The Northern Song Dynasty was a very strange dynasty with a huge army, but its military strength was not strong. It is considered to be the most prosperous era in economy and science and technology, but the national treasury is often in deficit, weak militarily and poor economically, so even though the Northern Song Dynasty has a very bright side, it will still be evaluated by historians as one of the poorest and weakest dynasties in ancient times. Of course, on the whole, the achievements of the Northern Song Dynasty were higher than those of other dynasties, especially in the field of literature and art. Since then, no dynasty has reached the glory of the Northern Song Dynasty.
When history entered the Great Song Dynasty, China seemed to enter modern times, and a material culture began to spread. The circulation of money is more popular than before. The invention of gunpowder, the use of flamethrowers, the compass for navigation, astronomical clocks, blast furnaces, hydraulic looms and the use of watertight compartments of ships all appeared in the Song Dynasty. In the 1 1 century and1century, the living standards of big cities in China can be compared with any other cities in the world. It can be said that the Song Dynasty contains many characteristics of modern urban civilization and is a complete "Oriental Renaissance era".
Because the Song Dynasty was in the heyday of China's feudal society, its urban development and knowledge popularization were even comparable to those of the Western Renaissance. Why has China always been characterized as "poor and weak" in history, but such a prosperous time has not followed the trend, but has regressed? What is the reason?
Geographically speaking, China is located in the east of Asia, monopolizing the most suitable land in the east of Asia, with grasslands and Siberian frigid zone in the north, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, desert Gobi and mountains in the west, tropical jungle in the south and ocean in the east.
Such a relatively closed geographical unit, on the one hand, makes it difficult for foreign civilizations to invade China. In history, Alexander the Great's eastward expedition and the eastward expansion of * * * religion all entered the Indian subcontinent at the crossroads of Afghanistan, instead of entering China eastward, which made Chinese civilization uninterrupted for thousands of years without interference from foreign civilizations, and the whole East Asia formed a civilized system and an international political system centered on China.
This closed geographical environment also limits the expansion of China. As early as 22 1 year BC, the Qin dynasty unified the whole country, and all the land suitable for farming in East Asia was included in the empire territory, expanding to the boundary between farming civilization and nomadic civilization, which actually reached the expansion limit of farming empire. The Han dynasty was martial, then defeated the prairie people, expanded its power to the northern grassland and the western regions, and expanded the empire to the limit of geographical limitations. After its early expansion to the limit, China began to shrink, and its enterprising spirit and martial spirit began to fade. The so-called romantic life in Wei and Jin Dynasties is just the erosion and degeneration of the aristocratic elite after losing their enterprising spirit and martial spirit, and finally they can only die.
In the Song Dynasty, although sixteen states were lost, the northern gate of agricultural civilization was opened, and North China, once the core area of Chinese civilization, was threatened by nomadic people. The defense line of the Central Plains dynasty retreated to the Yellow River, and the northwest was invaded by Xixia. However, after peace was achieved through property contribution, China civilization further intervened and became conservative when prosperity was restored in the Song Dynasty.
After the fall of the aristocratic elite, the imperial examination in the Tang Dynasty made the bureaucratic class rise, and the imperial bureaucrats in the Song Dynasty unified the whole country. In the Song Dynasty, Confucianism, the core ideology of the bureaucratic class, developed from Taoism in the Tang Dynasty to Neo-Confucianism in Zhu Cheng in the Song Dynasty, actually completed its religious structure, fixed it, and then became conservative and rigid, becoming the dominant ideology of the whole Chinese civilization. The dominant ideology is conservative and rigid, and Chinese civilization has lost not only its enterprising spirit and martial spirit, but also the turning point of Chinese civilization from prosperity to decline, retreating from the gate of modern times.
The Northern Song Dynasty died of gold, and with overseas trade, its finance and economy even surpassed that of the Northern Song Dynasty, which had a larger territory. However, in this conservative and rigid culture, it is biased. Ming and Qing dynasties were also prosperous, but they were also more conservative and rigid, which eventually led to national subjugation and almost extinction.