Superpower Interrupted by Michael Schuman

Author:Michael Schuman [SCHUMAN, MICHAEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2020-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

In Damask City, in the silkworm markets,

Hairpins of pearl and emerald fill the street.

A hundred thousand rouged faces, jade cicadas and gold peacocks

In priceless coiffed hair, earrings of tinkling flower bouquets

And embroidered gowns.40

Ports, and the towns around them, were buzzing commercial hubs, crammed with merchants and stacked high with the produce of China and the world. Guangzhou on the southeast coast was one of the main connection points between China and the global economy, and grew fat as a result. In the nearby estuary of the Pearl River could be found “the argosies of the Brahmans, the Persians and the Malays, their number beyond reckoning, all laden with aromatics, drugs, and rare and precious things, their cargoes heaped like hills,” according to a Buddhist monk, Jianzhen, who visited in 748. The trade enriched those Chinese businessmen willing to sacrifice the comforts of more tame regions—Guangzhou then was considered a frontier outpost, no less remote than a Silk Road oasis. But the rewards were often worth the troubles. Jianzhen told of the local governor, “who carries six yaktails, with an army for each yaktail, and who in his majesty and dignity is not to be distinguished from the Son of Heaven.”41 (The emperor would probably have disagreed.)

The tremendous wealth wasn’t limited to the biggest cities. Signs of prosperity were everywhere in the empire. Fan Chengda, a government official, described the stately homes, lofty mansions, and busy marketplaces of the countryside as he traveled by river from Chengdu to Suzhou (not far from modern Shanghai) in 1177. He found that two villages he passed through in the early days of the journey “are flourishing and prosperous, like a thriving town.” Everything was a model of Chinese industriousness. “Village women grouped together and observed us on the road. All of them were knitting hemp as they walked, and there was not one among them with idle hands.”42 Later in the trip, he stopped at one Yangzi River town (now modern Wuhan) that was even more impressive. “Along the course of the river are several tens of thousands of homes,” he wrote. “The marketplaces and villages here are very prosperous. The rows of shops are as thick as the teeth on a comb. The tower railings of the wine shops are especially grand and beautiful.… There is nothing that is not sold. Moreover, the quantity does not matter, for in one day everything is gone, so prosperous and vigorous is the trading here.”43

The amount of wealth was so alluring that it even made one educated gentleman—Song-era poet Lu You—question (at least lyrically) the standard Confucian preference for scholarship over salesmanship.

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