对明清时期北方五省商业镇市之研究

Research on the Commercial Towns in North China's Five Provinces during the Ming and Qing Dynasties

镇市是城市与乡村集市之间的纽带。明清时期,北方五省镇市崛起于明中叶,乾隆、嘉庆年间达于鼎盛。它分布在水陆交通要道上,在商品流通过程中,形成商业市场、集贸市场和手工业市场的市场体系,其中以集贸市场居多。这种格局,为沟通城乡商品流通、互通有无,促进北方经济的发展起着不可忽视的作用。由于镇市的存在和发展受制于所在区域的经济和交通,这些内陆镇市的发展趋势,出现三种结局:少数上升为县市,多数长期处于一般集市状态,也有一些大的商业名镇随着河道的变迁,水流量的减少和铁路的出现,失去了水陆码头的地位而沦为乡村集市。

Towns are links between cities and country fairs.Towns in North China's five provinces during the Ming and Qing Dynasties emerged in the middle of the Ming Dynasty and entered a period of prosperity in the years of Qianlong and Jiaqing.Distributed on vital water and land communication lines,they developed,during commodity circulation,into the market system of commercial markets,country fairs and handicraft markets,among them the country fairs were in the majority.This layout played an important role for facilitating commodity circulation between towns to meet each other's needs and promoting the economic development of the North.Since the existence and development of the country fairs depends on the economy and traffic of the area,the developing trend of those inland towns fell into three categories:most of them stayed as general country fairs while few of them developed into counties or cities,and some still larger commercial towns were reduced to the status of country fairs due to change of water ways and decrease of water flow which made them lose the status of traffic centers.