China also had handicraft workshops in 15 and 16 centuries, but why didn't it develop as fast as western Europe?
Under the feudal social system in ancient China, the status of businessmen was very low. That's what the so-called "scholars, farmers and businessmen" mean. In addition, feudal autocracy reached its peak and declined until the Qing Dynasty, so the feudal system at that time strictly restricted the development of industry and commerce; At that time, the social economy was self-sufficient and the natural economy was the mainstream. People's life is basically self-sufficient, so it is impossible to promote the large-scale development of handicrafts without buying too many commodities. Landlords occupy a lot of land and resources, and there is no new enclosure movement in western Europe, such as Britain, which makes manual owners have a lot of land, resources and labor to develop. There are also manual owners who still have feudal ideas and use the assets obtained from commodities to buy houses and land. Thus, there is no further development of industry and commerce (such as the practice of businessmen in the TV series "Qiao Family Courtyard"). Finally, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, that is, 15~ 16 century, China closed its doors to the outside world, and the world's changes and innovations did not introduce new ideas into China, so China gradually declined from the world leader, and China's handicraft industry was deformed and died in the cradle of gestation. ...