Salt is not only a commonly used condiment, but also an important chemical substance required for normal operation of the human body, China's use of salt has a very long history, in the "Explanation of Words" on salt has such an explanation: "born for brine, boiled into salt", the ancients will concentrate seawater called "halogen", the "halogen" boiled dry has become a commonly used edible salt.
In archaeological excavations, so far, the earliest salt unearthed in China is about 5,000 BC, which is basically the same as the records in the history books, but since ancient times, the control of salt in China has been very strict, and the officials who manage salt in the Zhou Li are called "salt people", and the more the feudal dynasty reaches the later stage, the stricter the control of salt.
Since the Zhou Dynasty, the state began to control salt, private salt can not be sold, otherwise it will be chopped off toes, after this, the dynasties are unwilling to give up the salt this big cake, the punishment of selling private salt is more and more stringent, in fact, before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, ordinary traders can sell private salt Opportunities are very few, because the salt industry, are controlled by the state, but after the middle and late Ming Dynasty, China's economy can develop rapidly, coupled with the ming Dynasty's official salt efficiency declined, in order to meet the needs of the people, salt production gradually handed over to the private sector, so far Salt merchants have become the existence of the rich side, and the trafficking of smuggled salt has gradually spread.
In order to control the flood of private salt, the Qing Dynasty invented a new system, both to sell salt, after obtaining the permission of the Qing government, salt merchants can collect tickets, go to the salt wells to buy salt, and then transport them to the whole country to sell, and the salt wells in the country are all controlled by the government, and without tickets, you cannot buy salt, thus controlling the flood of private salt.
But there are great drawbacks in this system, in order to obtain greater profits, salt merchants will privately raise prices, squeeze the people, and the people are miserable, which also gives private salt an opportunity.
Second, why does private salt flood?
Since the Han Dynasty, The rulers of China have begun to make laws that salt must not be boiled and sold without permission, and salt must be sold by the government, and it is also from this time that there is a distinction between "official salt" and "private salt", and the edible salt produced and legally sold by the government is called "official salt", and the reverse is "private salt".
The problem of smuggling salt has always been the most troublesome thing for successive rulers, and with the change of dynasties, in the Qing Dynasty, the situation of smuggled salt trafficking was the most serious, and many types of smuggled salt were thus divided.
It is recorded in the "Shang Salt Plus Quotation and Price Reduction" that private salt is mainly divided into these six categories, namely: field private, military private, official private, neighbor private, ship private and commercial private, which can be seen the complexity of the problem of private salt, each link has people who steal salt privately and will secretly sell it privately, first of all, "field private", as the name implies, is the private salt secretly sold on the occasion of salt making.
Taking Yunnan Dian salt as an example, some salt stove households usually make more salt, privately transport it out, and sell it to the people at a price lower than that of the government, and later the government-run salt production was changed to private salt, and the stove households that sold private salt were even more rampant. However, the problem of private property has not yet been solved, and the problem of official and private affairs has become more difficult.
Among the many types of private salt, the harm between official and private is the most serious, because this involves the corruption of officials, taking Yunnan salt production as an example, in the early Qing Dynasty, the government's method of selling salt was "official transportation and official sales", both from transportation to sales, all of which were done by the government, and the purpose of formulating a measure was to prevent the flood of private salt, but I did not expect that this sales method allowed many officials to seek a lot of benefits from it.
Salt is actually not a scarce commodity, officials take advantage of their positions, when taking salt from the stove households, over-report the weight, privately sell the extra part secretly, in order to make huge profits, the stove households also get benefits from it, can be described as collusion between the government and the people, resulting in the problem of private salt is more rampant, Yunnan cloth government envoy Zhang Lin thus profited 1.6 million taels of silver, Kangxi knew, personally reviewed the case, and Divided Zhang Lin by beheading, and carried out more stringent control of the salt industry.
Among the many types of private salt, the most difficult to control, but also the most difficult to eradicate the type of private salt is "private", private salt as the name suggests is the salt merchants privately sold salt activities, the original salt merchants must be in accordance with the government's requirements, according to the amount of salt sales, and most of the profits obtained to the state, many salt merchants for such a huge profit salivation, so there is the idea of private sale of salt.
Salt merchants originally have the right to sell salt, so it is extremely difficult to find out whether to sell salt, the salt merchants and salt stoves secretly collude, the stove is responsible for making more salt, and the salt merchants are responsible for selling these salts, salt merchants in order to prevent being found, often transport salt out of their jurisdictions to sell, or even out of the province, and when transporting salt, in order to cover up the ear is also a variety of methods.
For example, some salt chambers will mix salt and coarse sand together, after transporting to the destination, use a small sieve to separate salt and sand, so that it can be successfully transported, and will not be found, and even more will dissolve the salt in water, and then dry it, countless salt merchants use various methods, and secretly dot officials, officials and businessmen collude, resulting in the flood of private salt, and repeated prohibitions, although the punishment is also very large, but in the face of huge profits, countless salt merchants risk losing their heads and carry out private salt sales activities.
What are the main reasons why private salt cannot be eradicated?
The Qing government in order to flood private salt, formulated countless laws, but also invested a lot of silver for maintenance, but the more prohibited, the more private salt flooded, the Qing government's measures, just sewing and patching, did not find out the root cause of the flood of private salt, and the right medicine, but to sum up, it is not complicated, the Qing Dynasty minister also mentioned, but want to solve the root cause, for the Qing government, it seems to be a more difficult thing.
Looking at the historical materials of the areas where private salt is flooded, we will find two phenomena, first, most of the ancient salt is in short supply, and second, the people choose private salt mostly because of the high quality and low price.
From this, we can reverse the major problems in the salt industry of the Qing Dynasty: first, the production capacity of the salt industry of the Qing government is inefficient, and the salt produced cannot meet the needs of the people, and second, the quality of the salt produced is uneven, and the price is too expensive, resulting in more people choosing to buy private salt.
Taking well salt as the main example of Yunnan, during the Qing Kangxi period, in response to the plan for the development of the western region, Kangxi sent a large number of people to Migrate to Yunnan to carry out land reclamation and mineral exploitation, and for a time Yunnan poured in a large number of people, and as soon as there were many people, more salt was needed, but at the same time as the population migrated, the Qing government did not build more salt wells, which led to the official salt once in short supply, and daily life had to have no salt, which provided the necessary conditions for the flood of private salt.
When the salt wells were destroyed in the event of heavy rains, yunnan produced even less edible salt, so the Qing government could only borrow salt from neighboring provinces, which provided the possibility of private salt.
In the case of sufficient output, the people are also more inclined to buy private salt, the reason is very simple, compared to official salt, private salt is more expensive, the Qing government's tax on salt is extremely serious, in order to seek profits, some provinces tax rates as high as 70%, which leaves the salt merchants with too little profit margin, and then remove the cost of workers, almost nothing is left, but the merchants are profit-oriented, in order to make money, but also to meet the amount of salt, salt merchants have to reduce the quality of official salt, some even mix sediment with salt, and then sell.
Private salt does not need to pay taxes, leaving more profit margins for merchants, so salt merchants can use better quality salt, for the people, but also more like private salt, which is also the main reason why the Qing government's private salt is repeatedly prohibited.
From this point of view, it can be seen that the Qing government has a huge drawback in the management of the salt industry, salt as a necessity, in the small population of the Qin and Han Dynasties, the government to control salt, the implementation of monopoly is still feasible, but in the Qing Dynasty, the population has exceeded 100 million, the government is still monopolizing salt is not applicable.
The Qing Dynasty has a large territory, a large population, a large demand, and there are very few institutions that can sell salt, and it is impossible to meet the daily needs of the people, and salt is a necessity, which has a very good profit, under the market economy, there is a demand for the market, whether it is officials, merchants, people, are for "profit" and live, the so-called "the world is bustling, all for profit; the world is bustling, all for profit", the imperial court tried to control salt, to achieve the monopoly of salt This big cake, can not control enough, so private salt appeared, There are still Qing governments who have intensified their efforts to control and control, but they cannot be eliminated, because the system itself is wrong.
This also reflects a problem, the profits brought by daily necessities are very considerable, but if you want to monopolize necessities and make the people obey at a high price, this is not feasible, from an economic point of view, the price of commodities can fluctuate near the value, but if it is much higher than the value, there will be many competitors, thus pulling down its price, which is the same for the Qing government, the Qing government wants to control the price of salt through its coercive power, and private salt will pull down the price and make it tend to the real value.
In short, the root cause of the flood of private salt in the Qing Dynasty is not because the government control is not enough, but its fundamental system is wrong, under the huge taxation, the government plundered a lot of wealth, while the merchants who paid the labor force obtained the least profit, resulting in the salt industry has been deformed, in the case of rising official salt prices, declining quality, consumers have no reason not to choose high-quality and inexpensive private salt.
In this regard, the Qing government only wanted to punish the merchants who sold private salt, rather than improving the competitiveness of official salt, which was the practice of treating the symptoms but not the root causes, and it was precisely because of this that from the Kangxi Dynasty to the end of xuanun, the Qing government had no way to eliminate private salt, but became more and more rampant, which is actually not a bad thing, but a process that must be experienced in the historical process.
References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Salt Law Chronicle, Changes in Salt Administration in the Qing Dynasty, General History of Yunnan, Relationship between The Development of Private Salt and Immigration in Yunnan in the Qing Dynasty