Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
tax revenue also changed over the Tang-Song transition. Mid-Tang
revenues were largely drawn from agricultural taxes, but by late Song
times commerce had expanded so much that commercial taxes
accounted for fully half of the government's tax revenue.
The monetary system also changed. Tang China used copper coins
as money, but by late Song times paper money was in widespread cir-
culation. Marco Polo described to an astonished Europe the use of
paper currency he encountered in Chinese cities just after the Mongol
conquest of China.
There were also important population and demographic shifts.
Chang'an, the Tang capital, had been more or less China's only major
city, but by late Song times there were more than 10 cities with popula-
tions of one million or more. Hangzhou, the capital of the Southern
Song, had a population of four million, which is quite large even by
modern North American standards. Marco Polo described the teeming
population, abundant luxuries, and unimaginable wealth and ingen-
uity he had encountered in Hangzhou, or “Quinsai” as he called the
city, during the late thirteenth century. The population of Song China
was already 100 million by 1100, far surpassing the Tang population
high mark of 60 million. Urbanization, of course, was a major trend
as a greater proportion of the Chinese population lived in cities by
the end of the Song. Demographic shifts accompanied the population
growth and urbanization as southern China was opened up to wet rice
cultivation, which feeds more people per square unit of surface area
than the dry cropping practiced in the north. In mid-Tang times the
majority of China's population lived in the north, but by the late Song
slightly over half of China's population lived in the south.
The quality of life of elite women worsened over the Tang-Song
transition. In Tang times it was not unusual for an elite gentleman to
view an educated and articulate woman as a very desirable
companion, and she would often accompany him at drinking or social
occasions. By Song times, however, several developments made life
grimmer for women. The cult of female chastity, seldom prevalent in
Tang times, was in full swing by the late Song, as was the idea that a
chaste and virtuous woman should never remarry, even if her first
husband died while in his youth. Concubinage was also much more
common during Song times. Perhaps most bizarre of all, the practice
of foot binding emerged during Five Dynasties and Song times. Foot
binding catered to the foot fetish of elite Song men, who found unnatu-
rally tiny feet attractive and normal-sized feet repulsive. To achieve
the standard of feminine beauty in foot size, or “three-inch golden
lotuses” as tiny feet were often called, many of the daughters in elite
