Although "Water Margin" was written at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the customs and customs of the Song Dynasty are included in it, which greatly restores the real social style of the Song Dynasty. In the novel, we see that whether it is a high-ranking official or a grassroots people, there is no wine or unhappiness, and the Song people's habit of loving wine jumps on the paper. The Song Dynasty was undoubtedly a dynasty in which wine culture flourished.
Therefore, for a veteran drinker, the Song Dynasty is undoubtedly the most beautiful era.
In the Song Dynasty, the quality of the wine drunk by the common people has been significantly improved compared with the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties periods, and the varieties of wine are also diverse. In the "Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty", we can see that at that time, there were many restaurants in the city of Bieliang, and every few houses there would be a restaurant or restaurant, and the dignitaries or ordinary people would push cups and cups in it, which was not lively.
In the "Tokyo Dream Record", there is also a saying that "seventy-two households in Kyosho Store". The "seventy-two main stores" here refer to the official liquor storehouse opened by the government or the liquor industry undertaken by large merchants, and there are obviously more privately contracted restaurants than this number. There are many hotels in large towns, and restaurants in small towns are not to be outdone.
"Wine Market Two Songs" has clouds:
"I heard that Chong'an City, the family QuMichun.
The head of the building invites guests, and the bottom of the flower finds the southern neighbor.
There should be no coupons.
Advise the jun to ask no questions, and return the alcohol as soon as you drink. ”
Not only small towns, but also small restaurants in the sparsely populated countryside.
As Xin Shuyi said in "Partridge Heaven Mo Shang Rou Sang Breaks The Tender Shoots":
"Strange on the soft strips of the first budding." Silkworm seeds have been born in the east.
Hiraoka grass sings yellow calves, and the cold forest points the twilight crows.
The mountains are far and near, and the road is diagonal. There are people in Qingqigu wine.
The peach and plum in the city are sad and rainy, and the cauliflower flowers are planted in the creek in the spring. ”
Not only the number of restaurants, but also the literary creation of the Song Dynasty also reflected the flourishing wine culture. The love of the literati of the Song Dynasty for wine is probably only comparable to that of the literati of the Tang Dynasty.
The "wine" in the Song Dynasty is a popular element that appears more frequently than "Wind And Snow Moon".
According to rough statistics, there are as many as fifty or sixty kinds of famous wines included in the Song Ci. Today's Wuliangye, Xifeng wine, Fenjiu, Dongjiu, Shaoxing liquor and other famous wines also appear in Song Dynasty wine poetry.
In addition, the winemaking process of some famous wines in the Song Dynasty has reached the level of pure fire, and the winemaking process has hardly changed in the next thousand years, and some of the famous wines we have drunk so far still use the perfect process of the Song Dynasty.
In the "Water Margin" mentioned above, there are more than 600 large and small banquets, including the staggering of the tea in the hall and the cup changing of the small wine family, presenting a rich wine country to posterity.
It is said that the Song people are good at doing business, in fact, this potential is really upward and downward, because the biggest businessman of the Song Dynasty is the imperial court. The Song Dynasty inherited the liquor system of the Han WuDi emperor and implemented this system throughout.
The so-called "liquor system" refers to the system of official liquor monopoly.
After Zhao Kuangyin unified the world, yu Jianlong issued a decree in the second year of Jianlong, and the imperial court unified the management of wine and wine songs. During the Song Dynasty, the liquor system was officially established. In the four years of Song Zhenzong Jingde, the liquor system was fully implemented nationwide.
Speaking of this, many friends will be puzzled, did not the author say in the previous article that in addition to the "main store", there are many private restaurants in Bieliang? Since they were not state-run, did they not violate the "liquor system" of the imperial court?
In fact, these private restaurants are all "foot shops", these stores are not qualified to make their own wine, all drinks are wholesale from official channels, so it does not violate the "liquor system".
After the implementation of the liquor system, the imperial court's control of private liquor was quite strict.
Except for the capital, all the city's liquor is uniformly brewed and sold by the government, all the wineries and wine stores are jointly operated by the local government and the army, and some wineries are contracted by the government to private merchants. Every pot of wine brewed by the government must be sold in a certain sales area, and it is not allowed to cross the line. If there were ordinary people brewing private liquor at that time, they would be punished by the government.
In order to standardize the sales channels of liquor throughout the country, the Song court established the "liquor affairs" agency, which was responsible for the brewing and selling of liquor in various states and counties across the country. Since the relevant personnel had no experience in the establishment of the "liquor business", corruption was frequent in the official distilleries. In order to put an end to this phenomenon, Song Taizong introduced the "buy-and-put system" and contracted the official-run distillery to merchants with a certain amount of capital. This kind of contracting did not convert the official business into private ownership, the wine merchant had to pay a certain amount of money to the imperial court every year, and the winery was subject to the supervision of the government department.
With the implementation of the "liquor system" in the people, this system has become more and more perfect.
In the "Yuqu District", merchants who contracted official distilleries were required to purchase koji from the liquor department and use the official koji to brew. For example, the "seventy-two main stores" mentioned above are usually wine merchants with more capital, and there are also many subsidiary "foot shops" under their umbrella. Small-scale "foot shops" do not engage in alcohol brewing, but distribution, and their model is quite similar to today's "consignment points". Of course, the coverage of the "liquor system" is limited and cannot be implemented in some remote rural areas.
Therefore, the government will open a side to remote areas, as long as the store is willing to pay a year's class to the government, it can obtain temporary brewing rights. These wine merchants with independent craftsmanship can often brew excellent quality specialty liquors, such as the "three bowls but not post" that Wu Song drank on Jingyang Gang in "Water Margin", which belongs to this special product. As for the restaurants opened by the good men of Liangshan, the liquor sold is naturally separated from the private liquor of the "liquor system", and they do not need to pay taxes to the government, and they can also use independent processes to brew to meet the daily needs of the good men.
The rise of culture in any era is inseparable from economic development.
The unprecedented prosperity of the wine culture of the Song Dynasty was undoubtedly influenced by the rapid economic development of the Song Dynasty. At the same time, the "liquor system" is also an important factor in promoting the unprecedented prosperity of the wine culture of the Song Dynasty.
There is no doubt that the introduction of the "liquor system" has allowed the official to obtain a large amount of liquor tax. In order to earn liquor taxes, the government naturally did not restrict the operation of liquor like the ruling class of some dynasties, but would vigorously promote the consumption of liquor and promote the liquor economy. Friends familiar with the brewing process know that the cost of wine is low, but the profits generated are quite high, so the liquor tax during the Song Dynasty is the highlight of the government's revenue.
The History of the Song Dynasty records:
"Emperor Taizong ascended the throne to pardon the old officials. At the beginning of the time, he drank wine, and in order to supervise the Xijing wine song, the annual increase of 60 million. ”
By the time of the Jubilee, the revenue from the liquor tax accounted for one-sixth of the country's total tax revenue.
It can be said that the liquor tax supported military expenditure during the Two Song Dynasties.
Under the interests, the rulers of the Song Dynasty paid special attention to the huge benefits brought about by the monopoly of the liquor industry, so they made a series of measures to promote the consumption of liquor.
First of all, the imperial court encouraged the main store and the foot shop to carry out promotions, and the shops played signs in order to win customers, or recruited singers and prostitutes to provide services for drinkers and stimulate consumption;
Second, the punishment of alcoholics was reduced by the imperial court, and the rulers encouraged drinkers to gather in groups and often held drinking parties in the court.
Perhaps some friends in the "Water Margin", "Jin Ping Mei" and other novels to see the Song Dynasty officials in the implementation of the "wine system" meticulously, think that this system affected the development of Song Dynasty wine culture, otherwise, the Song Dynasty wine culture will become more prosperous.
The author believes that this is a fallacy, and friends who hold this view obviously do not have enough objective views of the "liquor system". Although the Song Dynasty inherited the Han Dynasty's "Yujiu system", other dynasties also had a "Yujiu system", and the Song Dynasty's liquor system was not strict, much looser than other dynasties.
Commerce in the Song Dynasty was highly developed, so much so that it broke the traditional pattern of merchants at the bottom of the "scholars, farmers, industries, and merchants". The social status of merchants has improved, so the content of the liquor legal system is also very different from that of the previous dynasty.
According to the literature:
During the Five Dynasties period, those who privately produced more than five pounds of wine koji were beheaded and abandoned;
During the Jianlong period, the Song court believed that the laws of the five dynasties were too harsh, so the standard of death for making wine koji was raised to fifteen catties;
During the Tianxi period, the imperial court promulgated the decree that "from now on those who have the death penalty for alcohol, music, etc., shall be removed", abolishing the article of death sentenced to death for the operation of private liquor, and replacing it with a stab-faced exile.
It can be seen from here that in other dynasties private drinking or private wine was a mortal crime, and in the Song Dynasty, the death penalty was changed to exile, which was obviously a progression in the legal system of the Song Dynasty. This shows the change in the attitude of the rulers towards the industrial and commercial classes, and the significant improvement of the social status of industrialists and merchants.
The parallel "buying and punching system" and "liquor system" made the Song Dynasty official liquor stores all over the place. However, although the official liquor industry dominated, the imperial court still left sufficient opportunities for the development and living space of the private liquor industry. For example, the owner of a foot shop who does not have the right to brew private liquor, but can make a profit by wholesale trading official liquor.
At the same time, the remote rural wineries will not be restricted by the "liquor system", as long as they pay enough lessons, they can sell private liquor.
During the Song Dynasty, there was a saying among the common people:
"If you want to be an official, you will kill people and set fires to be recruited; if you want to get rich, you will rush to sell wine and vinegar."
Just like the joke today that "the trade of making money is written in the criminal law", the Song people believed that the operation of private liquor was a very profitable side, and it would not be severely punished by the imperial court, and at best it would be sentenced to exile and a barren place. Under the "encouragement" of this policy, many small businessmen are desperate to take risks, relying on their own wine koji and operating private liquor to make a lot of money.
In summary, the booming economy of the Song Dynasty provided a hotbed for the prosperity of wine culture, so that wineries blossomed everywhere in the folk, and the people did not drink and rejoiced. On the other hand, the Centralization Policy of the Song Dynasty, similar to that of other feudal dynasties, prompted the introduction of the "Liquor System". Although in a sense this system restricts the development of the private liquor industry, this restraint only stays on the surface. The Song Dynasty's "liquor system" was relatively flexible, and the folk liquor industry also had living space and development opportunities, and would not be lonely because of the "liquor system".
Resources:
[History of Song", "Qingming On the River", "Water Margin", "Golden Plum Bottle"】