The Qing state sought to subject ginseng, the single most valuable
forage item in the northeast, to a more complicated system of control,
albeit one limited by unauthorized human action and environmental
change. Systemic adaptation was particularly necessary during the
Kangxi period, exemplified by the exhaustion of ginseng in Butha Ula
and Ningguta between 1684 and 1685 , although only 156 Shengjing
diggers were active. The reasons are not difficult to comprehend if a
1694 report of more thanfive thousand authorized foragers gathering
root on behalf of their noble patrons or contemporary assertions by
Heilongjiang military governor Sabsu of more than thirty thousand
diggers are accurate. The state had already reduced banner authority over
alpine ginsengfields. It ended the allocation of specific ginseng mountains
to each of the eight banners for exclusive foraging around the same time
exhaustion surfaced in 1684. The apparent motive was to tightenfield
access, certified through a permit system largely instituted during the
Kangxi reign, to stop infiltration by illicit diggers. The natural limits of
these measures, however, is suggested by the shift of gathering to new and
rich, but less convenient, locales farther northeast on the Ussuri River,
which was facilitated by the expulsion of the Russians.^121
Another major change occurred in 1709 when foraging was formally
militarized with the certification of thirteen hundred Butha Ula“Manchu
troops”in thirteen units with an annual quota of one thousandjin(about
597 kilos). Any surplus would be at the disposal of these self-supporting
units. Shengjing would dispatch another four thousand Manchu troops.
They, in conjunction with four thousand others from Ningguta and two
thousand from Butha Ula, would engage in state-supported forage of
table 5Fengtian Forager Annual Quotas (Hei-tu dang, 5 : 18. 20 , 6 : 3. 2 – 4 ,
8 : 16. 56 – 58 , 17 : 30. 41 – 42 )
Forage
Type Annual Quota
Shortfall Penalty
(Lashes)Foragers Assigned
(Men)Fish 32 , 500 jin
( 19 , 396 kg)
3 / 20 jin 65Otter pelts 75 5 /otter 45
Pheasants 3 , 000 n/a 30
Siberian
salmon
1 , 500 n/a 30Storks 150 3 / 2 birds 10
Wild honey 15 , 600 jin ( 9 , 310 kg) 5 / 2 bottles 312