Research On The Handicraft Industry And Commerce Development In Xiangyang Region During Song Dynasty

During the war-torn Song Dynasty, with its favorable military geographic location and transportation systems connecting South and North, Xiangyang region played a significant role in improving the political situations of both Northern and Southern Song Dynasty. Its rising and falling influenced the Han River valley and the middle reaches of Yangtze a lot. However, there are few researches on its politics, economy, society, culture, and so forth. Hence, from the industrial and commercial perspective, this paper studies its social and economic development during that period, so as to unveil the level and characteristics of the economic development in the entire border area at the moment.In history, industrial and commercial development generally base on prosperous agriculture. One of properties of Song agriculture's development lies on obvious commercialized tendency. Therefore, it tops the priority to analyze the properties of commercialization-inclined agriculture, like the main economical plants growing and fishery, etc in Xiangyang region during Song Dynasty, in order to deepen the research on the whole industrial and commercial development of Song Dynasty. Based on that, the paper shows the following handicraft industry advanced evidently during that time, such as textiles, lacquer wares manufacturing, shipbuilding, brewing, ect.In the meantime, the business there developed too. The commercial taxation reflects that Xiangyang's commercial level took the lead both in the region and Jingxi'nanlu and ranked the middle class national wide. With the spread of advanced official and private industrial and commercial economy, the ts'ao-shih and the chen-shih in Xiangyang region began to rise. Nevertheless, due to the man-made trade barriers, the smuggling through Xiangyang region to Jin Dynasty became rampant. During Southern Song Dynasty, stimulated by military, Huhui (湖会) was firstly issued in the region and Han River became the artery of the local transportation for cargos, which propelled the region's development of handicraft industry and ommerce associated with the military to some extent.However, Xiangyang's industry and commerce, which grow up under wars were frequently and severely damaged, while its superior political position came more from its favorable military geographic location than its economic strength. It was universal in the border area at that moment. From the perspective of Jianghan Plain in Song Dynasty, Ezhou had already passed Xiangyang in economic strenth while Yangzts gradually took place of Han River in transportation.