The rise of the civil class

The rise of the civil class is inseparable from the economic recovery and development in the early Ming Dynasty. At the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, due to more than 20 years of war, the social economy was seriously damaged. Shandong and Henan, in particular, were most severely damaged by the war, and "most of them are no man's land". (1) In the fifteenth year of Hongwu, Gui Yanliang, governor of the Jin Dynasty, played: "The Central Plains is the heart of the world, and it is fertile soil. Due to lack of manpower, it has long been abandoned. " (2) Facing the grim situation, the main task in the early Ming Dynasty was to resume production. Zhu Yuanzhang said: "Among the four people, they don't work hard in agriculture. Seeing that they finally work hard, they get less rest. When the years are abundant, a few people in a family can still eat enough. Unfortunately, in the event of floods and droughts, the whole family was hungry and sleepy. ..... the people are rich behind their feet, and the people are safe after fleeing. No people are poor and the country is rich and safe. " (3) Ming Taizu realized the importance of solidarity with the people and paid attention to maintaining the strength of the people in power. August of the first year of Hongwu was the third year. "There are floods and droughts in all directions ... disasters are heard by facts. Exempt from Zhenjiang tax. Avoid chaos, resume business, and listen to reclamation for three years. " (4) In the 19th year of Hongwu, "Chen Shen was proclaimed to redeem the children of the hungry in summer and April." (5) In the tenth year of Hongwu (1377), Zhang Zhizhong of the Ministry of Industry wrote three things. "... once again, the northern counties open up wasteland, which is vast at the age of 20, but the land is vast and sparsely populated, and the reclamation is limited." (6) Because of the war in the north, the land is barren and the manpower is insufficient, while there are many people in the south. It can be understood that the immigration policy in the early Ming Dynasty was necessary. The Ming government carried out land reclamation by immigrants, and the counties gave farmers money to cultivate cattle, which effectively ensured the implementation of the immigration policy.

In addition to the measures to restore the economy, the Ming government also paid special attention to the cultivation of cash crops. In June of the eleventh year of Longfeng, which Zhu Yuanzhang had not officially proclaimed himself emperor, he ordered all farmers with five to ten acres of land to plant half an acre of Sang Ma, double the amount of ten acres or more, and increase the proportion of fields. If you don't plant mulberries, you get a silk horse, and if you don't plant numb cotton, you get a hemp or cotton horse. This combination of agriculture and weaving is beneficial to the development of rural cottage industry. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, this system was popularized throughout the country and the number of subjects was stipulated. In the early Ming Dynasty, the planting policy was effectively implemented. In 28 years, Chief Secretary Hu Guang reported that "84.39 million fruit trees were planted in counties, which is estimated to be more than one billion in China" (7). The extensive cultivation of cash crops such as cotton in Sang Ma provides raw materials for the development of handicraft industry, which effectively promotes silk production and silk weaving in these areas.

The emergence of citizen class is due to the expansion of urban handicraft industry and the development of urban commerce. Immigrants and planting cash crops created conditions for economic recovery and commodity economy development in the early Ming Dynasty. After the middle of Ming Dynasty, on the basis of economic recovery, handicraft industry developed rapidly, commerce flourished unprecedentedly, and commodity economy expanded rapidly in breadth and depth. Leaving agricultural production to engage in "industry and commerce" presents a very active situation. The second volume of Lv Kun's "The Collection of Going to Fei Zhai" points out the social and world situation in Wanli period. "Either you are a dentist, or you are a broker in that valley, and you are seeking the benefits of promotion and marriage every day to support your wives. There are millions of such civilians in the world." (8) Why so many people engaged in "industry and commerce" in the Ming Dynasty was 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 University Yan Yi said:' Han Yu is the best in the world, with 19 places in the south of the Yangtze River. From today's point of view, the eastern and western parts of Zhejiang are all located 19 miles south of the Yangtze River, while the five provinces of Jiangsu, Songhu, Changzhou and Jiahu are all located 19 miles south of Zhejiang ... Kaohongwu Middle School has more than 28.43 million summer taxes and autumn grain, 2.752 million chief secretary of Zhejiang, 2,809 in Suzhou and 552,000 in Changzhou. It is the land of this vassal state, whose land rent is heavier than that of the world, and its grain amount is more than that of the world. (9) Some farmers were forced to leave the land, resulting in a number of proletarians who flowed into cities. They are an important part of urban economy and citizen class. "I said that since Zheng De, the people in the official is eleven, in the field is nineteen. Gaigu four people have their own jobs, and the people are content with farmland and have no other ambitions. The government also gave them peace of mind to farm. ...... Since forty or fifty years, taxes have been increasing, corvee has become very heavy, and people's lives are unbearable, so they all moved to other industries. ..... There were fewer people who were driven out before, but now there are three times as many people who go to agriculture and switch to industry and commerce. (10) Secondly, the craftsman registration system in the late Ming Dynasty greatly increased the population engaged in "industry and commerce". In the early Ming Dynasty, the management of craftsmen still followed the craftsman system of the Yuan Dynasty, that is, craftsmen were incorporated into special craftsmen's books, and they were not allowed to leave the craftsmen's books and change jobs at will. In the nineteenth year of Hongwu, the craftsman shift system was implemented, which stipulated that craftsmen from all over the country took turns to work in Beijing. During the reign of Chenghua and Hong Qing, the court forced the craftsmen in shifts to personally serve at the designated places, and gradually changed to serve in Yin Na. At the end of Jiajing, all shift craftsmen had to levy silver, and the court hired silver workers. The personal bondage of craftsmen is gradually relaxed, which provides conditions for them to engage in "industry and commerce". Finally, the tax reform after the middle of the Ming Dynasty relaxed the personal attachment of most farmers and made it possible for them to switch to industry and commerce. When Jiajing was ten years old, there was a whipping method, which was later applied to Zhang nationwide. A flogging law stipulates: "Add up the taxes of a county, measure the land, measure the size, collect all the money, break down the officials and hire people to deal with it." (1 1) This includes two aspects: First, both land tax and forced labor were collected in silver, which means that forced labor was cancelled and the government hired people to fill it. Secondly, forced labor was levied in the land tax, and the government strengthened its control over the land and relaxed its control over Dinghu Lake. Gu Jieyuan said in Volume II of Hakka Extra Words: "Today, the tax law is more important than the land and neglects the household registration, so there is no tax in the native land, and many books are not occupied." ( 12)

A large number of proletarians with free status make the ranks of citizens grow continuously. On this basis, the handicraft industry has sprouted large-scale production based on employment relationship, and the silk weaving industry centered on Suzhou is the most typical. According to the "Wujiang County Records" Volume 38, "From the Ming Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, city people began to weave silk, and they often hired county people to weave silk. After the flood, scholars were also good at this industry and followed suit. ..... powerful people (at first) hire people to weave, and the poor (are) weaving themselves. " In the late Ming Dynasty, there were at least 30,000 such machinists, and an even larger number of them were employed. The two have become an indispensable whole. At that time, Suzhou "had the most teeth, little permanent production, and the family was organized by households, with the contribution of mechanical households and technicians, and lived together for a long time" (13). Another example is Guangdong, which is known as the best mining and metallurgy industry. The scale of this handicraft workshop is quite large. "There are 300 people living in a stove. There are 200 firefighters, more than 300 diggers, more than 200 charcoal burners, 200 cows carrying charcoal, and more than 50 boats. " (14) Handicraft workshops, with the budding nature of capitalism, absorbed a large number of urban and rural bankrupts and made them the main part of the citizen class. These employees are completely divorced from the means of production and become laborers with nothing. Their relationship with workshops and workshop owners is purely monetary. During the Wanli period, Suzhou craftsmen "counted the daily value, each with a constant master, and the impermanent master built a bridge at dawn to wait for the call." Among them are weavers, weavers and forgers, often in groups of hundreds. If there is no job opportunity, they will disperse on their own. This kind of free employment and "free" selling of labor force is a major feature of the civil class in the late Ming Dynasty, which determines the anti-feudal nature of the civil class.

After the mid-Ming Dynasty, with the expansion of handicraft production scale and the growth of employees, commerce became increasingly prosperous, and chasing unprofitable profits became a trend. The period from Jiajing to Wanli in Ming Dynasty, that is, the middle of 16th century, was a remarkable growth stage. The book "Diseases of Counties in the World" says that "Zheng De was discovered before Jiajing, which is slightly different from Qin Long. There are many homes, but the soil is not heavy. Capital is relatively agile and does not rise and fall frequently. People with ability succeed, but people with low ability are destroyed ... If you compete, you will lose your balance, and you will compete with each other. Competing with each other and struggling with each other. As a result, deception and falsehood germinated, disputes arose, and powder China was defeated. ..... At the end of jiajing and Qin Long, the situation is particularly different. Most of them are not rich, and there are few rich people. " (15) The activities of merchants, especially the North-South transactions of Hong Kong merchants, greatly promoted the exchange of materials. "Goods from Zhao Yan, Qin Jin, Qiliang and Jianghuai are sold to the south day and night, and goods from Fujian, Guangdong, Henan, Nanchu and Xin 'an are sold to the north day and night." (16) 1598, Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary of the western Catholic church, accompanied by Wang Honghai, the minister of rites of the South (Beijing), went to Beijing along the north. On his journey from Nanjing to Beijing Canal, he saw the prosperous economy of the Ming Canal and its ports along the way. He vividly recorded: "countless ships full of tributes are heading for Beijing, and many ships have not reached full tonnage." Merchants took the opportunity to rent empty cabins at extremely low rents. In this way, many things that are not produced locally can be provided to Beijing for mutual benefit. "(17) So there is nothing in the Gyeonggi area and nothing is lacking." Goods from all directions are not produced in Yan, but gathered in Yan. "From the perspective of private businessmen using water-borne tribute boats, 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 Ming Dynasty promoted the rise of industrial and commercial towns. Such towns are found all over the country, but there are the largest number in Jiangnan, where commodity agriculture and handicrafts are developed. Zhujing Town, Fengjing Town, Qibao Town, nanxiang town Town and Waigang Town in Songjiang Prefecture are famous cotton textile towns. Shengze town, Zhenze Town, Nanxun Town, Wuqin Town and Jiaxing Town are all famous silk weaving towns. Take Songjiang as an example. Before Jiajing, it used to be "a city full of thorns and wild trees", but during the Wanli period, Qin Long was "crowded and densely populated" ... with more than 200,000 men and women. Look at Wuqin Town again. "(Hong Wuchu) Although the cloud is complex, it is still unfinished. In Chenghua Hongzhi's room, the valley climbs every year, the residents are rich and sharp, and the houses are row upon row. " (18) The prosperity of towns in the south of the Yangtze River shows the process of rural urbanization and is the inevitable product of the development of commodity economy. The residents of these towns are mainly businessmen. Wuxian "residents have many skills, and the trade in Jinchang area is more than the number of households, and they have lost their country." Guazhou "residents know their hardships, and the poor lean on them and strip them of their load." Direct recruitment to make a living and serve farmers. "(19) At the same time, large-scale and prosperous industrial and commercial cities have gradually formed, and the number and population of cities have expanded rapidly. During the first hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 30 metropolises in China, including Nanjing, Beiping, Suzhou and Songjiang, with a population of one million. With the development of big towns, the class of citizens concentrated in cities and towns is growing, and new political forces are gradually formed, which will inevitably have a greater impact on China society.