Chapter 277 Shu brocade, the losses of the Northern Expedition
After Guo Xiu and the others left the palace gate and parted ways with Jiang Wei, the four of them headed straight towards the post house. They encountered several bustling streets along the way, one of which was Jinli, which is famous throughout the world. It can be compared with Tongtuo Street in Luoyang City.
On both sides of the street are some silk and satin shops selling Shu brocade, as well as some inns and wine shops. There are many merchants here from Wei, Wu and even from the far western regions, making it very prosperous and lively.
Legend has it that Jinli was once one of the oldest and most commercial streets in the history of Western Shu. It was famous throughout the country as early as the Qin, Han and Three Kingdoms periods.
It has been recorded: "The state seizes the county literature as the state school, and the county government sets up literature on the east side of the road on the south bank of Yili Bridge. There is a female wall, which leads to the west city, and the Forbidden City Brocade Palace. The brocade workers weave the brocade, and it is bright in the other rivers. It’s not good, so it’s called Jinli.”
Wang Chen looked at the bustling crowd and said: "Mr. Xiao, you are still too reckless today. You must never be like this in the future. If it weren't for your majesty's magnanimity,
I'm afraid we would have been sent to jail today, and you have to change your bad temper. If not, I'm afraid it will affect us in the future!"
Chen Guangqin came out to smooth things over and said: "Haha, today is a blessing in disguise for us. After all, General Wei told us yesterday that there would be no twenty pieces of Shu brocade per person. It was probably added by His Majesty on a whim. This is probably a loss." Mr. Xiao, if we don’t have these twenty pieces of Shu brocade, how can we settle down in Chengdu!"
The territory under the control of the Shu Han regime is mainly the Yizhou area, which can be divided into three parts. The first is Yizhou proper, the Bashu area centered on the Western Sichuan Plain; the second is the Hanzhong Basin, which is the northern gateway to Yizhou; the third is the southwest of Yizhou Nanzhong region.
The first two parts have been well developed since the Qin State sent Sima Cuo and Li Bing and his son to Shu during the Warring States Period. Their economic development level is no less than that of the Central Plains. Therefore, they have been described as "fertile fields thousands of miles away" and "land of abundance" very early on. reputation.
Moreover, under the governance of Liu Yan, Liu Zhang and his sons, "the country was prosperous and the people were strong, with a household registration of one million", which was in sharp contrast to the Central Plains area at that time, where "there were no roosters crowing for thousands of miles, and bones were exposed in the wild".
However, Liu Bei entered Sichuan and fought with Liu Zhang for nearly three years. The successive years of turmoil caused the people of Yizhou to live a life of "hungry and grassland". The economy of the Yizhou Basin was greatly damaged, and this situation has continued. It lasted until the beginning of the founding of the Shu Han Dynasty.
If the ruling class of the Shu Han did not consider how to develop the economy to stabilize the regime, the Shu Han would soon be annexed by Cao Wei or Soochow and become a short-lived regime.
Therefore, in addition to the Northern Expedition and domestic stabilization, economic development became the top priority of the Shu Han regime.
In the small-scale peasant economy of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms, in order to develop the economy, in addition to stabilizing agriculture, the most effective way was to vigorously develop handicrafts and commerce.
Therefore, the approach of the Shu Han regime was to develop a social economy based on agriculture, supplemented by handicrafts and commerce, and to vigorously develop agriculture as the foundation and supplemented by handicrafts with Shu brocade occupying a dominant position.
We need to realize that the developed agriculture of Shu Han has provided a solid foundation for the development of Shu brocade. If you don’t even have enough to eat, how can you think about weaving brocade?
A large amount of mulberry planting and sericulture will occupy a large amount of cultivated land and consume a large amount of grain. Therefore, the developed agriculture of Shu Han is a necessary prerequisite for the large-scale production of Shu brocade.
Zhuge Liang formulated the economic development direction for the Shu Han Dynasty to "seclusion from the people and develop the economy". He opposed "impeding agricultural work". He believed that only by allowing the people to "live in peace and enjoy their work" can agricultural production be developed.
Developing agriculture and replenishing the population is the most important part. The Shu Han regime made great efforts to attract immigrants by virtue of its relatively stable regional political environment and the banner of being the orthodox heir of the Han Dynasty.
After the Shu Han Dynasty established its capital in Chengdu, Zhuge Liang ordered Li Yan to immigrate 20,000 people to enrich Hanzhong. After Li Yan's large-scale immigration and farming, the once desolate Hanzhong area was finally redeveloped and became a prosperous place with wealth and people's safety.
Bashu has always been rich and has the reputation of a land of abundance, which is also a favorable condition for attracting immigrants. In addition, the Shu Han regime resettled refugees and welcomed immigrants. During the Three Kingdoms period, there was a large inflow of immigrants, which was extremely beneficial to the development of production and strength of the Shu Han.
A large number of immigrants from Bashu were refugees. At the beginning, tens of thousands of households from Nanyang and Sanfu moved into Yizhou." During the conquest wars of the Shu Han Dynasty, households from conquered areas were often moved to Sichuan. For example, in the first Northern Expedition, "more than a thousand households in Xi County were captured, and many households were transferred to Sichuan.
"In Hanzhong", this time Jiang Wei was ordered to conquer Xiping and also "forcibly" moved thousands of young people back to enrich the labor force in Shuzhong.
In order to ensure stable agricultural output, the Shu Han government attached great importance to farmland irrigation, vigorously improved water conservancy, and built a large number of water conservancy projects.
According to records: "Zhuge Liang went to the north and used the weir as a source of farming and capital for the country. He recruited 1,200 men to protect it. There were also weir officials."
It is unprecedented to use 1,200 people to protect a water conservancy project, so that Dujiangyan can always maintain its best condition and improve the irrigation capacity of Dujiangyan.
Due to the successful construction of water conservancy facilities, the entire Sichuan Basin has become prosperous. Mianzhu (now Deyang) in the Dujiangyan Irrigation Area and the paddy fields in Guanghan maintain a record of more than 30 dendrobium per mu.
The successful agricultural economy not only feeds the entire population of the Shu Han, "men and women spread the fields, farm and grain live on the acres" is the best evaluation of the Shu Han's agriculture. However, the population of the Shu Han only produces so much food and grass every year. It would be better if there is no war.
It was not enough during Zhuge Liang’s Northern Expedition.
Brocade is a traditional Chinese high-end colorful jacquard fabric with a history of more than 3,000 years.
Brocade is made of refined and dyed mulberry silk as its warp and weft raw materials. It often uses a variety of gold and silver threads, and its weaving methods are even more diverse.
"Liu Shu Gu" says: "Weaving colors into patterns is called brocade."
The value of brocade is the highest among silk fabrics. Because it consumes a lot of labor, costs a lot, and has high technical requirements, it is said that "it is as valuable as gold." The warp and weft ratio of Shu brocade fabrics are appropriate, the patterns are clear, the colors are rich, and the patterns are full.
The craftsmanship is exquisite. It has the reputation of being the first among the "Four Famous Brocades in China".
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Shu brocade has a long history, and the production technology has been mature as early as the pre-Qin period. Mass production began in the late Qin and Han Dynasties, and in the early days, it was dominated by multiple warp threads (jing brocade).
It is recorded in the history books: "At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, Shu did not communicate with China, and Zheng, Wei, Qi, and Lu all produced brocade." It is also said: "Since Shu connected with the Central Plains, business has spread to the west, and since the Wei Dynasty, Shu brocade has flourished..." During the Western Han Dynasty, Shu brocade flourished.
The varieties of Sichuan brocade have begun to become richer in color and quality, and are very popular in the market.
During the Yongping reign of Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Shu Brocade experienced great development, with richer varieties and colors, and large output. It was not only sold throughout the country, but also exported to the Western Regions and even European countries through the Northwest Silk Road. Shu Brocade had already become a specialty of Yizhou during the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Pillar industries.
Shu Brocade lasted through the Han Dynasty and reached its explosive period in the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty. During the period when Liu Yan and Liu Zhang and their sons ruled Shu, the output of Shu Brocade was quite considerable.
When Liu Bei first took possession of Yizhou, he rewarded Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu with "a thousand pieces of Shu brocade" (each end was six feet) with ready-made Shu brocade. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, a thousand pieces of silk brocade was almost equal to 10,000 meters in modern times. Just the reward alone can give so much.
, it can be seen that the Shu Han regime has a huge amount of Shu brocade.
When Zhuge Liang governed Shu, he did not stick to formalities and implement the traditional policy of focusing on agriculture and suppressing commerce. Instead, he keenly discovered the huge commercial and economic value contained in Shu Brocade. The foreign trade income of Shu Brocade will be one of the important fiscal revenues of the Shu Kingdom.
First, Shu brocade was elevated to the level of a national strategic material, and a brocade official was set up to specifically manage the production of Shu brocade.
Not only allowed different economic entities such as government, commercial and individual cottage industries to engage in Shu brocade production, as the prime minister, Zhuge Liang also personally planted 800 mulberry plants around the mansion for demonstration (Liang said from the table: "There are mulberries in Chengdu."
Eight hundred plants, fifteen hectares of thin fields, and enough food and clothing for the children.") called on the people of Shu to plant a large number of mulberry trees and raise silkworms to provide sufficient raw materials for the production of Shu brocade.
Chu Lei also echoed: "Now that my Han Dynasty can produce so much Shu Brocade and it is so valuable and has no market, it is all thanks to Prime Minister Zhuge. Prime Minister Zhuge has contributed a lot to the prosperity of the Han Dynasty.
It is a pity that these previous futile Northern Expeditions have exhausted the national strength that was finally accumulated. Alas, Prime Minister Zhuge is still too persistent in the Northern Expedition, which not only drained the Han national strength, but also drained himself."