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When Emperor Taizu founded the Song dynasty, he capitalized on his strength in building a centralized bureaucracy characterized with civilian scholar officials. During the expansion and development of the kingdom, centrally appointed officials replaced the reigning regional military governors (Zhang, 2015). By transforming the leadership from a military to civilian system, the dynasty developed under greater power concentration in the emperor’s bureaucratic palace. Amidst this change in leadership style, Song is notable for cities including the capital Bianjing city (the present Kaifeng) that were developed for both administrative trade and maritime commerce purposes. This made the region known for the economic and cultural development during the years 800 to 1150 CE. The scholar-officials were required to live in provincial centers together with traders and artisans. With the culture changing in favor of printing and education, there arose a new caste of wealthy commoners in the mercantile class. Therefore, Bianjing city promoted private trade, while a market economy started linking up the provinces along the coast with the interior hinterland, as seen in the map (Appendix 1). Overall, it is imperative that the change in leadership from the traditional military rule to a civilian dynasty was responsible for the economic and cultural advancement not only in Bianjing city but also in the entire regional bloc.

Bianjing city is an image of leadership change spurring development of culture and the economy. Due to the opportunities that were created, it was no longer landholding and government the main source of employment or gaining wealth in the Chinese society. Instead, when the city’s leadership came up with paper money supported by a unified approach to taxation, development of a national market system was a reality. The development of the nationwide market system and an effective tax system led to the Chinese industrial revolution controlled from the Bianjing city (Chant & ‎Goodman, 2005). The city developed a very prosperous and well managed economy during the medieval age. They majorly invested their income in creating joint stock companies as well as in building sailing vessels while monetary revenue was an assurance from the rapidly growing international trade as well as their domestic trade in the Grand Canal and also through the Yangzi River.

In areas where the government was not yet operating monopoly business industries, prominent merchants as well as private business holders operated and managed industries. In this way, the privately owned together with the government-controlled industries effectively provided for the growing needs of the Chinese population. To facilitate this trade growth was the group of artisans and trade merchants who formed trade clubs (or associations)through which the state assessed taxes, for placing goods requisitions, and also for setting up standardsused in determining unified wages for workers and harmonized prices of goods sold(Liu, 1997). As a result of the nationwide system of trade, it is estimated that Bianjing city’s GDP per capita income incorporating the parity in the people’s purchasing power was more than $600 based on the 1990 international dollar rate. This was way above the GDP per capita income for Western Europe that was estimated at about $550 during the same period in 1000 C.E. It is actually after 1300 C.E. that Western Europe went ahead of China in the per capita income. Further, the growing need to make use of water energy in South region led to several other inventions that included irrigation for food production and for flood control.

It is estimated that during the period, the Chinese per capita output of iron was six times higher between the years 806 and 1078. In fact by 1078, 125,000 tons of iron was being produced annually, while the per capita consumption was about 1.5 kilograms annually when compared with the 0.5 kilograms consumption in Europe. It is not, therefore strange that the Song kingdom was able to produce ploughs, hand tools such as hammers, needles, and pins as well as other routine items used in their indigenous market and for export trade. At the same time, the military was supplied with new-look weaponry from the new technique of carbonized iron with the invention of steel.

With the development of the new financial institutions in Bianjing city, the technological advances in Chinese mathematics grew significantly. The growth of these intellectual fields was largely facilitated by the growing possibility and need for mass production of books. Therefore, the commercial activity coupled with the new methods of mass production as well as other supporting technologies provided favorable conditions for the speculative investment that drove the market at the time. It is possible that from these developments social historians trace the beginning of typical precursors of capitalist institutions such as urban professional guild systems, wealth concentrations in the mobile families, and the advances of liquid currencies.

Other than the advances in trade and industry during 1000 C. E., Bianjing city in the south Song dynasty was also known for its very brilliant cultural dispensation that characterized its place in the Chinese history.There were remarkable paintings depicting the regional landscapes around the city. These were artistic works of the artists who had fled into the mountainous regions while escaping the violence that occurred towards the last years of the Tang leadership. The artists were inspired by the magnificent landscape of the area and found peace. This was significant in shaping their moral order that they thought had escaped mankind during that time. During this dispensation, it is recorded how under the Imperial Painting Academy, painters where selected from the entire Song empire in service to the needs of the imperial court. Of course this had radically changed during the Neo-Confucianism period. However, in the cultural scene, the Bianjing city made significant refinement of many of the cultural developments inherited from previous centuries. For instance, during this period, the Tang ideal regarding the universal man was refined. The ideal combined the scholarly qualities of man, the poetic ideal, the painter’s ideal, and the statesman perspective. However, in the Song era, the historical writings were also incorporated alongside paintings, calligraphic representations, the porcelain on hard glaze works, and the Chinese Inkstones. In making these refinements, the Bianjing intellectuals were seeking the philosophical and political answers to questions raised by the Confucian Classics. It is not strange that this facilitated renewal of the interest in the ideals of the Confucian era in which the ancient time society came as a result of the declining Buddhism. According to the Chinese, such had earlier been considered foreign and that it offered little practical guidance to their political and other domestic problems. The picture below shows the cultural development that the city was experiencing back then. A sense of community as people work together and a culture of hard work are evident, as people move around (Liu, 1997).

The change in leadership during the Emperor Taizu rule over the Song dynasty made significant structural changes that facilitated rapid but stable economic and cultural development of Bianjing city in general. By changing the traditional military leadership to a civilian approach, it was easy to spur the economic and cultural advancement beyond the Song cities to the entire regional bloc through local and international cross-cultural trade. Generally, the increased economic activity in the regional south and the growing demand for the manufactured goods facilitated a major growth in scientific and technological activity. Historical accounts of the history of Chinese science indicate that almost every significant invention in the Chinese science has its root in the Song period.

References

Chant, C. & ‎Goodman, D. (2005). Pre-Industrial cities and technology. London: Routledge.

Liu, H. (1997). Painting and commerce in Northern Song Dynasty China, 960-1126.New York, NY: Yale University Press.

Qizhi Zhang, Q. (2015).An Introduction to Chinese history and culture. New York, NY: Springer.

Appendix 1: Ancient map, location of the city, which is also known as Kaifeng in ancient China