According to legend, in the early years of the Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty, shortly after Zhu Yuanzhang’s eastward invasion and occupation of Suzhou City, a wealthy merchant from Jiangnan angered the founding emperor Long Yan. It was Shen Wansan, a businessman from Zhouzhuang, who angered Zhu Yuanzhang like Kunshan City in Jiangsu Province. It is said that he is extremely rich and has a treasure trove in his family. Shen Wansan generously donated money to help Zhu Yuanzhang build the Nanjing City Wall, but unexpectedly, Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born in the grass roots and fought in the world, became jealous. According to the Ming history, Shen Xiu, who made people rich in Wu Xing, helped build one of the three capitals, and asked for a reward for the army. The emperor was angry and said, “A man rewards the army of the Son of Heaven, and people who are in trouble should be punished.” Finally, under the advice of Empress Ma, Zhu Yuanzhang did not kill Shen Wansan, but sent him to remote Yunnan. In the 26th year of Hongwu, the Shen family was once again involved in the Blue Jade Party case. Since then, The depression and decline made the emperor jealous of the rich Cheng Du of the Shen family in Zhouzhuang. Such a rich family lived in a small town in the south of the Yangtze River. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, there were more rich businessmen, famous families and families gathered in the cities and towns dotted with large and small cities and towns along the the Taihu Lake Lake. Zhenze Town Zhenze Town, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, is a Jiangnan town located on the south bank of the Taihu Lake Lake. One day, a young weaver came here with his wife and children. They will start a new life in this town. At that time, there were only three or four hundred families in Zhenze Town. Previously, Wang Jie, a poet of the Yuan Dynasty, used the poem “There are dozens of depressed families” as a description of the situation here. The family chose to settle here because they can find a better life here, and the gradually developed commerce and handicrafts will provide them with more job opportunities. Shantang Street Zhenze Town, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, was subordinate to Wujiang County of Suzhou Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty. Suzhou Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty governed Wu County, Changzhou County, Changshu County, Wujiang County, Kunshan County, Jiading County and Taicang Prefecture, which is equivalent to Suzhou City today and the districts north of Suzhou Creek in Shanghai. Suzhou Prefecture is one of the six prefectures in the traditional sense in the south of the Yangtze River. The other prefectures include Songjiang Prefecture, Changzhou Prefecture, Hangzhou Prefecture, Jiaxing Prefecture and Huzhou Prefecture. They are located in the basin around the Taihu Lake Lake, and are the most prosperous, prosperous and cultural areas in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The degree of urbanization is very high. Jiangnan in a narrow sense. Wang Jiafan, a tenured professor at East China Normal University: “City and town” is a term that is commonly used in Ming Dynasty historical records. It is still a town with market trade functions and is called a “market town”. Why do we say this? It is because it is different from the past military town areas, and it indicates that the exchange and trade of agricultural products in China occurred very early, and agriculture and commerce developed simultaneously. During the Ming Dynasty, a family of three moved to Zhenze Town, which was a typical Jiangnan town. By the Hongzhi period, it had become one of the four towns in Wujiang County. Although the child had only three to four hundred households when he first arrived, in just over twenty years, the number of residents had increased to nearly a thousand. By the Jiajing period of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty, which was the beginning of the 16th century, Zhenze Town had become a medium-sized town with three li and three thousand residents. According to scholars, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were about 7100 small cities in China, most of which were towns. The towns in the southern region are representative in both scale and density, so why do they appear on a large scale in Jiangnan? Shen Ju and Xu Jinghong run a silk weaving factory near the the Taihu Lake Lake in the suburbs of Suzhou City. Although the factory is not large, dozens of machines are started every day, and the production volume is enough to achieve a well-off life for their family. Modern large machinery production technology enables fine silk threads to be woven into durable silks and satins quickly, which was unimaginable hundreds of years ago. However, even though people at that time used the most traditional hand tools, the Suzhou Hangzhou area is still the most developed area in China’s silk weaving industry. The joy of modern private merchants seeing the fruits of their hard work and selling them both domestically and internationally must also be a common feeling among the owners of private silk shops that developed in the Ming Dynasty’s Jiangnan town due to the silk weaving industry. People’s fascination with silk is not only due to its soft and lightweight texture, its beauty and fashion, but also because it is the crystallization of Chinese civilization’s wisdom, with a long history and profound culture. So, what kind of close connection does she have with the towns in Jiangnan? Wang Jiafan (Lifetime Professor at East China Normal University): The history of silk is very long. Since the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, it has been said that most of the silk handicraft workshops in Jiangnan were actually owned by the government. However, later on, what was developed? The efficiency of the government handicraft industry itself was very low. Later, what was adopted was to contract and send it to the silk households in the past, so silk was also a big part of it. Our towns mainly collected raw silk and turned it into fine silk, and only in places like Shengze did silk processing take place. Shengze Town is located in Wujiang District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province today. It was an important silk production base and product distribution center in the Ming Dynasty. It is now difficult to find the architectural community of the ancient town, and the only remaining site is this former village, which is surrounded by the hustle and bustle of modern cities and buildings from different eras. Zhu Xiaotian (Professor of History at Suzhou University): Shengze’s Zhuangmian, in simple terms, is a trading place for silk factories. Its layout is somewhat like an examination room during the imperial examination period, with hundreds of shops reserved for rent to silk shops. The makeup of the past is now an ordinary residential area, but this site witnesses the glory of the silk weaving industry in Shengze Town. Shengze Town, formerly known as Qingcaotan, was only a village until the early Ming Dynasty, with only fifty or sixty residents. During the Chenghua period, residents gathered and merchants gradually connected. In the early Jiajing period, it gradually formed a municipality. By the early 17th century, during the Wanli Tianqi period, it had developed into a large town. In Feng Menglong’s “Awakening to the World”, there is a description of Shengze Town: the residents in the town are thick and wide, the local customs are simple, all of whom work as silkworms, men and women are diligent, and the sound of weaving machines stays all night long. Originally, the development of Shengze Town as a silk hub was closely related to the local people’s silkworm economy. Due to the prosperity of the silk weaving industry and high economic returns, more and more farmers in the Jiangnan region have shifted from planting to sericulture, and the town has provided them with a market to purchase silkworm cocoons. Nowadays, most raw silk factories have moved from Jiangnan to Jiangbei. However, in the Ming Dynasty, when there were no large machines for production, Jiangnan was the center of the silk weaving industry. People in Jiangnan used traditional techniques to wind and reel silk, and bundles of raw silk made boxes of silver, making China the silk kingdom that the world yearned for, maintaining the myth of an unparalleled trade surplus for any country at that time. The Ancestral Temple is located in Shengze Town, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. There is still a Ancestral Temple (Suzhou, Jiangsu). The main hall is dedicated to Lei Zu, the founder of the silk industry. It is said that she is the wife of the Yellow Emperor. Because she taught the people to raise silkworms and reel silk, she was honored as “the Empress of the Ancestral Silkworm”. “From the time when silkworms eat mulberry leaves to the time when they spin silk into cocoons,” for thousands of years, Chinese children and grandchildren have benefited from the wisdom and civilization of their ancestors. Sericulture and silk weaving have become one of the most important sidelines of farmers outside the planting industry. Jiangnan also has a unique natural environment. Sericulture and silk weaving technology can also be improved. Many large and small towns in the the Taihu Lake Lake basin are silk weaving towns. Zhu Xiaotian (Professor of History at Suzhou University): Shengze, why has it developed so quickly? The important thing is that it is closely related to the population migration after the development of the silk industry. As we all know, every town can become a town, and the towns in Jiangnan are also a place where they gather. Huizhou merchants not only operate the silk industry here, but also engage in industries such as Huimo, tea, and pawnshops. Later on, some Shaoxing people came to Shengze to work in the silk industry, such as dyeing, kicking, and training workshops. However, these jobs have a common characteristic, which is that they are all heavy physical labor, and the local people in Shengze are unwilling to do them. During the Hongxi and Xuande periods of the Ming Dynasty, there was a portion of Suzhou who did this. People went to Shengze to spread the technique of weaving silk, so he came down. With the development of the silk industry, Shengze Town, known for its “thousands of silks at sunrise, clothes covering the world”, has attracted a large number of immigrants. Among them, there are naturally those skilled silk weavers. Zhenze Town, which is only 20 kilometers away from Shengze Town, is also famous for its silkworm breeding and silk weaving industry. In addition to producing silk, Zhenze Town and the four rural households also work on silk weaving. Many machine owners pay generous wages to hire experienced machine workers, and the silk produced is quite famous. The family of three who immigrated to Zhenze Town was also famous because of the development of the silk weaving industry here, which allowed them to use their weapons. As the land has just arrived in Zhenze Town, towns like Zhenze Town and Shengze Town have continuously promoted the traditional production mode of men’s farming and women’s weaving, and the production mode of women’s weaving has changed, while the population of towns has also been continuously expanding. Wang Jiafan (Lifetime Professor at East China Normal University): In the past, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were probably more than a thousand towns in Jiangnan, so today we use the phrase “scattered and scattered” to describe it. In the middle of this network, the biggest foundation at the bottom is the city and small town. What are the functions of the city and small town? Each city and town is surrounded by a hinterland, which is about six or seven miles long, and about twenty miles long. Rural farmers in the surrounding areas sell their agricultural and sideline products to the town for processing, so these products are then sold by merchants to various places. Wuzhen, Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province. This is a nationally renowned 5A level scenic spot in Wuzhen. Today, the bustling West Street of the ancient town was once the busiest commercial artery in Wuzhen during the Ming and Qing dynasties. From the dense storefronts on the street, it is not difficult to imagine the level of commercial development in this Jiangnan town back then. The town originated from a market, and most of the markets in Jiangnan towns were built along the water. In the Xizha scenic area of Wuzhen, this water area is well preserved. It is divided into two parts by an east-west wooden plank bridge, which faces Jingxing Bridge across the Xishi River. Water is built on both sides of the water on the east and west sides of the river. Ge, formerly Wuzhen was located at the junction of two provinces, three prefectures, and seven counties. The river was densely covered and connected in all directions. The residents of the towns and villages in the four townships and eight neighborhoods used to come out in the early morning to have morning tea and catch up with the morning market, Some farmers also bring their own vegetables and livestock to the market for sale, to supplement their household expenses. Wang Jiafan (Lifetime Professor at East China Normal University): Jiangnan Town is actually an agricultural China, and can also be said to be a very beautiful scenery in the world agricultural economy era. It is completely different from the development of towns and cities in the industrialization era. Therefore, it is built on the foundation of agricultural development. Agriculture leads hands-on industry, drives commerce, and drives cross regional trade. The interaction between agriculture, industry, and commerce has developed in a positive way, forming a new situation of market economy. This state was a very typical period in the Ming Dynasty. Agriculture in the Jiangnan region should be attributed to the Northern Song Dynasty. The Northern Song Dynasty did a lot of water conservancy irrigation in the Jiangnan region, and we have a proprietary term “Weitian”. “Weitian” is said to be At that time, an advanced technology in agriculture created a water conservancy irrigation network throughout the entire farmland. The most important large towns in the Ming and Qing dynasties were concentrated in Jiangnan. This can be seen from the development of the Jiangnan economy. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, China’s economic center has shifted southward, and the Jiangnan region has gradually become the hub of China’s economy. In terms of population, tax revenue, agricultural production, and commercial economy, it is second to none in the country. However, with the growth of population, the population pressure in the Jiangnan region has gradually increased, and the contradiction between population and economy has also intensified. Since the Tang Dynasty, farmers in Jiangnan have continuously developed low land wet fields suitable for cultivation through the construction of embankments, called polder fields. During the Ming Dynasty, the development of cultivated land in the south of the Yangtze River was saturated, and the extension of polder fields came to an end. People divided large polder fields by means of polder division, and transformed the wetlands remaining in the center of the large polder fields into farmland. This shows that after hundreds of years of population migration and sustainable development, more people and less arable land became tense, which became a major problem of agricultural production in the south of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty. Taking Huzhou area south of the Taihu Lake Lake as an example, in the Tang and Song Dynasties, it was one of the important grain producing areas in China, and the Song Dynasty was more popular with the proverb: “Suzhou and Hu are ripe, and the world is full”. But in the Ming Dynasty, the planting structure and food supply and demand situation in Huzhou began to change, with a clear change being a decrease in cultivated land area and an increase in mulberry land area; Another obvious change is that in terms of food supply, we have to rely on the Huguang area in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Zhu Xiaotian (Professor of History at Suzhou University): Actually, this is a change in the structure of the planting industry. The main reason for it is the increase in population, the shortage of arable land, and the prominent contradiction between people and land. Moreover, the Jiangnan region is also a heavily endowed area, so farmers need to find a way out by planting economic crops. Jin Changgen (supervisor of Suzhou Chenghu Water Eight Immortals Base): This is our Suzhou Chenghu Water Eight Immortals Base, with eight varieties. The red water chestnut you see now has been taken off the market. There is chicken head rice, lotus root, water chestnut, and Chinese wild rice. Look, the leaves have started to turn yellow now. All of these are water bamboo, autumn water bamboo, and the Eight Immortals of Water, which have been passed down from generation to generation. Shuibaxian, a unique aquatic cash crop in the south of the Yangtze River, cannot grow without the water of the Taihu Lake Lake. In ancient times, there was a saying that the Taihu Lake Lake crossed three states with one lake. These three states refer to Suzhou, Changzhou and Huzhou. Jiangnan towns in the Ming Dynasty actually formed a city group around the Taihu Lake Lake. The vast and beautiful mountains covered the towns hidden on the lake shore with a mysterious veil. Wang Jiafan (Lifetime Professor at East China Normal University): The farmers in Jiangnan are hardworking, but they are very hardworking. They are busy all year round because they have to engage in various businesses, so these are important objects of consumption. In addition, the residents of this town, the majority of whom are landlord gentry, because after landlords come out of the countryside, a large number of them live in the towns. Therefore, the development of education and culture in the towns is due to the presence of many landlord literati there. Of course, these landlord families are the objects of consumption. I say these towns are small towns, and the largest one is small towns. As for large towns, their actual supply and demand patterns determine that these products have a super regional, even cross-border trade nature. Well, from today’s perspective, the Ming Dynasty mainly consisted of two things: silk and cotton. The cotton fabric industry is the main economic source of Jiangnan towns, which is on par with the silk weaving industry. This type of blue printed fabric was once an ancient handmade printed fabric widely popular among the people of Jiangnan. From paper engraving to scraping off hollowed out patterns, dyeing paddles made of soybean powder and lime powder, and then dipping and dyeing with fuel extracted from blue grass, the people of Jiangnan left this simple beauty on various cotton fabric products. The cotton textile industry of the Ming Dynasty was mainly concentrated in the Songjiang Prefecture area, which is today’s Shanghai area, including the Jiading County, which belonged to Suzhou Prefecture at that time and is now under the jurisdiction of Shanghai. From the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty to the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, Songjiang Prefecture is renowned throughout the country for its specialty, Biao Bu, and Zhujiajiao Town is one of the typical Biao Bu trade centers. This place is famous for producing cotton cloth. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, it rose to prominence. During the Wanli period, Zhujiajiao Town became a huge town where merchants gathered. Today, one of the four ancient towns in Shanghai is located in Qingpu District. The cotton cloth produced in Qingpu County was known as the world of clothing, and Zhujiajiao Town attracted merchants from all over the country to purchase standard fabrics. At that time, the cotton textile industry in Songjiang Prefecture imported cotton from various provinces in North China and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and the cotton cloth made in Jiading County was also sold to various provinces in the north. Zhujiajiao Town, Qingpu District, Shanghai, can be said to be a transfer station for annual transactions, providing inns and restaurants for travelers from all over the country to stay and rest. There are various types of inns and restaurants, as recorded in the Chongzhen Songjiang Prefecture Annals: Zhujiajiao Town is a gathering place for merchants, with trade patterns and a continuous flow of standard customers from Beijing and the province. During the Ming Dynasty, the towns in Jiangnan relied on the two major industries of silk and cotton cloth, with well connected water transportation. Not only did they successfully solve the contradiction between population pressure and scarce arable land, but they also attracted merchants from various regions to develop cross regional trade here. Among them, the frequent exchanges of Huizhou merchants unconsciously created a unique cultural landscape in Jiangnan towns. This is also why many ancient towns in Jiangnan today are concentrated in Huizhou style buildings with white walls and gray tiles. In the year of Qi tomorrow, a young Hui merchant arrived at Nanxun Town on the south bank of the Taihu Lake Lake by an Wupeng boat. At that time, it was a big silk town, rich in silk. Before the boat reached the shore, he could not wait to stand at the bow of the boat. He had a look at this place that was strange to him and full of hope. He was going to show his strength here and break out into a world. Among a large number of silk towns, Nanxun Town was the most famous one in the small fan area in the southeast of the Taihu Lake Lake. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Nanxun Town was subordinate to Wucheng County of Huzhou Prefecture. However, at the same time, it is adjacent to Jiaxing, the capital of Suzhou. Since the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Nanxun Town has entered an unprecedented period of prosperity. The prosperous silk weaving handicraft industry and trade have made it a powerful town in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. There are hundreds of rich people in the town. Today, tall walls and large houses are still visible in the town, One by one, the famous clans in Nanxun Town are referred to as the Four Elephants, Eight Cows, and 72 Golden Dogs by the people. They are the largest group of silk merchants in modern China. Nanxun Town, as a center of silk trade, has been thriving for hundreds of years due to its economic advantages, mainly relying on the local silk weaving industry. The high-quality lake silk produced by farmers in Huzhou Prefecture, also known as Jili Silk or Qili Silk, is renowned both domestically and internationally. Lu Shihu (a researcher of folk history in Nanxun Town): The history of Hu silk dates back a long time. During the Three Kingdoms period, it had become a tribute to the royal family. By the Tang Dynasty, it had become an important collection center for sericulture and silk in the country. In the Ming Dynasty, it was the people of Jili Village in Nanxun who used the water from Xidang Bridge in Chuanzhu Bay. The water was clear and the silk was white. Due to this water, the silk was very good and became the finest of Hu silk. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Jili Hu silk gained fame and became a tribute to the royal family. So this is the town at this time, relying on the prosperity of Jilihu silk. The merchants, even the people in the town, are all businessmen. The farmers raising silkworms and reeling silk gradually became prosperous. Jilihu silk was already well-known in Kyoto during the Ming Dynasty and sold overseas. Jili Village, also known as Qili Village, is a famous village in Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province. It is named after being located on Qili Road from Hengjie, Mayao, Nanxun and other places. Nowadays, Jili Village has completely lost the bustling scene of the main production of Husi in the past. However, the bamboo plates used by farmers to raise silkworms and the precious stones used in traditional silk weaving workshops in the past seem like some historical relics lingering around the village. In the Ming Dynasty, there were often busy boats of all sizes on the waterways of Jiangnan towns. Farmers from all four townships would row boats to bustling towns not far from their homes with convenient water transportation, to find a good price for their cocoons and lake silk. In the towns, the raw silk or other goods produced by farmers were not directly traded with foreign merchants, but were traded through the town’s dental shops. At this time, a special profession emerged in the towns, which was the ivory merchants and their hired merchants who specialized in intermediary trade. They acted as intermediaries in trade and were the pivot of the town’s economic operation. In the manuals compiled during the Ming and Qing dynasties for merchants to travel, Jiangnan towns were often marked as a must visit place for merchants. The young Huizhou merchant who came to Nanxun town also quickly sought business opportunities through bargaining with the local Yakuai. He started the business of Jili silk at a very competitive price and soon opened a large-scale silk shop in the town. There is an ancient bridge in Nanxun Town, originally named Xunxi Bridge and later renamed Tongjin Bridge, which was built in the Song Dynasty. The section of the river where this bridge is located happens to be the intersection of the east, west, and north directions. The canal from Huzhou to Pingwang runs through the town in an east-west direction, and the north-south river and canal intersect at the center of the town. This is a typical cross shaped town. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, a large number of ships came to Cross Harbour every year to purchase high-quality lake silk, also known as Jili Silk. Tongjin Bridge is located in the center of Cross Harbour and is the town’s water and land terminal. Wang Jiafan (Lifetime Professor at East China Normal University): Our Jiangnan region itself is a lake network area, so all transportation does not rely on land roads. Because land roads are separated by lake networks, they must be waterways. Ships are the main means of transportation. Therefore, when towns emerged, they must be on waterways, and most waterways are important intersections for transportation. Intersections are the easiest to develop, so water and land are often connected by bridges. Therefore, you see, towns must have more bridges, otherwise it will not be possible to run over there. The largest town is Shizi Port. After looking at Shizi Port, you can go to the four heads in the southeast, northwest, and north. Then, farmers and merchants next to these four heads will first come to this place. So gradually, these four headed places will also have shops. As the population increases and there are more people passing by, they will have a security management system, The fence is necessary for public security management. During the Ming Dynasty, Wuzhen, as a silk weaving town on the edge of the Beijing Hangzhou Grand Canal, was divided into four blocks by its cross shaped inland water system. The Xizha Scenic Area was renovated to recreate a charming Wuzhen with a hundred steps and one bridge spanning the river. In today’s Wuzhen Xizha Scenic Area, the former gate of Jiangnan City is still preserved, but due to changes in times, the Xizha Gate no longer plays its former role. Wang Jiafan (Lifetime Professor at East China Normal University): The fence is opened in the morning, closed at night, and boats are not allowed to enter at night. This ensures the safety of normal residents, so there are four fences next to it. Nanxun Town, which is more than 20 miles away from Wuzhen, also has four gates in the east, west, north, south, and north. The four gates are usually a clear symbol of the town’s scope. According to the scope of the four gates, Nanxun Town is very large, with three miles in the east and west, and seven miles in the north and south. Moreover, during the Jiajing period, Nanxun Town was already bustling with fireworks, and its prosperity even exceeded that of the county and prefectural cities. As the saying goes at that time, Huzhou is not as prosperous as half of Nanxun Town. The bustling market shops in Jiangnan Town no longer exist, but today the residents living in Nanxun Ancient Town still maintain a close connection with the waterways. The Baijian Building, located on the northeast side of the ancient town along both sides of the old canal, is the living area with the richest Ming Dynasty architectural style in Nanxun Town. Several hundred years have passed, and there are still residents washing clothes by the river. However, on both sides of the river, the quiet entrance is only the sound of pounding clothes, and the footsteps of high heels are like tunnels crossing time and space, emitting a crisp reverberation. Lu Shihu (a researcher of folk history in Nanxun Town): When it comes to this hundred room building, there is a legend that it is said to be Dong Bin, the Minister of Rites of the Ming Dynasty. His hometown is here, and his grandson is going to beg for a wife. This wife is a granddaughter of Mao Kun, a neighbor of Nanxun. Mao Kun is also a celebrity and a jinshi. So, for the Mao family, when it comes to this place, your house is not enough, and she has one hundred maids to marry. So, the Dong family says it’s okay. I will build one hundred buildings so that your maids can live here comfortably. Therefore, he built a hundred story building on both sides of the river here, and one characteristic of the architecture here is a style from the Ming Dynasty. However, this brick and wood structure house from the Ming Dynasty has undergone historical changes and needs to be restored. After a hundred years of vicissitudes, it is now very difficult for us to find a Ming Dynasty building in the town of Jiangnan. According to local folk history researcher Lu Lao, we found Mr. Li at No. 4 Dongjia Lane in Nanxun Town, who is still in the old Ming Dynasty house. Where else can we see traces of the Ming Dynasty? Li Bainian, a descendant of Dong Fen, said, “Okay, you can take a picture of this ancient pier. The ancient pier under this pillar, one of the ancient ones, must have this cushion when building a house. I have been working here for almost fifty years. This is my grandmother’s house, my uncle’s house, which means I have moved here since I was young. My grandfather’s surname is Dong, my mother’s surname is Dong, and my two uncles’ surname is Dong. This staircase also needs to be careful, which is a bit dangerous. People who are not used to walking on this staircase are not used to it. The danger seems to be from ancient times, with a bit of antiquity. The most obvious thing on the pillar is that it doesn’t seem very clear yet, it’s still there. Hey, these beams are all from the Ming Dynasty. Jiangnan is not only an economically developed region, but also a place where talented people gather and emerge. The wealthy merchants who became wealthy through business actively cultivate their children to study, pursue fame and career. In the Ming Dynasty, there was a strong cultural atmosphere, with seven Jinshi and twenty-seven Juren. Under the pulse of the commercial economy and amidst the bustling market, wealth surged. However, it was driven by the construction of winding Jiangnan gardens by the literati, which not only showcased the financial resources and achievements of Jiangnan, but also showcased its culture and taste. In the year of Tomorrow’s Qi, the young Huizhou businessman who came to Nanxun Town to explore the world also made a fortune with the economic takeoff of Jiangnan Town. Within a few generations, his descendants lived in large houses and interesting private gardens. From becoming wealthy through business to pursuing the ideals of literati and officials, the town brought them opportunities, and they also created a different world for the town. Xiaolianzhuang is a famous garden located in Nanxun Town, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province. It was once the private garden of Liu Yong, the richest man in Nanxun Town, and also one of the five famous gardens in Nanxun. With pavilions, towers, and lotus leaves, amidst the bustling and bustling town, there is a unique charm of Jiangnan gardens, a strong commercial atmosphere, and an elegant literati atmosphere. It is a wonderful blend between the water towns and the Zeguo. The prosperous development period of the Ming Dynasty in Jiangnan Town has now retreated into the long river of history in modern cities and new economic structures. However, its former glory. And its impact on the development of China’s commodity economy is extremely profound. With its dense network of towns and water transportation leading to seaports, foreign trade is unprecedentedly developed, and the huge trade surplus year-round has led to a large influx of silver into China, A shining era of silver has quietly arrived. 90 Seconds of History: The Ultimate Secret Cellar In 1573, the first Manila sailing ship departed from the Mexican port of Acapulco and headed straight to the then international trade center of the Philippines. The goods loaded on this ship were not ordinary commodities, but silver, the currency commonly used worldwide at that time. After the sailing ship arrived in Manila, the silver’s sea journey did not end, but continued to reach its true destination, China. At this time, China had entered the middle and late Ming Dynasty. After a long exploration, silver was finally established as the national standard currency, and China began a silver standard era that lasted for 500 years. With the solid support of silver, China’s economy achieved great development. In the Jiangnan region, even the sprouts of capitalism have emerged, and China relies on high-quality porcelain, silk, and tea, Maintaining a long-term world trade surplus has become the center of the entire world economic order. With the export of massive commodities, silver from around the world has been continuously converging towards China. In the two and a half centuries before 1800, China obtained approximately 60000 tons of silver, becoming the ultimate treasure trove of world silver.
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