"The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" and Qingming Riverside Studies

Author: Zhou Baozhu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1997-01-01
Features: The construction, development, and perfection of the capital city of the Northern Song Dynasty, Bianjing, were based on the urban planning of the post-Zhou era, leading to a rapid transformation and a new appearance for the city. A slight comparison between the Tang Dynasty capitals Chang'an and Luoyang and the Northern Song capital, Bianjing, makes this point clear. The capitals of the Sui and Tang dynasties implemented a system of separated residential (fang) and commercial (shi) districts. Residential areas were enclosed within walls, with separate entrances for each, and neither common residents nor lower-level officials were allowed to open doors facing the streets. These enclosed districts were essentially small cities within a larger city, such as Chang'an's 108 fang and two markets, forming a pattern of large cities encompassing smaller ones—a feudal fortress-like, closed urban structure. Each of the two markets occupied an area roughly equivalent to two residential districts, indicating that the commercial districts were very small, reflecting the underdeveloped urban economy at the time. Although there were some changes from the early to the late Tang Dynasty, with slightly expanded trading areas, the urban structure remained largely the same.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, Bianjing began to transform with the expansion of streets initiated by Emperor Shizong of the Later Zhou. The walls of the residential districts facing the streets were demolished, allowing households to build shade pavilions and towers, effectively permitting street-level businesses and living arrangements. With the destruction of the walls, trade along the streets flourished, gradually ending the separation between residential and commercial districts and merging them into a unified urban space. The trading area expanded to every corner of the city, turning Bianjing into an open, feudal commercial city. Japanese scholars referred to this as the "modern type," which we can consider largely consistent with the urban appearance of modern cities, or at least began to take shape during the Song Dynasty.
Bianjing was one of the earliest open-type cities in ancient China, holding significant historical importance and attracting the attention of scholars worldwide. This historical transformation was an inevitable result of the development of commodity economy within the feudal society and, in turn, confirmed the breakthrough in the development of commodity economy during the Song Dynasty. The final formation of this new urban appearance took about several decades from the late Five Dynasties to the early Northern Song Dynasty, and it could not have been built overnight.
During the reigns of Emperors Zhenzong and Renzong of the Northern Song, the phenomenon of "street encroachment" became increasingly severe along the streets of Bianjing. Merchants and stalls were crowded everywhere, with "market stalls lining the Heqiao Bridge," and taverns filling the streets and alleys. The city had already boasted 70 major restaurants and approximately 10,000 smaller establishments. Commercial districts with distinct characteristics had formed along the Bian River and Huimin River in the southern half of the city and along several main streets and lanes in the northern half. The urban landscape recorded in Dream of the Capital in the Northern Song Dynasty reflects the fully developed appearance of Bianjing during the mid-to-late Northern Song Dynasty. For example, south of the Qiaotiao Bridge on the Imperial Street, there were intertwined wine houses, restaurants, perfumery shops, fruit stalls, and more, stretching all the way to the Nanxun Gate. East of the Qiaotiao Bridge to the Songmen Gate, there were fish markets, meat markets, gold and silver shops, silk shops, and Wenzhou lacquerware shops. West of the Qiaotiao Bridge was West Street, lined with pearl shops and brothels. Other bustling commercial streets included the Horse Trading Street, Ox Trading Street, and Yonglu Street.
The power of the commodity economy, when nurtured in favorable conditions, is immense. It can break through all kinds of stubborn resistance to pursue its own development. The gradual abolition of night curfews before and early in the Northern Song Dynasty gave way to prosperous night markets, such as those around the Imperial Street, Qiaotiao Bridge, Zhujie Gate, and Longjin Bridge, where "the streets and markets thrived even at night."