The Song Economic Revolution

China in 1,000 C.E. - An Introduction

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 Song Technological Revolution

RICE CULTIVATION

During Song times, new developments in rice cultivation — especially the introduction of new strains of (Champa) rice from what is now Central Vietnam, along with improved methods of water control and irrigation — spectacularly increased rice yields. Rice was used primarily as food, but was also used to brew the wine consumed in homes and taverns. Rice was grown primarily south of the Yangzi River. This area had many advantages over the north China plain, as the climate is warmer and rainfall more plentiful. The mild temperatures of the south often allowed two crops to be grown on the same plot of land — a summer and a winter crop. The many rivers and streams of the region facilitated shipping, which reduced the cost of transportation and, thus, made regional specialization economically more feasible. During the Song period, the Yangzi River regions became the economic center of China.

A LABOR-INTENSIVE CROP

As grown throughout East Asia before modern times, rice required much labor — to level the paddy fields, clear irrigation ditches, plant and especially transplant the seedlings, as well as to weed, harvest, thresh, and husk.

Farmers developed many varieties of rice, including drought resistant and early ripening varieties, as well as rice suited for special purposes such as brewing. They also remade the landscape by terracing hilly land, so that rice could be grown on it. Agricultural manuals helped to disseminate the best techniques for rice cultivation. To feed all the city people, most Chinese had to remain farmers. The rectangular fields in this scene from the scroll (left) are divided by irrigation channels, but the scene does not give us enough information to determine which crops are growing there. We do know, however, that millet, wheat, and sorghum were the basic subsistence crops in the north, while rice predominated in the south.

PRINTING

By the 9th century, Chinese craftsmen had developed a way to mass produce books by carving words and pictures into wooden blocks, inking them, and then pressing paper onto the blocks. Each block consisted of an entire page of text and illustrations.

As in Europe centuries later, the introduction of printing in China dramatically lowered the price of books, thus aiding the spread of literacy. Inexpensive books also gave a boost to the development of drama and other forms of popular culture. The storytellers depicted in the Beijing Qingming scroll (below) may have benefited from “prompt books” that would help them review the stories that they told orally to their audiences.

MOVABLE TYPE

In the 11th century movable type (one piece of type for each character) was invented. Movable type was never widely used in China because whole-block printing was less expensive, but when movable type reached Europe in the 15th century, it revolutionized the communication of ideas.

Movable type was first created by Bi Sheng (990-1051), who used baked clay, which was very fragile. The Yuan-dynasty official Wang Zhen is credited with the introduction of wooden movable type, a more durable option, around 1297. Cast-metal movable type began to be used in Korea in the early 13th century, and the first font is believed to have been cast there in the 1230s.

MARITIME TECHNOLOGIES

The Song Chinese were world leaders in shipbuilding. Watertight bulkheads improved buoyancy and protected cargo. Stern-mounted or stern-post rudders (see right) improved steering. Sounding lines were used to determine depth. Some ships were powered by both oars and sails and large enough to hold several hundred men.

Also important to oceangoing travel was the perfection of the compass. The way a magnetic needle would point north-south had been known for some time, but in Song times the needle was reduced in size and attached to a fixed stem (rather than floating in water). In some cases it was put in a small protective case with a glass top, making it suitable for sea travel. The first reports of a compass used in this way date to 1119.

GUNPOWDER

Song military engineers found gunpowder to be helpful in siege warfare, leading to the development of early types of rockets, cannons, bombs, and mines.

The Wujing zongyao (“Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques”), a military manual from 1044 CE, records the first true gunpowder formula and describes how to produce it on a large scale. Gunpowder was first use in warfare as an incendiary, or fire-producing, compound. Small packages of gunpowder wrapped in paper or bamboo were attached to arrows and lit with a fuse.

Bombs of gunpowder mixed with scrap iron would be launched with catapults. Another use was “fire-spurting lances,” which were a kind of flame-thrower using bamboo or metal tubes for their barrels. Weapons involving gunpowder were extensively used by both the Chinese and the Mongol forces in the 13th century. Song efforts to continually improve their weapons were one reason they were able to hold off the Mongols for several decades. But the Mongols, like the Khitans and Jurchens before them (who conquered the first, or northern, Song dynasty capital in Kaifeng), were equally ready to adopt new and better military technology, often by capturing the Chinese engineers and gunners.

THE MECHANICAL CLOCK TOWER

One high official, Su Song (1020-1101), is famous for having designed and constructed a mechanical clock tower (almost 40 feet high) by adding a chain-driven mechanism to the existing water-powered clock. The clock told not only the time of day but also the day of the month, the phase of the moon, and the position of certain stars and planets in the sky. At the top was a mechanically rotated armillary sphere that showed the changing location of the planets and stars.

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