ann
(Ann)
#1
Here the progenitor of the Qing imperial house acknowledges the
importance of foraging for the formation of Manchu political relations
within thefirstdecadeoftheLaterJinstate’s foundation. As authorities
such as Liu Xiaomeng have recognized, such interventions were import-
ant indications of Jin centralized state-building efforts.^12 Foraging was
too sensitive to be left to the comparatively random intersection
of people and nature existing before 1623. Instead, a more equitable
distribution of forage would be enforced for the state’s ultimate benefit.
This is one early manifestation of an imperial foraging policy in the
northeast and of the critical role played by these resources in structuring
Jin politics.
Within a decade or so, the throne was exerting even greater control of
foraging space, often making even elite subjects’access dependent on
imperial approval. Nurhaci’s son Hong Taiji (r. 1627 – 43 ) prohibited
unauthorized entry into hunting grounds through regulations issued on
the eve of a hunt in Kaiyuan in 1633.^13 From“the early years of the state,”
access was restricted to imperial clansmen. Ranks from prince (wang)to
duke (gong) had the privilege of sending out foragers into Jilin’s Butha Ula
region for unique Manchurian produce, especially the so-called“three
Northeastern treasures”(Dongbei sanbao),“eastern,”or river, pearls
(dongzhu; Ma:tana), sable (diao; Ma:seke), and ginseng (renshen;Ma:
orhoda). Access by such elites’foragers was gradually restricted or elimin-
ated, and their numbers were limited by rank from 15 to 140.^14
Unauthorized foreign access was, of course, prohibited entirely. Never-
theless, in 1635 alone, in addition to several cases of illicit hunting and
fishing, Manchu troops confronted at least thirty-two Korean ginseng
poachers in four separate incidents. After several exchanges of diplomatic
notes, a Korean state investigation in midyear discovered over seventy
more of its subjects involved in the traffic.^15
These incidents were particularly disturbing to the Jurchen in the
context of their contemporary, intensifying struggle with Ming China,
which Korea was being pressured to support. Ginseng made a critical
economic contribution to the Jurchen ability to carry on this conflict. In
fact, many of the northeast’s principal forest products were so important
that by 1617 conquests of nearby Jurchen rivals enabled the Jin state to
control the trade in“ginseng, pine nuts, river pearls, and marten pelts,
which daily increased its wealth and power”until it was beyond Ming
control. Fragmentary statistics from 1583 – 84 indicate a balance of trade
in overwhelming favor of Jurchen traders. The more than thirty-two
thousand taels of silver brought in by ginseng alone paid for the Han
The Nature of Imperial Foraging in the SAH Basin 67
