|
In the 1960s, about 60% of the Chinese Labor Force were employed in agriculture. The figure remained more or less constant throughout the early phase of industrialization between the 1960s and 1990s, but in view of the rapid population growth this amounted to a rapid growth of the industrial sector in absolute terms, of up to 8% per year during the 1970s. By 1990, the fraction of the labor force employed in agriculture had fallen to about 30%, and by 2000 still further. == Historical precursors of industrialization == In the State of Wu of China, steel was first made, preceding the Europeans by over 1,000 years. The Song dynasty saw intensive industry in steel production, and coal mining. No other premodern state advanced as nearly as starting an industrial revolution than the Southern Song.〔(Bulliet & Crossley & Headrick & Hirsch & Johnson 2014 ), p. 264.〕〔(Bulliet & Crossley & Headrick & Hirsch & Johnson 2010 ), p. 292.〕 Western historians debate whether bloomery-based ironworking ever spread to China from the Middle East. Around 500 BC, however, metalworkers in the southern state of Wu developed an iron smelting technology that would not be practiced in Europe until late medieval times. In Wu, iron smelters achieved a temperature of 1130 °C, hot enough to be considered a blast furnace which could create cast iron.〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 544 g〕〔Woods, 49-50.〕〔Wagner, 52.〕 At this temperature, iron combines with 4.3% carbon and melts. As a liquid, iron can be cast into molds, a method far less laborious than individually forging each piece of iron from a bloom. Cast iron is rather brittle and unsuitable for striking implements. It can, however, be ''decarburized'' to steel or wrought iron by heating it in air for several days. In China, these ironworking methods spread northward, and by 300 BC, iron was the material of choice throughout China for most tools and weapons. A mass grave in Hebei province, dated to the early 3rd century BC, contains several soldiers buried with their weapons and other equipment. The artifacts recovered from this grave are variously made of wrought iron, cast iron, malleabilized cast iron, and quench-hardened steel, with only a few, probably ornamental, bronze weapons. During the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), the government established ironworking as a state monopoly (yet repealed during the latter half of the dynasty, returned to private entrepreneurship) and built a series of large blast furnaces in Henan province, each capable of producing several tons of iron per day. By this time, Chinese metallurgists had discovered how to ''puddle'' molten pig iron, stirring it in the open air until it lost its carbon and became wrought iron. (In Chinese, the process was called ''chao'', literally, stir frying.) By the 1st century BC, Chinese metallurgists had found that wrought iron and cast iron could be melted together to yield an alloy of intermediate carbon content, that is, steel.〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 197.〕〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 277.〕〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 563 g〕 According to legend, the sword of Liu Bang, the first Han emperor, was made in this fashion. Some texts of the era mention "harmonizing the hard and the soft" in the context of ironworking; the phrase may refer to this process. Also, the ancient city of Wan (Nanyang) from the Han period forward was a major center of the iron and steel industry.〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 86.〕 Along with their original methods of forging steel, the Chinese had also adopted the production methods of creating Wootz steel, an idea imported from India to China by the 5th century.〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 1, 282.〕 The Chinese during the ancient Han Dynasty were also the first to apply hydraulic power (i.e. a waterwheel) in working the inflatable bellows of the blast furnace. This was recorded in the year 31 AD, an innovation of the engineer Du Shi, prefect of Nanyang.〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 370〕 Although Du Shi was the first to apply water power to bellows in metallurgy, the first drawn and printed illustration of its operation with water power came in 1313, in the Yuan Dynasty era text called the ''Nong Shu''.〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 371.〕 In the 11th century, there is evidence of the production of steel in Song China using two techniques: a "berganesque" method that produced inferior, heterogeneous steel and a precursor to the modern Bessemer process that utilized partial decarbonization via repeated forging under a cold blast.〔Robert Hartwell, 'Markets, Technology and the Structure of Enterprise in the Development of the Eleventh Century Chinese Iron and Steel Industry' ''Journal of Economic History'' 26 (1966). pp. 53-54〕 By the 11th century, there was also a large amount of deforestation in China due to the iron industry's demands for charcoal.〔Ebrey, 158.〕 However, by this time the Chinese had figured out how to use bituminous coke to replace the use of charcoal, and with this switch in resources many acres of prime timberland in China were spared.〔 This switch in resources from charcoal to coal was later used in Europe by the 17th century. The economy of the Song Dynasty was one of the most prosperous and advanced economies in the medieval world. Song Chinese invested their funds in joint stock companies and in multiple sailing vessels at a time when monetary gain was assured from the vigorous overseas trade and indigenous trade along the Grand Canal and Yangzi River.〔Ebrey et al., 157.〕 Prominent merchant families and private businesses were allowed to occupy industries that were not already government-operated monopolies.〔Ebrey et al., 164.〕〔 Both private and government-controlled industries met the needs of a growing Chinese population in the Song.〔〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 23.〕 Both artisans and merchants formed guilds which the state had to deal with when assessing taxes, requisitioning goods, and setting standard worker's wages and prices on goods.〔〔Gernet, 88, 94.〕 The iron industry was pursued by both private entrepreneurs who owned their own smelters as well as government-supervised smelting facilities.〔Wagner, 178–179.〕〔Wagner, 181–183.〕 The Song economy was stable enough to produce over a hundred million kg (over two hundred million lb) of iron product a year.〔Ebrey et al., 158.〕 Large scale deforestation in China would have continued if not for the 11th century innovation of the use of coal instead of charcoal in blast furnaces for smelting cast iron.〔Ebrey, 158.〕 Much of this iron was reserved for military use in crafting weapons and armoring troops, but some was used to fashion the many iron products needed to fill the demands of the growing indigenous market. The iron trade within China was furthered by the building of new canals which aided the flow of iron products from production centers to the large market found in the capital city.〔Embree 339.〕 The annual output of minted copper currency in 1085 alone reached roughly six billion coins.〔Ebrey et al., 156.〕 The most notable advancement in the Song economy was the establishment of the world's first government issued paper-printed money, known as Jiaozi (''see also Huizi'').〔 For the printing of paper money alone, the Song court established several government-run factories in the cities of Huizhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Anqi.〔Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 48.〕 The size of the workforce employed in paper money factories was large; it was recorded in 1175 that the factory at Hangzhou employed more than a thousand workers a day.〔 The economic power of Song China heavily influenced foreign economies abroad. The Moroccan geographer al-Idrisi wrote in 1154 of the prowess of Chinese merchant ships in the Indian Ocean and of their annual voyages that brought iron, swords, silk, velvet, porcelain, and various textiles to places such as Aden (Yemen), the Indus River, and the Euphrates in modern-day Iraq.〔Shen, 159–161.〕 Foreigners, in turn, had an impact on the Chinese economy. For example, many West Asian and Central Asian Muslims went to China to trade, becoming a preeminent force in the import and export industry, while some were even appointed as officers supervising economic affairs.〔Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 465.〕 Sea trade with the Southeast Pacific, the Hindu world, the Islamic world, and the East African world brought merchants great fortune and spurred an enormous growth in the shipbuilding industry of Song-era Fujian province. However, there was risk involved in such long overseas ventures. To reduce the risk of losing money on maritime trade missions abroad, the historians Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais write: (era ) investors usually divided their investment among many ships, and each ship had many investors behind it. One observer thought eagerness to invest in overseas trade was leading to an outflow of copper cash. He wrote, 'People along the coast are on intimate terms with the merchants who engage in overseas trade, either because they are fellow-countrymen or personal acquaintances...(give the merchants ) money to take with them on their ships for purchase and return conveyance of foreign goods. They invest from ten to a hundred strings of cash, and regularly make profits of several hundred percent'.〔Ebrey et al., 159.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chinese industrialization」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|