Jin’s economy

The Jin Kingdom was originally built in Xia Xu, the hometown of the Xia Dynasty and the birthplace of Chinese civilization. The ancient Tang State, which had developed for a long time, existed in the area before the founding of the Jin State. The Jin State was founded by the Zhou people who were good at farming. The ancestor of the Zhou people was Hou Ji, who was good at sowing hundreds of grains and was the chief agricultural official in the Tang and Yu eras. Therefore, the Jin State had great experience in agricultural development. Due to the small area of ??Jin in the Western Zhou Dynasty, its development was not large. By the time of Duke Wen of Jin, due to the continuous expansion of the territory and the large tribute received from the status of the overlord of the princes, the scale of agriculture in the territory developed rapidly and prospered.

According to records in the ancient book "Shiben", the earliest agricultural tools used by the ancients were the Lei (lěi) and Lei (sì) invented in the eras of Shennong and Yao and Shun. The so-called Lei is a sharp wooden blade, shaped like a stick with one end sharpened; Shu is a flat-edged agricultural tool made of polished wood, bone and other materials, shaped like a large shovel. Due to technological innovation, during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the shovel, which was originally made of wood and bone, was also made of bronze. This is what is called a shovel in modern times, and it was called "qian" at that time. At the same time, the lei evolved into the plow. After the Spring and Autumn Period, the main agricultural tools at that time were hoes. These common utensils in society at that time were also reflected in the naming styles of people at that time, such as Bozhou Li, the son of Bo Zong, a doctor of Jin; there was even a king in Ju State named Ju Li Bigong. , whose real name is also Maizhu Hoe. In addition, the agricultural tools seen in the Jin Dynasty include hoe and ramming hammer.

With the emergence of the plow, agricultural technology has gradually developed from primitive slash-and-burn farming to deep farming. At first, people only used manpower to pull plows. In the middle and late Spring and Autumn Period, oxen plowing appeared in the Jin Dynasty. After the Fan family and the Zhonghang family among the Six Qing Dynasties lost power in the political contest, the cattle they used for sacrifice were also forced to become draft animals for farming. Little is known about the development of Jin's handicraft industry during the Western Zhou Dynasty. After entering the Spring and Autumn Period, society changed. After Jin Wengong came to the throne, he implemented the policy of "industrial and commercial food officials". The handicraft industry was mainly government-run, and its supervisor was Da Sikong. The government directly controls the production of handicrafts, and workers are passed on hereditary. The official handicraft industry mainly produces weapons, chariots, armor and other war equipment, as well as ritual utensils, food, clothing and coins necessary for the upper class of society. In the construction field, common people are the main body, supplemented by professional craftsmen.

In addition to the government-run industry, there was also a private handicraft industry in the Jin State owned by powerful nobles, which was commonly used by their families to build ancestral temples and cast sacrificial vessels. Although the handicraft industry controlled by the nobility is similar in nature to the state-owned handicraft industry, it cannot be called "official-owned". In addition, there is folk handicraft production based on family units, mainly mulberry planting, hemp picking, silkworm rearing and silk weaving. In the late Spring and Autumn Period, society continued to change, and the rise of aristocratic private handicrafts was accompanied by the decline of government-run handicrafts. Therefore, Duke Ao of Jin implemented the policy of "no prohibition on public profit". From then on, ordinary people could abandon their families and work. By the early Warring States Period, there were factory owners who became rich from salt and iron.

The handicraft industry recorded in the "Kao Gong Ji" of the Warring States Period has more than thirty types of work. Judging from the literature and unearthed cultural relics, the handicraft industry of the Jin State is divided into metal smelting, textile dyeing, tanning, and There are eight categories: pottery, carriages and boats, salt making, business and jade and lacquerware processing. Main article: Cloth coins

The currencies used in the Jin Kingdom were mainly seashells and cloth coins. The unit of shell is "peng", usually ten shells are needed to make one peng. Since shellfish are produced on the coast, they are not easy to obtain in the inland Jin Kingdom. With the development of the economy, the circulation of currency has also increased, and the supply of shellfish has been insufficient. So bone or jade was used to imitate the shape of shells. Another type of cloth coin is actually a farm tool called a shovel. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, it was also called money or 镈, and cloth is the guise of the word 镈.