The late Ming Dynasty is an important period in the history of China, and its significance lies in that it is at an important historical turning point, the beginning of the transformation from ancient society to modern society in China, and the beginning of economic globalization.

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As for the relationship between China and the world in the Ming Dynasty, the author initially discussed it from the perspective of overseas policy. With the deepening of the research, the author is increasingly aware of a fundamental problem, that is, the policy is superficial, and behind the policy evolution, the more important factor affecting politics is not the policy change itself, but the change of the whole society or the evolution of the times. If we only stay in the category of political history and stay at the policy level, it will be difficult to sort out the great changes that have taken place in society. Therefore, the causes of social changes need to be explored in an extremely complex and changeable society.

In the history of China, silver finally moved from a precious commodity to a complete monetary form, especially in the Ming Dynasty. It is of great significance to study the silver itself in Ming Dynasty. However, its significance goes far beyond this. After the publication of the translation of the book "Silver Capital" by Gunder Frank, a western scholar, the problem of silver has aroused widespread concern, and book reviews have been in full swing for a time. However, the publication of this book did not make up for the deficiency of previous silver research, but made the empirical problems of the research particularly prominent.

For a long time, academic circles have mainly demonstrated and explained the remarkable changes in the late Ming society from the perspective of the germination of capitalism and the development of commodity economy. In recent years, many scholars have deeply reflected and questioned the "normative" understanding formed in the past, which shows that the research is deepening and the transformation of research paradigm is imperative. But so far, academic circles have paid little attention to the rapid development of monetary economy in the late Ming Dynasty, and paid little attention to the unusual monetization process of silver in the Ming Dynasty and its great influence. In fact, the development of monetary economy and commodity economy are closely linked, but they are relatively independent. Currency change is not necessarily the direct and inevitable result of commodity economy change, which has been confirmed by monetarists. The author's investigation on the monetization of silver in the Ming Dynasty is based on this consideration, trying to explore the social changes in the late Ming Dynasty from a brand-new perspective.

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Silver experienced an unusual monetization process in the Ming Dynasty. In the early Ming dynasty, silver was not legal tender, and the trading of gold and silver was prohibited in the Ming dynasty. When we open Ming Dian, we can see that there are "banknote law" and "money law" in Ming Dian system, but there is no "silver law". However, silver was widely used in the whole society in the late Ming Dynasty, and silver occupied a dominant position in the field of currency circulation. Today, the great changes in silver are based on Ming Yingzong's "banning silver" and "using silver in both government and public" in the early years of Ming Dynasty, which is considered to be the result of the implementation of court decrees. However, the high generalization of Ming history is problematic. Through the analysis of the use of money in 427 land transaction contracts in Huizhou from the early Ming Dynasty to Chenghua, the unusual monetization process of silver in Ming Dynasty is highlighted.

The monetization of silver in Ming Dynasty started from the people and experienced a bottom-up development process. It was not until Chenghua and Hongzhi (65438 at the end of 20051early June) that they were recognized by the government, starting from top to bottom. The most important way to expand is to convert taxes into silver. After the Ming Dynasty, silver changed from an official illegal currency to a de facto legal currency, and the monetization of silver spread throughout the society. With the acceleration of the process of silver monetization, silver has penetrated into every corner of society and people's daily life. Without currency circulation, there would be no active market. The circulation of precious metal currency has injected people into all social and economic life, making the market unprecedentedly active. In a sense, the prosperity of commodity economy, the formation of business gangs and the rise of towns in this period all started from here, or we can base ourselves on it. Therefore, it has brought a series of institutional changes and triggered the changes of the whole society. By Jiajing period (65438+1940s), this monetization process was basically completed. In the first year of Qin Long (1567), Emperor Muzong of Ming Dynasty issued a decree: all goods worth more than one silver dollar should be bought and sold with both silver and silver; No more than one dollar is allowed. In the objective reality of silver monetization in Ming Dynasty, this law was clearly defined as "using both money and money". Its importance lies in that this is the first time in the Ming Dynasty that silver was recognized as legal tender in the form of legal power, and silver was fixed as the main currency in the form of legal power. Therefore, it can also be regarded as a proof of the establishment of the silver-based monetary system in the Ming Dynasty.

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Because silver permeates the whole society, all walks of life have a demand for silver from top to bottom. This huge and growing demand for silver highlighted the contradiction between the domestic silver reserves and the serious shortage of silver mining at that time. Demand is far greater than supply, and the value of silver increases, so it is inevitable to seek overseas markets. The old foreign trade model-tribute trade can no longer meet the needs, private overseas trade is booming, and the overseas policy of the Ming Dynasty has changed. The market has developed greatly, and after basically covering the whole country, it has rapidly expanded overseas.

The development of China's overseas trade directly stimulated the discovery and development of Japanese silver mines. At the same time, the western Portuguese came from the east and arrived in Japan in the 1940s of 16. They immediately found that the silk and silver trade between China and Japan could make huge profits, so they actively participated in it, carried out active intermediary trade and expanded the trade scope to Europe. After Spain expanded to Asia, it almost immediately discovered the fact that it needed silver in exchange for goods from China, which was followed by the crazy mining and transportation of silver mines in America. It seems that these events can't be explained by the coincidence of time, but only by the fact that China's demand has promoted the development of the world's minerals. Therefore, the sudden sharp increase in the output of Japanese silver mines should be said not to exist in isolation, but to be stimulated by the huge demand in China. When it comes to American silver, we have mostly ignored an important fact in the past, that is, an important reason why the West began to explore new routes is the demand for gold, not silver. /kloc-A large amount of silver was mined in the United States in the second half of the 6th century, which was closely related to the trade demand of China. It can be said that the monetization of silver in China has promoted the development of silver minerals in Japan and the United States. Dennis Flynn and Alatulo Gerald proposed that world trade was born in 157 1. We believe that if we start from the above-mentioned active silver trade, the time should be advanced to 65438+1940s, that is, China has a great demand for silver, so it is more appropriate to start looking for it from overseas. At that time, a world trade network began to be established and the embryonic form of the world market began to appear; Silver has become the world currency and played an extremely important role in the formation of the whole history of the world.

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The Ming Dynasty was the most complicated and changeable period in the history of China. On the basis of the development of social productive forces, silver rose spontaneously from the people. This process of silver monetization has formed a strong development trend in China society, which not only completed the reform of the monetary system, but also permeated the whole society, causing great social changes. China in Ming Dynasty, marked by precious metals and silver, is associated with two important historical turning points. One is the beginning of China's transition from ancient society to modern society.

In short, it is reflected in profound changes at many levels:

(1) On the monetary level, it changed from base metal copper coins to precious metal silver;

(2) At the tax level, the change from manual and forced labor to monetary tax;

(3) at the level of economic structure, the transformation from small-scale peasant economy to market economy;

(4) At the level of social relations, the dependence between people and things has changed;

(5) On the level of values, from emphasizing agriculture and restraining business to emphasizing business;

(6) At the level of social structure, the transition from traditional society to modern society. In view of this, I think the process of silver monetization is the process of social and economic monetization in China, which is also the process of market economy germination in China. This is a key for us to study the late Ming society, which proves that the social changes in the late Ming dynasty have the nature of fundamental social transformation.

The other is the beginning of economic globalization. The monetization of silver is the product of the connection between China in transition and the whole world in formation, that is, the product of the interactive relationship between China and the world. What I want to emphasize here is that due to the internal changes in China society, the monetization of silver has been initially established, resulting in huge social demand, and the market economy has sprouted and expanded on a large scale with an unprecedented development trend, thus China has taken the initiative to go to the world. Instead of being passively brought into the world by the West, as previously known. The world economic system was not created by the West. When the world gradually formed into a whole world, China actively participated in the initial construction of the world economic system in the Ming Dynasty and made important historical contributions to the emergence of the whole world. In this regard, the monetization of silver in Ming Dynasty means the social transformation of China and the arrival of a new era in the whole world, which is of epoch-making significance in the history of China and even the world.

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