When was the natural economy not dominant in China Explain in detail

The dominance of the self-sufficient natural economy was the main form of economy in Chinese feudal society and the basis of the Chinese feudal exploitation system. The disintegration of China's natural economy began after the Opium War. In the period after the First Opium War, China's natural economic structure had stoutly resisted the commodity aggression of foreign capitalism. However, this resistance could only slow down the growth of foreign capitalist commodity dumping in China and the process of disintegration of the natural economy. It is an inevitable law of economic development that small production cannot compete with machine production and that the advanced capitalist mode of production conquers the backward feudalist mode of production. After the Second Opium War, with the signing of a series of unequal treaties, the imperialist powers gained more privileges in China, and at the same time, due to the changes in the conditions of east-west maritime transportation and the completion of the industrial revolution in some of the major capitalist countries, etc., the competitiveness of the foreign capitalist commodities to the natural economy of China was strengthened, which accelerated the process of disintegration of the natural economy of China. Therefore, since the end of Xianfeng Dynasty, China's natural economy went step by step on the road of disintegration. This disintegration is mainly manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, it is the dumping of foreign mechanism cotton textile commodities, leading to the decline of urban and rural family handmade cotton textile industry and the separation of agriculture; on the other hand, it is the foreign capital to strengthen the plundering of raw materials in China, so that China's rural commodities production rapid development.

The decline of urban and rural cotton-textile industry and its separation from agriculture

The natural economic structure of Chinese feudal society is the close combination of agriculture and cottage industry, which is specifically manifested in the combination of "plowing" and "weaving". The combination of "farming and weaving" is the core of the self-sufficient natural economy. The economic unit of this combination is the family. China has long been a family as a unit, to male "plowing" female "weaving" as the main form of social production of the natural economy of the dominant feudal society. And the decline of urban and rural family cotton textile industry and the separation of agriculture, is the main symbol of the disintegration of the natural economy.

Since the end of Xianfeng, Western capitalist production technology and labor productivity continues to improve, cotton textiles production costs fell rapidly, lower product costs, coupled with the improvement of the East-West maritime transportation conditions, that is, the Tongzhi eight years (1869) to communicate between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean Suez Canal's official opening, which shortens the voyage of China and the United States of America about a quarter of the voyage and promote the universal use of the ship. In the 10th year of the Tongzhi reign (1871), the submarine power line between Hong Kong and London was connected, enabling the rapid transmission of trade news. Between the eleventh year of the Tongzhi era and the twelfth year of the Guangxu era (1872-1886), the price of cotton yarn fell by more than one-third.1 The price of cotton yarn fell by more than one-third. As Marx pointed out, "The cheapness of machine products and changes in transportation are weapons for capturing foreign markets." ② Therefore, after the end of the Xianfeng period, with the rapid expansion of foreign capitalism in the Chinese market, the imported commodities also grew dramatically; the total value of foreign imports of cotton yarn and cotton cloth in the sixth year of the Tongzhi period (1867) was only 13,760,000 taels, but it grew to 52,090,000 taels (Customs taels) in the twenty-first year of the Guangxu period (1895).3 This is an increase of nearly three times. In this way, the family cotton textile industry combined with agriculture, eventually could not withstand the impact of foreign mechanisms of cotton textiles, in the coastal and middle and lower Yangtze River provinces began to disintegrate.

When a large number of foreign gauze imported, China's rural family handmade cotton textile industry was destroyed and gradually separated from agriculture. This process went through two steps: the first step was the substitution of foreign yarn for local yarn. Make spinning and weaving separate; the second step is foreign cloth instead of soil cloth, make weaving and farming separate.

Spinning and weaving are the two processes of textile. In China's family handmade cotton textile industry, spinning and weaving were combined together. Due to the advanced machine production of capitalism, the labor productivity of spinning workers is greatly increased. According to relevant information, it is estimated that the yarn output capacity of a machine-spinning worker is equivalent to 80 times of the yarn output capacity of a hand-spinning worker, while the cloth output capacity of a machine-weaving worker is only 4 times of the cloth output capacity of a hand-weaving worker.1 The price of foreign yarn was higher than that of native cotton yarn. Therefore, the price of foreign yarn was much lower than that of native yarn. Guangxu thirteen years (1887) in shandong niuzhuang, soil yarn per package (300 catties) sold for 87 silver two, while the foreign yarn is only 57 two ②, the difference is so huge, soil yarn is naturally difficult to compete with foreign yarn.

In addition, since the end of Xianfeng years, due to the development of India and Japan's cotton textile industry, India's domestic demand for cotton increased so that the number of Indian cotton imported into China is gradually reduced; Japan due to the development of the textile industry, began to import China's cotton as raw materials. Coupled with Western European countries also occasionally buy Chinese cotton, which prompted the price of Chinese cotton increased. Faced with the increase in the price of raw materials and the price advantage of foreign yarn, China's traditional hand textile industry was in trouble. "With the importation of large quantities of foreign yarn, the native textile industry had almost completely ceased" (3). "As native and foreign yarns could not compete on price, Wenchang women workers lost their spinning and weaving business and turned to weaving" (4). Spinners in Shandong turned to making straw hats for a living after giving up their spinning wheels. In the case of foreign yarn price drop, coastal and commercial ports adjacent to the city handmade cotton weavers are using foreign yarn instead of soil yarn weaving, and then, foreign yarn is gradually sold inland. For example, in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, farmers had been producing a kind of sorry cloth for generations, but "after the middle of the Guangxu period, the industry of cloth-pissing went to bed, and women sighed with sadness as they sat down to eat, and the loom was not heard; there were some weavers who used foreign yarns for the warp and cotton yarns for the woof, or foreign yarns for the warp and weft, and they were looking for the sorry cloths of the old days" (1)。 Before and after the Sino-Japanese War, in some remote provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, a similar situation.

Foreign yarn instead of soil yarn appeared in the "spinning and weaving", reflecting the beginning of the separation of hand spinning and hand weaving. From the phenomenon, it seems that this hand-woven industry and small agriculture combined with the family hand-woven industry. In fact, it has changed the nature of self-sufficiency. Foreign yarn instead of soil yarn results, so that handspinning tends to decline and separated from hand-woven, always clothing self-sufficiency of the vast number of peasants, had to buy foreign yarn, weaving and selling, not only partially dependent on the market, but also in the raw materials are dependent on foreign countries. In the price to be controlled by foreigners. The nature of this production has been different from the original hand-woven industry. Therefore, this process is the first step in the disintegration of the natural economic structure of the combination of farming and weaving.

While foreign yarns are replacing local yarns, the process of replacing local cloths with foreign cloths is also going on. This is the second step in the disintegration of the natural economic structure.

Chinese hand-woven cloth had been exported to the United States and Western Europe during the Ming Dynasty. For more than 30 years in the early 19th century, exports of earthen cloth ranked third after tea and silk in China's trade with Europe and the United States at the time. But after that, with the booming development of foreign machine cotton textile industry, the export of Chinese cloth declined rapidly. Xian, with the years (1851-1874), with a large number of foreign yarn input, foreign cloth is also a large number of shipments into China. In this way, the original texture of Chinese cloth, which was durable and inexpensive, was overwhelmed by the cheaper price of foreign cloth, which was dyed more colorful and eye-catching, and was "lovelier than the cloth" (2). Therefore, during the Tongzhi period, "the lower and middle classes used to prefer earthen cloth because it was cheaper and more durable than foreign cloth, but now this reason no longer exists" (1). There was a serious situation that no matter the big commercial ports, and the towns and cities in the mainland, "the people who wore big cloths were only two or three out of ten, and the people who wore foreign cloths were already eight or ten out of ten" ②. This shows that in many parts of the country the handloom industry has declined, and in some areas the peasants not only gave up spinning, but also gave up weaving. Their clothing no longer rely on self-sufficiency, but only through the market to buy foreign cloth.

It is worth noting that, although this period of farmers' family hand-woven industry as a whole began to decline, hand-woven industry and agriculture began to separate, but the decline of hand-woven industry than hand-spun industry is much slower, that is to say, the process of replacing the soil cloth foreign cloth is much slower than the replacement of foreign yarn soil yarn. Between the eleventh year of the Tongzhi reign and the sixteenth year of the Guangxu reign (1872-1890), the importation of foreign yarn increased by 20.6 times, while the importation of foreign cloth increased by only 27%. The main reasons are: First, in order to survive, the Chinese rural handloom weavers took advantage of the low price of foreign yarns, coupled with the improvement of the looms, and used foreign yarns to weave into earthen cloth, which lowered the cost and strengthened the competitiveness of earthen cloth. Secondly, the labor productivity of foreign cloth was lower than that of foreign yarn, and the competitiveness of foreign yarn was far greater than that of foreign cloth. Thirdly, the original texture and durability of soil cloth still had a certain market in both domestic and foreign markets. After the Sino-Japanese War, there was a greater development of handloom industry. Of course, this phenomenon does not mean that the self-sufficiency of the natural economic structure has not been destroyed, in essence, the handloom industry has begun to separate from agriculture, the nature of the natural economy has changed.

In short, after the opium wars, especially after the Tongzhi dynasty, China's family handmade cotton textile industry began the process of disintegration, marking the beginning of the disintegration of China's feudal society for a long time the combination of farming and weaving as the core of the natural economy. In addition, caused the destruction and disintegration of China's original family cotton textile industry, mainly in the cheap foreign yarn and foreign cloth dumped in large quantities. A historical account: "In recent years, foreign goods suddenly win, cloth suddenly dwarfed, China's annual consumption of silver to three or four tens of millions of taels, to foreign cloth and foreign yarn are also best-selling. Covering its products from the machine, white and even fine, work province price, Chinese people are happy to buy and use, and China's weaving women and machine women sitting on their hands, Xi Xi millions of people." ① At the same time, this disintegration was not balanced in depth and breadth in terms of the whole country. Generally speaking, in the coastal and some provinces in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is more obvious, the degree of destruction of the handmade cotton textile industry is heavier, in the transportation inconvenience of remote and isolated areas is less obvious or foreign goods are not imported at all, the degree of destruction is lighter.

It should be noted that since the Opium War to the Sino-Japanese War, the capitalist countries dumping of cotton textiles shook the foundation of the natural economy of feudal society. The import of other commodities also impacted China's related handicrafts, China's metallurgy, iron production, oil extraction, part of the sugar, milling and other handicrafts, but also with the cotton textile industry, as in the dumping of foreign capitalist commodities tend to decline. Thus, the degree of dependence on the products and markets of foreign mechanisms was also enhanced to a certain extent. This implies a widespread disintegration of the natural economy.

Development of the commercialization of agricultural products

Another important manifestation of the initial disintegration of China's natural economic structure since the Xian and Tong years was the development of the commercialization of agricultural products. This was the result of the destruction of handicrafts in both urban and rural areas and the plundering of agricultural raw materials by foreign capitalism.

Because of the separation of the cotton textile industry and agriculture and the destruction of other handicrafts, shaking the foundation of the natural economy, forcing the majority of peasants have to go to the market to buy the production and life of the necessary industrial products, but also participate in the operation of certain commodities crops. Thus the market for agricultural and sideline commodities was enlarged. In addition, foreign merchants in the Chinese market after the sale of machine industrial products, strengthened the looting of Chinese agricultural raw materials to meet the needs of their own industries. After the Tongzhi Dynasty, the export of agricultural products (excluding tea) increased from more than 2.8 million yuan in the 12th year of the Tongzhi Dynasty (1873) to more than 28 million yuan in the 9th year of the Guangxu Dynasty (1883), and the proportion of the total value of the total exports also increased from 2.6% to 15.6%. The growth of exports also stimulated the commercialization of agricultural production. The following is a brief description of the development of commercialization of major agricultural products during this period.

1. tea. Tea as early as before the opium wars, is China's main cash crops and export commodities, after the opium wars, the export of tea surge, thus stimulating the rapid expansion of tea planting area, throughout Fujian, Guangdong, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan and other places. But before and after the Guangxu six years (1880), due to India, Ceylon and Japan tea competition, tea exports fell sharply. Therefore, some places "since the seventh year of Guangxu, the price of tea is very low, every year, the first spring tender Zhuang seven, eight or nine two, rough Zhuang three, four or five two silver. Open tea house and picking box, repeated years of folding capital, lost their homes, people do not tea for the positive items physiological. ...... sighed tea growers, hard work and hard work, tea exhaustion carry on" ①. To the thirteenth year of Guangxu (1887), the tea plantations have been "ten barren seven or eight", to the Sino-Japanese War, the general decline of the situation.

2. Cotton. Cotton is one of China's earlier commodities. Before and after the Opium War, China is still an importer of cotton. After the Tongzhi dynasty, due to the general development of foreign capitalist cotton textile industry and the successive emergence of Chinese capitalist cotton textile industry, stimulating the demand for cotton, which led to an increase in China's cotton exports and prices, which stimulated the cotton planting area continues to expand. Such as Shanghai, Nanhui and other places "are planted cotton, rice only two of ten" ②. Rugao, Tongzhou, Haimen, also "a look all planted cotton, and no miscellaneous trees" (3). Previously not planted cotton in the region, also began to plant cotton in general. "Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Hubei and other places, to only specialize in sericulture, now all planted with cotton." ①

After the Sino-Japanese War, the development of cotton planting faster, "cotton planting place, yearly expansion", "almost the whole country are engaged in cotton planting" ②. Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Shaanxi, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan and other provinces, have become an important source of national cotton.

3. Sericulture. Chinese farmers raise silkworms and mulberry, has a history of thousands of years. After the Second Opium War, the number of raw silk exports grew rapidly, prompting the domestic sericulture planting area continues to expand. For example, Jiangsu Gaoyou, "the people are not feeding silkworms. ...... In recent years, the lake things to agriculture and mulberry countless, to the silk into the time, Jiangnan silk traders no year not to" ③. And family handmade cotton textile industry has been destroyed, farmers turned to planting mulberry silkworms to sell cocoons, such as Jiangyin County, "Suye weaving soil cloth. Since the prevalence of foreign cloth, its profits have been thin. Guangxu, Westerners began to the mainland city cocoon. ...... townspeople profit, sericulture has increased sharply, within a few years, the territory of the cocoon sales per year more than a million gold, and increasing" 4. The original does not feed silkworms or feed silkworms are not many counties to the same, light years have been widely fed silkworms, and even in some areas in the north, such as Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan and other provinces, but also increasingly feed silkworms, and some development.

4. Tobacco. Before the Opium War, planting tobacco has been a commercial crop production, but not much tobacco exports, mainly in domestic sales. Beginning of the Guangxu dynasty, exports increased rapidly. Guangxu ten years (1884) the number of exports of 244,430,000 quintals, Guangxu twenty years (1894) 113,886,000 quintals, due to the British and American Tobacco Company's vigorous promotion and snapping up and the rise of national capital cigarette industry in their own countries, promoting the development of tobacco production.

5. poppy. After the Opium Wars, especially after the Second Opium War, the importation of opium is not only legal and unabated. The corrupt Qing dynasty not only completely lost its ability to ban smoking, but also encouraged farmers to grow poppies to increase tax revenue. Opium cultivation area is expanding day by day. First planted in Yunnan, Guizhou, then to Sichuan, Gansu, to Shaanxi, Shanxi and other places, one or two decades, all waste fields and poppy.

6. food. Since the end of Xianfeng, the expansion of some cash crops planting area, occupying the original planting of food crops on arable land, resulting in a reduction in food production, so that some areas into the grain shortage to the field. Such as the Weinan in Shaanxi Province due to "poppy everywhere", food "back to Weibei". Nantong in Jiangsu Province "produces cotton as the bulk, followed by wheat, rice is not enough to feed an area, so it is mostly given to other counties "1. At the same time, coupled with the rise of industry, the development of urban economy and population growth also expanded the demand for commercial grain. The result is bound to stimulate the enthusiasm of farmers to produce and sell food, thus increasing the circulation of commodity food and prompting the rapid development of food commercialization, especially after the Sino-Japanese War, the food trade between regions had a faster development. For example, grain from Hunan supplied the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Hubei area, and grain from Jiangsu and Anhui supplied the needs of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. As a result of the development of grain commercialization, distribution centers for grain were formed in some cities, such as Wuxi, Wuhu and Changsha.

In summary, it can be seen that the process of commoditization of agricultural products, mainly after the Sino-Japanese War, accompanied by the strengthening of the imperialist plundering of China's agricultural raw materials and development.

The development of the commercialization of agricultural products in China is mainly manifested in the following aspects:

Firstly, the expansion of the area planted with general cash crops and the increase of the rate of commodities. For example, according to a survey of 100 counties in 15 provinces, the proportion of cotton fields rose from 11% in the thirty years of Guangxu (1904) to 1910 to 14% in the years 1914 to 1919, while the cotton commercialization rate is also increasing. Guangxu twenty years (1894) cotton exports and domestic mills purchased 700,000 quintals of cotton, in 1923 increased to more than 6 million quintals. Among them, Japan, Britain, the United States, some mills accounted for about more than 3 million quintals. Tobacco is also the same, due to the British and American Tobacco Company and Japan in Hunan, Shandong and other places to promote the U.S. species of tobacco, acquisition, tobacco cultivation has also been developed, and the formation of a number of tobacco-producing areas. The cultivation area of sericulture reached its peak around 1920. In 1923, the area of mulberry fields in Guangdong reached 1.5 million mu, and in 1921, mulberry fields in Wuxi, Jiangsu accounted for more than 30% of the land in the county. In Sichuan, from the first year of Xuantong (1909) to 1919, the area of mulberry fields expanded from 25,000 mu to 55,000 mu. The export of raw silk began to decline after the 1930s due to the influence of the international market, but the absolute volume of export was still increasing. In the second year of Xuantong (1910), it was 140,000 quintals, and in 1919, it was 165,000 quintals.

Secondly, the development of commercialization of agricultural products led to the formation of specialized regions of agricultural production. One part of the region was dominated by cash crops and the other by food crops. For example, cotton, sericulture, tea, soybeans, tobacco, rice, wheat and other specialized areas of agricultural production are distributed in the economic development and transportation is more developed in a number of provinces and regions, the emergence of its agricultural commoditization of agricultural products to improve the performance.

Once again, the development of the commercialization of agricultural products has led to an increasingly close link between farmers and the market, with a large proportion of agricultural products being sold, and the proportion of farmers' consumption of means of subsistence purchased from the market also increasing.

The commercialization of agricultural products in China was a small commodity production under the domination of imperialist monopoly capital and bought-and-paid-for commercial capital. The main reason for the promotion of the commercialization of Chinese agricultural products was the increase in the demand for raw materials in China from the imperialists, and the boom of the capitalist world market and the size of the demand for agricultural products directly affected the rise and fall of China's agricultural production. Several cash crops that gained greater development in this period were the best-selling agricultural products in the international market, such as tea, cotton, silk, etc. At the same time, due to imperialism's massive demand for raw materials in China, China's agricultural products were being commercialized. At the same time, due to the imperialist dumping of large quantities of surplus agricultural products on China, the prices of Chinese agricultural products plummeted, seriously damaging China's rural economy.

It is worth noting that after the Opium War, the development of the commercialization of Chinese agricultural products emerged under the specific historical conditions of China's gradual evolution into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. The development of the commercialization of agricultural products in China was mainly facilitated by foreign capitalist plunder. Its development did not bring about a corresponding development of rural capitalism, which was always based on smallholder farming. The nature of this agricultural commodity economy is a small commodity production with a strong feudal character. At the same time, it also reflected the dependence of Chinese agricultural production on the world capitalist market and its semi-colonial nature. The development of agricultural commodification was accompanied by the beginning of the disintegration of self-sufficient agricultural production.

In short, since the Tongzhi Dynasty, the destruction of Chinese handicrafts and the development of commercialization of agricultural products under the invasion of foreign capitalism's commodity economy marked the disintegration of China's natural economic structure based on the "combination of cultivation and weaving". Of course, due to the unbalanced economic development of different parts of China, the time and degree of foreign capitalist invasion varied, so the degree of disintegration of the natural economy varied in different parts of the country, with some areas along the coast and along the river experiencing a faster and deeper disintegration of the natural economy, while the inland areas experienced a slower rate of disintegration.

The disintegration of China's natural economy was the result of the invasion of foreign capitalism, but the purpose of foreign capitalism's large-scale export of commodities and capital as well as the plunder of raw materials was not to create conditions for the development of Chinese capitalism, and the result was to destroy the foundation on which the sprout of Chinese capitalism depended for its survival and development. With the help of feudal forces in the Chinese countryside and urban merchants, foreign capitalism was able to spread its plundering tentacles all over the country. The disintegration of China's natural economy provided a market for the development of capitalism in various countries, further deepening the semi-colonial and semi-feudalization of China's social economy.

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① Yan Zhongping, Draft History of Chinese Cotton Textile, Science Press, 1955, p. 72.

② Marx: Capital, Volume 1, People's Publishing House, 1975 edition, page 494.

③ Li Wenzhi: Modern Chinese Agricultural History Materials, Series 1, p. 489.

① Yan Zhongping: Draft History of Chinese Cotton Textile, p. 81.

② Ibid, p. 77.

③ Peng Zeyi edited: "China's modern handicraft history materials", vol. 2, Sanlian Bookstore 1957 edition, p. 207.

④ Peng Zeyi, edited by Peng Zeyi: Modern Chinese Handicrafts History Materials, vol. 2, Sanlian Bookstore 1957 edition, p. 207.

① Peng Zeyi: Modern Chinese Handicrafts History Materials, vol. 2, pp. 220, 219.

② Peng Zeyi: Modern Chinese Handicraft History, vol. 2, pp. 220, 219.

① Peng Zeyi: "Chinese modern handicraft history materials", vol. 2, p. 221.

② Ibid, p. 223.

③ Ibid, p. 199.

① Peng Zeyi: "Chinese modern handicraft history materials", vol. 2, p. 233.

① Li Wenzhi, edited by Li Wenzhi, Modern Chinese Agricultural History Materials, Series 1, p. 447.

② Ibid, p. 418.

③ Ibid, p. 419.

① Zhang Youyi: Modern Chinese Agricultural History Materials, 2nd series, pp. 196-198.

② Zhang Youyi: Modern Chinese Agricultural History Materials, 2nd series, pp. 196-198.

③ Li Wenzhi, edited by Li Wenzhi, Modern Chinese Agricultural History Materials, 1st series, pp. 427-428.

③ Li Wenzhi edited: Modern Chinese Agricultural History Materials, 1st series, pp. 427-428.

① Nongya: "The Commercialization of Chinese Agricultural Production in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century", Economic Research, No. 4, 1956, p. 129.