Chapter 16 Section 3 Prosperous City Commerce, Vigorous Rural Trade

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the political center moved to Beijing, but this did not affect the development of commerce in the south.There were 360 ​​lines in the city of Beijing in the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1421 when Emperor Chengzu moved his capital here from Nanjing).There are many shops, and goods from the north and the south gather.There are many professional markets (wholesale) on the street, such as rice market, pig market, sheep market, mule horse market, coal market, flower market, vegetable market, fruit market, Gangwa market, etc. The trading time is mainly in the morning.In addition, there are regular lantern markets (8th to 17th day of the first lunar month) and temple markets (Town God's Temple is the most lively, open on the first lunar month and the 25th day of each month).In Beijing in the Qing Dynasty, the business was more than that in the Ming Dynasty. In terms of temple markets, the number of temple markets increased from 22 in the Ming Dynasty to 36. Huguo Temple, Baita Temple, Longfu Temple, and Earth Temple were the four famous temple markets at that time. .There were already 55 large cities across the country from Beijing to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, many of which were commercial or handicraft centers, rather than political centers that were “completely related to government consumption”.In the Qing Dynasty, it was known as "Four Great Gatherings in the World" - Beijing, Suzhou, Hankou, Foshan and "Four Famous Towns" - Foshan Town, Jingdezhen, Hankou Town and Zhuxian Town.Only Beijing is the political center, and the others are famous for their developed industries and commerce.For example, Suzhou has always been the center of the silk weaving industry; Foshan is the center of the iron smelting industry; Jingdezhen is the center of the porcelain industry; Hankou Town is the confluence of the upper and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Cloth, Dang, and medicine are the largest in six industries; Zhuxian Town (45 miles southwest of Kaifeng), after the Jialu River was opened in Yuan Dynasty, became a water and land transfer point leading to Kaifeng, where the south ship and the north horse connect, and it is an important commodity distribution center. Its commercial development is different from Bianjing's relying on the political center in Song Dynasty.Generally speaking, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the commercial prosperity of cities was mainly concentrated in the south. Compared with the south, the commerce in the north was dwarfed by that of the Song Dynasty. A new imbalance had emerged between the north and the south.

The market structure of cities in the Ming and Qing Dynasties was a continuation of the situation after the collapse of the city system in the Song Dynasty, but there were some new changes in the commercial organization.In the Song Dynasty, Ya people still carried out activities in their personal capacity. In the Ming Dynasty, Ya people were allowed to set up Ya people under the condition of paying a considerable fee. Tooth line), city merchants have fought a lot to get rid of the tooth line.In the Tang and Song Dynasties, Feiqian was exchanged, and so far, ticket offices and banks were formed.Industry organizations such as guilds and regiments developed into guild halls and offices with certain equipment and scale.The so-called guild nature is: Ming and Qing guild halls (consisting of fellow merchants from many industries), and public offices (trade organizations composed of non-traditional merchants, which emerged after Jiaqing) were founded by merchants according to their own will—many with It is related to opposing the control of Yahang, rather than Tang and Song's Xing and Tuanxing were established to deal with the government's Corso, and the government has a lot of control over it.Guild halls and public offices have become more exclusive and monopoly against external competition, and there are strict restrictions on the establishment of new stores outside the organization—someone needs to guarantee them, pay a lot of silver as public expenses, and entertain their peers, otherwise they are not allowed to open stores. , The internal control is also strong, and the rules are stipulated, and those who violate the rules will be punished in meetings, and the external disputes will be negotiated by the "directors" of the bank.The transformation from industry-based organizations to guild-based organizations (the guild-like nature of the public office is stronger) is also the difference between the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Song Dynasty.All these features indicate that urban commerce has developed to a higher and newer level.

Rural commerce also had a new development in the Ming and Qing Dynasties than in the Song Dynasty.Rural bazaars below towns and cities have more prosperous trade than before, with shorter bazaar periods, more bazaars, expanded varieties, and more active merchants. The southern bazaars are especially prosperous in the north.In the north, "the counties and towns of Hebei have no settlements for dozens of miles"; even Shanghe County near Dezhou is "a city that is nothing more than the presence or absence of nearby residents for trade."In the south, there are many markets in counties. For example, there are 20, 30, or even 50 or 60 markets in a county in Guangdong.In some places, one or two kinds of bulk commodities are the main trading objects, resulting in the formation of professional markets, such as Silk Market, Bamboo Market, Mulberry Market, Silkworm Market, Grain Market, Fish Market, Bull Market, Chicken and Duck Market, etc.

But the most important thing is on the higher level towns and cities.During this period, the number of cities and towns prospered, and the Taihu Lake Basin was even more prominent. For example, Wujiang County had four towns and three cities before Ming Hongzhi, which increased to four towns and ten cities in Jiajing, and seven towns and ten cities in Wanli.There are various types of towns. Distributing-type commercial towns and production-type handicraft specialized towns have emerged one after another; they are no longer comparable to ordinary commercial towns that only met farmers' general commodity purchase and sales requirements in the past.The former has actually formed a specialized agricultural and sideline product market, and its trade is mostly important agricultural raw materials or important rural household handicraft products in addition to the transfer of grain.For example, Fengqiao in Suzhou is a big grain market, Shuanglin Town in Huzhou is a big silk market, there is a professional cotton market in the market towns in the suburbs of Shanghai, and there are many cotton cloth transactions in the market towns in various prefectures and counties of Su Changsong, which is rich in cotton cloth. market.The latter relies on the development of a certain handicraft production, as represented by Shengze Town, Wujiang County, whose rise is directly related to the silk weaving industry.At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, it was still a small village of fifty or sixty families. It was changed into a city in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Town number one.The quality of the silk produced was good, and the merchants traveled thousands of miles, "those who came to buy with a lot of money walked shoulder to shoulder".In the Ming Dynasty, while there were tooth shops in the city, there were also tooth shops in the town.There are more than a thousand silk and dental shops in Shengze Town, and the dental shops in Songjiang towns "respect cloth merchants like princes, and compete for cloth merchants like rivals" (Ye Mengzhu's "Yueshibian").For the convenience of merchants, Yahang not only provides accommodation, but also buys goods on behalf of customers, and some even escorts goods on behalf of customers. In the future, Yahang often buys some goods from rural areas for storage.In the Qing Dynasty, many merchants from other places set up their own stores in towns for bulk commodities and purchased them by themselves without going through a dental office.However, there is still a lot of room for activities of the general agricultural and sideline product dealers.Some have bad teeth and bully the market, they are very rascals.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the rapid development of town commerce showed that commodity exchange was not limited to small local markets. Many bulk commodities depended on merchants who came to the town to expand the market and sell their products to distant places.Commerce that can reflect market requirements and expand market connections has become a bridge between urban and rural areas, between industry (handicrafts) and agriculture, and between production and demand. These functions of commerce have become increasingly significant and strengthened.Simultaneously, small producers became more dependent on commerce.The supply of raw materials and the purchase of finished products all depend on merchants. Once "traders from the sky come and go", they have no choice but to "cry at each other's wives and children inside the door".