I talked about the things that Hu merchants have been doing business in Chinese ports such as Guangzhou and Quanzhou, but in fact, doing international trade is talking about "please come in" and "go out", and you have to walk on two legs.
The Song Dynasty's "please come in" and "go out" strategies for foreign trade:
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, China suffered the loss of "closing the country behind closed doors", missed the great geographical discovery, and did not catch the big ship to develop the marine economy, so in the period of reform and opening up, we have always preached how to "invite in" foreign businessmen. In our history books, we also constantly talk about how many foreign merchants arrived in Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Hangzhou, etc. in ancient times, constantly preaching how ancient China was full of rivers and rivers, and desperately making up for the mistakes of the ancestors after the Ming Dynasty.
To develop overseas trade, the people do not add money and the national treasury is fully used
But we rarely talk about how we merchants in the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties "went out", these earliest merchants engaged in international trade, rarely left a word in China, but in Africa and the Middle East countries, we often excavated song dynasty copper coins, these cultural relics prove that the footprints of our ancient Chinese merchants have also been so far away on the African continent.
But, who is he and why did he come to Africa? What happened?
We don't know.
Since the Song Dynasty, due to the severance of the overland Silk Road, the Maritime Silk Road has arisen. At the beginning of the founding of the Song Dynasty, it inherited a continental country that had experienced more than 200 years of war and chaos and almost fell apart:
- The people are overwhelmed and urgently need to recuperate;
- The national treasury has no money, and it must pay the "old coins" of the Liao state every year;
- In order to give preferential treatment to scholars, the officials' salaries are not low;
- In order to face the dangers of the north and west, it was also necessary to maintain huge military expenditures.
Domestic taxes and fiscal revenues were really unable to make ends meet, and the emperors and officials of the Song Dynasty had to focus on the fat meat of overseas trade. Tariffs are good, the people do not add enough for the country, this is the most correct words summed up by the ancestors for tariffs
During the reign of Emperor Taizong of Song, Pan Mei invaded Guangzhou and was immediately appointed as an envoy of Guangzhou, shouldering the important task of generating income for the national treasury. At Pan Mei's suggestion, Song Taizong sent eight teams of merchant envoys, carrying gold leaf and edicts, to various countries in Nanyang to publicize the business environment and hospitality of the Great Song Dynasty, and also undertook the task of selling domestic goods and purchasing international trade products.
The song dynasty's main overseas trade routes
In China, through the measure of preferential treatment of Hu merchants, merchants were encouraged to trade in bulk commodities, and for Hu merchants with large quantities of goods, the governor of Guangdong Province came forward to entertain them, and some also awarded honorary positions to enhance their status.
Pay always returns, after a multi-pronged approach, Hu merchants gathered, at the peak, the tariff of overseas trade accounted for about 20% of the fiscal revenue, Quanzhou almost became "back to half the city", "Pu BanJie", Guangzhou's Fanfang also built a school, Hu shang and local people close contact, and even intermarriage, some Hu merchants did not return for many years, stayed in Guangzhou or Quanzhou for a long time, when this kind of foreigners living in China for a long time, called "Live Tang", "Tang" is the unified name of Hu Shang in China.
Corresponding to "Zhu Tang", there must be "Zhu Fan", Chinese doing business overseas, not returning for many years, or settling in the local area, which is called "Zhu Fan" in China.
During the Song Dynasty, large coastal ports such as Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Ningbo had great development
During the Song Dynasty, China could also be called a sea coachman, because the Chinese-built sea ships at that time were the most advanced in the world. Indian or Arab sea ships, in addition to being faster than Chinese sea ships, whether in safety or in terms of load capacity, can not be compared with Chinese sea ships, Chinese sea ships have a watertight cabin function, broken one or two, the ship can continue to sail. Chinese sea vessels have compasses and can sail normally under different meteorological conditions. Therefore, at that time, Arab merchants and Persian merchants were actually mainly taking Chinese ships to Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Hangzhou and other places.
A model of a Song Dynasty sea vessel unearthed in Quanzhou: the mast can be put down.
The Great Song Dynasty had permanent Chinese merchants in the Philippines, Indonesia, and India, not to mention Vietnam, and did not put him in a foreign country at that time.
Spices became the mainstream commodity imported by Hu Merchants into the Song Dynasty
From the perspective of the demand for ancient Sino-foreign trade, China as a country supported by a natural economy, in addition to gunpowder sales stones, cattle tendons and animal skins must be expanded imports, there is no other necessity that must be solved through imports, this, from the Tang and Song Dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties, many foreign merchants have seen, the vast and ordinary Chinese have little demand for foreign goods.
However, there are many Chinese, and the gap between class consumption is also large, and soon, Hu Shang found Chinese enthusiastic commodity, which is the "spice" we learned from the history books, Hu Shang in the field of luxury goods, quickly opened the Chinese market. This thing is too cost-effective for Hu shang: light weight, high price, long shelf life, is the best commodity for ocean trade.
There are many kinds of spices, different functions, and the demand for spices in China and Europe is quite different
I have always believed that in the ancient trade, China suffered a lot of losses, because we have been importing non-essential luxury goods, such as spices, ivory, jewelry, etc., if it were not for the fact that merchant ships also had to pull back huge amounts of silk, porcelain, tea, etc. from China, I can almost think that these imports will hollow out China's finances.
You can imagine that if, now, around 2020, China does not import ore, wood, oil, chips, machinery and equipment and other commodities that can be expanded from abroad, but will continue to spend foreign exchange on French cosmetics, Italian clothing, Swiss watches, American red wine, Japanese toys, do you think this import is good for the country?
During the Song Dynasty, the only things that could be sold to us abroad and could be looked up to by the royal and scholar classes at that time were spices, jewelry, ivory and other things.
There is a data recorded, there is an Arab merchant named Pu Yali, a one-time shipment to Guangzhou, there are two hundred and ninety large ivory, thirty-five large rhino horn, according to the official price at that time, the trade volume reached more than 50,000 guan, according to the tax rate at that time, the government at least extracted tariffs of 5,000 guan.
Hu merchants imported a large number of goods, providing huge amounts of tariffs
However, while the Song Dynasty consumed these luxury goods in its own country, it also successfully used these luxury goods for entrepot trade.
First of all, due to the establishment of the work system of the Municipal Shipping Department, after hu merchants sent luxury goods from overseas to Quanzhou, Guangzhou, the Municipal Shipping Department would draw taxes according to one-tenth, and some of the tight materials could be drawn up to four-tenths of the Song Dynasty Customs. How is the price calculated? No, just take away one-tenth or four-tenths of the merchandise.
Only some of the goods that the government opened up for trading could Hu shang sell in Quanzhou or Guangzhou, of course, if they left Guangzhou or Quanzhou to sell in the interior, they also needed to pay commercial taxes according to different places.
Due to the consideration of expense cost and profit. The sales price of these luxury goods in the market will become extremely expensive, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the price of spices is like gold, and some spices are even more expensive than gold.
Tang Gilded Golden Lying Turtle Lotus Pattern Five-legged Silver Smoker Excavated in 1987 from the Tang Pagoda Base Palace of Fufeng Famen Temple in Shaanxi Province
Casually list an ancient text: White Du Yun..... Every two are worth two hundred thousand. Cai Jing... In the box of two or three two, order..... Take it and burn it. (The headline quotes the ancient text, the robot brain will think that I copied, so omit a part, does not affect the understanding of the meaning), I translate, Bai DuYun this incense just sold to Kaifeng, every two sold 200,000 yuan, according to 800 money one or two silver, about 250 two silver, in the identity of Cai Jing, a big corrupt official, invite the prime minister to dinner, some generous, burn two or three at a time, but also specially let the maid sit next to the prime minister, precious.
How can there be no incense in such a thing as playing the piano and listening to the piano?
In the Great Song Dynasty, the main role of spices was not to taste or cure diseases, the most important role was to use the unique aromatic atmosphere of spices to create a sense of ceremony.
The main people who can become the target of this imported luxury goods are bureaucrats, literati, merchants, etc., but the biggest users are actually the royal family and temples. The main uses are incense, medicine, cosmetics, food seasoning, worship, construction, etc.;
On various occasions, the requirements for the ritual sense of incense are indispensable
The amount of spices consumed by the whole country each year is staggering, and we can see from the import volume: in 1053 AD, during the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song, 104,385 catties of spices were paid tribute from Vietnam, and 100,730 catties of spices were paid in tribute from Dashi. This is only the amount of spices shipped from the two places to the Song Dynasty in the name of tribute, and there are other countries, including smuggling, concealment, and sporadic, the total amount is more than ten times, and the annual tariff on spices accounts for 40%-60% of the tariff on all imported goods.
Society's obsession with spices can be seen in the royal moves:
The strangeness of ambergris made Emperor Huizong of Song lose his demeanor
Song Huizong once saw that there was a relatively large but unattractive incense in the storeroom, so he casually took it out and gave it to the surrounding insiders, when he was idle, he picked a small piece and put it in the incense burner to light it, and the result was that the soybeans were a little bigger, and the whole room was filled with a strange floral fragrance, and more specially, this fragrance spread throughout the room, and it would not dissipate all day. It's the best.
At this time, Emperor Huizong of Song did a special thing to get rid of the emperor's share, and he asked All the incense that Jean had given him to return.
The incense that made Emperor Huizong of Song lose his grace was the ancient ambergris.
Elegant life in ancient incense
Another thing is also related to Song Huizong, after his son Zhao Shuo established the Southern Song Dynasty in Hangzhou, he redeemed Song Huizong's wife and Zhao Shuo's birth mother Empress Wei from the hands of jin people, in order to express filial piety, and the old woman forgot the pain of the past as soon as possible, lit a lot of specially made unique candles in the room, asking Empress Wei, do these candles make you feel happy? Empress Wei said that your father lit several times more candles every day than you did.
The royal family consumed a lot of spices, and even used incense wood to build houses, didn't Li Bai have a poem called "Agarwood Pavilion North Leaning On Gan"? Dignitaries also like to build houses out of agarwood.
In the "Qingming Upper River Map", there is a Liu family's colored sandalwood incense shop
Whether it is reading, sleeping, or gathering, folk will light different incense to render the atmosphere, and usually carry sachets with them.
In temples at any time, there is a lot of consumption of spices.
The Song Dynasty's balancing instrument in the spice trade
The Song Dynasty itself consumed a huge amount of spices, but because all imported spices were mainly sold at home and abroad by the official institutions of the Song Dynasty, the high price of spices made the Song Dynasty make a lot of money in the entrepot trade.
The Khitan Liao, the Goryeo Joseon, and the Eastern Japanese all admired Chinese culture, as well as the obsession and ritual sense of the Song Dynasty scholars and masters for spices, which were also imitated by the upper echelons of these countries, and the Great Song could use high prices to re-export a large number of spices to neighboring countries, so that the surrounding countries could also consume their combat strength in the luxurious living atmosphere.
Among them, there are still only people of the Jurchen tribe who have foresight, and the people who finished Yan Ah Bone made rules for the clan at that time, except for grain, cattle and horses, iron, other things are not allowed to be purchased from the Song Dynasty, and the above three things, even if they are more expensive, must be purchased in large quantities.
The Song Dynasty's pursuit of spices in the whole society also makes the price of spices in the country very firm, unexpectedly, in some places, spices can be exchanged as equivalents, in the Song Dynasty and the Liao State and the Western Xia coins, everyone is also willing to use a part of the spices to offset gold and silver or silk, which invisibly let the Song Dynasty take advantage.
The massive sale to China of such meaningless luxuries as social production by Arab merchants did not bring about the collapse of the Song Dynasty's economy, for two reasons:
- Song Dynasty officials had the foresight to propose that Hu merchants were not allowed to transport gold, silver and copper coins out of the country, which was a felony for violating the law;
- After all the spices and other luxury goods were sold to the city, they could only exchange the bulk commodities used by the Song Dynasty for export in ports such as Guangzhou and Quanzhou, such as tea, silk, porcelain, textiles, and paper.
Hu Shang naturally did not disagree, after all, they could not go back empty ships, and these commodities of the Song Dynasty were also the most sought-after materials in Arabia, the Mediterranean and other places. Of course, there are still some gold, silver and copper coins that are smuggled out, which is also an unavoidable situation in foreign trade activities.
The Song Dynasty sold Chinese commodities to the whole world through the method of importing a large number of luxury goods and exporting a large number of domestic commodities at the same time, disguised as barter, and at the same time increased the revenue of the national treasury and stimulated domestic commercial production.