The Cities of the Song

In 1000, 1100, 1200, and 1300, China was the most advanced place in the world. Marco Polo (1254-1324) recognized this when he got to China in the late 13th century after traveling through much of Asia. In what is now Europe, this was the period now referred to as the “high” Middle Ages, which fostered the Crusades and witnessed the rise of Venice, the mercantile center that was Marco Polo’s home.

A magnificent picture scroll painted by a Chinese artist in the 12th century provides us with a look at society and urban life in China during this time. For several centuries the Chinese economy had grown spectacularly. During the Song (Sung) Dynasty (960-1276), technology was highly advanced in fields as diverse as agriculture, iron-working, and printing. Indeed, scholars today talk of a Song economic revolution.

The population grew rapidly during this time, and more and more people lived in cities. The Song system of government was also advanced for its time. The upper-levels of the government were staffed by highly educated scholar-officials selected through competitive written examinations.

Yet, despite its political and economic strengths, Song China was not able to dominate its neighbors militarily. Central to its engagement with the outside world were efforts to maintain peace with its powerful northern neighbors and extend its trading networks.

Many ways of living and acting that Westerners now see as most thoroughly “Chinese,” or even characteristically East Asian, did not appear before the Song. The Chinese, we know, are rice eaters and tea drinkers; but most Chinese in the Tang and before at wheat and millet and drank wine, in that respect looking perhaps more “Western” than “Eastern”; rice and tea became dominant food and drink in the Song.

China’s population, we know, is huge, and tends to “explode”; its first explosion occurred in the Song. The Chinese, we know, are “Confucians”; but the kind of Confucianism that served as government orthodoxy throughout late-imperial times was a Song reinvention. Chinese women, we may know, bound their feet; but they did not bind them until the Song. Even the “Chinese” roof with its turned-up corners is by origin a Song Chinese roof.

The quickening of the economy in Song times fueled the growth of cities. Dozens of cities had 50,000 or more residents, and quite a few had more than 100,000. As in previous dynasties, the Song’s largest cities were its capitals — first Kaifeng in the North, then Hangzhou in the South. Both capitals are thought to have had about a million residents. (The population of London at the time was around 15,000). Song capitals boasted a lively street life, with markets, shops, restaurants, and houses right on the street. Some of these buildings were multi-story. Kaifeng did have an external wall, but its population spilled beyond it. Unlike previous capitals, such as the Tang dynasty’s Chang’an, the Song capitals did not have walled wards.

To combat fire in the city, the government stationed 2,000 soldiers at 14 fire stations within the city and more outside it. 

The elite of the city often formed clubs. A text written in 1235 mentions the West Lake Poetry Club, the Buddhist Tea Society, the Physical Fitness Club, the Anglers’ Club, the Occult Club, the Young Girls’ Chorus, the Exotic Foods Club, the Plants and Fruits Club, the Antique Collectors’ Club, the Horse-Lovers’ Club, and the Refined Music Society. Members gathered for lively discussions and socializing.

Poverty was more of a problem in crowded cities than in the countryside. The Song government not only distributed alms, but operated public clinics, old age homes, and paupers’ graveyards.

As in earlier cities, the highest structure in Kaifeng, the Northern Song’s capital, was a pagoda. Although pagodas do not appear in this scroll, they dominated the skyline of many cities during the Song dynasty, as they had in the Tang dynasty. Like the spires of Europe’s cathedrals and churches, the city pagoda was often the first thing the traveler would see as he approached a city or town.

“Rainbow” bridges are so called because of the way in which the bridge arches, resembling a rainbow. The bridge pictured is an elaborate wooden bridge that spans the river and offers room for peddlers to show their wares to the pedestrians crossing from one side of the river to the other. The technology of the bridge is impressive. In Song times one observer remarked that the bridge had no piers, but rather spanned the river using giant timbers curved like a rainbow. What keeps the bridge up is a series of interlocking horizontal and cantilevered beams.