When did the citizen-industrial and commercial class rise in ancient China?

The citizen-industrial and commercial class arose during the Ming Dynasty in ancient China.

The rise of the citizen class is inseparable from the recovery and development of the economy in the early Ming Dynasty. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, due to more than 20 years of war, the social economy was severely damaged. In particular, the Shandong and Henan regions were most severely damaged by the war and were "mostly uninhabited land." In the fifteenth year of Hongwu, Gui Yanliang, the governor of the Jin Dynasty, Shi Zhishi, wrote: "The Central Plains is the heart of the world and a sacred land. Due to lack of manpower, it has been desolate for a long time." Facing the severe situation, the main task of the early Ming Dynasty was Resume production. Zhu Yuanzhang said, "Among the four people, no one works hard in agriculture. Watching them work hard in the end, they rarely get a rest. When the weather is good, a family of several people can still have enough food. Unfortunately, there are floods and droughts, and the whole family is hungry. ... The people When the people are satisfied, the country will be prosperous, and when the people are at ease, the country will be safe. There will never be a situation where the people are poor and the country is only rich and safe. "Ming Taizu recognized the importance of recuperating with the people, and he also paid attention to maintaining the people's power in his governance. In the eighth month of the first year of Hongwu, "floods and droughts in all directions...disasters were actually heard. Zhenjiang rent and taxes were exempted. Those who avoided the chaos and resumed their work were allowed to reclaim wasteland for another three years." In the nineteenth year of Hongwu, in the summer of April, Shen Chen issued an edict. To redeem the children of the hungry people in Henan. "In the first month of the 10th year of Hongwu (1377), Zhang Zhizhong from the Ministry of Works wrote three things. "...The third point is that the northern counties and counties reclaim wasteland, and the land is wide and wide every year, but the land is vast and the people are sparse, so the land is limited." Due to war, the land in the north was barren and the manpower was insufficient, while the south had more people and less land. From this we can understand that the immigration policy in the early Ming Dynasty was necessary. The Ming government implemented immigration to open up wasteland, and the prefectures and counties gave farmers cattle seeds tolls, which effectively guaranteed the implementation of the immigration policy.

In addition to measures to restore the economy, the Ming government also paid special attention to the cultivation of cash crops. In June of the 11th year of Longfeng, when Zhu Yuanzhang had not yet officially proclaimed himself emperor, he issued an order that all farmers with five to ten acres of land should plant half an acre of mulberry, hemp, cotton, and double that for those with more than ten acres, and increase it proportionately for those with more land. Those who do not plant mulberry will produce a piece of silk; those who do not plant hemp or kapok will produce a piece of linen or cotton. This production method that combines farming and weaving is conducive to the development of rural cottage industry. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, this system was implemented nationwide and the number of scientific expeditions was stipulated. In the early Ming Dynasty, the planting policy was implemented more effectively. The Chief Secretary of Huguang reported in the 28th year that "84.39 million fruit trees have been planted in the counties and counties under the jurisdiction, and the national estimate is more than one billion trees." The widespread planting of mulberry, linen, cotton and other cash crops provides raw materials for the development of handicraft industry and effectively promotes silk production and silk weaving industry in these areas.

The emergence of the citizen class is due to the expansion of urban handicraft industry and the expansion of urban commerce. Immigrants settled in the fields and encouraged the planting of cash crops, which created conditions for economic recovery and the development of the commodity economy in the early Ming Dynasty. After the mid-Ming Dynasty, on the basis of economic recovery, the handicraft industry developed rapidly, commerce was unprecedentedly prosperous, and the commodity economy expanded rapidly in both breadth and depth. Leaving agricultural production and turning to "industry and commerce" has shown a very active situation. Volume 2 of Lv Kun's "Qu Pseudo Zhai Ji" points out the social conditions during the Wanli period, "Someone works as a trader for the post, or works as a sales agent, and they all invest in the market, seeking daily promotions and alliances to support their wives. Well, there are millions of such civilians in the world." Why there were so many people engaged in "industry and commerce" in the Ming Dynasty is closely related to the social and economic conditions at that time. First of all, the Ming government adopted heavy taxes in Jiangnan. "Qiu Jun's Supplement to the Explanation of the University said: 'Han Yu said that Fu was the best in the world, and Jiangnan was in the 19th place. Looking at it now, the east and west of Zhejiang are in the 19th place in the south of the Yangtze River, and the five prefectures of Su, Song, Chang, Jia, and Hu are "Living in two Zhejiang Provinces and nineteen years ago"... In the examination of Hongwu, the total number of summer taxes and autumn grains in the world is more than 28.43 million, while the Zhejiang Chief Secretary has more than 2.752 million, and the Suzhou Prefecture has more than 2,752,000. There are more than 1,809,000, and Changzhou Prefecture has more than 552,000. It is the land of three vassals. Its land rent is heavier than the world, and its grain supply is more than the world. "Some farmers are overwhelmed and forced to do so." Leaving the land has resulted in a group of proletarians flowing into the city, who are an important part of the urban economy and citizen class. "Since I said that since Zhengde, eleven people have been in the official position and nineteen have been in the fields. Each of the four people in Gaigu has a fixed occupation. The people are content with the farmland and have no other ambitions. The government has also driven them to agriculture without any worries. ... Since then, Over the past 40 to 50 years, taxes have increased day by day, and corvee labor has become increasingly heavy and people's lives have become unbearable. In the past, there were still only a few people who left farming and changed their careers to industry and commerce. The craftsmanship system greatly increased the number of people engaged in "industry and commerce". In the early Ming Dynasty, the management of craftsmen still followed the craftsman household system of the Yuan Dynasty, that is, craftsmen were incorporated into special craftsman registrations and were not allowed to leave the craftsmanship registration and change careers at will. In the 19th year of Hongwu's reign, the shift system for craftsmen began to be implemented, stipulating that craftsmen from all over the country took turns to serve in the capital. During the Chenghua and Hongqing dynasties, the imperial court gradually changed the situation from forcing shift craftsmen to serve in person at designated locations to paying for their services in exchange for silver. In the late Jiajing period, all shift craftsmen were required to pay silver, and the imperial court hired workers with silver. The personal constraints of craftsmen gradually relaxed, providing conditions for them to engage in "industry and commerce." Finally, the reform of the tax system after the mid-Ming Dynasty loosened the personal dependence of most farmers, making it possible for them to switch to industry and commerce. A whipping method appeared in the tenth year of Jiajing, and was later implemented nationwide by Zhang Juzheng. A whip law stipulates: "To sum up the taxes and servitudes of a county, measure the land and calculate the ding, collect silver for all, the officials are divided, and the servants are paid." This includes two aspects: first, the land taxes and labor levies are levied in the form of silver; This means that forced labor will be abolished and the government will hire people to fill the labor force. Second, by levying hard labor into land taxes, the government strengthened its control over land and relaxed its control over small households.

Gu Qiyuan said in the second volume of "Guest Words": "Today's taxation methods are closely related to the land and neglect the household registration. There are all taxes in the hometown, but there are too many registrations to occupy."

A large number of proletarians with free status made the ranks of the citizen class continue to grow. On this basis, the sprouts of large-scale production based on employment relations appeared in the handicraft industry. Suzhou, as the center of the silk weaving industry, was the most typical example. According to Volume 38 of "Wujiang County Chronicles", "In the Xuan Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, the people of the city began to make silk, and they often hired people from the county to weave silk. After Chenghong, scholars also became skilled in this industry, and it became a custom. . . . The powerful ones (beginning to) hire people to weave the ropes, while the poor (people) weave them themselves." In the late Ming Dynasty, there were at least 30,000 such machine operators, and the number of employed mechanics was even larger. The two have become an indispensable whole. At that time, Suzhou "had the largest population and very few permanent products. Every household was organized around the axis of the family. Machine households contributed capital and machine workers contributed their efforts. They had been dependent on each other for a long time." Another example is the Guangdong region, which is known for its mining and metallurgy industry. The scale of such manual workshops It is quite large. "Every mine is surrounded by three hundred families. There are two hundred families who cook the furnaces, more than three hundred diggers, more than two hundred people who draw charcoal and burn it, two hundred cattle for packs, and five boats for carrying them." More than ten ships". Handicraft workshops with the budding nature of capitalism absorbed a large number of bankrupts in urban and rural areas, making them the main part of the citizen class. These employees were completely separated from the means of production and became workers with nothing. The relationship between them and the factories and workshop owners was purely monetary. During the Wanli period, handicraftsmen in Suzhou "counted their duties according to the day, and each had a permanent master. If there was no permanent master, they would set up a bridge at dawn to wait for their call." There are weavers, yarn workers, and blacksmiths among them, often in groups of hundreds. If there is no opportunity to work, they will disperse on their own. This kind of free employment and "free" selling of labor force was a major feature of the civil class in the late Ming Dynasty, which determined the essence of the civil class's anti-feudalism.

After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the expansion of the scale of handicraft production and the growth of employees, business became increasingly prosperous, and profit-making gradually became a trend. It began to grow significantly from the Jiajing to Wanli years of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the mid-16th century. stage. "The Book of Benefits and Diseases of Prefectures and Countries in the World" says, "In the early days of Jiajing and Longqing, the search for Zhengde was slightly different. There were many ignorant people, and the land and fields were not heavy. There were many talents, and the ups and downs were not constant. Only those who are capable will succeed, and those who are clumsy will succeed. Destroyed,...the superiors and inferiors are in balance, and the money and money are competing with each other. So the deceit and hypocrisy are born, the criticism is rising, the prosperity is dyed, and the wealth is exhausted...towards the end of Jiajing. During the Longqing period, the situation was especially different. Most were not rich, but few were wealthy. "Due to the activities of merchants, especially the north-south transactions, the exchange of materials was greatly promoted." Goods from Yan, Zhao, Qin, Qi, Liang, Jianghuai were sold to the south day and night. The goods from Manhai, Fujian, Guangzhou, Yuzhang, south, Chu and Xin'an are sold by traders day and night to the north." In 1598, Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary from the Western Catholic Church, went north to Beijing, accompanied by Wang Honghai, the Minister of Rites of Nanjing (Beijing). During his journey along the canal from Nanjing to Beijing, he saw the prosperous economy of the canal and the ports along the way in the Ming Dynasty. He vividly recorded: "Countless ships carrying tributes were constantly sailing to the capital, and many ships were not fully loaded. With the tonnage, merchants can rent empty cabins at very low rents. In this way, they can provide the capital with many things that are not produced locally, and trade with each other. "So the Gyeonggi region produces nothing and lacks nothing," Sifang said. "The goods are not produced in Yan but are gathered in Yan." Judging from the fact that private merchants used tribute ships, driven by commercial capital, the canal economy has begun to be alienated by the increasingly active commodity economy.

The development of handicrafts and commerce in the Ming Dynasty promoted the rise of industrial and commercial towns. Such towns can be found all over the country, but the largest number are in Jiangnan, where commercial agriculture and handicrafts are developed. Zhujing Town, Fengjing Town, Qibao Town, Nanxiang Town and Waigang Town in Songjiang Prefecture are famous cotton textile towns. Shengze Town and Zhenze Town in Suzhou Prefecture, and Nanxun Town, Wuqing Town and Jiaxing Town in Huzhou Prefecture are all famous towns in the silk weaving industry. Take Songjiang as an example. Before the Jiajing period, the city was "many with thorns, hazelnuts and grass", but during the Longqing and Wanli years it was "populated and densely populated... with no less than 200,000 men and women". Looking at Wuqing Town again, "Although it was revived (at the beginning of Hongwu), it was not completely restored. During the Chenghua and Hongzhi years, the years were booming, the residents were wealthy and eager to work, and... the residential buildings were lined up in rows." The rise of towns in Jiangnan reflects the process of rural urbanization and is an inevitable product of the development of the commodity economy. The residents of such towns are mainly industrialists and merchants. "Most of the residents in Wu County are skilled workers, and the area around Jinchang is engaged in trade, while those in Guo and Ya are engaged in prostitution." "The residents of Guazhou are known as charlatans, and the poor rely on burdens and straps. They employ people to make ends meet and do not work in agriculture." At the same time, large-scale and prosperous industrial and commercial cities gradually formed, and the number of cities and urban population expanded rapidly. In the first hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 30 major cities in the country, including Nanjing, Peiping, Suzhou, and Songjiang. The populations of Beijing and Nanjing reached one million. The development of metropolitan towns has led to the continuous growth of the citizen class concentrated in cities and towns, gradually forming new political forces, which will inevitably have a greater impact on Chinese society.