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The Song Dynasty - Civil service examinations Decision Making 低碳生活 张智勇
Economy, industry, and trade
Economy, industry, and trade
The economy of the Song Dynasty was one of the most
prosperous and advanced economies in the medieval world. Song Chinese invested
their funds in joint stock companies and in multiple sailing vessels at a time
when monetary gain was assured from the vigorous overseas trade and indigenous
trade along the Grand Canal and Yangzi River. Prominent merchant families
and private businesses were allowed to occupy industries that were not already
government-operated monopolies. Both private and government-controlled
industries met the needs of a growing Chinese population in the Song. Both
artisans and merchants formed guilds which the state had to deal with when
assessing taxes, requisitioning goods, and setting standard worker's wages and
prices on goods.
The iron industry was pursued by both private entrepreneurs who owned their own
smelters as well as government-supervised smelting facilities. The Song economy
was stable enough to produce over a hundred million kilograms (over two hundred
million pounds) of iron product a year. Large scale deforestation in China would
have continued if not for the 11th century innovation of the use of coal instead
of charcoal in blast furnaces for smelting cast iron. Much of this iron was
reserved for military use in crafting weapons and armoring troops, but some was
used to fashion the many iron products needed to fill the demands of the growing
indigenous market. The iron trade within China was furthered by the building of
new canals which aided the flow of iron products from production centers to the
large market found in the capital city.
The annual output of minted copper currency in 1085 alone reached roughly six
billion coins. The most notable advancement in the Song economy
was the establishment of the world's first government issued paper-printed
money, known as Jiaozi (交子). For the printing of paper money
alone, the Song court established several government-run factories in the cities
of Huizhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Anqi. The size of the workforce employed in
paper money factories was large; it was recorded in 1175 that the factory at
Hangzhou employed more than a thousand workers a day.
The economic power of Song China heavily influenced foreign economies abroad.
The Moroccan geographer al-Idrisi wrote in 1154 of the prowess of Chinese
merchant ships in the Indian Ocean and of their annual voyages that brought
iron, swords, silk, velvet, porcelain, and various textiles to places such as
Aden (Yemen), the Indus River, and the Euphrates in modern-day Iraq. Foreigners,
in turn, had an impact on the Chinese economy. For example, many West Asian and
Central Asian Muslims went to China to trade, becoming a preeminent force in the
import and export industry, while some were even appointed as officers
supervising economic affairs. Sea trade with the Southeast Pacific, the Hindu
world, the Islamic world, and the East African world brought merchants great
fortune and spurred an enormous growth in the shipbuilding industry of Song-era
Fujian province. However, there was risk
involved in such long overseas ventures. It was to reduce the risk of losing
money on maritime trade missions abroad that, as the historians Ebrey, Walthall,
and Palais write:
[Song era] investors usually divided their investment among many ships, and each
ship had many investors behind it. One observer thought eagerness to invest in
overseas trade was leading to an outflow of copper cash. He wrote, 'People along
the coast are on intimate terms with the merchants who engage in overseas trade,
either because they are fellow-countrymen or personal acquaintances....[They
give the merchants] money to take with them on their ships for purchase and
return conveyance of foreign goods. They invest from ten to a hundred strings of
cash, and regularly make profits of several hundred percent'.
宋朝 La Dynastie Song 宋朝经济 The Song Dynasty - the Gentry French 范仲淹 晏几道减字木兰花 撼庭秋 岳飞登黄鹤楼有感
The Song Dynasty - Food and Clothing
Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
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