Tang Dynasty (618-907): Crafts and Trade Development
Tang Dynasty (618-907): Crafts and Trade Development
Crafts and Domestic Trade. Silk, paper, and porcelain were manufactured during the Tang dynasty. The Chinese were known for the high quality of their manufactured goods. Craft guilds appeared in many towns where crafts
men were concentrated. As a result of this industrial development, domestic trade increased. Improved transportation, as well as a new postal system that connected the capital with the outlying districts, also stimulated domestic trade.
Urban Development. Along with the growth in domestic trade, the cities and towns grew both in size and importance. Chang’an, the capital, was the focal point of the highly centralized state power and economic wealth. The city was organized in a checkerboard fashion with straight and wide north-south and east-west avenues that divided the city into 110 blocks. Chang’an had an estimated population of more than one million people. Other significant cities involved in trade, such as Loyang and Guangzhou (Canton), also experienced similar growth. Many provincial capitals had populations of more than one hundred thousand people.
International Trade. China was a cosmopolitan nation. The Tang welcomed traders from all over the world. Trade and diplomacy brought thousands of foreigners to Chang’an, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou. To a large degree, international trade during the Tang period was dominated by foreigners, especially the Persians, Arabs, and Uighurs. Foreign contacts brought many new agricultural products and inventions to China. Tea, for instance, was introduced from Southeast Asia, first as a medicine and a stimulant for meditation. During the Tang dynasty it was more widely served as a drink. The consumption of tea eventually spread to Europe, and tea became the most popular beverage in the world. Chairs were also introduced from the West; they gradually replaced traditional sitting pads and mats.
Foreign Settlements. One sign of the close contact with the outside world was the presence of large numbers of foreigners in China. Generally, there were three types of foreigners in the country during the Tang period: envoys, clerics, and merchants. Most foreigners came to China overland by caravan or overseas in large merchant ships that sailed across the Indian Ocean and China Seas. Guangzhou, a wealthy port city with a population of two hundred thousand, attracted many foreigners, who settled in the special quarter, an area set aside south of the Pearl River. They were monitored by a specially designated elder, and they enjoyed some extraterritorial privileges. However, foreign traders also encountered some restrictions. They were, for example, forbidden to wear Chinese costumes, to live in Chinese residential areas, and to intermarry with the Chinese. Furthermore, they were hardly free agents. Inter-national trade from the Chinese side was monopolized by the government. The “Commissioner for Commercial Argosies” in Guangzhou had controlled the government monopoly ever since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) in order to prevent smuggling and speculation by the great merchants. This practice, though it protected Chinese interests, frustrated many foreign merchants.
Foreign Culture. In addition to obtaining foreign products, contacts with the outside world also introduced new religions to China. Zoroastrianism (or Mazdaism), the fire-worshiping religion of Persia, arrived in China by the sixth century. Manichaeism and the Nestorian branch of Christianity also reached Tang China by the seventh century. These religions, however, were eliminated under the persecutions of 841-845. Yet, two other foreign religions survived this purge. Judaism was practiced in some small communities and is still present in modern times. The observance of Islam grew steadily, attracting millions of followers, and often became the breeding ground for popular revolts.
THE FOREIGN QUARTER IN CANTON
An historian describes some of the activities of foreigners who lived in Canton:
Many of these visitors settled in the foreign quarter of Canton, which by imperial sanction was set aside south of the river for the convenience of the many persons of diverse race and nationality who chose to remain in Canton to do business or to wait for favorable winds. They were ruled by a specially designated elder, and enjoyed some extraterritorial privileges. Here citizens of the civilized nations, such as the Arabs and Singhalese, rubbed elbows with less cultured merchants, such as the “White Man-barbarians and the Red Man -barbarians.” Here the orthodox, such as the Indian Buddhists in their own monasteries, whose pools were adorned with perfumed blue lotuses, were to be found close to the heterodox, such as the Shi’ah Muslims, who had fled persecution in Khurasan to erect their own mosque in the Far East. Here, in short, foreigners of every complexion, and Chinese of every province, summoned by the noon drum, thronged the great market, plotted m the warehouses, and haggled in the shops, and each day were dispersed by the sunset drum to return to their respective quarters or, on some occasions, to chaffer loudly in their outlandish accents in the night markets.
Source: Edward H. Scbafer, The Gulden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of Tang Exotics (Berkeley: University of California “Press, 1963), p. 15.
Sources
Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the T’ang Dynasty: The Fall ofSui and Rise of T’ang, a Preliminary Survey (Baltimore: Waverly, 1941).
John K. Fairbank and others, East Asia: Tradition and Transformation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973).
Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett, eds., The Cambridge History of China, volume 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368 (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
Witold Rodzinski, A History of China, 2 volumes (Oxford & New York: Pergamon, 1979, 1983).
Arthur F. Wright and Twitchett, eds., Perspectives on the Tang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973).