Song To Qing Dynasty Analysis

Song to Qing’s Commercial and Society In later imperial period China, Chinese society was constantly developing commercialization. Song dynasty, Northern Song and Southern Song, both located their capital at a communication center: near yellow river and Yangzi river. As the result, two capitals had become highly commercialized administration cities. Until early Qing dynasty, there were more open trades with western world, as well as more developed internal trading routes; the commercialization has reached its peak in late imperial China. Although, Commercialization had changed China’s society in some way, but with more than two thousand years of Confucianism’s government centralization ideas and the scholars’ knowledge, the society in late imperial China still more shaped by the Confucian ethics until the western invasion and the fall of Qing dynasty. When northern Song was established in 960 AD, the government located their capital at …show more content…
But the traditional Confucian ethics limited their vision to change. The gap between upper level class and lower level class remain big. The four classes: Officers (shi), farmers (nong), artisans (gong), and merchants (shang) were still the main ideology among the government level. The officers were still the ruling level and merchants were still the commoners. This result in no matter how rich the merchant, the merchant was still a commoner. The tradition Confucian idea did not give much value to the merchants. The officers and elite level class were in control of the economy and society. The structure of the government was still centralized. Commercialization was a tool for the central government to make the society more stable and economy better. Merchants did not have any political power or the will to make changes to the society. The Confucian ethics were still the main idea of the