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The Salt Trade in Ch'ing China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Tao-Chang Chiang
Tao-Chang Chiang
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
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As a daily necessity for human life and also as a taxed commodity, salt has played an important part in the economic and political development of China. As salt is used regularly by all people, its annual consumption is largely predictable so that a tax on salt, as a disguised poll tax, provided the government with a reliable source of revenue. For this reason, it has drawn the special attention of statesmen and financiers throughout China's history. In terms of economic magnitude, the business of the production and marketing of salt was a major industry in agrarian China for centuries and the largest single economic undertaking in Ch'ing China (1644–1911). Control of salt and its financial gains frequently became the immediate objectives of revolutionaries, rebels, brigands, and other organized malcontents in China. The sources of salt supply in Ch'ing China were widespread. Several distinctive methods of production were employed in different areas. The distribution of salt involved all types of transportation available in traditional China. Its flow was well geared to the national, regional and local trade. This paper reconstructs the salt trade in Ch'ing China in its geographical context. It stresses five aspects: centers of production, state control, trade networks, means of transportation, and spatial structure of market areas.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 197 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 Chiang, Tao-chang, ‘The Significance of the Salt Industry in Ch'ing China,’ Jour. of Oriental Studies, XIV (1976), 235–40.Google Scholar

2 This study is limited to China Proper, but touches upon other areas whenever necessary.

3 The term ‘district’ refers to a civil administrative district below the prefecture, hsien, chou or t'ing.

4 For a detailed study of the geographical distribution of salt sources and the methods of production, see Chiang, Tao-chang, ‘The Production of Salt in China, 1644–1911,’ Annals, Assn. of Amer. Geographers, LXVI (1976), 516–30.Google Scholar

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11 Yüan (n. 8 above), 360.

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20 Tseng (n. 16 above), p. 28.

21 The practice of the certificate system was not terminated until January 1, 1942 when the Chinese Government officially announced its abolition.

22 Ch'i-yün, Chang et al. (eds), Ch'ing-shih (Taipei, 1961), [hereafter CS], II, 1501.Google Scholar

23 Ch'ing-yün, Wang, Shih-ch'ü yü-chi (Reprinted edn, Taipei, 1966), p. 464.Google Scholar

24 Other reasons include low purchasing power in market areas and decreasing salt production. In either case, salt merchants would lose their sale.

25 Wang (n. 23 above), p. 484.

26 Ta-Ch'ing li-ch'ao shih-lu (Facsimile reproduction, Taipei, 1963–64)Google Scholar [hereafter CSL], Ch'ien-lung Reign, XXVIII, 20518, 20536 and 20589.

27 Ching (n. 19 above), p. 27.

28 CS (n. 22 above), II, 1505.

29 Ching (n. 19 above), p. 25.

30 For a detailed study of the institution of the official transport system in the Szechwan salt region, see To, Wu, ‘Ch'uan-yen kuan-yün chih shih-mo,’ Chung-kuo chin-tai ching-chi-shih yen-chiu chi-k’an, III, 2 (1935), 143–261.Google Scholar

31 Ching (n. 19 above), p. 25.

32 Chu, T'ao, ‘Hui-t'ung ch'in-ch'ai fu-tsou t'i-ch'a Huai-pei p'iao-yen ch'ing-hsing che-tzu,’ in TWIKCC (n. 12 above), III, 1243.Google Scholar

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36 Salt was imported to the Hunchun area in the easternmost part of today's Chilin Province from saltworks at Hanch'i on the west coast of the Poset Bay. Chinese salt-producers had been in the Hanch'i area for many years. They continued to produce salt by boiling seawater after 1860 when the area was ceded to Russia. Korean salt was also bartered in the Sino-Korean tributary trade and was transported across the international boundary. Nevertheless, the total amount of salt involved in both cases annually was too small to be of significance. See Chin-tsao, Liu (comp.), Ch'ing-ch'ao hsü wen-hsien t'ung-k'ao (Reprinted edn, Shanghai, 1936), 38: 7929Google Scholar; and Ts'un-wu, Chang, Ch'ing-Han tsung-Jan mou-i: 1637–1894 (Taipei, 1978), pp. 201–19.Google Scholar

37 Chu T'ing-li, Yen-cheng chih (n.p., 1529), Chüan 4, p. 23; cited in Hsü (n. 7 above), P. 37.

38 Huaian used to be the collecting center until 1832 when Hsipa was established as a new collecting and distribution center for the Huaipei salt region under the ticket system. See Chen-han, Lin, Huai-yen chi-yao (Shanghai, 1928), pp. 195–6.Google Scholar

39 The actual movement of salt was detailed in K'ai-ch'ung, Hsieh et al. , Liang-huai yen-fa chih (Reproduction of 1693 edn, Taipei, 1966), I., 277–404.Google Scholar The construction of the map showing the shipment of salt in Huaipei is based on the same source, I, pp. 303–12, 315–16, 324–32, and 397–404.

40 This shortcoming was mentioned in two of T'ao's memorials. See T'ao (n. 12 above), 1070–1; and also his ‘Ch'ien-tsou pan-li ts'o-wu ch'ing-hsingshang-yu wei-chin chin-tsai lü-ch'en che-tzu,’ TWIKCC (n. 12 above), III, 1457.

41 The direct shipment of salt to a district capital is mentioned in virtually all the compendia of salt administration. This was even true during the mid-twentieth century in central Yünnan, as reported by two sociologists in 1948, who noted that salt was transported from the salt-producing center directly to the district capital of Imen. See Fei, Hsiao-tung and Chang, Chih-i, Earthbound China (London, 1948), p. 168Google Scholar. Plese note that Imen is spelled as Yemen in the book.

42 In Ch'ing China, salt was always sold in stores in market towns. This was possible as markets were spatially numerous owing to high densities of rural population. Salt was not an article of pedlars also because it was a dear, perishable commodity. But in later medieval England, salt was distributed to villages and towns by chapmen and pedlars, as rural markets were few and far between then, owing to lower population densities than those in China. See Bridbury, A. R., England and the Salt Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Reprint of the 1955 edn, Westport, Conn., 1973), pp. 150–1Google Scholar; and Waters, Charlotte M., An Economic History of England, 1066–1874 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1945), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar Regarding economic conditions in medieval England, I have had a fruitful conversation with Dr Malcolm H. Murfett, Department of History, National University of Singapore.

43 See Huan-piao, Shou, ‘I Fu Chien yen-yin yü Min t'ung-hsiao pin,’ in K'ang, Sheng (comp.), Huang-ch'ao ching-shih-wen hsü-pien (Shanghai, 1897) ‘hereafter SCSW’, 52: 83–863.Google Scholar See also, Ch'u-chou fu-chih (1977 edn), 24:2a. It was also reported that salt could be bought only in market centers in central Yünnan. See Fei and Chang (n. 41 above), p. 163.

44 Kao Sung, ‘Hsü-shih lun,’ in SCSW (n. 43 above), 55:6a.

45 See Han-sheng, Ch'üan, ‘Sung-tai Nan-fang ti hsü-shih,’ Li-shih yü-yen yen-chiu-so chi-k'an ‘hereafter LSYYCK’, IX (1947), 272.Google Scholar According to Skinner, ‘salt-store’ is one of six different shops diagnostic of central market towns in the core of the Upper Yangtze region for the late nineteenth century. The other five different shops dealt solely in iron utensils, firecrackers and fireworks, bambooware, cloth, and tea leaves. See Skinner, G. William, ‘Cities and the Hierarchy of Local Systems,’ in Skinner, G. William (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford, 1977), p. 351.Google Scholar

46 Hsiao, Kung-chuan, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle, 1960), pp. 20–3.Google Scholar

47 Chang, Sen-dou, ‘Some Aspects of the Urban Geography of the Chinese Hsien Capitsl,’ Annals, Assn. of Amer. Geographers, LI (1961), 42.Google Scholar

48 During the Ch'ing dynasty, a district magistrate was required to see that the total amount of salt designated to the district was sold in due time. His success or failure in the discharge of the responsibility was taken into account in his record of accomplishment. A magistrate who failed to carry out this duty was punished according to the percentage of salt quota unsold: ten percent or less, suspension of promotion; twenty to thirty percent, reduction in salary; forty percent, demotion of one grade; fifty to seventy percent, demotion of two to four grades and transfer to another post; eighty percent or above, dismissal. See Ch'ü, T'ung-tsu, Local Government in China under the Ch'ing (Paper edn, Stanford, 1969), pp. 144–7.Google Scholar

49 For example, though it had a population of about 400,000 in the early twentieth century, Ting Hsien had only one salt dealer who lived in the district capital. See Gamble, Sidney D., Ting Hsien, a North China Rural Community (New York, 1954), p. 168.Google Scholar

50 Ch'üan Han-sheng, ‘Nan-Sung tao-mi ti sheng-ch'an yü yün-hsiao,’ LSYYCK (n. 45 above), X (1948), 416–22.

51 See P'ei-kang, Chang and Chih-i, Chang, Che-chiang-sheng shih-liang chih yün-hsiao (Ch'angsha, 1940), pp. 36–7.Google Scholar See also Sung-nien, Hua, Liang-shih kuan-li-lun (Taipei, 1953). PP. 127–9.Google Scholar

52 In late medieval times, salt was used as ballast by local craft in Holland. See Bridbury (n. 42 above), p. 87. For this two-way movement of cargo in China, both salt and rice were logically used as ballast by returning rice and salt junks respectively.

53 This was disclosed in a memorial written by Mai Chu on the 24th day of the second month (lunar calendar), 1732. See Yung-cheng chu-p'i yü-chih (Reprinted edn, Taipei, 1965), IX, 5758.Google Scholar

54 von Richthofen, Ferdinand, Baron Richthofen's Letters, 1870–1872 (2nd edn, Shanghai, 1903), p. 39.Google Scholar

55 Dane, Richard, Report on the Reorganisation of the Salt Revenue Administration in China, 1913–1917 (Peking, 1918), p. 17.Google Scholar For Dane's contribution to the modernization of the Chinese salt administration, see Adshead, S. A. M., The Modernization of the Salt Administration, 1900–1920 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 For example, salt had to be transferred onto small boats from larger junks at Ch'ingshan and other points on the Yangtze River before it was shipped to its destinations in Kiangsi Province, owing to lower water level. See YFTC (n. 5 above), 53:41.

57 YFTC (n. 5 above), 51:6 and 56: 1.

58 Salt from Ch'anglu saltworks sold in Honan Province was, for example, transported in part by carts. Each cart had a load of twenty packages containing a total of about three hundred kilograms of salt. See YFTC (n. 5 above), 53:6; and Wen-yüan, Ling, Chung-kuo yen-yeh tsui-chin chuang-k'uang (Peking, 1913), II, 129.Google Scholar In Hotung salt region, because of its unfavorable terrain condition each cart had a load of only twenty packages with a total of sixty kilograms of salt. The cart had a much smaller carrying capacity than that employed in the Ch'anglu region. See CYFC (n. 5 above), 80:3b.

59 A Chinese Communist mimeographed notice indicates that animals were the major means of transportation of salt in northern Shensi Province in the 19305. See Chung-yang kuo-min-ching-chi-pu t'ung-chih: kuang-yü yün-yen wen-t'i (a mimeographed notice issued on July 10, 1936). A copy of the original notice is kept by the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. See also Fei and Chang (n. 41 above), p. 49.

60 See CS (n. 22 above), II, 1499. See also Fei and Chang (n. 41 above), pp. 41, 48–9.

For an interesting and sympathetic description of the human porterage, see Fitzgerald, Charles P., The Horizon History of China (New York, 1969), p. 153.Google Scholar

61 Spencer, Joseph E., ‘Salt in China,’ Georg. Rev., XXV (1935), 365.Google Scholar

62 See CYFC (n. 5 above), 16:11; 20:1 and 30:2. See also Wei-ning, Ho, Hsin Chung-kuo yen-yeh cheng-ts'e (2nd edn, Shanghai, 1947), p. 65.Google Scholar

63 Adshead (n. 55 above), pp. 48–51.

64 I-feng, Chu et al. , Ch'ih-hsiu Ho-tung yen-fa chih (Reproduction of 1727 edn, Taipei, 1966), I, 285–378.Google Scholar

65 T'ao chu, ‘Cho-ting Ch'u-Hsi yen-ch'uan tao-an hsien-ch'i ping wei-yüan hsün-ch'i i-tu chia-tai tao-mai ko-pi che-tzu,’ in TWIKCC (n. 12 above), II, 1131–8.

66 Chiang (n. 4 above), 529–30.

67 Ling (n. 58 above), II, 61–2.

68 Hsiao-kan-hsien chien-chih (Wuhan, 1959), p. 85.Google Scholar

69 I-hsüan, Tai, Sung-tai ch'ao-yen chih-tu yen-chiu (Shanghai, 1957), pp. 73–8.Google Scholar

70 The construction of the map showing the distribution of salt in the Liangche region is based on P'ei, Feng et al. , Ch'in-ting ch'ung-hsiu Liang-Che yen-fa chih (n.p., c. 1802), Chüan I, PP- 25–35a.Google Scholar

71 See China, , Imperial Maritime Customs, Salt: Production and Taxation, V Off. Ser., Customs Papers, No. 81 (Shanghai, 1906), pp. 68–72Google Scholar; CSL (n. 26 above), Hsuan-t'ung Reign, II, 864 and YFTC (n. 5 above), 39:27–8.

72 YFTC (n. 5 above), 55: 14–15.

73 Ibid., 11:2–3. But some scholars have considered this economically irrational, strategically rational. To keep Chenchiang in the Liangche salt region, it was flooded with the cheaper Lianghuai salt. This manifested its economical irrationality. Their argument is that if Chenchiang had been opened to the legal as well as the illegal flow of salt from Lianghuai, then the illegal flow would have been much harder to contain; and consequently, the illegal flow would endanger the really valuable Liangche markets like Suchou. This is of course a narrow point of view from the Liangche interests. Certainly, it was economically irrational when we consider the country as a whole. See Metzger (n. 8 above), p. 39; and Saeki, Tomi, Shindai ensei no kenkyū (Kyoto: The Society of Oriental Researches, Kyoto Univ., 1962), pp. 89–103.Google Scholar

74 Tseng Kou-fan, ‘Ch'ing shou-hui Huai-nan yin-ti shu,’ in KCSW (n. 17 above), I, 853–5.

75 P'eng Tsu-hsien, ‘Liang-huai i-chien chi-Ch'u Ch'uan-yen yin-chang shih-to chih-ai nan-hsing shu,’ in KCSW (n. 17 above), I, 893–5. See also, Adshead (n. 55 above), pp. 33–6.

76 In the expansion of the salt trade in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Western Europe, transport cost was also a major factor. Related to this, the relative advantage of water transport over land routes was important. See Smith (n. 35 above), pp. 345–6.