The Great Civilization of China in Song Dynasty

After the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, "promoting culture and education, restraining military affairs", respecting knowledge and promoting reading greatly changed the tendency of valuing military affairs over literature in the late Tang and Five Dynasties, and established a new system for selecting civil servants to hold important positions based on Confucianism. During Song Taizu's reign, nine prime ministers were all civil servants, six of whom were born in imperial examinations. Among the main ministers in the Song Dynasty, there were 724 Tang envoys and deputy Tang envoys, including 659 civil servants. The imperial examination system reached a new peak in fairness, openness and practicality. Unlike previous dynasties, which only tested poetry and fu, Confucian classics and Mohism, they focused on Confucian classics and current affairs. In order to keep clean, the salaries of officials have also been greatly increased. As a result, the concept of family status became weak, which made the Song Dynasty become the formation period of China's ancient bureaucracy. Roberts (1999) pointed out that during the period of 1 148- 1256, the family background of 60% Jinshi showed that more than three generations of them had never been appointed as officials. The imperial examination and the examination and selection of local state schools have become the only way for literati to enter the officialdom.

The emperor also delegated power to ministers and put himself on the second line of decision-making. The Privy Council formulated economic and tax policies from Zhongshu and Menxia (later changed to Menxia, Zhongshu and Shangshu provinces in Song Shenzong) to control the army. The emperor only reviewed the policy and handed it over to six ministries for implementation. Of course, as in the previous dynasties, the censors were directly responsible to the emperor. Starting from the national interests, these civil servants formulated a series of systems and regulations, including restricting and restraining the emperor's power, and formed a new centralized regime ruled by the emperor and literati. Professional soldiers not only lost their former power, but also their social status declined.

Civil service politics is directly related to the revival of Confucianism, among which the theories of Sima Guang and Zhu are more representative. They not only reiterated that the basic thought of Confucianism is the main principle of governing the country, so that these principles and thoughts support the rationality of sovereign power, but also paid attention to the application of classics and practical practice in personal moral cultivation, which made Confucianism move towards Neo-Confucianism, that is, Neo-Confucianism. Sima Guang's political ideal is: to govern the country with a wise monarch, to make the country rich and the people safe, to advocate the use of talents, "to love the people with benevolence" and to abide by "the law of ancestors". Zhu advocated poor management, foresight and unity of knowledge and action; And the "things" he "limited" are justice, human relations and holy words. Neo-Confucianism's new interpretation of Confucian classics became the basis of imperial examinations. These more open learning attitudes also promoted the scholar-officials' new interests and new views on art, science and technology, nature, mathematics, politics, society and even urban planning. Due to the increase of wealthy taxi families, the promotion of letterpress printing, the increase of leisure time, and the prosperity of government-run schools and private colleges (at least 124 private colleges), Neo-Confucianism has been widely spread. In short, this is a Chinese-style "Renaissance" and the beginning of a new and comprehensive knowledge era. Because of this, the economic, artistic and scientific development of the Song Dynasty reached a historical peak. Porcelain, landscape painting, silk, painting, shipbuilding, furniture and interior design in the Song Dynasty have all become classics of Chinese civilization.

Other important elements were added to the society in Song Dynasty, including the new class dominated by shopkeepers and craftsmen, and the lower class in cities, such as shop assistants, slaves and other employees (pawns). These new classes account for the majority of the urban population, and their preferences and daily life are obviously different from those of the upper class (literati, nobles and officials). In order to cater to them, popular cultural entertainment appeared in the city, including storytelling, knife work, performing arts and other urban entertainment activities, which constituted new land use and urban functions such as Goulan and Wazi, and brought a new situation to urban civilization in Song Dynasty.

Commercial country

After the reforms of enlightened prime ministers such as Fan Zhongyan (989- 1052) and Wang Anshi (102 1- 1086), the agricultural productivity in the Northern Song Dynasty was greatly improved. The reclamation of farmland in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the renovation of terraces on sloping fields in South China have doubled the area of cultivated land compared with that in the Tang Dynasty. Tea is a cash crop, which is also widely planted in southern China, and cotton is also introduced to Guangdong and Fujian. In the past, "rent adjustment" (or agricultural tax system) was based on agricultural land, with physical objects and labor as the main payment methods, but now it is replaced by output evaluation and cash payment. Therefore, the monetary economy began to cover agriculture, which promoted the commercialization of agriculture, and a large number of agricultural products entered the trade channels and entered the primary stage of capitalism in agriculture.

In non-agricultural sectors, such as commerce and handicrafts, the Song Dynasty also replaced the control of market and product prices and the direct control of competitors' handicrafts with retail business tax and product tax. Of course, the state still raises funds for the army through franchising and directly becomes a producer and businessman of some key products. For example, during the reign of the Emperor, there were 2,765,438+0 government-run mining and metallurgy institutes. The government-run handicraft industry still dominates, but its craftsmen mainly employ craftsmen, and the dependence of individuals on the government and private workshop owners is further weakened. In the history of China, the Song Dynasty was also the first regime to actively promote maritime trade. In addition to sending trade delegations to Southeast Asia and South Asia, the Southern Song Dynasty also set up foreign maritime trade management agencies in Xiuzhou (Huating County, Shanghai), Mizhou (near Qingdao today), Mingzhou (Ningbo), Quanzhou, Guangzhou and other places to manage foreign businessmen according to the maritime trade law. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the port trading cities with city shipping companies were Lin 'an (Hangzhou), Mingzhou, Wenzhou, Xiuzhou and Jiangyin. During the Song Dynasty, more than 50 countries maintained trade relations with China. The import and export tax of the company is about 10%-40% of the value of the goods. According to 1 189, the tax revenue in that year reached 65 million chords (or "Guan", with a cost of 1000 yuan per chord), which was more than 10 times higher than the 5 million chords in the early Northern Song Dynasty. Cottrell company. Morgan (1975) believes that the total maritime trade in Song Dynasty has surpassed the sum of Europe and become the largest trading country in the world.

According to the national fiscal revenue, the non-agricultural economy and agricultural economy accounted for half of the economy in the Northern Song Dynasty, because the government's commercial tax and franchise income were equal to the agricultural tax income, reaching 70% at 1077 (Xining 10). Most of the business tax and franchise tax come from cities, which always exceeded the income from rural areas in the Southern Song Dynasty, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total national tax revenue. Therefore, the economy of Song Dynasty can be called "new economy" or "monetary economy", because the means of payment is different from that of the previous generation, and cash replaces physical objects. A large number of cash transactions have also increased the variety of currencies. In addition to the traditional string of copper coins, a large number of sterling silver has also entered the circulation channel. During the Northern Song Dynasty (1073), 6 million yuan was minted, but the circulation increased several times, reaching 200 million yuan (Gernet, 1985). The reason behind this was the appearance of new money. From 65438 to 0024, private bank notes adopted by businessmen in Chengdu have developed into "flying notes" for the national government to promote regional trade, so as to facilitate large-scale cross-border trade and reduce the risk of cash settlement and transportation. These different forms of "tokens" developed into "official notes" (Huizi) in the Southern Song Dynasty (12nd century), that is, printed official notes, with a circulation of 400 million strings, twice that of copper coins in the Northern Song Dynasty. The influence of paper money in the Southern Song Dynasty was even more international, and it became the currency of many Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan.

Figure 9.2 shows the distribution of official patents, commercial taxes in major cities and cash crop taxes (including tea only) in the Northern Song Dynasty to illustrate the spatial distribution of commercial economy in the Northern Song Dynasty and the resulting urban hierarchy. It confirmed the prosperous development of commerce and cities in southern China (including Sichuan) in Song Dynasty. Because the information in the picture does not involve a large number of private trade without tax, it can not fully reflect the whole picture of commercial society in Song Dynasty.

The Motive Force of Urbanization in Song Dynasty

The development of cultivated land, the application of new technology and the reform of agricultural tax have led to the improvement of productivity (especially rice) and the popularization of cash crops. They also formed a land market, which led to the merger of agricultural land and the emergence of large manors. 1 1 In the Northern Song Dynasty in the th century, 14% of the population owned 77.5% of the country's cultivated land (Roberts, 1999). Many farmers lost their land and were forced to flow into industry, commerce and service industry, which promoted the development of non-agricultural economy and urbanization. At the same time, this development has also changed the tradition of industry and commerce relying on royalty and bureaucrats, from manufacturing and marketing luxury goods to mass consumer goods such as food and daily necessities, which has led to the expansion and popularization of industry and commerce. Domestic and foreign trade has also benefited from the complete 50,000-kilometer waterway network, the design of new sea-going ships, and the emergence and popularization of navigation tools such as directional rudder, compass and new sail. The emergence of paper money and financial institutions has also expanded trade because of convenience and risk reduction. The above technical and policy factors, together with the pragmatism and rationalism of neo-Confucianism in society, contributed to the new urban revolution. In short, the technical and social incentives of the Song Dynasty made the level of social development reach1European countries in the early stage of capitalism in the early 8th century.

Because of this, although the population of Song Dynasty increased from 2 1 10,000 in the early period (970) to 85.6 million in110 (Table 9.2), the proportion of agricultural population was declining. The high efficiency of agriculture makes the annual grain output reach 300 million stones (1 stone = 103 Jin), that is, the per capita output is about 3 stones. The Grand Canal alone transports 7 million stones every year. During the Ten Kingdoms period, interregional trade in South China flourished, and it was even more prosperous during the Southern Song Dynasty. As shown in Figure 9.2, there was interregional economic division of labor at that time, such as iron and steel in Hebei, rice in Taihu Lake, tea and sugarcane in Fujian, paper making in Sichuan and Zhejiang, printing and publishing in Chengdu and Hangzhou, lacquerware in Hubei, Hunan and Zhejiang, Kaifeng and later porcelain in Zhejiang. At that time, domestic trade was dominated by general consumer goods, while foreign trade was concentrated on luxury goods such as spices, jewelry, ivory, coral, rhinoceros horn, medicinal materials, agarwood, silk, fine tea and porcelain.

The development of urban economy has brought new impetus to urban development and changed the traditional natural and land use structure of the city. The administrative city in the Han and Tang Dynasties has been transformed into a new commercial and entertainment city. As mentioned above, prosperous industry and commerce have cultivated a new class of urban residents in these cities. In line with the trend of urban economic prosperity and expanding scale, residents living in towns, villages and cities were designated as "housing households" in the household registration system of the Song Dynasty, paying property taxes and capital construction taxes to the government and undertaking labor services. Urban land rent and new household registration identity also appeared for the first time, which is obviously different from rural household registration.

In addition, the rise of commercial centers from the late Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty further promoted the emergence of commercial towns, another new starting point of urban development in the history of China. The development of town-level settlements below these counties mainly depends on their own economic functions rather than administrative functions. Some of them were abandoned military towns at the end of the Tang Dynasty, but most of them were small cities without walls, which developed handicrafts or trade at traffic intersections. When they reach a certain scale, the government gives them a new urban administrative identity. 1080, among 1 135 counties in China, * * had 18 10 such towns, of which 23.5% had tax halls (Ma Lanchao,197/kloc). Gao Cheng, a person from the Northern Song Dynasty, defined a town as: "People can't gather in one county, but the taxpayer is the town or the governor." Many towns appear around large commercial cities. For example, there are 3 1 towns in Kaifeng, 22 towns in Henan, 20 towns in Daming and 19 towns in Chengdu. Below the town, a lower-level commercial grass market (that is, bazaar) has also appeared on the edge of the countryside. They provide a fixed market for agricultural and sideline products. The government also set up officials to collect taxes in the grass market, and some even upgraded to towns.

The prosperity of domestic trade and commodity economy, especially the prosperity of luxury goods such as silk, tea and porcelain, has led to the transaction of local products and imported luxury goods, resulting in foreign trade. The encouragement of foreign trade in the Song Dynasty and the development of shipbuilding and navigation made the prosperous seaport another driving force for urbanization at that time, increasing the number of cities to choose from. In the Tang Dynasty, Guangzhou was the only city with a trade department. In the Northern Song Dynasty, there were six such cities. Three more were added in the Southern Song Dynasty, namely Zhenjiang, Wenzhou and Jiangyin. Most port cities are located in the south, close to the main producing areas of export products (Figure 9.2).

In terms of spatial distribution, cities with prosperous economy and large population are concentrated along the Yangtze River and coastal areas. Important entry and exit points on land are also beneficial to the government's border trade policies, such as tea market and horse market; There are also important commercial cities, such as Tianshui (connected with Tubo and Xixia, Figure 9.2). There were more than 40 big cities in the Northern Song Dynasty with a population of over 654.38+ 10,000, while in the Tang Dynasty there were only 654.38+00. Therefore, the scale of cities in Song Dynasty surpassed that of Europe in the Middle Ages, with five of the largest 10 cities in the world. Figure 9.2 shows more clearly that cities in South China are ahead of the whole country in terms of quantity growth and importance. In the following table, we take the four southern counties (prefectures) and northern Henan as the representatives, and list the changes in the number of Tang and Song cities as evidence:

At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, a large number of people in the Yellow River basin moved southward, and the successive wars between the Southern Song Dynasty and Liao and Jin Dynasties also caused a devastating blow to the population and cities in the north. Obviously, the number of cities in the south has greatly increased, while the number in the north is decreasing.

The emergence of a new civil society

The hardship of rural life and the prosperity of urban industry and commerce have caused a large number of people to migrate from rural areas to cities. The bureaucratic system of the Song Dynasty also stipulated that officials should constantly move with the change of appointment. Cheap and convenient transportation, numerous multifunctional urban settlements, as well as the wealth and rich entertainment accumulated by the city, became the centripetal driving force of the new city and created a new urban civilization in the Song Dynasty. The urban new bourgeoisie, composed of businessmen of all sizes, is not only numerous, but also more influential than the gentry in wealth. Their business is no longer dependent on the supply of royalty, nobles and bureaucrats. Their market comes from a large number of exports and the needs of the general public. Even luxury goods are in great demand from the new middle class. They build elegant gardens, with exquisite furniture and works of art, luxurious clothes and the pursuit of food. All these have become a part of China's new urban civilization, with comfortable and high-level living environment in the city. At the same time, there are also popular performing arts in cities, and the needs of people in new cities have bred folk professional artists, including Feng Shui masters, physiognomists, speakers, dramatists, chess players, puppet show actors, film photographers, miscellaneous technicians and so on. At the same time, restaurants, teahouses, brothels, bathhouses, restaurants and casinos also have a large number of employees.

The establishment of urban folk art and entertainment is also related to the government's new concept of the city and the changed urban management model. At the end of the Five Dynasties, Zhou Shizong was a businessman before he ascended the throne, so after he ascended the throne, he adopted a more open policy towards urban commerce, such as allowing the building of a mansion on the Bianhe River in Kaifeng, the capital. Song Taizu inherited Zhou Shizong's policy. In the sixth year of his reign (965), he officially banned the night market in Beijing and allowed it to be opened: "Imperial edict was issued to seal the government and make the night market in Beijing visit three places, and it is not allowed to be banned." In the history of China's urban development, this is an epoch-making change, which means the elimination of the traditional market management mode. By the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, the closed market system had completely collapsed. The commercial operation mode and spatial pattern of the city have changed to openness, forming many prosperous commercial streets and new service and entertainment industries (such as bathhouses, teahouses and goulan). ), so that businessmen, vendors, artists and their guests become the most important part of the city.

In the history of China's urban development, Kaifeng in the Northern Song Dynasty was the first capital with a large number of street vendors and entertainment needs as its main land use and functional distribution. These comprehensive land for public needs are called "tiles". Wazi takes one or several covered performance venues "Goulan" as the core, and there are many stalls selling various commodities, providing divination or medical services, as well as street operas, acrobatics, restaurants, teahouses, restaurants, brothels and so on. Kaifeng City had six tiles at that time, and the largest tile had 50 goulan (Figure 9.3). Lin 'an (Hangzhou), the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, has 12 watts (Figure 9.5). Many tiles are open all night 24 hours a day. Therefore, the urban life and citizens' cultural space habits in the Song Dynasty were obviously different from those in the previous generation. In a narrow sense, they live in a new urban civilization.

In the cities of Song Dynasty, the new urban civilization bred by commerce, manufacturing, entertainment and service surpassed the traditional administrative functions and added new contents to the traditional urban civilization of China in nature, content and spatial pattern. The newly developed urban civilization in the Song Dynasty naturally led to new urban-rural relations. The administrative city of Han and Tang dynasties is an intermediate place with service function to the surrounding agricultural areas. In the commercial society of the Song Dynasty, the differences between cities and villages became obvious, including different life rhythms, connotations and ways, as well as different people's qualities and pursuits. Cities in Song Dynasty were also relatively independent: the rich were not necessarily rural landlords, and the poor were mostly separated from rural land; The prosperity of cities is mainly based on domestic and foreign trade, and even industrial production does not take regional market as the main marketing goal. Because of these independence or separation from traditional areas, mutual assistance between people has become a psychological and practical need among citizens. Guilds and associations composed of local, trade and manufacturing industries became another feature of the city at that time. Similarly, religion has become one of the connotations of new urban civilization.

The evolution of cities and urban civilization in Song Dynasty can be summarized as follows:

1. The disintegration of residential lanes was replaced by open streets;

2. Strict time and space control of residents is transformed into citizens' freedom in life and activities;

3. Closed shopping malls with strict management have become open commercial streets and communities open 24 hours a day;

4. Residential, commercial and service activities are linearly or zonally distributed in main streets, rivers and traffic intersections;

5. The household registration of urban residents is defined as a wide-ranging household, and its obligations are different from those of rural household registration, so the concept of "urban residents" appeared for the first time;

6. Great changes in urban life: rich entertainment and performing arts activities, which are mainly provided by private individuals for profit;

7. Due to the scale, density and accelerated pace of life of the city, the fire risk has greatly increased, and the official institutions for urban fire prevention and fire fighting have been opened;

8. It has become one of the basic principles of planning and building a city to attach importance to greening measures such as planting flowers and trees along the roadside and along the river in the city;

9. The offensive firearms on the battlefield changed the defensive design of the city wall; The city walls were replaced by rammed earth walls paved with stones or bricks, as well as watchtowers, watchtowers and deep city ditches.

However, in the spatial pattern of the city, Miyagi is still the center of the capital. In all lower-level cities, government offices still occupy the core position.

Next, we take the capitals and major cities of the Song Dynasty as examples to prove the urban civilization of this era, including urbanization and new forms of urban structure.

open

Kaifeng is the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, also known as "Tokyo" or "Bianjing" (960- 1 126). The Tang Dynasty was called Bianzhou, and the city wall was built in 78 1 year. Located at the intersection of the Grand Canal and the Yellow River (Figure 9.2), it has been a strategic place for South China to support the capital Daxing and Chang 'an since Sui and Tang Dynasties. After 9 18, it became the capital of the five dynasties. In the following week, it was expanded and a second wall was built. The new land area of the second city is three times that of the old city or the inner city.

Because Kaifeng is located in the flat land of the Yellow River valley, there is no danger to defend, so it is necessary to build many strong city walls for defense. So it has a large city wall and a deep city (Figure 9.3) to resist new thermal weapons (artillery) and fighters from the north.

Figure 9.3 shows that the plane of the city is nearly square with a total area of about 32 square kilometers. It is a metropolis with Miyagi as the center and triple walls. This system has been imitated by later generations since the Northern Song Dynasty. Miyagi, also known as "ouchi", is a forbidden place for the son of heaven to work and live. The imperial city, that is, the inner city, is about equivalent to the scope of Bianzhou in the Tang Dynasty, with an area of 4.5 square kilometers. Imperial Street, which starts from the south gate of Miyagi, is the central axis of the imperial city and the whole city, and is the administrative center of the whole country. In the south of the imperial city, there are ancestral temples and social altars. According to "Zuo Zu You She", we are studying Gong Ji. In a word, Miyagi and Imperial City basically inherited the layout and nature of the capital cities stipulated by Confucianism, with "serving heaven", "harmony between man and nature" and music as their main functions.

However, Kaifeng's imperial city is also full of commercial and entertainment places. Figure 9.3 shows the main commercial areas, such as Doctor Street, Imperial Street and Quyuan Street, where luxury goods and daily necessities are concentrated (such as jewelry stores, gold and silver stores and grocery stores), as well as Liuwa and Sanbao brothels. Qiao Zhou (fig. 9.3 12) is the largest night market in the city.

Four tributaries of the Yellow River flow through Kaifeng, and the business of Bianhe River is the busiest. The freight volume on the river accounts for 90% of the water volume of the capital, mainly rice and salt, to meet the huge demand of the royal family, government and army. For a single grain of rice, the annual transportation volume will reach 3-7 million stones. The two main streets along the Bianhe River in the southeast corner of the city are the busiest storage and commercial areas in the city, because grain transportation enters the capital from here. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival was painted along Bianhe Street, and Figure 9.4 shows its local urban landscape. In the Tang Dynasty, there were only two closed markets in Bianzhou City (that is, the inner city of the Northern Song Dynasty). By the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, it had been replaced by open commercial streets and commercial districts. The latter are mostly distributed linearly along the main roads and banks of rivers, and sometimes mixed with residential areas. In order to facilitate tax collection, the government has set up tax bureaus and business management institutions in important commercial centers of the city (Figure 9.3, Note 6). At that time, Kaifeng's commercial tax was leading in the country, mainly including commodity tax and storage tax. 10 15 years, the annual income of Kaifeng's two taxes was 400,000 strings, and it increased to 550,000 strings in 1085. In addition, government-run industrial and trade franchises also employ many people, providing the government with another source of finance. There are eight or nine thousand craftsmen who make luxury goods for the royal family and nobles alone, and there are 3,700 craftsmen who specialize in producing weapons. The private manufacturing industry is mostly in the profile city and is also very prosperous.

The road of the city takes Miyagi as the core and extends outward in the form of a chessboard. The imperial road outside the south gate is the main shaft, which is 300 meters wide and has also become the main commercial street. Other roads are mostly15-20m, which is narrower than the roads in the Tang Dynasty. There are six entertainment areas in the city, which are distributed in different sections of the inner city and the profile city (Figure 9.3). Shops, restaurants and restaurants are all over the city (except outside the palace), with the most concentrated along the Bianhe River and the main road. These tiles and commercial streets have become a major feature of Kaifeng and a new element of China's capital and urban civilization since the Northern Song Dynasty. Kaifeng was also the cultural and educational center of the Northern Song Dynasty. According to1102-106, there are 3,600 students in imperial academy, south of the city, except other official and private schools. Besides teaching Confucian classics, they also teach martial arts, medicine, law and mathematics. Kaifeng also has an international religious atmosphere, with 9 13 religious temples and 25,000 religious professionals such as Taoism and Buddhism.

Since the square system was destroyed, the former square wall has become an open street, many houses and shops are facing the street, and multi-storey buildings have also appeared (Figure 9.4). The height and density of buildings increase, and the three functions of industry, commerce and residence are mixed, which makes the week of urban fire control organization more complete from beginning to end. The inner city of Kaifeng is divided into 14 fire zones, and there are 8 outer cities, with a fire station every 450m. There are watchtowers, fire fighting equipment and firemen on duty in the station. There are 3400 soldiers working as firefighters in this city, who are full-time engaged in fire prevention and fire fighting.

After the abolition of the old square system, the inner city is divided into ten urban areas, namely, compartments, * * * jurisdiction 12 1 sub-districts (squares). The outline city is divided into four compartments and fifteen squares. 102 1 year, there are 35,550 households in Miyagi, 62,200 households in Imperial City and 65,438+households in Kuancheng. Together with about 400,000 troops and officials, the population of the city was about 6,543.8+0,000, making it the largest city in the world at that time.

As mentioned above, since last week, Kaifeng has adopted the urban greening policy, planting willow and flower trees on canals and main roads. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a royal garden on the east side of Miyagi, that is, the 600-meter ×500-meter-long "Genyue", which was full of strange stones and flowers and trees from southern China such as Taihu Lake. Although the luxury of Genyue architecture created the characteristics of China urban gardens, it was also one of the reasons that led to the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty: the urban life of being drunk and dreaming.