The Changing Landscape in Rural South Fujian 217
food, relative immunity to locusts, greater resistance to drought and the
fact that it adapted well to poorer soils, hence competing with no other
food crops for good land.^37 It cost less than one qian: (a copper cash) per
catty (1 catty = 1 1/3lb). Usually two catties of it were more than enough
for one meal.^38 Peanut (luohuasheng) was another food plant introduced
into China, probably by the Portuguese, who arrived in the Guangzhou
(Canton) area in 1516 and subsequently traded in southern Fujian ports
and Ningbo. It was βirst grown in Fujian.^39 The result was “a revolution in
the utilization of sandy soils”.^40 With the nitrogen-βixing rhizomes on its
roots, the peanut plant even helped to preserve soil fertility.
Given sound social conditions, the quick response of the Fujianese
to challenges could have helped them to improve their living standard.
Unfortunately, they still had to contend with social ills beyond their
control and, therefore, the agricultural remedies failed to achieve a
permanent solution.
Deteriorating Social Conditions and Tenant Uprisings
From the last decade of the sixteenth century and thereafter, funds in
the national treasuries steadily dwindled away. Their depletion was
partly attributable to the military campaigns that the Wanli Emperor
(r. 1573‒1620) ordered in the 1590s against the Mongol rebels in the
northwest, against the aboriginal tribesmen in the southwest and to
contribute to the struggles in Korea with Japanese invaders under
Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Eventually, another long military contest was to
bring down the Ming dynasty. This was China’s struggle with the rising
Manchus. When Emperor Xizong (r. 1621‒27) came to the throne in 1620,
the situation was worse than ever. He permitted the ruthless eunuch, Wei
Zhongxian, to extend his inβluence over the central administration, the
provinces and the frontier marches. Social and economic dislocations
increased in severity.
T h e Ming government had no other solution but to resort to
immediate relief. Taxes were increased to meet the βinancial crisis. One
of the measures was the imposition of a land surtax that had become a
- He Qiaoyuan 何喬遠 (1558–1631), Min-shu 閩書 [Fujian history] (c. 1628–31
ed.), 130: 4b–6b; Xu Guangqi, Nongzheng quanshu, 27: 29b–30a; cited in Ho
Ping-ti, Population of China, p. 186. - He Qiaoyuan, Min shu, “on southern products”; see also Yongchun zhouzhi (1787
ed.), 7: 9b–10a. - Ho Ping-ti, “Introduction of American Food Plants”, p. 192.
- Ho Ping-ti, Population of China, p. 185.