Western European cities are prosperous, and merchants, merchant ships and commercial post stations in Genoa, Venice and Florence are all over the Mediterranean world. Venice is called? Pearl of the Adriatic Sea? Their merchants even had the money to instigate the Fourth Crusade, expedition and occupy the Byzantine Empire.
The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival depicts the prosperity of the world's top cities in the12nd century. In Song Dynasty, the population of 46 cities exceeded 654.38+million, and the population of Kaifeng, the capital, exceeded one million.
Isfahan is famous for the prosperity of the Islamic world? Isfahan, half the world? Good name; Alexandria, located in Egypt, is a pearl connecting the East and the West.
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All parts of the world have experienced a certain degree of commercial revolution and urban revolution. However, we all know that the result is that it seems? Sweep the world? The urban revolution led to the different turning points of eastern Confucian civilization and western European Christian civilization.
In the western world, this round of urban revolution broke out in the number of citizens, which laid a good foundation for the Renaissance, the Religious Reform, the Enlightenment and even the bourgeois revolution.
In the eastern world, we only see the superficial improvement of business and city scale by the urban revolution, while the introverted personality of civilization seems to remain unchanged. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, in the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese Empire became more and more introverted and moved towards extreme conservatism.
What kind of historical motivation led to this result? We might as well take this period of history from11-13rd century Song Dynasty, and find out the civilization genes of the later development of eastern and western civilizations.
In the11-13rd century, agricultural production technologies in both the east and the west have developed to a considerable extent. In the west, the heavy plough and the three-nursery system were widely promoted, and the colonization within Europe and the reconquest of the Islamic world gained a lot of cultivated land; In the East, during the Song Dynasty, not only high-yield Zhancheng rice was popularized, but also keel turning, tractor towing, ploughing and horse raising were used in agricultural production, and coal was used for cast iron for the first time.
Before the commercial revolution, there was more or less a struggle between eastern and western civilizations? Agricultural revolution? 、? Green revolution? . (Needham Owen)
The development of agricultural technology makes agricultural overproduction. On the one hand, it provides survival guarantee for citizens who are not engaged in grain production, on the other hand, it promotes the direction of agricultural commercialization. For example, a large area of cotton planting area appeared in the east, and specialized animal husbandry appeared in the west. On the other hand, it promotes the development of rural market. What do we call it in the East? Grass market? These are the embryonic forms of later towns.
At that time, the eastern and western worlds, landless peasants? The situation appears alone. Since the late Tang dynasty, the farmland system has become? Do not suppress mergers? , the consequences must be? The rich have fields and buildings, but the poor have no place to stand? A large number of landless peasants either fled or flooded into cities to become the bottom citizens; The west is a typical feudal system. Land is given by the king or Lord and cannot be bought or sold. So-called? Farmers lost their land? With the development of productive forces, some serfs gradually accumulated wealth and redeemed their personal rights, but they could not get the land given by the king, so they also poured into cities and became citizens.
At the same time as the agricultural revolution, there is also a revolution in navigation technology. During the Song Dynasty, advanced navigation technologies such as compass spread to the Mediterranean world through commerce and trade, which led to the outbreak of the western world around 1300. Navigation revolution? Techniques such as charts, nautical manuals and compasses have been applied one after another.
The combined effect of the marine revolution and the agricultural revolution has caused a large number of rural people to flood into cities to make a living. Coupled with the natural growth of urban population, the urban population in the east and west broke out in the11-13rd century, which became the cause and result of the commercial revolution.
This one? Sweep the world? Zhang Kai, a researcher at China Academy of Social Sciences, creatively called it the commercial revolution and the urban revolution? Quanzhou-Venice Axis Age? . Among them, Kyle Poirot made a bond for these two big cities, which was quite romantic. At this time, eastern and western civilizations and commerce blended with each other, and urbanization reached almost the same level (about 4%).
In the eastern world, the center of the city has expanded, and there have been big cities with a population of one million and hundreds of big cities with a population of one hundred thousand. In these cities, Fang's urban system has been eliminated, from Chang' an? Separation of things? , to Kaifeng Qingming Riverside Map? Open a shop freely? . Japanese scholar Miyazaki Hayao said in Modern Oriental History? The song dynasty has shown various characteristics of modern society? Its performance is: land marketization and scale; The rise of commercial towns; The use of copper coins is unprecedented, and paper money (such as the earliest paper money issued in the world) and silver are also used in parallel.
Quanzhou, as the core of foreign trade, is called by African traveler Baitutai. One of the largest ports in the world, even the largest port? . What is Quanzhou in Kelpolo's mouth? City of light? Is it more than your hometown Venice? Bright? This place. The material and cultural exchanges brought by foreign trade have made Islam, Christianity and other religions take root in China, and Arabic mathematics and astronomy have also been introduced to China, enriching the culture of China, and at the same time bringing some advanced production technologies and species, such as introducing Zhancheng rice and Egyptian sugar-making technology.
In the western world, commercial towns on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, represented by Venice, Genoa and Florence in Italy, have sprung up everywhere. They are connected with the East through the Arab world, especially Egypt. Oriental porcelain and silk poured into the western market through the Maritime Silk Road, while merchants on the southern shore of the Mediterranean purchased in Egypt and brought them to the whole European world. Venetian businessmen controlled about 70% of the spice trade, while Genoese businessmen became the controllers of silk trade, and western businessmen even opened trading posts in Quanzhou.
In the11-13rd century, even before the new sea route was opened, Italian businessmen ruled the western world, which is generally believed by western historians. The golden age of business development? Or? Mediterranean business revolution? .
It can be seen that the urban revolution and commercial revolution in the East and the West promote and influence each other. Zhang Kai, a research institute of China Academy of Social Sciences, believes that after the Quanzhou-Venetian Axis era, due to the interaction of different civilizations, the level of productivity development and the level of scientific and technological development finally reached a roughly balanced state among the three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe. ?
However, as we all know, the commercial and urban revolution that swept the world did not bring similar results, but led the eastern and western civilizations to different paths.
The direct consequence of the commercial revolution and the urban revolution is the vigorous growth of the civil class, but it is also the difference of the civil class that leads to the different trends of eastern and western civilizations.
In the western world, the rise of the civil class has become a new political force. Some of them joined hands with the king to challenge the feudal lords who directly oppressed them and carved up the royal power, which led to the strengthening of the autocratic monarchy system later, such as Britain and France; Some have formed merchant autonomous communities, such as the Hanseatic League in Germany; Some cities have formed commercial republics, such as Venice, Genoa and Florence. These unique political forces became the main body of the Renaissance, the Reformation and even the Enlightenment, which laid the foundation for the Western industrial revolution.
Despite the increasing trade income, in the Song Dynasty, the civilian class could not rise to become a unique political force. First of all, what should we do? Blame it on? During the Song Dynasty, the imperial examination system formed a system of rising grades. The citizen class can complete the class leap by spending money to educate their children and take the imperial examination, without forming a unique political force. Second, in the Song Dynasty, powerful centralization constantly exploited the merchants' surplus and squeezed their property through exorbitant taxes and levies. This can naturally be explained as a helpless move of national financial difficulties, but on the other hand, it also makes it impossible for businessmen to have the financial resources to form a unique political force.
A savage crusader
The impact of the rise of the civil class on the cultural level deserves more attention.
In the western world, due to the rise of a large number of merchant classes, the original feudal ethics have been impacted. The so-called chivalry, which pursues kindness, loyalty and courage, withered not only with the bloody and cruel Crusades, but also with the rise of the commercial revolution. People's life is spent in the pursuit of money, and material desire has become the theme of this era.
In the eastern world, it is another scene. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the Gongye School in East Zhejiang appeared. They advocate? Pay equal attention to justice and benefit? Call on the scholar-officials to pay attention to practical benefits. To a great extent, it represents the voice of the emerging citizen class in the Song Dynasty. However, it is obvious that such a voice has not been accepted by the mainstream society. By the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu's Neo-Confucianism had become the official school, advocating that the society should enter an ultra-stable structure.
The spokesman of the citizen class did not get the official right to speak. We can attribute it to historical contingency and think that this is just the voice of a group of middle and lower-class literati. However, Zhu, a master of Neo-Confucianism, is also a lower-class scholar, which is somewhat untenable.
We should see that the historical inevitability behind the eastern and western civilizations is the essential deviation of the eastern and western civilizations.
It is true that we have more useful discussions, but I prefer to focus on the environment.
Deng Tuo said in the book "The History of Disaster Relief in China": There are many disasters in China, which are rare in the world. From18th century BC to the 20th century AD, there have been almost no disasters and almost no famine years for nearly 4,000 years. Western European scholars even called China? Hungry country? (Land of Famine). Even in the Song Dynasty, which seemed to be commercially developed, famine and the troubles of foreign enemies were still the main worries of this country.
Therefore, in thousands of years of history, eastern civilized countries have always regarded resisting natural disasters and foreign enemies as their primary task. This is in the same strain as the history of Dayu's flood control and his subsequent demise and inheritance. It is also written in the history of disaster relief in China:? During the 487 years around the Song Dynasty, there were 874 frequent disasters, equivalent to the Tang Dynasty, and its intensity and breadth were even greater than that of the Tang Dynasty. ?
Frequent famines make China, a civilized country, a responsible government. He must take responsibility and spend frequent famines with the people. Due to the extreme scarcity of cultivated land in East Asia, it is bound to lead to? Emphasis on agriculture and suppression of business? Policy. Coupled with the frequent wars in the Song Dynasty and the extreme shortage of food, farmers were forced to rise up and advocate the vision of small farmers. Equality? As we all know, Fang La Uprising, Sung River Uprising and Yao Uprising all embodied egalitarianism to some extent in their demands and slogans, but this result obviously led to a universal humanitarian disaster.
To some extent, this proves that the agricultural production efficiency in Song Dynasty still can't produce enough grain on the only cultivated land area, which can promote the surplus of primitive accumulation of capital.
What do we prefer to call Venice, Genoa and Florence in the western world? Merchant autonomous community? . They have a small population, such as the world-famous Venice. In fact, the population in its heyday was only about1-200,000, and even the so-called big cities such as Paris, London and Rome were just at this level. Now the population of Venice has shrunk to 60,000, less than the population of a small town in China!
Because of natural geography, the natural output value of agriculture and animal husbandry in the west is higher, and farmers only need? Farming on the hillside Even the water conservancy facilities can hardly be repaired. The output per unit area is high and the per capita area is large, so in the feudal history of the western world for thousands of years, there are almost no large-scale famines and frequent natural disasters in the eastern world every year. There was only one famine (1315-1317) because of several years of bad weather, and millions of people died. At that time, the total population of Europe was about 1 100 million.
Therefore, as long as the level of agricultural productivity does not increase to the current population demand, most people must be bound to the land. This is also the most important reason why11-13rd century urban revolution and commercial revolution split between the east and the west.
The Confucian civilization in the East did not spontaneously enter the road of industrial revolution explored by the West, and was greatly influenced by the urban and commercial revolution in the113rd century. However, should our attitude be regret? Do you blame the ancestors for not going? More rational? Road? Or, after such a comparison, should we come to such a conclusion? Should Chinese civilization be inferior to western civilization? Such a conclusion?
We must understand that a country and a civilized system all originate from the current crisis or demand. What is the essence of politics? Cure? That is to maintain the long-term stability of a civilization. We can understand that the ancient ancestors finally found an introverted and ultra-stable political structure through constant trial and error, which matched the ancient closed environment and backward productive forces. Under the conditions of small-scale peasant economy and frequent natural disasters, it is undoubtedly a rational choice to choose a centralized county-based country.
Throughout the Middle Ages, we have to admit that the efficiency of Confucian civilization in the East is obviously higher than that of Christian civilization in the West (the viewpoint comes from Jin Canrong), and it is only after the process of industrialization that the Eastern civilization shows a declining trend.
But industrialization is only a tool after all, and it is often kidnapped by ideological language. But it is a purely objective process, no matter which civilization adapts to a certain degree, it can be used, and it can well maintain the characteristics of primitive civilization.
Now, we have basically completed industrialization, and we have done a good job, haven't we?