As for some private trading activities, the number is very small, most of them are barter, exchanging some daily necessities with each other. As mentioned above, although the existence of communes affects the development of social division of labor, it can not be without some form of social division of labor. Because one can't produce all the necessities of life, in the words of Mencius, "all kinds of work, such as catalpa, craftsman, wheel, Yu, pottery and metallurgy, can't be cultivated and done." if "one person's body, and all kinds of work must be done by himself and then used, it is to lead the world on the road" (Mencius Teng Wengong). It is because of this that there are records of exchange in the book of songs. For example, "Wei Feng · Meng Pian": "Meng Zhi Chi, hold cloth and trade silk." "Mao Zhuan" said: "cloth, money also." "Jian" said: "money, so trade to buy things. Silkworms begin in spring, and silk is sold in Mengxia. " Some people hold that it is not a direct barter exchange between the owner of "cloth" and the owner of "silk", but the use of "cloth" to buy silk. "Cloth" is the physical currency at that time. This view is not accurate. We think that the original intention of these two poems should be to say: an honest man, holding cloth to buy silk, because it was an era of barter. "Xiaoya · Xiaowan" also says: "how can you make a fortune by holding a corn It means holding the corn and going out for a hexagram, asking for good or bad luck, but the fact is here, how can there be a good hexagram? "Millet" here, like "cloth" in the previous poem, also uses millet to pay for divination, not physical currency. As for the saying in Shangshu Jiugao that "zhaozhuche and niuyuan served the family and raised Jue's parents with filial piety", it reflects the division of labor among the commune farmers at that time, just like the Shang Dynasty, due to the differences in natural conditions, that is, some necessities of life could not be produced by everyone, but could be produced everywhere, and they could only be self-sufficient through exchange The economy is a complementary means.
