¹ The only general study of Chinese entrepreneurship is Levy, Marion J. and Kuo-heng, Shih, The Rise of the Modern Chinese Business Class (New York, 1949).Google Scholar A recent study of the earlier period is Chan, Wellington K., Merchants, Mandarins and Modern Enterprise in Late Ch'ing China (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The outstanding studies of individual industrial promoters are Feuerwerker's, A. excellent China's Early Industrialization (Cambridge, Mass., 1958),CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Chu, S. C., Reformer in Modern China (New York, 1965).Google Scholar

² Redlich, F., ‘Entrepreneurship in the Initial Stages of Industrialization (with special reference to Germany),’ Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 75: 59–103 (1955), pp. 59–62.Google Scholar See also Kilby, P., ‘Hunting the Heffalump,’ in P., Kilby (ed.), Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (New York, 1971), pp. 1–42, esp. pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

³ In the 1920s and 1930s Chinese-owned mines accounted for around 20–30% of total output of modern mines, and Sino-foreign mines for perhaps another 30%. Fushun, run by the South Manchurian Railway and the largest mine in China from 1924, was by far the most important mine falling into neither category, and accounted for nearly all the remaining output.Google Scholar

⁴ See Liu, T. C. and Yeh, K. C., The Economy of the Chinese Mainland (Princeton, 1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar While there is as yet no general study of the tobacco or flour industries, there is an excellent monograph on the cotton industry: Chung-p'ing, Yen, Chung-kuo Mien-fang-chih Shih-kao (A draft history of the Chinese cotton industry) (Peking, 1963).Google Scholar

⁵ See Sun, E-tu Zen, ‘Ch'ing Government and the Mineral Industries before 1800,’ Journal of Asian Studies, 27.4:835–46 (08 1968). Large scale mining and direct government intervention was limited to those metals needed by the state, for instance for the mints.Google Scholar

⁶ For pre-1895 coal mining in general, see Shannon R. Brown and Tim Wright, ‘Technology, Economics and Politics in the Modernization of China's Coal Mining Industry: the First Phase, 1850–95,’ unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar For K'ai-p'ing, see Carlson, Ellsworth, The Kaiping Mines 1877–1912 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Most of the actual import of capital came after 1903, as the concessions gained in the earlier period began to be exploited.Google Scholar

⁸ I-shih-pao, 20 December 1930, in Gendai Shina no Kiroku (Cuttings on Contemporary China), Hatano, Ken'ichi (ed.), 12 1930, pp. 302–6.Google Scholar

⁹ Keng-sheng, Hsu, Chung-wai Ho-pan Mei-t'ieh K'uang-yeh Shih-hua (Histories of Sino-foreign Coal and Iron Mines) (Shanghai, 1947), p. 48.Google Scholar For a European view of this see Gibson, R. R., Forces Mining and Undermining China (London, 1914), pp. 94–6.Google Scholar

¹⁰ For K'ai-p'ing, see Carlson, Kaiping, pp. 54–6. In general, see En-han, Li, Wan Ch'ing ti Shou-hui K'uang-ch'üan Yun-tung (The Movement to Recover Mining Rights in the Late Ch'ing) (Taipei, 1963), Ch. 1.Google Scholar

¹¹ For these forms see Feuerwerker, Industrialization, Ch. 1, and Chan, Merchants, Chs 4 and 5.Google Scholar

¹² Han-sheng, Ch'üan, Han-yeh-p'ing Kung-ssu Shih-lueh (Short History of the Hanyeh-p'ing Co.) (Hong Kong, 1972), pp. 78–82.Google Scholar

¹³ Chen, Ch'en, Chung-kuo Chin-tai Kung-yeh-shih Tzu-liao, ti-san-chi (Materials on the History of Modern Chinese Industry, 3rd collection) (Peking, 1962) (hereafter, Ch'en, III), pp. 452–3.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Chan, , Merchants, Ch. 6, discusses the ‘official entrepreneur’ with reference to Chang Chien and Chou Hsueh-hsi.Google Scholar

¹⁵ A customs official and close aide of Li Hung-chang.Google Scholar

¹⁶ For a more detailed history of Chung-hsing, see Wright, T., ‘Shandong Mines in the Modern Chinese Coal Industry up to 1937’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1976), Ch. 2.Google Scholar The chief sources used here are Wang Chun-lu et al. (eds), I-hsien Chih (Gazetteer of I-hsien) (1905); Santō-shō Kōgyō Shiryō (Materials on Mining in Shantung), South Manchurian Railway Co. (1914);Google ScholarEkiken Tanden Chōsa Shiryō (Materials on the I-hsien Coalfield), South Manchurian Railway Co. (1936);Google ScholarChing-yü, Wang, Chung-kuo Chin-tai Kung-yeh-shih Tzu-liao, ti-erh-chi, 1895–1914 nien (Materials on the History of Modern Chinese Industry, 2nd collection, 1895–1914) (Peking, 1957);Google ScholarK'uang-wu Tang (Mining Archives), 8 Vols (Taipei, 1960);Google ScholarLang, Ku, Chung-kuo Shih-ta K'uang-ch'ang Tiao-ch'a Chi (Investigation of the Ten Largest Mines in China) (Shanghai, 1916).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Wang, , Kung-yeh-shih, pp. 870–1.Google Scholar

¹⁸ ibid., pp. 870–3, lists 24, of which 6 were government mines, 2 were joint ventures and 16 were set up by private entrepreneurs. In the last group, where the identity of the leading entrepreneurs is known, 3 were merchants, and 7 were from the ranks of officialdom. The rest are unknown.

¹⁹ For instance, 200,000 taels were paid for the rights in Chiang-pei-t'ing in Szechwan, though work had not yet started; see Chia-jung, Hsieh and Min-chang, Chu, Wai-jen tsai-Hua K'uang-yeh chih T'ou-tzu (Foreign Investment in Chinese Mining) (Taipei reprint, 1972), p. 8;Google ScholarCollins, W. F., Mineral Enterprise in China (London, 1918) p. 57.Google Scholar

²⁰ There was, however, also participation by the provincial government, as was the rule for the rights-recovery companies.

²¹ Li, Wan-Ch'ing, Ch. 4; Ch'üan Han-sheng, ‘Shan-hsi Mei-k'uang Tzu-yuan yü Chung-kuo Chin-tai Kung-yeh-hua ti Kuan-hsi’, (Shansi's Coal Resources and Modern China's Industrialization), in Han-sheng, Ch'üan, Chung-kuo Ching-chi-shih Lun-ts'ung (Essays on Chinese Economic History), 2 vols (Hong Kong, 1973), Vol. 2, pp. 745–66.Google Scholar

²² Carlson, Kaiping, Ch. 6. The management was able to maintain a greater degree of independence from the authorities than had previously been the case, see Chan, Merchants, pp. 110–4.Google Scholar

²³ Hsu, Chung-wai, pp. 32–60. However, Hsu's account is so adulatory of Yuan that one suspects some personal connection.Google Scholar

²⁴ Chan, Merchants, chs 8–11. Also Wright, M. C. (ed.), China in Revolution (New York, 1968), p. 28.Google Scholar

²⁵ Wen-chiang, Ting, ‘Wu-shih-nien-lai chih Chung-kuo K'uang-yeh’ (Fifty Years of Chinese Mining), in Chen, Ch'en, Chung-kuo Chin-tai Kung-yeh-shih Tzu-liao, ti-i-chi (Materials on the History of Modern Chinese Industry, 1st collection) (Peking, 1957) (hereafter, Ch'en, I), p. 226.Google Scholar

²⁶ Hsu, Chung-wai, pp. 173, 177.Google Scholar

²⁷ A caveat should be entered here, however. Biographical information is readily available for bureaucrats, warlords and politicians—much less so for merchants. So the degree of predominance of the former groups is overstated because most of those in the category of unknowns are more likely to have been merchants. However, the data are sufficiently good for the major mines to allow meaningful generalizations.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ekiken Tanden Chōsa Shiryō, p. 83;Google ScholarLang, Gu, Shih-ta K'uang-ch'ang, VIII, pp. 5–6, 83. Biographical information comes from the Ch'ing biographical collections or the Japanese Foreign Office dictionaries of Chinese biography of the twentieth century, and is not separately annotated. Detailed references can be found in T. Wright, ‘Shandong Mines’.Google Scholar

²⁹ Wang, , Kung-yeh-shih, pp. 870–3.Google Scholar

³⁰ Ti-ssu-tz'u Chung-kuo K'uang-yeh Chi-yao (General Statement of the Chinese Mining Industry, No. 4) (Peking, 1935), p. 250.Google Scholar

³¹ K'uang-yeh Chou-pao (Mining Weekly), Nanking, 1928–1937 (hereafter, KYCP), 118:352;Google ScholarYūzō, Kuboyama, Shina Sekitan Chōsa Hōkokusho (Report on Chinese Coal) (Tokyo, 1940), p. 348;Google ScholarChi, M., ‘Bureaucratic Capitalists in Operation: Ts'ao Ju-lin and his New Communications Clique, 1916–1919’, Journal of Asian Studies, 34.3:675–88 (05 1975), p. 685.Google Scholar

³² Boorman, H. L. (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, 4 vols (New York, 1967–1971), Vol. 3, p. 303.Google Scholar

³³ KYCP 221:842; Chia-jung, Hsieh, ‘Chiang-su T'ung-shan-hsien Chia-wang Mei-t'ien Ti-chih’ (Geology of the Chia-wang Coalfield, T'ung-shan hsien, Kiangsu), Bulletin of the Geological Survey of China, 18:1–26 (02 1932), p. 21.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ch'üan, , Han-yeh-p'ing, p. 283.Google Scholar

³⁵ The four were Li Yuan-hung, Chang Huai-chih, Ni Ssu-ch'ung and Chang Hsun. The largest shareholder was the Chin-tsai-t'ang (probably a bank). The second largest individual shareholder was Chang Chung-p'ing, who is unidentified except in so far as he came from Hang-hsien. Chang Hsun's shareholdings were held by his family, as he himself had died before the compilation of the list, which dates from 1928; the same goes for Ni Ssu-ch'ung. These two had investments in other mines—Ni in Lieh-shan, Anhwei, Chang in Hua-pao, Shantung.Google Scholar

³⁶ See Min-kuo Shih-chiu-nien Shan-tung K'uang-yeh Pao-kao (1930 Shantung Mining Report) (Tsinan, 1931), pp. 162–3;Google ScholarTi-wu-tz'u Shan-tung K'uang-yeh Pao-kao (Fifth Shantung Mining Report) (Tsinan, 1936), pp. 280–1.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ti-wu-tz'u Shan-tung K'uang-yeh Pao-kao, pp. 280–1; Wo-ch'iu Chung-tzu, Tangtai Ming-jen Chuan (Biographies of Famous Contemporaries) (1926), pp. 165–6; North China Herald, 25 January 1919.Google Scholar

³⁸ Shisen Hakusan Shōkyū Tanden Chōsa Shiryō (Materials on the Coalfields of Tzu; ch'uan, Po-shan and Chang-ch'iu), South Manchurian Railway Co. (1936), p. 458–Google ScholarBoorman, , Biographical Dictionary, Vol. 1, pp. 382–4;Google ScholarYen-shen, Chang, Jih-pen Li-yung Suo-wei ‘Ho-pan Shih-yeh’ Ch'in-Hua ti Li-shih (History of Japanese Penetration of China through the Use of the so-called ‘Joint Enterprises’) (Peking, 1958), p. 137;Google ScholarYoritoda, Mishina, Hoku-Shi Minzoku Kōgyō no Hattatsu (Development of Industry in North China) (Tokyo, 1942), p. 47;Google ScholarBuck, D. D., Urban Change in China (Wisconsin, 1978), pp. 103–5, 137–8.Google Scholar

³⁹ Yutang, Lin, My Country and my People, revised edn (London, 1939), p. 173.Google Scholar Other estimates are even higher: see Yoshihiro, Hatano, Chūgoku Kindai Gunbatsu no Kenkyū (Studies on Modern Chinese Warlords) (Tokyo, 1973), p. 283.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Shisen Hakusan Shōkyū, p. 363.Google Scholar

⁴¹ KYCP 13:211. Chu Pao-san was also involved in the Liu-chiang mine along with Liu Hung-sheng, see Gaimushō, , Jōhōbu, , Gendai Shina Jimmeikan (Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary China), 1928 (Tokyo, 1928), p. 876.Google Scholar

⁴² KYCP 78:475. Other mines in central China, such as the Fu-yuan mine in Hupei, were, however, run by bureaucrats.Google Scholar

⁴³ Ch'en, , I, pp. 632–4.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ See Yen, Mien-fang-chih, pp. 175–6; Mishina, Hoku-Shi, pp. 46–7.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Thus one man was sent by the Honan government in 1920, another by Wu P'ei-fu in 1924. The latter had to leave a year later when Wu retreated. From 1926 to 1928 the mine was under the control of Feng Yü-hsiang, who took all his representatives with him as he retreated. See KYCP 21:340, 59:161; also Li Wen-hao, ‘Ho-nan Chung-yuan Mei-k'uang Kung-ssu chih Kuo-ch'ü, Hsien-tsai yü Chiang-lai’ (The Past, Present and Future of Chung-yuan), Ho-nan Chung-yuan Mei-k'uang Kung-ssu Hui-k'an (Chung-yuan Journal), No. 1 (February 1931), pp. 54–6.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Chung-yuan lost 4 million yüan under Feng Yü-hsiang, see KYCP 66:277. Shih Yu-san's officer milked the Lieh-shan mine in Anhwei of 120,000 yüan in the short time he controlled the mine, see KYCP 99:33.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The lieutenant, Liu Hsi-ch'ing, had previously run the mine, but had absconded when dee in debt. These events took place on his return, see ‘Kuan-yü Mo-shou T'ai-an Hua-pao Mei-k'uang Ch'üan-chüan’ (On the Confiscation of the Hua-pao Mine), Shan-tung Nung-k'uang Kung-pao (Shantung Agriculture and Mining Gazette), 3:59–88 (12 1928).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Chi, , ‘Bureaucratic Capitalists’, p. 685.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Hatano, , Gunbatsu, p. 283.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ KYCP 221:842; as we shall see below, Ni also brought other benefits to the mine.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Our knowledge of the profitability of Chinese industry is limited by paucity of data, particularly on the amounts of capital invested. However, during the late 1910s and early1920s most of the larger mines were making substantial profits. See Chung-p'ing, Yen, Chung-kuo Chin-tai Ching-chi-shih T'ung-chi Tzu-liao Hsuan-chi (Statistical Materials on Modern Chinese Economic History) (Peking, 1955), p. 155;Google ScholarJung-ch'üan, Hu, Chung-kuo Mei-k'uang (Chinese Coal Mines) (Shanghai, 1935), pp. 235–6; Hsu, Chung-wai, pp. 184–5;Google ScholarManshū Kaihatsu Yonjūnen Shi (Forty Years of Manchurian Development) (Tokyo, 1964–1965), Vol. 1, p. 299.Google Scholar

⁵² Kilby, , ‘Hunting the Heffalump’, p. 27.Google Scholar

⁵³ Seikei Tanden Kaihatsu Hōsaku oyobi Chōsa Shiryō (Plans for the Development of the Ching-hsing Coalfield and Materials on it), South Manchurian Railway Co. (1936), p. 81.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Pekin Seizan Tanden Chōsa Shiryō (Materials on the Western Hills Coalfield near Peking), South Manchurian Railway Co. (1936), pp. 202–3.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ For instance, Lu-ta, see Shisen Hakusan Shōkyū, p. 464, and Hsu, Chung-wai, pp. 200–1. For a list of these special arrangements, see Collins, Mineral Enterprise, appendix.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ For Ta-t'ung, see KYCP 40:647–8; for Hopei, see KYCP 93:714–6.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ch'en, , III, p. 1168. The move was not, however, successful, as, shortly after the ex-governor took over, the mine was forced to accept government participation in its management.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Thus for Kailan coal transport accounted for 35% of final cost, for Chung-hsing, 33% for Ching-hsing, 56% and for Yang-ch'üan (in Shansi), 63%, see Kita Shina Keizai Sōkan (Overview of the North Chinese Economy), South Manchurian Railway Co. (1938), pp. 313–9.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Nathan Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Nathan to Turner, 13 December 1931 and 25 June 1933.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ KYCP 9:139, 12:190.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Shina Kōgyō Jihō (Chinese Mining Journal), 37:67.Google Scholar

⁶² Kenkyūjo, Tōa, Jihen zen ni okeru Shina Sekitan no Seisan to Ryūdō (Production and Distribution of Coal in China before 1937) (1940), p. 198.Google Scholar

⁶³ Ao, Liu, Hsun T'ui-ssu Lu (Recollection of Governing Taiwan) (Taipei, 1958), pp. 44–6;Google ScholarCh'en, , III, p. 452; Wang, Kung-yeh-shih, p. 1112.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Hsu, , Chung-wai, pp. 41–2.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Ibid. pp. 92–5, 115–8, 150–1; KYCP 60:179–80, 67:289–90, 299–300.

⁶⁶ In the light of Lloyd Eastman's work (see his The Abortive Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), esp. pp. 226–39), one should perhaps not overstress this point. His conclusion is that the relationship of the Nanking government to Chinese industry was still basically exploitative: ‘Indeed it appears more probable that Nationalist policies on balance had a dampening effect on the productivity of Chinese-owned factories.’ However, at least in the case of the coal industry (which had suffered more than most from the warlords), the Nanking government certainly was a substantial improvement on what had gone before.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Paucity of data limits this statement to the management of the mines. What happened to ownership is less clear, though there are indications that it lagged behind the trend in management.

⁶⁸ Hsu, , Chung-wai, pp. 305–8; KYCP 74:404, 85:581–2, 96:759–60.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ KYCP 60:191, 164:1074–5; Seikei Tanden Kaihatsu, pp. 198, 242.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ KYCP 120:372.Google Scholar

⁷¹ ‘1918–1936 nien ti Ta-t'ung Mei-k'uang’ (The Ta-t'ung Coal Mine, 1918–1936),Google ScholarLi-shih Chiao-hsueh (Historical Education), 1962.2:26–36.Google Scholar

⁷² Ni Ssu-ch'ung and Chang Ching-yao. Ni had died in 1920, so the shares were in the hands of his family.Google Scholar

⁷³ For this history see Yin-hang Yueh-k'an (Banking Monthly), issues Nos 4–10, 1928. The confiscation order had been issued on Chung-hsing's failure to pay the KMT such a sum, and it seems that the whole episode was a means of raising funds, of the kind described in Eastman, Abortive Revolution, p. 229.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Yin-hang Yueh-k'an, 8.8:85–91; KYCP 32:519–20, 68:316, 406:346–52.Google Scholar For the Chekiang Financial Clique, see Kaneo, Yamagami, Sekkō Zaibatsu Ron (On the Chekiang Financial Clique) (Tokyo, 1938), passim.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Yin-hang Yueh-k'an, 8.7:54, 8.8:99; KYCP 211:678, 318:82;Google ScholarChung-kuo Ching chi Nien-chien, li-san-p'ien (Third Chinese Economic Yearbook) (Shanghai, 1936), K85.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Shanghai, Hsin-wen-pao, 4 November 1928, in Gendai Shina no Kiroku, November 1928, pp. 182–5.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ KYCP 68:308–10, 89:643; Chi, ‘Bureaucratic Capitalists,’, pp. 685–6; ‘Kuan yü Mo-shou,’ passim. The Lin-ch'eng mine was never very successful under provincial management, and Hua-pao was returned to private owners in 1930.Google Scholar See Yūzō, Kuboyama, Shina Sekitan Jijō (Chinese Coal) (Tokyo, 1944), p. 76. However, it was again taken over by the province just before the war.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ KYCP 38:609–10, 96:758, 125:460–1. Huang-pao, 17 April 1928, in Gendai Sh'na no Kiroku, April 1928, pp. 210–2; Hsin-wen-pao, 30 April 1929, in ibid., April 1929, pp. 144–6; Pei-p'ing Chen-pao, 2 May 1931, in ibid., May 1931, pp. 26–7.

⁷⁹ Ch'en, , III, pp. 783–4.Google Scholar

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⁸¹ Min-kuo Shih-chiu-nien Shan-tung K'uang-yeh Pao-kao, p. 409; Ti-wu-tz'u Shan-tung K'uang-yeh Pao-kao, p. 470;Google ScholarSantō-shō Kōsai Ensen Sekitan Kōgyō no Genkyō to Sekitan Zōsan Keikaku no Gaiyō (The Coal Industry along the Tsingtao-Tsinan Railway, and Plans for Increasing Coal Production), South Manchurian Railway Co. (1941), p. 140. Yü Ch'ia-ch'ing and Chou Shun-ch'ing are mentioned as mine owners in Po-shan, thought it is not certain that they can be identified with the Shanghai merchants of the same names.Google Scholar

⁸² This is not to suggest that after 1915 there was any great lack of railway capacity. However, during the 1920s disruption of the railways was by far the most serious problem facing the industry.Google Scholar