I assure you that this river runs for such a distance and through so many regions and there are so many cities on its banks that truth to tell, in the amount of shipping it carries and the total volume and value of its traffic, it exceeds all the rivers of the Christians put together and their seas into the bargain. [204]

The Chinese economy became increasingly commercialized, with paper money firmly established in both north and south China by the twelfth century. A large inter-regional trade developed in both luxuries and staples like rice. During the Song dynasty, coastal trade flourished and extended to Japan and South-East Asia. Urbanization proceeded apace, such that by the late thirteenth century Hangzhou, China’s largest city, had a population of almost 7 million, making China by far the most urbanized society in the world, its cities accounting for around 10 per cent of the population. [205] The cities were not, however, to play the same role as centres of political and personal freedom as those in Europe: autonomous urban development was constrained by China ’s centralized imperial structure, a pattern that only began to change in the twentieth century. Encouraged by the government, there was a flowering of learning and a wave of remarkable inventions during the Song dynasty, especially in the century and a half of the Northern Song (960-1126). [206] What is sometimes described as China’s Renaissance witnessed the development of a classical examination system, the birth of neo-Confucianism, the invention of gunpowder, mortars and woodblock printing, the spread of books, and major advances in mathematics, natural sciences, astronomy and geography. [207] A large spinning machine was invented that was to fall only slightly short of what might — at least theoretically — have ushered in an industrial revolution along the lines that Britain was to experience centuries later. [208] In contrast, Europe ’s Renaissance only began two centuries after the end of the Northern Song. The diffusion of books enabled by woodblock printing, the publication of large encyclopedias, the growing number of candidates who entered the examination system for the civil service, the great advances made in mathematics (particularly the development of algebra) and the emergence of a gentry-scholar class marked China out as the most literate and numerate society in the world; only Islam could compare, with Europe lagging well behind. [209] During the medieval period Europe was to borrow extensively from China ’s innovations, including paper, the compass, the wheelbarrow, the sternpost rudder, the spinning wheel and woodblock printing. [210] China was by far the most advanced civilization in East Asia, exercising a huge influence on its neighbours, many of which had long been tributary states of China, paying tribute to the emperor and acknowledging the superiority of Chinese culture.

After 1300 this efflorescence began to subside and China ’s medieval economic revolution gave way to a period of stagnation that only came to an end in 1500. The Mongol invasion marked the closure of the Song period, in many respects China ’s finest age, and led to the establishment of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and the incorporation of China into the Mongol Empire. It was to prove traumatic, with the Chinese finding themselves under alien rule and reduced to lowly status. There were several reasons for the economic slowdown. The dynamic by which China had expanded from its heartlands southwards had involved the addition of rich new farmlands, but this area began to fill up with migrants from the north; as a consequence there was growing pressure on resources, most notably food. [211] The spectacular advances in science, meanwhile, started to dry up. The Song dynasty had placed considerable emphasis on the importance of trade and contact with foreigners, notably Japan and South-East Asia, but also beyond to Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and even the east coast of Africa. This process slowly went into reverse during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). [212] In 1371 the Ming dynasty forbade coastal people from sailing overseas because of the threat posed to Chinese shipping by large-scale Japanese piracy. An edict in 1390 declared: ‘At present the ignorant people of the Liang-Kuang, Chekiang and Fukien are frequently in communication with the outer barbarians, with whom they carry on a smuggling trade. This is therefore strictly prohibited.’ [213]There followed over the next three centuries a succession of restrictions banning first private and then government trade. By 1757 Canton was the only port from which legal trade could be conducted, as Lord Macartney was to complain.

The successful reconstruction of the Grand Canal linking northern China with the rich rice fields of the Yangzi in 1411 was a crucial moment, signalling a greatly reduced need for coastal shipping and, therefore, also for a navy. For almost four and a half centuries, from the consolidation of the Song Empire until the remarkable seafaring expeditions of the early Ming (1405-33), China was the greatest maritime nation in the world — using big compartmented ships (with up to four decks, four or five masts, and a dozen sails), steered by a sternpost rudder, guided by charts and compass, and able to carry 500 men. [214] The ships used by Zheng He for his great voyages to South-East Asia, the Indian Ocean and the east coast of Africa in the early fifteenth century were by far the most advanced in the world. From the moment the voyages were completed, however, China ’s maritime prowess fell into steep decline. In 1436 the construction of seagoing ships was banned and the number of smaller vessels built was reduced. The reason for this growing isolation and introspection is not entirely clear. It would appear that the failure to continue with Zheng He’s great voyages was the result of several factors: a political shift in the attitude of the Ming dynasty; the moving of the imperial capital from Nanjing to Beijing in 1421, which led to heightened sensitivities about the northern border and reduced interest in oceanic and coastal priorities; and growing concern about both the cost of the maritime voyages and the relative failure of the military expeditions against the Mongols in the north. [215] There was also an anxiety that the coastal centres, with their links to other lands, might act as an alternative source of power, the maintenance of social order and control always being a prime consideration for Chinese rulers. Perhaps also the underlying Chinese belief that their civilization was far superior to those of the barbarians (especially the nomadic cultures to its north, [216] which intensified under the Ming in an ethnic reaction to the previous Mongol rule, made such an autarchic and isolationist view seem natural.

Between 1500 and 1800, stagnation gave way to vigorous economic growth and reasonable prosperity. There was a steady increase in the food supply, due to an increase in land under cultivation — the result of migration and settlement in the western and central provinces, greater productivity (including the use of new crops like corn and peanuts) and better irrigation. [217] These developments sustained a fivefold increase in China ’s population between 1400 and 1800, whereas between 1300 and 1400 it had fallen sharply. [218] China ’s performance during this period has tended to be overshadowed by the dynamism of the earlier medieval economic revolution; unlike during the Song dynasty, this later growth was achieved with relatively little new invention. In the eighteenth century China remained the world’s largest economy, followed by India, with Europe as a secondary player. Adam Smith, who saw China as an exemplar of market-based development, observed in 1776 that ‘ China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.’ [219] It was not until 1850, indeed, that London was to displace Beijing as the world’s largest city. [220]