The Changing Landscape in Rural South Fujian 233
Court discontinued salt distribution in 1474, the collection of payment
for rationed salt from the population was not suspended. Fujian was
not included in any of the ofβicial distribution regions but payment for
the salt ration was required. Consequently, salt consumption in Fujian
had long been more burdensome than in other regions.^114 In fact, the
monopoly of the private salt-farmers had created a worse situation
than the state monopoly had done.^115 The salt trade was a proβitable
business. Zhangzhou merchants used to transport salt to the upstream
interior districts such as Longyan, Zhangping and Ningyang where they
could proβit tenfold.^116 The large proβits had led the powerful people to
exercise their inβluence over the local authorities to gain more stringent
control of private selling so that they could effectively manipulate prices.
The gazetteer of Tong’an records that in 1546 the local authorities took
rigorous measures against the salt-peddlers. Many “xiaomin” were
arrested or harassed by government ofβicials.^117 The salt-farmers were
then in a good position to monopolize the market and proceeded to take
the salt-producers “by the throat”. Bear in mind that the coastal people
depended largely on βishing and salt production, especially in southern
Zhangzhou where there was very little cultivated land.^118 As βishing was
badly affected by the seafaring prohibition, salt production became even
more indispensable to the people. “The coastal population would starve
were they to stop selling salt for just a single day,” tells a gazetteer.^119
Protected by the corrupt administration, the salt monopolists often
refused to buy in order to wait for lower purchasing but higher selling
prices. After working in the blazing sun the whole day long, the destitute
producers could only produce two dan of salt for an unreasonably low
selling price of 2 or 3 fen (1 fen = 1/10 qian = 1/100 liang/tael) per dan.^120
Under such circumstances, the livelihood of the salt-producers and the
free βlow of salt supplies were both cut off. The xiaomin’s suffering is told
as follows:
We see the old and the weak [from the interior] crawling over
hills and valleys for whole days, carrying with them βirewood and- Zhangzhou fuzhi (1877 ed.), 15: 30.
- Gu Yanwu, TXJGLBS, Vol. 26, p. 96.
- Zhangzhou fuzhi (1877 ed.), 15: 21–2.
- Tong’an xianzhi 同安縣志 [Gazetteer of Tong’an District] (1929 ed.; reprint,
Taipei: Ch’eng-wen, 1967), 10: 21a. - “Only 20 to 30 per cent of the land is arable”, stated in Gu Yanwu, TXJGLBS,
Vol. 26, p. 84. - Zhangzhou fuzhi (1877 ed.), 15: 22–3.
- Ibid., 15: 21–2.