Of course, there were also various organizations for businessmen in the Song Dynasty, but the literature was far less than that in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

In fact, Jie Zheng's policy of exchanging grain and salt in Ming Dynasty mentioned in Upstairs was very mature in Song Dynasty. To put it simply, the Song government recruited businessmen to transport grain to the border areas where it was needed. As for the border officials, they issue a voucher according to their location and the goods shipped by the merchants, and then the merchants take this voucher to Kaifeng to cash the money. In many cases, the government does not pay directly, but grants the merchants a license to buy and sell a certain amount of tea and salt, so that they can go to Jianghuai to purchase. Why is this? Because the history of tea and salt in Song Dynasty is monopolized by the state, the profits are very rich, and businessmen who have obtained certain trading qualifications are sure to make money.

In the early Song Dynasty, it was mainly to recruit businessmen and send grain to the capital where the army was most concentrated. Later, the frontier was tight, and more and more troops were stationed in Shaanxi, Shanxi and Hebei, which also required merchants to transport them. Why didn't the Song government transport grain by itself? Because the government does this, it is either recruiting people to transport. People are farmers and don't want to leave their land. In addition, local officials may seek personal gain from it, and the administrative cost is high. Or you have to use Xiang to transport it. In the Song Dynasty, Xiang Army was responsible for all kinds of things, such as building roads, bridges and houses. Of course, there are also people who are responsible for transporting grain. It is difficult to organize A Xiang's army to transport food to the border areas for the time being. Therefore, sometimes it is a good idea to cooperate with businessmen. Of course, no business is dishonest and problems are inevitable.

Merchants in the Song Dynasty were very powerful. When Li attacked Lingzhou, the grain organized by the imperial court could not be delivered, but the merchants could. However, the asking price of merchants is also high-Xiaomi is about 20 times more expensive per barrel according to the price at that time. It is impossible to do it without the support of a business organization.

The most famous merchant organization in the Song Dynasty was probably the tea merchants in the Southern Song Dynasty-not only because they later rebelled, but also because the court sent a man named Xin Qiji to suppress bandits. During the Southern Song Dynasty, tea continued to be monopolized by the state. The government of the Southern Song Dynasty had to raise a large army, and it also had to pay lucky money. The financial situation was tight, and tea monopoly was a great income. Where there is monopoly, there is smuggling. The greater the monopoly profit, the more developed the smuggler's organization. From the Song Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there should be considerable continuity in terms of merchant organizations. Perhaps the material that best embodies this point is Huizhou documents. Its contents involve transaction documents, contract documents, inheritance documents, private account books, official records, official documents, litigation documents, meeting minutes, village rules and regulations, letters and so on.

Finally, it should be emphasized that compared with the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the historical materials of the Song Dynasty are not only less in quantity, but also very different in structure. In the Song Dynasty, the account of scholar-officials was the main one, and in the economic field, such as the compilation of dragons, the compilation of manuscripts in the Song Dynasty, and the miscellaneous notes of the ruling and opposition parties since the proposal was made. Therefore, we can only look at the role of businessmen in national finance and local governance from the perspective of businessmen. It is difficult for us to know how businessmen view themselves and how to organize and manage themselves, so it is difficult to discuss business gangs in depth. But it must be wrong to say that there was no big merchant organization in Song Dynasty.