Speaking of commercial prosperity in ancient times, many people subconsciously think of the Song Dynasty.
However, the commercial prosperity of the Song Dynasty, to be precise, was the prosperity of the cities, relying on the crazy blood sucking from the countryside. The only business in the Song Dynasty that could beat the Ming Dynasty was the prosperity of sea trade. If smuggling in sea trade was included, the Song Dynasty might not necessarily win.
In the early years of Wanli, the business of the Ming Dynasty reached a peak of the feudal dynasty!
? Although the Manchus were often looked down upon, in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, China's business flourished again, and its scale also surpassed that of the Song Dynasty.
Why did Ming and Qing commerce prosper?
Great development of agriculture!
In the Ming Dynasty, rice and cotton were the main crops. In the Qing Dynasty, on this basis, sweet potatoes, corn and potatoes appeared.
In the Ming Dynasty, the improved rice varieties from Vietnam really achieved wide-scale popularization. The flood discharge channel and reservoir system have solved the flood problem in the south of the Yangtze River that has lasted for thousands of years. The oil residue extracted from rapeseed and soybean oil is widely used in fertile fields. This is a new type of fertilizer popularized in the Ming Dynasty. Cotton planting methods were improved, and the imperial court guided the whole country to plant cotton.
The increase in rice production has solved the problem of food.
The promotion of cotton has solved the problem of dressing.
So, the population exploded!
The big cities can't accommodate so many people, and the countryside can't accommodate so many people, so new towns appear. These towns not only absorb the surplus labor force in the countryside, but also form one after another rural market. The emergence of rural fairs gave birth to a group of small merchants living outside the city. They bought agricultural products at rural fairs and transported the means of production needed by farmers from other places.
Many wealthy merchants and gentry in the Ming Dynasty grew up from such small merchants, such as the Fei family where the queen lives!
Just talking about the six prefectures of Su, Song, Chang, Hu, Hang and Jia, the number of towns in the Ming Dynasty was more than four times that of the Song Dynasty. You know, that was the ruling core of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the prosperity of the countryside was far inferior to that of the Ming Dynasty.
The emergence of a large number of emerging towns has completely changed the social form of China.
Before the Ming Dynasty, the development of Chinese society was actually the same as that of Europe later. It is because the population is constantly concentrated in the big cities, and the wealth is also constantly concentrated in the big cities. Since the Ming Dynasty, although they also concentrated in big cities, more emerging towns were formed. The large towns are saturated, and countless small towns appear, and finally towns will appear in just a few villages!
As a result, the phenomenon of "oil-water separation" appeared in China: political power was concentrated in the cities and controlled by officials and dignitaries. Cities have become power and money trading centers, daily necessities consumption centers, and luxury consumption centers. The main economic forces are distributed in tens of thousands of towns. Towns are the centers of productivity in China, and it is difficult or even impossible for the government to effectively control them.
So in the Song Dynasty, it didn't matter if the imperial power did not come down to the county. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was fatal if the imperial power did not come down to the county, because the national economic center of gravity was not in the county. If someone travels back to the Ming and Qing dynasties, if you want to rebel, you don't need to rush to occupy the cities. It is the last word to occupy those towns with prosperous commerce and no city walls first.
This is China's unique rural model, which not only affects China's economic form, but also affects China's social form. It even has an indelible impact on Chinese cultural customs and even on Chinese people's thinking!
Rural China has been carved into the bones.
Zhao Han announced that folk merchants could weave brocade, and the number of merchants engaged in this thing increased rapidly. The city of Nanjing couldn't accommodate it at all, so it had to move outside the city to build a factory. The land outside the city is also limited, so move to the towns near Nanjing City.
Currently there are three brocade production bases in Jinling Prefecture, one is outside Nanjing, the other is Jiangning Town, and the other is Chunhua Town.
Shen Yourong is in Chunhua Town, and he has recruited more than a thousand brocade weavers!
Not long after the Lantern Festival, Liang Xingdao, a wealthy businessman from Jiangning Town, came to visit Shen Yourong in person: "Mr. Shen, you know that His Majesty is going to ban women from entering factories to work as weavers!"
"What?" Shen Yourong thought she had heard wrong.
"Your Majesty is going to ban women from entering factories to work as weavers!" Liang Xingdao repeated again.
Shen Yourong was a little stunned by the fright, and thought with the remaining rationality: "Your Majesty has always given preferential treatment to businessmen. As long as you abide by the rules and laws, why have you ever felt sorry for businessmen? Even Yunjin, which was used by the imperial court in the past, was allowed to operate by private merchants. Will there be a sudden order to ban women from working?"
Liang Xingdao lowered his hands and stamped his feet: "Isn't it the good deeds of those pedantic scholars? After the Chinese New Year, many newspapers published articles against women's participation in the imperial examination. They said that women should not show their faces, and women are born to be husbands, children, and parents-in-law This newspaper's public opinion It's one-sided, and no one dares to speak for women anymore. A few days ago, there was a servant of the Ministry of Rites, called Cao, who asked His Majesty??Do you agree with women's imperial examination? "
"I don't agree with this matter." Liang Xingdao said.
Shen Yourong said: "But with this matter, we don't agree with it in our hearts, but our mouths must agree. Not only must our mouths support it now, but it will continue to support it in the future."
"I see!" Liang Xingdao was not a fool either.
Shen Yourong said: "Let's connect the entire Jinling Mansion's merchant gatherings together, and even those merchants who sell cloth should be invited together. We don't have female weaving workers, where can they buy it? A few joint ventures run a newspaper office and run dozens of them." Home, the government will definitely issue the license quickly. Before getting the license, you can pay for a pen and write articles to refute the remarks of those corrupt scholars. The bigger the trouble we make, the happier the emperor will be."</div>