Gentry-Merchants and Peasant-Peddlers 259
devastation can also be seen as one important factor that contributed to
the migration of South Fujianese to Manila and Taiwan at the end of the
sixteenth century.
The Gentry-Merchants versus the Peasant-Peddlers:
Some Concluding Remarks
Notwithstanding the fact that, throughout its long history, China remained
land-centered and anti-commercial and that the traditional ideology
irrevocably regarded the merchant class as the lowest rung of the social
ladder, the trade that the Confucians never ceased to attack had always
been able to play its own role in the traditional society of China, not to
mention the state’s own involvement in it under the guise of tributary
trade.
The monopolized character of the state-trade institution (shibo) was
effective only in the early Ming period when the bureaucratic machine
was under the strict control of the Court. The long reign of the Jiajing
Emperor (1522‒66) was marred by signs of losing control of the coastal
affairs. The smuggling activities of the Portuguese, the Japanese and the
Chinese maritime adventurers detrimentally affected state trade and
gave rise to the private trade that substituted for the once βlourishing
tribute ships.
Quanzhou declined in the prosperity it previously enjoyed as one of
the national centers for the state trade. The Supervisorate of Maritime
Trade and Shipping was later removed to Fuzhou in northern Fujian.
Simultaneously with the emergence of private trade as a force to be
reckoned with after the mid-Ming period, Yuegang in Zhangzhou,
situated south of Quanzhou, became the port of frequent resort for the
“smuggling” business. The eclipse of Quanzhou and emergent Yuegang
(elevated to Haicheng District in 1567) represented two subsequent
periods during which state trade slowly had to cede to the private trade.
Unlike Quanzhou, which served the political and economic interests of
the state, Yuegang was a symbol of maritime trade pursued by the peasant
population of South Fujian. Under the deteriorating socioeconomic
conditions, the hard-pressed peasants sought a way out of their dilemma
by readily involving themselves in the maritime activities. Many of them
became peasant-peddlers, collaborating with foreigners in offshore
their homeland”, see Xie Zhaozhe 謝肇淛, Wu zazu 五雜俎 [Miscellaneous notes
of βive aspects] (Wanli [1573‒1620] ed.), 4: 35. Note that the latter account
does not cover the whole of the southernmost area of Fukien.