Part 5 · 1 chapters · ~8 min

Song: Commerce, Printing, Gunpowder

The Song founding (960), the Northern Song at Kaifeng and the Southern Song at Hangzhou, the examination system and scholar-officials, Neo-Confucianism, printing and movable type, paper money, gunpowder and the compass, rice agriculture and population growth, cities and maritime trade, Song painting, and the Jurchen and Mongol pressure that ended it.

6

The early modern economy

Many historians describe the Song as an early commercial revolution: new rice varieties (Champa rice) supported population growth to perhaps 100 million, markets and guilds spread, and maritime trade through Quanzhou and Guangzhou reached South-East Asia, India and East Africa. Song porcelain has been found on the Swahili coast (Ancient Kingdoms P10).

Dieter Kuhn, The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China (2009); Shen Kuo, Dream Pool Essays (1088) on movable type and the compass; Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China (1954 onwards); Patricia Ebrey (2010).

SONG: A COMMERCIAL AND TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
960-1279
printingWoodblock printing widespread; BiSheng's movable type (1040s, perShen Kuo).paper moneyJiaozi notes in Sichuan from theearly 11th century; state-issuedlater.gunpowderFormulas recorded in the WujingZongyao (1044); used in war.the compassMagnetic compass used fornavigation by about 1100.the examinationsMerit-based exams staff thebureaucracy; a scholar-officialclass.cities and tradeKaifeng and Hangzhou among theworld's largest cities; maritimetrade.
swipe the figure sideways, or tap expand for full screen
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print and paper money
Printing made books cheap and spread learning; paper money (jiaozi) began in Sichuan in the early 11th century, the world's first, and the state later issued its own, with inflation when it printed too much.
first paper moneyand early inflation