The townspeople are mainly businessmen, who have no political rights and rely on samurai economically. They serve samurai in the field of commodity circulation and get fees. Their economic status and political status are also consistent. Warriors despise businessmen, and businessmen are at the bottom of the four.
However, with the development of commodity economy, businessmen gradually accumulated huge wealth, and their economic strength was above that of samurai. In this way, the economic status of both sides will be reversed. Although businessmen are still in a powerless position in politics and the last of the four, they have the power of samurai in economy. Although the samurai still have supreme power in politics, they have to bow and scrape to the businessmen in economy and fall at their feet. The economic status and political status of businessmen and warriors are no longer compatible, which is one of the great changes brought by the development of commodity economy to the status level of Mufan system.
Businessmen in the Tokugawa era had an evolutionary process. In the early days of the shogunate, it was mainly royal businessmen. They are closely combined with the power of the vassals and integrated with the lords. For example, Tanya Jiro and Saburo's Empress Dojo Fujimura are trusted advisers of Kangjia, who have mastered the transportation, mine development, currency casting and foreign trade of the shogunate. The management of royal luxury merchants is all-round, and there is no clear division of labor, such as purchasing, transporting materials, raising funds, collecting annual tribute, and engaging in Athena Chu ship trade. Their trade volume is very large, and the handling fee is also very high, so they make huge profits. However, with the termination of the shipping trade between Athena Chu and Suo Guo, as well as the development of commerce and the division of labor among merchants, these all-inclusive royal merchants declined one after another during the Lu Yuan period.
Then there are the privileged homebuyers in Osaka and Edo. They were born to adapt to the formation of the national market and the extensive development of commerce. By the time of Luyuan and Enbao, they had become a huge force and had a great influence on politics and economy. Take Mitsui Edo as an example:
Mitsui used to do business in Matsuzaka, Yi Shi, mainly lending usury to Daming and samurai, buying and selling rice. 1673 opened a Five Blessingg store in Edo, adopting a combination of wholesale and retail management. The profit of wholesale trading is small, but the transaction volume is large, small profits but quick turnover make a lot of money. Opening a retail store, cash transaction facilitates capital turnover, which is a major reform in the mode of operation. In the past, businessmen visited their customers (soldiers) and ordered goods, or businessmen took samples to their customers for sale and then paid. This method is not conducive to capital turnover. Because of good luck and rapid development, 10 opened three commercial shops and a "two buy one shop" in Edo. It is said that 1,000 people are employed and 1,200 people are engaged in business. In addition, we have opened stores in Osaka and Kyoto. Yuan Lushi combined with the shogunate and became the "royal use" of gold and silver for the shogunate.
Finally, in the second half of18th century and the first half of19th century, with the development of farmers' commodity production, rural businessmen appeared. They are related to the germination of capitalism, different from the "real estate business" nature of the privileged class, and are the power to disintegrate the anti-curtain system.
Small town people are no longer despised, and their lives have greatly improved. Big businessmen even live longer than celebrities. Osaka Electric House has a red corridor and a glass roof. Etiquette is also imitated by martial artists. The daughter is called madam and the wife is called wife. Known as "arrogance"
The accumulation of businessmen's wealth, the improvement of social status and the improvement of living standards are unprecedented. After Yuan Lu and the box, it was an era when businessmen dominated feudal society and economy. On the cultural level, the level of machi people also surpassed that of samurai.
The extension of the merchant's power not only devoured a large part of the wealth exploited by the lords from the direct producers, but also shook the economic status of the samurai class and changed the social atmosphere, eroding the samurai class from your valley to your valley.
Shan Pan Tao's Dream Generation: If you have gold and silver, your family will be rich, fools will become wise, unscrupulous people will become virtuous, and wicked people will become good people; Without gold and silver, the family is poor, the wise become fools, the wise become corrupt, and the good become evil. Finally, according to this, the rise and fall of life and death is based on the existence of gold and silver. Gold and silver are the first treasures to protect one's life, from governors to scholars, peasants, industry and commerce. "
Therefore, Lord Mufan did not allow the unlimited expansion of merchant power, so he constantly took measures to combat and suppress merchant power. If the shogunate gives up the donation, the famous samurai will default on their debts and even use violence against the townspeople. To some extent, the townspeople rebelled against Lord Mufan, such as disobeying the control of the shogunate, strengthening the unity of their peers, refusing to provide loans to famous warriors in debt, and even hiring ronin and vagrants to fight against warriors (salaries range from 50 to 100 and 200, which is equivalent to the income of 300 stone warriors and 500 stone warriors).
However, on the whole, the people of Machi did not deeply oppose the shogunate system and formed anti-shogunate forces. They are addicted to luxury life in peacetime and detached from political struggle. They turn a blind eye to natural disasters, famines, people's uprisings and the struggle of the poor to eliminate them. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, they fell into a national crisis and the whole country was excited. They are indifferent. They laughed at the general when he was ordered to fight foreigners in Shanghai. In this struggle that began, citizens kept watching until the end, avoiding joining the political whirlpool.
The obvious form of Maqi culture is the product of floating world (hedonic world). It is a combination of entertaining women, three flavors of Yue Xian, folk stories, new dramas and woodcuts. Among them, geisha are the most important, because they are not only the center of urban entertainment, but also the special product of Japanese social tradition. As entertainment professional women, artists in Tokugawa era (art refers to performing arts) developed from high-class prostitutes and dancers, and they formed a part of aristocratic life. Only in the Tokugawa era did they become part of the new and wider urban population. In the society at that time, there was no free entertainment in family life, whether it was samurai or ordinary people. In this society, there are no mixed social activities, such as meetings, dances, banquets, etc. And there is no chance of sex in a family-arranged marriage. Professional women and recreational women play an important role. Geisha and the environment she provides provide the only opportunity for men and women to communicate outside brothels.
The characteristics of the March people are:
First, the imperial city people and the imperial merchants. They developed from parasites and warriors. In particular, Edo merchants directly targeted the samurai, parasitized the Wu family, and relied heavily on Mufan's finances. Although Osaka merchants are different from Edo merchants and don't rely on the financial resources of the lords like Edo merchants, they are truly relatively independent and free-developing businessmen in this era, but they also rely on Gong Mi and domestic products of Takeshi and the economy of the lords. They don't have the spirit of adventure and innovation like the early businessmen (Zhu Yinchuan businessmen).
Second, the sealing performance is very good. The internal organizations of large enterprises belong to the feudal master-slave relationship, such as Zhi Ding (apprentice), young monk (waiter), hand-generation (waiter), rice head (shopkeeper), other families (separation) and kinship. The same is true of Osaka businessmen. They are different in nature from Hao Nong, handicraft workshop owners and employees, and cannot reflect the new mode of production.
Third, a special outlook on life. Businessmen in the Edo era made their fortune in the peaceful and prosperous times, but their status was low, and they might be deprived of their property at any time by the Lord's order (for example, Chu Ishikawa Weibing of Edo, Kensuke Nakamura of Kyoto, Kogoro of Osaka Electric Martial Palace and other wealthy businessmen were interrogated for their extravagance, confiscated their property and asked about the crime of "debt"), so they were not bound by feudal morality like warriors.
The core of the March people's outlook on life is money and pleasure. "Gold and silver are the surname genealogy of Machi people." It is their ideal to be diligent and thrifty, get married and have a career, and try their best to have fun after 45. Their slogan is "Don't spend more money". Their life has carried out hedonism, functionalism and decadence.
Clothing: the essence of the era of clothing collection. Food: A simple meal costs 100 month, while a 500-stone warrior's living expenses are less than 100 a year. As for the festive banquet, it is even more luxurious. Mitsui held a ceremony for seeking money | "Talking about Leeches". Duck soup alone costs 100. Living in: Kinokuniya occupies a street, only changing the servants of straw mats, 7 servants a day.
There are countless things that spend money like running water, such as: enjoying the cool in the corner of Lany, hating drinking muddy gold lacquer cups without running water; Kyoto-Uemon bought a tea set with 300 silver eyes. Gamble with gold, etc.
Their time is spent on entertainment, watching plays (kabuki, clean glass), reading novels (lewd things) and tea ceremony. In particular, claiming to be "Datong", going in and out of Huajie Liuxiang and getting rich overnight. Prostitutes at that time overwhelmed Yoshihara. Indulgence, today's drunkenness, especially when traveling, reflects the extremely contradictory psychology of small town people, who want to find a place to escape from here.
Fourth, the narrowness of the Maqi culture. The machi culture represents the culture of the edo period. Compared with feudal morality, Machi people's culture has brought fresh air, which is a challenge to feudal Confucian tradition and has a progressive side. However, this kind of culture has carried out the hedonism and explicit functionalism of Machi people for a time and developed into decadence. Even if there is satire on current politics in literary works, it is a reflection of resentment and disgust, not a manifestation of resistance, and it is very weak. It can't stand the oppression of the rulers, and turns to conform to the direction of the rulers. The cultural upbringing of Maji people is more than that of samurai, but their cultural upbringing is closely combined with that of Joeri, who was cultivated in Joeri's life. So their ideology is extremely narrow? It is impossible to produce something that breaks through feudalism. Japanese scholar Nara Chen Ben also said: Dongmachi people not only spend money for happiness, but also want to learn higher tastes in order to compete with the samurai society, thus creating an aestheticism. This is different from the scattered beauty in Luyuan culture, but limited beauty, which reflects the defects of feudal ethics.
In a word, although the people of Maji have the spirit of "all people in the world are Maji" and the consciousness of not treating samurai as "warriors", on the surface, they "bow to the public door, but in their hearts they are slaves and farmers for thousands of times", but they have not caused dissatisfaction with the feudal social structure, no sense of resistance, no will to change the status class order and break through the situation in Maji, and they cannot establish their own era. So politically, it is a passive spectator, even ignoring and blindly enjoying. The nature of the March people determines that it is difficult to become the driving force of the revolution.