The main source of wealth growth came from trade, and the negative impact of the development of overseas trade and the abandonment of the Silk Road was the decline in the commercial attractiveness of the north and northwest.
The national policy changed from active attack to passive defense, and the real money brought by overseas trade was visible to officials and was far more attractive than the crops grown by farmers.
This also made the important officials in the court only care about money and not land. As long as they fled to the south, the income from trade could support these officials' extravagant life and enjoyment. After all, the salaries of civil servants in the Song Dynasty were the highest in the feudal dynasties.
If the invaders showed leniency and did not kill them all, the Song Dynasty, which was in a remote corner, could also obtain a large amount of wealth through overseas trade to pay tribute and support a large number of officials with high salaries.
Compared with other feudal dynasties that tied wealth to land, the ministers' loss of fiefdoms in the suburbs of Beijing, their hometowns, and the farmers on the fiefdoms meant the loss of all their wealth.
In order to defend their own interests, are these ministers willing to cede land and seek peace? If the people are still working on the land they have cultivated for generations, won't they obey the emperor's orders or spontaneously organize to defend their hometowns and fields?
The Song Dynasty was far superior to the Qin, Han and Tang Dynasties. The literati and scholars had a great time chatting and laughing with the Song Dynasty emperors. The surrendered officials were retained, and the officials who passed the imperial examinations on their own were retained. Therefore, there were several teams in each place, including the court. They were all honorary positions, but they had to pay salaries, and the officials also had holiday allowances.
There were countless things like charcoal and tea fees, and the national policy was to favor scholars. Scholars were allowed to rule the country, and scholars were not punished for their words. Imperial examinations were held on a large scale to recruit scholars. The number of people who passed the imperial examinations in the Song Dynasty was more than the total number of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.
First of all, the Song Dynasty was the only dynasty that did not suppress business, and it focused on developing the land of fish and rice in the south. The flow of materials and money brought a lot of economic vitality. Eventually, it was found that copper coins were not enough for transaction volume, so Jiaozi was invented.
Secondly, the forced labor system was abolished, and soldiers were used as corvée soldiers (combat soldiers when fighting and engineering soldiers when not fighting) to undertake a large amount of corvée work, so that the people could work as laborers or sell things to earn money during the slack season.
Secondly, the Two-Tax System is a relatively clear tax system. Compared with other dynasties that focused on extorting money from farmers, the Song Dynasty's tax system was the foundation of the country.
One of the three redundancies in the Song Dynasty was military pay, but I have never heard of the Song Dynasty cutting off its pay.
In fact, many aspects indicate that the people were wealthy, and so was the imperial court. For example, did any of the heroes of Liangshan rebel because they were too poor to afford food? Did any of them go up the mountain because they were starving? Did they stop drinking and eating meat while up there? Where did they get the money to drink and eat meat?
However, the institutional problems of the Song Dynasty were also very serious. The class of scholar-officials was huge, and the three redundancies were difficult to solve. The garrison troops became engineering troops and were not good at fighting. Even the imperial guards had to be mobilized to fight Fang La.
At the same time, the scholar-official class was poorly restrained. The monarch himself had been suffering from a long period of peace and hedonism, and he had some birthday gifts and stone gangs. The officials followed suit and exploited the class without limit. In the end, the monarch suffered the shame of Jingkang because of his poor combat effectiveness.
In ancient times, the economy was based on grain and handicrafts. Although industry and commerce had a positive impact on the economy, agriculture highly restricted the scale of the economy.
That is to say, if agriculture does not develop, the economic scale cannot increase.
Although the Song Dynasty had trade, grain imports were just a drop in the bucket compared to the scale of its economy.
Foreign trade during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties was primarily focused on importing precious metals to alleviate massive deflation and boost commerce. From this perspective, the Ming and Qing dynasties performed better due to the import of silver from foreigners. The Song Dynasty suffered from a cash shortage due to merchants smuggling copperware abroad.
The price of releasing military power in the Northern Song Dynasty was land and wealth. Emperor Taizu of Song gave a lot of land and wealth to his meritorious officials, and then the meritorious officials bought land crazily after retirement.
Military and war are the best means to test the economic quality of a country. Looking at the performance of the Song Dynasty in the war (not the combat performance, but the armament and logistics performance), I believe that the Song Dynasty was extremely poor and weak, while the Tang Dynasty soldiers in front of them had only 10 men and eight pack horses.
During the conscription era, there were enough carts. At the same time, the Jin infantry unit had 30 people in one ox cart, which the Song Dynasty envied very much but said it could not afford. They believed that the Jin army could put weapons and armor on the carts when marching, and the Song Dynasty had to carry them themselves, so the Jin army had a great advantage in combat. Later, when the Ming and Qing dynasties went on expeditions, an infantry unit had four people and one camel or other livestock. When the Qing Dynasty conquered Junggar, everyone had a horse. How can I believe that the Song Dynasty was rich?
(Buying land was the main form of investment in ancient times, and Confucian scholars and the gentry were proud of passing on the family tradition of farming and studying.) All of them were large landowners, so land annexation was very serious only a few decades after the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty. Why did the Northern Song Dynasty have so many imperial guards?
There were too many landless people, so in order to appease them, they were directly made soldiers to prevent them from causing trouble. Within 30 or 40 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were large-scale rebellions in Sichuan, and the Northern Song Dynasty seemed to be the dynasty with the most peasant uprisings in history.
They are truly rich, but only a small number of people are rich. Otherwise, why would there be Fan Zhongyan's New Policies of the Qingli Period and Wang Anshi's Reforms?
Why say so much? Two of the four great inventions were made in the Song Dynasty. The first paper currency, Jiaozi, was made in the Song Dynasty. The three meals a day began in the Song Dynasty. The Maritime Silk Road was made in the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty's income was as high as 100 million strings of cash, but this does not indicate economic prosperity.
The second answer is that there were many peasant uprisings. If the common people really couldn't survive, they would be like Li Zicheng, who fled with eighteen riders but returned with only hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom were refugees because they couldn't survive. There were so many uprisings in the Song Dynasty, but the scope was very small. Why didn't anything succeed? The common people were able to survive.
Rich and poor are defined within a specific context. We all know that China's feudal society was a naturally small-scale peasant economy. Since it didn't engage in external trade, how could it be compared to other nations for wealth? It's likely that internal circulation accelerated, while commodities didn't increase, leading to currency inflation. The treasury was full because the money was worthless. While productivity hadn't significantly increased, and social output hadn't significantly increased, the existence of official currency can only indicate severe inflation.
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