The Song of China

[Communist Wizard]

Just... read:
1066: Wanyan Aguda, the would-be uniter of the Jurcens who would seriously injure the Song Dynasty in the future (OTL), is born. He lives for 5 days, then dies. With this, Song China has been saved.
1115-20: The Songs are still fighting the Liao and the Jurchen's are still under Liao. An Imperial Song official named Huao Ling gets caught up in everything about gunpowder. He sees its possibilty to destroy, and presses his High Imperial Colleagues into putting more into these "cannons". Later, at the Great Show-And-Tell of Ling, he lures them to watch a bunch of soldiers he recruited to this job of showing the military prowess of the gunpowder weapons. The weapons decimated straw fgures meant to be troops, walls, and had exceptional range for that period. He also told them of the "Industralizing" methods that could be used even more effectively. "Reformist Ling", as he was called, got a few more people interested in newfangled things and reform. His cause was eventually reached after 5 years, when Imperial Officials, in the war against Lioa, used a large number of cannons. The battle was a huge victory, and generals, along with officials, see the advantage of the cannon. Reform starts to seep in elsewhere. Ling's ideas have gotten more followers after he wrote his book, The Imperial Policy of Reform, or Looking Into the Future to Solve Today's Problems.
Well, is it a nice start? I got the idea and info from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Dynasty

 

[Neroon]

Well, is it a nice start? [/URL]

Indeed, please continue.

 

[Smaug]

I don't see China Industrializing. They had to much of an excess of labor. I'll grant that they might build new weapons, but there is no impetus to industrialize thier whole society. Those people have to be kept busy, or thier minds will get distracted and they'll start thinking about thier lot in life.

Whats the old saying about idle hands and what not?

 

[Hendryk]

This is a debate we've had on previous occasions, and I'm among those who consider that Song China was very close indeed to taking the leap into actual industrialization. So while this will require some justification, it's hardly an implausible development.

 

[Faeelin]

I don't see China Industrializing. They had to much of an excess of labor. I'll grant that they might build new weapons, but there is no impetus to industrialize thier whole society. Those people have to be kept busy, or thier minds will get distracted and they'll start thinking about thier lot in life.

I don't think your argument makes sense.

The Chinese government would have to recognize the consequences of industrialization before it ever happened in order to be able to oppose using new technologies to industrialize the Empire.

And since the Song dynasty witnessed technological growth encouraged by the government.....

 

[Max Sinister]

He's too great a great man... seeing the potential of cannons is one thing, but inventing industrialization on the fly too?

 

[Faeelin]

He's too great a great man... seeing the potential of cannons is one thing, but inventing industrialization on the fly too?

It depends on what it entails.

The Song had a national armory which supplied weapons for the army, but IIRC we're not sure how it functioned.

Perhaps he establishes the idea of mass production? "We live in a world where the peasants sow and reap, merchants trade, and the emperor reigns. Imagine how chaotic it would be if they all shared the tasks? How good would a peasant be at ruling, or an emperor at growing rice? No, we let each one focus on the job that suits them.

So too it should be in the armory. If we train a man to build a link of armor, and another man to tie links of chian together, surely the work would be faster!"

 

[Communist Wizard]

?... Inventing industrilazation on the fly? What? By that time, China had the beginnings of an industrial revolution. Here is an excerpt:

Arts, culture and economy

The founder of the Song Dynasty, Emperor Taizu, built an effective centralized bureaucracy staffed with civilian scholar-officials. Regional military governors and their supporters were replaced by centrally appointed officials. This system of civilian rule led to a greater concentration of power in the emperor and his palace bureaucracy than had been achieved in the previous dynasties.
The Song Dynasty is notable for the development of cities not only for administrative purposes but also as centers of trade, industry, and maritime commerce. The landed scholar-officials, sometimes collectively referred to as the gentry, lived in the provincial centers alongside the shopkeepers, artisans, and merchants. A new group of wealthy commoners - the mercantile class - arose as printing and education spread, private trade grew, and a market economy began to link the coastal provinces and the interior. Landholding and government employment were no longer the only means of gaining wealth and prestige. The development of paper money and a unified tax system meant the development of a true nationwide market system.
Accompanying this was the beginnings of what one might term the Chinese industrial revolution. For example the historian Robert Hartwell has estimated that per capita iron output rose sixfold between 806 and 1078, such that, by 1078 China was producing 125,000 tons of iron per year, a per capita consumption of roughly 1.5 kg of iron per year (compared to 0.5 kg in Europe). This iron was used to mass produce ploughs, hammers, needles, pins, cymbals among other routine items for an indigenous mass market and for trade with the outside world, which also expanded greatly at this point. The Chinese invented or developed gunpowder, the cannon, the flamethrower (as did the Byzantines with Greek fire), and printing technology which increased literacy with the mass production of printed materials. This meant that parents could encourage sons to learn to read and write and therefore be able to take the Imperial examination and become part of the growing learned bureaucracy. As a result of these innovations (and the concurrent agricultural revolution) China boasted some of the largest cities of the world at this time. For example it has been estimated that Hangzhou had more than 400,000 inhabitants by 1200: far larger than any European city - in Western Europe, only Paris and Venice had a population of over 100,000.
According to the most common estimates, the GDP per capita income with purchasing power parity under the Song Dynasty was estimated to be over $600 in 1990 international dollars, whereas Western Europe had a per capita income of roughly $550 by 1000 AD. However, Western Europe started to become slightly wealthier in per capita income than China after 1300 AD.
Culturally, the Song refined many of the developments of the previous centuries. This included refinements of the Tang ideal of the universal man, who combined the qualities of scholar, poet, painter, and statesman, but also historical writings, painting, calligraphy, and hard-glazed porcelain. Song intellectuals sought answers to all philosophical and political questions in the Confucian Classics. This renewed interest in the Confucian ideals and society of ancient times coincided with the decline of Buddhism, which the Chinese regarded as foreign and offering few practical guidelines for the solution of political and other mundane problems.
The Song Neo-Confucian philosophers, finding a certain purity in the originality of the ancient classical texts, wrote commentaries on them. The most influential of these philosophers was Zhu Xi (1130-1200), whose synthesis of Confucian thought and Buddhist, Taoist, and other ideas became the official imperial ideology from late Song times to the late 19th century. As incorporated into the Imperial examination system , Zhu Xi's philosophy evolved into a rigid official creed, which stressed the one-sided obligations of obedience and compliance of subject to ruler, child to father, wife to husband, and younger brother to elder brother. The effect was to inhibit the societal development of premoderm China, resulting both in many generations of political, social, and spiritual stability and in a slowness of cultural and institutional change up to the 19th century. Neo-Confucian doctrines also came to play the dominant role in the intellectual life of Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.

 

[Communist Wizard]

Anyways, here is the next few years-
1121-1125: Huan Ling has gained prominence and popularity. Through out the Empire, literacy is increasing, and some of the most popular books, are Ling's and Neo-Confucian texts. People from all over, whether they be a simple, but literate farmer or official from Kaifeng, are supoorting reform and "looking into the future to solve today's problems". The generals and their subordinates on the battlefield are clamoring for extra cannons, as Liao dreads the appearence of even a single one of them on the battlefield. As Huan Ling said, "Cannons, along with being good physical attackers, also attack your mind. As a shell is coming down on the opponents heads, it is invisible. They are frozen in fear as they wait to be torn apart, and either they will run, or stand there. It is basic human instinct.". This was true, as Liao officials drill their warriors to not panic when a shell comes. However, they can't even replicate anything like that, and only at the siege of the Liao capital did someone get a whiff of gunpowder to replicate. And by then, it was too late. Also, research was made into whether these cannons could be made small enough to be an infantry weapon. However, this wasn't going to be found out for several years.
On the home front, mass production for basic items was in full swing. People were growing more literate, and the number increased everyday. Also, at this time, trade grew. The fleet recently went through on a trading expedition to OTL Indonesia. A next fleet would sail in several years farther, rounding the bend of Indonesia and sailing farther...
With their monopoly on gunpowder, and a growing population that needed space, Korea was next. Settlers were going to arrive in about 3 years. In most senses, it was a great time for the Song of China.

 

[pieman3141]

You should mention stuff about mathematics and whatnot. The Chinese were still, IIRC, using the rod number system (using rods like |||| as numbers), instead of the atrocious word-based number system (writing 'four' instead of '4') that somehow replaced it after, what I believe to be, the Yuan.

 

[Smaug]

While its a generalization, I think states with vast manpower pools are just less likely to worry about industrialization as concept. I do admit that the individual benefits of it, particularly better weapons, and means of enriching the Emperor, would be seriously considered. My point is that I don't think the Emperor would do it for the sake of the common good. JMO