The Era of Chinese Predominance, 1000–1500^31the northern Sung.^19 After 1126 the city of Hang-chou, at the other
end of the Grand Canal, where the southern Sung dynasty established
its headquarters, played a similarly dominating role.
Against this background of commercial expansion and agricultural
specialization, the growth of the iron and steel production of the
eleventh century seems less amazing. It was, indeed, only part of a
general upsurge of wealth and productivity resulting from specializa
tion of skills and fuller utilization of natural resources that intensifying
market exchanges permitted and encouraged. Yet the vigorous pursuit
of private advantage in the marketplace, especially when it allowed
upstart individuals to accumulate conspicuous amounts of wealth, ran
counter to older Chinese values. Moreover, these traditional values
were firmly and effectually institutionalized in the government. Of
ficials, recruited by examination based on the Confucian classics,
habitually looked askance at the more flamboyant expressions of the
commercial spirit. Thus, for example, a high official named Hsia Sung
(d. 1051) wrote:
... since the unification of the empire, control over the mer
chants has not yet been well established. They enjoy a luxurious
way of life, living on dainty foods and delicious rice and meat,
owning handsome houses and many carts, adorning their wives
and children with pearls and jades, and dressing their slaves in
white silk. In the morning they think about how to make a for
tune, and in the evening they devise means of fleecing the
poor. ... In the assignment of corvee duties they are treated
much better by the government than average rural households,
and in the taxation of commercial duties they are less rigidly
controlled than commoners. Since this relaxed control over mer
chants is regarded by the people as a common rule, they despise
agricultural pursuits and place high value on an idle living by
trade.^20
Since official doctrine held that the emperor “should consider the
Empire as if it formed a single household,”^21 the right of imperial
officials to intervene and alter existing patterns of production and
exchange was never in doubt. The only issue was whether a given
policy was practically enforceable and whether it would serve the
19. Cf. Etienne Balazs, “Une Carte des centres commerciaux de la Chine à la fin du
XIe siècle,” Annales: Economies sociétés, civilisations 12 (1957): 587–93.
20. Shiba, “Urbanization,” p. 43.
21. A phrase attributed to anonymous Confucian literati in a remarkable debate on
state economic policy that occurred in 81 B.c. Cf. Gale, Discourse on Salt and Iron, p. 74.