Whether it is a scholar or a cultural celebrity, the unchecked dissemination of obvious mistakes to the public is actually a rumor-monger, but some people belong to active rumor-mongering, and some people belong to uninteresting passive rumor-mongering. "The annual income of the Song Dynasty reached hundreds of millions of copper coins" is a very typical and long-standing rumor.
From Huang Renyu's "Finance and Taxation in Sixteenth-Century Ming Dynasty China" written by Huang Renyu as a scholar:
Records of the Song Dynasty show that by the mid-11th century, the annual state budget had reached between 126 million taels and 150 million taels.
Then Gao Xiaosong's nonsense in "Xiao Shuo" said that the gap between the fiscal revenue of the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty was a gap of 150 million and several million.
And now wu hook in the name of cultural celebrity wrote "Song: The Modern Dawn Moment":
The revenue of the two Song Dynasties was basically maintained at more than 100 million (two stones).
All of the above are irresponsible rumors.
And the rumors repeated a thousand times seem to have become a fact, leading to many people in the internet history circle now speculating about the economic situation of the Song Dynasty without any limit. In fact, the Song Dynasty, because of its military supremacy system, required a lot of money, and had little control over commerce and was very active, but it was far less prosperous than what later generations said. In fact, at most of the time, the finances of the Song Dynasty could not be received, and it was not as good as the so-called modern dawn as speculated by later generations.
Spring scenery cargo Lang diagram
The misuse of historical data is dangerous, and it often disguises the simplification, ambiguity, and uncertainty behind it with seemingly objective and rational figures. Any quantification of history is preconditional, and playing the numbers game without considering the preconditions will eventually become a laughingstock. Also, when understanding any quantitative data, be sure to make sure you really understand the essence of this data before you can use it.
It is especially necessary to be cautious in the understanding of quantitative data such as Chinese numbers, land figures, and fiscal revenues in the past, otherwise it will be like Gao Xiaosong and other unlearned people, saying how much is wrong, saying that it is talking about history, but actually talking about literature.
To understand the revenue data of the Song Dynasty, two basic concepts must be clarified: standard financial units and inflation. These two basic concepts are clear, and there will be much less doubt about the "rich Song".
There are often two misunderstandings about the understanding of the standard financial units of the Song Dynasty, and these two misunderstandings, in the classic rumor, "The revenue of the Northern Song Dynasty was 160 million at the highest time, and it was 80 million after the stabilization of the Southern Song Dynasty to the Xiaozong Dynasty." (equivalent to 40 million taels)" is vividly reflected in:
1. The mixed statistical unit of guan, horse, two, jin, strip, plant and grain is used as the income of the Song Dynasty for one year.
For example, the so-called "Northern Song Dynasty's revenue was 160 million when it was the highest", which is very typical, according to the "History of the Song Dynasty" recorded:
The end of the Jubilee......... And the total income of the world is fifteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-one hundred......... ；
This is a typical mixed statistical unit, because in ancient times, fiscal revenue has always been based on practical use as the first value, and neither the emperor nor the financial official cares much about its monetary value. This is one of the most basic knowledge of ancient fiscal history, which is about equal to the nine-nine multiplication table in mathematics, and it only takes a glance to turn over the "History of Song Dynasty" to see it at a glance. For example, the data in the five years of Xi Ning:
"Song Shi , Food And Goods Chronicles VIII : Mutual Market Shipping Law "
For example, there is also what is said in the "Song Shi ZhiXia VIII Mutual Market Shipping Law":
About 500,000 catties, strips, plants and grains were obtained.
But such basic knowledge, whether it is Huang Renyu or Gao Xiaosong, know nothing, which is really regrettable. As for why Huang Renyu and Gao Xiaosong both set the income of the Song Dynasty to 150 million yuan, it actually comes from the "History of Song Dynasty Food and Goods":
In the first year of the Emperor's reign, he entered 126,251,964;
Bronze mirror with sea vessel pattern (now in the National Museum)
The reason why there is a situation of more than 100 million income is because after Wang Anshi changed the method, he changed the statistical caliber, and previously only counted the income of money, and Wang Anshi began to use a mixed statistical unit of guan, horse, two, jin, strip, plant and grain. For example, in the Zhidao period before Wang Anshi's change of law, the Song Shi Food Goods Chronicle records that:
At the end of the Dao, the total amount of money under the heavens was 2,245,800......... ；
By the last year of the Dao Dynasty (997 AD) of more than 20 million, by the end of the Jubilee (1021) of 150 million, the state revenue has increased sevenfold in just twenty-four years, and if you think about it a little, you must know that there must be a change in the statistical caliber, not a seven-fold increase in actual income.
Therefore, if someone sells you something like "the Song Dynasty's fiscal revenue is hundreds of millions of dollars", you directly tell him:
Go to the "Song Shi Food Chronicle" to see the unit clearly and then come out beep.
Chengdu Jiaozi Huitong Tianxia (Sichuan Art Museum)
2. The standard financial unit of the Song Dynasty was "guan", not copper coins.
Huang Renyu planted a big heel on this, directly determining that the financial revenue of the Song Dynasty was measured by copper coins, which led to the fact that when he talked about the finances of the Song Dynasty, basically every sentence was a slot point. Neither the Northern Nor the Southern Song Dynasty ever appeared in the so-called "copper coin (guan) as the standard unit of financial measurement". During the Northern Song Dynasty, copper coins were the main currency, but due to the fragmentation of the Northern Song dynasty currency, the four roads of Chengdu Province, Zizhou Road, Lizhou Road, and Kuizhou Road were dedicated iron money, while the shaanxi west road and Hedong Road were used together; and in the Southern Song Dynasty, the "silk" or "through" of paper money was the basic financial unit, copper money was rarely used, and the value of paper money "silk" and copper money was gradually divided into no way. Therefore, the so-called "Southern Song Dynasty to The Xiaozong Dynasty regime was 80 million after stabilization." (equivalent to 40 million taels)", is a typical second mistake, mistakenly "through" as a copper coin "through" to calculate, and paper money of a "silk" sometimes even a tenth of the copper coin "through" is not worth it, the two can be directly equivalent?
Song "Taiping Jinbao" money
Many people think that the economy of the Southern Song Dynasty has never been seen before and since, which is based on a misunderstanding: the amount of money issued is mistakenly regarded as the actual purchasing power, the value of money is regarded as an eternal constant, and the inflation phenomenon that accompanied the Southern Song Dynasty from beginning to end is ignored.
In fact, according to their idea of blowing the economy of the Southern Song Dynasty, we can now directly think that Venezuela is the most powerful country in the world today and the best developed country, after all, in just a few years, its domestic economy in monetary terms has achieved a thousand times of growth, which is the real hanging of the world.
After the Song Dynasty rushed to the south, due to the depletion of copper mines and the loss of copper-producing areas in the north, the Southern Song Government in 1136 even if it collected civil copperware, it only minted 400,000 copper coins, and many of them were large coins with a ten-fold discount. The economy of the Southern Song Dynasty was basically supported by paper money, and copper coins weakened to the margins. Although the unit of measurement of paper money and copper coins is both 缗 (贯), the difference between the two is greater the more they come later, and by the time of the Eighteenth Realm, two hundred is not enough to buy a pair of straw shoes, and by the time of the Twenty-sixth Realm, the value of the currency has depreciated to four to six percent.
In order to make this inflation more intuitive, you can look at Quan Hansheng's "Late Song Dynasty Paper Money Circulation Quantity Chart" in "Inflation at the End of the Song Dynasty and Its Impact on Prices":
Inflation at the end of the Song Dynasty
It can be seen that from Song Xiaozong to Song Lizong, the number of paper money in circulation increased approximately exponentially, and this large-scale indiscriminate issuance of paper money came from the military needs of the Southern Song Dynasty for foreign wars, and the direct consequence was that the value of paper money plummeted.
Comparing the indiscriminate paper money with the real money and silver of other dynasties does not make any sense.
This method of ignoring inflation and making simple mathematical size comparisons often leads to disastrous derivations. For example, one of the founders of the Kyoto School in Japan, the famous sinologist Kuwahara Mizo, because the "Miscellaneous Records of the Dynasty and the Wild Since Jianyan" records that the revenue of the southeastern Song Dynasty during the southern crossing was less than 10 million, and by the end of the Chunxi Dynasty, it increased to more than 65.3 million taels, thanks to the strength of foreign trade, in fact, most of it was inflationary.
As for the Ming Dynasty's finances, there are also many misconceptions, and many people, like Gao Xiaosong, believe that the regular annual income of the Ming Dynasty is only a few million taels of silver.
This misconception is to treat the so-called household warehouse income as the total national income. However, treating the income of the Tai warehouse as the total income of the Ming Dynasty can only be said to lack the most basic understanding of the financial system of the Ming Dynasty. The Household Department of the Ming Dynasty was not the Ministry of Finance today, its income was only one piece of the entire Ming Dynasty, and other departments, such as the Military Department, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Rites, and the Imperial Palace, all had their own large treasury.
Ming Hongwu's eight-year "Ma Liangzao" fifty-two silver ingots (from Museum China)
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, taxes were divided into two major pieces: physical and non-physical (silver). Even after the introduction of a whiplash law, the expropriation in kind (such as the white grain supplied to the palace) was still a very large number (around 1600, the various supplies sent to the palace treasury every year were worth four or five million taels of silver. Part of the supply came from the fields, and part of it came from the expropriation of Lijia ("Finance and Taxation in Ming China in the Sixteenth Century"). Moreover, even if silver is levied, there is not only a warehouse. In addition to the Tai Warehouse, the Hyobe Taibu Temple, the Gongbu JieshenKu, the Inner Treasury of the Imperial Palace, etc., and their silver income is also very large.
Hyobe Taibu-ji Temple:
Its actual income increased to nearly 180,000 taels in eight years in Zhengde, and more than 360,000 taels in seven years in Jiajing, and then grew faster, successively breaking through the mark of 400,000, 500,000, 600,000 and 700,000, reaching more than 780,000 taels in the second year of Longqing, and The decline in Longqing and 10,000 was reduced, but it remained between 400,000 and 600,000 taels. The amount of silver in the Changying Treasury reached more than one million taels at the beginning of Zhengde, and as high as more than 10 million taels at the time of Jia and Long.
Ministry of Works Festival Caution Library:
The total amount of silver in various names of the fourth division of the Ministry of Labor is less than 800,000 taels. For example, the record of the three years of Longqing: the library has a cash register of 700,000 to 800,000 taels per year.
The Inner Treasury of the Royal Palace:
The largest entry is the gold and silver of the folded color of the grain, and the first is 0.25 taels of four million stones of grain per stone, for a total of 1 million taels. Another 200,000 taels were added during the Wanli calendar year. Moreover, the later Guantian folding color was also released to the Inner Library. In addition, the government also collected taxes on the silver imported by the Manila Galleon, but according to the Ming Dynasty's customs, the tax was not high, "the money traded, the age is not worried about hundreds of thousands, public and private, and the south treasury of the son of the dead son" ("East and West Yang Examination"), this part of the silver is also released from the inner library.
Ming Chongzhen eight years "Royal Horse Supervisor" ivory waist plate (from the museum China)
For non-in-kind income, the white grain dedicated to the imperial palace alone is 200,000 stones in the five provinces of Jiangnan. Others, such as imperial wood, tribute tea, etc., the cost is also very huge.
Moreover, because the finances of the local governments of the Ming Dynasty basically belonged to themselves, in addition to some taxes and grains retained as funds, some other material levies and silver discounts for military service were also their own income. For example, the prefect's car driver Fei Yin twenty-two, the cloth envoy Si Pen raft silver eighteen two, etc., these are to be added to the Lijia.
The connotation of economic history is very rich, and a specious 150 million to summarize the finances of the Song Dynasty and millions to summarize the finances of the Ming Dynasty are of no value. As Peng Xiaoyu, a professor of history at Peking University, said: It is terrible to talk about history in a minimalist way.