Summary: In the 13th-14th centuries, under the influence of the Hui people's business style, there was an unprecedented commercial prosperity in the Jiangnan region under the rule of the Mongols, and the social power of merchants was unprecedentedly prominent. The merchant class, which started rapidly, showed a special affinity for the representatives of traditional culture; in return for the peach, the southern scholars moved out of the "Book of Shang" and "Shi Ji" to compete for the merchants.
The conquest of the Mongols in the 13th century brought unprecedented shock to the world, especially China. Genghis Khan and his descendants set their sights on China's Jiangnan after several expeditions to the west. The Semu people, who were the first to submit to the Mongols, became the assistants and financial experts of the conquerors of the Yuan Dynasty. Whether it is in the capital city or in the foreign merchants, you can see the figure of the merchants everywhere. The Mongols went south to open up new places for Hui merchants: "Tiange one day south refers, how much Jahuliu." ”
After the Yuan Dynasty unified the whole country, due to its vast territory, the exchange of materials between the north and the south was unimpeded; coupled with the heavy business policy implemented by the Mongolian Yuan government, under the influence of the hui people's business trend, the number of merchants in the economically developed Jiangnan region increased rapidly, and the atmosphere of "giving up the peasants and tending to be merchants" was very strong. "Fujian-Guangzhou maritime merchants, Yangzhou salt merchants, Jiangyou merchants, Huishang merchants, etc. are all active on the commercial stage in the Jiangnan region, competing for their majesty. In this regard, people at that time were deeply touched, so that there was a saying that "in recent times, it is the use of the next yuan jiazi, and the upright heaven and the city wall, so many people are good at making profits in the city".
The unprecedented commercial boom had a very different impact on the social life of the North and the South, and there were also very different attitudes between the North and the South among the scholar class. The renwang of Dingxing (present-day Dingxing, Hebei) was very sensitive to this unprecedented social phenomenon: "Traveling in the heart of the economic zone, strange goods are really habitable." "The whole world is ruling the basket, who will drive this wind?" He simply could not understand how the intoxicating Chinese ethical order society could fall to the point of "ruling the world's basket" overnight, and he was confused and angry about this: "Who will drive this wind?" In his "Eight Affairs of the ShangzhongShu Zai Chancellor", a feudal scholar-doctor's precarious mentality in the face of this huge commercial impact jumped on the paper:
The present ceremonial system is not repaired, and the customs are extravagant... Rich businessmen and merchants rushed to imitate, and they did not know Ji Jiji. ...... If there is no strict prohibition, there is wealth. The people have no perseverance and tend to profit day by day. Treacherous and treacherous, covetous of their desires. Shame and shame, and fading customs.
In the vast Jiangnan area, we see a different scene. Whether it is a coastal port city or a commercial city in the interior, there has been a boom in courtesy merchants. As a result of the development of the economic power of the merchants, their influence in the local society of the Jiangnan region increased day by day. In the social life of the Jiangnan region in the late Yuan Dynasty, we found a very obvious phenomenon of friendly integration between scholars and businessmen. Contrary to the traditional anti-business old tune, southern scholars have moved out of the "Book of Shang" and "History of History" and began to sing praises to merchants and businessmen.
First, the poverty alleviation and the world, the social power of businessmen has never been more prominent
...... Estimating the real fule, the big ship flying mountain to go to the city. Coral is not counted green pearl building, and the family servants are more like Lin qiong zhuo. Ten ox carts of three hundred cars, snow like red tooth water rhinoceros horn. Dogs feed meat to sleep on felt blankets, stables and donkey troughs
。 Born does not envy the Phoenix Pool, and death does not love the Qilin Pavilion. Estimating the joy of the guest is really happy.
Fang Hui's poem "Estimating Kele", which describes the wealthy merchants and magnates of Hangzhou Bay in the Yuan Dynasty, makes us see the unprecedented prosperity of Jiangnan commerce at the end of the 13th century and the unprecedented prominence of this special social class of merchants.
As the economic power of Jiangnan merchants grew, so did their social influence. This process of ascension is done in a variety of forms of social identity. First of all, "getting rich at the end of the day and keeping it by the way" is the traditional investment orientation of Chinese businessmen. Rooted in the vast rural economy, ancient Chinese society, wealth and status in the traditional sense are directly related to the land. A considerable number of merchants in the Yuan Dynasty still did not break away from this tradition. "The rich shoot gold and shoot the people's fields, but the market is happy to add rice prices", perhaps the fortune-makers with silver ingots are most interested in the field that seems to never depreciate. Li Rucheng, a native of Jinling, who was engaged in business in the city of Liuhe (present-day Liuhe, Jiangsu), "people use the field house to porridge and give them a direct view of things." If you ask the question, you will say: 'I want my descendants to keep it for a long time'." Han Meng, a merchant from Yongfeng, Jiangxi (present-day Yongfeng, Jiangxi), "had a family name of Jiangdong, was good at Jia, and went to Mengyi animals and good fields, more than tens of thousands of mu", and invested a large amount of business income in land, purchasing more than 10,000 mu of good land. Once money was converted into land, the social status of the merchant was realized through this transformation from merchant to gentry.
Of course, in addition to land, merchants also had different consumer needs than gentry landlords. After all, they are experienced in the shopping mall, and the wandering in a different place makes them generally obsessed with the pastime of good flowers and drunken drinks to relieve homesickness, and the long-term residence in the city makes them accustomed to luxurious fashion life. Yang Weizhen's "Records of Xiu Qi Tang": "The residence of Yu Shi Lu Guan is the pavilion of goods and wealth. And all of them are five-way merchants. The sun rises and the flea camps, the sun goes in and on, and the speakers are the end of the knife and the plan of the dead. With the body cultivation, the clothes are embroidered with the ear; with the languageian, the wall ear is carved by Junyu. "The improvement of material living standards is the content of life that the business community is quite concerned about.
Due to the limitations of water transportation technology and other conditions at that time, the accident rate of businessmen on the way to business was very high, and many people were buried in foreign lands. In order to go out safely, ordinary businessmen must rely on the blessing of some kind of god psychologically. After becoming rich in business, he spent a lot of money to build temples in order to continue to obtain the protection of the gods. Zhang Yi's "Jiangnan Jia Kezi" not only reveals to us the orientation of Jiangnan merchants' huge investment in temple construction, but also reveals to us a kind of ostentatious wealth psychology of some businessmen seeking social recognition after becoming rich. "To make the structural city without, take the stone Taihu Lake Mountain to collect wood." The pouring of wealth and life is not billed, and the rebuilding is magnificent. "To make the newly built temples unparalleled in the city, to cover the customs of the crowd, to rebuild the eaves, at any cost." The foreman who undertook the house construction was also well aware of this ostentatious mentality of the merchants, so he repeatedly surprised and "wanted to meet the idea with carving". To a certain extent, the luxurious consumption and life of merchants have also become a means for them to obtain social status and recognition from their neighbors, which reflects the escape trend of economic movement trajectory under the influence of local social and cultural gravity. Extraordinary wealth possession will certainly attract the attention of existing social monopolists, and the story of Wang Yuan's marriage to his daughter has been frequently staged on the social stage of southern China since the Southern Dynasty, and the Commercial Atmosphere of the Yuan Dynasty Jiangnan must not be an exception hundreds of years later.
The expansion of the social tension of merchants made their social role increasingly important, and each move became more and more intertwined with local social life. Among them, the most direct impact is their social or familial behavior, which has become another direct manifestation of the economic trajectory escaping under the gravity of regional culture.
In the Jiangnan region of the Yuan Dynasty, there were many cases of merchants building bridges and roads after becoming rich through business. For example, Wang Shilong, a merchant and landlord in Xiuning, paved roads for his hometown, "the construction of bars and beams, the construction of paths, refers to the invincibility of the poor"; the merchants surnamed Xie in Lizhou (located on the north bank of the lower reaches of the Lishui River in Hunan, downstream into Dongting Lake) built the Yiji Bridge across the Lijiang River, a tributary of the Lijiang River; hu Mengzhou, a merchant named Hu Mengzhou, a merchant named Hu Mengzhou, built the Tongji Bridge in the east of Xinyu County with private funds. Their exercise of social righteousness We see a socially egalitarian flow of commercial profits governed by the Confucian concept of benevolence.
Merchants in the Jiangnan area also gave a lot of loans and relief after they got rich. For example, Wuxi Merchants with the surname of Hua opened warehouses to relieve hunger and stabilize local society:
Hua Shi, a giant clan of Xishan (元西別別) –citation), flocked from dozens of people to Cai Xiong A state. ...... At noon (1329-1330), the drought was still in phase, the age was old, and the people who were blinded were sleeping in the Tao. Jun, with compassion, developed the warehouse, 'left meal right porridge, a situation depends on peace. The Xianfu heard and recommended it, the people cherished its favor, and the soldiers recited its beauty.
Luling Xuanxiao merchants made a protracted work, and in the chaotic world, they sent out righteous millet to recruit township soldiers; the fierce years of grain to relieve hunger and stabilize prices:
In 1353, fang instigated more than a thousand people to be forced into the situation, and the people were not at ease... And Kou Zhi, Jun Urgently sent millet to Ding Zhuang, advocating righteousness, and the crowd jumped forward with great enthusiasm, and Kou was defeated. ...... The following year (1354), after a great famine, the county lost its reserves, and ordered the emperor to exhaust his eight hundred stones to lose, and the townspeople complained that they could not be relieved, but they were sent a large amount of money to ask for money. Than returning to the school, its straight per stone increases the township price to three hundred yuan, or please borrow according to the township price, Jun said: "If it is, the more difficult it is for the people to eat." "So there was no increase in anything, and the people lived on it, and they stopped collecting the number of yuan loans than Qiu Minoru, and did not seek to win."
The righteous deeds of Jiangnan merchants also contain a very Chinese characteristic content, that is, help and relief to brothers and clansmen. Liu Qian, a merchant in Poyang, said, "My parents died, and the tomb was finally lost." The third brother was cautious, and the third brother or drunk and went bankrupt, and the king repeatedly redeemed him, because he punished himself for the whole family. His clan Kundi analyzed the wealth and filed a lawsuit, and for a long time he did not understand, and the king summoned him, and he was given a good deed." Xiao Leilong, a merchant of Jishui, used the proceeds of his business to help his brothers and clans, and sponsored the sages of his fellow villagers: "The brothers have three who are cold and depressed, and they all divide their wealth and property to feed themselves, resulting in the auspiciousness of double bamboo and roots." The clan was sensitive in nature and poor, and Fuke entered the school, recruited his grandchildren as teachers and friends, and later became a confucian. ”
After ningbo Xia Rongxian and Rongfa brothers became rich in business, Rongxian "lived in a house", and his parents and brothers lived together. Living in the same room, eating together, and enjoying it. "Whether or not there is a common understanding in the township party state, and there is a common relationship, and the hunger and bedding and cold medicine have a constant degree of death, and it is known that the number of princes and nobles is asking for labor, and the Shi Lang of Gu Can't be strong recommends it, and the JixianYuan hears and praises it, and gives xi qi the title of Zhenyi Shiyun." Rongfa often said, "Ge Wei can still root its roots, but what about people?" Backed by the strong economic strength gained from business, his deeds of helping the townspeople and the clansmen are innumerable: "The father tasted the trap of private affairs, and the officials were not white for a long time, and the king wept and complained about the division, that is, he was rehabilitated." He also tasted the construction and false ambush of the Cao clan of the county tax, junbai ji xueqi qi bu ke, Cao Gaixi prefecture giant, the incumbent often to help him. The family was horrified. Junyue: 'No suffering, my brother. The solemn political division of the emperor, the father can be stretched. And sure enough, Cao was deposed. Some of the townspeople were accepted by the banknote law, and the officials accepted bribes to listen to their false accusations, and the second brother of the jun yi was also arrested, and he was released on the same day as the White Officials. Li Yang's surname was slandered by the neighbor's vendetta, and when he sat down, Jun tried his best to straighten it out. Li Shi is lonely and poor and willing to learn, and the king educates and teaches. Lin women's illness urgently needs to take the precious medicines of the spirit sand, and there is no money to do so, and the king is out of what he has hidden. ...... Its establishment is out of reach, and the Jixian Temple is praised by the temple, and is known as the Xuanyi Virgin. The Righteous Xia Brothers, who were pro-poor in Zhou, won the recognition of the local society, and even the state's Jixian Yuan publicly praised them.
Second, bring out Fan Lizigong, and the southeastern scholars compete for courtesy
(1) Merchants' closeness to traditional culture representatives
Learning to advance is a basic path of progress in traditional Chinese society. After becoming rich in business, many merchants began to travel to make friends, seek fame or support their heirs to study as officials. Some merchants who had a good cultural foundation before starting a business, after becoming rich in business, still have difficulty in giving up the traditional scholars' feelings for poetry and career, and then use the wealth in their hands as a means of studying. Jishui merchant Xiao Leilong, Young Poetry Book, and Yuanping Jiangnan, Shushu You Yandu, Guan Shaan. For a time, the world's famous people such as Guozi sacrificed wine Xiao
, Hanlin scholar Chengzhi Zhao Mengfu and others were friends with him. He was appointed secretary and superintendent of books, and resigned on the grounds that Ma Washu was in the doorway unknown. After becoming rich from business, Xiao Leilong originally wanted to go north with his pockets and seek fame, but his career was not smooth, and he was desperate to advance. In this regard, he once lamented to himself: "I travel tens of millions of miles around the north and south, Qiu Ma servants, Haozong Qili, and welcome the East and West." Depending on the name of the work, probe the treasure in the bag. Whatever happened, it was like that. His fate is also a husband! His fate is also a husband! Song Lian said that he "has a large collection of books in the world, and the sages of the townships belong to ruozhongjian Hugong, Wenjie Yanggong, and Wenzhong Zhougong, all of whom are more than ten people, and their books are hundreds of volumes." Afraid that it will not be abandoned, the bamboo forest will be built, and the old Tibet will be shared. "I also read and wrote myself," there are several volumes of anthologies, which are hidden at home. "The descendants learned Confucianism a lot, the second son abandoned Shang Congwen, the eldest son came and went, and was read by the Guozi supervisor, and the Shunzhou Confucianism was taught; the second son came to have, and ren a certain state Lu Confucian scholar recorded." Four suns, Meng Quan, Meng Wu, Meng Fu, and Xun. Xun, a disciple of Mr. Xiang Liu YueShen Gaodi, botong qunjing, was famous for his good ancient words at that time. Entering the Ming Dynasty, he rose up in response to the edict and became the chief of yubu.
For businessmen who abandoned their studies at an early age, studying as a scholar always seemed to have a special charm in their minds. Wang Shan, a merchant from Jinxi, Jiangxi, "Practice the art of winning by wonder, travel to Seven Min, and the family is a great one." "Sigh early abandonment of learning, Li Di Qizi Sutra, build a fine house in the first district, hire a master to live in it, and work hard day and night, if you must not forget the person who goes." The Russians were two thousand miles away from the teacher, and the feeding of the sorghum was flowing in a stream, and they did not think it was annoying. And see the Eldest Son Sutra, using the "Ritual" Sutra to lead the township recommendation, Xi Yue: "There is a son who can understand the scriptures, although I have abandoned the study, how can I regret the political restoration?" Xia Rongfa of Ningbo, "Although there is not much to read, but Ya respects the wise men and listens to his words, and if the son and grandson are to extend the famous teacher Confucianism to teach."
The attachment to his studies and career made Jiangnan merchants generally show a friendly and respectful attitude towards the scholars. For example, the courtesy of the Huizhou merchant Fang Rujin to the well-known local scholar Huang Shu, the new Yu merchant Zhou Menghui's respect for Liang Yin, the elder confucian elder of Benlu, and the praise of Cao Zhibai, the landlord and merchant of Huating, to the vast number of scribes, and so on. For a time, a strong wind of merchants and priests appeared in the Jiangnan area. Kunshan Taicang was a prosperous overseas trading port that began to rise in the Yuan Dynasty. In the political turmoil at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Quanzhou maritime merchants moved north one after another, and a large number of Quanzhou maritime merchants, including Zhu Daoshan, Sun Tianfu, and Chen Baosheng, migrated to Kunshan. The great scholars of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, such as Wang Yi, Gao Qi, and Yuan Hua, were all guests of Zhu, Sun, Chen, and others. Zhang Sheng, a scholar from Shandong, recorded his friendship with Chen Baosheng and Sun Tianfu: "When Yu travels to the sea, Sun Jun stops Yu Qi's house. The master of the economic students on the seat talked a lot of tiredness day and night. The king is more than seven feet long, generous and dignified, and the servants of the family serve a hundred people. Jun is not in a hurry, listens to the rest of the discussion alone, and does not give up eating. Chen Jun is good at storing ancient books and historical books, and can discern the meaning of their meanings one by one. Gu Ying, a merchant and scholar from the Eunuch clan of Kunshan, built a garden group with Yushan Caotang as the main body in Kunshan, 36 scenes of pavilions and pavilions, day and night and high people, poetry, singing and singing, and literary celebrities Yang Weizhen, Ke Jiusi, Ni Zhan, Zhang Yi and so on are regular customers there. Later, Gu Ying sang and wrote the works of these literati in the caotang, more than 50 families and more than 700 poems, published under the name of "Caotang Yaji", and Yang Weizhen wrote a preface for it.
(2) Bring out Fan Lizigong, and the southeastern scholars compete for the ceremonial business
After the merchant family became rich and wealthy, they turned to the pursuit of elegance and competed to hand over the readers, so the southern scholars, who began to reflect on themselves in frustration, moved out of the "Book of Shang" and "History", invited Fan Li and Zigong, praised the wisdom of the merchants, galloped through the world, and began to sing praises to the merchants and businessmen. For a time, a faction of merchants and merchants was a scene of personal integration.
The epitaph written by the Pujiang scholar Dai Liang for the Xia brothers in Yinxian County introduces the Xia clan and their close personal relationship with the scholars. He wrote the following passage in his epitaph to Xia Rongfa: "Yu Yue: Shi Zhi Shi Heng, the Great Master of the World, is happy to be poor and denigrates the rich, whoops! Isn't it possible to be rich? The book says: 'Rich grain. He also said, "The rich and the rich can be trained." 'Then the rich are the ones who are good, and how can they be denigrated?' Now the virgin can be rich and good... Ke Ming also remembers. "Shu Hong Fan": "Only when a person who is upright and upright can he be kind when he is rich"; "if he is rich and capable of training", with a certain economic foundation, he can carry out discipline and education without worry about food and clothing. In order to find a theoretical basis for the reasonable justice of Xia's business career, Dai Liang moved out of the Book of Shang, which directly challenged the tradition of honoring the poor and the rich since the Middle Ages.
The Xiuning scholar Huang Shu was very close to The Rich Merchant Jin Rushan of Huizhou. Huang Shu was a tutor hired by Jin Rushan for the children of the family, and because of Huang Shu's position in the local literati circle, the Jin clan built a room for him in the neighborhood of his house and treated him with great courtesy. Every time Jin Rushan went out to do business, Huang Shu had a poem to give, and "Hangzhou for Sending People" was written for Jin's trip to Hangzhou:
Lianyun raft pan Eastern Wu, good is Qing and Yu Ji chu. Yellow birds hiss the willows, Qingjiang Zhanzhan water breeze. Ren Congyue praised the country and returned to Shangzhou early to comfort Lu. Two sideburns (canopy) [fluffy] loose whiskers short, a hundred dollars do not hesitate for me.
The breeze on the Xin'an River is gentle, the willows are blowing lightly, the raft of golden mountains and clouds is majestic to the east, the luxury of Hangzhou city life may also be Huang Shu's heart, and the west lake rafting accompanied by the beautiful people idealized by the literati and inkers of the past generations must be the content of his long-cherished enjoyment, but obviously he cannot afford it financially, and can only take the opportunity of sending off to put forward a small request for a hundred dollars in the poem. In the preface to the poem "Sending Jin Rushan to Wuzhou", he compares the Jin clan with the Yizipi (Fan Libei), who is recorded in the "Records of History", after helping the Yue King's sentence to destroy Wu, because the sentence can only be in trouble with people, and cannot live together, so he hides himself in the rivers and lakes as a businessman, and changes his name to Yizipi to Qi, and to The Tao is called Zhu Gong): "The wind of The Brother Mu Yizipi of The Mountain... This year, when I heard about the Zhejiang East Jinhua Business Brigade Chase, I carved a day to buy a boat in the past, and also made three chapters of bamboo branch songs. Previously, the Jin clan had planned to trade in Jiangxi, and Huang Shu also had a poem gift, which included the sentence "Qingfeng is far away from the iris, laughing at my crampedness and foolishness". These once self-respecting scholars, in the face of the richness and generosity of merchants, could not hide their shyness, and began to wake up to the embarrassment and stupidity of their social roles in a hurry.
The well-known scholar Liang Yin of Xinyu Shimen and Zhou Menghui, a merchant of Xingan Yibin, had close contacts. Liang Yin's "Preface to Zhou Menghui" links the Confucian practices advocated by traditional scholars with the actions of this merchant named Zhou Menghui, turning the distant merchant behavior of this half-literati who was once a Maocai in the township into a romantic story that can cultivate emotions and record in historical books, and this merchant surnamed Zhou must have raised his status in local society because of his close relationship with culture and cultural people.
Yang Weizhen and Yuan Hua's masters and apprentices praised maritime merchants even more. With their outstanding business wisdom, businessmen galloped into the political arena of shopping malls and left their names in history. After praising Fan Li and Zigong, Yuan Hua began to look more courageously at the embarrassment and numbness of confucians who were familiar with reading the scriptures and being blunt to the world, and showed no mercy to their own social roles. In Yang Weizhen's eyes, industry and commerce is no longer a lazy last skill, but has become a noble profession with respect for benevolence, wisdom, courage and the "four virtues". Even Yu Ji, a Confucian master of the Yuan Dynasty and a literary titan, wrote poems for Wang Dayuan and Cao Zhibai, and he was highly praising the elegance and leisure that had wealth as a backing. It is also this kind of relationship between scholars and merchants that has made the deeds of merchants in the Yuan Dynasty circulate for more than 600 years, and we know it today.
Source: History Teaching, No. 05, 2004;