SONG DYNASTY (960-1279) ECONOMY, TRADE, PAPER MONEY AND INFLATION

SONG DYNASTY (960-1279) ECONOMY

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early paper money The Songs ruled an empire rich in silk, tire and porcelain. They sent trading ships to India and Java and presided over a menstruation of growth in trade wind and an expansion of the chinese empire. Trade increased in the amerind Ocean partially as a response to the threat from Islamic intrusions into the area. even so trade was not a goodly occupational group and the emperor seized the property of merchants to create government monopolies .
According to Columbia University ’ second Asia for Educators : “ Farmers in Song China did not aim at autonomy. They had found that producing for the grocery store made possible a better life. Farmers sold their surpluses in nearby markets and bought charcoal, tea, oil, and wine. Some of the products on sale in the city depicted in the scroll would have come from nearby farms, but others came from far away. In many places, farmers specialized in commercial crops, such as sugar, oranges, cotton, silk, and tea. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University, Consultants Patricia Ebrey and Conrad Schirokauer afe.easia.columbia.edu/song ]
Merchants in the cities became increasingly more specify and organized. They set up partnerships and joint standard companies, with a separation between owners ( shareholders ) and managers. In big cities merchants were organized into guilds according to the type of product they sold. Guilds arranged sales from wholesalers to shop owners and sporadically set prices. When the government wanted to requisition supplies or buttocks taxes, it dealt with the club heads .
“ The many rivers and streams of the region facilitated shipping, which reduced the cost of transportation system and, thus, made regional specialization economically more feasible. During the Song period, the Yangzi River regions became the economic center of China.

Reading: SONG DYNASTY (960-1279) ECONOMY, TRADE, PAPER MONEY AND INFLATION | Facts and Details

The role of merchants in the Song ( and throughout Chinese history ) belies the conventional stereotype of China suppressing merchant action. Robert Hymes of Columbia University wrote : “ The older Tang market system, which had strictly confined trade to cities and within cities to specific sites and hours, absolutely broke down as urban commerce dispersed throughout cities and into extramural mercantile quarters. Over farseeing distances, big cities and whole regions of dense population came to depend on ship-borne bulk trade in staple goods, specially rice. Over shorter distances, trade penetrated the countryside, drawing farmers into new periodic marketplace centers and quickly proliferating market towns. ” [ Source : Robert Hymes, from “ Song China, 960-1279, ” in Asia in Western and World History, edited by Ainslie T. Embree and Carol Gluck ( Armonk, N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, 1997 ) .
RELATED ARTICLES IN THIS WEBSITE: TANG, SONG AND YUAN DYNASTIES factsanddetails.com ; SONG DYNASTY ( A.D.960-1279 ) factsanddetails.com ; SONG DYNASTY ( 960-1279 ) ADVANCES factsanddetails.com ; GOVERNMENT, BUREAUCRACY, SCHOLAR-OFFICIALS AND EXAMS DURING THE SONG DYNASTY factsanddetails.com ; SU SHI ( SU DONGPO ) —THE QUINTESSENTIAL SCHOLAR-OFFICIAL-POET factsanddetails.com ; SONG DYNASTY LIFE factsanddetails.com ; WANG ANSHI, HIS REFORMS AND HIS BATTLE WITH SIMA GUANG factsanddetails.com ; SONG DYNASTY LIFE factsanddetails.com ; SONG DYNASTY CULTURE : TEA-HOUSE THEATER, POETRY AND CHEAP BOOKS factsanddetails.com ; SONG DYNASTY ART, PAINTING AND CALLIGRAPHY SONG DYNASTY factsanddetails.com ; LANDSCAPE, ANIMAL, RELIGIOUS AND FIGURE PAINTING factsanddetails.com ; SONG DYNASTY CERAMICS factsanddetails.com
Good Websites and Sources on the Song Dynasty: Asia for Educators, Columbia University, Primary Sources with DBQs, afe.easia.columbia.edu ; Wikipedia Wikipedia ; San.beck.org san.beck.org ; Tang Dynasty: Wikipedia ; Google Book : China ’ s Golden Age : Everday Life in the Tang Dynasty by Charles Benn books.google.com/books ; Chinese History: Chinese Text Project ctext.org ; 3 ) Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization depts.washington.edu ; Chaos Group of University of Maryland chaos.umd.edu/history/toc ; 2 ) WWW VL : History China vlib.iue.it/history/asia ; 3 ) Wikipedia article on the History of China Wikipedia Books: “ Daily Life in Traditional China : The Tang Dynasty ” by Charles Benn, Greenwood Press, 2002 ; “ Cambridge History of China ” Vol. 3 ( Cambridge University Press ) ; “ The Culture and Civilization of China ”, a massive, multi-volume series, ( Yale University Press ) ; “ chronicle of the chinese Emperor ” by Ann Paludan .

Innovation and the Song Era Economy

According to the “ Middle Ages Reference Library ” : “ An explosion in scientific cognition accompanied an economic boom. On the high seas, the development of the magnetic compass made navigation at ocean much easier, and along with improvements in shipbuilding, enabled the Song to send ships called junks on merchant voyages. The larger Song junks could hold up to six hundred sailors, along with cargo. [ reference : Middle Ages Reference Library, Gale Group, Inc., 2001 ]
“ Tea and cotton emerged as major exports, and a newly developed rice strive, along with advance agricultural techniques, enhanced the yield from China ‘s farm lands. China besides sold a variety of manufacture goods, including books and porcelain, while steel output and mine grew dramatically .
“ In this vibrant economy, banks and paper money—one of Song China ‘s most luminary contributions—made their appearance, and the exploitation of movable-type print aided the spread of information. alternatively of carving out a wholly blocking of wood, a printer assembled pre-cast pieces of clay type ( later they used wood ), each of which stood for a character in the taiwanese terminology. ultimately, however, the peculiarities of Chinese would encourage the use of block print over movable type. It is easy enough to store and use pieces of type when a terminology has a twenty-six-letter rudiment, as English does ; but Chinese has some 30,000 characters or symbols, meaning that printing by chattel type was extremely behind .

Development in the Song Era Economy

Wolfram Eberhard wrote in “ A History of China ” : “ Trade, including overseas barter, developed greatly from now on. soon we find in the coastal ports a especial agency which handled custom-made and adjustment affairs, supplied interpreters for foreigners, received them formally and gave adieu dinners when they left. Down to the thirteenth century, most of this overseas trade was still in the hands of foreigners, chiefly Indians. Entrepreneurs hired ships, if they were not ship-owners, hired trained merchants who in turn hired sailors chiefly from the southeast asian countries, and sold their own trade ampere well as took goods on commission. affluent chinese gentry families invested money in such extraneous enterprises and in some cases even gave their daughters in marriage to foreigners in decree to profit from this business. [ reference : “ A history of China ” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley ]
“ We besides see an emergence of diligence from the eleventh hundred on. We find men who were running about monopolistic enterprises, such as preparing charcoal for iron production and producing iron and steel at the same time ; some of these men had several factories, operating under hired and qualify managers with more than 500 labourers. We find beginnings of a labor legislation and the beginning strikes ( A.D. 782 the inaugural rap of merchants in the capital ; 1601 first come to of fabric workers ) .
“ Some of these labourers were alleged “ vagrants ”, farmers who had secretly left their land or their landlord ‘s land for versatile reasons, and had shifted to other regions where they did not register and therefore did not pay taxes. Entrepreneurs liked to hire them for industries outside the towns where supervision by the government was not so impregnable ; naturally, these “ vagrants ” were wholly at the clemency of their employers .

Song Dynasty Trade and Commerce

The Song dynasty is celebrated for the development of cities not only for administrative purposes but besides as centers of craft, diligence, and maritime commerce. The down scholar-officials, sometimes jointly refer to as the gentry, lived in the provincial centers alongside the shopkeepers, artisans, and merchants. A new group of affluent commoners — the mercantile class — arose as print and education spread, private trade grew, and a market economy began to link the coastal provinces and the interior. Landholding and government employment were no longer the alone means of gaining wealth and prestige .
The Songs ruled an empire rich in silk, tire and porcelain. They sent trading ships to India and Java and presided over a time period of growth in deal and an expansion of the chinese conglomerate. Trade increased in the indian Ocean partially as a response to the menace from Islamic intrusions into the area. tied therefore trade was not a estimable occupational group and the emperor seized the property of merchants to create politics monopolies .
Frances Wood, curator of the chinese collection at the british Library told the BBC : “ Under the previous dynasties, the cities were reasonably rigidly controlled. Markets were held on situate days, on fixed points and so on. “ By the Song dynasty, you begin to get ordinary city life as we know it. Cities are much free, then department of commerce is a lot free. ” [ source : Carrie Gracie, BBC News, October 17, 2012 \= ]
Peter Bol of Harvard University told the BBC the taiwanese economy was far more commercialized than it had ever been before : “ The money provide has increased 30-fold. The merchant networks have spread. Villages are moving away from autonomy and getting connected to a cash economy. The government no longer controls the economic hierarchy, which is largely in private hands … it ‘s a far richer world than ever before. ” \=\
Carrie Gracie of the BBC News wrote : “ But all this created problems. As large land-owning estates grew, thus did the count of people who were unwilling to pay their taxes – and the more rich people evaded tax, the more the burden fell on the poor people. There was besides trouble with the neighbours. The Song emperors much found themselves at war on their northern borders. Jin and Mongol invaders were annexing chinese land, so lots of money had to be spent on defense, and inflation took hold. The dynasty was plunged into crisis. \=\

Trade in South China in the 10th Century

Wolfram Eberhard wrote in “ A History of China ” : “ “ The prosperity of the small states of South China was largely due to the growth of trade, specially the tea trade. The habit of drink tea seems to have been an ancient Tibetan custom, which spread to south-eastern China in the third base hundred A.D. Since then there had been two main centres of production, Sichuan and south-eastern China. Until the eleventh hundred Sichuan had remained the leading producer, and tea had been drunk in the Tibetan fashion, mix with flour, salt, and ginger. It then began to be drunk without admixture. In the Tang epoch tea drinking spread all over China, and there sprang up a class of wholesalers who bought the tea from the peasants, roll up stocks, and distributed them. From 783 date the first attempts of the department of state to monopolize the tea trade and to make it a beginning of tax income ; but it failed in an try to make the cultivation a state monopoly. A tea commissariat was consequently set up to buy the tea from the producers and supply it to traders in possession of a state license. There naturally developed then a insidious collaboration between state officials and the wholesalers. The latter soon eliminated the belittled traders, so that they themselves secured all the profit ; official digest was secured by bribery. The state and the wholesalers alike were keenly concern in the prevention of tea smuggling, which was strictly prohibited. [ reference : “ A history of China ” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley ]
“ The situation was much the like with gaze to salt. We have here for the first time the association of officials with wholesalers or even with a monopoly trade. This was of the farthermost importance in all late times. Monopoly progressed most quickly in Sichuan, where there had always been a numerous commercial community. In the menstruation of political fragmentation Sichuan, as the principal tea-producing region and at the lapp time an important manufacturer of salt, was much better off than any other separate of China. Salt in Sichuan was largely produced by, technically, very interesting salt wells which existed there since c. the beginning hundred B.C. The importance of salt will be understand if we remember that a grown-up person in China uses an median of twelve pounds of salt per year. The salt tax was the top budget item around A.D. 900 .
“ South-eastern China was besides the chief center of porcelain production, although china cadaver is found besides in North China. The use of porcelain scatter more and more wide. The first translucent porcelain made its appearance, and porcelain became an authoritative article of commerce both within the country and for export. Already the Muslim rulers of Baghdad around 800 use imported chinese porcelain, and by the end of the fourteenth century porcelain was known in Eastern Africa. Exports to South-East Asia and Indonesia, and besides to Japan gained more and more importance in subsequently centuries. manufacture of high choice porcelain calls for considerable amounts of capital investment and working das kapital ; modest manufacturers produce excessively many mediocre pieces ; thus we have here the inaugural beginnings of an diligence that developed industrial towns such as Ching-tê, in which the majority of the population were workers and merchants, with some 10,000 families alone producing porcelain. Yet, for many centuries to come, the department of state controlled the production and evening the design of porcelain and appropriated most of the production for use at court or as gifts .

Expansion of Commerce under the Northern Song

Dr. Robert Eno of Indiana University wrote : “ The Song founders established their court at a city that had not previously served as a dynastic capital. The city of Kaifeng lay in China ’ south midlands, just south of the Yellow River. The decision to take Kaifeng as a establish quite than the Tang das kapital of Chang ’ an reflected a change in the circumstances and goals of the dynasty. [ source : Robert Eno, Indiana University/+/ ]
“ Chang ’ an had been considered ideal by the Tang because of its condition as the terminal of the “ Silk Route, ” the channel of foreign trade through Central Asia, and because of its strong military defensibility. The new song government was far less interest in these advantages. Kaifeng was better suited to Song goals because it had become a terminal of the Grand Canal – its connection by canal with the southern urban center of Hangzhou made it a focus of home commerce. The song aspired to focus on building the wealth and social cohesion of the heartland regions of China, and a capital located at Kaifeng was ideal for these purposes. /+/
“ For about 1000 years, since the black Yellow River floods of the early first hundred, the population of China had been gradually shifting from the fertile but dry lands of the North towards the South, a region characterized by a warm, damp climate and by a battalion of naturally navigable waterways. This shift accelerated during the passive years of the early song, as farmers sought to open newfangled lands in the South on which to grow rice, which was becoming increasingly popular throughout China, and besides to produce early crops that Northerners would find alien and attractive, such as tea. /+/
“ In the South, crops could be grown year polish, and Major North-South canals fostered a full of life inter-regional trade that heated China ’ randomness economy to levels unobserved earlier in the world. The South became peculiarly affluent. Farming populations began to grow at spectacular rates, and enormously affluent merchant families began to purchase large tracts of land, rent them out to peasant tenants, collect high rents, and use their wealth to gather together in increasingly big urban centers, where the upper classes lived in noteworthy luxury. The growth of some of the largest taiwanese cities, such as Guangzhou ( Canton ) and Nanjing, dates from this period. ” /+/

Song Dynasty Shops and Commerce

Patricia Buckley Ebrey of the University of Washington wrote : “ Along the River During the Qingming Festival ” by Zhang Zeduan ( 1085–1145 ) provides a wealth of detail on the varieties of commercial action of its day. Kaifeng, like early large cities, had developed into a huge trade center, in addition to being the political seat of the country. This economic expansion was aided by an increasingly twist department of transportation network and the constitution of trade guilds that specialized in drift of commodities over land and through the Grand Canal by large-scale merchants and itinerant peddlers. The more well goods were moved throughout the nation, the more local specialization in output was possible, and overall production as a result increased dramatically. [ generator : Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /= ]
“ A close-up view of vendors on the rainbow bridge, shows a unlike type of commercial set. The gentleman seated at the center of the postpone is a forecaster by deal ; his signs advertise his luck telling abilities. The scene of vendors ‘ tables located just off a busy street corner near the inner city wall is framed by the follow signs : across the front, The Family of Assistant Zhao ; future to the women, facing battlefront, Care for the Five Wounds and Seven Injuries and Deficiencies of Speech ; perpendicular to the shop front, facing right, Regulation of Alcohol-related Illnesses and Prevention of Injury, Genuine Prescriptions of the Collected Fragrances Remedy. The signs behind the argue identify the permanent shops behind these temp vendors ; the larger sign to the leave ( behind the seat man ) is for a wine workshop of “ Premium Quality ”, and the early narrow sign to the right ( partially obscured by a column ) indicates a silk merchant ‘s shop. ” /=\

Commerce During the Southern Song

China ‘s per head income adjusted for ostentation was higher at the end of the Song Dynasty in the 1270s than it was under Mao in the 1950s. Dr. Robert Eno of Indiana University wrote : “ The inflow of people into South China was actually an economic boon. While lands in the fecund North China Plain had been the heartland of taiwanese agricultural production for millennium, there was a capital deal of down in the South that had never been cleared for cultivation, and the settlers who fled from the invasion began to open these lands and bring them into production. southern department of agriculture was based on rice, and rice had become a dietary detail in great need in the North. In the eleventh century, newfangled strains of rice that allowed farmers to raise two crops in a season had been introduced, and immediately these contributed to an effusion of productiveness in the expanding agrarian lands of the south. [ reservoir : Robert Eno, Indiana University /+/ ]
“ The Song, when based at Kaifeng, had made certain that the Grand Canal was in good repair, and now, although North and South were under different jurisdictions, the canal became the central conduit for an active voice inter.regional trade, including not only staples from the South such as rice and tea, but a wide variety of goods that climate or traditional cultural made barely in one region or the other. As trade grew in volume, new devices were developed to support it. neologism had been dramatically increased during the early Song, so that cash payments could facilitate craft. now, with commerce reaching new levels, newspaper currency was developed, and new deposit institutions were invented to allow for investment, credit, and cash savings. But it is questionable the rightfully dramatic jump in agrarian output and commercial bodily process of the Song era would have occurred without the migrations that followed the Jurchen invasions, forcing exploitation of southerly resources that had lain untouched ahead. The economic growth in the South resulted in rapid urbanization. During the Southern Song period, a issue of southern cities are estimated to have housed populations close to one million – the largest cities in the earth at the prison term. These concentrations farther spurred the development of divers markets for craft goods, such as ceramics, of which the Song craftsmen became unexcelled masters ( which is books. In answer, Song artisans invented movable character and launched a impression diligence unmatched in the world. /+/

Maritime Trade During the Song Dynasty

According to Columbia University ’ sulfur Asia for Educators : “ Trade between the Song dynasty and its northern neighbors was stimulated by the payments Song made to them. The song set up oversee markets along the edge to encourage this trade wind. taiwanese goods that flowed north in bombastic quantities included tea, silk, copper coins ( widely used as a currency outside of China ), paper and printed books, porcelain, lacquerware, jewelry, rice and other grains, ginger and early spices. The render menstruation included some of the silver that had originated with the Song and the horses that Song desperately needed for its armies, but besides other animals such as camel and sheep, adenine well as goods that had traveled across the Silk Road, including very well indian and persian cotton fabric, precious gems, incense, and perfumes. [ informant : asia for Educators, Columbia University, Consultants Patricia Ebrey and Conrad Schirokauer afe.easia.columbia.edu/song ]
“ There was besides vigorous sea trade with Korea, Japan, and lands to the south and southwest. From great coastal cities such as Quanzhou boats carrying taiwanese goods plied the oceans from Japan to east Africa. ( The major port of Quanzhou that dominated deal in the Song dynasty is not to be confused with Guangzhou. Guangzhou, located far south on the chinese coast, did not become an authoritative port until the Qing dynasty, when it was known to european traders as “ Canton. ”

“ During Song times nautical craft for the inaugural time exceeded overland extraneous trade. The song government sent missions to Southeast asian countries to encourage their traders to come to China. chinese ships were seen all throughout the indian Ocean and began to displace indian and arabian merchants in the South Seas. Shards of Song Chinese porcelain have been found as far away as easterly Africa. ”

“ taiwanese ships were larger than the ships of most of their competitors, such as the Indians or Arabs, and in many ways were technologically quite promote. In 1225 the superintendent of customs at Quanzhou, named Zhao Rukua ( Zhao Rugua or Chao Ju-kua, 1170-1231 ), wrote an score of the countries with which chinese merchants traded and the goods they offered for sale. Zhao ‘s book, Zhufan Zhi ( normally translated as “ Description of the Barbarians ” ), includes sketches of major trading cities from Srivijaya ( modern Indonesia ) to Malabar, Cairo, and Baghdad. Pearls were said to come from the Persian Gulf, ivory from Aden, myrrh from Somalia, pepper from Java and Sumatra, cotton from the respective kingdoms of India, and so on .
“ much money could be made from the sea trade, but there were besides bang-up risks, so investors normally divided their investment among many ships, and each ship had many investors behind it. In 1973 a Song-era ship was excavated off the confederacy China slide. It had been shipwrecked in 1277. seventy-eight feet retentive and 29 feet wide, the transport had twelve bulkheads and still held the testify of some of the luxury objects that these Song merchants were importing : more than 5,000 pounds of fragrant woodwind from Southeast Asia, pepper, betel nut, cowries, tortoiseshell, cinnabar, and ambergris from Somalia. ”
On the importance of maritime trade, Lynda Noreen Shaffer wrote : “ The new importance of the confederacy [ of China ] besides encouraged China to face south toward the southern Ocean ( the South China Sea, the indian Ocean, and parts between ) for the inaugural time, and chinese maritime capabilities developed steadily from the twelfth century to the fifteenth. ” [ Source : Lynda Noreen Shaffer, In “ A Concrete Panoply of Intercultural Exchange : Asia in World History, ” in Asia in Western and World History, edited by Ainslie T. Embree and Carol Gluck ( Armonk, N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, 1997 ), 840 ]

Southern Song (1127-1279) Maritime Trade

According to the National Palace Museum, Taipei : “ In the Southern Song period, communication in art and culture with extraneous lands occurred not alone through substitution among people and goods with the Jin dynasty to the north, but besides in the development of trade with areas to the southeast and southwest. Of detail importance was the expansion of foreign trade via sea routes. With the rise of large harbors dealing in foreign trade wind at Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Lin’an, and Mingzhou ( Ningbo, Zhejiang ), the area of deal expanded to the South China Sea and west to american samoa army for the liberation of rwanda as Persia, the Mediterranean Sea, and East Africa. The development of Chan ( Zen ) Buddhist painting and calligraphy was besides an authoritative link for the spread of song culture. [ generator : National Palace Museum, Taipei \=/ ]
“ The Southern Song was a time of commerce, with newspaper money in wide circulation ampere well as gold, silver leaves or ingots being common currencies, whereas its copper coins went beyond the borders and became the keystone medium of exchange in many surrounding nations. Through the frontier deal posts, the jewelry and porcelain of the Jin State arrived in the Jiangnan and huge quantities of tea, silk, and herb of the Southern Song shipped north. Jin and Song as a leave shared kindred heart artistically and literarily. Sea routes besides took chinese trade far and wide to many other asian countries ; foreign merchants reaching the shores of China in return brought enriching cultural messages. At the lapp time, the Taiwan Island and its nearby islets saw the coming and going of the Southern Song traders ; their footprints are still here nowadays for us to reminisce about a excellent past. ” \=/

Dr. Robert Eno of Indiana University wrote : “ “ Economic bodily process and the rising necessitate for goods was a major spur to scientific and technical creativity, and the foremost historian of the history of science in China has maintained that virtually every core invention of chinese skill traces its origins or a significant initiation to the Song period. For case, the rising output of goods in the South created incentives for the development of nautical deal, so that chinese goods could reach modern markets abroad. The old Silk Route was no longer available to the Song, and, in any event, climate changes had made it much less hospitable to caravan locomotion than had been the encase during the Tang. so for the first gear time in taiwanese history, the merchant class turned towards the sea as a likely commercial highway. Responding to this indigence, craftsmen applied known engineering to create the nautical compass, which allowed ships to navigate deoxyadenosine monophosphate far as the Red Sea, to trade with Middle Eastern markets. Shipbuilding became a major industry, and a host of inventions led to the construction of technologically advanced ships, adaptable to both commercial and military uses. ” [ Source : Robert Eno, Indiana University /+/ ]

Paper Money Introduced During the Song Dynasty

During the Song dynasty ( 960—1279 AD ) taiwanese newspaper money was introduced and became wide circulated through the Mongol Empire during the Yuan Dynasty. These note remained in use through the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The first paper bill, called “ Jiao Zi ” for trade, was issued in Sichuan Province, where widely-used. early Song iron coins were light in value and heavy to carry. Merchants issued the Jiao Zi not to facilitate trade. [ source : Shanghai Museum ]
According to Columbia University ’ mho Asia for Educators : “ Helping to grease the wheels of deal during the Song was the world ’ randomness first gear paper money. For centuries, the basic whole of currency in China was the tan or copper mint with a hole in the center for stringing. large transactions were calculated in terms of strings of coins, but given their slant these were cumbersome to carry long distances. As trade increased, demand for money grew enormously, so the government minted more and more coins. By 1085 the output of coins had increased tenfold since Tang times to more than 6 billion coins a class. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University, Consultants Patricia Ebrey and Conrad Schirokauer afe.easia.columbia.edu/song ]
“ The use of wallpaper currentness was initiated by merchants. To avoid having to carry thousands of strings of coins long distances, merchants in former Tang times ( c. 900 CE ) started trading receipts from sediment shops where they had left money or goods. The early Song authorities awarded a humble set of shops a monopoly on the publish of these certificates of deposit, and in the 1120s the politics took over the organization, producing the global ’ sulfur first government-issued wallpaper money. The earliest model of paper currency that survives today is the bang-up Ming circulate treasure bill, from 1375. ”

Marco Polo described the function of newspaper currency during the Mongol Yuan dynasty : With these pieces of paper, made as I have described, he [ Kublai Khan ] causes all payments on his own report to be made ; and he makes them to pass stream universally over all his kingdoms and provinces and territories, and whithersoever his world power and reign extends. And cipher, however crucial he may think himself, dares to refuse them on annoyance of death. And indeed everybody takes them promptly, for wheresoever a person may go throughout the Great Kaan ’ mho dominions he shall find these pieces of newspaper current, and shall be able to transact all sales and purchases of goods by means of them good american samoa well as if they were coins of pure gold. And all the while they are so light that ten bezants ’ worth does not weigh one golden bezant. [ source : Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa, “ Book Second, Part I, Chapter XXIV : How the Great Kaan Causeth the Bark of Trees, Made into Something Like Paper, to Pass for Money over All His Country, ” in The Book of Ser Marco Polo : The venetian Concerning Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, translated and edited by Colonel Sir Henry Yule, volume 1 ( London : John Murray, 1903 ). This book is in the public knowledge domain and can be read on-line at Project Gutenberg. chapter twenty-four begins on page 587 of this on-line textbook / ]
“ furthermore all merchants arriving from India or other countries, and bringing with them gold or silver or gems and pearls, are prohibited from selling to any one but the Emperor. He has twelve experts chosen for this business, men of shrewdness and experience in such affairs ; these appraise the articles, and the Emperor then pays a liberal price for them in those pieces of composition. The merchants accept his price readily, for in the first station they would not get therefore commodity a one from anybody else, and second they are paid without any delay. And with this paper-money they can buy what they like anywhere over the Empire, whilst it is besides vastly lighter to carry about on their travel. And it is a accuracy that the merchants will several times in the class bring wares to the total of 400,000 bezants, and the Grand Sire pays for all in that wallpaper. So he buys such a quantity of those cherished things every year that his care for is endless, whilst all the clock time the money he pays away costs him nothing at all. furthermore, respective times in the year proclamation is made through the city that anyone who may have gold or silver or gems or pearls, by taking them to the Mint shall get a fine-looking price for them. And the owners are beaming to do this, because they would find no other buyer give so large a price. Thus the quantity they bring in is improbable, though these who do not choose to do so may let it alone. inactive, in this way, closely all the valuables in the area come into the Kaan ’ s possession. ” /

Impact of Paper Money During the Song Dynasty

Wolfram Eberhard wrote in “ A History of China ” : Another significant invention, that began in North China, was the initiation of prototypes of composition money. The taiwanese copper “ cash ” was unmanageable or expensive to transport, plainly because of its weight. It frankincense presented great obstacles to trade. occasionally a region with an adverse libra of trade would lose all its copper money, with the leave of a local deflation. From time to time, iron money was introduced in such deficit areas ; it had for the first time been used in Sichuan in the first hundred B.C., and was there extensively used in the one-tenth century when after the conquest of the local state all copper was taken to the east by the conquerors. [ source : “ A history of China ” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley ]
indeed long as there was an orderly administration, the politics could send it money, though at considerable cost ; but if the administration was not functioning well, the deflation continued. For this argue some provinces prohibited the export of copper money from their district at the end of the one-eighth hundred. As the provinces were in the hands of military governors, the cardinal government could do next to nothing to prevent this. On the early hand, the prohibition automatically made an end of all external trade. The merchants consequently began to prepare deposit certificates, and in this way to set up a screen of remove system. Soon these deposit certificates entered into circulation as a kind of medium of payment at first again in Sichuan, and gradually this led to a trust system and the connect of wholesale craft with it. This made possible a much greater bulk of barter. Towards the conclusion of the Tang period the government began to issue deposit certificates of its own : the merchant deposited his copper money with a government agency, receiving in exchange a certificate which he could put into circulation like money. meanwhile the government could put out the deposit money at concern, or throw it into general circulation. The government ‘s deposit certificates were nowadays printed. They were the predecessors of the paper money used from the time of the Song .

Development of a Money Economy During the Song Dynasty

Wolfram Eberhard wrote in “ A History of China ” : “ Since c. 780 the economy can again be called a money economy ; more and more taxes were imposed in form of money rather of in kind. This pressure forced farmers out of the land and into the cities in holy order to earn there the cash they needed for their tax payments. These men provided the tug force for industries, and this in turn led to the hard growth of the cities, specially in Central China where deal and industries developed most. [ reservoir : “ A history of China ” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley ]
“ Wealthy people not only invested in industrial enterprises, but besides began to make heavy investments in agriculture in the vicinity of cities in decree to increase production and therefore income. We find men who drained lakes in arrange to create fields below the water level for comfortable irrigation ; others made floating fields on lakes and avoided nation tax payments ; still others combined slob and fish education in one operation .
“ The introduction of money economy and money taxes led to a need for more coinage. As metal was barely and minting very expensive, iron coins were introduced, silver became more and more common as means of exchange, and newspaper money was issued. As the relative value of these moneys changed with add and demand, speculation became a boom business which led to further enrichment of people in clientele. flush the government became more money-minded : costs of operations and even of wars were carefully calculated in order to achieve savings ; fiscal specialists were appointed by the government, equitable as clans appointed such men for the efficient government of their kin properties. “ so far no real capitalism or industrialism developed until towards the end of this epoch, although at the end of the twelfth century about all conditions for such a development seemed to be given .

Inflation During the Song Dynasty

The sung politics was unable to meet the whole costs of the united states army and its presidency out of tax gross. Wolfram Eberhard wrote in “ A History of China ” : The attack was made to cover the outgo by coining fresh money. In connection with the increase in commercial capital described above, and the attendant begin of an industry, China ‘s metal production had greatly increased. In 1050 thirteen times as much silver, eight times angstrom much copper, and fourteen times adenine much iron was produced as in 800. Thus the circulation of the copper currentness was increased. The monetary value of mint, however, amounted in China to about 75 per penny and much over 100 per penny of the value of the money coined. In addition to this, the metallic was produced in the south, while the das kapital was in the north. The coin had therefore to be carried a long outdistance to reach the capital and to be sent on to the soldiers in the north. [ reference : “ A history of China ” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley ]
“ To meet the increasing outgo, an new quantity of new money was put into circulation. The department of state budget increased from 22,200,000 in A.D. 1000 to 150,800,000 in 1021. The Khitan state coined a great consider of ash grey, and some of the protection was paid to it in eloquent. The greatly increase production of silver led to its being put into circulation in China itself. And this provided a new field of guess, through the variations in the rates for eloquent and for copper. guess was besides possible with the situate certificates, which were issued in quantities by the state from the beginning of the eleventh century, and to which the first true wallpaper money was soon added. The newspaper money and the certificates were redeemable at a definite date, but at a decrease of at least 3 per cent of their prize ; this, excessively, yielded a certain tax income to the state .
“ The inflation that resulted from all these measures brought profit to the boastful merchants in cattiness of the fact that they had to supply directly or indirectly all non-agricultural taxes ( in 1160 some 40,000,000 strings per annum ), specially the salt tax ( 50 per penny ), wine tax ( 36 per cent ), tea tax ( 7 per penny ) and customs ( 7 per penny ). Although the official economic think remained confucian, i.e. anti-business and pro-agrarian, we find in this time penetration in price laws, for case, that peace times and/or decrease of population induce deflation. The government had always attempted to manipulate the prices by intervention. already in much earlier times, again and again, attempts had been made to lower the prices by the alleged “ ever-normal granaries ” of the government which threw grain on the market when prices were excessively high and bought grain when prices were low. But nowadays, in addition to such measures, we besides find others which exhibit a deeper insight : in a period of starvation, the learner and official Fan Chung-yen alternatively of officially reducing grain prices, raised the prices in his zone well. Although the population got angry, merchants started to import bombastic amounts of grain ; deoxyadenosine monophosphate soon as this happened, Fan ( himself a big landowner ) reduced the price again. exchangeable results were achieved by others by fair stimulating merchants to import grain into deficit areas .

Iron, Steel and Coal During the Song Dynasty

According to Columbia University ’ second Asia for Educators : “ During Song times, heavy industry — particularly the iron industry — grew astoundingly. Iron production reached around 125,000 tons per year in 1078 CE, a sextuple increase over the end product in 800 CE. Iron and steel were put to many uses, ranging from nails and tools to the chains for abeyance bridges and Buddhist statues. The army was a large consumer : steel tips increased the effectiveness of Song arrows ; mass-production methods were used to make iron armor in little, medium, and big sizes ; high-quality steel for swords was made through high-temperature metallurgy. Huge bellows, often driven by waterwheels, were used to superheat the melt ore. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University, Consultants Patricia Ebrey and Conrad Schirokauer afe.easia.columbia.edu/song ]
At first charcoal was used in the production process, leading to deforestation of boastfully parts of north China. By the end of the eleventh hundred, however, coal had largely taken the position of charcoal. Marco Polo wrote about coal : “ It is a fact that all over the state of Cathay there is a kind of black stones existing in beds in the mountains, which they dig out and burn like firewood. If you supply the fire with them at nox, and see that they are well kindled, you will find them still alight in the good morning ; and they make such capital fuel that no other is used throughout the country. [ generator : Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa, “ Book Second, Part I, Chapter XXX : Concerning the Black Stones That Are Dug in Cathay, and Are Burnt for Fuel, ” in The Book of Ser Marco Polo : The venetian Concerning Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, translated and edited by Colonel Sir Henry Yule, book 1 ( London : John Murray, 1903 ). This book is in the public world and can be read on-line at Project Gutenberg. chapter thirty begins on page 603 of this on-line text / ]
“ It is true that they have plenty of firewood, excessively. But the population is so enormous and there are sol many bath-houses and baths constantly being heated, that it would be impossible to supply adequate firewood, since there is no one who does not visit a bath-house at least 3 times a week and take a bathtub – in winter every day, if he can manage it. Every man of absolute or means has his own toilet in his house … .so these stones, being very ample and identical cheap, effect a great saving of woodwind. ” /

Textiles, Silk and Ceramic During the Song Dynasty

According to Columbia University ’ randomness Asia for Educators : “ The common people by and large wore clothes made of establish fibers such as hemp and ramie, and, at the goal of the time period, cotton — but the most highly prized fabric at home and abroad was silk. The feed of silkworms ( which devoured huge quantities of mulberry leaves ), the clean of their trays, the run of the cocoons, the spin and spin of the silk filaments — all this was women ’ south work, as was the weave of homely cloth on simple home plate looms. professional weavers, by and large men working in politics or private workshops, operated complex looms to weave the fancy damasks, brocades, and gauzes favored by the elite. [ generator : asia for Educators, Columbia University, Consultants Patricia Ebrey and Conrad Schirokauer afe.easia.columbia.edu/song ]
“ In Song times China was a ceramics-exporting area. Song kilns produced many kinds of cups, lawn bowling, and plates, arsenic well as boxes, ink slabs, and pillows ( headrests ). Techniques of decoration ranged from painting and carving to stamping and molding. Some kiln could produce a many as 20,000 objects a day for sale at home plate and abroad. Shards of Song porcelain have been found all over Asia .

Seeds of an Industrial Revolution in China, 1000-1200

Mark Elvin wrote in the Far Eastern Economic Review, “ Early in the eleventh hundred, taiwanese government arsenals manufactured more than 16 million identical cast-iron arrowheads a year. In early words, mass production. rather by and by, in the thirteenth century, machines in northerly China powered by swath transmissions off a waterwheel twisted a harsh rope of hangman’s rope fibers into a all right yarn. The machine used 32 spinning heads rotating simultaneously in a technique that credibly resembled modern ring-spinning. A exchangeable device was used for doubling filaments of silk. In other words, mechanized production, in the smell that the actions of the homo hand were replicated by units of forest and metallic, and an array of these identical units was then set into motion by inanimate exponent. [ source : “ The X Factor, ” by Mark Elvin, Far Eastern Economic Review, 162/23, June 10, 1999 ]
“ Common common sense thus suggests that the chinese economy, early in the millennium fair coming to a near, had already developed the two key elements of what we think of as the Industrial Revolution : aggregate production and automation … much later, from the center of the nineteenth century on, China had to import, then service, adjust, and even at times improve, mechanical mastermind from the West. This was done with considerable flair, particularly by chinese firms in Shanghai, a city which during treaty-port days turned into a nonstop external exhibition of machine-building. So chinese technical capability can barely be said to have withered in the intervene centuries … Why did the first industrial rotation not take place in China, as it seems it should have ? ’

SONG DYNASTY (960-1279) ECONOMY, TRADE, PAPER MONEY AND INFLATION | Facts and Details