At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the world was in chaos. After the rebellion of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Song Dynasty unified most of the Central Plains in 960 AD, which is known as the Northern Song Dynasty. From the Northern Song Dynasty to the end of 1 127, there were nine emperors, which lasted 167 years. Different from other dynasties, the Northern Song Dynasty was rich from beginning to end and maintained a long-term record in some economic fields. It was not until the heyday of the Qing dynasty that it was caught up. After the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, this wealth continued to be inherited by the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty.
The Song Dynasty, which was criticized by the world as "poor and weak", was really weak. In the face of Liao, Xia and Jin offensives, most of them were in a passive situation. However, it can be exaggerated to say that the Song Dynasty accumulated poverty. Although the Southern Song Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty are collectively called Song Dynasty, it is most important to promote the economic prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, this paper focuses on the Northern Song Dynasty. How did the Northern Song Dynasty create a miracle of feudal social and economic prosperity on the basis of the rebellion of the Five Dynasties and Ten Countries?
Taking history as a mirror, we should implement the national policy of attaching importance to business and neglecting soldiers.
The prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty originated from the enlightened economic policy of the imperial government, which has its historical reasons. After the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, there was a separatist situation. Although the center of the Tang Empire gradually suppressed the strength of the military regions from Tang Suzong to Tang Xianzong for more than 60 years, the price was huge. The huge financial burden finally aroused the general dissatisfaction of the people, and the peasant uprising broke out, which became the last straw to crush the Tang Empire. Since then, our envoys in various places have formed a de facto separatist regime. When the White Horse disaster happened, the Five Dynasties period was coming.
The Tang Dynasty once intervened in local military monopoly, and even made eunuchs serve as military overseers to supervise the development of local generals. However, within the eunuch group, the quality level is uneven, which even leads to the situation that eunuchs dominate the whole country. During the Five Dynasties, the Central Plains regime changed frequently. Guo Wei, Zhao Kuangyin and others reached the summit due to mutiny. Military power has become the only political capital for all rulers to survive. This historical background and personal experience frightened Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, Zhao Pu, the prime minister who had been deeply involved in planning the mutiny in Chen Qiaoyi, formulated a series of national policies that emphasized commerce over martial arts. People may wonder why so many senior generals in Song Taizu are so cooperative that they have no resistance to disarming soldiers by drinking. In fact, on the one hand, Zhao Kuangyin only seized their military power, but once the war breaks out, they will not be completely abandoned, and veterans can still go out. On the other hand, the Song Dynasty gave these generals a large number of gold and silver fields and houses, enough to support the rise of a family.
The border is relatively calm, the cost of war is low and the trade environment is stable.
During the Five Dynasties, Shi Jingtang, a general in the later Tang Dynasty, was suspected by the emperor, so he rebelled and attempted to usurp power. In order to gain the support of the rising Liao State and help it claim the title of emperor, Shi Jingtang promised to cede sixteen states to Youyun and attack the Liao State. After Liao accepted it, the northern region lost its defense barrier. However, after Liao accepted the sixteen countries of Youyun in the agricultural field, its grassland regime changed greatly. The sixteen countries on the right account for only a small part of Liao, and the population accounts for more than 60% of Liao. Their agricultural tax greatly maintained the financial stability of Liao Dynasty. In order to cope with this new situation, Liao opened up the housing system between the north and the south, and formed the dual rule mode of nomadic agriculture. Under this ruling logic, in order to maintain the stability of the farming areas around the Northern Song Dynasty, such as Sixteen States I.
In the past Central Plains dynasty, nomadic people on the grassland had to be invaded, which became a chronic disease in the northern border. However, since joining the European Union, the Northern Song Dynasty maintained a century of peace due to frequent business contacts and changes in the ruling logic of the Liao Dynasty. There will indeed be some new militant tribes on the grassland, but these disorderly nomadic tribes will not succeed in the end, because the Liao country will regularly raid the grassland because of the nature of the grassland to eliminate these forces that may threaten the rule of the Liao country. There are Liao countries in the north, so it is natural not to worry about the people on the grassland in the Northern Song Dynasty. Peace and commercial demand on the Song-Liao border stimulated large-scale economic development.
Economic Prosperity and East Asian Trade Circle
The Yuan Tan League demanded that the Northern Song Dynasty provide Liaoning with 65,438+200,000 pieces of silver and 200,000 pieces of silk every year. Both sides need to open up free trade exchanges. In fact, this has always been the dream of grassland people. After Mobei grassland is separated from the Central Plains, it can exchange much-needed commodities with the Central Plains. However, if the Central Plains has a unified commodity pricing power, grassland tribes will be forced to form a strong alliance and further compete with the Central Plains for commercial discourse rights. Liao obtained the original purpose of the war through the treaty, and added a one-year monetary clause with political significance. But free trade means that the whole Liao country was brought into the economic system of the Northern Song Dynasty, and its economic strength was strong. The inflow of RMB broke Liao's monetary system. Liao people only recognized the Song and Yuan Dynasties, but not Liao, so that the Liao country with weak economic concept finally gave up the right to coin money, and the whole country followed the currency of the Northern Song Dynasty to extinction. At this point, with money as a link, the economic coverage of the Song Dynasty expanded to between Mobei grassland and Baishan Blackwater.
During the Tang Dynasty, the economic center of the Central Plains moved slowly southward, advancing in two directions: the south of the Yangtze River and the center. By the Northern Song Dynasty, the scale of China's overseas trade had been very large. Jiangnan faces the ocean, and its dependence on the Maritime Silk Road far exceeds that of the traditional Silk Road. As a result, a large amount of copper coins in the Song Dynasty flowed overseas through merchant ships, and from the southeast coast to Japan and Nanyang Islands, forming a huge monetary body in China. As a result, the east and Nanyang became the economic coverage areas of the Song Dynasty. A large number of coins flowed out, which made the local currency in Song Dynasty insufficient, especially in Bashu area far away from Mobei and overseas. In order to ensure the stability of commodity trading, businessmen jointly guaranteed the issuance of various kinds of paper money, so the world's earliest paper money "Jiaozi" was born.
Changes in social organization structure and technological explosion
As mentioned above, the powerful economy of the Northern Song Dynasty formed the Great Song Economic Circle covering the whole Mobei and the southeast sea area. So why did the Northern Song Dynasty form such a strong and prosperous economic system? Can such achievements be achieved only by relying on the ruler's policy of valuing business over military affairs? In fact, to some extent, policy can indeed become a factor of economic prosperity, or even a leading factor. Due to the dependence on commercial tax in the late Northern Song Dynasty, the mercantilist policy of the imperial government was maintained. The early Tang Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty followed the consistent military and political system and implemented the official system. The household registration system is strictly controlled. In the Tang dynasty, the city's commerce was carried out in the designated area in the "square". However, in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, due to the serious land annexation, the military foundation of the government no longer existed, and the conscription system began to be implemented. Taxation has become the only reason for the government to strictly control household registration. However, the Song Dynasty did not attach importance to the agricultural tax that was scarce because of the war from the beginning, so it also relaxed the suppression of social organization structure. Therefore, the "housing" system has also been abolished.
The government no longer strictly controls society. As a result, non-governmental trade has become extremely developed, and various sub-industries have emerged. The affluence of ordinary people has led to the emergence of a large number of tertiary industries. Not only the financial industry developed, but also the handicraft industry in the Northern Song Dynasty rose rapidly. Maritime shipbuilding, medicine, large-scale engineering construction and agronomy have long been popular in China, but their social status was low and broke out in the Song Dynasty. The improvement of businessmen's status and people's respect for craftsmen stimulated the development of industrial economy, which in turn provided a huge market for promoting technological inventions. No feudal dynasty in Song Dynasty emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce. After the failure of the imperial examination, scholars often turned to business. Military commanders and civil servants don't think doing business is an insult to their families. This objectively provides a large number of elite talents for the business field and promotes economic prosperity.
To sum up, the rapid completion of the economic system in the Song Dynasty, especially in the Northern Song Dynasty, was not only stimulated by historical experience, but also related to the changes in the economic center and geographical pattern at that time. Only when all countries in East Asia rely on business tax for their fiscal revenue can this prosperity last. However, if one despises force too much and doesn't think hard, this prosperity will eventually disappear. Jurchen curled up in the northeast corner was oppressed by Liao and could not share the economic benefits. She eventually rose to overthrow the Liao and Northern Song Dynasties, which often caused the sigh of later generations.