Chapter 36 The Stereotype of the Gentry Economy

In terms of economic system arrangement, the Song regime had several different policies from the previous dynasties: one was to openly allow officials to do business, the other was not to restrain land mergers, and the third was to authorize the operation of monopoly resources. Among the founding emperors of all dynasties, the only one who openly condoned and even encouraged officials to do business was Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin.His most important adviser, Zhao Pu, the prime minister known as "half rule the world", made a fortune by doing business. He set up mansions in the capital and major cities, and Zhao Kuangyin always laughed when someone sued him many times.As for officials doing business, Zhao Kuangyin gave the most freedom to the generals leading the army. According to history books, Song Taizu's way to win over and control senior generals from all walks of life was to let them make a fortune by doing business.In the Southern Song Dynasty, those generals who led troops were not good at fighting, but the scale of their business and the luxury of their lives surpassed those of the previous generation.Zhang Jun, a famous general, became wealthy for a while through private overseas trade, opening of restaurants and land management, with an annual income of 640,000 hu in farm rent.In addition, Liu Guangshi, a famous general, was better at financial management. He once used 8,000 soldiers to engage in his own trafficking business, and he proudly called himself "Contemporary Tao Zhu Gong".

Quan Hansheng has a deep research on the economic history of the Song Dynasty. In the paper "Private Commerce of Officials in the Song Dynasty", he used a large amount of historical data to prove that officials in the Song Dynasty used the state-owned monopoly system to use the name of the public to conduct private business.He also summed up six "special places" for officials to do business, including: using public funds as capital, using public property as commodities or raw materials for commodities, using official ships for trafficking, using public labor, buying cheap and selling expensive or monopolizing ,tax evasion.These six points are of course the "unique places" common to all noble economies throughout the ages.

According to Hu Jichuang's textual research, the Song Dynasty was a dynasty that "does not suppress annexation" and adopted an indulgent policy on land annexation. Therefore, the powerful families-the so-called "official status family"-occupied half of the land in the world, and a county Among them, 50% to 60% of the land and wealth were concentrated in the hands of a few official families. If it is said that official business is a carnival of the rich and powerful within the system, then the government's "authorized operation" of private businessmen is another wing of the official business economy.

In terms of the state-owned monopoly system, different models have been tested in successive dynasties.Guan Zhong’s monopoly plan is to control resources (salt fields and forests), allow the people to produce, and then share the profits; Sang Hongyang set up a state-owned enterprise to monopolize the operation; Liu Yan’s approach is to control resources by the state and open them to the people through targeted authorization. .In the Song Dynasty, there was another innovation in the license plate system. At that time, there were two models, one was "buy flutter" and the other was "chaoyin".

"Buying and fighting" is similar to the bidding and contracting system of later generations. Literally, "buying" means buying and selling, and "buying" means competition.The government takes out a piece of resources and invites public bids from the people, and the one with the highest price will get it.There are many ways to invite bids, the most common one is the "Sealed Bidding Method", which is the current hidden bid system. "Caoyin" is similar to the franchising system of later generations, mainly in the lucrative salt industry. It is a further improvement of Liu Yan's salt administration. In short, the merchant first pays a certain amount of money and goods to the government in exchange for a certificate— — Sometimes called "Jiaoyin" and "Salt Banknote", take the voucher to the designated institution to withdraw salt, and then sell it at the designated place.Because salt is the most important necessity of people's livelihood in agricultural society, the businessman who obtained the right to operate is like getting a fortune, so "salt banknotes" became a kind of hard currency - a "like currency" based on salt, which was at that time There have been various trading markets focusing on buying and selling "salt banknotes"-professional shops, cross-introduction shops and banknote buying markets.Later generations referred to currency as "banknotes", which began here.

The birth of "maipu" and "chaoyin" is an institutional progress in the development of the industrial and commercial economy. It enables the government to open the field of circulation and mining on the premise of obtaining monopoly profits, and activates the energy of the market. The development of private industry and commerce in the Song Dynasty Prosperity has a lot to do with it. But at the same time, it is a very typical government-business economy. Private business groups in an authorized position have completely lost control over important industries, and state-owned capital has firmly grasped resources in pillar industries that are related to the national economy and people's livelihood. Jiang Xidong once commented: Salt merchants under the Chaoyin system were not free. Profitable activities and profit ratios are greatly restricted.More importantly, this method of directional authorization has created a huge space for rent-seeking. Research by many scholars has shown that most of the businessmen who can get "buying" and "money attracting" are inextricably linked with the government's dignitaries. Many of them are immediate relatives or subordinates of officials. This is the so-called power-responsibility economy model.

From the above description, we can draw two important conclusions: First, the innovation of the economic system in the Song Dynasty was unprecedented in the previous dynasties. Major evolutions occurred in the aspects of macroeconomics, industrial economy, and even the enterprise system. Second, the government-business economic model in the Song Dynasty had already achieved a "specimenization", and the following thousand years were nothing more than the extremeization and depravity of this "specimen".China's economic form, from the pre-Qin period to the early Han Dynasty, was an aristocratic economy, evolved from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and became an aristocratic economy. After entering the Sui and Tang Dynasties, it gradually showed a trend of "combination of scholars and merchants". In the Song Dynasty, it was finally finalized as a gentry economy. , After about one thousand years of evolution, there has been no further progress.In essence, these three economic forms are all government-business economies.