It was in Song dynasty China, around 1000 years ago, that gunpowder, printing and the compass-three great inventions that were to shape the course of global civilization-made their first appearance.

In the year 1000, at the imperial capital of Kaifeng, naval commander Tang Fu presented Emperor Zhenzong of the Song dynasty with improved versions of several gunpowder-based incendiary weapons. Ever since the invention of rockets 30 years previously by Feng Yisheng, the Ministry had been developing new devices, such as smokescreen shells, "spiny fireballs" able to halt the advance of enemy cavalry, and incendiary projectiles for setting fire to the enemy's stocks of materiel. Later, metal-encased explosive devices were developed, similar to land mines, along with "fire-spears" for launching at attackers. But among common people gunpowder was known best for its use in fireworks and firecrackers, so important for generating a festive atmosphere on special occasions.

Biggest city in the world

The Song dynasty capital at that time, also known as the Eastern Capital because of its location relative to Luoyang, was at Kaifeng, in today's Henan province. The capital was ringed by three sets of walls, separating the "imperial city" at its center from the "inner city" around it and the "outer city" that surrounded that. Within the imperial city, the emperor was delighted with Tang Fu's new weapons, and showered the commander with honors. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the rest of the city continued making gunpowder into fireworks, with which they loudly celebrated occasions such as the Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Chinese Lovers' Day and Winter Solstice.

The city was enclosed by a broad moat lined with weeping willows-the green of which contrasted beautifully with the red of the city gates. On all four sides of both the inner and outer city walls, water gates provided passage to the Grand Canal, which was the capital's main supply route. Three kilometers outside the city the canal was spanned by a rainbow-arch bridge, with wharves and warehouses along both banks and porters busily unloading grain and goods from great barges. Some six million piculs of rice from southern China arrived here every year. By the reign of Emperor Shenzong (1068-1086) Kaifeng was the largest city in the world, and in the year 1103, during the reign of Huizong, China's population exceeded 100 million for the first time, reaching 102,600,000 people.

The world's first paper currency

In this, the world's largest city of the day, the streets were perpetually buzzing with activity. Merchants riding donkeys laden with wares, and caravans of reeky camels bearing perfumes, flutes and other exotica from distant lands, moved through the crowds. Now and then an important official or a member of the gentry passed by in a carriage or sedan chair, spreading waves of scent from the perfumed ornaments that they wore.

Under the unified rule of the Song court, the economy-hitherto composed of self-sufficient manor-based districts-opened up to inter-regional commerce. In Kaifeng, the finest products from all over China could be purchased, including Jingdezhen porcelain and Hangzhou silk. The poet Zhou Bangyan marveled at the sharpness of knives from Taiyuan in Shanxi, which glinted like water, and at salt from Hangzhou which was as white as snow. At a time when trade in the west was still conducted by bartering, the business-savvy people of Song-dynasty China were already accustomed to using money. There was even a form of paper currency circulating in Sichuan, where it was known as a "handover." The people of the Song clearly had a knack for business.

A closer look at the bustling crowd would have revealed that most of the men were wearing clothes of black and white, with members of different trades distinguished by their various modes of dress. For example, that old gentleman wearing a hat with dangling ribbons has to be either a fortune-teller or an apothecary, in contrast to the chap standing at the counter of his perfumery and wearing a headdress that drapes down his back.

Women hold up half the sky

Perhaps even more surprising would have been the sight of numbers of women, some bearing offerings on the way to the Buddhist temple, some peddling medicine, some running little restaurants. It doesn't quite square with the familiar image of the ladies of that era as delicate little creatures, tottering about on their "three-inch golden lilies" (bound feet) and never stepping beyond the confines of the house.

In fact, the exigencies of the imperial examination system during the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) meant that while men prepared for examinations their womenfolk often took on the role of breadwinner, in order to "help their husbands and educate their sons." In effect these women ran the family business, so naturally they didn't spend all day cooped up at home. As to the inhuman practice of footbinding, this was restricted mostly to singsong girls and entertainers, and was not something that the average woman had to submit to.

It was during the Northern Song period that the Neo-Confucianist scholar Cheng Yi penned the immortal line: "Compared with sacrificing one's moral standing, starving to death is as nothing." But in fact this was still a relatively liberal age, and it wasn't until the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) that the conservative orthodoxies of Neo-Confucianism really took hold. Women were still allowed to remarry and had the right to inherit property. For example, when the statesman Fan Chongyan was a child his surname became Zhu on the remarriage of his mother, and he didn't change it back until he became prominent in later life. Also, when the son of the reformer Wang Anshi died young, Wang married his daughter-in-law off to another man. Even Cheng Yi's niece and one of his nephew's wives remarried after losing their husbands.

A bookish era

The main roads of the city were lined with shops and stalls selling all manner of goods, but for bookish types the antiques market was the main attraction. Retired officials, and scholars drawn to the capital for the examinations, gathered at the market to sell articles such as Sichuan brocades, coral from the South China Sea, and antique books and paintings from their family collections.

Scholars of this period preferred to work directly from original material rather than plowing through heaps of derivative writings. For example, the Song literary lion Ouyang Xiu was especially fond of rubbings taken from the inscriptions on ancient bronzes, and epigraphy-the study of stone and bronze inscriptions-was popular as a way of coming into contact with the age of antiquity. Towards the end of the Northern Song period, the writer of ci poetry Li Qingzhao and her husband Zhao Mingcheng were renowned collectors, but they had to abandon everything when the dynasty collapsed in chaos.

In addition to antiques, there was a well-developed market for books. The Song dynasty, which prided itself on civil administration, poured large amounts of financial and human resources into its cultural undertakings, and the production of woodblocks for use in printing was at its height. Several encyclopedic sets of books were compiled in the early years of the dynasty, and nearly 20 years went into the production of a new set of the Five Classics. The printing bureau of the Imperial College compiled and produced masses of books, and had over 100,000 printing blocks. The widespread availability of books gave scholars from poor families the opportunity to study for the examinations, and as people became used to having more books around their reading habits began to change. Previously, readers worked from hand-copied texts which they perused from beginning to end, but now they learned to skim through books, dipping in and out as they wished. One consequence of this was the rise of the biji form of composition, consisting of short literary sketches.

Highbrow plus mass-appeal

While scholars and the gentry enjoyed browsing through bookstores and acquiring antiques, the hoi polloi had their own forms of diversion. There were plenty of theaters in the entertainment district, the largest of which could seat thousands of spectators, and these offered operas, story-telling, puppetry and leather-silhouette shows. There was also a "creature show," featuring tortoises trained to mount into the form of a pagoda and horny toads lining up to prostrate themselves.

When leisure-seekers had had their fill of the streets they could repair to one of the city's many restaurants. At the top end of the scale were gaily decorated establishments featuring singsong girls and dancers. These were filled with waiters dashing among the private booths and diners helping each other to fine liquor from silver flasks. For those on a more modest budget there were any number of eateries where they could stop for a dish of fried eggplant or beancurd, or fill up on a thick broth of meatbones or fish. They could also opt to snack on steamed buns or stuffed dumplings-humble items which were so popular that they were often celebrated in verse.

After dinner there were further treats to pick up along the way, such as candied jujubes and sauce-stewed chicken and duck, as well as cold drinks such as ginger and honey cordial, sweet bean soup, purple perilla drink, and a sweat-inducing herbal beverage that was popular with the city's pole-bearers as a form of "sports drink."

The Song dynasty city of Kaifeng was a place where the different classes of society intermingled, and where high culture existed side by side with popular attractions. The rich variety of the city's life drew many artists, and it was around the year 1135 that the painter Zhang Zeduan produced "A City of Cathay" (shown at top of page) which preserved the image of Kaifeng for subsequent generations and is still the best-known depiction of traditional city life in China.

The first night markets

The modern Chinese word for "city" combines the characters for "city walls" and "market," and it was during the Northern Song dynasty that these two were paired for the first time. Commerce was thriving during this period, and the city was full of stores and markets, many staying open until late in the evening. Kaifeng by night was abuzz with light and activity, and its night markets, called "ghoul markets," were usually open all night. As dawn began to break over the city, the last denizens of the night could be seen heading home from the late late show, while travelling salesmen were already up and about, breakfasting on steaming-hot dumplings before setting off for their next destination.

Kaifeng's Central Imperial College was a magnet for students, but the capital was not the only place to obtain an education, and academies were set up in prefectures and counties throughout the land, along with private schools founded for the members of specific clans. After the upheaval of the An Lushan Rebellion during the Tang dynasty, and the chaotic Five Dynasties period that followed the Tang, the system of serfdom had disintegrated, and tenant-farmers were free to choose their own landlords. In terms of social system and the general level of the people, the Song dynasty was remarkably enlightened, and indeed Japanese academics have concluded that China had by that point already entered the modern phase of civilization.

Cultured people everywhere

Away from Kaifeng itself, many officials, aristocrats and scholars had built their own rustic retreats. For example, there was the writer Sima Guang's Garden of Solitary Joy, less than an acre in size but featuring seven miniature vistas, each with a particular historical allusion. In Anhui Province there was Ouyang Xiu's self-effacingly named Pavilion of the Drunk Old Gentleman, where the mind of the aforementioned gentleman was preoccupied with scenic wonders rather than the next drink. The settings of these retreats reflected the aesthetic ideals of the literati and their detached approach to life, and it was these same people, the educated elite, who set the tone for national and local administration during the Song dynasty.

The new class of officials had plenty of plans for improving rural society, including the introduction of new modes of district organization, and it was this period that saw the emergence of what would now be called "integrated community development." Local people freely agreed to the terms of a "district contract," the implementation of which was entrusted to a respected elder in the community, and under which members were held to account for their behavior, whether good or bad, at the end of every month. Everyone was expected to offer congratulations to any family celebrating a happy occasion, or express condolences at times of bereavement, and people had to help one another out in the event of floods, robbery, disease and other misfortunes. Many scholar-officials also formed communities out of their own extended families by establishing clan congregations, updating genealogies, and setting up private schools to educate promising youngsters. These new forms of local organization helped society to remain orderly and civilized, and fostered an overall mood of culture and enlightenment.

Rule by the learned

It was in 960, by means of the Chenqiao Mutiny, that Zhao Kuangyin first donned the yellow robes of imperial rule and founded the Song dynasty. Zhao was the fourth example since the start of the Five Dynasties of a general seizing power on the strength of his own forces. Ever since the closing years of the Tang dynasty, weak monarchs had been unable to prevent their own generals from breaking away and founding independent states, so Zhao, as the Emperor Taizu, orchestrated an arrangement by which his commanders agreed to relinquish authority over their armies and retire peacefully to the countryside. Then he ensured a large influx of well-educated commoners into the ranks of officialdom, by means of the national examination system. The final tier of this system-the "Palace Examination"-was presided over by the emperor himself, and successful candidates, or "jinshi," became known as "disciples of the Son of Heaven."

During the Tang dynasty, only a few dozen candidates were admitted as jinshi whenever the examinations were held, but during the Song dynasty this honor roll ran to several hundred names annually, and in the 20 years of Taizu's reign there were nearly 10,000 new jinshi. In the year 999, with the rapid increase in the numbers of those entering for the examinations, and given the need to ensure fairness, the practice of sealing candidates' names (which until then had been written on the examination paper) was introduced for provincial examinations, and a similar system has continued in use right up to today's joint university entrance examination. The court of Emperor Taizu, for whom civil accomplishments took precedence over martial exploits, was composed of writers and scholars from ordinary families rather than members of the ruling aristocracy as under the Tang dynasty.

Men of letters who rose to prominence through the examination system during this period included the statesman Fan Chongyan (remembered for asserting that the worries of the population should be the first concern for all rulers), the man of letters Ouyang Xiu (who grew up poor and learned to write by scratching a twig in the sand), the founder of Neo-Confucianist thought Zhou Dunyi, the writer Sima Guang, the reformer Wang Anshi, and a trio of writers from a famous literary family: Su Xun, Su Shi and Su Che. As a sign of the times, a culture of rarefied good taste took over from the easygoing gentility of the Tang.

Suave young fellow

With cultivated people running the country, cultured thinking permeated society, and there was a spontaneous flourishing of philosophy and new ideas. In art, the bright color combinations of ink-and-wash painting gave way to mixed hues of gray, with large areas of the surface left blank. Porcelain became simpler in form, and plainer and purer in color. Ko Ching-ming, professor of Chinese at National Taiwan University (NTU), says: "The sense that people have of the Song dynasty is of a suave, well-bred young fellow." Ko's own attitude towards the Song dynasty is a mixture of love and hate. Those deeply introspective literary types with their lofty moral standards produced artistic achievements of the highest order. Yet they also seemed "over-civilized," devoid of any streak of wildness, as if lacking part of what makes us human. This can be sensed in the contrast between the refined elegance of Song porcelain and the brash tri-color glaze pottery of the Tang dynasty.

Looking back, we can see that from the moment it was founded the Song dynasty was helpless against foreign aggression. Its only choice was to placate the Liao and Western Xia kingdoms by a form of "checkbook diplomacy." Ultimately the Song dynasty was overrun by Mongols, but the consensus among scholars nowadays is that by paying off their opponents with annual tribute, rather than going to war, the Song did the right thing.

Professor Liang Keng-yao of NTU's history department points out that the tribute system not only purchased more than a century of peace for the Song dynasty, but also brought other benefits by allowing for cross-border trade and an exchange of envoys. The Western Xia translated the classic works of Chinese literature and philosophy into their own language, while the Liao modeled their examination system on that of the Han Chinese, such was the cultural impact of the Song. And in economic terms, the money spent on tribute to the two kingdoms was not such a burden, as it largely flowed back into Song territory in the form of payment for commodities, thereby stimulating production. As to the Mongol armies, which had already stormed as far as Europe, the fact that the genteel Song dynasty was able to keep them at bay for so long testifies to the success of its policies.

"Virtually all of what we think of today as China's traditional culture comes to us from the Song dynasty," says Kung Peng-cheng, president of Fokuang University. Although the Song dynasty has long since faded into antiquity, its men of letters, its poets and painters, and its exquisitely attired ladies still live on in our cultural memory. Especially today, on the threshold of the third millennium, at a time when Western culture in the form of Hollywood and McDonald's is sweeping all before it, our eyes turn towards that elegant and leisurely place that was China at the start of the second millennium.

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The policies of Taizu, founding emperor of the Song dynasty, stressed civil rule over martial exploits and ushered in a period of great cultural and economic vitality for China at a time when the Western world was about to enter its second millennium. China's capital, the bustling city of Kaifeng, was the largest city in the world. (Picture of Taizu from The National Palace Museum Pictorial Selection. "A City of Cathay" from The Beijing Qingming Scroll and its Significance for the Study of Chinese History, courtesy of Liu Hsiang-kuang.)

p.31

A form of paper currency was already in use during the commercially vibrant Northern Song dynasty, around 1,000 years ago-more than 600 years before it was used in the West. (courtesy of Yi Hsin Publishing Co. Ltd.)

p.33

Examining the phenomena of nature was part of the spirit of the age. Close observation of the flora and fauna raised Chinese bird-and-flower painting to a peak

during the Song dynasty. (courtesy of National Palace Museum)

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The Song dynasty's state-run examination system propelled large numbers of commoners into the ranks of officialdom. This class of educated administrators set the tone for the whole era. The picture shows an examination candidate dreaming of the rewards of academic success. (courtesy of Yi Hsin Publishing Co. Ltd.)

was the largest city in the world. （Picture of Taizu from The National Palace Museum Pictorial Selection. "A City of Cathay" from The Beijing Qingming Scroll and its Significance for the Study of Chinese History, courtesy of Liu Hsiang-kuang.）

was the largest city in the world. （Picture of Taizu from The National Palace Museum Pictorial Selection. "A City of Cathay" from The Beijing Qingming Scroll and its Significance for the Study of Chinese History, courtesy of Liu Hsiang-kuang.）

A form of paper currency was already in use during the commercially vibrant Northern Song dynasty, around 1,000 years ago--more than 600 years before it was used in the West. （courtesy of Yi Hsin Publishing Co. Ltd.）

was the largest city in the world. （Picture of Taizu from The National Palace Museum Pictorial Selection. "A City of Cathay" from The Beijing Qingming Scroll and its Significance for the Study of Chinese History, courtesy of Liu Hsiang-kuang.）

Examining the phenomena of nature was part of the spirit of the age. Close observation of the flora and fauna raised Chinese bird-and-flower painting to a peak during the Song dynasty. （courtesy of National Palace Museum）

The Song dynasty's state-run examination system propelled large numbers of commoners into the ranks of officialdom. This class of educated administrators set the tone for the whole era. The picture shows an examination candidate dreaming of the rewards of academic success. （courtesy of Yi Hsin Publishing Co. Ltd.）

was the largest city in the world. （Picture of Taizu from The National Palace Museum Pictorial Selection. "A City of Cathay" from The Beijing Qingming Scroll and its Significance for the Study of Chinese History, courtesy of Liu Hsiang-kuang.）