The instruments that the government used to control official salt market were yin and p’iao as mentioned before. The government had the right to set the price and weight of yin (p’iao), and the quota to be distributed at each district. Moreover, at most places, the salt price was officially fixed. This section will discuss growth and decline of official salt market during the Ch’ing period by investigating the number of yin (quantity of salt) distributed and changes in the prices of yin and salt.
During 1644-1722, the Ch’ing government was able to adopt measures such as increasing the number, the weight, and the price of yin to obtain an increase in salt tax for helping to solve the problem of fiscal deficit.165 Here examples could be given for some salt regions. For the Ch’ang-lu salt, it was distributed in 1661 for 758,603 yin and on the average each yin paid 0.39 tael of tax; while in 1720 the number of yin was 927,246 and the average tax was 0.46 tael.166 The Liang-huai salt quota was set in 1645 for 1,410,360 yin and the average tax per yin was 0.675 tael; while in 1689 it was distributed for 1,598,555 yin (including kang-yin and shih-yin食引) and the average tax was 0.8659 taels per yin; moreover, there were miscellaneous items which, when included, would increase the average tax per yin to 1.1525 taels.167 In 1660 the Shan-tung salt was distributed for 245,000 yin but actually paid for tax of 325,000 yin, thus, the average tax per yin was 0.272 tael (originally, 0.205 tael), and in 1728 it was distributed for 500,000 yin and the average tax per yin was 0.245 tael.168
An increase in the number of yin indicated an expansion of the official salt market. In early Ch’ing when the political situation was gradually settled, the social and economic conditions were gradually stabilized, and the population gradually increased, the government was able to take measures of increasing the number of yin to expand the official slat market. Table 6 lists some aggregated figures of selected years for observing the growth and decline of the official salt market throughout the Ch’ing period.
165 Liu Ts’ui-jung, 1969, pp. 43-57.
166 Hsin-hsiu Ch’ang-lu yen-fa-chih, 7/30b-44a.
167 Liang-huai yen-fa-chih, 7/1a-8a, 11a-12b, 23b-25b; 11/51b-52b. The Liang-huai salt was divided into kang-yin and shih-yin, the latter was distributed at districts near the salt fields. In terms of style, the difference was that the kang-yin had a rule for checking the yin while the shih-yin did not. As for the price of yin, the two were originally different but in 1669 the prices were unified.
168 Shan-tung yen-fa-chih, 7/6a-9a. In 1656, there was an increase of 80,000 yin and in 1660 it was decided that the salt of 80,000 yin should not be distributed but still be paid for tax.
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Table 6: The number of yin, the price of yin, and the index of prices in the Ch’ing period Selected
Source: For 1652 to 1721, see Liu Ts’ui-jung, Shun-chih K’ang-hsi nien-chien te ts’ai-cheng p’ing-heng wen-t’i, p. 47, the original figures were from the Ch’ing-shih-lu 清實錄 (Veritable records of the Ch’ing dynasty); for 1753, 1800, and 1891, see Ch’in-ting ta-Ch’ing hui-tien shih-li (1899 edition), 221/1a; for 1841, see Ch’ing-ch’ao hsü wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao, 35/7891.
Since the yin was not issued in Yun-nan, its figures were not included here for 1841; for Liang-huai, Shan-tung, and Liang-che, the numbers of yin and p’iao were counted together.
For the index of prices, see Yeh-chien Wang, “The Secular Trend of Prices during the Ch’ing Period”, p. 361.
a. Not including 1,454,401 tael of ying-yu-yin 盈餘銀 (surplus silver).
b. Not including 428,942 tael of yin-yu-yin.
c. This was the quota.
d. This was actual collected amount.
e. This was the quota.
It should be noted first that except for the year 1841, the number of yin listed in Table 6 was exactly the number recorded for each year in the cited documents;
therefore, differences of weight per yin among regions might not have been taken into account.169 Thus, here the yin was considered as an accounting unit. At any rate, viewed from the number of yin, it was quite clear that by the beginning of the nineteenth century the official salt market was still expanding as the number of yin was increasing.
As shown in Table 6, from the late seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century there was a trend of continuous increase in the average tax per yin, however, its magnitude of movement was not as great as that of the prices. This suggested that during that period the salt merchants were still able to bear burden of increasing price
169 In 1644 it was set that except of Fu-chien, Kuang-tung, and Ssu-ch’uan, the weight of one yin was 200 catties, see Ch’u-hsiu Ho-tung yen-fa-chih, 4/chih-ch’e, 1b-2b. The changes of weight in various regions see Ch’ing-ch’ao hsü wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao, 35/7891; Ch’in-ting ta-Ch’ing hui-tien shih-li (1899 edition), chuan 221-229.
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of yin (i.e., regular salt tax) and the consumers were still able to tolerate the increasing salt price due to transposition of burden by merchants. In the latter half of eighteenth century, the average tax per yin decreased slightly and in 1800 the surplus silver of salt tax decreased more than one million taels from the amount in 1753. On the contrary, the index of prices showed that the prices were rising in general and this could be an indication that the official salt with a higher price would encounter more difficulties in competing with cheaper illegal salt under this circumstance. In 1841 the situation was that the quota number of yin was not all really distributed and the actual collected amount of salt tax decreased. If the average tax per yin was calculated with the quota, then, an increase of it just ran against the trend of falling prices; thus in reality the tax quota was not fulfilled. If the calculation was done with the quota of yin and actual collected tax, then, the average tax per yin decreased, conforming to the trend of prices. At that period almost every salt region had serious problem of accumulated arrears of tax.170 The reform in Liang-huai just reflected this time of crisis. As for the situation in the late nineteenth century, the number of yin decreased while the amount of tax increased; the average tax per yin also was increasing with a magnitude of momentum being closer to that of the prices than in the period prior to the mid-eighteenth century.
For investigating into the situation of each salt region in a comparative sense, there were statistics for three time points as listed in Table 7. First of all, it should be pointed out that since the weight of yin differed, a standard weight was chosen for each region and thus the original number of yin was converted by the standard weight (see explanations below the table). With the converted number of yin and standard weight, the total volume of salt can be calculated. Although the statistics listed in Table 7 represented only the formal sector of the Ch’ing fiscal system,171 they were good approximations for what were effectively under the official control. The following facts could be discerned from Table 7.
Table 7: The number of yin, volume of salt, salt tax, and average tax per catty in ten salt regions Salt
170 For example, in 1828 the accumulated arrears of Ch’ang-lu were more than 10 million taels and in 1848 more than 20 million taels, and the arrears of Shan-tung in 1821 were 5.36 million taels, see Chiu-sheng yen-wu-i-lüeh, p. 33, p. 35, p. 66. The arrears of Liang-huai were more than 60 million taels in 1821-1850, see Hsu Hung, 1972a, p. 156.
171 For a discussion on the formal and informal sectors of the Ch’ing fiscal system, see Yeh-chien Wang, 1973, pp. 49-57.
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Source: Ch’in-ting ta-Ch’ing hui-tien shih-li (1818 edition), chuan 177-181;
Ch’in-ting ta-Ch’ing hui-tien shih-li (1899 edition), chuan 221-229;
Ch’ing-ch’ao hsü wen-hsien-t’ung-k’ao, 35/7981.
Notes:
a. There were 704,698 yin each carried 335 catties and 100,698 p’iao each carried 400 catties, the number of p’iao was converted into yin.
b. There were 550,000 yin and 171,240 p’iao, both for 225 catties per unit, thus they were added together.
c. These figures were for the year 1791.
d. The weight of yin varied from 235 to 323 catties and the average was taken here.
e. There were 545,062 regular yin and 401,423 extra yin and the total was 946,485 yin. The west route was 675 catties per yin and the east and south routes were 100 catties per yin. According to Ch’ing yen-fa-chih, there were 545,062 regular yin and among them 25,026 yin belonging to the west route and there were 387,423 extra yin and among them 23,530 yin belonging to the west route, see 192/8b-12a.
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Thus, altogether there were 48,556 yin belonging to the west route which accounted for 5.2% of the total number. Based on this percentage, the original number of yin is converted into the standard yin.
f. There were 28,833 yin for water route each carried 5,000 catties and 131,288 yin for land route each carried 500 catties; here the water route yin was converted into the land route yin.
g. There were 69,066 yin each carried 200 catties and 3,622 yin each carried 170 catties, here the latter was converted into the former.
h. The difference of the total volume in Yun-nan between 1841 and 1891 was 4.31 million catties, thus this number was deducted from the total in 1841.
i. There were 1,395,050 yin in the south and 296,982 p’iao in the north, both one yin and one p’iao carried 400 catties, thus the numbers were added together.
j. There were 932,485 yin converted by the method noted in e.
k. There were 29,516 water route yin and 137, 878 land route yin, the method noted in f was used to calculate here.
l. The total number of yin was 72,688 which was the same as in g, thus the same method was used.
m. This was only the number for the south, the number of p’iao in the north was not known but the tax amount was 312,182 taels which were not included here.
n. The number of yin was 400,500 each carried 320 catties, the number of p’iao was 171,740 each carried 225 catties, here the p’iao was converted into yin.
o. There were 545,000 yin converted with the method noted in e.
p. The total number of yin was 168,407, here take 30,000 yin for the water route and converted with the method noted in f.
q. Each big p’iao carried 100 catties and there were 371,141 p’iao, each small p’iao carried 50 catties and there were 125,290 p’iao; here the small one was converted into the big one.
r. The original documents did not provide the weight per yin thus that of the previous period was used here.
(1) Prior to late Ch’ing, the scale of official salt markets among regions varied;
but it is clear that Liang-huai was the largest and Shan-hsi the smallest. The variation could be seen rather clearly from the volume of salt distributed. Ever since the Taiping Rebellion broke out, the Liang-huai salt market lost its prestigious position, particularly in Hupei and Hunan where about 60 percent of the Huai salt was previously distributed but now taken by the salt from Ssu-ch’uan, Kuang-tung, and Ho-tung.172 The Ssu-ch’uan salt industry developed rapidly since the mid-Ch’ing period and in 1812 the distribution amount reached 323.51 million catties.173 Thus, it was clear that the volume listed in Table 7 for Ssu-ch’uan did not include the amount distributed outside the region itself. As for other regions, the increases of Ch’ang-lu
172 Lin Tse-hsu 林則徐 said in “Cheng-tun ts’o-wu che 整頓鹺務摺 (A memorial on readjustment of salt affairs) that about six-tenth of the Liang-huai salt were distributed in Hupei and Hunan, see Huang-ch’ao ching-shih-wen hsü-pien, 42/7b. For details of penetration by illegal salt from neighboring regions see Hsu Hung, 1972a, pp. 141-142.
173 Ch’en Tsu-yu, 1976, p. 594. Another estimate showed that in late Ch’ing, the taxable salt in Ssu-ch’uan reached 300 million catties, see Madeleine Zelin, 1988, p. 83.
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and Kuang-tung were quite notable, while the volumes of Liang-che, Ho-tung, and Fu-chien decreased.
(2) As for the total volume of salt distributed in ten regions, there were 2,039.63 million catties in 1800; 2,194.45 million catties in 1841; and 1,555.95 million catties in 1891. But the figure of 1841 was the expected quota rather than the actual distributed amount so the volume for that year could be bias to over estimation. Wu Ch’eng-ming and his collaborators had used records of different dates to estimate the volume of official salt (including the Northeast provinces in late Ch’ing) distributed prior to the Opium War as 2,418.13 million catties.174 This estimate for the first half of nineteenth century was probably too high. A plausible reasoning was that the official salt market reached a zenith around the year 1800 and declined afterwards.
(3) As for the average tax per catty, the highest value was generally found in Liang-huai (the 1791 figure of Ho-tung could be set aside for the time being). In 1800 the Liang-huai salt paid 0.0036 tael of tax per catty while in 1891 it paid 0.0175 tael;
there was an increase of four folds. During the same period, the average tax of Fu-chien and Ssu-ch’uan salt doubled while that of the other regions increased only slightly or even decreased. It should be noted that the Yun-nan salt though did not use yin for distribution, its average tax per catty was not smaller than other regions, except for Liang-huai in 1891. The salt tax paid by merchants was part of their cost as pointed out by T’ao Chu 陶澍 (1779-1839), he said: “The merchants managed transport of salt, what they paid for the price of yin, the price of fields, the price of transport, and miscellaneous fees were counted into the cost.”175 The fact that the official salt of Liang-huai could not compete with the illegal salt due to its high price had been studied in details by scholars.176 Here, a comparison between the salt tax and the salt price could be made for explaining the share of salt tax. In 1801 the officially set salt price in Hupei and Hunan was 0.0368 tael per catty,177 thus, the salt tax was about one-tenth of the salt price. In 1895 the official salt price in Kiangsi, Hupei and Hunan was 0.033 tael per catty,178 thus, the salt tax was about one half of the salt price.179 Among other three items of the merchant’s cost, miscellaneous fees was the most criticized item by many observers. The figures of Liang-huai in 1830 showed that the miscellaneous item was double of the regular tax.180 From the above evidences it could be said that before the nineteenth century the salt tax occupied only
174 Wu Cheng-ming and Hsu Ti-hsin, 1987, p. 429.
175 T’ao-wen-i-kung chi, 11/5a.
176 Saeku Tomi, 1956, pp. 211-275; Hsu Hung, 1972a, pp. 142-149.
177 Saeku Tomi, 1956, p. 273.
178 Saeku Tomi, 1956, p. 274.
179 Another study showed that in Chekiang the salt tax made up 40.9% of the salt price in 1912, see Chiang Tao-chang, 1976, p. 40.
180 Liu Chun, 1933a, pp. 142-143.
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rather small share in the cost, the official salt market could still be maintained rather easily and the merchants had a greater opportunity to get profit.
As for the salt price on the market, it was not all determined by monopolistic merchants. Take the case of Liang-huai for example, in 1776 the Liang-huai region was divided into three zones of price: (1) the zone in which the salt price should be set by following a fixed precedent; (2) the zone in which the salt price should be set by the salt administrators and reported to the Board of Revenue annually; and (3) the zone in which the salt price was not fixed and could be fluctuated with time.181 In other words, it was only in the third zone, including districts in Kiangsu and Anhwei provinces where the Huai salt was distributed, that merchants might control the market price or the salt price was allow to be determined by the “market”. In other salt regions, aside for the salt of the p’iao area in Chekiang, the salt of Ssu-ch’uan and the Hua-ma-ch’ih花馬池 salt in Shensi, the market price of salt was all determined officially.182 Imperfect competition of the salt market was fully manifested by the fact that the price was officially determined. The exhaustion of merchants was partly due to official interference of the salt price. As early as in the late seventeenth century there were merchants who pointed out trenchantly that the first thing the high ranked local official to do after his arrival was to limit the salt price, he “does not even know that the exhaustion of merchants is just due to official prohibition of the salt price.”183
The officially determined salt price was, in fact, not all set without considering changes in the market conditions. Here an example could be given with the prices of Ch’ang-lu and Shan-tung salt as listed in Table 8. It could be seen from Table 8 that the officially set salt prices of Ch’ang-lu and Shan-tung increased and decreased in the same direction. As for reasons of price increase, except for supporting dike construction and military expenditures the main reason was for reflecting changes in silver-cash ratio and market situations so that public welfare could be taken care of (the so-called “for convenience of both merchants and peoples”).
Table 8: Changes in the salt price in Ch’ang-lu and Shan-tung during the Ch’ing period
Year
Ch’ang-lu Shan-tung
Wen/
catty
Price increase and reason Wen/
catty
Price increase and reason
1732 1 For convenience of both merchants --
181 Ch’in-ting ta-Ch’ing hui-tien shih-li (1899 edition), 223/13b-16b.
182 Ch’in-ting ta-Ch’ing hui-tien shih-li (1899 edition), 225/10b; 224/22a; 228/6a. for the official salt prices at different counties, see Ch’in-ting Hu-pu tse-li, 26/13a-30b. For example, the prices of Ch’ang-lu salt in Chihli were from 2.5 to 14 wen 文, in Honan were from 11 to 17 wen; the prices of Shan-tung salt in Shantung were from 9 to 14 wen, in Honan was 18 wen, and in Kiangsu were from 14 to 18 wen; the Shan-tung p’iao salt was from 5 to 12 wen. These prices quoted in the Hu-pu tse-li were those set in the K’ang-hsi and Yung-cheng periods before the price increases took place , see Ch’ing yen-fa-chih, 21/1a; 59/1a-b.
183 Liang-huai yen-fa-chih, 26/46b-47a.
38 and peoples
1764 1 Prices were rising --
1770 2 Cash was cheap and silver was dear 2 Cash was cheap and silver was dear
1770 2 Cash was cheap and silver was dear 2 Cash was cheap and silver was dear