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ruined excellent pastures by building shelters and cutting grass and trees
daily for fuel, especially to“boil”alkali-impregnated soil on the spot.
Beijing officials, torn between their desire to discourage Han migration
and their recognition that an absolute ban was impractical, effectively
temporized.^127
A 1745 patrol report submitted byLifanyuanofficial Zengfu reopened
the issue by asserting that the area’s soil was too saturated with alkali to
support grasslands. He requested that the old Kangxi licensing system of
merchant extraction be resumed for the benefit of both Han and
Mongols. Further central deliberation of this reportfinally noted the
critical relationship between grass and salt for a pastoral environment.
Livestock, especially camels, required alkali salt. Camels, who require
about eight times more salt than sheep or cattle, rely on nearly a kilogram
per week of salt for their superior water-retaining capacity. So, assump-
tions of some memorialists to the contrary, livestock did not live by grass
alone, and this necessitated further deliberations. A 1746 reconnoiter of
the area interviewed local pastoral Mongols who clearly stated that
they used dunes and willow stands that dotted the region for shelter
from harsh winter weather. They also affirmed that regulated salt extrac-
tion, which began in 1709 , had ruined grasslands and forests.^128 This
testimony elicited some anthropocentric responses even from local
banner officers such as Plain Blue Banner Superintendant Shuwangju.
He argued in 1748 that“the Mongol steppe was too vast”to prohibit
access. Moreover, salt, like wood cut by Han in Kheshigten or salt
extracted in the Khuuchid banner area, was“a daily necessity for the
people from the capital and provinces” that would also provide a
livelihood for locals.^129
People driven by economic necessity within an immense expanse
assembled a set of relations that rendered state agency ineffectual. Formal
prohibition of Han agrarian clearance in the same year technically
remained in nominal force until 1795.^130
TheLifanyuan’sdecisiontomaintainaqualified ban allowing some
residential extraction, limited to about fortyjinper person for per-
sonal use, while preventing deforestation that was destroying pas-
tures, was quickly undermined. Huise, Giohoto’s successor, reported
that state herds in the Shangdu River region were endangered by more
than two hundred carts hauling about 160 to 170 jinto Dushikou.
Incidents included theft of Mongol personal property livestock. An
estimated one thousand Han were also digging saline soil around the
ruins of the old Yuan capital of Kaiping itself. Patrols caught few if
156 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain
