In Chinese history, Caoyun refers to the dynasty transporting grain from various places to the capital. Caoyun can be a land road, a river channel, or a sea channel, which refers to the main mode of transportation used by Caoyun. In fact, the transportation of grain to the Beijing Division is often a combination of water and land transport, and even changes hands several times. Since the Sui and Tang dynasties, China's economic center of gravity has shifted south, and the south is rich in grain, but the Beijing division is often in the north, so caoyun has become a special form of grain transfer from the south to the north. For example, in kaifeng, the capital division of the Northern Song Dynasty, the grain at that time was transported to Kaifeng through canals and land combined transport.
First, the transportation of the Yuan Dynasty was mainly by sea
Grain transportation by sea has been available as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and ships travel between coastal areas, and the general distance is relatively close. During the Tang Dynasty, the imperial court had also transferred grain from the south to Heshuo and Liaodong, but it was not a water transport, nor was it often carried out. In the Yuan Dynasty, the Beijing division was located in Dadu, which needed a large amount of grain, and at that time, the conditions for shipping were relatively mature, and the sea route shipping was unprecedentedly developed.
When Bo Yan captured Lin'an in 1276, the issue of water transportation was put on the agenda.
In the beginning, the grain in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas was in Yangzhou, north along the ancient canal, in Huai'an from the Huai River into the Yellow River, back to Zhongluan (southwest of present-day Fengqiu, Henan Province), below Zhongluan, then by land transport to Qimen (southwest of present-day Xun County, Henan Province), and then into the Yuhe River (present-day Weihe), arrived in Tongzhou, from Tongzhou and then by land to Dadu, which is mainly a river, water and land transport.
The river is circuitous, and it has to be loaded and unloaded three times during land and water transfers, which is very inconvenient. In order to reduce the waterway from Huai'an to Zhongluan and the land route from Zhongluan to Qimen, in 1282 the rivers of Jeju River, Dushui, and Surabaya were repaired, so that the boats continued north from Huai'an into the Daqing River, and then from Lijin (now part of Shandong) into the Bohai Sea to Zhigu. In this way, almost the whole process is water transport, leaving only a small section from Tongzhou to Dadu is land transport. However, the dredging of the Jeju River is not deep, and the estuary of Lijin is easy to silt up, so the transportation volume of this route is still not large. At that time, the canal from Jiaozhou (present-day Jiaoxian County) to Laizhou (where the seat of government was located in Ye County) was also dug on the Shandong Peninsula, but when it encountered a solid section of rock formation, it could not be dug deeply, and the river was too shallow, and finally had to give up.
Second, the Sea Cao of the Yuan Dynasty was transported twice a year in spring and summer
The river was inconvenient, and the minister at that time remembered the sea channel. After he captured Lin'an in 1276, he ordered his subordinates to transport the Southern Song Dynasty's treasury, books and goods from the sea to Dadu. In 1282, when Boyan saw that the effect of river transportation was not good, he asked for a trial of shipping, and Kublai Khan approved it. This year's test luck was only more than 46,000 stones. And because of the "wind and flood time", it did not reach Zhichen until the following year. However, once the sea transport was opened, it was much more convenient than river transport, so it soon became the main transport route for grain. The original labor of land transport can basically be avoided.
In the Yuan Dynasty, Haicao was transported twice a year in spring and summer.
In 1289, 935,000 stones of grain were shipped by sea, and 919,943 stones were reached on the shore, accounting for the majority of all grain. In 1290, Haicao increased to more than 1.5 million stones. By 1292, most of them had accumulated abundant grain. From 1309 onwards, more than two million stones were transported annually. From 1319 onwards, annual fortunes were often above three million stones. Most of the people living in the capital, from the emperor to the people, most of the people's food was transported from the south by sea.
Of course, the emperor and the aristocratic bureaucrats ate good food. The Yuan court stipulated that each year it was necessary to "offer" 50,000 stones of white stemmed rice and fragrant sticky rice. However, the emperors of the Yuan Dynasty understood that it was not easy to eat good rice from Jiangnan. It is said that when the emperor eats, it is customary for the imperial cook to serve the yellow beam first, in order to show that he does not forget the certain drowsiness of the past.
Third, the Yuan court attaches great importance to maritime transport and has a special agency to manage it
In 1291, the relevant institutions were merged into the two sea routes of Caoyun Wanhufu. At that time, the ten thousand households were Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan. Zhu and Zhang were originally pirate leaders, and later belonged to the Yuan Dynasty, and had great merit in creating and managing shipping. The Yuan court gave him the high-ranking official Houlu, who started by managing shipping and became the richest people in Jiangnan.
When they were in their prime, "brothers, nephews, nephews and nephews are all high officials, pastoral mansions are all over the world, warehouses are looking at each other, and huge ships and sails are intertwined." At one point, Kublai Khan even allowed them to print their own banknotes. Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan dominated Jiangnan and were not punished by Emperor Yuan Chengzong until 1302. The following year, Yuan Yan relocated a sea route to transport grain to wanhufu. But after this, the shipping officials still received preferential treatment from the imperial court. "The chief of Cao Chen, will be highly valued by the world", the capital can be used to travel to and from the capital station, and Feng Lu is also particularly generous. Cao officials also became a fat shortage among the officials of the Yuan Dynasty.
Shipbuilding and navigation technology provide the conditions for maritime transport
The development of shipping was undoubtedly due to the yuan court's need for southern grain and paid special attention to it. At the same time, the technology of shipbuilding and navigation at that time also provided conditions for such maritime transport.
Shipping is about to use building ships. It is a pointed-bottomed three-masted sailing ship with a rudder and two oars at each end, symmetrical front and rear, and a watchtower. Because of the shape of the building, it is called a building ship. In the event of a storm, it is difficult to turn the sails, and this kind of building ship can be interchanged end to end and used flexibly. At first, small boats could only carry three hundred stones, and large ships could carry up to one thousand stones. With the large increase of grain transportation, the ships became larger and larger, and the largest ships could be loaded with eight or nine thousand stones after the end of Yanyou (1314-1320). On every ship, there are "habitual workers" who "orient the ship by needle road, and look up at the sky to make things clear." They have careful observation and practical understanding of the laws of change in the tides, wind hyacinths, and celestial phenomena on the seaway.
The needle road from Liujiagang (present-day Liuhe Town, Taicang County, Jiangsu) to Zhigu was also repeatedly improved. The beginning is to sail along the coastline, next to the mountains, twists and turns, the voyage period takes more than two months. Finally, after the ship arrived in Sansha and Chongming, it entered the Black Water Ocean, crossed the East China Sea (now the Yellow Sea) in deep water, and then went around the tip of the Shandong Peninsula into Bohai Bay, with convenient channels and ten days of downwind. Sailing on the sea, the wind and waves are endlessly changeable, which is more dangerous. However, due to the high shipbuilding and navigation technology at that time, and the continuous improvement of the waterway, there were few maritime accidents, and the vast majority of the annual boats could arrive safely.
Fifth, maritime transport is profitable for shipowners
Large-scale maritime transport requires the maintenance of a thousand hundred sea vessels and tens of thousands of manpower on board. At first, warships from the Southern Song Dynasty and warships built to go overseas were transferred to shipping. Later, most of the sea vessels were built by the "Powerful House near the sea", and some of them were also directly built by the government. A large number of sailors on board, many of whom were soldiers at first, were later mainly drawn from civilians. As for the fire chief (the navigator in charge of the compass), the big worker (the helmsman), the sniper and other technicians, they were recruited by the ship owner at a high price.
In order to ensure the provision of sea vessels and the messengers of sailors, the Yuan court specially arranged ship households and sea lane water households in the household registration. Shipowners were middle-class and upper-class people, and they needed to build ships for yuan ting with their own assets for shipping. The Haidao Shuihu is a middle and lower family, and needs to serve as a sailor for the Yuan Ting. Both households are exempt from miscellaneous services. According to the regulations of 1292, each household of the sailors was also given rations to five people.
When shipping was first revived, when transporting rice for one stone, the official government paid eight or two five yuan in the foot price of the ship's households, which was equivalent to two or three times the price of one stone of rice in Jiangnan, and the foot money was even advanced. When a shipowner builds a ship of one thousand materials, he needs about one hundred ingots for the cost of labor materials, and if he transports a thousand stones of grain, he can get a foot price of one hundred and seventy ingots. Therefore, at that time, shipping was profitable for ship owners.
Since then, the foot price has decreased and increased, but due to the continuous rise in prices, the foot price is actually getting lower and lower, and the officials who manage the shipping are greedy for the foot price, or delay the payment, which makes many shipowners unable to balance their income and expenditure, and they are getting poorer and poorer.
By the late Yuan Dynasty, thieves were infested on the sea routes, and boats were often plundered. The Yuan court stipulated that if the ship lost grain, the owner of the ship would pay compensation in the following year. For ordinary boat owners, once they encounter the misfortune of being robbed, it is naturally difficult to survive. Only a few rich shipowners, in collusion with officials, instead benefited from them or falsely reported that ships had drowned, engulfed official grain or entrained ships, smuggled military profits or passed on the burden of their own shipbuilding and grain transportation to others. As for the sailors, their families' rations were often withheld by the officials, and their lives were naturally very difficult, in stark contrast to the rich ship owners. However, it was tens of thousands of sailors who braved the wind and waves at sea every year to transport grain from the south to Dadu and maintain the food supply in Dadu.