Hi, I’ve been reading on Sung China and I just had a couple questions concerning two specific areas of Sung economy.
I’ve been reading that early-ripening rice was important, but I couldn’t find any information regarding what exactly it is, and how it was important to Sung China economically. Any insight?
How was the maritime trade during this time period? Did the Sung’s trade internationally? Was the navy important during this period (did they even have a navy?)
This one’s straightforward - farmers could turn around more harvests in the same amount of time. A huge boon in an agrarian society.
The Song had a huge coastline, and absolutely traded internationally - with the rest of Asia and the Middle East. There were advances in shipbuilding and they established an advanced “Seabourne Silk Road”.
I’m not sure about a navy. While the Song brought many cultural and technical advances, they weren’t very strong militarily.
The biggest asset ( in addition to producing two crops in warm areas as charizad mentioned ) is that it allowed rice cultivation to spread north into areas were previously the growing season had been too short to support it, effectively doubling the cultivatable land in China.
Immense. China has a plentitude of good anchorages and commerce in general grew to dominate the economy, expanding 130-fold between 10th century and the 12th - by the 11th century state trade revenue equalled agrarian tax revenue, by the late 12th and 13th century it considerably exceeded it. Just as an example of the expansion of industry, in the late-11th century China was producing almost twice as much iron annually as England was in the mid-18th century. Internal riverine and canal traffic in particular hit an all time high, expanding eventually to a network 50,000 kilometers long, with veritable floating cities forming in areas where it was most dense.
Yes and yes. The mercantile fleet seems to have traded extensively with southeast Asia and to some extent the Indian Ocean.
While charizad was quite correct that Sung armies were woefully inefficient ( overmanned and immensely expensive ), consisting of peasant conscripts ( many if not most unwilling ) and mercenaries, their navy appears to have been rather more formidable ( though it too started declining in the final decades ). It fought in engagements against the Chin/Kin of northen China in 1130 and 1161 and Kublai Khan was forced to basically create a navy from scratch ( partly with Sung defectors ) in order to force the Yangtze line and breach the Sung coastal defences - the final battle of the Mongol conquest actually took place at sea in 1279, where the last Sung emperor drowned.
Also in fairness to the Sung, their army did manage to hold the main Mongol army for a few decades ( granted with the advantages of favorable terrain and numerical sueriority ), which is more than can be said for any state in Europe or the Middle East.