The following article is based on the study of the history and geography of China's frontiers.
A study on the evolution of tea and horse trade and horse price comparison in the Xihe and Qinfeng regions of the Northern Song Dynasty
Wu Lei
The Northern Song Dynasty made several adjustments to the tea and horse trade and horse price comparison methods in the Xihe and Qinfeng regions. During the Song Dynasty, Shenzong mainly implemented the method of "selling tea and horses", and set up a tea field division and a horse buying department to be jointly responsible for the tea and horse trade. The tea field division allocates the tea interest of the tea to the horse buying company as the capital for buying horses. The horse price comparison method used by the horse buying company has undergone many changes, and it is roughly evolved in the sequence of money horses, tea horses, money horses, and tea horses. During the period of Song Zhezong, the Tea Farm Division and the Horse Buying Division were merged into the Tea and Horse Division, and the system of supervising herding and coupons and horses was restored successively, and the horse price comparison system successively implemented the way of tea horses and money horses. During the Song Dynasty Huizong, the method of "using tea to buy horses" was implemented, and the tea and horse division used tea as the horse book, and the tea and horse price comparison method was adopted when buying horses, and the tea and horse trade and horse price comparison method were stably formed. The exploration of tea and horse trade and price comparison methods in the Northern Song Dynasty is of great pioneering significance in the history of ancient Chinese trade system.
The author, Wu Lei, is a distinguished researcher at the School of Literature, Journalism and Communication, Chengdu University. Address: No. 2025, Chengluo Avenue, Chengdu, 610106.
In the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, the tea and horse trade was carried out in Xihe, Qinfeng and Tibet, Shaanxi, and a long-term and complex exploration of the tea and horse trade and price comparison methods, and the tea and horse trade and price comparison methods have undergone many changes. In the 20s of the 20th century, Li Shixing's article "The History of the Tea and Horse Trade in the Initial Huabo" attributed the tea and horse trade in the Song Dynasty to "the exchange of tea and horses in the Song Dynasty", and the price comparison method of tea and horses was summarized as "a horse on a horse is worth a camel for tea". Later scholars generally followed Li Shixing's viewpoint, and did not further discuss the trade and price comparison methods of tea and horses in the Northern Song Dynasty, Sichuan, and Shaanxi. For example, Chen Panzhou believes that in the Song Dynasty, the tea and horse trade was run by the tea and horse division, "as for the comparison of tea and horses in the market, in the early Song Dynasty, tea was expensive and horses were cheap, and each load of tea could buy a high-quality horse." Since then, the academic research on the tea and horse trade and price comparison methods in the Song Dynasty has become more and more macroscopic. Jia Daquan summarized and studied the tea and horse trade in the Song Dynasty from the macro level. Huang Chunyan and Ding Yingying mentioned the tea and horse trade and price comparison methods as issues related to tea and horse politics in the Song Dynasty; Fang Wenqi, Yu Xuezhong, and Guo Junhao discussed the tea and horse trade and price comparison methods in the Northern Song Dynasty as an unchanged whole. In view of this, this paper focuses on the evolution of the tea and horse trade and price comparison methods in the Northern Song Dynasty.
1. The separation of tea and horses during the Xifeng period and the law of "selling tea and horses".
During the Xifeng period of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Horse Buying Division and the Tea Farm Division were successively set up, which were responsible for the tea and horse trade of Xihe and Qinfeng. The tea field division uses the tea interest generated by the tea to be allocated to the horse buying company as the capital for buying horses, which is the method of "selling tea and horses". Before the implementation of the "selling tea and horses" method, the Song Dynasty mainly adopted the coupon horse method in Qinfeng Road. Due to the middlemen earning the price difference, the seller's market and other reasons, during the Jiayou period, the Qinfeng Road Voucher Horse Law cost a lot, and the quality of the horses purchased was also poor...... However, it is impossible to obtain a good horse of the highest quality". In order to obtain horses of good price and quality, in the fifth year of Jiayou (1060), the Song Dynasty set up a horse farm managed by the Department of Supervision and Pastoral Affairs in Yuanzhou and Deshun Army. In the seventh year of Xining (1074), the Song Dynasty abolished the coupon horse law and implemented the law of "selling tea and horses", and at the latest at this time, the Xihe Road set up the "lifting Xihe Road to buy horses", and then Qinzhou bought horses and horses, also known as Shaanxi to buy horses. In the eighth year of Xining (1075), Shaanxi Maima Division integrated the two road horse farms of Xihe and Qinfeng in Shaanxi, "and then placed the six horse farms on Xihe Road, and the original, Wei and Deshun fields were all abandoned." After that, it also placed Xihe Minzhou, Tongyuan Army, Yongning Village and other fields, and the Deshun Army also restored the horse farm". The Song Dynasty set a fixed age for buying horses in Shaanxi, also known as the "annual amount", which fluctuated between 15,000 and 20,000 horses. In the Xining period, it was 15,000 horses, and in the fourth year of Yuanfeng (1081), the "annual income amount" of the Deshun Army and Jiezhou Horse Farm was increased to 20,000 horses; In the first year of the Yuan Dynasty (1086), it was 18,000 horses, and later it was restored to 20,000 horses. The annual horses purchased by the Horse Buying Division every year are also known as the Inner Horse and the Provincial Horse, and the annual horse is shipped to the imperial court. The horse buying division was also often responsible for the purchase of additional horses such as the war horses of the Shaanxi garrison and archers, and the stallions required by the imperial court. The horses bought by the Shaanxi Horse Buying Division were the main source of war horses in the Song Dynasty and were known as the "source of national horses".
The cost of buying horses in Shaanxi's horse farms was originally mainly supplied by the imperial court, "a total of 100,000 silk was given to the three divisions and Chengdu Mansion and Zili Prefecture Sanlu, which compensated for the price of horses with the salt sales money in Shaanxi." After the opening of Xining, in order to cope with the huge military and horse buying expenses along the Xihe River, the Song Dynasty formulated a policy of banning Shu tea. In April of the seventh year of Xining (1074), the Song Dynasty sent the three divisions to work with Li Qi to "buy tea through paintings, and buy benefits and disadvantages in Qinfeng and Xihe Lubo". Soon, the Song Dynasty set up a tea field division directly under the three divisions in Sichuan and Shu. The tea field department will transport Shuzhong tea to Shaanxi for sale, in the Xihe, Qinfeng two roads near the horse farm, there are "Xi, Qin, Min, He, Jie, Tongyuanjun, Yongning Village seven tea farms". The tea interest produced by the tea field division is allocated to the Shaanxi horse buying division, and the cost of buying horses is allocated every year, which corresponds to the annual amount of buying horses, and there is a fixed amount.
In June of the eighth year of Xining (1075), the Song Dynasty ordered: "The three divisions did not buy horses on Xihe Road before buying a horse farm and paid a number of years, so he went out to handle the lawsuit, how to seal the pile after using the tea and horses, and Shen Zhongshu took the purpose." "After the quota of horses and the value of horses before the inspection, the Song Dynasty stipulated that the cost of the horses purchased by the Shaanxi Horse Buying Division in the Xihe area every year was divided into two parts: one part was about 400,000 yuan, which was allocated by the tea field department set up by the three divisions to pay for the tea interest; Part of it is that Mai Ma Si receives "more than 60,000 yuan of miscellaneous expenses, rented classes, and stolen goods" every year. After buying horses, the cost of horses in the amount of horses was roughly stable at about 500,000 yuan.
However, the Tea Field Division allocates 400,000 yuan of tea interest to the horse buying company every year, and not all of it was originally used to buy horses. In the seventh year of Xining (1074), the right to send the three envoys to the official affairs of Zhang Dan, "begging in the tea tax interest money to determine 400,000 yuan per year, should be deputy Xihe Boma and buy grain and grass", the imperial court from it. 400,000 guan had to be allocated to pay for the two expenses of the city horse and the purchase of grain and grass, which was gradually difficult to spend, so the imperial court ordered "400,000 guan of interest tax every year...... All of them should be sub-Boma". In the fourth year of Yuanfeng (1081), there was a shortage of money to buy horses, "less than 23,000 yuan, and the number of beggars was broken in the money from selling tea", the imperial court first agreed, and then abolished. Since then, the annual quota of 400,000 guan to buy horses has been maintained for a long time, according to the first year of Yuanyou (1086) Lu Taozuo: "At the beginning of Li Qi's legislation, only 400,000 guan should be deputy Xihe, and later Pu Zongmin and others gradually sold cloth and salt, adding 600,000 guan, and Li Ji and Lu Shimin increased to 1 million guan. Today, 2 million guan is offered, and only 400,000 guan is used to respond to the vice Xi River. "In the first year of Shaosheng (1094), the annual quota of 400,000 guan was allowed to be changed, and the fixed tea interest-horse quota system was changed to a floating system. In addition, the horses of the extra horses were allocated separately by the imperial court, such as the edict of Shaosheng in the fourth year (1097): "The special committee proposed to buy horses and Lu Shi Min to buy an additional 3,000 horses in the year, and should be the deputy Xihe Lanmin army and the archers of the Han Dynasty...... The inner archers bring their own horses, and they are close to the division of the economy, and according to the amount of money bought, they are graced to urge the yuan price and return the horses to be bought. ”
The Tea Farm Division has a tea shop near the horse farm, which sells tea leaves to obtain tea interest, and allocates part of the tea interest to the Tea Farm Division as a horse book. The Fan Department sells the horses and buys the horse division to obtain the "discounted silver silk" and other horse values, and then goes to the tea field of the tea field division to exchange for tea, "Fan Bu...... Since the general Ma Zhongguan, please to discount the silver silk, etc., only to divide the three or two points to Fan, and the rest often go to the tea field to buy tea goods", that is, to complete the whole process of tea and horse trade under the law of "selling tea and horses".
During the Song Dynasty, the Tea Farm Division was established and governed by the Three Divisions, while the Horse Buying Division was patrolled by the Pastoral Division, and local officials were also in charge. In the case of the separation of the tea and horse divisions, the "selling tea Boma" method involves the three parties of the tea field division, the buying horse division and the Tibetan department, and the Tibetan department needs to trade with the tea field division and the buying horse division separately when completing the entire tea and horse trade process. Although it is called "tea and horse trade", it is not directly traded by Ma Yi tea, but by silver, silk, tea bills, etc. When the tea and horse divisions are accounting, they use cash as a unit to connect their respective ages. The separation of tea and horses and the age quota system have led to constant changes in the way horses are compared.
2. The evolution of the price comparison method of horses during the Xifeng period
Under the trade mode of "selling tea and horses" and the separation system of tea and horses, how to compare the price of horses is closely related to the tea interest of tea and horses. The interests of the tea and horse divisions are different, the tea field division pursues tea interest, and the horse buying division pursues a fixed amount of horses to buy enough horses. Tea and horses have been playing for a long time around the way of tea interest-horse allocation and horse price comparison, "The tea judge has a high price to get a lot of profits, and he has no skills and is a bad person with the law, Liu Zuo is also." The official profit of buying horses is that the price of tea is low, and if the price is low, the Tibetan department is profitable and the horse has a choice." The Tea Field Division adheres to the real-time allocation system of tea interest and horse book, advocates the use of silver silk and other things to trade horses with the Tibetan Department, and adopts the method of comparing the price of money and horses, which is conducive to increasing the price of tea and increasing the interest of tea; Buying horses tends to refer to the occupation of tea as a horse capital in advance, and the tea is traded with horses, and the price of tea and horses is compared, so as to avoid the loss of horse capital caused by the inflation of tea prices. With the game between the two divisions during the Xifeng period, the way of comparing the prices of horses changed several times.
(1) Comparison of money and horses
At the beginning of the design of the tea and horse trade system, the Song Dynasty adopted the real-time allocation system of tea and horses, and the consequent way of trading sundries with horses and comparing the price of money and horses. The sundries here refer to tea, silver, silk and other money-folding items. The Tea Farm Division has set up a tea selling field near the horse farm, selling tea to the Fan Department to obtain tea interest, "Xiangdu Qin, Xizhou, Tongyuan Army, Yongning Village seven tea farms". Then buy Shuzhong sundries, such as Xining seven years (1074) September, the tea field division "through the painting of Chengdu Lizhou tea goods Li Qi buy things should be deputy Xihe Lu Bo buy horses". According to the requirements of the tea field department, the tea field department will allocate the silver, silk and other things to the horse company at any time to pay the horse capital. At the same time, the imperial court ordered that when buying horses and trading horses with the Tibetan department, they could only pay for tea, silver, silk and other sundries, and "the price of their horses should be discounted by tea, silver, and silk." After obtaining the value of the horse, the Ministry of Tibet went to the Tea Field Division to buy tea, "the officialdom with tea, salt Boyi to silver, silk, buckets, and sundries, limited to half a year to change the money", that is, the Ministry of Tibet to buy the horse to pay for the "silver, silk, sundries" in exchange for the tea of the Tea Field.
Obviously, when buying horses with tea, silver, silk and other things to buy horses in Tibet, both the silk and the horses need to be converted into cash in order to trade smoothly. For example, in July of the fourth year of Yuanfeng (1081), Guo Maoxian, the chief official of the Horse Buying Division, said that "there is no need for salt money now, and its silk is from the Tibetan department according to the market price, that is, there is no interest money", that is, Guo Maosui complained that the silk was converted into cash at the market price and matched the value of the horses in the Tibetan department, and in order to encourage the Tibetan merchants to win the horses, they did not collect interest in the money and horse transactions. It can be speculated that in the horse trade in the seventh year of Xining and afterward, it is likely that the horse buyer collected interest money from the Chinese horsemen. In the ninth year of Xining (1076), he bought a horse and played "the supervisor and pastor department were lacking, and saw that they owed money and goods to the city and the city, and the city and the city were willing to pay it back. It can be inferred from this that in the seventh or eighth year of Xining, the horse buying company used tea, silver, silk and other sundries to "calculate" cash and trade horses with the Tibetan department, and the two sides measured the value of the cash money, that is, the price of money and horses.
(2) Tea and horse price comparison
This method of tea interest-capital allocation, direct trading of sundries, and the method of comparing money and horses were changed in April of the ninth year of Xining (1076), and all mentioned the Xihe Road Horse Buying Division:
The shepherd secretary is lacking, and seeing that he owes the city and the company money and things, and the city and the city and the department want to pay it back, Fang Ken should buy the horse and pass it on, which is really wrong for Boma's daily use. If you want to beg for the price of the horse, you can use the tea to discount it, and if the horse guest is willing to pay the money, the person who invites the tea on the spot will also listen. If you see a lot of money, you can pay both money and tea, and you will have a few public and private interests. The annual amount of Bo to buy tea goods, begging the tea field division to use a few allocations and four fields, waiting for enough, and then with the remaining number of allocations and transfer divisions to buy grain and grass.
Why does buying a horse owe the tea farm company the capital to buy a horse? The reason for this should be that the horse company uses the method of comparing the price of money and horses to pay a certain amount of silver silk and other items to the Chinese horses, but the price of tea continues to rise, and the original fixed amount of horses has been difficult to cover the full amount of horses. The excess part of the horse value is converted into cash to calculate, that is, the horse book that the horse company owes to the tea field division when buying the horse. In February of the tenth year of Xining (1077), the horse company owed more than 20 yuan to the tea field company to buy horses.
In order to prevent the rise in tea prices from causing a deficit in the cost of buying horses, Xining has implemented the following measures in the ninth to tenth years: First, the tea will be "combined with several expenditures and four fields", that is, the tea with a certain tea value will be allocated to the reserve of buying horses in advance. This kind of measure can avoid the payment restrictions imposed on the purchase of horses by the real-time horse transfer system of the tea field division. Second, "the price of horses is discounted with tea", that is, the price of tea and horses is compared, and tea is exchanged for horses. At the same time, the value of Boma tea should be calculated in advance, and only after the tea in the purchase amount is sufficient will the tea field division be allowed to use the rest of the tea to "buy grain and grass", so as to prevent the annual loss of the horse buying capital caused by the rise in tea prices. Thirdly, the tea field division was given the authority to directly sell tea in the tea and horse trade, and the Chinese and Malaysian people were willing to use a large amount of cash to buy tea with the discount, "allowing both tea and support". In the ninth and tenth years of Xining, the Song Dynasty generally adopted the tea and horse price comparison system, the tea exchange for horses, and the pre-appropriation of tea as horse book.
(3) Comparison of money and horses
The policy of comparing tea and horses was implemented for less than two years, and the Song Dynasty changed its law, and issued an order in the first month of the first year of Yuanfeng (1078): "Yangqun Pastoral Division Guan Mu Xingsi, according to the required tea is traded in the logarithm of money and silk, and it is not allowed to pre-occupy it, which will hinder the age of the tea field division." The specific reason for this, according to the tea field division on February 7 of the same year, said, "Please pay the money and grain to the divisions from now on, and pay the money and gold silk, do not discount the tea, the price will not increase or lose the tea price of the divisions, and the tea law will be harmful", that is, the purchase of horses refers to the amount of Boma tea in advance, and the price of tea is compared with the horses of the Tibetan department, which affects the adjustment of the price of tea in the tea field division. Because the peak season of tea sales and the season of selling horses do not coincide, if a large amount of tea is prepared in advance for Boma, it will cause the price of tea to drop due to waiting for the Ministry of Tibet to come to Yima, which will affect the tea field division to obtain tea interest.
Therefore, starting from April of the first year of Yuanfeng (1078), the tea field division asked for permission, and formulated the tea and horse two divisions of tea and horses-horse capital and silk logarithmic transaction method, also known as the "counter-bank transaction method". "The speaker often said that the price of tea is high, and the country is curbed, and the minister thinks that Boma does not need expensive tea in the lawsuit, and he should use silver and silk and the market...... The Mongolian imperial court has established a counter-transaction law to eliminate the disadvantages of buying horses and officials competing for prices. The key content of the "logarithmic transaction of money and silk" is obviously to focus on the practice of buying horses in advance to account for the tea class of the tea field division with the cost of buying horses, and its key content is "according to the required tea to the logarithmic transaction of money and silk", that is, the tea field division will allocate tea after receiving the money and silk. At the same time, it is stipulated that the purchase of horses "special silver silk and money, etc., do not reuse tea", that is, when buying horses, silver silk and money are used for trading, and the price calculation can only be based on the comparison of money and horses. For example, in the fourth year of Yuanfeng (1081), he bought a horse and said that "he bought the silver, silk, etc., and the discount was high...... There are also losses in their banknotes at any time, and the price of a horse is more than four times in the amount of money, and more than three times in the case of a small horse." The tea field division will buy 400,000 yuan a year to buy the horse year tea interest into silver silk and other things to pay to the horse company, buying the horse division can not interfere with the price of tea, is conducive to the tea field division to sell tea to obtain tea interest, "the interest tax collected in the past can not cover the original amount, stop the hand to pay Boma, the principal and interest are slightly exhausted." Near-quasi-strip and buy horses to the opposite side of the transaction, so that the company's money and goods cashier is clear".
(4) Tea and horse price comparison
In the fourth year of Yuanfeng (1081), the imperial court increased the annual number of horses to 20,000, and at the same time, due to the rise in the price of tea, the problem of lack of capital to buy horses reappeared. Guo Mao, the chief officer of the Horse Buying Division, said:
The silver, silk, etc., which were bought by the horse division, were also discounted at a high price, but the tea field only added a small amount of money according to the market price...... The price of a horse is about four or more if the price of a horse is more than four times, and if it is less, it is more than three times...... If you specialize in tea and horses, it is convenient. In the old days, the Kanhui also used tea to discount the price of horses, although it also used gold silk, etc., it was also convenient. Since the bureau has been divided, only in recent years, special silver silk and money, etc., do not reuse tea...... Today, 20,000 horses are set as the amount, and there is less than 23,000 yuan.
When buying horses with money, silver, and silk to trade horses with Fanbu, they were converted into cash, and the "high discount" caused the horse to be in deficit. In order to buy more horses, in August of the fourth year of Yuanfeng (1081), the imperial court complied with the request to buy horses in the transfer of capital and the price comparison system for horses. First, it is dedicated to "tea Boma", "the general of the Ministry of Tibet, the price of which is discounted with tea", that is, the way of comparing the price of tea and horses. "Famous mountain tea special Boma", called "Boma tea". When the tea is exchanged for horses, "the Ministry of Tibet leads the horse to the field, waiting for the pick-up, according to the number of tea, the day is limited to the day to the Guanzi, to the scene to ask for tea, and the painting is paid", that is, the Ministry of Fan first leads the horse to the horse to buy the horse to buy the horse racecourse, obtains the horse value certificate tea Guanzi, and then goes to the tea field to ask for tea. At the same time, the price of horses is discounted with silver, silk, cash, etc., "if the price of horses is high and the price of tea is small, that is, the remainder is discounted with silver, silk and money", that is, the direct transaction of sundries and horses and the comparison of money and horses still exist, but it is not the mainstream, but only discounted. Second, the Tea Farm Division advances the Ma Ben and the Ma Division, "the Ma Qian Silk and other pre-commissioned Ma Si are transferred, and the remaining number of the contract is rotated, and the section is reported to the Tea Farm Division, and the same change." At the same time, it is allowed to "borrow and approve" at the end of the year. Third, from the accounting method will be the two divisions in one, buy Ma Si at the beginning of the year to get 423,000 pieces of tea, "wait for the end of the year, will actually receive the amount of money and see the money and pay the number of Boma tea", if the price of the horse is too low, "if the price is too much, and the number of points is excluded". If the price of horses is too high, "if the number of tea is too large, the amount of money to buy horses is small, and the compensation is insufficient". Obviously, when the price of horses is too high, the buyer does not have the capital to compensate for the extra value of tea paid by the tea farm division. After July of the fourth year of Yuanfeng (1081), the price comparison method of tea and horses generally became the mainstream of tea and horse trade. "Although the tea guanzi is still used as an intermediary for tea and horse trading, the tea guanzi is originally a representative of tea and can be regarded as a direct transaction between tea and horses. In the fourth year of Yuanfeng (1081), the core content of the policy of buying horses and asking for permission was the allocation system of the horse year quota for the advance of tea. Buy Ma Si first get 400,000 yuan of tea, tea for horses, horses with tea prices, and buy Ma Si to pay tea bills to Chinese Malaysians to go to the tea field to ask for tea, eliminating the need for the tea field division to allocate tea interest in real time. It is conducive to increasing the price of horses to encourage horses to enter the market and solve the problem of horse shortage.
The separation of the tea and horse divisions and the system of appropriation of the quota have increased the complexity of the tea and horse trade. The tea and horse trade has become a tripartite transaction between the tea field division, the Chinese and the Chinese horses, and the buying horse division, and there are three factors of tea, horses, and silver silk price fluctuations and mutual influences. Tea and horses are mutually restricted, and when the Tibetan Department enters the middle of the horse, buying the horse division often increases the value of the horse; When the tea is purchased in the tea farm, the tea farm division often increases the price of the tea according to the market price. During the Xifeng period, the Song Dynasty wavered on the issue of year allocation and horse price comparison, but the overall attitude was inclined to buy horses. The merger of tea and horses, the simplification of trade processes, and the adoption of direct trading and price comparison of tea and horses were the directions in which the Song Dynasty adjusted the tea and horse trade system. During the period of Xining and Yuanfeng, the items directly traded with horses were tea and silver silk, tea, silver silk money, and tea, and the evolution sequence of the price comparison method of tea and horse trade was Qian Ma (September of the seventh year of Xining - April of the ninth year of Xining), tea horse (April of the ninth year of Xining - the first month of the first year of Yuanfeng), Qian Horse (the first month of the first year of Yuanfeng - July of the fourth year of Yuanfeng), and tea horse (July of the fourth year of Yuanfeng - August of the first year of Yuanyou). After the fourth year of Yuanfeng (1081), the direct trading of tea and horses and the comparison of tea and horses became the mainstream, but the way of money and silver silk - horse trading and money and horse comparison still existed: on the one hand, there was a situation of subsidizing the price of horses with silver and cash and so on; On the other hand, due to the existence of the cash age system, the price comparison of money and horses still has the significance of financial accounting for tea and horses.
3. The adjustment of the tea and horse trade and price comparison methods during the Song Zhezong period
In September of the eighth year of Yuanfeng (1085), the imperial court ordered the promotion of Chengdu Mansion and other road tea officials Lu Shimin also promoted the Shaanxi Horse Buying Division, that is, the Tea Farm Division also led the Horse Buying Division, and the Tea Farm Division also assumed part of the responsibility of buying horses, but there was still a distinction between the Horse Buying Division and the Tea Farm Division. At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the Sichuan-Shaanxi tea and horse trade was affected by political fluctuations, and the old party was in power, and the "selling tea and horses" law designed by Wang Anshi when he was in power was criticized by some courtiers. Sichuan-Shaanxi tea is accused of being a variant of the city's law of competing with the people for profit, "only the tea field divisions of the road such as Benefit, Li, Qinfeng, and Xihe use the tea law to buy and sell tea to abuse the creatures of the four roads, and use the tea law to cover the market and sell all kinds of things." For this reason, in the first year of Yuanyou (1086), the imperial court sent Huang Lian to look at the Sichuan-Shaanxi tea horse. Before Huang Lian succeeded Lu Shimin as the supervisor of tea and horses, he also believed that the cost of tea and horse trade in Sichuan and Shaanxi was huge, and suggested that "and restore the previous Boma policy of Xining, no trouble of trading, no labor of foot ride, and no disadvantages, and no selfishness, no negotiability." However, after Huang Lian took over the promotion of tea horses and field investigations, he changed his original view, believing that although the Sichuan-Shaanxi tea was excessive, the law of tea and horse trade was very important for border affairs and horse politics, so as to retain the "selling tea and horses" method in the Xihe and Qinfeng regions.
Huang Lian insisted on the price comparison method of tea and horses in the tea and horse trade, and only optimized and adjusted the age of horses and the price of horses. Today, it is suitable for tea and horses, and it is suitable for catties and inches, and the height is suitable." Huang Lian adhered to the method of "tea and horses are appropriate, and the price comparison of tea and horses is matched by catties and inches", which generally maintained the old method of tea and horse trade in Sichuan and Shaanxi, resulting in "great resentment and stubbornness". In August of that year (1086), the Song Dynasty abolished the tea and horse trade in Qinfeng and Xihe Road, and restored the system of supervising pastures. and the official capital of buying horses has fallen", and the pastoral system has consumed a lot of horses. According to "Jade Sea", "Yuan Youchu...... Jiang Zhiqi is the commander of Xihe, and there are tribute horses and sweat blood in Xifan, and there are people who are not paying tribute for the years, leaving their horses on the side. At that time, the military revolution was not used, the sea was well-off, the horses were not encountered, and the people were a little peaceful", that is, after the large-scale tea and horse trade stopped, the horses transported from Tibet to the interior were relatively rare.
After Song Zhezong came to power, the new party was established, and Lu Shimin, the former minister who was impeached by the old party at the beginning of Yuan Youchu, was reinstated, and the law of tea and horse trade was also restored. In the leap month of the first year of Shaosheng (1094), the Privy Council said: "The amount of money for buying horses is about 500,000 yuan, and the Yuanyun tea and the city horse are the same division, all of which belong to the imperial court." Since then, the two divisions of tea and horses have become a unified tea and horse division in terms of organization. After the merger, the Tea and Horse Division must bear both the tea interest tax and the horse purchase quota, thus breaking through the original fixed horse purchase tea interest-capital system. In order to solve the deficit caused by the rise in tea prices to the fixed cost of buying horses, in June of that year (1094), the Song Dynasty changed the fixed amount of horse buying capital into floating capital. ”
Lu Shimin's retention of the "law of seeing the present day" is to set the actual price of buying a horse in the previous year as a fixed amount for the current year, and if the increase in the price of tea in that year leads to the insufficient cost of buying a horse, the tea department will break it in the tea tax interest. Floating horse Ben means that the non-mainstream money and horse price comparison has also lost its meaning, the horse price actually fluctuates with the price of tea, and the money and horse price comparison only has the role of accounting for the age, such as the first year of Shaosheng (1094) The Privy Council played: "Please from now on all the officials for the closing of the market, on the donkey but with tea three or two camels." ”
In October of the first year of Shaosheng (1094), Lu Shimin again asked for the implementation of the "Coupon Horse Law", "Please make the merchants of the Han Dynasty who are willing to use horses to sell coupons, and inspect the seals in Xihe and Qinfeng horse farms, and give coupons from the price of each field, and send them to the Taifu Temple to show their value." If horse riding is prevalent, then you can buy a racecourse." The Tea and Horse Division first valued the horses of the Fan Department in Xihe and Qinfeng Road. Then the merchant led the horse to the Taifu Temple, and the Taifu Temple gave a certain value to the horse, and then returned to the Xihe and Qinfeng Zhuzhu tea farms in exchange for tea. According to Lu Shi Min Zuo in April of the second year of Shaosheng (1095), "Now that the coupon and horse are on the first trip, we have seen that the military trade along the border is different from the day before. If the day before yesterday along the border into the money more than 100,000 yuan, and in the Qinzhou tea field to count, and such as Xi, Min, Tongyuan Racecourse is a lot of years, now the guests are more than Qinzhou coupons", that is, the value of the horse assessed by the tea and horse division should be taken to compare the price of money and horses, and the value of the horse paid by the Taifu Temple should be cash.
Fourth, the stable formation of the "tea Boma" trade and the price comparison method of tea horses
After Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty ascended the throne, he abolished the "Coupon Horse Law" in September of the third year of Yuan Fu (1100) and implemented the "Tea Bo Horse" law, which was still in charge of the Tea and Horse Division. "Use Tea Boma" comes from the second year of Chongning (1103) Shangshu Province Zazi: "The survey will recover Huangzhou, divided by the tea Boma that has been sent to command." The Song Dynasty also abolished the system of calculating the value of Boma tea into the annual quota of the tea and horse division, and the Boma tea "ignored the annual amount", and the annual cost of buying horses for the tea and horse divisions was eliminated from the annual amount, and the tea interest-horse transfer system between the tea field division and the horse buying division was abolished, and the horse price calculated in cash lost its role in the accounting of the age. Instead, it adopts the "tea Boma" method of directly exchanging famous mountain tea for horses, and the tea leaves used are called Boma tea, and the price of horses adopts the tea and horse price comparison method of "re-establishing the price example with tea catties". For example, in the fourth year of Chongning (1105), the tea and horse division reported the price of horses: "good horses are of the third class, and four red and four inches or more, the upper class sees two camels and one head, the medium one sees two camels of tea twenty catties and fifteen halves, and the inferior ones see two camels of tea twenty-seven catties and seven halves." ”
When the Fan Department was in Zhongma, he went to the tea horse farm of the Tea Horse Division to exchange horses for tea. For example, in February of the sixth year of Zhenghe (1116), Cheng Tangzuo, the official minister of tea and horse husbandry, said: "When the minister arrived, he took measures to buy 45,021 horses in Shaanxi, and collected more than 4,835,000 yuan in taxes and interest. For example, in the third year of Chongning (1104), Shao of the tea and horse affairs of the tea and horse affairs were raised: "Today's accountant, Qinzhou buys a four-year-old to ten-year-old four-inch horse, with the name of camellia 112 catties, and the price per catty is 769 Wen. ”
In order to purchase a sufficient amount of horses and extra horses, the Song Dynasty formulated a cascade price system for Boma tea, subsidized tea and ordinary tea, "the price of tea by color is the price of tea in accordance with the rules of the tea department to buy tea from the Sichuan Road tea farm yuan, etc., and set the price of each state, which is lower than the rest of the miscellaneous tea cases, so you run the merchants and hook the national horses", and lower the price of Boma tea in the tea and horse trade, so as to encourage the Tibetan department to actively come to trade horses. The system of buying horses with silver, silk and other items has also been replaced by the sale of tea, that is, the strategy of "adding tea and buying horses", "good horses have the right to add 30 catties of tea, and the right of the horse to add 20 catties of tea". Since then, the price of horses priced in tea has continued to rise, such as in October of the second year of Daguan (1108), Xuanfu Division of Qinfeng Road in Lanhuang, Xihe said: "The number of horses is small, and the price of Sichuan tea is low...... Its Xifeng is cheap, and the price of tea is also cheap; Nowadays, horses are expensive, and the price of tea is also expensive...... If you don't add to it, you can't lure customers to buy it. ”
The high price of horses made the tea and horse division invest a lot of tea for buying horses, "since the first year of the construction of the Yasukuni Kingdom, in order to buy a large number of horses, the number of famous mountain teas is small, and the Xingyuan Mansion Wanchun, Ruijin, Dazhu, Yangzhou four-color tea should be the deputy Boma, can only be done." A large amount of tea was used in Boma, which made the tea and horse division "lose the number of years of tea sold since Boma", and also led to the shortage of other expenditures in Xihe and Qinfeng Road. For example, in the fifth year of Chongning (1106), the Xihe Lanmin Road Transit Division requested a tea Bo Ran, and the Privy Council thought: "If you look for a deed, if you want to make a tea Bo Bo Ran, it will be a hindrance to Bo Ma." "In the second year of Chongning (1103), the Song Dynasty bought an extra double of Sichuan tea to Xihe, "in the year of the Tea and Horse Division, the additional Sichuan tea was bought twice as much tea, and the imperial court gave it another 2 million, so that the criminal department was sealed." The Tea and Horse Division carries about 50,000 camel tea leaves to Xihe and Qinfeng Road every year. In the fourth year of Chongning (1105), "Shaanxi Tea and Horse Division supported 50,000 camels, bought 20,000 war horses in the annual amount, and distributed them to all roads", and the cost of buying horses occupied almost all the tea transported by the Tea and Horse Division to Xihe and Qinfeng Road.
In May of the fourth year of Daguan (1110), the Song Dynasty officially implemented the strategy of "reducing tea Boma", that is, buying horses with special famous camellias, "its famous camellia is not allowed to be used except for Boma". The Song Dynasty lowered the price of horses calculated by tea, abolished the low-price selling system of tea, and "set up a price example based on tea catties...... Yesterday, according to the old law of Yuanfeng, the price of horses was reduced by the number of teas compared to the pan dumping." After the implementation of the reduction of tea Boma, the tea horse division has a lot of tea leftovers. In August of the third year of Zhenghe (1113), the Pastoral Department of the Horse Supervision and Pastoral Department said that "since the reduction of tea Boma, about 14,000 camels of tea have been saved every year", and a total of "more than 50,000 camels of tea have been accumulated" in three years. For example, from August of the fourth year of Daguan (1110) to the end of February of the first year of Zhenghe (1111), the main month of the tea and horse trade, the tea and horse division bought a total of 10,800 horses in this half year, far less than the annual quota of 20,000 horses.
During the period of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, the trade of "using tea and horses" and the system of comparing prices between tea and horses were basically formed. The age allocation system of tea and horses was abolished, and tea and horses were fully and directly traded, eliminating the need to convert their respective values into "cash". The price comparison method of tea and horses "by pound to inch" has been fixed. The system of buying horses with silver, silk and other physical stickers that remained from the Song Dynasty was also abolished. Even if the price of horses is increased and decreased, it is the method of "adding tea to buy horses" and "reducing tea Boma". When the horses enter the middle school, they only need to use the tea horse to make easy tea. It can be seen that the tea and horse trading system that influenced the Southern Song Dynasty and the Ming and Qing dynasties was already formed during the Song Huizong period.
conclusion
The tea and horse trade and price comparison methods in the Xihe and Qinfeng areas of the Northern Song Dynasty are complex and changeable. During the reign of Emperor Xifeng of the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty adopted the method of "selling tea and horses", separating the tea and horse divisions, and stipulating that the tea field division allocated a fixed amount of tea interest as the capital of horses in the purchase amount of the horse department. When the horses entered the middle school, they had to trade with the horse buyer to obtain the horse value, and then buy tea from the tea field division. The tea and horse trade process involves three parties: the tea field division, the horse buying division and the Chinese and Malaysian people, and the interests of tea and horse are different and mutually restrictive. During the Xifeng period, the main calculation method of horse prices showed a swinging evolution sequence of money horses, tea horses, money horses, and tea horse price comparisons. The rivalry between the tea and horse divisions caused damage to the Song Dynasty's horse buying business. In the early days of Song Zhezong, the two divisions of tea and horses were merged into the tea and horse divisions, and the valuation of horses maintained a "pound to inch" tea and horse price. Beginning in the first year of Shaosheng (1094), the Song Dynasty implemented the coupon horse method in the Shaanxi tea and horse trade, mainly implementing the price comparison of money and horses. After Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty ascended the throne, he abolished the coupon horse law and implemented the "Boma with tea" method, which directly traded with horses with Boma tea, and removed the value of Boma tea from the age of the tea field division, and adopted the method of comparing the price of tea and horses.
Simplifying the process is the core direction of the evolution of the tea and horse trade and price comparison methods in the Northern Song Dynasty. Merge tea and horses, and simplify the tripartite trade of "selling tea and horses" in which tea farms sell tea, Chinese and Malaysian people sell horses, and buying horses and horses to "use tea and horses" to "use tea and horses" in which tea and horses are sold by Chinese and Malaysian people; The price comparison method of money and horses involving the three trade elements of horses, tea and silver silk was simplified to the price comparison method of tea and horses of the two trade elements of tea and horses. The Song Dynasty constantly adjusted the tea and horse trade and the way of comparing the price of tea and horses, and after repeated exploration and evolution, it finally established the trade method of "using tea and horses" and the way of comparing the price of tea and horses by "catties to inches". The formation of the tea and horse trade and price comparison method in the Northern Song Dynasty was of great significance in the ancient Chinese trade system, and had an important impact on the tea and horse trade in the Southern Song Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty.
This article was originally published in the second issue of China Frontier History and Geography Research in 2024.
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