The handicraft industry of the Song Dynasty economy

The porcelain of the Northern Song Dynasty was greatly improved in terms of output and production technology compared with the previous generation. At that time, kilns that fired porcelain were spread all over the country, and the porcelain they produced had their own characteristics.

Jingdezhen, Guan Kiln (Kaifeng, Henan), Jun Kiln (Yuzhou, Henan), Ru Kiln (Ruzhou, Henan), Ding Kiln (Quyang, Hebei) and Ge Kiln (Longquan, Zhejiang) are the five famous kilns of the Northern Song Dynasty. kiln. The products of Guan kiln have fine and moist soil veins, thin body and green color, slightly pink, with different shades; Jun kiln has fine soil veins, five-color glaze with rabbit silk pattern; Ru kiln has both rouge and cinnabar, and the color glaze is clear; Ding kiln is famous for its white porcelain and can make red porcelain, and its products are very exquisite; Ge kiln is rich in celadon, and its products are known as "thousand peaks of green color". During the Jingde period of Zhenzong, an official kiln was set up in Xinping, Jiangxi. The tribute porcelain produced had the words "Jingde Year Made" written on the bottom. This became the Jingdezhen porcelain that later became famous both at home and abroad. Carving and painting patterns on porcelain was a new innovation in the Northern Song Dynasty. The patterns were carved with knives, embroidered with needle punch, and printed with plates. Cone flowers were chiseled into patterns with the tip of a cone, and flowers were piled into convex shapes with a pen dipped in powder. , and then apply white glaze. Song porcelain is not only a daily necessities, but also exquisite arts and crafts. Porcelain from the Northern Song Dynasty was shipped abroad in large quantities, and a large number of Song Dynasty porcelains were unearthed in various parts of Asia and Africa, proving that porcelain was an important export product at that time.

The porcelain industry in the Southern Song Dynasty was large-scale. Some kiln sites covered an area of ??20 acres and were 20 meters high. The porcelain fired at the Xiunei Siguan kiln at the foot of Fenghuang Mountain in Lin'an was "extremely refined and the glaze color was crystal clear, which was highly prized at that time." Jingdezhen is a famous porcelain-making center, and its products are exported to various places. The traditional celadon produced in Longquan, Zhejiang was still top-grade at that time.

Other industries such as papermaking, printing, tea making, and firearms manufacturing are also quite developed. Today, Song porcelain has become a famous artwork in ancient China and is well-known at home and abroad. Mining and metallurgy occupied an important position in the handicraft industry of the Northern Song Dynasty. The development of the mining and metallurgical industry is highlighted by the expansion of mining and smelting scale and the increase in output.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the mining and smelting of gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, and coal was quite large-scale. In Liguojian, northeast of Xuzhou, an important iron smelting center, there are 36 smelters and about 4,000 miners. Jiangxi Xinzhou (Shangrao) and its surroundings are rich in copper and lead. "More than 100,000 people are often recruited to dig day and night, yielding tens of millions of catties of copper and lead." Among the iron smelting sites in Fanchang, Anhui, there is a scrap iron pile about 2 meters high and covering an area of ??750 square meters, reflecting the scale of smelting at that time. On the basis of the expansion of mining and smelting scale, the number of products has greatly increased. Taking copper and silver as an example, Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty paid more than 14 million jins of copper and more than 200,000 taels of silver per year. Calculated according to the two-tenths tax rate levied by the government, it can be inferred that the annual output is more than 70 million jins of copper and more than 1 million taels of silver. The output exceeded that of the Tang Dynasty several times. In addition, mining and smelting technology has also made great progress. The shipbuilding industry of the Song Dynasty ranked first in the world.

Kaifeng was the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty. Southeast water transportation was very important. Ships were an indispensable means of transportation. In addition, the prosperity of overseas trade promoted the progress of the shipbuilding industry.

The government-run workshops mainly build tank boats, but also build ships, warships, troop carriers, etc., while the private workshops manufacture merchant ships and pleasure boats. Taking watercraft as an example, during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong, the annual output reached more than 2,900 ships. The size and load capacity of ships in the Northern Song Dynasty were quite large. The large-scale ship built during Huizong's reign to go to Korea was called the "Shenzhou". It is estimated that it can carry more than 20,000 stones of cargo and has a load capacity of about 1,100 tons. Sea-going ships are all pointed-bottomed ships with "the upper side is as balanced as a balance and the lower side is like a blade". They have the advantages of deep draft and strong resistance to wind and waves. The main mast on the seagoing ship is ten feet high, the headmast is eight feet high, and there are 110 sails. The whole ship is divided into three cabins, and the middle cabin is divided into four cabins. This kind of compartment waterproofing equipment is the first of its kind by Chinese shipbuilders.

What is more worth pointing out is that the compass had been used in navigation at that time, which was ancient China's great contribution to world civilization. In the Northern Song Dynasty, when the boat was sailing, the captain would watch the stars at night and the sun during the day. If it was cloudy, he would look at the compass.

During the Southern Song Dynasty, the shipbuilding industry developed further. Shipbuilding industry centers such as Mingzhou, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou still manufacture large sea-going ships. In 1974, a seagoing ship from the late Southern Song Dynasty was unearthed in Quanzhou Bay, Fujian. Based on its length, width and depth, the load capacity should be more than 200 tons. The shape and structure of this ship are consistent with the records of the Song Dynasty. What is particularly noteworthy is that it has as many as thirteen cabins.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, cars and ships were also commonly manufactured. Cars and boats are equipped with wheels and use pedal wheels to move through the water. Block printing developed rapidly in the Northern Song Dynasty and was widely used to engrave books.

The books engraved by the Imperial Academy were later called the imperial edition. Books printed by private bookstores are called Fangben. The capital Kaifeng, Hangzhou in Zhejiang, Jianyang in Fujian, and Meishan in Sichuan are all centers of the printing industry.

There were many types of paper in the Northern Song Dynasty. Bamboo, rattan, mulberry, hemp, etc. were all raw materials for paper making. Sichuan's cloth-headed paper and cold-gold paper, Shezhou's Ningshuang and Chengxin, Xuanzhou's chestnut paper, Zhejiang's rattan paper, Wenzhou's fern paper, etc. are all famous varieties. Shezhou produces a kind of long paper, which is very finely made. A piece of paper is fifty feet long and can be evenly thin from beginning to end. With the improvement of textile level, silk weaving still dominated the textile industry in the Northern Song Dynasty.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the silk industry gradually formed two centers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Sichuan. The reputation of silk fabrics in Shu is the best in the world.

After the Song Dynasty was overthrown, 200 brocade weavers from Shu were captured and brought back to Beijing, where they were placed to work in the Lingjin Academy. Later, Song Taizu continued to absorb brocade craftsmen from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, and Huzhou, and the team grew day by day, forming Bian embroidery, also known as official embroidery and palace embroidery.

Bian embroidery integrates the strengths of various schools and reaches its highest level. In the fourth year of Chongning (1105), under the strong advocacy of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, Wenxiu Academy was formally established as a higher education institution specializing in embroidery, similar to today's vocational and technical colleges. After the fall of the Song Dynasty, this kind of embroidery was also called Song embroidery. To this day, there are four famous embroideries in China: Su embroidery, Hunan embroidery, Shu embroidery, and Guangdong embroidery, but Bian embroidery is not the only one.

There are many kinds of silk fabrics, with more than fifty kinds of silk and twenty-seven kinds of damask. Ke (engraved) silk from Dingzhou, Hebei Province uses silk threads of various colors to weave beautiful and lifelike flowers, plants, birds and animals. The thin strings in Shanzhou, Jingdong, each weigh only a hundred plants (four taels), and look like fog. These are silk treasures. The linen weaving industry is concentrated in the southeastern region. Huainan, Jiangnan, Jinghu, Fujian, Guangnan and other roads all produce linen fabrics. Among them, the Zongbu from Huang, Yi, Yuan, Ji and other states, and the white cotton from Qianzhou, were the best-selling products in the market at that time.

During the Southern Song Dynasty, silk weaving technology had new improvements. The three famous government-run brocade academies in Suzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu each have hundreds of looms and thousands of craftsmen. They are large in scale, have meticulous division of labor, have a wide variety of silk fabrics, and have exquisite and beautiful products.

The most important achievement in the textile industry of the Southern Song Dynasty was the further development of the cotton textile industry. With the promotion of cotton cultivation, the cotton textile industry gradually became popular. In the poem "Kapok" written by the Song Dynasty, there are lines such as "The car turns with light thunder and the snow is spun in autumn, the bow is bent to play with the clouds on a half-moon night,... the machine has been working hard all the year round", which reflects the labor of skewers, playing flowers, spinning and weaving. process, as well as the various cotton textile tools used such as iron collars, slingshots, spinning wheels, and looms.

Due to the emergence of new textile tools, it is possible to weave floral cloth with fine characters and small flowers. In 1966, a burial cotton blanket was unearthed from an ancient tomb of the Southern Song Dynasty in Lanxi County, Zhejiang Province, indicating that the Jiangnan region could not only weave cloth, but also weave blankets, reflecting the new development of the cotton textile industry. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the identity and status of craftsmen in official and private handicraft workshops changed.

Private workshops use hired craftsmen, who receive money and rice as employment value. The employment value varies with different periods and different departments. The craftsmen employed in government-run workshops include military craftsmen transferred from the army and still have military status, as well as craftsmen recruited from the private sector and hired craftsmen. In addition, there is a kind of craftsman who works as a chaplain, called "Dangxing" or "Lingcha". This kind of craftsman was only used as a auxiliary in the Northern Song Dynasty. They are different from the craftsmen of the Tang Dynasty. They do not serve for free, but are paid A certain "employment value". In some production departments, such as money-casting workshops, a method similar to piece-rate employment has emerged. These circumstances all show that the feudal personal constraints on craftsmen in the Northern Song Dynasty have been relaxed.