Reasons for the Development of Handicraft and Commerce in Song Dynasty

In the history of China, most dynasties adopted the policy of "restraining business", with the exception of the Song Dynasty. At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Taizu Zhao Boxin said that "accumulate more money, leave the land of the city to future generations, and enjoy the longevity of singing and dancing" to enrich the people. Later, Song Taizong also called it "the skill of making the two systems discuss politics well", and when Zongshen was in power, "managing money first" made the people "politics first", which was a very important prerequisite to ensure economic development. In the early Song Dynasty, officials studied the ways of managing money and seeking money. In the Song Dynasty, they adjusted the traditional practice of emphasizing criminal law over civil law, and specially studied and implemented monopoly laws, such as salt law, wine law and tea law. The Song Dynasty became one of the most active periods of economic legislation in ancient China. The economic laws and regulations of the Song Dynasty unified the distribution of interests between the state and economic activists, conformed to the laws of commodity economy and were very scientific laws and regulations. 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 the perspective of handicraft industry, pit mining, tea salt, shipbuilding, paper making, sugar making, textile and porcelain making are much more advanced than those in the Tang Dynasty. In addition to expanding the production area and increasing the output, the handicraft industry in the Song Dynasty also made remarkable progress in technology, such as the production technology of "sugar ice" and the excellent excavation of Song porcelain by "single-barrel well", which reflected the maturity and innovation of technology, while commerce and handicraft industry. During the Northern Song Dynasty, a large number of gold, silver, copper, iron, coal and other mineral deposits were mined, and the earliest manufacturing plants and processing plants in the world history appeared all over the country, 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 that the big handicraft industry employed hundreds of full-time industrial workers, while the two military industries of the government employed 8,000 workers-this is already the scale of heavy industry! The average annual output of steel in Song Dynasty reached150,000 tons (some people think that the industrial base of North China reached1250,000 tons/year in Song Dynasty, which is basically a wrong understanding, and most of it comes from the data in Sun Longji's China Millennium Review-A Bird's Eye View of Global History. There are many sets of data about the steel output in Song Dynasty. After verification, "150,000 tons" is quite suitable among many data). In addition, mining and metallurgy, paper making, porcelain making, silk weaving and navigation are also well developed. Song Dynasty was the home of "high technology" before modern times, and it was the overlord of 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 industrialized. The trade zone in the city was strictly controlled by officials in the Tang Dynasty, but it was more free in the Song Dynasty. Due to the further development of commodity economy, the breakthrough of "square system" in urban development and the rise of market towns, the boundary between residential areas and commercial areas has gradually disappeared. Some of these "new" cities developed to a considerable scale in the Song Dynasty, such as Kaifeng and Hangzhou, with a population of one million, while the latter was unprecedented 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, Arab traveler Ibn Betuta called Hangzhou "the largest city in the world"! The population engaged in industry and commerce is gradually increasing, the output is increasing, and the investment capital is greatly expanded. Therefore, agriculture is not the only source of national fiscal revenue. The proportion of industry and commerce has surpassed that of agriculture, and there have been printed advertisements in its commercial operation, which is more than 300 years earlier than western capitalism. For Su Dongpo, a bachelor, 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, the famous scholar Shen Kuo's On the Velocity of Money Circulation has reached the level of modern monetary theory. The prosperous commercial tide in the Song Dynasty was also the earliest mother of capitalism in the world, and the rapid economic development in the Song Dynasty created unprecedented wealth and prosperity. After the Southern Song Dynasty, the reason why the southern economy surpassed the northern economy seems to be that in the middle and late Tang Dynasty (1), the economic center of China moved south (2) there were more wars in the northern region, and the southern region was relatively stable (3) a large number of people moved south, bringing advanced production technology and a large number of labor. (1), agricultural development in South China. Rice jumped to the top of food crops in Song Dynasty. Cotton planting area expanded to the Yangtze River basin. Tea planting has also made great progress. (2) The handicraft industry in the south is prosperous. The silk industry is superior to the north. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the cotton textile industry had developed to the southeast coastal areas. Jiangnan area has become the focus of China porcelain industry; Shipbuilding in Song Dynasty ranked first in the world at that time. (3) The handicraft industry in South China was prosperous, with commercial cities such as Kaifeng and Hangzhou, and foreign trade ports such as Guangzhou and Quanzhou. It was an important country engaged in overseas trade at that time. Develop industry, introduce and popularize the grain crop Zhancheng rice; Su Hu became a granary; The cultivation of cash crops, cotton and tea trees with the highest rice yield has been promoted. The development of handicrafts, textiles and silk weaving in the south is better than that in the north. The cotton textile industry is developing to the southeast coastal areas, and the Jiangnan area has become the focus of the porcelain industry.

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