Chapter 10 Chapter 9 A Glimpse at Beijing: The Capital's Economy

Whether it is a unified dynasty, a separatist regime or a frontier ethnic regime, in most cases, their capital is not only the political, economic and cultural center of the country, but also the largest city with the largest population.Any capital city, as long as it has been built for a certain period of time, is all like this.However, the large population of the capital is not all caused by natural growth, especially for those new capitals established after the change of dynasty, the rapid population growth is often the result of immigration.Therefore, to talk about the economy of the capital, we must first mention the population migration of the capital.There are two types of immigrants entering the capital, forced and voluntary. The former is mostly organized by the government.

For the feudal autocratic regime, the whole country is like a big tree, the capital is the trunk of the tree, and the various places are the branches, and the branches cannot be larger than the trunk.Therefore, after the establishment of the capital, the dynasties of the past dynasties often moved rich families from all over the country to the capital to live in the capital in order to combat the local tyrants, increase the population of the capital and enhance the economic strength of the capital.Qin Shihuang destroyed the six countries, and moved 120,000 households of the rich and powerful from the six countries to the capital city of Xianyang.Not long after the establishment of the capital of Chang'an in the Western Han Dynasty, officials with an annual salary of more than 2,000 shi were moved in, and the five surnames Zhao, Qu, Jing, Huai, and Tian of the original Qi and Chu were moved to the mausoleum near Chang'an. At the same time, large families from other countries also moved in, totaling more than 100,000 people.Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty established Luoyang as his capital, and forced tens of thousands of wealthy businessmen from all over the country to move to Luoyang.After Zhu Yuanzhang settled down in Nanjing, he also forcibly moved more than 14,000 households of rich and powerful people from all over the south of the Yangtze River.In order to be able to produce weapons and daily necessities needed for the life of the ruler on the spot, compulsory measures must be taken to gather a large number of skilled craftsmen to the capital.At the beginning of the Sui Dynasty, craftsmen from all over the world were recruited to the capital, and there were all kinds of industries.In the 12th year of the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1275), more than 100,000 craftsmen were forcibly recruited from the southern provinces, and another 420,000 craftsmen were recruited from the northern provinces in the 16th year of the Yuan Dynasty. A considerable number of these craftsmen were placed in handicraft workshops in the capital.This kind of forced population migration is quite common in history, and in those newly established capitals, this kind of immigration has even become the main part of the population of the capital.

Those who voluntarily moved to the capital were mainly for business, manual labor, employment in the service industry, education, and official positions.The capital city is the most economically developed place in the country. Not only is it easy to do business and get rich, but also there are many opportunities to choose a job. Naturally, it will attract a large number of people who depend on business and culture for their livelihood.It has been observed that in Beijing in the Ming Dynasty, the locals only served as manual laborers such as coachmen, donkey pawns driving donkey carts, and coal households digging coal, while the subordinate staff engaged in business and government agencies were all foreigners. People (Volume 2 of Wang Shixing's "Guang Zhi Yi").For those who want to enter official careers or display their political ambitions, the capital city is undoubtedly the best place to move around, so there are quite a few people who settle there.Due to the developed culture of the capital, many writers, artists and other intellectuals of all kinds moved into the capital.During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, there were only tens of thousands of music performers and song and dance performers affiliated to the Taichang and Advocacy Department established by the imperial court.In addition, tens of millions of monks and Taoist priests also lived in the capital.Some of them moved in voluntarily.

Among the population of the capital city, quite a few are relatives of the emperor, dignitaries and rich people, because this is the world of the emperor and his sons and grandsons, the world of officials, the world of soldiers, the world of the rich, and there are many other people. It is to provide them with various services to earn a living.According to statistics in the thirty-fourth year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (AD 1908), among the 705,000 people in the inner and outer cities of Beijing, 280,000 people from the Eight Banners, including officials, servants, and soldiers who did not engage in production, accounted for 40% of the total population.Countless powerful people gather in the capital city, live a life of luxury, and consume countless material wealth.

Ancient China was a society dominated by the natural economy. The basic feature was that each household was the production unit. Men farmed and women weaved. Except for salt and some iron daily necessities and labor tools, there were no other commodity requirements.It can be said that the purchasing power of commodities in the vast rural areas is very low.Most of the items in ancient commercial operations can only be purchased by urban residents, and expensive luxury goods can only be bought by the powerful and wealthy in the city.Therefore, while a large amount of grain, taxes, and tribute were transported to the capital, exquisite items from all over the country also flowed to the capital, and the capital became the largest gold sales den in the country.

Ancient handicrafts are generally divided into two types: official and private.The government-run handicraft industry is mainly produced for the luxury and enjoyment of the ruling class and for the needs of consolidating their rule, and the products generally do not intervene in the field of commodity exchange.Because a large number of skilled craftsmen are concentrated in the capital, the capital is one of the largest handicraft centers in the country. The scale of the government-run handicraft industry concentrated here is the largest in the country, and the division of labor is also very detailed.The official handicraft industries established in the capital city in the past dynasties were all large-scale, and the division of labor was very detailed. "Tang Liu Dian" records that there are 25,000 craftsmen under the jurisdiction of the Shaofu Supervisor and Jiang Zuo Supervisor, and a considerable number of them are distributed in the capital area.In Chang'an City, there were 700 craftsmen in brocade and embroidery for Yang Guifei alone, and hundreds of craftsmen in carving and melting.There were as many as 80,000 craftsmen in Kaifeng's official handicraft workshops in the Northern Song Dynasty. There were as many as 8,000 to 10,000 craftsmen in the northern and southern workshops under the jurisdiction of the Military Weapons Supervisor. Woodwork, firework, large and small woodwork, large and small furnace, leather, hemp, and kiln.The government-run handicraft industry in the capital city of the Southern Song Dynasty had hundreds of workshops affiliated to Shaofujian, Jiangzuojian, and Military Weapons Supervisor, with 10,000 to 20,000 craftsmen.The division of labor is more detailed than that of the Northern Song Dynasty. Shaofu Supervisor Wensiyuan mainly produces gold, silver, rhinoceros, jade and other crafts and decorative objects such as gold mining and painted elements. It is further divided into jade, fan, flower, pinch Sculpture, sculpture, rattan and many other departments.

The craftsmen of the official handicraft industry are all the best craftsmen recruited from all over the country, and their skills are very exquisite.Tang Zhongzong's beloved daughter, Princess Anle, has two woolen skirts supervised by the Shaofu. The feathers of a hundred birds are also woven on them. It is one color when viewed from the front, and another color when viewed from the back. It is one color during the day and another color at night. One color, the shape of a hundred birds are presented on the skirt.This shows the superb craftsmanship of the craftsmen. Except for the royal family and officials of a certain status, the daily necessities of most people in the capital were mainly obtained from private handicraft workshops.Due to the large sales volume in the capital, folk craftsmen gathered.In the Southern Song Dynasty, there were 12 kinds of occupations in Lin'an, and there were 12,000 households in each industry. Each household had as few as 10 people and as many as 30 to 40 people, totaling 100,000 or 200,000 people.The production scope of the private handicraft industry covers various sectors, and the production of consumer goods and cultural goods related to residents' life is generally relatively developed.In the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng was an important center of brush, ink making, and printing industries in the country, and food processing shops spread all over the streets and alleys of the city.In addition, there are departments such as pharmaceuticals, wheat grinding, weaving and dyeing, wine making, alum refining, tea making, and superstition production.The private handicraft industry in Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty had various workshops and sales shops.Among them, Zhenguan City specializes in bedding and various hats, Yijuan City specializes in clothes, Sijin City specializes in silk fabrics, and Huaguo City specializes in women's jewelry and artificial flowers for indoor supply.In addition, there are various workshops such as the Pearl Market, the Tortoiseshell Market, gold and silver milling and jade making, diamond making, emerald making, mounting work, mills, etc.In order to exchange experience and improve skills, the handicraft craftsmen here also organize the "Qibao Society", which gathers at the temple fair of Huoshan Temple outside Qiantang Gate on the eighth day of February every year.

In addition, there are a large number of floating individual handicraftsmen in the capital.Most of them are engaged in smaller industries such as repairing and processing, such as repairing shoes and hats, washing felts and washing wells.There are many individual craftsmen in Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, including cutting flowers, pasting brushes, making baskets, wearing beads, making sachets, kites, fireworks, clay figurines, masks, etc. There are dozens of people in each industry. The capital city is the area with the strongest commodity consumption ability in the country. To meet this need, it is also one of the largest commercial centers in the country, and its commerce is quite developed.The East Market and West Market in Chang'an of the Tang Dynasty were places where commodities gathered together.Everything from priceless treasures of the Western Regions to daily sundries.There are 220 lines in Dongshi, each of which sells certain types of goods.According to the records of Enren, a Japanese monk who came to Tang Dynasty: On June 27, the third year of Huichang (843 A.D.), "at night, a fire broke out in Dongshi, and more than 4,000 houses in 24 lines west of Caomen in Dongshi were burned. The gold, silver, silk, medicine, etc. are always burned" ("Journey to the Tang Dynasty to Seek the Dharma"), which shows that there are so many shops and goods.There are clothing shops, tomb shops, medicinal materials shops, Persian mansions, silk shops, weighing shops, silk shops, bran shops, and Jifu shops in the West Market. Commercial activities are more prosperous than those in the East Market.There should be no fewer than 10,000 shops in the eastern and western cities, and at least tens of thousands of businessmen.

During the Tang and Song dynasties, the commodity economy in the capital was greatly developed.Merchants of various industries jointly formed "lines" and "markets", which made many new "lines" or "markets" for daily necessities appeared along the river near the bridge or inside and outside the city gate in Chang'an, and gradually formed "lines" or "markets". City" as the center of the market.At the same time, restaurants and teahouses also developed, gradually forming a market centered on them.As a result, the old closed east and west markets were replaced by new street markets and street markets.With the disintegration of the old "city" and the rise and development of the street market, the residential area and the commercial area intersect and gradually become one.In the late Zhou Dynasty of the Five Dynasties, Kaifeng City canceled the closed square wall, and the city's commercial activities were not restricted by city boundaries, square boundaries and time, and became more prosperous.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, the foreign goods that entered Kaifeng were mainly food, cloth, coal and other living materials, and luxury goods had been relegated to a secondary position. They not only served the luxurious life of the ruling class in the city, but mainly served the daily life of the general public. served.In addition, some goods from other places are re-transported to the north, northwest, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other places through this place.Countless large and small shops are lined up in the streets and alleys of Kaifeng City, and almost all the streets of the city have commercial activities.The catering industry is the most prosperous. There are not only various local restaurants, such as North Food Store, South Food Store, and Chuan Restaurant, but also various restaurants in different categories.Restaurants are scattered all over the place, and food stalls abound.The largest restaurant at that time was named Baifanlou, and there were often thousands of people drinking in it.People at that time wrote poems saying: "Singing and dancing in Liangyuan is full of romance, and fine wine is like a knife to relieve sorrow. I remember the joys of youth, and I went to the Fan (Fan) building late at night with lights." (Liu Zijun's "Pingshan Collection" Volume 18 "Bianjing Chronicle" 》) Due to the large number of food outlets and considerate service, a considerable number of people often only buy food from restaurants instead of cooking their own meals.In the Tang Dynasty, there were only bookstores in the "market" in Chang'an. In the Northern Song Dynasty, there were not only places selling books and antiques in the Xiangguo Temple Fair, but also many bookstores in Dongmen Street of Xiangguo Temple. The bookstore industry also established a market, called "text line".

In addition to commercial activities during the day, there are also night markets and morning markets.The night market starts at nightfall and ends at the end of the third or fourth watch, but the most lively places and the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival last all night.The morning market starts at five o'clock every day.In addition, there are regular fairs, seasonal fairs and industry fairs.Merchant capital and usury capital are quite active.Usury capital is mainly engaged in the pawn business, which is called quality warehouse. At that time, wealthy businessmen, government officials, and temples in Kaifeng City operated this kind of loan business with objects as collateral. In the early Ming Dynasty, thousands of private houses and shops were built around the Four Gates of the Imperial City, the Bell and Drum Towers, Dongsi Archway, and West Fourth Archway in Beijing. They were called "langfang" to encourage the development of industry and commerce. .From Zhengyangmen to Qipan Street in front of Damingmen, there are many department stores and it is the busiest street. Pedestrians jostle shoulder-to-shoulder, and it is noisy all day long.There are also rice markets, pig markets, mule horse markets, donkey markets, sheep markets, fruit markets and other industry markets in the city.In Longfu Temple, Huguo Temple, Dongyue Temple, Chenghuang Temple and other temples, the temple fairs held regularly have also become the center of material exchange.The Lantern Market outside Donghuamen is the place where lanterns are put on during the eighth to eighteenth day of the first lunar month every year.On the day when the lanterns are put on, it is a city during the day, and lights are put on at night. The Erli Long Street is lined with shops, and merchants from all provinces of the country sell local products here. In order to ensure the supply of grain and non-staple food in the capital, the rulers of all dynasties paid more attention to the agricultural production in the area where the capital was located.Generally, in the early years of the founding of the country, when the population of Gyeonggi was sparse and the economy was dilapidated, the rulers would take certain measures to reduce or exempt taxes to attract people to cultivate in this area.In some dynasties, the area where the capital is located was also the focus of national water conservancy construction.During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, many channels such as Baiqu, Caoqu, Liufu and Chengguo canals were dug in Guanzhong, together with the original Zhengguo Canal, basically forming a water conservancy network for irrigating the farmland in the Guanzhong Plain, which promoted the development of agriculture in the capital.In addition, some new production tools and production technologies were first promoted and used in the area where the capital is located.The Daitian method invented by Zhao Guo in the Han Dynasty, a farming technique that requires less effort and yields more, was first implemented near Chang'an. In ancient times, a series of towns were often built around the capital, which played a role in supporting the prosperity of the capital.The cities around these capitals and their peripheral areas are mostly under the jurisdiction of the capital administratively.For example, Chang'an was established as the capital in the Western Han Dynasty, and 12 counties of Jingzhaoyin were designated as the direct jurisdiction.In addition to Jingzhao Yin, there are two county-level units, Zuo Fengyi and You Fufeng, which constitute the Gyeonggi area that defends the capital and serves the capital, and plays a role in stabilizing the capital's politics and economy. The ancient capital mainly existed as a political and military center, and a considerable number of people inside and outside the city were pure consumers rather than producers.Therefore, most of the consumer goods in the capital need to be supplied from other places.All parts of the country not only need to contribute rare and exotic objects, native products and pay taxes to the central government, but also need to continuously transport a large number of commodities to the capital, which requires the capital to have a transportation network extending to all parts of the country.Therefore, each dynasty often built the capital into a national transportation center.As soon as Qin Shihuang unified the world, he opened up roads leading to all parts of the country, reaching Shandong Peninsula in the east, Lintao in Gansu in the west, Hetao in Inner Mongolia and northern Hebei in the north, and Guangzhou in the south. The transportation network extending in all directions is centered on the capital.The Han and Tang Dynasties inherited this system and further expanded and perfected it. Its west side leads to present-day Xinjiang and its west areas.Kaifeng's water and land transportation conditions are very superior, and it is the leading transportation center in the country.Chang'an in the Han and Tang Dynasties, and Beijing in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties were important transportation centers throughout the country. Waterway transportation is often more important than land transportation, and the large amount of materials needed in the capital mainly depends on shipping.For this reason, successive dynasties have attached great importance to the development of water transportation, connecting the capital with the national water transportation network.Chang'an was the capital of the Han and Tang Dynasties, and a canal was dug in Guanzhong to connect Chang'an and the Yellow River.Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty established Luoyang as his capital, and started building the Grand Canal while constructing Luoyang, forming a water transport network centered on Luoyang.Since then, the Grand Canal has become the lifeblood of north-south transportation in successive dynasties.Beijing, the capital of the Yuan Dynasty, was located at the northern end of the North China Plain, and grain and supplies depended on the south. In order to change the difficult situation of transporting grain from the south to the north, the Grand Canal was built during the period of Emperor Shizu of the Yuan Dynasty, from Hangzhou in the south to Beijing in the north.Following the capital of Beijing in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, as the lifeline of the country's economy, reached its peak and did not tend to decline until the end of the Qing Dynasty.