Textile industrial news

Temperature and vegetation, look at the ice and fire double sky of silkworm textile industry in the middle ancient times

The middle ancient period is an important period of change in Chinese history. After the destruction and reorganization of social order, many basic elements of the society have also changed significantly. In the economic field, the most prominent change is that with the continuous contraction of the urban commodity economy, physical objects gradually replace money as the medium of commodity exchange. Silk is one of the most important physical media. In the same period, the climate of our country experienced an obvious cooling process, which made many natural vegetation originally growing in the North unable to adapt to the cold climate, and the number of plants decreased sharply, which was one of the reasons for the large migration of the northern minorities in the middle ancient period. As an important raw material for silk production, mulberry is bound to be affected, resulting in a large number of production reduction. The decrease of silk coincided with the time when silk became the main medium of commodity exchange, which also aroused the author's thinking, and then hoped to investigate the effect and influence of climate on the northern silkworm textile and even the whole Northern Dynasty economy.

Silk and silk appeared as daily necessities in Chinese society in the pre-Qin period. Historical records: the biography of fan Ju and Cai Ze: "it was given by taking one of his robes." Sima Zhen index: "I, thick also, sound, cover today's also." "She" is a kind of heavy and smooth textile. According to Shi Ming, "she is like the color of Ti Chong, green and lustrous." However, in the Han Dynasty, there was a very clear legal regulation on the width and width of silk. In the annals of Han Dynasty, the width of cloth and silk was two feet and two inches, and the length of silk was four feet. According to the law of the second year of Zhangjiashan Han bamboo slips and the law of Guanshi, "those who sell cloth with a width of less than two feet and two inches do not enter." It can be seen that the silk in social circulation should be four Zhang long and two foot two inch wide. In the period of Emperor Wu, "emperor Tianzi came to Shuofang in the north, sealed Mount Tai in the East, toured the sea, and returned to the north. Over a million pieces of silk have been used for the reward, and a huge sum of money and gold has been used for large-scale farming. ". During the reign of emperor Xuandi, he relied heavily on Huo Guang. Before his death, "before and after the reward, he was rewarded with 7000 Jin of gold, 60 million yuan, 30000 miscellaneous pieces, 170 slaves, 2000 horses, and the first district of a". The Western Han government was able to use silk on such a large scale, which was enough to prove that silk was a very common and common object in the society at that time.

However, in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the phenomenon changed obviously. According to the book of Wei, preface: "there were few silk in the Middle Kingdom, and Xu Qian stole two silk. "I can't bear to look at the face of modesty," Yan Feng said. To commit suicide with humility or shame, to humiliate a man for his wealth, is not right. " This shows that before the founding of the Northern Wei Dynasty, silk had been a rare commodity, and the number of silk circulated in the whole country was very small. But because of the high economic value of silk, some people would not hesitate to steal silk. Xu Qian, however, was called by the book of Wei as "a man of few literary talents who is good at astronomy and divination.". At the time of the founding of the people's Republic of China, he attached his family and became a famous scholar. He was promoted to act as a doctor's agent and also took charge of the literary records. With Yan and Feng, the emperor's Sutra is presented. It can be seen that Xu Qian was already a official official in the period of emperor Zhaocheng, and he should steal silk in this period. This shows that Xu Qian, as a state official, stole silk regardless of his identity and reputation for some reason. In addition, Xu Qian and Yan Feng are the trusted officials of emperor Zhaocheng and Emperor Daowu. As for his moral integrity, although there is no clear statement in the historical books, his resourceful political achievements are remarkable, and his character should not be too shabby. Therefore, no matter what the motive is, it is enough to prove the value and scarcity of silk at that time.

Moreover, in terms of the total number, in the early days of the founding of the Northern Wei Dynasty, not only the Tuoba regime in the north, but also the Eastern Jin regime in the South was far less than the Han Dynasty in the use of silk. According to Wei Shu, "Sima Dezong will command Liu Yufa and Yao Hong to take Wang Zhongde as the forward and force the slide.". Yanzhou Cishi and Weijian abandoned the city and Jihe, and Zhongde entered the slide. But the Manifesto said: "Jin originally intended to fake the way to Wei with 70000 pieces of cloth and silk, not to say that the governor of Wei would abandon the city." Although this sentence is a provocative language during the period of confrontation between the two armies, it can be seen from the side that the two countries sometimes deal with relevant affairs through the medium of cloth and silk. The price of such events is about tens of thousands of cloth, which is very small compared with the amount of millions of cloth in Han Dynasty. Then, based on the above two points, we can know that there was a serious shortage of silk before and after the founding of the Northern Wei Dynasty, which affected both the commodity circulation at the folk level and the interest transmission between countries.

Therefore, the author thinks that the climate factors should be added to the reasons summarized by previous scholars, which makes silk have the specific characteristics of rarity. Because the total amount of silk in the society is decreasing, the value of silk itself is increasing. At the same time, it makes ordinary people pay more attention to silk, and they are willing to accept silk as a medium of commodity exchange to circulate in the society after experiencing social turbulence. As a result, silk became the general equivalent instead of money, and had an important influence on the later commercial development.