Frederic Wakeman, an American scholar, confirmed this point in Red Leaves: 1620 to 1660, a trade crisis broke out in the European market, and the world trade system centered on Seville, Spain suffered a heavy blow. Although China is far away from Europe, it is inevitably seriously affected. Before the recession of European trade, there were as many as 4 1 China merchant ships docked in Manila every year, but by 1 629, the number dropped to 6. In addition, the trade with Central Asia shrank at that time, and the silver lost by the New World to China was greatly reduced. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, when the highly commercialized economy in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River urgently needed more silver to cope with inflation, the flow of silver was severely blocked twice, and the import of silver in China suddenly declined.
The currency of the Ming Dynasty was silver. Despite its vast territory and abundant natural resources, China is not a major producer of silver and relies heavily on imports. Frederic Wakeman wrote in his book that in the first 30 years of the17th century, the total amount of silver flowing into China every year was about 250,000-265,000 kilograms. Ives, an American scholar who has been engaged in the study of "Silver Flowing to China in Ming and Qing Dynasties" for a long time, thinks that the average annual output of Japanese silver from 1560 to 1600 is between 33,750 and 48,750 kilograms, and most of it finally reaches China. From the end of 16 to the beginning of 17, South American silver flowed to China through the Philippines, reaching 57,500-86,250 kg. Moreover, Manila is not the only gateway for South American silver to enter China, and some of it enters China from Macau, Taiwan Province Province and Southeast Asia. Ives estimated that the average silver transported from Acapulco to Manila every year is 143 tons, and only 1597 has 345 tons. It is absurd for a country that is not rich in Tibetan silver to choose silver as its own currency.
How much influence did the sudden decrease of silver have on the economy of the Ming Dynasty? Ye's "Reading the World and Eating Me" at the end of the Ming Dynasty records that in the fifth year of Chongzhen (16 32), "white rice costs 120 pence per bucket, which is more expensive to the people." In the eleventh or twelfth year, "rice is worth three hundred pence, and money is worth seven or eight cents. Everyone who knows it is worried." In the fifteenth spring, money is worth the sunset. White rice costs five taels of silver per stone, and the total amount of money is twelve thousand. In the third year of Shunzhi (1646), "rice has a few words", in the fourth year, "white rice has three taels of silver per stone", and in the sixth year, "glutinous rice has only one tael of silver per stone". In other words, in terms of copper coins, the price of rice rose by 10 times and the price of silver rose by 5 times in Chongzhen l 0 years. Given that food prices are the basic index of China's prices, even if war and famine are added, the price increase in Europe is three or four times more serious, especially the change in the ratio of silver to copper. The ratio of silver to copper fluctuated so much in just a few years that it could not have nothing to do with the sharp drop in silver imports at that time.
Frederic Wakeman wrote in Red Leaves that the worsening inflation in the late Ming Dynasty may be one of the serious consequences of the long-term shortage of silver imports. In densely populated areas such as the Yangtze River Delta, inflation has led to a sharp rise in food prices, which has brought great disasters to local and urban residents. During the period from 1635 to 1640, due to the shrinking international silk trade, Huzhou and other silk producing areas in northern Zhejiang declined rapidly. At the same time, rare natural disasters swept the land of China, and successive famines, accompanied by locusts and smallpox, caused a large number of deaths. After this catastrophe, the total population decreased greatly in the late Ming Dynasty. China's serious population decline coincides with the global economic recession, which alone is enough to convince historians that China was also involved in the great crisis that plagued the Mediterranean world in the17th century.
Sanwu has always been the center of export trade zone and the focus of national tax. At this time, due to the obstruction of foreign trade and frequent famines, I was too busy to take care of myself, and the benefits gained from the outflow of silver were greatly reduced. Since the Song and Ming Dynasties, the traditional practice of "taking it from the southeast and using it in the northwest" has also been challenged. Since the "East Wall" is poor, how can we make up the "West Wall"? So Chongzhen was trapped in the deep palace and worried about the reimbursement of money all day. Although the sharp drop in silver imports dealt a heavy blow to the economy of the Ming Dynasty, it also further worsened the finance of the Ming Dynasty. However, the sharp decline in silver imports was only the fuse of the economic collapse of the Ming Dynasty, and it could not cause the collapse of this huge empire of the Ming Dynasty. After all, the peasant uprising that overthrew the Ming Dynasty broke out in the northwest of the empire, not in the southeast. So, what is the relationship between the outbreak of peasant uprising in northwest China and silver?
There are many reasons for the outbreak of peasant uprising, such as natural disasters, government forced people to rebel, ecological environment and so on. But people often ignore the serious harm of silver to the northwest. The main body of silver in the Ming Dynasty flowed from the south to the capital, from the capital to the northeast frontier defense, and from the northeast to the south. Northwest China, as a traditional millet and wheat crop area, is short of raw cotton and raw silk. China exchanges silk and porcelain for foreign silver. In this way, the northwest of the market edge, Shandong Peninsula and other places have become wild places where silver can't be irrigated. After the implementation of the "one whip" law, the national tax revenue was converted into silver to be collected, which made farmers fall into a passive situation of being trampled upon by others. Even in a bumper harvest year, it is inevitable that they will run into a lot of trouble. "In order to get food, they must exchange it for silver." "Good years to sell his wife, Tang and Song Dynasties have tasted it. Today, I came to Guanzhong. Because I am in western Hubei, I am very old and there are many valleys. The speed of people selling their wives is the same. Why? There is no silver in the valley, and it is not lost. " In good years, you have to marry and have children. In a little famine, you can hardly survive. Therefore, it is no accident that the peasant uprising broke out in the northwest in the late Ming Dynasty.
Silver also led to an unprecedented food crisis in the late Ming Dynasty. The pursuit of silver and export-oriented economy greatly promoted the development of economy and production activities in Ming Dynasty to specialization, commercialization, transnational and trans-regional, especially in Jiangnan area, such as Songjiang area. With the increasing demand for cotton cloth at home and abroad, more and more people turn to full-time textile and cotton trade. This is a good thing, but it has a great impact on the country's grain production. The grain production in Jiangnan, which has the reputation of "Suzhou and Hangzhou are ripe and the world is full", has become a problem. In the11940s, even in good years, people in Nanzhili and Zhejiang had to buy food by selling raw silk, raw cotton, cotton yarn and cotton cloth. After the implementation of the "one whip" law, they had to pay taxes and rent with silver to repay the loan. In the era when transportation is relatively backward, the regionalization and marketization of grain production can easily lead to grain crisis. In this way, the problem of food shortage caused by natural disasters has been greatly amplified by the marketization of food, and those rich areas with the most thorough marketization can't resist the food crisis at all, because these areas don't produce food and have to buy it across regions. Therefore, the wealthy Jiangnan area is the hardest hit. 1640 or so, the price of rice per catty in Suzhou rose to 100 copper coin, and a large number of people starved to death. Many luxury houses are sold at low prices and no one cares.
A large number of silver refugees brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges to the Ming Dynasty. However, the challenge brought by the Ming Dynasty to silver was only passively accepted, ignoring monetary security and food security. In the end, the seeds of capitalism did not develop well, but the empire collapsed.