The Song Dynasty was the most prosperous dynasty among all the Chinese dynasties, with the most developed economy, the most prosperous national culture, the most scientific and technological innovations, the largest population base growth, the healthiest crop yield per unit area, the highest people's living standards, and the most prosperous dynasty. If you don't I believe that I will introduce you to a dream-like Song Dynasty

Let us dream back to the Song Dynasty together:

1 Economic development

Song Fu has already achieved this The final conclusion of history: Other dynasties "suppressed business", but the Song Dynasty was the only exception

In the early Song Dynasty, Zhao Jianyin, the Taizu of the Song Dynasty, said that "it is necessary to accumulate gold, land and houses, and to leave descendants, singers and dancers to enjoy their lives" in order to enrich the people and their descendants. Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty was also known as "the master of the two systems of deliberation and government." When Shenzong was in power, he "especially managed finances first" and ordered the people to "manage finances first before political affairs." This economic thought has been throughout the Song Dynasty. This is to ensure economic development. A very important premise

At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, officials studied how to manage money and seek wealth. The Song Dynasty adjusted the traditional practice of emphasizing criminal law and neglecting civil law in the legislation of previous dynasties. It specialized in studying and implementing monopoly laws such as the Salt Law, the Wine Law, the Tea Law, etc. The Song Dynasty became one of the most active periods of economic legislation in ancient China. The economic laws of the Song Dynasty unified the distribution of interests between the state and economic actors and complied with the laws of the commodity economy. They were very scientific laws and regulations. These correct policy orientations enabled business to The boom of the tide, the rapid development of commerce and the rapid development of handicrafts, led to the Song Dynasty to create the world's earliest paper currency (Jiaozi) bank, which is unique! Even banks can make loans in different places. Even in modern times, this is a very advanced economic management system based on region. The development in the Song Dynasty was not only limited to the old areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Sichuan. Even the social economy and culture in mountainous areas and minority areas had greater development than in the Tang Dynasty. This is also very surprising

From the perspective of handicraft industry Kankeng mines, tea, salt, shipbuilding, paper, sugar, textiles, and porcelain are all more advanced than those of the Tang Dynasty. In addition to the expansion of production areas and the increase in output, the handicraft industry of the Song Dynasty also has very obvious technological improvements. For example, the production technology of "Tangbing" (rock sugar) "single well" The sophistication of Song porcelain excavation all reflected the maturity and innovation of technology. The rise of commerce and handicrafts liberated a large number of farmers who were captives of the land and invested them in commercial handicrafts. During the Northern Song Dynasty, large-scale mining of gold, silver, copper, iron, coal and other minerals had begun. Moreover, the earliest manufacturing factories and processing factories in the world's history appeared all over the country, such as shipyards, paper mills, printing factories, weaving factories, firearms factories, and official kilns in various places, etc. It can be seen that the prosperity of the handicraft industry at that time was unprecedented!

As early as the Northern Song Dynasty, China already knew how to burn coal and make steel. The large-scale handicraft industry employed hundreds of full-time industrial workers, while the government's two military industries employed 8,000 workers - this is already a heavy industry scale! The steel industry in North China had an annual output of 1.25 million tons in 1078 as an example, while the United Kingdom had an annual output of only 76,000 tons in 1788, the beginning of the industrial revolution. In addition, the mining, metallurgy, paper making, and porcelain silk making industries The weaving and seaweaving industry was also highly developed. The Song Dynasty was worthy of being a "high-tech" home before modern times and was the overlord of the world's handicraft industry at that time!

From a commercial perspective, cities in the Tang Dynasty tended to be administrative centers, while those in the Song Dynasty Towns tended to be more industrial and commercial in the Tang Dynasty. The trading areas in cities were strictly controlled by officials. In the Song Dynasty, there was more freedom. Due to the further development of the commodity economy and the breakthrough of the "fang system", the boundaries between residential areas and commercial areas gradually disappeared due to the rise of market towns. Some of these "new" cities in the Song Dynasty developed to a very large scale. For example, Kaifeng and Hangzhou both reached a population of one million, and the latter was the "unprecedented" city that "Marco Polo" saw in the early Yuan Dynasty. In the late Yuan Dynasty, the largest city outside China was "Baghdad", with a population of only between 300 and 500,000. Hundreds of years later, the Arab traveler Ibn. Beituta also calls Hangzhou "the largest city in the world"! The number of people engaged in industry and commerce has gradually increased, output has increased, and investment capital has expanded significantly. Therefore, it is no longer just agriculture that constitutes the main body of national fiscal revenue. The proportion of industry and commerce has exceeded agriculture< /p>

And in its commercial operations, copperplate printed advertisements appeared, which were more than 300 years earlier than Western capitalist advertisements. For the bachelor Su Dongpo, he once did it for an old woman who made oily food. Make it prosperous by writing an advertising poem

What’s even more interesting is that the Song Dynasty also

The emergence of a "tabloid" similar to a modern newspaper and the earliest trademark in history, the trademark Xiaoke, is of great significance, which marks the gradual improvement of the commercialization system of the Song Dynasty

In addition, the famous scholar Shen Kuo's "Theory of Currency Circulation Velocity" is also Reaching the level of modern monetary theory

The powerful commercial wave of the Song Dynasty was also the mother body of the world's earliest capitalism, and the rapid economic development of the Song Dynasty created unprecedented wealth and prosperity