet shop business money deposit and payment, on behalf of people to keep the money, to deposit money to collect a certain amount of cabinet rent, with a book post or letter to pay money. This letter post is similar to the later generations of checks. Flying money, also known as the money exchange. Merchants in Chang'an to the money to a certain way into the Scholarship House (Beijing Office) or a military, a make, a rich family, and then with the parties to pay the coupon, to the destination with the coupon to get money. This kind of coupon is similar to the bill of exchange in later times. Both the cabinet workshop and the flying money were the products of commercial development, frequent transactions and huge turnover. After the creation of this system, it reduced the trouble of paying money, avoided the danger of carrying heavy gold on long journeys, and favored the development of the commodity economy.

As a result of the development of commerce, the late Tang Dynasty saw the widespread establishment of city magistrates in all states and counties to manage commercial activities. More grass markets and marketplaces appeared on major transportation routes in the countryside, which traded regularly and dispersed after trading. Some of these grass market, market cloth business is booming, move to settle in the trade or seek to live more and more, the development of the city.