Song Dynasty (960–1279) of China was a period
of Chinese history marked by
commercial expansion, economic prosperity, and revolutionary new
Private trade grew and a market economy
began to link the coastal provinces with the interior. The enormous
population growth rate from increased agricultural cultivation in
the 10th to 11th centuries doubled China's overall population,
which rose above 100 million people (compared to the earlier
, with some 50 million
Beyond domestic profits made in China, merchants engaged in
overseas trade by investing money in trading vessels that docked at
foreign ports as far away as East
. The world's first development of the banknote
, or printed paper money (see Jiaozi
), was established on a massive scale.
Combined with a unified tax system and efficient trade routes by
road and canal, this meant the development of a true nationwide
market system in China. Although much of the revenue in the central
was consumed by the
needs of the military defense
, government taxes imposed on the rising commercial base
in China refilled the monetary coffers of the Song government. For
certain production items and marketed goods, the Song government
imposed monopolies in order to boost revenues and secure resources
that were vital to the empire's security, such as steel, iron, and
chemical components for gunpowder
Massive Expansion of ploughland
The Song government encouraged people to reclaim barren lands and
put them under cultivation. Anyone who opened up new lands and paid
taxes were granted permanent possession of the new land. Under this
policy, the cultivated land in the Song Dynasty is estimated to
have reached a peak number of 720 million mu
, and was not
surpassed by later Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Prominent statesman and economist Wang
issued the Law and Decree on Irrigation in 1069 that
encouraged expansion of the irrigation system in China. By 1076,
about 10,800 irrigation projects were completed, which irrigated
more than 36 million mu
of public and private land.
irrigation projects included dredging the Yellow River at northern
China and artificial silt land in the Lake Tai
As a result of this policy, the crop in China
Improvements in Farm Tools, Seeds and Fertilizer
The Song Dynasty inherited the curved iron plough invented in the
(618–907) as described in
detail in Lu Guimeng's The Classic of the Plough
. The Song
Dynasty improved on the Tang Dynasty curved iron plough and
invented a special steel plough design specificily for reclaiming
wasteland. The wasteland plough was not made of iron, but of
stronger steel, the blade was shorter but thicker, and particularly
effective in cutting through reeds and roots in wetlands in the
valley. A tool designed to
facilitate seedling called "seedling horse" was invented in Song
Dynasty; it was made of jujube
paulownia wood. Song Dynasty farms used bamboo water wheels
to harness the flow energy of
rivers to raise water for irrigation of farmland.
The water wheel was about 30 chi
in diameter, with
ten bamboo watering tubes fastened at its perimeter. Some farmers
even used three stage watering wheels to lift water to a height of
over 30 chi
High yield Champa
paddy seeds, Korean yellow
paddy, Indian green pea
, and Middle East
were introduced into China
during this period, greatly enhancing the variety of farm produce.
Song farmers emphasized the importance of night soil
. They understood that using night soil
could transform barren wasteland into fertile farmland. Chen Pu
wrote in his Book of Agriculture
of 1149: "The common
saying that farmland becomes exhausted after seeding three to five
years is not right, if frequently top up with new soil and cure
with night soil, then the land becomes more fertile".
introduced from Hainan Island into
Song Dynasty tribute tea, the big
Cotton flowers were collected, pits removed,
beaten loose with bamboo bows, and drawn into yarns and weaved into
cloth called "jibei"." The cotton jibei made in Hainan has great
variety, the cloth has great width, often dyed into brilliant
colors, stitching up two pieces make a bedspread, stitching four
pieces make a curtain Hemp was also widely planted and made into
linen. Independent mulberry farms flourished in the
Mount Dongting region in Suzhou.
mulberry farmers did not make a living on farmland, but instead
they grew mulberry trees and bred silkworm
to harvest silk.
first appeared in China during
the Warring States Period
During the Song Dynasty, Lake Tai valley was famous for the
sugarcanes cultivated. Song writer Wang
described in great detail the method of cultivating
sugarcane and how to make cane sugar flour from sugarcane in his
monography "Classic of Sugar" in 1154, the first book about sugar
technology in China.
plantation in the Song Dynasty was three
times the size that it was during the Tang Dynasty. According to a
survey in 1162, tea plantations were spread across 66 prefectures
in 244 counties. The Beiyuan Plantation (North Park Plantation) was
an imperial tea plantation in Fujian prefacture. It produced more
than forty varieties of tribute tea for the imperial court. Only
the very tip of tender tea leaves were picked, processed and
pressed into tea cakes, embossed with dragon pattern, known as
"dragon tea cakes".
With the growth of cities, high value vegetable farms sprung up in
the suburbs. In southern China, on average one mu
farm land supported one man, while in the north about three
for one man, while one mu
of vegetable farm
supported three men.
Flower nurseries also flourished. Peony
the favourite of the rich and powerful. Up to ninety varieties of
peony were cultivated. Jasmine and crabapple from Persia were also
Organization, investment, and trade
During the Song Dynasty, the merchant class became more
sophisticated, well-respected and organized than in earlier periods
of China. Their accumulated wealth often rivaled that of the
administered the affairs of government. For their organizational
skills, Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais state that Song Dynasty
...set up partnerships and joint stock companies, with a separation
of owners (shareholders) and
In the large cities, merchants were organized into
guilds according to the type of product sold;
they periodically set prices and arranged sales from wholesalers to
When the government requisitioned goods or assessed
taxes, it dealt with the guild heads.
Although large government run industries and large privately-owned
dominated the market system of
urban China during the Song period, there was a plethora of small
private businesses and entrepreneurs
throughout the large suburbs and rural areas that thrived off the
economic boom of the period. There was even a large black market
in China during the Song period,
which was actually enhanced once the Jurchens
conquered northern China and established
the Jin Dynasty
example, around 1160 AD there was an annual black market smuggling
of some 70 to 80 thousand cattle
. There were
multitudes of successful small kilns
shops owned by local families, along
with oil presses, wine
-making shops, small
local paper-making businesses, etc. There was also room for small
economic success with the "inn
keeper, the petty
diviner, the drug seller, the cloth trader," and many others.
Rural families that sold a large agricultural surplus to the market
not only could afford to buy more charcoal, tea, oil, and wine, but
they could also amass enough funds to establish secondary means of
production for generating more wealth. Besides necessary
agricultural foodstuffs, farming families could often produce wine,
charcoal, paper, textiles, and other goods they sold through
brokers. Farmers in Suzhou often
specialized in raising bombyx
mori to produce silk wares, while in
Fujian, Sichuan, and
Guangdong farmers often grew sugarcane.
In order to ensure the
prosperity of rural areas, technical applications for public works
projects and improved agricultural techniques were essential. The
system of China had to be
furnished with multitudes of wheelwrights
and square-pallet chain pumps
that could lift water from lower
planes to higher irrigation planes.
For clothing, silken robes
worn by the wealthy and elite while hemp
was worn by the poor; by the late Song
clothes were also in use.
Shipment of all these materials and goods was aided by the 10th
century innovation of the canal pound
in China; the Song scientist and statesman Shen Kuo
(1031–1095) wrote that the building of
pound lock gates at Zhenzhou (presumably Kuozhou along the Yangtze)
during the 1020s and 1030s freed up the use of five hundred working
laborers at the canal each year, amounting to the saving of up to
1,250,000 strings of cash
annually. He wrote that the old method of hauling boats over
limited the size of the cargo to 300 tan of rice per vessel
(roughly 21 tons/21337 kg), but after the pound locks were
introduced, boats carrying 400 tan (roughly 28 tons/28449 kg)
could then be used. Shen wrote that by his time (c. 1080)
government boats could carry cargo weights of up to 700 tan (49½
tons/50294 kg), while private boats could hold as much as 800 bags,
each weighing 2 tan (i.e. a total of 113 tons/114813 kg).
Sea trade abroad to the South East
, the Hindu world
, and the East African
world brought merchants great
fortune. Although the massive amount of indigenous
trade along the Grand Canal,
River, its tributaries and lakes, and other canal systems
trumped the commercial gains of overseas trade, there were still
many large seaports during the Song period
that bolstered the economy, such as Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, and Xiamen.
These seaports, now heavily connected to the hinterland via canal,
lake, and river traffic, acted as a long string of large market
centers for the sale of cash crops produced in the interior. The
high demand in China for foreign luxury goods and spices
coming from the East
facilitated the growth of Chinese maritime trade abroad
during the Song period. Along with the mining
industry, the shipbuilding industry of
Fujian province during the Song period increased its
production exponentially as maritime trade was given more
importance and as the province's population growth began to
increase dramatically. The Song capital at Hangzhou had a large canal that connected its waterways
directly to the seaport at Mingzhou (modern Ningbo), the center
where many of the foreign imported goods were shipped out to the
rest of the country.
Despite the installation of fire stations
and a large fire fighting
force, fires continued to
threaten the city of Hangzhou and the various businesses within it.
In safeguarding stored supplies and providing rented space for
merchants and shopkeepers to keep their surplus goods safe from
city fires, the rich families of Hangzhou, palace eunuchs, and
empresses had large warehouses
the northeast walls; these warehouses were surrounded by channels
of water on all sides and were heavily guarded by hired night
watchmen. Shipbuilders generated means of employment for many
skilled craftsmen, while sailors for ship crews found many
opportunities of employment as more families had enough capital to
purchase boats and invest in commercial trading abroad. Foreigners
and merchants from abroad had an impact on the economy from within
China as well. For example, many Muslims
went to Song China not only to trade, but dominated the import and
export industry and in some cases became officials of economic
regulations. For Chinese maritime merchants, however,
there was risk involved in such long overseas ventures to foreign
trade posts and seaports as far away as
In order to reduce the risk of losing money
instead of gaining it on maritime trade missions abroad:
[Song era] investors usually divided their investment
among many ships, and each ship had many investors behind
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."
Wealthy landholders were still typically those who were able to
educate their sons to the highest degree. Hence small groups of
prominent families in any given local county would gain national
spotlight for having sons travel far off to be educated and
appointed as ministers of the state. Yet downward social mobility
was always an issue with the matter of divided inheritance.
Suggesting ways to increase a family's property, Yuan Cai
(1140–1190) wrote in the late 12th century
that those who obtained office with decent salaries shouldn't
convert it to gold and silver, but instead could watch their values
grow with investment:
For instance, if he had 100,000 strings worth of gold
and silver and used this money to buy productive property, in a
year he would gain 10,000 strings; after ten years or so, he would
have regained the 100,000 strings and what would be divided among
the family would be interest.
If it were invested in a pawn
broking business, in three years the interest would equal the
He would still have the 100,000 strings, and the rest,
being interest, could be divided.
Moreover, it could be doubled again in another three
years, ad infinitum.
(1031–1095), a minister of
finance, was of the same opinion; in his understanding of the
velocity of circulation, he stated in 1077:
The utility of money derives from circulation and
loan-making. A village of ten households may have 100,000 coins. If
the cash is stored in the household of one individual, even after a
century, the sum remains 100,000. If the coins are circulated
through business transactions so that every individual of the ten
households can enjoy the utility of the 100,000 coins, then the
utility will amount to that of 1,000,000 cash. If circulation
continues without stop, the utility of the cash will be beyond
The author Zhu Yu
wrote in his
(萍洲可談; Pingzhou Table Talks) of 1119 AD
about the organization, maritime practices, and government
standards of seagoing vessels, their merchants, and sailing crews.
His book stated:
According to government regulations concerning seagoing
ships, the larger ones can carry several hundred men, and the
smaller ones may have more than a hundred men on
One of the most important merchants is chosen to be
Leader (Gang Shou), another is Deputy Leader (Fu Gang Shou), and a
third is Business Manager (Za Shi).
The Superintendent of Merchant Shipping gives them an
unofficially sealed red certificate permitting them to use the
light bamboo for punishing their company when
Should anyone die at sea, his property becomes forfeit
to the government...The ship's pilots are acquainted with the
configuration of the coasts; at night they steer by the stars, and
in the day-time by the sun.
In dark weather they look at the south-pointing needle
(i.e. the magnetic compass).
They also use a line a hundred feet long with a hook at
the end which they let down to take samples of mud from the
sea-bottom; by its (appearance and) smell they can determine their
Foreign travelers to China often made remarks on the economic
strength of the country. The later Muslim Moroccan Berber traveler
Ibn Batutta (1304–1377) wrote about many
of his travel experiences in places across the Eurasian world,
including China at the farthest eastern extremity.
describing lavish Chinese ships holding palatial cabins and
saloons, along with the life of Chinese ship crews and captains,
Among the inhabitants of China there are those who own
numerous ships, on which they send their agents to foreign
For nowhere in the world are there to be found people
richer than the Chinese.
Steel and iron industries
Accompanying the widespread printing of paper money was the
beginnings of what one might term an early Chinese industrial revolution
. For example the
historian Robert Hartwell
estimated that per capita iron
sixfold between 806 and 1078, such that, by 1078 China was
producing 127000000 kg (125,000 t) in weight of iron per
year. However, historian Donald Wagner
questions Hartwell's method used to estimate these figures (i.e. by
using Song tax and quota receipts).
In the smelting process of using huge bellows
driven by waterwheels
, massive amounts of charcoal
were used in the production process,
leading to a wide range of deforestation
in northern China. However, by
the end of the 11th century the Chinese discovered that using
could replace the role
of charcoal, hence many acres of forested land in northern China
were spared from the steel
and iron industry
with this switch of resources. Iron and steel of this period were
used to mass produce ploughs
needles, pins, nails for ships, musical cymbals
, chains for suspension bridges
, Buddhist statues, and
other routine items for an indigenous mass market. Iron was also a
necessary manufacturing component for the production processes of
salt and copper. Many newly constructed canals
linked the major iron and steel production centers to the capital
city's main market. This was also extended to trade with the
outside world, which greatly expanded with the high level of
Chinese maritime activity abroad during the Southern Song
Through many written petitions
central government by regional administrators of the Song Empire,
historical scholars can piece evidence together to appropriate the
size and scope of the Chinese iron
during the Song era. The famed magistrate Bao Qingtian (999–1062) wrote of the iron
industry at Hancheng, Tongzhou Prefecture, along the Yellow River in what is today eastern Shaanxi province, with iron smelting households that were
overseen by government regulators.
He wrote that 700 such
households were acting as iron smelters, with 200 having the most
adequate amount of government support, such as charcoal supplies
and skilled craftsmen (the iron households hired local unskilled
labor themselves). Bao's complaint to the throne was that
government laws against private smelting in Shaanxi hindered
profits of the industry, so the government finally heeded his plea
and lifted the ban on private smelting for Shaanxi in 1055. The
result of this was an increase in profit (with lower prices for
iron) as well as production; 100,000 jin
) of iron was produced annually in Shaanxi in
the 1040s AD, increasing to 600,000 jin
produced annually by the 1110s, furbished by the revival of the
industry in 1112. Although the
iron smelters of Shaanxi were managed and supplied by the
government, there were many independent smelters operated and owned
by rich families. While acting as governor of Xuzhou in 1078, the
famous Song poet and statesman Su Shi
(1037–1101) wrote that in the Liguo Industrial Prefecture under his
administered region, there were 36 iron smelters run by different
local families, each employing a work force of several hundred
people to mine ore, produce their own charcoal, and smelt
During the Song period, there was a great deal of organized labor
and bureaucracy involved in the extraction of resources from the
various provinces in China. The production of sulfur
, which the Chinese called 'vitriol liquid',
was extracted from pyrite
and used for
purposes as well as
for the creation of gunpowder
. This was
done by roasting iron pyrites, converting the sulphide
, as the ore
was piled up with coal briquettes in an earthenware furnace with a
type of still-head to send the sulphur over as vapour, after which
it would solidify and crystallize
historical text of the Song Shi (History of the Song,
compiled in 1345 AD) stated that the major producer of sulfur in
the Tang and Song dynasties was the Jin Zhou sub-provincial
administrative region (modern Linfen in southern
bureaucrats appointed to the region managed the industrial
processing and sale of it, and the amount created and distributed
from the years 996 to 997 alone was 405,000 jin (roughly 200 tons).
It was recorded that in 1076 AD the Song Dynasty government held a
strict commercial monopoly on sulfur production, and if dye
houses and government workshops sold their products
to private dealers in the black market
they were subject to meted penalties by government authorities.
before this point, in 1067 AD, the Song government had issued an
edict that the people living in Shanxi and Hebei were
forbidden to sell foreigners any products containing saltpetre and sulfur.
This act by the Song
government displayed their fears of the grave potential of
gunpowder weapons being developed by Song China's territorial
enemies as well (i.e. the Tanguts
Zhou was in close proximity to the Song capital at Kaifeng, the latter became the largest producer of
gunpowder during the Northern Song period.
sulfur from pyrite instead of natural sulfur (along with ehanced
), the Chinese
were able to shift the use of gunpowder from an incendiary
use into an explosive one for early
. There were large manufacturing
plants in the Song Dynasty for the purpose of making 'fire-weapons'
employing the use of gunpowder, such as fire
and fire arrows
. While engaged in a
war with the Mongols, in the year 1259 the
official Li Zengbo wrote in his Ko Zhai Za Gao, Xu Gao Hou
that the city of Qingzhou was manufacturing one to two thousand strong
iron-cased bomb shells a month, dispatching to Xiangyang and Yingzhou about ten to twenty
thousand such bombs at a time.
One of the main armories
for the storage of gunpowder and weapons
was located at Weiyang
, which accidentally
caught fire and produced a massive explosion in 1280 AD.
This arrangement of allowing competitive industry to flourish in
some regions while setting up its opposite of strict
government-regulated and monopolized
production and trade in others was not exclusive to iron
manufacturing. In the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the
government supported competitive silk mill and brocade workshops in the eastern provinces and in the
capital city of Kaifeng. However, at the same time the government
established strict legal prohibition on
the merchant trade of privately produced silk in Sichuan
This prohibition dealt an economic blow to Sichuan
that caused a small rebellion (which was subdued), yet in the Song
Dynasty Sichuan was well-known for its independent industries
and cultivated oranges
. The reforms of the Chancellor Wang
(1021–1086) sparked heated debate amongst ministers of
court when he nationalized
industries manufacturing, processing, and distributing tea
, and wine
. The state monopoly on Sichuan tea was the
prime source of revenue for the state's purchase of horses in
Qinghai for the Song army's cavalry forces.
restrictions on the private manufacture and trade of salt were even
criticized in a famous poem by Su Shi
while the opposing politically-charged faction at court gained
advantage and lost favor, Wang Anshi's reforms were continually
abandoned and reinstated. Despite this political quarrel, the Song
Empire's main source of revenue continued to come from
state-managed monopolies and indirect
. As for private entrepreneurship, great profits could
still be pursued by the merchants in the luxury item trades and
specialized regional production. For example, the silk producers of
Raoyang County, Shenzhou Prefecture, southern Hebei province
were especially known for producing silken headwear for the Song
emperor and high court officials in the capital.
Copper resources and receipts of deposit
The root of the development of the banknote
goes back to the earlier Tang Dynasty
(618–907), when the government outlawed the use of bolts of
as currency, which increased the use of
coinage as money. By the year 1085 the
output of copper currency
was driven to a
rate of 6 billion coins a year up from 5.86 billion in 1080
(compared to just 327 million coins minted annually in the Tang Dynasty
's prosperous Tianbao period
of 742–755, and only 220 million coins minted
annually from 118 BC to 5 AD
during the Han Dynasty
). The expansion of the economy was
unprecedented in China: the output of coinage currency in the
earlier year of 997 AD, which was only 800 million coins a year. In
the year 1120 alone, the Song government collected 18,000,000
ounces of silver in taxes.
With many 9th century Tang era merchants avoiding the weight and
bulk of so many copper coins in each transaction, this led them to
using trading receipts
from deposit shops
where goods or money were left previously. Merchants would deposit
copper currency into the stores of wealthy families and prominent
, whereupon they would receive
receipts that could be cashed in a number of nearby towns by
accredited persons. Since the 10th century, the early Song
government began issuing their own receipts of deposit, yet this
was restricted mainly to their monopolized salt industry and trade.
first official regional paper-printed money can be traced back to
the year 1024, in Sichuan
Robert Temple says that the Sichuan bills can be
traced back to 1023; before that year, sixteen private businesses
' issued notes of exchange, but in
that year the Song government took over this enterprise under an
Although the output of copper currency had expanded immensely by
1085, some fifty copper mines were shut down between the years 1078
and 1085.Ch'en, 615. Although there were on average more copper
mines found in Northern Song China than in the previous Tang
Dynasty, this case was reversed during the Southern Song with a
sharp decline and depletion of mined copper deposits by 1165.Ch'en,
615–616. Even though copper cash was abundant in the late 11th
century, Chancellor Wang Anshi's tax substitution for corvée
labor and government takeover of
agricultural finance loans meant that people now had to find
additional cash, driving up the price of copper money which would
become scarce.Ch'en, 619. To make matters worse, large amounts of
government-issued copper currency exited the country via
international trade, while the Liao
and Western Xia
pursued the exchange of their iron-minted coins for Song copper
coins.Ch'en, 621. As evidenced by an 1103 decree, the Song
government became cautious about its outflow of iron currency into
the Liao Empire when it ordered that the iron was to be alloyed
with tin in the smelting process, thus depriving the Liao of a
chance to melt down the currency to make iron weapons.
government attempted to prohibit the use of copper currency in
border regions and in seaports, but the Song-issued copper coin
became common in the Liao, Western Xia, Japanese, and Southeast Asian
The Song government would turn to other types of
material for its currency in order to ease the demand on the
government mint, including the issuing of iron coinage and paper
banknotes.Ch'en, 620. In the year 976, the percentage of issued
currency using copper coinage was 65%; after 1135, this had dropped
significantly to 54%, a government attempt to debase the copper
The world's first paper money
The central government soon observed the economic advantages of
printing paper money, issuing a monopoly
right of several of the deposit shops to the issuance of these
certificates of deposit. By the early 12th century, the amount of
banknotes issued in a single year amounted to an annual rate of 26
million strings of cash coins. By the 1120s the central government
officially stepped in and produced their own state-issued paper
money (using woodblock printing
Even before this point, the Song government was amassing large
amounts of paper tribute
. It was recorded that
each year before 1101 AD, the prefecture of Xinan (modern Xi-xian, Anhui) alone would
send 1,500,000 sheets of paper in seven different varieties to the
capital at Kaifeng.
In that year of 1101, the Emperor Huizong of Song
lessen the amount of paper taken in the tribute quota, because it
was causing detrimental effects and creating heavy burdens on the
people of the region. However, the government still needed masses
of paper product for the exchange certificates and the state's new
issuing of paper money. 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 these paper money factories were quite
large, as it was recorded in 1175 AD that the factory at Hangzhou
alone employed more than a thousand workers a day. However, the
government issues of paper money were not yet nationwide standards
of currency at that point; issues of banknotes were limited to
regional zones of the empire, and were valid for use only in a
designated and temporary limit of 3-year's time. The geographic
limitation changed between the years 1265 and 1274, when the late
Southern Song government finally produced a nationwide standard
currency of paper money, once its widespread circulation was backed
by gold or silver. The range of varying values for these banknotes
was perhaps from one string of cash to one hundred at the most.
Ever since 1107, the government printed money in no less than six
ink colors and printed notes with intricate designs and sometimes
even with mixture of unique fiber in the paper to avoid counterfeiting
subsequent Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties
would issue their own paper money as well.
Even the Southern
Song's contemporary of the Jin
to the north caught on to this trend and issued their
own paper money. At the archeological
there was a printing plate found that
dated to the year 1214, which produced notes that measured 10 cm by
19 cm in size and were worth a hundred strings of 80 cash coins.
-Jin issued paper money bore a
, the number of the
series, and a warning label that counterfeiters would be
decapitated, and the denouncer rewarded with three hundred strings
Urban employment and businesses
Within the cities there were a multitude of professions and places
of work to choose from, if one weren't strictly inheriting a
profession of his paternal line. Sinologist historians are
fortunate enough to have a wide variety of written sources
describing minute details about each location and the businesses
within the cities of Song China. For example, in the alleys and
avenues around the East Gate of the Xiangguo Temple in Kaifeng,
historian Stephen H. West quotes one source:
Along the Temple Eastgate Avenue...are to be found
shops specializing in cloth caps with pointed tails, belts and
waiststraps, books, caps and flowers as well as the vegetarian tea
meal of the Ding family...South of the temple are the brothels of
Manager's Alley...The nuns and the brocade workers live in
Embroidery Alley...On the north is Small Sweetwater Alley...There
are a particularly large number of Southern restaurants inside the
alley, as well as a plethora of brothels.
Similarly, in the "Pleasure District" along the Horse Guild Avenue,
near a Zoroastrian temple
West quotes the same source, Dongjing meng Hua lu
In addition to the household gates and shops that line
the two sides of New Fengqiu Gate Street...military encampments of
the various brigades and columns [of the Imperial Guard] are
situated in facing pairs along approximately ten li of the
approach to the gate. Other wards, alleys, and confined open spaces
crisscross the area, numbering in the tens of thousands—none knows
their real number. In every single place, the gates are squeezed up
against each other, each with its own tea wards, wineshops, stages,
and food and drink. Normally the small business households of the
marketplace simply purchase [prepared] food and drink at food
stores; they do not cook at home. For northern food there are the
Shi Feng style dried meat cubes...made of various stewed
items...for southern food, the House of Jin at Temple Bridge...and
the House of Zhou at Ninebends...are acknowledged to be the finest.
The night markets close after the third watch only to reopen at the
West points out that Kaifeng shopkeepers rarely had time to eat at
home, so they chose to go out and eat at a variety of places such
as restaurants, temples, and food stalls. Restaurant
on this new clientele, while restaurants
that catered to regional cooking targeted customers such as
merchants and officials who came from regions of China where
cuisine styles and flavors were drastically different than those
commonly served in the capital. The pleasure district mentioned
above—where stunts, games, theatrical stage performances, taverns
and singing girl houses were located—was teeming with food stalls
where business could be had virtually all night. West makes a
direct connection between the success of the theatre industry and
the food industry in the cities. Of the fifty some theatres within
the pleasure districts of Kaifeng, four of these could entertain
audiences of several thousand each, drawing huge crowds which would
then give nearby businesses an enormous potential customer base.
Besides food, traders in eagles and hawks, precious paintings
well as shops selling bolts of silk and cloth, jewelry of pearls,
horn, gold and silver, hair
ornaments, combs, caps, scarves, and aromatic incense thrived in
The Song Dynasty actively promoted overseas trade. About fifty countries
carried out overseas trade with the Song Dynasty, among them
Ceylon, Langkasuka, Mait, Samboja, Borneo, Kelantan, Champa, Chenla, Bengtrao, Java, India, Calicut, Lambri, Bengal, Kurum, Gujara, Mecca, Misr, Bagdad, Iraq, Aman, Almoravid
dynasty, Sicily, Morroco,Tanzania, Somalia, Ryukyu, Korea, and
Pearls, ivory, rhinocero horns,
frankincense, agalloch eaglewood, coral, agate, hawksbill turtle
shell, gardenia, and rose were imported from the Arabs and Samboja,
herbal medicine from Java, costusroot from Foloan (Kuala Sungai
Berang) cotton cloth, cotton yarn from Mait, and ginseng, silver,
copper, and quick silver from Korea.
promote overseas trade and maximize government profits in control
of imported goods, in 971 the government established a Maritine Trade Supervisorate at
Guangzhou, in 999 established a second one at Hangzhou, a third at Mingzhou (now Ningbo city),
followed by Quanzhou (Zaitung) in 1079, Huating County (now part of
Shanghai) in 1113, and Jiangyin in 1145.
Initially the Maritime Trade
Supervisorate was subordinate under the Department of
Transportation or prefecture official, later made into a separate
agency with its own supervisor. The roles of the Maritime Trade
- Taxation of imported goods, tax rate varied over the Song
Dynasty, from 10% to as high as 40%; however, during the reign of
Emperor Shenzong (1048 – 1085), the tax rate for imports was
lowered to 6.67%. The tax was goods in kind, not money.
- Government purchase and sale of imported goods. In 976, all
imported goods from overseas merchants had to be sold only to the
government, private sales was prohibited, penalty for violation
depended on the quantity of goods involved, and the highest penalty
was tattooing of the face and forced labor. Later the 100% rule was
relaxed somewhat. The Maritime Trade Superisorate purchased a
portion of the finest quality goods, for example 60% for pearls,
40% for rhinocero horn; the low quality leftover goods were allowed
to be traded in the market. The purchase rate applied to after tax
goods, then paid in money, not according to market price, but
according to a government-accessed "fare value". In the Southern
Song Dynasty, the Maritime Trade Supervisorates were short of funds
and were not paid on time, causing huge losses in profits for
overseas merchants; the volume of incoming ships also dropped.
- Issue foreign trade permits for local merchants.
- Ebrey, 156.
- Ebrey, 167.
- Qi Xia, Economy of the Song Dynasty, Part I, Chapter
1, page 65 ISBN 7-80127-462-8/F
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- Qi Xia 856
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