The Song Dynasty was between the Han and Tang Dynasties and the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Although the Song Dynasty was still founded on agriculture, on the basis of the highly developed agricultural economy, many industrial and commercial civilization factors such as cities, currency, commerce, credit, overseas trade, wage labor, contract buying practices, commercial credit, and fund-raising partnerships had grown. Traces of new things can be found, and we are already on the eve of modern society. Compared with the Han and Tang dynasties, the most striking feature of the Song Dynasty's economy is the rapid growth of the commodity economy component in traditional society. Since the late Tang Dynasty, especially after the Song Dynasty, with the development of agricultural production, the increase in grain surplus rate, the emergence of the coal and iron revolution, the expansion of handicraft production, as well as the advancement of transportation tools (such as water and sea ships) and transportation conditions (such as the Bianhe River and coastal shipping), the commodity economy ushered in its second period of growth after the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties. All kinds of new phenomena that we have never seen before or that have symptoms but are not obvious are now emerging one by one in front of us.

First, the growth of commercial agriculture. The commercial planting industry based on cash crops such as mulberry, bamboo, tea, fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc. is accelerating the expansion, especially in the Taihu Basin of Liangzhe Road, the Chengdu Plain and the coastal areas of Fujian. Professional tea farmers, fruit farmers, sugarcane farmers, Vegetable farmers emerged in large numbers, and together with independent craftsmen, they began to transform into small commodity producers.

The second is the acceleration of urbanization. The number of cities and towns has increased significantly, the urban population has expanded, the number of industrial and commercial practitioners in the city has increased, and regional economic center cities have emerged one after another, leading to the transformation of traditional political cities into economic and commercial cities, and the momentum of urbanization has become increasingly clear. At the same time, the urban structure has undergone major changes due to the collapse of the classical square market system. Urban commerce has broken through geographical and time constraints, and the modern urban style of setting up shops on the street has begun to take shape.

The third is the change in the composition of commodities and the transition in the nature of business. The composition of social commodities has undergone major changes, and more and more means of living (such as grain, cloth, tea, etc.) and means of production (such as land, cattle, timber, coal, agricultural tools, etc.) have entered the circulation field. The trafficking business that originally mainly served the upper class of society and focused on luxury goods and local products began to transform into a large-scale business focusing on daily production and daily necessities of the common people.

The fourth is the prosperity of Caoshi Town and the initial formation of local markets. In economically developed or densely populated rural areas, as well as along water and land docks and transportation channels, "grass markets" emerged in batches. Local markets consisting of grass markets, towns, and regional economic centers began to form. Monetary relations have gained more outposts to infiltrate and gnaw at the self-sufficient natural economy.

The fifth is the rise of businessmen groups and the prevalence of the concept of "profit making". More and more bureaucrats, landlords, scholars, and farmers are involved in business activities, and coastal farmers even raise funds to invest in overseas trade (the so-called "lead leakage"). With the expansion of the merchant team and the strong commercial capital, the actual status of the merchant class has improved, and the social influence of merchants has also expanded. At the same time, the concept of profit-seeking (the so-called "market order") that embodies the consciousness of businessmen has an increasing impact on traditional concepts. The rise of the utilitarian school in eastern Zhejiang, represented by Ye Shi and Chen Liang, showed that the traditional Confucian theory of the opposition of justice and interests that unified the world had cracked.

Sixth is the expansion of overseas trade. The overland Silk Road during the Han and Tang Dynasties had been replaced by the maritime "Spice Road" and "Ceramic Road". Its scale was unmatched by land-based transportation between China and the West; and it was wider in scope and was established with the Song Dynasty. Foreign trade contacts have reached more than 60 countries and regions. At the same time, the material exchanges and economic ties between the Song Dynasty and neighboring regimes such as Liao, Xia, Jin, Tubo, and Dali not only never stopped for a moment, but also continued to expand in scale and become increasingly diverse in form, such as market trade, smuggling trade, and tea-horse trade. and tribute trade and other forms of trade, each showing its own special powers and complementing each other. Millions of copper coins minted every year in the Song Dynasty also flowed to surrounding areas and almost became "international currency".

Seventh is the emergence of paper money and the monetization of silver. As domestic and foreign markets are being developed at the same time, and the scale of business is far greater than that of previous generations, the original magical charm of copper coins, a means of exchange, seems inadequate due to its heavy weight and low value (especially in the increasingly common long-distance trafficking and the transaction volume expanded), the world's earliest paper currency, "Jiaozi", took the lead in the historical stage of commodity exchange in the Sichuan and Shu regions in the early Northern Song Dynasty.

Later, precious metal weighing currencies represented by silver also began to enter the circulation field, thus forming a transitional currency system in which copper coins, iron coins, Chu coins, and silver coins ran in parallel. The "gold, silver, salt and banknote exchange shops" located throughout Bianjing and Lin'an cities are exchange offices for various currencies. There are more than 100 such gold and silver trading shops in Lin'an City alone.

All this makes us believe that the commodity economy of the Song Dynasty has indeed developed to a new stage. It is no exaggeration to say that the prosperity of my country's commodity economy at this time, both in terms of scale and level, was still far ahead of any country and region in the world at that time, even compared with the mid-Qing Dynasty in the 18th century. Inferior, at least each has its own merits.

Especially in the southeastern coastal areas of the Song Dynasty, driven by overseas trade, a new and dynamic open market economy emerged. This was a real landmark in the agricultural economy since the Han and Tang Dynasties. major changes. It can be said that all dynasties before the Song Dynasty were inland countries with their heads resting on three rivers and facing the northwest. However, since the mid-Tang Dynasty, my country has begun to transform from a landlocked country to a sea-land country: large seaports such as Guangzhou and Quanzhou have emerged one after another. The southeastern coastal areas, backed by developed agriculture, handicrafts and commodity economies, have shown a strong tendency to develop towards the ocean. . Especially after the Song Dynasty moved south, they were forced to rely more on foreign trade. At this time, Quanzhou, the port of Citong, became the largest port in the world at that time. Stimulated by the rapid development of overseas trade, the commodity economy in the southeast region, which is responsible for producing exchange value, has become increasingly prosperous. The market mechanism based on division of labor and specialized production has played a greater role in economic life. Therefore, the original head rest on Sanhe , the founding posture of facing the northwest, changed to one with the head resting on the southeast and facing the ocean. The substantive connotation of this transition is to shift from natural economy to commodity economy, from monoculture economy to diversified management, from basic self-sufficiency to professional division of labor, from the main production of use value to the production of exchange value, from the customary orientation Become market-oriented and move from a closed economy to an open economy. All this shows that the commodity economy in the Song Dynasty, especially in the southeastern coastal areas of the Southern Song Dynasty, has developed to a new stage!

A major sign of the unprecedented prosperity of the commodity economy in the Song Dynasty is also the expansion of the market, including both the domestic market and overseas markets. Expanding rapidly. Historical facts show that in the historical environment of the rapid growth of industrial and commercial civilization factors in the Song Dynasty, the start of the primitive industrialization process in the Song Dynasty was not only earlier than that of the countries on the northern coast of the Mediterranean and the British Isles, but was also indistinguishable in terms of scale and level. This is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

First, the occurrence of the coal and iron revolution and the emergence of hired labor in private mining and metallurgical workshops.

The Northern Song Dynasty, marked by the surge in iron production and the promotion of the steel filling method, ushered in the second major period of change in my country's iron smelting and casting industry. This change was spurred by the large-scale mining and industrial utilization of coal. According to the research of Mr. Xu Huimin, although our ancestors had recognized the combustion function of coal as early as the Han Dynasty, it was only in the Northern Song Dynasty that they officially entered large-scale mining and use as industrial energy (such as ironmaking and porcelain burning), when Hedong (today's Shanxi) The coal mining industry in Hebei, Shaanxi and other areas is quite developed, and there are archaeological excavations to prove it. In order to distinguish it from the original charcoal (called "soft charcoal" at the time), words such as "coal" and "mineral charcoal" appeared in the Song Dynasty to refer specifically to coal. "Song Hui Yao Collected Manuscripts" has the words "Jingxi soft charcoal field, pumping charcoal field" in "Official Officials" 56 out of 56.

The rise of the coal mining industry not only alleviated the shortage of traditional firewood fuel, but also increased the output of iron (it is estimated that the annual output of iron in the Northern Song Dynasty was between 35,000 tons and 150,000 tons, close to At the beginning of the 18th century, the level of 145,000 tons to 180,000 tons in Europe); at the same time, the improvement of furnace temperature and smelting efficiency promoted the change of casting technology; especially the steel filling characterized by "raw and cooked mixed thorium" The large-scale promotion of the method; as well as the inevitable result of all this, the wrought iron steel blades of farm tools and various tools, etc. These major developments constitute a spectacular scene of the coal and iron revolution in the Song Dynasty.

The second is the rise of private Zhuotsujing in Sichuan and Sichuan and the economic struggle of hired workers.

During the Qingli period of Renzong in the Northern Song Dynasty (1041-1048), Zhuotong wells first appeared in Jingyan County, Sichuan, marking the transition of drilling technology from large shallow wells to small deep wells.

In terms of drilling technology, it pioneered the "impact and setback method". The "circular blade" made of wrought iron steel blade should be the world's first deep well drill bit, pioneering modern chiseling drilling technology; in well wall forming technology , pioneered the "casing water isolation method", and the bamboo casing used (this is the origin of the name of Zhuo Tsutsui, Zhuo, bamboo, one sound) is obviously the predecessor of wooden conduits in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and modern copper conduits; in In terms of chip removal technology, the "valve-type mud tube" was pioneered; in the brine extraction technology, a "bottomless and orifice" brine extraction tube replaced the original skin bag, which opens automatically when water enters and closes when water comes out. These major achievements laid the basic principles of modern deep well drilling technology in all aspects, and he was hailed as the "Father of Petroleum Drilling" by the scientific and technological history circle.

Because Zhuotong wells essentially refreshed the old technology of large shallow wells and showed great advantages in terms of excavation costs, brine quality, production efficiency, etc., they spread rapidly once they appeared. In just two or thirty years, they spread all over Lingzhou, Jiazhou, and Rongzhou in southern Sichuan, "connecting streams to valleys, with rows of kitchens", dotted in thousands. Mr. Guo Zhengzhong, an expert on the history of the salt industry, relied on the memorials of Wentong, the magistrate of Lingzhou during the reign of Shenzong Xining, to prove that not only did an employment relationship also exist in the Sichuan Jing Salt Industry, but there was also an economic struggle to improve working conditions. According to Wen Tongzhu, there were more than a hundred Tsutsui workshops in Jingyan County at that time, each employing "forty or fifty to three or twenty people." Most of these thousands of craftsmen came from "other counties in other states." , have been separated from the land; their way of making a living is "servant leasing", that is, they make a living by selling their labor force; if they are not satisfied with the working conditions or treatment during the employment period, they will connect with each other and protest collectively, the so-called "hand-to-hand luring" If there is no improvement, they will settle accounts with the "rich man" from the well owner and ask for wages. The so-called "calculate the value of the work and leave in vain"; then seek another job, the so-called "invest in another place, Get used to it”, apparently come and go freely.

The third is the commodity production nature of the ceramic industry and its increasingly expanding domestic and overseas markets.

Ceramic production entered a mature stage in the Song Dynasty. The porcelain kiln sites of the Song Dynasty that have been discovered so far are spread across 17 provinces and more than 130 counties across the country, and the vast majority of them are private kilns. In particular, the Dehua Kiln on Fujian Road and the porcelain kilns in Jinjiang, Xiamen and other places, as well as the Quanzhou Ci Kiln, Anxi, Nan'an, Tong'an and other kilns, are the production bases of bulk export porcelain in Quanzhou Citong Port. On a large "sea ship" with compass navigation, "merchants share the stored goods. Each person can store goods a few feet below and sleep on them at night. The goods are mostly pottery and pottery, and the sizes are matched with each other. There is no gap." Japan. Scholar Takatoshi Misugi has conducted field investigations along the Maritime Silk Road for many years and published the book "Maritime Silk Road" in 1979. In the second chapter, he introduces the Song Dynasty porcelain in Singapore, Jakarta, Indonesia, Saigon, Vietnam, Mysore, India, and Malaysia. Distribution status of Dras State, Bambur Ruins in Pakistan, Samarra Ruins in West-Western Iraq, and Fustat in Egypt, North Africa. South Korean scholar Cui Chunxi said, “Song porcelain, especially products from the Northern Song Dynasty, has the largest number of Chinese porcelain discovered in North Korea, mainly distributed in the central and southern coastal areas of the Korean Peninsula.” Moreover, the products “include products from almost all famous kilns in the Song Dynasty. "This shows that the main part of the ceramic industry in the Song Dynasty was fully in the nature of commodity production and had a vast overseas market.

Fourth is the emergence of tens of thousands of textile machine owners and the formation of the custom of contract buyers.

In the Song Dynasty, "Ji households" were generally family workshops where family members served as laborers and specialized in textiles. They were independent producers of small commodities. There are also a few machine households that hire workers for production. According to Mr. Qi Xia's estimate, there were about 100,000 machine households in various roads in the Northern Song Dynasty, which is a considerable number. The problem is that except for a few of these machine households in cities (for example, in Jinhua, eastern Zhejiang, "the people in the city are mainly weavers, and they are known as the world's clothing and quilts, so they are especially rich."), most of them are distributed in rural areas, and their products need middlemen to centralize them. , Only when it is shipped to the market can it truly become a commodity, so package buyers appeared. The "Chen Tai's Unjust Dream" recorded in Volume 13161 of "Yongle Dadian" is a typical example of Jiangxi merchants, and it was during the Chunxi reign of Emperor Xiaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty (1270s). The enemy Chen Tai was originally a cloth merchant in Fuzhou. At the beginning of each year, he issued production loans ("loan capital") to farmers in Chong'an, Le'an, Jinxi and other places. In summer and autumn, he went to these places to ask for linen, and then asked Outbound shipping. As the business grew bigger and bigger, Zeng Xiaolu and other "sad masters" and "Jiashou" were appointed as agents to release money and collect cloth. In Le'an alone, "thousands of horses were accumulated". Judging from "It's been like this for a long time", this practice has been going on for a long time before Chunxi, and it is not an accident.

This practice is no different from the "accounting room" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties in its essential characteristics, and it is a common practice among merchants. Mr. Guo Zhengzhong pointed out that in the silk weaving industry of Zhejiang and Zhejiang and the damask and brocade industry of Sichuan, there are also practices such as "silk collection and lending", "machine account credit" and "predicting silk to spend money and goods" ⑥, which shows that the merchants of the Song Dynasty They are widely distributed and can be seen in Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Sichuan and other places.

Fifth, in tea-making, paper-making, printing and other industries, private workshops also dominate, engaged in commodity production, with considerable markets, and the existence of wage labor can also be seen within them. Please refer to the relevant chapters of my book for details.

Through the above brief outline, we can see that the initiation of the primitive industrialization process in the Song Dynasty was all-round. Driven by the coal and iron revolution, various sectors of the handicraft industry, including metallurgy, ceramics, well salt, textiles, papermaking, printing and other industries, once showed a comprehensive prosperity; private handicraft industries have fully emerged, except for a few industries such as money casting and military industry. , its dominant position has been undoubtedly established, and it owns regional markets, inter-regional markets, and even overseas markets to varying degrees; during this period, employment relationships and contract-buying practices with a modern flavor are also developing strongly. All this leads us to believe that the handicraft industry in the Song Dynasty entered a new period of development, a period that prepared conditions for the emergence of modern industry and provided historical prerequisites for the advent of the capitalist mode of production. We call it the pre-modernization period. If this momentum can be maintained uninterrupted for two or three centuries, it will surely lay a solid foundation for the subsequent industrialization of factories (machines).