First, the introduction
Historian Li Dongfang said that "the history of the Yuan Dynasty is the most difficult to read, the most difficult to write, and the most difficult to elaborate." "Why are there these three most? Historian Deng Guangming, who was born in the same year as Li Dongfang and died in the same year, commented that these few words, simple and clear, are the real bitterness that everyone who studies and governs the general history of China has experienced.
In 1162 AD, a great man was born in the upper reaches of the Wunan River in the northern steppe of the desert (present-day Kent, Mongolia), who was Boerjin Temujin. Later, he became the Khan of the Mongol Empire and was honored with the honorific title of "Genghis Khan". In the spring of 1206 Temujin established the Great Mongol State. He died in 1227 during the conquest of Western Xia. In October 1265 (to the second year of the Yuan Dynasty), Temujin's grandson Kublai Khan posthumously honored Genghis Khan with the temple name Taizu. In 1271 (to the eighth year of the Yuan), Kublai Khan changed the name of the country to "Great Mongolia" to "Great Yuan".
The history of the Great Yuan is often narrated from 1271. From this year to 1368, a total of 11 emperors were handed down, which lasted 98 years. The unification of the Yuan Dynasty expanded and laid the map of China, promoted the integration of multiple ethnic groups, and also promoted economic development. Guilds also developed rapidly during the Yuan Dynasty.
Second, the city of the Yuan Dynasty
In the Yuan Dynasty, the commodity economy further developed, many of the original cities restored their former prosperity, and many new cities and foreign trade ports appeared. Some of the more famous cities in the Yuan Dynasty are:
1. Dadu (Beijing). By the ninth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1272), Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, moved from Hala and Lin to the capital Dadu (present-day Beijing), and built a new city in the northeast of the old city built by the Jin people, which was more magnificent than the Jin Dynasty, known as Khan Bali. The capital city was planned and designed by Liu Bingzhong, a politician in the early Yuan Dynasty. The location and layout of the Yuan capital city greatly affected the development of Beijing City and the formation of commercial districts, reflecting the superb technical level of the construction industry at that time.
As the capital of the feudal dynasty, its main function was to provide various services to the royal family and nobles. Therefore, most of the commerce in the capital is more developed than industry, the official business is more developed than the private business, and the special handicraft industry is more developed than the general handicraft industry. In terms of commerce, the royal family and the palace account for a large proportion. During the peak period of economic development in the Yuan Dynasty, most of the merchant ships of the Tonghui River were thousands of miles away, the sails were lined up, and the merchants in the capital were gathered and traded actively.
Marco Polo praised most of them as "a city of commercial prosperity" and that "the cities of the world are incomparable to the importation of foreign goods with huge foreign prices." There are 50 squares in the city, and there are about 30 various markets. Grain and materials from the south were continuously transported to Dadu by sea and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and commodities and goods from all over the world were also gathered here. Bell and Drum Tower in the center of the city, Jishuitan, the northeast shore of the Shichahai Rizhong City (also known as the diagonal street market), because it is located in the dock of the boat, for a time merchants gathered, trading flourished, business flourished, large and small businesses, tea houses and liquor stores, restaurants and inns, palace temples, as well as song and dance halls, music and juggling and other commercial, leisure and entertainment venues are gathered here, becoming the most prosperous and lively area in the metropolitan area. The Giethoorn Market in the West Fourth Belt is concentrated in the Sheep Market, Horse Market, Bull Market, Camel Market, Donkey Mule Market and so on. Nichichu City and Giethoorn Are the two main business districts concentrated in the Yuan Capital. In addition, there are also many commercial activities in the Privy Council Corner City in the southwest of the present-day East Fourth, the former Wenshu City and Paper-Za City in the central province east of the present-day NanheYan Avenue, and the boot market in the northeast of the present-day Old Gulou Street.
According to the "Yuan Shi Food And Goods Chronicle", during the Calendar period (1328-1330), the national commercial tax was more than 760,000 ingots, and the commercial tax of most capitals was more than 103,000 ingots, ranking third.
Compared with Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty, Bieliang in the Northern Song Dynasty, and Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, most of them can be said to be "latecomers" in terms of international exchanges and commodity trade.
2. Hangzhou. Hangzhou was the economic and cultural center of the southeast region of the Yuan Dynasty. Unlike the near-devastating disaster caused by the Qing Dynasty's destruction of the Southern Ming Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty and did not cause much damage to the southern social economy, and the economic and cultural development of the south was not interrupted. Under the favorable circumstances of the opening of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Hangzhou was still the economic center of the southeast region in the Yuan Dynasty. At that time, Hangzhou's population exceeded one million, and commerce was very prosperous. That is, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, which are composed of the original four roads of Zhejiang West, Zhejiang East, Jiangdong and Fujian, have jurisdiction over the Yangtze River in the north, Fujian in the south, the sea in the east, and Poyang in the west, which is the most economically developed area.
Among the eleven provinces in the country, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces have the largest population (the population in the north is constantly moving south) and the most developed economy, and the YuanGuanfu naturally attaches great importance to it. The Yuan Dynasty moved the seat of government of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to Hangzhou, and ruled over thirty roads in the southeast region. From the first year of Emperor Wenzong to Shun (1330), 46% of the number of money and grain households registered by the Ministry of Households was in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, and the number of grain conquered every year accounted for 37% of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces. The national commercial tax accounts for 34%.
Wu Chengyan, an outstanding theorist of the Yuan Dynasty:
Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces regard the provinces as particularly important, with a wide range of land, people, complicated government affairs, a large number of money valleys, and the attention of the imperial court.
Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces were so important that the Yuan Dynasty stationed the largest number of troops in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and the officials stationed in other provinces were Pingzhang ("Pingzhang" originally meant to deal with consultation. Jin Yuan had the political affairs of Pingzhang, second only to Xiang Xiang), while the Governor of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces was the Minister of Finance.
The Capital of the Yuan Dynasty was the capital, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was dredged, which made the connection between Hangzhou at the southern end of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the northern region unprecedentedly strengthened. In this way, it has completely changed the disadvantage of Hangzhou's long-term partial southeast, marking that Hangzhou has entered a new stage of historical development.
The Yuan Dynasty did not have a transit tax in the process of commodity circulation, and it was only taxed when entering the sale, and there were four places with the highest tax amount of more than 10,000 ingots in the country at that time, except for one in Zhenzhou (Yizheng, Jiangsu), where the Yangtze River and the canal converge, and the other three were in Hangzhou. It can be seen from this that Hangzhou's status on the economic map of the Yuan Dynasty is so high.
While goods travel north and south through the canal, they also bring a large number of people. Southerners went north along the canal, entered Beijing for sightseeing, and sought a way out. Northerners go south, eunuchs, merchants, and study tours. Various ideas and cultures are exchanged and integrated here. It can be said that Hangzhou and Dadu, one south and one north, became two cultural exchange and integration centers of the Yuan Dynasty.
The Yuan Dynasty expanded to both the inland and the sea, carrying out overseas trade, and Hangzhou became an important node city in this system. Unlike the traditional "tributary trade" in the Central Plains, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty sent private commercial representatives to conduct commercial trade as early as the grassland period. The commercial tradition of the steppes made non-governmental overseas trade largely unrestricted.
As the capital of Jiangsu and Zhejiang and the southernmost point of the canal, Hangzhou has become an important access point for various trade routes. The developed transportation has achieved the status of Hangzhou's transportation and economic hub, and the Yuan people praised Hangzhou as "the grandeur of mountains and rivers, the distance across Wuyue and Fujian and Zhejiang, the wealth of Tugong, and the rao of Jingguangchuan and Shu." ”
Hangzhou was rich in the Southern Song Dynasty, and its prosperity and grandeur are described in detail and wonderfully in Wu Zimu's "Mengliang Record", the meticulous "Wulin Past", The Endowong's "Capital City Jisheng", and the West Lake Old Man's "Prosperous Victory Record". However, due to the division between the north and the south, Hangzhou's central role in the exchange between the north and the south cannot be reflected. Entering the Yuan Dynasty, this drawback disappeared, and Hangzhou's position in the world trading system was higher than that of the Southern Song Dynasty, and it was one of the central cities in the world at that time.
In the Yuan Dynasty, many foreign merchants, missionaries, and travelers came to Hangzhou, China. For example, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta all praised Hangzhou.
3. Yangzhou. Yangzhou was an important commercial city in the Yuan Dynasty. In the thirteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1276), the Governor's Mansion of Yangzhou was established. In the following year, the governor's mansion was changed to yangzhou road governor's office, leading Gaoyoufu and 5 prefectures of Zhenzhou, Chuzhou, Tongzhou, Taizhou, and Chongming (present-day Chongming County, Shanghai), and directly 2 counties of Jiangdu and Taixing.
4. Suzhou. Suzhou was the southeastern metropolis of the Yuan Dynasty. In the twelfth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1275), Jianghuai Province was established, and the Military and Civilian Xuanfu Division of Zhejiang West Road was set up, and the following year it was changed to Pingjiang Road, which belonged to Jianghuai Province. In the eighteenth year (1281), Shengpingjiang Road was the governor of Daru Huachi. By the 28th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1291), the river was divided and ruled, and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces were set up in Jiangnan, and Suzhou belonged to it. In the first year of Yuan Zhen (1295), the four counties of Kunshan, Changshu, Wujiang, and Jiading were promoted to prefectures. From the end of the Yuan Dynasty to the sixteenth year of Zheng (1356), Zhang Shicheng entered Pingjiang and established the Great Zhou Regime, which was once renamed Longping Province, and the following year Zhang Shicheng accepted the Yuan Dynasty's canonization and restored it to Pingjiang Road.
5. Quanzhou. Quanzhou was an important port for foreign trade in the Yuan Dynasty. Quanzhou was the largest seaport in the world at that time. In the fourteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1277), Yuan Ting set up the XingxuanWei Division in Quanzhou, and also led the affairs of the Marshal of Zhengnan, and in the same year set up the Municipal Shipping Promotion Division in Quanzhou. By the fifteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1278), the entire territory of Fujian entered the Territory of the Yuan. Shengquan Prefecture is the governor of Quanzhou Road, leading the seven counties of Nan'an, Jinjiang, Tong'an, Anxi, Dehua, Yongchun and Hui'an, and Quanzhou belongs to Fujian Province, and the province is set up in Fuzhou. In February of the 21st year of the Yuan Dynasty (1284), Quanzhou Province was established again, and in September of the same year, Quanzhou Province was merged into Jianghuai Province. In the 29th year of the 29th century, Fujian Province was re-established. Around the 27th century, it began to set up an inspection department in Penghu, with jurisdiction over Penghu, Taiwan and other islands, and was subordinate to Tong'an County, Quanzhou Road. At that time, there were more than 1,600 residents in the Penghu Archipelago, and the trade was often dozens of ships, known as the "Quanzhou Outer House". In the first year of Dade (1297), in order to Tuliuqiu (present-day Taiwan), the province of Fujian was changed to The Zhongshu Province of Pinghai xingzhongshu province in Fujian, and then he moved to Quanzhou and administered the prefectures. In February of the third year of Dade, he set up the Marshal's Office of fujian Xuanwei Sidu and moved to Fuzhou. In the seventh year of Yanyou (1320), Quanzhou set up a salt sub-division in Quanzhou, directly under the household department, specializing in handling salt goods and approving salt merchants. In the sixteenth year of Zhengzheng (1356), Fujian Road was withdrawn and Fujian Province was established, which was the beginning of the construction of Fu Province.
6. Guangzhou. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, Guangzhou has been an important port for overseas trade. Guangzhou in the Yuan Dynasty inherited its position since the Tang and Song dynasties, with a large collection of Chinese and foreign goods, and was a prosperous international city.
7. Ningbo. Ningbo was one of the three major ports of the Yuan Dynasty. From the Yuan Dynasty to the thirteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1276), it was called Qingyuan Road.
In the seventh year of the Yuan Dynasty (1303), the Marshal's Office of the Capital of Zhejiang Wasu was established. It belongs to Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces. It is bordered by Minguang in the south, Japan in the east, and Goryeo in the north.
8. Shanghai. By the Yuan Dynasty, the town of Shanghai was booming. By the 27th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1290), the county was officially established, called Shanghai County, which belonged to Songjiang Province, and Shanghai had become a trading port and international market that had begun to take shape.
9. Wenzhou. Wenzhou is a trading port with a long history, and in the Yuan Dynasty, Wenzhou had Laiyuanyi, which was specially used to receive Merchants.
10. Shangdu (Kaiping). Kaiping was the capital of Yuan Shang, located in the territory of the Present-day Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Xilin Gol League Zhenglan Banner, on the northwestern lightning river in Duolun County. In the spring of 1256, Kublai Khan ordered people to build a new city east of Huanzhou, north of Luanshui (present-day Lightning River), called Kaiping Province, as a residence. In 1263, Hekaiping Province was elevated to Shangdu to replace Helin. In the first year of the Yuan Dynasty (1264), Yanjing was changed to Zhongdu. In 1273, zhongdu was changed to Dadu and designated as the capital city, and Shangdu was used as the summer capital for summer vacation, forming a pattern of two capitals. Every April, the Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty went to Shangdu to escape the summer heat, and returned to Dadu in the autumn of August and September. During the emperor's stay in Shangdu, the various departments of the government were subordinate to each other to handle important government affairs. In addition to the emperor's hunting and pleasure here, the pilgrimages of the Mongol kings and nobles (Kuritai) and traditional sacrifices were held here. Shangdu Kaiping is a new city with Han-style palace pavilions and grassland felt tents, and commerce and handicrafts are prosperous.
3. Handicrafts of the Yuan Dynasty
The achievements of the Yuan Dynasty in agriculture and animal husbandry provided a good material basis for the development of handicraft industry. The handicraft industry of the Yuan Dynasty developed on the basis of the two Song Dynasties. In particular, scientists and technical experts from Europe and Central Asia were recruited to China, which further promoted the development of handicraft technology. The level of development of China's handicraft industry in the Yuan Dynasty was far higher than that of Europe and Asian and African countries at that time, and many handicraft products became important export products and were cherished by people around the world at that time. The handicraft industry of the Yuan Dynasty can be divided into three categories.
1. Official handicraft industry. The official handicraft industry is large in scale and varied in variety. Some belong to the Ministry of Works (the Ministry of Works is the general administrative organ of the central government, the competent department of handicraft industry, and is in charge of the decree of creating a hundred works in the world), and some belong to the General Administration, the Metropolitan Left-behind Division, the Wubei Temple, the HuizhengYuan, and the Chuzhengyuan. Ju Qingyuan's "Research on officials and craftsmen in the Yuan Dynasty" has a detailed description. The establishment of government-run handicraft bureaus is spread throughout the country. There are developed official handicrafts in mongolia in the north, Qianqian prefecture in the northwest, Xinjiang region, Hexi region, and Yunnan region. The main products produced by the official handicraft industry are military supplies, urban construction, and weaving.
2. Folk handicraft industry. Folk handicrafts include individual handicrafts, cottage industries, and handicraft workshops. The government can train specialized craftsmen, and craftsmen serving in various places have the opportunity to learn and improve their skills. Through the study of the government, the handicraft technology of various regions exchanged and promoted each other, and innovation was also promoted in the exchange. The main production departments are: silk weaving, cotton textile industry, porcelain industry, mining and metallurgy, papermaking, printing, winemaking, salt industry, etc.
3. Monastic handicrafts. The monasteries of the Yuan Dynasty were mostly engaged in handicrafts. In the Yuan Dynasty, with the Buddhist leader of the Tibetan Sakya school as the emperor of the generation, he ruled buddhism throughout the country, and lama monks (Fan monks) were thus granted various privileges. In terms of Taoism, in 1222, Genghis Khan met the Quanzhen Daoist Changchun Zhenrenqiu in Laizhou, Shandong, in his tent on the banks of the Amu Darya River, and gave Qiu Zhiji an edict exempting the Daoist from paying taxes. It should be said that Buddhist monasteries and Taoist Taoist temples had a high social status in the Yuan Dynasty. They also have their own handicrafts, mainly including smelting, agricultural processing (such as tea), winemaking and so on. The monastic estate was managed by a special institution of the Imperial Court.
Fourth, the line of the Yuan Dynasty
The prosperity of commerce in the Yuan Dynasty is closely related to the great unification of the north and the south, the recovery and development of agriculture, animal husbandry and handicrafts, and the development of water and land transportation. Merchants from Various countries in Europe, Asia and Africa came one after another, and the treasures and treasures gathered together.
The division of labor in the commercial market of the Yuan Dynasty tends to be further refined and improved. In many cities, according to the different product trade set up special commercial trade areas, according to the late Song and Yuan beginners carefully recorded, Hangzhou city has a medicine market, flower market, beads market, rice market, meat market, vegetable market, fresh fish market, south pig line, north pig line, cloth market, crab row, flower balls, green fruit balls, citrus balls, fish balls, study room cities, they are scattered throughout the city, or official camp, or private. In addition, there are a large number of tea shops, liquor stores, hotels, noodle shops, meat and vegetarian restaurants (specializing in various colors of dim sum), butcher shops, fish shops and so on. For example, Chaozhou Road Changxingzhou has 21 kinds of interbank guild organizations, such as Wushu Xingxing, Incense Candle Line, Bank (Silver Dollar Line), Jade Crane Line, Du Sheng Line, Pouring Candle Paper Printing Horse Line, Penny Master Line, Net Distribution, Tailor Line, Jinlin Line, Biyuan Line, Cao Line, Five Color Line, Zhengguan Line, Double Line Line, Sugar Cake Line, Fruit Line, Color Line, Kitchen Line, Rice Line, And Wine Line. Most of them belong to the commercial division of labor, and a few such as the pen master's line, net distribution, tailor line, etc. are subordinate to the service industry.
5. Industry organizations of the Yuan Dynasty
In the Yuan Dynasty, the city's commerce flourished, the social division of labor was refined, and the industry organization developed on the basis of the Song Dynasty. In the literary works of the Yuan people, there are many records.
Guan Hanqing, a famous opera composer of the Yuan Dynasty, wrote in the first fold of "Golden Thread Pool": "I think of this one hundred and twenty lines, the doors are all well dressed and eating, but this door is made by someone, and the low and low is also hehe!" ”
One hundred and twenty lines are mentioned here. The line here refers to the type of industry.
The first fold of the Yuan Dynasty miscellaneous dramatist Qiao Ji's "Du Mu's Poetry wine Yangzhou Dream": "List one hundred and twenty lines of business goods, run 84,000 households of characters flow." ”
The one hundred and twenty lines here refer to one hundred and twenty lines of different goods. Considering that there were no "department stores" at that time, many lines sold a single commodity, so it can be deduced from one hundred and twenty kinds of goods that there are one hundred and twenty industries.
Quan Hansheng said in the "History of the Chinese Guild System" that the professional guilds in the Yuan Dynasty were very developed, and even prostitutes had guilds.
Sixth, guild jargon
As an industry organization, the guild has the functions of safeguarding the interests of the bankers, squeezing out the intervention of non-merchants, and stipulating that all business operators must enter the industry. All of this can be reflected in the phenomenon of jargon in guilds.
Ming Dynasty literary scholar Tian Rucheng's "West Lake Tour Zhiyu" volume 25 quotes the "Record of Quitting Cultivation" as follows:
"Hangzhou people are good as a hidden language, to deceive the outside world, such as things are not firm to be 'big', secretly exchange barters to 'squeeze bags', stupid people to know 'sticks', simple to know 'Guntou'"; and further pointed out, "It is three hundred and sixty lines, each with its own city language, not universal, hastily listened, and do not know why it is also so." There are people who speak in Siping City, one is to remember more jiao, the second is the wind in the ear, the third is the scattered autumn incense, and the fourth is the homesick horse... The small is a flower, the big is a cloud, and the old is a falling plum wind. ”
"From one to ten, there is still a little law to be found here, that is, one and memory, two with ears, three with scattering, four with thought, etc.; and the big and the clouds, the old and the falling plum wind, in a Shanghainese dialect, there is no boundary, and it can only make the layman Zhang'er monk confused." This account gives us a lot of information about the guilds. 1. There are many lines, there are three hundred and sixty lines.
2, there are jargon in the line, the layman can not understand, the insider understands each other. The language itself can be understood, but its connotations are not known, and it is not a dialect (the natives may not necessarily know the meaning), but a jargon. Jargon has a confidentiality effect.
3. The guild will safeguard the interests of the bank and exclude outsiders.
(Source: China Business Times)