It is indisputable that China really became a world power in the Tang Dynasty. In 600-700 AD, the Eastern Roman Empire fought against the "barbarians" in Europe, which was characterized by unstable political situation and fewer cultural relics than in the Tang Dynasty. The economy of the Tang Dynasty was prosperous, the culture was highly developed and the national strength was strong, so many countries came and went with the Tang Dynasty. China's products, technology and culture are also exported to many countries, which has a great impact on the economy and culture of East Asia and Central Asia.

★ Song

The productivity and science and technology in Song Dynasty have made remarkable progress, and letterpress printing, as one of the four great inventions in China, is an outstanding representative. Meng Qian Bi Tan reflects the brilliant achievements of natural science in the Northern Song Dynasty. Qian Mu's Outline of National History analyzes the productivity of the Song Dynasty-it is not as weak as we thought, and the folk economy is very developed. Quanzhou was used as a trading port in the Song Dynasty. Quanzhou was the largest port in the East at that time, and it was very prosperous.

★ Yuan

Great, Mr. Kyle Poirot is our witness. Mr. Ma is an Italian traveler and was born in a wealthy family in Venice. At that time, Venice was one of the top commercial cities in the world and the center of the Mediterranean economy. At that time, the populations of London and Paris were still small. And Kyle Poirot is by no means a man who has never seen the world. The Travels of Marco Polo described the prosperity of Suzhou and Hangzhou in detail, which was fascinating.

★ Ming

Or China in the eyes of foreigners.

Matteo Ricci, a Portuguese missionary at the end of the Ming Dynasty, said in China Notes: "The material production here is extremely rich and ubiquitous, the sugar is whiter than Europe, and the cloth is more beautiful than Europe ... People are gorgeous in clothes, elegant in manners, cheerful, polite and elegant in speech." (The Notes of Matteo Ricci China, Chapter 10).

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He went to the Western Ocean, and the tonnage of the "treasure ship" was staggering. According to Ming History? According to the Biography of Zheng He, there were 63 treasure ships that Zheng He sailed to the West, the largest of which was 44 feet long and 18 feet wide. It was the largest seagoing ship in the world at that time, with a length of151.18m and a width of 61.6m.. This ship has four floors. Nine masts on the ship can hang 12 sails, and the anchor weighs several thousand kilograms. It takes 200 people to set sail, and a ship can hold thousands of people. Compared with Columbus' ship, it's pitiful.

Let's take a look at the inflow of foreign silver in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Some scholars at home and abroad have also made their own estimates. For example, scholars such as Peng Xinwei and Lu Qing think: "Before Daoguang 140 years, the amount of silver flowing into China from Europe was more than 80 million. If you add silver from the Philippines and Japan, it will be several hundred million taels.

★ Qing

After the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe, China fell far behind. Magal, the British envoy who visited during the Qianlong period, said: "There is amazing poverty everywhere ... soldiers with rusty broadswords ... the army is in rags like beggars, and many people have no clothes to wear ... This empire must be barbaric and backward." From here on, the history of China makes people cry.

In the subsequent Opium War, China's porcelain, silk and tea caused a huge trade deficit between Britain and France, and China's "infighting" became the coveted object of colonial countries.