Historically speaking the Chinese dynasties alongside other hegemonic empires have not been the most friendly to merchants owing to a multitude of reasons, whether it is the desire to subjugate the merchants under control of the imperial court, stop the merchants from building a power base with their wealth, or the inequality brought by successful merchants disrupting social harmony which might incite rebellion by the peasants of the empire.
The Song dynasty, especially the southern Song, were in notable part an exception to this tradition of Chinese rule in their support of the merchants, and frankly the Song dynasty’s era of Chinese history is the most fascinating one beside the warlord period of the 20th century in my opinion owing to how different it is from usual Chinese hegemony over China.
As I read in the book “Escape from Rome” by Walter Scheidel in chapter 11, the pressure placed on the Song state by the constant competition at first with the northern Liao and later the Jin dynasty resulted in the Song needing to maintain a large standing army that would’ve been unnecessary had it ruled all of historical China, owing to which it needed much more money than during united empire, which in turn resulted in the Song Dynasty becoming quite receptive to working with the merchants to boost state revenues from trade and economic activity owing to the army required to guard the Jin border consuming lots of money. As a result of this drive for additional revenue, share of indirect taxes would rise from a third to two thirds of state revenue by the 1070s, excise taxes would focus on urban consumption and long-distance trade, while massive urban growth, unfettered marketplaces and a huge expansion of water transport and exchange alongside growing sophistication of financial intermediation led to an economic boom that filled the state’s coffers in the face of the demands placed by the military. This boom in turn led to a heightened demand for credit led to an expansion of Chinese credit systems such that by the mid-thirteenth century promissory notes in circulation equaled seven times annual state revenue, marking how credit had become by then the principal means of funding war. The book in conjunction mentions an observation from William Liu, that military needs turned the Song period into “probably the most creative period in the financial history of China”.
In addition to the financial innovations of the Song dynasty, it was also well known for other aspects such as technological innovations, of which notable was a compass developed alongside the much more foreign oriented system of trade networks developed by the song owing to its inability to unite all of China’s resources under its own rule, and this was also a period when many Chinese communities emerged across Asian coastal cities, which would go on to be abandoned by the subsequent Ming and Qing dynasties in their focus on fighting the steppe nomads.
In my eyes it could be argued that China’s greatest weakness was its unity, which allowed it to become complacent as its only real enemy were steppe nomads whose proximity simultaneously drove Chinese unity as written about in “Escape from Rome”. By the time of the British arriving into Qing ruled China, it not only lacked a navy capable of protecting against the British warships, but additionally it was on the precipice of a great internal rebellion endemic of hegemonic empires, and it would only begin to attempt modernization too slow for its own good when it was proven incapable of resisting the European powers.
Had the Mongols or a subsequent nomadic conqueror emerged from the steppe and forcefully united China, and had the division of northern and southern China endured, it may have propelled China to develop into a much wealthier country as result of innovation and trade development stimulated by the demands of the conflict with the Jin, which through the Song Navy might have theoretically halted the British from starting the century of humiliation. Simultaneously however the Song Dynasty was at its core still an imperial dynasty with a tradition emanating from the earlier Chinese imperial regimes, such that reforms took place from the top without much consultation from merchants, nobles of a clergy, owing to which the Song might have in time faced internal crisis even if the Mongols didn’t destroy it as result of the foundations of its politics being an all powerful imperial core unlike in the more stable if less powerful European monarchies.
3 Comments
Historically speaking the Chinese dynasties alongside other hegemonic empires have not been the most friendly to merchants owing to a multitude of reasons, whether it is the desire to subjugate the merchants under control of the imperial court, stop the merchants from building a power base with their wealth, or the inequality brought by successful merchants disrupting social harmony which might incite rebellion by the peasants of the empire.
The Song dynasty, especially the southern Song, were in notable part an exception to this tradition of Chinese rule in their support of the merchants, and frankly the Song dynasty’s era of Chinese history is the most fascinating one beside the warlord period of the 20th century in my opinion owing to how different it is from usual Chinese hegemony over China.
As I read in the book “Escape from Rome” by Walter Scheidel in chapter 11, the pressure placed on the Song state by the constant competition at first with the northern Liao and later the Jin dynasty resulted in the Song needing to maintain a large standing army that would’ve been unnecessary had it ruled all of historical China, owing to which it needed much more money than during united empire, which in turn resulted in the Song Dynasty becoming quite receptive to working with the merchants to boost state revenues from trade and economic activity owing to the army required to guard the Jin border consuming lots of money. As a result of this drive for additional revenue, share of indirect taxes would rise from a third to two thirds of state revenue by the 1070s, excise taxes would focus on urban consumption and long-distance trade, while massive urban growth, unfettered marketplaces and a huge expansion of water transport and exchange alongside growing sophistication of financial intermediation led to an economic boom that filled the state’s coffers in the face of the demands placed by the military. This boom in turn led to a heightened demand for credit led to an expansion of Chinese credit systems such that by the mid-thirteenth century promissory notes in circulation equaled seven times annual state revenue, marking how credit had become by then the principal means of funding war. The book in conjunction mentions an observation from William Liu, that military needs turned the Song period into “probably the most creative period in the financial history of China”.
In addition to the financial innovations of the Song dynasty, it was also well known for other aspects such as technological innovations, of which notable was a compass developed alongside the much more foreign oriented system of trade networks developed by the song owing to its inability to unite all of China’s resources under its own rule, and this was also a period when many Chinese communities emerged across Asian coastal cities, which would go on to be abandoned by the subsequent Ming and Qing dynasties in their focus on fighting the steppe nomads.
In my eyes it could be argued that China’s greatest weakness was its unity, which allowed it to become complacent as its only real enemy were steppe nomads whose proximity simultaneously drove Chinese unity as written about in “Escape from Rome”. By the time of the British arriving into Qing ruled China, it not only lacked a navy capable of protecting against the British warships, but additionally it was on the precipice of a great internal rebellion endemic of hegemonic empires, and it would only begin to attempt modernization too slow for its own good when it was proven incapable of resisting the European powers.
Had the Mongols or a subsequent nomadic conqueror emerged from the steppe and forcefully united China, and had the division of northern and southern China endured, it may have propelled China to develop into a much wealthier country as result of innovation and trade development stimulated by the demands of the conflict with the Jin, which through the Song Navy might have theoretically halted the British from starting the century of humiliation. Simultaneously however the Song Dynasty was at its core still an imperial dynasty with a tradition emanating from the earlier Chinese imperial regimes, such that reforms took place from the top without much consultation from merchants, nobles of a clergy, owing to which the Song might have in time faced internal crisis even if the Mongols didn’t destroy it as result of the foundations of its politics being an all powerful imperial core unlike in the more stable if less powerful European monarchies.
Hate merchants
Semi-Common free market W