Text|Contains winter and summer
Edit|Contains winter and summer
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms were the last period of great division in Chinese history, with the decline of centralized power, frequent conquests of feudal towns, and rapid changes of political power, which harmed the social economy and national strength and people's livelihood.
At that time, there were many small countries in the south of the Yangtze River, which got rid of the economic burden of supporting the north, and the monarch generally attached more importance to the development of production, giving birth to several economic regions centered on large cities, and the overall economy developed rapidly, completely replacing the north as the center of agriculture, handicrafts and commerce in the whole of China.
The external environment is conducive to the development of the Jiangnan region
During the Five Dynasties, frequent wars and regime changes had a great impact on the social economy of the north, but the south, which was in a peaceful area, ushered in an external environment conducive to development.
Stable external environment. A stable external environment is the core element for stable social and economic development. First of all, the war mainly took place in the northern region, "at this time, the world was in turmoil, the disaster of China, and the usurpation was sought after each other", and the conquest during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period depleted the national strength of the northern regimes, making it difficult for them to gather strong forces to attack the south, forming a stable situation of long-term confrontation between the north and the south. Secondly, there are many internal contradictions in the northern regime, the army mutiny, the school rebellion, and the rebellion are common, according to the "Zizhi Tongjian", there were 29 rebellions in the 17th year of the founding of the Later Liang Dynasty, 27 rebellions in the 14th year of the founding of the Later Tang Dynasty, 24 rebellions in the 11th year of the founding of the Later Jin Dynasty, 12 rebellions in the 4th year of the founding of the Later Han Dynasty, and 5 rebellions in the 11th year of the founding of the Later Zhou Dynasty, and the frequent rebellions greatly dispersed the power of the regime.
The Jiangnan region has a complex environment, with water and mountains as the main dividing line, which divides the connection between political powers, and it is difficult to form large-scale battles. In addition, at that time, the main ethnic minority forces such as the Khitan, Shatuo, and Yan Ya were all northern nomadic peoples, and their influence and intrusion on the Jiangnan region were minimal, and the Shu Kingdom, Wuyue, Southern Tang and other countries were able to enjoy the dividends of the peaceful environment for decades and develop their economies with peace of mind.
The burden of support in Gangnam has been reduced. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Jiangnan region has become an important part of the national economy, and some prosperous cities have surpassed the north. After the Anshi Rebellion, Jiangnan Badao almost independently undertook the financial supply of the central government of the Tang Dynasty, Han Yu pointed out that "today's endowment comes from the world, Jiangnan lives in the nineteenth", Lu Wen called it "after Tianbao, the Central Plains is relieved, the more and the clothes are crossed, and the food is eaten", Du Mu clearly said in the letter that "the world takes Jianghuai as the national destiny", and there are many prime ministers and important ministers sitting in Jiangnan, and there are more Han Rong collecting two million quintals of grain, and the story of thousands of boats rushing to aid Chang'an.
With the abolition of the Tang Dynasty and the beginning of the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the warlords in the northern region were mixed, and the actual dominance and influence of the central and northern regimes over the Jiangnan region continued to decline.
Form a space for Jiangnan to develop with peace of mind. During the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the fierce battle between the northern regimes triggered the terrifying phenomenon of "in the period of 53 years, the surname of Yi is 5 and 13 monarchs, and the eight who died in the country were killed, and the elders were only more than ten years old, and even died at the age of three or four".
Affected by strength, region, ideology, etc., the primary goal of the Jiangnan regime was to "protect the territory and secure the people" and develop its own economy in the ruling area. In the later period of the Five Dynasties, although the economy of Jiangnan developed, it was still limited by the natural conditions and comprehensive strength of the region, lacked the ambition to unify China, and most of the forces almost did not use troops in the north, and mostly held a wait-and-see attitude towards the Central Plains War.
The Jiangnan area has sufficient human resources
The war caused the loss of the population in the north. In the middle and late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, with the decline of the central power, the towns and towns made "all their own soldiers, devouring each other, and the imperial court could not control it", the change of dynasties and the fierce warlord melee directly led to the death and loss of the population.
During the reign of Tang Wuzong before the Five Dynasties, the population of the country was 4.96 million households, and during the reign of Zhou Shizong in the later period of the Five Dynasties, the population of the country was 1.2 million households, and the death loss rate was as high as 75%. In the Liang and Jin wars in 915, "Liang infantry soldiers were 70,000, and the Jin soldiers attacked them in a circle, and the defeated soldiers climbed the wood, and the wooden branches were broken for it, chased to the river, and drowned", and with the goal of "destroying and drowning", the Jin soldiers approached Bianzhou and fought with the Liang army, and the Liang soldiers died nearly 30,000 people, and the Jin army was also frustrated.
At the same time, wars frequently affected innocent people, and when the Later Liang attacked Bochang County, Qingzhou. The Khitan entered the Central Plains to "fight the grass valley" and attacked Xiangzhou, killing all the men in the city, and only more than 700 people survived. Yongxing City was besieged, "after years of running out of food, they killed people to feed them", and the population dropped sharply from more than 100,000 to 10,000. The war caused a heavy depletion of labor resources in the north.
The war facilitated the migration of people from north to south. In the northern region, there were frequent natural disasters and agricultural depression, and warlords of all stripes increased their levy taxes in order to raise military expenses. In order to escape the war and enslavement, many people went to Jiangnan one after another.
The war has brought together high-quality talents in the Jiangnan area. After the handicraftsmen, intellectuals and other high-quality talent groups in the migrant population arrived in the south of the Yangtze River, they quickly adapted to the environment and multiplied, built water conservancy, improved facilities, and many barren lands were rationally developed. More and more intellectuals migrated from the Central Plains to the south of the Yangtze River, building schools, encouraging private learning, collecting and sorting out literature, compiling classics, and promoting the imperial examination. The prosperity of the social economy has also promoted the progress of culture, providing favorable conditions for the rapid development of more fields.
Jiangnan agriculture is developing rapidly
Encourage agricultural production. During the Five Dynasties, although there were warlords in Jiangnan, most of the regimes focused on restoring and developing production. In the early days of Yang Xingmi's rule in the Jianghuai region, he recruited and dispersed, lightly dismissed, rested with the people, and reduced political affairs, resulting in "the people of Huaidian did not know how to fight for more than 20 years". After the founding of the Southern Tang Dynasty, the army was reassured, the additional taxes were abolished, and mulberry cultivation was encouraged.
In the south, many scholars began to pay attention to agricultural production, summarized the laws of climate, farming Xi habits and regional characteristics, compiled the "Four Seasons Compendium", "Tea Sutra", "Leiyun Sutra" and "Simu Anji Collection" and other famous agricultural books, "Mountain Dwelling Techniques" is the earliest book to record and guide agricultural production in the south, Tortoise Meng's "Leiyun Sutra" recorded the structure and function of the main agricultural tools used in the Jiangnan area at that time, and the "Four Seasons Compendium" recorded various astronomical, astronomical, congchen, zhen, food taboo, sacrifice, planting, building, shepherding, Miscellaneous matters, tea, coix, potatoes, buckwheat, cotton, edible mushrooms, etc., were added, and bee breeding techniques were recorded for the first time. The appearance of these works greatly improved the level of agricultural production in the Jiangnan region.
Infrastructure repair. During the Middle Tang Dynasty, the Taihu Lake area was greatly developed water conservancy construction, forming a "distance from the ditch, and the ditch to the Sichuan...... Mighty and mighty. It is connected with the lake, there is a tu, and there are boats in the middle", which basically achieves no worries about water and drought, and guarantees income from drought and flood.
In the Southern Tang Dynasty, "there is no idle field in the wilderness, and there is no vacant land in mulberry", and Wu Yue "has no abandoned land in the territory". During the reign of Qian Biao Wu Yue, the famous "Qian Han Haitang" was built on the north bank of the Qiantang River. According to the characteristics of high river water and low fields in the region, Nantang and Wuyue built polders and turned poor land into fertile soil. Wu Yueguo set up a special professional water conservancy engineering unit, the "Shallow Army," to manage the Tangpu polder in Taihu Lake, ensuring the smooth drainage of the Wusong River with the Wusong River as the key link and the river port from the northeast and southeast to the sea as the two wings, enabling the development of the Tangpu polder and effectively reducing the flood and drought disasters. Fujian vigorously built seawalls to protect the tide and protect agricultural production. This series of measures has effectively prevented natural disasters and effectively developed cultivated land resources in the Jiangnan region.
Commodity crops began to appear. A large number of traditional handicraftsmen from the north poured into the south of the Yangtze River, and all kinds of agricultural production tools were improved and innovated. Qichun County, Jiangnan Province has "overturned water" and "overturned city", and the cylinder car was invented and used in the period of the fifth dynasty, which is to use the water flow to push the runner to lift water for irrigation. At the same time, the semi-mechanical irrigation device "machine drawing" and the sturdy and durable "Koto plow" were born.
The upgrading of tools has improved the efficiency of agricultural production and farming, after grain and other crops meet the needs of production and life, cash crops began to appear in large numbers, Chu attaches importance to the development of tea, silkworms and cotton, and Fujian takes tea as an important export material, "Jianghuai people tithes two or three to tea as a business", there are more than 20 prefectures and counties that produce tea in the Southern Tang Dynasty, and Jianzhou tea is exported to the outside world every year 50,000 or 60,000 catties. It is the product of the Beijing collar, since the beginning of the Southern Tang Dynasty". Hunan pays tribute to the Central Plains every year with 250,000 catties of tea, and at the same time, fruits, vegetables, and flowers have also entered a state of industrialization and large-scale trading, and the trend of commercialization has emerged, becoming an early symptom of the budding development of capitalism.
Jiangnan handicraft industry won the opportunity for development
The smelting and mining industry has not been inherited. There were many wars in the north, and many mines were destroyed and abandoned in the war, but the smelting and mining industry in the south of the Yangtze River has made breakthroughs. The Southern Han Dynasty, Wu Yue, and Southern Tang Dynasty paid tribute to the central government in large quantities of gold and silver artifacts, including more than 100,000 pieces of gold and silver ornamented pottery, 200 gold and silver ornamented dragon and phoenix boats, and more than 700,000 pieces of silver equipment.
Wu Guojiedu made Qin Pei open the Qingshan Mine in Daye County, Ezhou in Hubei, so that "the workers are on their feet", and Ma Yin in Hunan "cast lead and iron for money, business travel abroad, useless, all changed for other goods, so the rest of the goods in the country can be exchanged for the world's department stores, and the country is rich". With an annual output of nearly 400,000 catties, the lead mountain copper farm built by Nantang is one of the three major copper farms in the country. The Southern Tang Dynasty set up Dexing County, Raozhou to manage mineral mining, and the Song Dynasty set up Dexing Field to collect 1,245 taels of cash every year, which was one of the important silver-producing places at that time. At the same time, the freshwater copper immersion method was invented in the Jiangnan region to improve the purity of copper ore.
Pottery technology gradually matured. During the Five Dynasties, the official kilns and private kilns in the south of the Yangtze River embarked on different development paths, and colored glazed porcelain prevailed. In the south of the Yangtze River, there are the secret color porcelain of Wu Yue Kingdom and the official kiln porcelain of Shu Kingdom, and the Yue ware technology of Wu Yue Kingdom is excellent. Yuezhou porcelain has made significant progress in firing technology, temperature control, material selection and painting technology, and finally became the world-famous Yuezhou porcelain, which was called Yueyao kiln in later generations, and became an indispensable stage in the history of Chinese ceramics development.
A breakthrough has been made in the textile industry. The Jiangnan region has always been the leading area of the traditional handicraft textile industry, and the water and soil conditions have made the mulberry sericulture develop rapidly, and the quality of silk is much higher than that of the north, which has given birth to many textile handicraftsmen. At the same time, the paper industry represented by "Chengxintang" and the textile printing and dyeing industry represented by "Liuhe quilt" in Shuzhong have also achieved great development, which has greatly enlivened the development of market players. At that time, Zhejiang's silk production was huge, the amount of transportation to the north was measured in 10,000 horses, Wu Aya, Yue Jin, Shu embroidery crowned the world, after Tang Zhuangzong also sent people to Chengdu, Sichuan to inspect the splendid craft, Fujian produced banana cloth, Ge cloth, Fujian 942 exported more than 26,000 Ge cloth, a sensation.
The shipbuilding industry is a world leader. During this period, the shipbuilding industry was also very developed, and the regimes of Wu Yue and Southern Tang Dynasty all had records of maritime exchanges with Khitan and Goryeo. In order to prepare for war, all countries have relied on water conservancy to build warships, the warships of the Wu State are "dangerous and huge, and the momentum is like a cloud", and the warships of the Southern Tang Dynasty are huge, "more than 100 zhang long, and the large ships can accommodate thousands of people", all of which are at the world's leading level, laying the foundation for the overseas trade of the Song Dynasty.
Jiangnan has become a new market for domestic and foreign trade
The war in the north has caused a certain amount of trade difficulties. Due to the long-term war in the Central Plains, the northern cities were attacked and looted, the loss of population and the barren farmland led to the loss of basic support for commercial activities, the warlords fabricated names to loot goods, and the Later Jin Dynasty made An Congjin send troops to intercept the merchants many times and forcibly confiscate the army.
There are many checkpoints between the separatist regimes, and many normal business activities cannot be carried out. The commercial taxation of the Later Tang Dynasty, the commercial tax envoy of the Later Han Dynasty, and the Commercial Taxation Institute of the Later Zhou Dynasty specially levied municipal taxes on commodity transactions, and there was no way to follow them, and the tax system was extremely chaotic, which suppressed the quality and efficiency of commercial and trade activities.
Trade in the Jiangnan region is booming. At that time, silk and tea from the Jiangnan region were shipped to the north, and war horses and weapons from the north also needed the Jiangnan market.
The state of Chu sold a large amount of tea to Kaifeng and other places every year, and then bought war horses from the north and sold them back to the south, making a profit dozens of times. The Southern Tang Dynasty exchanged tea and silk for cattle, sheep and horses and other livestock with the northern regime, and also traded with the Khitan and other countries by sea. According to records, at that time, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Hongzhou, Danyang and other cities not only developed agriculture and handicraft industries, but also had a rapid rise in commercial economy.
According to the record of the "Five Dynasties Meeting", every year after the Tang Dynasty War Horse pays no less than 500,000 guan, the development of domestic trade is still showing a state of enthusiasm, the commercial trade of the Southern Han Dynasty is "West Tonggui, Shu", Chengdu has the name of "Jincheng", there are flowers and fruits, silkworms, musk, medicinal materials and the famous Qibao City in the city, etc., in March every year, "goods are easy to meet", a faction of prosperity. Driven by the commercial atmosphere, the city's citizens began to engage in small-scale commercial activities.
Foreign trade in the Jiangnan region is booming. During the Five Dynasties period, the consumption capacity of the northern region was limited, the output of the south of the Yangtze River was excessive, and the location along the coast and the ports were numerous, which had geographical advantages and was convenient for overseas trade.
Wu Yue, Nanwu and Nantang imported "fierce fire oil" from overseas to use, Wang Shenzhi set up a cargo service, responsible for the management of foreign transactions and the collection of tariffs, Wang Shenqi attracted foreign businessmen, and promoted economic and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.
During this period, the scale and quantity of maritime foreign trade far exceeded that of the Tang Dynasty, and new ports such as Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Wenzhou, and Taizhou were expanded. The Arab scholar Ibn Kodabe called Quanzhou "the largest port in the Song and Yuan Dynasties" in his "Chronicles of the Daocheng and the Counties". At that time, the scope of commerce and trade ranged from Japan in the east, Dashi in the west, and Champa and Sriwijaya in the south.
epilogue
At that time, the reason for the rapid economic development of the Jiangnan region was that the war in the north provided the Jiangnan region with human resources and industrial technology, and the policies and measures of the Jiangnan region adapted to the law of production development, which promoted the prosperity of agriculture, handicrafts and commerce in the Jiangnan region, gave birth to a trade center and commercial city, and realized the comprehensive upgrading of smelting, shipbuilding, planting, handicrafts, commerce and printing.