I'm afraid this master won't be able to do business
Do you believe that the reason why the Song Dynasty was richer than the Tang Dynasty was because of the stalls? Today, let's talk about this most classic form of commerce in ancient times -- the stalls.
Panjiayuan Ancestor
Pastry shop
The stall economy created the richest dynasty - the Song Dynasty
During the Tang Dynasty, commercial activities in the city were limited to daylight hours, and a curfew was imposed at night. The system of the Song Dynasty Fang City was broken, and commerce appeared to be prosperous. In 965, Song Taizu issued an edict that the day market after the three drums of Kaifeng Mansion was not forbidden, and the time for commercial transactions was no longer limited. As the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng has a population of more than 1.3 million, "thousands of streets and alleys, all prosperous and noisy", and itinerant vendors have also ushered in a golden age.
During the Song Dynasty, the countless small traders in Kaifeng City were mainly itinerant vendors along the streets who abandoned agriculture or went bankrupt, and there were more hawkers who did business during the slack time. In Kaifeng, Lin'an and other cities, there are vendors who operate meat, fish, poultry, fresh fruits, daily department stores and other vendors day and night, as well as a large number of catering "self-employed" who specialize in food and snacks in the morning and evening.
Game
There are not only street vendors, street performers, and storytelling activities in the open space, but also the Tokyo Daxiangguo Temple is also a trade of ten thousand surnames, "near the Buddha Hall, the Mengjia Taoist Wang Daoren Honey Fried", "The two corridors are all temples and aunts selling embroidery, collar wipes, and flowers...... and so on", birds, cats and dogs, curiosities and good play, everything. The dismissed officials also set up stalls to sell things that could not be taken away. Even Ouchi can set up a stall: "The people of the division sell their own food and drink treasures, and there is no one in the market." "Due to the particularity of Ouchi, the value of the original ordinary goods has also doubled, "all new flowers and fruits, fish, shrimp, turtles, crabs, quails, rabbits, preserved meat, gold and jade treasures play with clothes, nothing more than the world's strange ......"
Seller poultry
Slaughter pigs and sheep and noodle restaurants
"Qingming Riverside Map" shows a prosperous market, with many small merchants and vendors occupying the road and setting up stalls. There are those who sell knives, scissors, groceries, tea, fortune-tellers, and jugglers. Walking the streets and alleys are bustling with all kinds of pickers. There are even vendors on the Hongqiao, with five or six stalls on the left, some holding parasols and some building pergolas. If it is placed on a shelf or on a plate, it should be food, and if it is placed on the ground, it is a tool and an object. The two stalls on the right also sell things under umbrellas and pergolas.
Sell group fans
"Tokyo Menghualu" records that at the intersection of alleys and streets, Qiaomen market, all sell all kinds of seasonal fruits, food and drinks, "all use green cloth umbrellas, when the street beds and stools are stacked", that is, the green cloth umbrella is used to shade the sun, and the bed stool is used as a counter to set up a temporary stall that is easy to disassemble. The existence of itinerant vendors is also allowed on the street: "On the East Cross Street, it is said that the corner tea shop is lit every five watches, and Boyi buys and sells clothes, pictures, garlands, collar wipes, etc., and disperses at dawn, which is called a ghost market." This kind of "ghost market" with five watches lit up and scattered at dawn is the regular manifestation of the stalls. In the vicinity of the street shops, there are also orderly vendors with a wide variety of goods.
Self-portrait
In the Song Dynasty, it was popular to enjoy flowers, and some smart farmers were good at seizing business opportunities. Now the West Lake belongs to the officials, and the sale of flowers is also all over the households", and the economic benefits brought by planting flowers are considerable, "the income of the local people from selling flowers does not reduce their efforts".
The small merchants and small craftsmen who wandered the streets and made peddlers, who had only a few simple tools and no operating capital, engaged in service trades, waited for recruitment, or went through the door to seek employment, or processed raw materials, or repaired, or sold goods with backpacks and drums.
Daily necessities
For example, there are those in Tokyo who sell mutton, belly, white sausage, duck, rabbit, fish and shrimp, dehaired chicken and duck and other foods in the door of the liquor store, and there are those who sell children's toys and sweets after going to the small streets and alleys, and there are also those who do not open shops and walk the streets and alleys to adapt to the different seasons to sell flowers at four seasons.
Selling raw fish is also a mobile business, "selling raw fish is with a shallow bucket, soaked in clear water between willow leaves, or sold along the street, every morning only Xinzheng Gate, West Water Gate, Wansheng Gate, so raw fish have thousands of eaves to enter. The winter moon is the Yellow River in the distance, called the 'car fish', each pound is less than a hundred Wen. "Itinerant fishmongers are very inexpensive and high-quality to make people's lives easier. In "Water Margin", Yang Zhi sells knives and Wu Dalang sells cooking cakes, both of which are like itinerant vendors and do not pay taxes.
Selling pottery, pottery?
Why was the "stall economy" so prosperous in the Song Dynasty?
For example, according to the "Old Stories of Wulin", there were so-called "beauty bureaus, cabinet gambling games, and water merit bureaus" on the streets of Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, and even "day thieves" who sold fake goods and "looking for stickers" who robbed people's property.
There are also more common street encroachments, namely illegal construction and stalls. For example, Lin'an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, "the city is vast, the household registration is complicated, the residential houses are high, the eaves are connected one after another, there is no space in an inch, the alleys are congested, the streets are narrow, and it is unbearable."
However, none of these issues have affected the government's established policy of compassionate business. Kaifeng's urban management embodies the principle of compassionate business. In the second year of Zhou Xiande, some streets were "straight and wide, and those with a width of 30 steps" were stipulated, and the following year it was stipulated that "if the streets in the capital are 50 steps wide, households on both sides are allowed to plant trees, dig wells, and build pergolas within 5 steps; those who have gone down from 30 steps to 25 steps are each with three steps, and there is a difference in the second." It can be seen that the streets of Kaifeng Prefecture, one-tenth of the width of the road on the left and right, are legally occupied by the residents on the side of the road, and they can plant trees, dig wells, open doors, and set up stalls.
Saturday Fu, Zhou Dasheng, Zhou Shengsheng... The editor concluded that the boss's surname was Zhou
However, the occupation of the road leads to narrow streets and alleys, and traffic is inconvenient. An official named Xie Dequan, who was in charge of cleaning up the road, persuaded the imperial court to make up his mind to deal with it thoroughly, and made a new rule to erect wooden markers called "table trees" at a certain distance on both sides of the road as "red lines". However, this regulation could not keep up with the situation of commercial development, and in June of the second year of Renzong Tiansheng (1024), "those who encroached on the streets of Jingshi Folk House were ordered to be listed in Kaifeng Prefecture, limited to one year old, and destroyed and demolished according to the Yuan Dynasty." In the fourth year of Zhenzong Tianxi (1020), on the afternoon of May, "Kaifeng Mansion invites the removal of people's houses and invades the streets, and they are not allowed to be disturbed by labor." The report submitted by the Kaifeng Prefecture on the rectification of the occupation of the road was rejected by the emperor on the grounds of disturbing the people.
The emperors of the Song Dynasty traveled because of various occupation of the road, which led to the inability to open the guard of honor, and the majestic emperor's guard of honor became a scene for merchants and people to watch. The officials concerned wanted to take the opportunity to rectify the situation, but they did not expect that "the time was detailed to complete the study, or the new system was strict, and the violators were worried about the public, because they did not succeed." Considering that this would lead to a large number of offenders, it was not allowed.
By the time of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, he levied "money for encroaching on the street and corridors" and simply recognized its legitimacy. In 1056, Bao Zheng served as the governor of Kaifeng. This year, the water level of the Huimin River soared, flooding the southern half of the city, Bao Zheng found through field research that due to the illegal construction of "partial shops" along the banks of the river to encroach on the river, plus the construction of weirs and water gardens by dignitaries, resulting in flooding caused by poor water discharge. But the government also didn't deal with any vendors.
Wheat utensils or baskets?
The Song Dynasty was not without chengguan, and the chengguan of Kaifeng was called the Street Division, which began in the second year of Taiping Xingguo (977). They wore green shirts as their special clothing, numbering only 500 people, responsible for repairing the streets, diverting stagnant water, cleaning, managing traffic, investigating and dealing with shops that encroached on the streets, managing the market, integrating urban construction, city appearance and environmental sanitation, traffic diversion, and market management. However, there is rarely a phenomenon of violent law enforcement, and the chengguan and the traders are safe and sound, maintaining the prosperity of the streets where "red dust flies day and night, and cars and horses are ancient and modern".
The biggest beneficiaries of the Song Dynasty's compassionate merchant policy were not only merchants in the capital city of Kaifeng and Lin'an, but also a large number of itinerant vendors. In the Song Dynasty, there were two types of commercial taxes: a "passing tax" of 2% for passing traders passing through the tax collection points, a "residence tax" of 3% for shops and urban vendors, and a 10% tax in kind for a few specific goods, and no longer a separate tax on excess tax and residence tax.
Not only is Kaifeng free of miscellaneous taxes, but the government has repeatedly issued edicts on the reduction and exemption of various commercial taxes in Kaifeng, which directly benefit itinerant vendors, stipulating that in addition to the currency of business travel, "dealers and women are not allowed to collect their taxes". In the seventh year of Xining (1075), "dozens of taxes were reduced for the country, and the money was less than 30 mu". In the second year of Daguan (1108), the imperial court "edicted all the gates in Beijing, where the people's clothes, grains, chickens and fish, vegetables and fruits, charcoal, porcelain and pottery, etc., and Mu Qi tax". Song Taizu also strictly ordered not to be harsh on the travelers, strengthened the handling of arbitrary tax collectors, and prevented tax officials from abusing their powers. Whoever collects taxes indiscriminately shall be punished with a rod, and whoever takes advantage of his position to buy goods from a merchant shall be punished with a hundred strokes with a rod.
The Qiaotou stall is a good market
A large number of itinerant vendors hidden behind the commercial prosperity of the Song Dynasty supported half of the commercial prosperity of the Song Dynasty and accumulated a profound folk cultural tradition, so that the culture of the entire Song Dynasty was full of humanistic care for the people at the bottom of the society. History shows that the merchant is the people, which not only includes employment and people's livelihood issues, but also promotes commercial prosperity, social stability and national development.
Figure | Qiu Ying, "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival"
Text | Liu Xuyi
| Source: Moon Printing Pool Culture |