The army returned a wide variety of goods, dealing not only in ordinary commodities operated by ordinary merchants, but also in forbidden commodities that ordinary merchants could not handle. The Song court usually acquiesced to the return of general commodities to the army, and even gave a variety of preferential and supportive policies to the return of troops in border defense areas. Such general commodities mainly include cloth, uranium silk, bamboo and wood, land, grain, etc.
Cloth can be said to be a commodity in ancient China, so it is easy to be selected by traffickers. In the early days of the Northern Song Dynasty, when the general Mi Xin was in the Hengnavy, he "acted arbitrarily and illegally, and the military banquet was very thin, and he tasted the private silk and attached the official to the official, called an official property, so as to avoid official recruitment." Mi Xin's own silk impersonated official property, indicating that silk was one of the official goods trafficked at the time, and this phenomenon continued.
In the eighth year of Song Zhenzong's reign, "Hebei, Hedong, and Shaanxi border deployment, Lingzhi, Governor, Zhizhou, etc. are forbidden to privately buy military uniforms and dye silk dyeing, and Bo City Fuzhou is a horse", here only private buying of silk is prohibited, for non-private purchase, it is not prohibited, and it is sometimes difficult to clearly demarcate the boundary between private and non-private buying.
Army generals sometimes also organized the purchase of sackcloth and evaded commercial taxes under the banner of "for military service", and sometimes these returned cloth was sold directly or forcibly rationed to their own soldiers, and those soldiers who had no cash could be paid on credit, of course, there was interest on credit, and these debts were sometimes deducted directly from the soldiers' military copper from Shaanxi to Kaifeng.
The profits were extremely rich, so Qinlong bamboo wood was a hot spot for commercial trafficking in the Northern Song Dynasty, and many civilian generals such as Zhang Yongde, Zhao Yanpu, Qi Tingxun and others were enthusiasts of trafficking Qinlong bamboo. Li Shouxin was also given the edict of Mu Qin Longma. In addition to this hot spot, the phenomenon of selling bamboo and wood in other places is also widespread.
During the reign of Shenzong Yuanfeng, he raised the Xihe Road Exploration and Purchase Muzhi Siyan: "Beg to first allocate 200,000 yuan of interest money from the Economic System Division to prepare for the money and grain of the division and the cost of hiring water feet, and wait for the next three or two years to return to Yi, and the interest money collected will be large, which can be gradually saved from the imperial court to deal with, and beg to add the Tongyuan army to explore the soldiers and command." The imperial court agreed to this proposal, "still allowing the return to the imitation wood to take interest, that is, not to exceed the number of joint branches and hired water feet."
After the establishment of the Song Dynasty, agricultural production has developed greatly, and food production has also increased significantly, which has made many grains jump out of the scope of self-sufficiency and enter the field of commodity circulation. Therefore, many officials and generals also sold grain for profit.
When Zhang Bai was Caizhou Zhizhou, he "falsely lent money to officials and came to make profits from corn." In addition to cloth, silk, bamboo, and grain, there were other businesses, and some military generals and generals made many soldiers operate liquor stores, pharmacies, pawnshops, inns, etc. Some generals accumulated tens of thousands of fortunes because of the opening of the treasury. Forbidden is a system in which ancient governments taxed, controlled, and monopolized the sale of tea, salt, wine and other items, thereby making profits.
The goods prohibited by the Song Dynasty were mainly tea, salt, and wine, and in the return of the army, tea trafficking was a relatively common phenomenon compared with the other two. After the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the tea industry developed rapidly and reached an unprecedented level in the Song Dynasty, and the feudal government made extremely high profits from the tea industry.
Zhang Yongde was "deposed as a general of Zuowei" for "selling tea rules", indicating that the imperial court prohibited the sale of tea rules, however, this prohibition did not play much role, and later tea trafficking rules and profits were still frequently recorded, and Teng Zongshu, a border minister of Renzong, "sent 187 soldiers, forty taels in donkey carts, and carried more than 300 cages of tea, out of the place."
During the Shenzong Dynasty, Xia Yuanqian, deputy governor of Qin Fenglu, "returned to Yi private tea and destroyed the tea law", and the emperor "edicted Si Bozhi". Xia Yuanci was only robbed for violating the tea law, which just shows that the general army return has become a reasonable and legal thing. Moreover, the army's return to Yiyi "private tea" also shows that tea was a major commodity of the army's return at that time.
Since tea is a commodity for the army, it is logical that salt has become a commodity for the army. During the reign of Emperor Renzong to He, "the three divisions said that the army of the prefectures returned to the easy solution salt for public use, and it was quite invading merchants, please prohibit it, and follow it." The army of the states returned to Yi Xie salt for public use, but because of the encroachment on the interests of merchants, the imperial court ordered to prohibit the return of Yi Xie salt.
However, this prohibition, like many of the imperial court's, was difficult to implement thoroughly. The return of the army is to make profits, and among the commodities, salt, as a forbidden commodity and indispensable for people's lives, is the easiest to make profits. Therefore, the army ignored the prohibitions of the imperial court and still took salt for profit. Sometimes he even betrayed the salt lead, and Quan Sansi made Xue Shangxiang play, "Please stop the transfer of Qin Feng Road, so that Cai Yanqing sells salt banknotes at a reduced price...".
As for wine, the army generals also paid close attention to the profit of wine, and they have established wine warehouses, wine shops, and wine businesses to seek their profits to raise soldiers, and it is a marketing integration. "In April of the first year, the two Zhejiang transshipment siyan, Hangzhou wine business... Since he has hired the people with money to fill the service, please stop now, and recruit 400 soldiers with money to serve in this court, and the three divisions please do as they do, and follow it."
In the third year of the Heavenly Saint, Jiangning Mansion again cited this example and recruited 150 soldiers. Selecting soldiers from the army to serve in the brewery can not only select strong and skilled workers, but also do not have to pay commissions within a year, thereby reducing the production cost of wine and making the wine more profitable.
Moreover, soldiers serving in the winery will be familiar with the production process of wine, understand the taste grade of wine, and master the characteristics of wine, which will be more conducive to soldiers transporting and selling wine. The army sometimes trafficked several commodities at the same time, and Yin Mo recorded in the article: "Mo Sui Ti asked about the day Zhang Qian came to office.
and adjacent to the state army, Jingju Zheng Poke, Gyeongju Teng Jongshu, sent silver to Xichuan to buy Luo Yuan, and bought the Beijing banknotes, which was also three places to return... At the same time, the question can be asked everywhere, and the state comes from and is in the military treasury or with the military treasury to allocate official money for the return of the capital. "The return here is both a robe, a salt solution, and a banknote.
In the Song Dynasty, the army was mainly engaged in commerce and business, which can be found in the records of transporting and selling silk, bamboo and wood, grain, salt and wine, as well as stationery, food and beverages, sweeping utensils, etc., opening firewood farms, setting up warehouses, setting up warehouses, reselling banknotes, lending and collecting interest, etc., and sometimes even engaged in the business of buying and selling people.
At that time, the military had already penetrated into all aspects of the entire social and economic activities, with a wide range of returns and a wide variety of goods. The managers of the army were usually appointed by generals. The marshal selects a certain person or people from the army as the person with full authority for the return of the capital, and then gives him the return capital, and how to use this capital to make profits is entirely a matter for the return manager.
In the early days of the Northern Song Dynasty, the military generals inherited the old style of five generations, and most of them operated back to Yi. During the reign of Emperor Taizu of Song, a border general stationed in the northwest, such as Li Hanchao and Guo Jin, returned to Yi and enjoyed tax-free privileges. These military generals themselves generally do not go to business themselves, but like the five generations, "send more relatives to the roads to sell Yi."
From the Song Renzong Dynasty to the Song Huizong Dynasty, the economic envoys and pacifying envoys in the border areas were almost all operating Hui Yi. Fan Zhongyan chose the incorruptible envoy as the manager of Hui Yi, and gave him absolute power, and all the marshal did was to give him capital, collect his profit, and control it as a whole.
Song Zheng Z has a Hui Yi library and a maintenance library to operate Hui Yi. There was a return bank along the border economic division to manage the various return capital, and later the capital such as raising soldiers was separated from the minister's money, and the newly established library should be the "maintenance bank". The text says "all roads and beggars to follow this", which shows that it was not an individual to set up a return to the Yiku and the maintenance library at that time. The ease of maintenance library management is also frequently documented.
Xing Shu once said: "First beg to surrender the 2,000 roads of fame and fame, fill the maintenance treasury of the road, sell it when you take it in Beijing and all the roads, return all the goods, and beg to be exempted from the commercial tax along the road, and there is a purpose." On the occasion of the side affairs today, the whole nationality will be easy to collect interest and pay for the expenditure, and Fu beggars will carefully consider the capital of the maintenance library of this road, and return to all places, and its easy to buy goods is allowed to follow the original body of the path, and the business tax along the way is specially exempted."
It can be said that at that time, on a large scale, the Hui Yi Bank and the Maintenance Bank were the main institutions engaged in Hui Yi. And this kind of institution is also mainly to master the return of principal and interest, and has a special account calendar for the return, based on the account calendar to reward and punish those who engage in the return. With managers, there must be specific personnel engaged in transportation and trafficking, and these personnel are also selected from the army.
When Yang Chongxun was in the town of Fanzhen, he once served soldiers as puppeteers, painted with danbai, and carried descendants to Jingshi. This is to use soldiers as the most effective labor force for textiles. Although these historical materials only show that the people who worked were soldiers, it is not difficult to infer from them that the specific executors of transportation and trafficking were also soldiers, because soldiers are the most convenient labor force for return.
Xia Yuanfeng, deputy chief of Qin Feng Road of the Shenzong Dynasty, immediately used the forbidden army to return to Yi privately: "The son of the general judgment of the prefecture, several small soldiers and goods were sent to the city..." These historical materials clearly show that the personnel used by Hui Yi are sergeants. It can be said that in the process of returning the army, the labor used in production, transportation, and sales is all sergeants.
Although the Song Emperor allowed the army to do some Hui Yi and business, it was usually run by hired people, and it was forbidden to use envoys to engage in Hui Yi, but this prohibition could not be effectively enforced at that time. The return of the army is usually to let the soldiers abandon the military art in the barracks and garrisons, or send the soldiers to trade abroad.
Soldiers do not take the training of martial arts as their duty, but "serve the craft" as their priority. During the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty, the border commander Jia Xuan sent soldiers out for 50 days with 100,000 guan. And in the Shenzong Dynasty and beyond, it is not uncommon to use soldiers to return to Yi. How are the goods transported during the return of the army? Judging from the documents of the Song Dynasty, there are mainly two ways: land and water.
By car by land, by boat by water. Restricted by the level of development of productive forces at that time, the overland carts were mainly donkey carts. Because the Song Dynasty was in a state of confrontation with Liao, Xia and Jin, the demand for horses has always been relatively large, so the Song Dynasty rarely used horses to pull carts, so it was difficult for the army to transport goods on a large scale.
At that time, cattle were mainly used for agricultural farming, and Zheng Z also formulated some policies to protect cultivated cattle, so cattle were rarely used for transportation. Some of the boats here are their own private ships or hired ships, and some directly use the official ships of the state. Since the military was entrusted with personal management at that time, the return of the principal and interest had a special account calendar.
And according to the account calendar, those who engage in the return will be rewarded and punished, so the recovery manager will try to reduce expenses and increase the income of the return, so they will use official ships to carry goods as much as possible. In addition to using official ships to carry private goods, there are also those who use private ships to carry official goods back. During the reign of Emperor Renzong, King Zhibinzhou "often returned to Yiguan Yanyi by private boat...".
In short, whatever tool is used, the purpose is to make the recovery activities run smoothly or to reduce the cost of recovery and increase the income of the return. To a certain extent, the return of the army also reduced the burden on the people, especially the people in the area where the war was located. When Li Jiqian captured Lingzhou, the imperial court sent troops to pacify Ding, and at that time "military expenses were mostly out of the people, and there was great disturbance in the Guanxi".
From this historical source, we can see that the war took place in Lingzhou, and the people who "spent most of their military expenses on the people" should be the people of Guanxi. In the Northern Song Dynasty, daily military expenses were generally paid mainly by local fiscal revenues, and in the early Northern Song Dynasty, Shaanxi's military expenditures were basically paid by local finances. During the reign of Emperor Taizu of Song, the border troops were concentrated in Huan and Qing (present-day Huanxian and Qingyang, Gansu), and military expenses were all supplied locally, so when the war was serious, the burden on the people would naturally increase.
In order to lighten the burden on the people, some army generals returned to the army to support the army. The money was sometimes used by soldiers and civilians near the garrison to help them with agricultural production. In the ninth year of Xining, Xinzhi Juzhou said stunnedly: "And while recruiting archers, there is a wasteland, and if you want to untie the Han soldiers and people, you have the right to recruit farming, divide it equally according to the original rules of the township, and those who have no cattle tools, let Yu Yi Yi Interest money borrow within the money, and wait for the mature appropriation to return."
Here, it is possible to lend the recouped money to the soldiers or peasants who are planting crops, so that they can have the tools and investment to carry out production, which is conducive to the livelihood of the soldiers and civilians in the settlements, and is also conducive to the development of barren land in the border areas and providing food for the officers and men stationed in the areas. The military has promoted the development of commodity consciousness in the field of consciousness.
The Song Dynasty was a relatively developed society with a relatively developed commodity economy, with a huge merchant team, inflated commercial capital, rich merchants with enemies and princes, and accumulated thousands of gold; in the Jingshi "assets of one million at most, 100,000 and everywhere", "annexation of the cunning, living in pursuit of profit, more money, to more than 3.5 million, less than 350,000."
The state has special policies and institutions for the collection of commercial taxes, as well as a series of commodity market management systems, which in turn ensure that commodity activities can be carried out relatively smoothly. Under the violent impact of the commodity economy, all social strata have been involved in commerce, forming a boom of business in the whole society.
As a result of business at all levels of society, businessmen have increased their contacts with them and have more frequent contacts, and the status of businessmen has correspondingly improved; businessmen can send their children to study in government-run prefectures and counties, and are eligible to take the imperial examination to serve in official positions.
In this case, the traditional contempt for industry and commerce was challenged, and the relationship between scholars and merchants ranged from antagonistic contempt to official and business friendship, and some even became directly among the merchants.
There are also some scholars who have abandoned the traditional concept of suppressing business over business, advocating the simultaneous development of various industries, engaging in agriculture and commerce, developing the economy, and stabilizing rule, setting off a storm of anti-traditional tendencies in the ideological field. The prosperity of the economy and the expansion of the market have greatly stimulated some military personnel.
In particular, the business consciousness of some commanders and generals, and the return of the army have also made the generals personally experience the profits brought by business, realize the great role of business, and the generals who direct or participate in commercial activities have shown that they do not think that business is a shameful thing.
Although the return of the army is not a normal commercial activity, this activity still makes many participants realize the importance of commercial activities, so we can also say that the return of the army promoted the transformation of the concept of commodity economy in the Song Dynasty. The return of the army can make up for military needs, reduce the financial burden of the state, and alleviate the situation of financial constraints, which is the biggest role of the army's return and is also valued by the rulers.
It was precisely because of the importance of the rulers that military returns were so common in the Northern Song Dynasty. As for the two aspects of reducing the people's burdens and promoting the development of the commodity economy, the return of the army is a by-side role of the army's return, and the promotion of commodity consciousness may not have been expected by the feudal rulers.
The Song Dynasty army engaged in the operation of returning to Yi, which indeed alleviated the difficulties of the imperial court's financial constraints and tight military expenditure to a certain extent, and played the function of raising and subsidizing military expenditure. However, due to the flood of Hui Yi, a large number of soldiers did not participate in training at all, and were used for trade activities.
The activities are very wide-ranging, long-distance trafficking, reselling banknotes, setting up shops, from prosperous cities to poor rural areas, traces of the activities can be seen everywhere. The return of the army easily became a means for generals to exploit soldiers. Although there are also many military generals such as Fan Zhongyan and Teng Zongshu who use all the gains from Hui Yi for military purposes, such people are a minority after all.
The return of the army has become more of a means for the generals to strip the soldiers and fill their desires, and it is a corrosive agent that corrupts military politics, military style, military discipline, and destroys morale. The "Song Huiyi" recorded: "The armies returned to Yi Bu and other things, credited the officers and soldiers, and repaid the interest, but they were asked to give the internal number of grams." And the messenger asked the most people to be in charge of the treasury, shop, a slight deficit, ordered compensation. ”
The pawn not only becomes a consumer of the returned items, but also pays interest on the debts owed. Here, Hui Yi completed the two tasks of circulating goods and lending and collecting interest, but the soldiers suffered an extra layer of exploitation, which undoubtedly aggravated the hardship of the soldiers' lives, so that they did not have enough clothing, did not have enough food, and looked at the enemy in fear, and there was no combat effectiveness to speak of.
Army generals took advantage of the opportunity to return to the Yi Zheng army to use a large number of private service sergeants under the banner of public use, and the so-called private service refers to illegal military service. According to the regulations of the Song Dynasty, civilian military generals could legally serve a certain number of sergeants, called "Bai Zhi", similar to modern orderlies and guards, and army generals served privately for a long time and generally for their own luxurious life.
Some sergeants with a craft or skill all left military activities and became household slaves of generals. A general colonel can serve hundreds or even thousands of soldiers, and some people at the time of Song Renzong estimated: "Today, the sergeant has a craftsman, and the officer in charge of the army accounts for one-third of each command."
Song Qinzong himself said: "... In each camp, motley accounts for more than ten people in three or four, and they no longer train in martial arts. "In this way, a large number of sergeants are removed from training, thereby reducing the combat effectiveness of the army. The return of the army turned part of the combat contingent into a business team.
The generals tried their best to accumulate wealth, single-mindedly enslaved and exploited soldiers, did not care about military training, and Chinese and foreign military commanders "made a profit for themselves, summoned the grievances of the people, destroyed the school reading, and the military appearance was not in order." And what about the pawns? Busy coping with various tasks of production, transportation, and sales of goods, it is impossible to participate in military training in a timely and complete manner.
At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the soldiers were "openly occupied, sat and exempted from teaching, the ranks were unknown to the ranks of the soldiers, and as soldiers they did not attack and defend", so "the method of teaching and learning in the military formation was abolished day by day, the craftsmanship skills were more and more often done, and the military government was drawback, so that this "qi in the army, will not be like a general, and the soldier will not be a soldier."
In the Song Dynasty, the operation of the army was closely linked to the embarrassment of the central finances, and as a stopgap and emergency measure, the army returned to help solve some local financial difficulties. But in fact, the return of the infiltrated army has caused a serious loss of central fiscal revenue. We can analyze this problem from both the perspective of prohibited commodities and general commodities.
The imperial court forbade tea, salt, wine and other commodities, and implemented monopoly sales, and the income from monopoly sales belonged to the imperial court. But the army could use its power to deal in tea, salt, wine and other commodities. These forbidden commodities are the necessities of the people's lives that ordinary merchants cannot operate, so when the army operates, the profits are extremely high, and once this profit is usurped by the army, the forbidden income of the imperial court will definitely be reduced accordingly.
For ordinary commodities, merchant trade is subject to commercial tax, but the army has the privilege of tax exemption, such as the second year of Chongning, the imperial court lowered the 2,000 roads to the original road passing through Fusi to return to Yiben, specially exempted from commercial tax along the way, and the government and the seventh year of Huanqing and other road passing departments to exempt the commercial tax gas along the way, even if the imperial court strictly ordered the army to pay taxes according to the routine, the army would rely on its strength and do everything possible to steal, leak, and evade taxes.
As a very special group, since the army was relied on by the Song rulers and enjoyed very generous political and economic privileges, it could take advantage of its position to exploit the gaps in laws and regulations to carry out trafficking trade. In this way, the country's commercial tax revenue is relatively reduced. The army's return to Yiyi usurped the profits of forbidden commodities, and did not pay commercial taxes on ordinary commodities, so it is said that the army's return to Yiyi caused a relatively large loss to the central government's fiscal revenue.