ann
(Ann)
#1
any diggers but found ample evidence of unauthorized commercial
extraction of sufficient scale to adversely affect state and private herds.
Prohibition was tightened, but residential access was continued.^131
Six years later in 1755 Shuwangwu’s successor, Jaocang, made another
appeal for prohibition repeal, claiming that local Mongols considered
Han merchant extraction profitable because they could rent out carts
and oxen and supplyfirewood. He also reasserted the area was too saline
and barren for herding. Huise’s opposition resulted in a joint inquiry by
representatives of both sides.^132 They found decisive evidence from local
Mongols that Han salt extraction caused social disruption, pasture deg-
radation, and erosive deforestation, in which“trees were cut and burned
to such an extent that mountains were deforested, ruining our grass-
lands.”With the cessation of commercial extraction for several years,
however,“forests gradually reestablished themselves.” This testimony
persuaded the Grand Council itself in 1756 to restrict unconditionally
mass Han incursion to protect Mongol grass by restricting access to
Mongol salt.^133
guihua: hanspace on the steppe
The alkali deliberations of 1741 – 56 reveal explicit stresses on environ-
mental relations that transcendedecosystems and cultures ostensibly
kept in their respective places by the Great Wall and its attendant
administrative structures. In fact,however, Qing state administrative
structures were not simply trying to maintain a certain form of sustain-
able relations between Han and Mongols under distinct pastoral or
agrarian conditions, but imperialborderland relations across an eco-
tone. Had the Great Wall or provinces or leagues or subprefectures or
banners actually delineated the environmental boundaries of the area,
such relations would have been relatively self-sustaining. At least man-
agement would have been much less complicated. As it was, maintain-
ing an imperial borderland in the Inner Mongolian grasslands
necessitated a sixteen-year deliberation just to decide the status of a
few salt lakes.^134
These deliberations were only a very small part of the immense adap-
tations the Qing state had to undergo to maintain its networked order in
Inner Mongolia. This order centered on provisions for the breeding of
several hundred thousand head of state livestock alone and the livelihoods
of an estimated more than two million people during the eighteenth
century. Imperial relations, however, made it impossible to isolate this
The Nature of Imperial Pastoralism in Southern Inner Mongolia 157
