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I assure you that this river runs for such a distance and through so many regions and there are so many cities on its banks that truth to tell, in the amount of shipping it carries and the total volume and value of its traffic, it exceeds all the rivers of the Christians put together and their seas into the bargain. [204]
The Chinese economy became increasingly commercialized, with paper money firmly established in both north and south China by the twelfth century. A large inter-regional trade developed in both luxuries and staples like rice. During the Song dynasty, coastal trade flourished and extended to Japan and South-East Asia. Urbanization proceeded apace, such that by the late thirteenth century Hangzhou, China’s largest city, had a population of almost 7 million, making China by far the most urbanized society in the world, its cities accounting for around 10 per cent of the population. [205] The cities were not, however, to play the same role as centres of political and personal freedom as those in Europe: autonomous urban development was constrained by China ’s centralized imperial structure, a pattern that only began to change in the twentieth century. Encouraged by the government, there was a flowering of learning and a wave of remarkable inventions during the Song dynasty, especially in the century and a half of the Northern Song (960-1126). [206] What is sometimes described as China’s Renaissance witnessed the development of a classical examination system, the birth of neo-Confucianism, the invention of gunpowder, mortars and woodblock printing, the spread of books, and major advances in mathematics, natural sciences, astronomy and geography. [207] A large spi
After 1300 this efflorescence began to subside and China ’s medieval economic revolution gave way to a period of stagnation that only came to an end in 1500. The Mongol invasion marked the closure of the Song period, in many respects China ’s finest age, and led to the establishment of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and the incorporation of China into the Mongol Empire. It was to prove traumatic, with the Chinese finding themselves under alien rule and reduced to lowly status. There were several reasons for the economic slowdown. The dynamic by which China had expanded from its heartlands southwards had involved the addition of rich new farmlands, but this area began to fill up with migrants from the north; as a consequence there was growing pressure on resources, most notably food. [211] The spectacular advances in science, meanwhile, started to dry up. The Song dynasty had placed considerable emphasis on the importance of trade and contact with foreigners, notably Japan and South-East Asia, but also beyond to Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and even the east coast of Africa. This process slowly went into reverse during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). [212] In 1371 the Ming dynasty forbade coastal people from sailing overseas because of the threat posed to Chinese shipping by large-scale Japanese piracy. An edict in 1390 declared: ‘At present the ignorant people of the Liang-Kuang, Chekiang and Fukien are frequently in communication with the outer barbarians, with whom they carry on a smuggling trade. This is therefore strictly prohibited.’ [213]There followed over the next three centuries a succession of restrictions ba
The successful reconstruction of the Grand Canal linking northern China with the rich rice fields of the Yangzi in 1411 was a crucial moment, signalling a greatly reduced need for coastal shipping and, therefore, also for a navy. For almost four and a half centuries, from the consolidation of the Song Empire until the remarkable seafaring expeditions of the early Ming (1405-33), China was the greatest maritime nation in the world — using big compartmented ships (with up to four decks, four or five masts, and a dozen sails), steered by a sternpost rudder, guided by charts and compass, and able to carry 500 men. [214] The ships used by Zheng He for his great voyages to South-East Asia, the Indian Ocean and the east coast of Africa in the early fifteenth century were by far the most advanced in the world. From the moment the voyages were completed, however, China ’s maritime prowess fell into steep decline. In 1436 the construction of seagoing ships was ba
Between 1500 and 1800, stagnation gave way to vigorous economic growth and reasonable prosperity. There was a steady increase in the food supply, due to an increase in land under cultivation — the result of migration and settlement in the western and central provinces, greater productivity (including the use of new crops like corn and peanuts) and better irrigation. [217] These developments sustained a fivefold increase in China ’s population between 1400 and 1800, whereas between 1300 and 1400 it had fallen sharply. [218] China ’s performance during this period has tended to be overshadowed by the dynamism of the earlier medieval economic revolution; unlike during the Song dynasty, this later growth was achieved with relatively little new invention. In the eighteenth century China remained the world’s largest economy, followed by India, with Europe as a secondary player. Adam Smith, who saw China as an exemplar of market-based development, observed in 1776 that ‘ China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.’ [219] It was not until 1850, indeed, that London was to displace Beijing as the world’s largest city. [220]
[204] Quoted in Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, pp. 144–145. Also pp. 133-9.
[205] Ibid., pp. 176-7.
[206] Fairbank and Goldman, China: A New History, p. 88, also Chapter 4.
[207] Ibid., Chapter 4; Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, Chapters 14, 15.
[208] Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, pp. 198-9.
[209] Ibid., Chapter 15, especially pp. 331-41, 347-8; Fairbank and Goldman, China, pp. 88, 93-5, 101-2.
[210] Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, pp. 347-8.
[211] Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, pp. 203-4, 214-15, 222.
[212] Ibid., pp. 204-25; David S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (London: Little, Brown, 1998), pp. 93-8; Lovell, The Great Wall, pp. 183-4.
[213] Quoted in Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, p. 217.
[214] Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, pp. 326-9; Fairbank and Goldman, China, p. 93.
[215] Edward L. Dreyer, Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405-1433 (New York: Pearson Longman, 2007), pp. 166-71.
[216] See Chapter 7.
[217] Fairbank and Goldman, China, pp. 168-9.
[218] Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics (Paris: OECD, 2003), p. 249.
[219] Quoted by Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 279. See Giova
[220] R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 27. ‘Until about 1800,’ argues Andre Gunder Frank, ‘the world economy was by no stretch of the imagination European-centred nor in any significant way defined by or marked by any European-born “capitalism” — it was preponderantly Asian-based.’ Frank, ReOrient, pp. 276-7.