The per capita GDP of the Song Dynasty reached US$ 2,280, accounting for 65% of the world GDP, 80% of that of the Northern Song Dynasty and 50% of that of the Southern Song Dynasty, making it the richest dynasty in China history.
The GDP of the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty accounted for 80% of the world, and the GDP of the whole Ming Dynasty was 45%. However, the famine and war in the late Ming Dynasty reduced it from 80% to half, and some Jiangnan areas recovered to the level of the Song Dynasty in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.
Qing dynasty (35%- 10%) can be ranked after Ming dynasty (40%-45%). However, its economy declined sharply in the later period, and the war of aggression and a large amount of silver were used for reparations and flowed abroad, which led to a rapid decline in the overall national strength, from 35% when Kangxi was in Qianlong Jiaqing to 10%.
Historically, the Song Dynasty was economically developed and politically and militarily weak, just like today's rich countries in Europe, which had strong economies but needed the protection of the United States.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the peak tax revenue reached 65.438+60 billion yuan. 1 two gold = 10 two silver = 10 penetration, so 1 penetration = 5g. Now 1 gram of gold = 19 US dollars, discounted by gold, it is now worth about15.2 billion US dollars. At that time, the tax rate was about115. Farmers have no extra burden and no household registration system. They can go to town if they want to do business, and the business is particularly developed. Sima Guang once said: "The world is getting worse, and husband and wife follow stockings."
Because other taxes are not much, the GDP is almost152×15 = 228 billion US dollars. At that time, the population of the Northern Song Dynasty was almost 1 100 million, so the per capita GDP could be $2,280. In fact, there are many unreasonable places to convert into dollars, because the amount of gold mining has increased greatly, so it should be much higher than 2280 dollars!
The highest fiscal revenue in the Song Dynasty reached 65.438+0.6 billion, and the average annual revenue in the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty reached 80-90 million. Even in the Southern Song Dynasty, which lost half of its territory, the fiscal revenue was as high as1100,000. What kind of concept is this? Let's compare it with other figures.
In the five years of Qin Long in the Ming Dynasty (157 1), the state revenue was 2.5 million taels of silver. There was chaos in the late Ming Dynasty. Under the attack of the late Jin Dynasty and the peasant uprising, the Ming government successively increased the levy of Liao, the suppression of salaries and the training of salaries, which was the famous "three salaries plus factions". As a result, people's grievances are boiling and smoke is everywhere. This practice of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs brings100000 yuan of fiscal revenue to the country every year. In other words, the total revenue of the Ming Dynasty was about150,000 taels of silver. If we think that the general exchange rate of money is 1 two silvers = 1 copper coins, then the fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty is less than110 in the Northern Song Dynasty and less than 1/6 in the Southern Song Dynasty, although this is more than 300 years after the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty, although the land of the Ming Dynasty is much larger than that of the Song Dynasty.
The financial situation of the Qing Dynasty was better than that of the Ming Dynasty, and the initial income in the seventh year of Shunzhi (1650)14.85 million yuan. During the Xianfeng period (1850 or so), the annual income was about 30 million to 40 million Liang. The population is still far less than that of the Song Dynasty 600 years ago, when the population of China exceeded 300 million, which is estimated to be more than two or three times that of the Song Dynasty. It was not until the late Qing Dynasty that the national fiscal revenue reached the level of the Song Dynasty. The income of the Song Dynasty may be overestimated because of the exchange rate and color conversion rate, but even so, it is an indisputable fact that the income of the Song Dynasty is much higher than that of any other feudal dynasty. )
The financial revenue of the Song Dynasty is so huge, does it mean that the burden of the people is also extremely huge? Judging from the per capita fiscal revenue, it must be so. However, we should know that the Song Dynasty was one of the only two great dynasties in the history of China where there was no nationwide peasant uprising. Only a few large-scale uprisings, such as Wang Xiaobo Uprising, Sung River Uprising, Fang La Uprising and Yao Uprising, have never exceeded the scope of a province. Another dynasty with such a good record was the Western Jin Dynasty, and one of the reasons why the Western Jin Dynasty was able to do so was that its life span was too short to have an uprising.
So, where does such a huge fiscal revenue come from?
It should be said that the huge financial revenue of the Song Dynasty was not the result of aggravating the exploitation of farmers, but the result of the rapid development of the national economy, the extremely prosperous industry and commerce and the improvement of productivity. As a traditional agricultural country, it has always been the basis of state rule to directly levy agricultural taxes on a large number of small farmers. It was really unique in the Song Dynasty, and it was not until the late Qing Dynasty that the industrial and commercial income exceeded the agricultural tax again.
Because a large number of independent small farmers are no longer the foundation of the country's survival, the Song Dynasty was able to adopt a completely different land policy of "not restraining mergers" from other dynasties.
For thousands of years, China has traditionally regarded land annexation as a national disaster and tried every means to contain it. So that a cycle was formed: when the dynasty was established, the land was redistributed and millions of small farmers were created; After hundreds of years of accumulation, the land is concentrated in the hands of a few people, and the country has lost its tax source. Some farmers who have lost their land are desperate. A large-scale peasant uprising broke out, the government collapsed, a new dynasty was established and the land was redistributed.
This practice is the product of natural economy, which can ensure that most farmers can have some land for farming, but on the other hand, it also limits the division of labor, the development of intensive economy and the rise of industry and commerce, and firmly binds China society to the natural economy. Moreover, this can not completely stop the trend of land concentration, and land must be redistributed every once in a while, and every redistribution of land is almost accompanied by large-scale war and destruction.
The practice of Song Dynasty made it successfully jump out of this strange circle. On the one hand, the merger was not suppressed, so that the land was intensively managed and a large number of surplus labor forces were liberated (it was estimated that less than 1% of the population occupied 70% of the country's land at that time, and the land entering the circulation market accounted for 20% of the country's total area every year); On the other hand, it has successfully developed industry and commerce, not only absorbed a large number of rural labor (only a copper-lead mine in Xinzhou Lead Mountain often employs hundreds of thousands of miners and mine owners day and night), but also promoted the rapid improvement of social economy and productivity.