How developed was the Jiangnan region at the end of the Ming Dynasty?

It is not enough to say that it is developed, and the budding capitalism is also nonsense, but it is only wealthy, which is the ideal pinnacle of traditional Chinese society. The Song and Ming dynasties promoted the development of commerce because of the accumulation of agriculture and wealth, and because of the rise of Jiangnan Shizi culture, pluralistic ideas came into being.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Jiangnan was a highly developed economic and cultural area, with a high level of education and independent thinking, and a stronger retention and love for traditional culture, and a greater love for their relatively wealthy homeland.

So far, the Jiangnan Water Town is still a place with beautiful scenery and yearning for viewing. At the beginning, Jiangnan was actually the most developed place, people and I can carry out commodity economy exchanges, they can build their favorite houses, commodity trading is free to operate, financial reports can actually be used as trading goods, people's lives are very good, and every family is prosperous.

During the Southern Song Dynasty, the economic center of gravity had been shifted to the south, and the economy in the south was much more developed than in the north. Paper money has become popular, and the market has broken through the time and geographical limitations. You can imagine the bustle of the market in the Jiangnan area of the Ming Dynasty.

It's similar to the current situation in Shenzhen, but after I went to Shenzhen, I found that on the surface, Shenzhen is very developed and developing rapidly, but that is just the appearance of rich people, most of the migrant workers are outsiders, and the living conditions are not good, and the working hours are also very long.

The accumulation and affluence of agriculture promoted the development of commerce, which was the rise of Jiangnan Shizi culture.

Just like the coastal areas now, they are rich in materials and prosperous in culture.

2017 • New Lesson Standard) In the early and middle Ming period, the imperial court had a set of strict regulations on the use of eating utensils, such as the use of jade utensils. By the late Ming Dynasty, even low-level ** and even ordinary people used jade utensils. This change reflects the impact of economic development on the hierarchical order.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Dongchang Province, through which the Grand Canal flows, is the most important cotton producing area in Shandong, and most of the cotton produced is collected by Jianghuai merchants, transported along the canal to Jiangnan, and then sold back cotton cloth. The main factor in this phenomenon is regional economic differences.

2012 Jianghan) During the Ming Dynasty, Suzhou appeared "the east of the county town, all learn the machine industry, craftsmen have their own expertise, craftsmen have permanent owners, machine households contribute, mechanics contribute, and daily value" phenomenon. The earliest industry in which this phenomenon appeared was the textile industry.

2012 New Course Standard) He Liangjun, a native of Songjiang in the late Ming Dynasty, wrote: "(Zhengde) before, the people were eleven in the official and the nineteenth in the field ......Today, there are three times as many people who go to agriculture and change their careers to become industrialists and businessmen. In the past, there were no wanderers, but now there are two or three out of ten people who go to the farm and take advantage of food (to make a living).

In the words of about 10 people, they have gone to farming for six or seven. From this, it can be seen that the development of industry and commerce has led to changes in the structure of society.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the industrial form in the towns of Jiangnan was dominated by independent small workshops, and silk and cotton broke into the rural economic life, in a single area, it was often mainly manifested in changing the income structure of rural families, and the land in the south was more fertile, and the climate was suitable, suitable for farming, especially for two seasons.

With the increasing number of industrial and commercial cities, there are more than 50 relatively developed cities, and in the Qing Dynasty it can reach 100, and with the continuous development of the commodity economy and the continuous change of urban relations, a series of industrial and commercial fields in the Qing Dynasty, it has become active in the common relationship.

The rapid development of agricultural handicrafts, the progress of handicraft technology, the strengthening of regional division of labor and commercial activities, the support of the first industry, mainly industrial and commercial activities, the south is far away from the war, the population is large, and the transportation is convenient.

I think that the Southern Ming Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty are fundamentally different, there are no particularly good leaders, and there are no particularly good policies.

Because the development of the Nanming regime was not particularly good, and the rule of the Nanming regime was not very good, it did not become the second Southern Song Dynasty.

Because it is not easy to become the second Southern Song Dynasty, and few people can do it, so we must look at it rationally.

Because the south is rich and the north is poor. In ancient times, reading was a light luxury. Because in ancient times, men were important laborers, and they were an important force in agricultural life.

If you choose to study, you will give up farm work and spend a lot of time studying and attending private schools. That is, not only can you not be a part of the breadwinner, but you also need to waste chewing grain and money, ancient books are also very expensive, and copying books is only a hard work. Because there are many water towns, abundant grain production, and active commerce in the south, the south is generally richer than the north, and cultivating the children of the clan to study is not only a matter of honoring the ancestors, but also a way to make the family prosperous.

Therefore, the style of reading in the south is much better than that in the north. This is also an important and fundamental reason why there are generally more southerners than northerners in the imperial examinations in the past dynasties.

We know that during the Song Dynasty, China's economic center of gravity had already begun to shift southward (this had to do with the excessive number of wars in the north at that time). By the end of the Ming Dynasty, China's economic center of gravity had shifted southward, and the center of gravity of Chinese was also greatly affected in the process. As for the degree of economic development at the end of the Ming Dynasty, this is related to its social conditions at that time.

In terms of culture, there have been many summary works in science and technology, such as "The Complete Book of Agricultural Administration", "Heavenly Creations" and so on; Economically, the social relations of production have changed, and the emergence of "machine workers" and "stove builders" and the resulting emergence of the germ of capitalism have greatly promoted the development of social economy; Politically, the rulers vigorously developed the economy, especially in the Ming Chengzu period, the economy was greatly developed, and only then did Zheng He's seven knowledge or pretend to go to the West. Due to the fact that many of the northern wars in China's history were leaked to the south, the relative stability of the south gave a great guarantee for economic development, and the later rulers increased their development policies towards the south, so the phenomenon of development in the south at the end of the Ming Dynasty appeared.

During the Southern Song Dynasty, the southward shift of China's economic center of gravity was finally completed.

The specific situation of the budding capitalism in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, capitalist production relations, that is, employment relations, emerged in some handicraft sectors in the south of the Yangtze River. It is manifested in three aspects: First, in Suzhou and Hangzhou, the center of the silk weaving industry, machine owners hire machine workers.

Some large workshop owners, namely "machine owners", use the accumulated funds to set up manual workshops - machine rooms, and hire machine workers to produce (machine workers refer to urban civilians with free labor), that is, "machine owners contribute, and machine workers contribute", and they form a relationship between employment and employment, machine owners are early capitalists, and machine workers are hired workers, and the relationship between the two is basically pure economy, that is, commodity money relations. The mechanic contributes his labor force into a commodity, and the machine owner contributes capital and pays the wages to the mechanic. Second, in Songjiang, the center of the cotton textile industry, contractors hired residents.

Merchants in Songjiang, the center of the cotton textile industry in the Ming Dynasty, opened summer sock shops, and used abundant funds to purchase a large number of Youdun cloth (fine, soft three-gauze cloth improved on the basis of Wunijing quilt) to distribute to the local residents to weave summer socks, and pay wages by piece, so that an employment relationship was formed between the merchants and the residents. These contractors directly control production, and in essence, commercial capital controls production, except that in the process, commercial capital is transformed into industrial capital. Third, employment relations also appear in Guangdong's iron smelting and iron manufacturing industries.

The essence is the manifestation of the emergence of the germ of capitalism.

Because since ancient times, the Chinese culture carried forward from the Central Plains region has been in the north of China, and the north has a strong military force, so few dynasties have their capital in Jiangnan.

The area south of the Yangtze River is mostly plain, with no tall peaks or steep passes. Once invaded by the enemy, it is easy to attack and difficult to defend, and it will be broken in a few months.