Luxurious Networks: Salt Merchants, Status, and Statecraft in Eighteenth-Century China 9781503600799

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Luxurious Networks

Luxurious Networks salt merchants, status, and statecraft in eighteenth-century china

Yulian Wu

stanford university press stanford, california

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2017 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wu, Yulian (Historian), author. Title: Luxurious networks : salt merchants, status, and statecraft in eighteenth-century China / Yulian Wu. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2016017669 (print) | lccn 2016020969 (e-book) | isbn 9780804798112 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9781503600799 (e-book) | isbn 9781503600799 (e-book) Subjects: lcsh: Merchants—China—Huizhou Diqu—History—18th century. | Merchants—Social networks—China—History—18th century. | Manchus—China— Kings and rulers—History—18th century. | Material culture—China—History— 18th century. | Huizhou Diqu (China)—History—18th century. | China—History— Qing dynasty, 1644–1912. Classification: lcc ds754.12 .w8 2016 (print) | lcc ds754.12 (e-book) | ddc 381/.4566440951—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017669 Typeset by Newgen in 11/14 Adobe Garamond

To my mother and father, Zhu Lijie 朱麗潔 and Wu Zhenyi 吳振義 for everything.

Contents

Maps, Tables, and Figures

ix

Reign Titles of the Qing Emperors (1644–1911)

xi

Note on Transcription and Reigns and Dates

xii

Acknowledgments

xiii

Introduction Merchant Culture in the Material World of Eighteenth-Century China

1

|

part one a n e w r e g i m e : t h e m a n c h u c o u r t a n d s a l t m e r c h a n t s

1.

Courting the Court

31

|

part two f i n d i n g t h i n g s i n j i a n g n a n

2.

Furnishing the Court

63



3.

Collecting as a “Collector”

91

|

part three m a k i n g t h i n g s i n h u i z h o u

4.

Luxury and Lineage

127



5.

Materializing Morality

160

Conclusion Cultured and Cosmopolitan Men (tongren): Objects, Merchants, and the Manchu Court in High Qing China

186

Notes

203

Character List

257

Bibliography

267

Index

287

Maps, Tables, and Figures



Map F.1.

The Jiangnan region and Huizhou in late imperial China

xx



Map 1.1.

The Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones under the Qing

36



Map 1.2.

Modern map of She county before 1987

49

Salt administrators for the Lianghuai salt zone, 1723–1799

41

Table 1.1.

Table 1.2. Officials supervising the salt monopoly in the Liangzhe salt zone, 1736–1797

44

Figure I.1. Chastity arch for Lady Fang, Choushu village, She county, Huizhou

2

Figure I.2. The elaborate gate carving on the female ancestral hall “Qing yi tang,” Tangyue village, She county, Huizhou

6

Figure 3.1.

A portrait of Wang Qishu when he was twenty years old

106

Figure 3.2. Impression from a seal that the master carver Ding Jing carved for Wang Qishu

112

Figure 3.3.

Seal impressions from Feihongtang yinpu

118

Figure 3.4.

Seal impressions from Jigu yincun

119

Figure 4.1. Genealogical chart of the Bao family of Tangyue, She county, Huizhou

130

Figure 4.2.

“Leshan haoshi ” arch, Tangyue village, She county, Huizhou

131

Figure 4.3.

An illustration of Tangyue village

137

Figure 4.4. An illustration from Knowing History by Using Individual Stories as a Mirror

142

Figure 4.5.

156

An imprint of the inkstone that Bao Xunmao gave to Ji Yun

ix

x

maps, tables, and figures

Figure 5.1. “Rongbao sanshi ” arch, Choushu village, She county, Huizhou

170

Figure 5.2. An arch with roofs, Xu village, She county, Huizhou; an arch with columns pointing toward the sky, Shuyun village, She county, Huizhou 174 Figure 5.3.

Mortise-and-tenon joint

Figure 5.4. An arch construction image titled “fang biao qianqiu” (arch eulogizing the virtue for a thousand years)

175 181

Reign Titles of the Qing Emperors (1644–1911) (with abbreviations used in the text and notes) SZ Shunzhi, 1644–1661 KX Kangxi, 1662–1722 YZ Yongzheng, 1723–1735 QL Qianlong, 1736–1795 (Qianlong emperor abdicated in 1795 but   ruled for the next three years, 1796–1799) JQ Jiaqing, 1796–1820 DG Daoguang, 1821–1850 XF Xianfeng, 1851–1861 TZ Tongzhi, 1862–1874 GX Guangxu, 1875–1908 XT Xuantong, 1909–1911

xi

Note on Transcription and Reigns and Dates Transcription Chinese words and names are transcribed according to the pinyin system of Romanization. Manchu words and names are transcribed by using the Möllendorf system. Names in different languages are labeled accordingly: Ch. as Chinese and Man. as Manchu. Since some of the Manchu names are more widely known by their Chinese forms, I list the Chinese form of each Manchu name in brackets when the name first appears in the main text. These Chinese forms are written in pinyin and are hyphenated, e.g., Ciowande [Quan-de]. Some Manchu names could only be found in their Chinese forms; these names are thus written in pinyin and are hyphenated, e.g., Zheng-rui. The Chinese characters for Manchu names are also listed in the character list. Reigns and Dates When imperial memorials or edicts are cited, I provide the dates according to the Chinese lunar calendar in order to facilitate scholars’ navigation of original sources. I use the following format for dates: reign year (with abbreviation)-lunar month-lunar day. If the month is an intercalary month (runyue), a small letter “r” is placed before the month. Western equivalents are given in the order month/day/year, e.g., memorial on 7/3/1770 (QL35-r5-11).

xii

Acknowledgments

Many teachers, friends, and colleagues have helped me complete this book. It is a great honor and pleasure to express my thanks to them publicly. Words cannot express my deep gratitude and appreciation for my mentor Susan Mann. Her crucial insights and critical questions made me rethink this project in numerous ways. Her warm personality and continual encouragement reinforced my confidence and kept me on my academic journey. Even retired, she guided me at every step as I wrote and revised this book, patiently answering my numerous emails, listening to my thoughts in and outside Davis, and reading and commenting on every single page I wrote. With her unfailing patience, generosity, wisdom, and encouragement, Susan is my model as a scholar, a teacher, and a human being. I am also deeply grateful to Beverly Bossler and Don Price, who guided me and provided valuable suggestions from the beginning of this project to its completion. Their thoughtful questions and critical comments pushed me to think about my research in the context of Chinese history beyond the eighteenth century. I would particularly like to thank Beverly for patiently providing suggestions on academic writing and for answering many of my last-minute questions. I have also been especially fortunate over the years to have had the guidance and support of Dorothy Ko. Since our first meeting at Nanjing University in 2003, Dorothy has provided academic inspiration in many ways; her critical questions and poignant criticism always push me to explore new worlds, and her endless support and warm encouragement have always restored my faith in my work. I am also grateful to Professor Zhang Hongsheng, my mentor at Nanjing University. He taught me how to read and analyze Chinese literature, inspired my interest in gender studies, and encouraged me to pursue studies in the United States. Professor Ding Yizhuang at the Chinese Academy of xiii

xiv

acknowledgments

Social Science made my time in Beijing a great intellectual adventure. She not only hosted many of my research trips in Beijing but also served as a mentor and guide on all matters relating to Qing history. The numerous conversations with Professor Ding greatly nurtured and enhanced my understanding of Manchu studies and Qing political culture, both of which crucially shaped this project. During the postdoctoral year at Stanford University, many faculty and graduate students made time to discuss my work and inspired me in different ways. I would particularly like to thank Matt Sommer, Mark Lewis, Tom Mullaney, Qiao Zhijian, Gina Anne Tam, Yvon Wang, and Wesley Chaney for reading and commenting on an early version of the manuscript. Their valuable comments shaped the argument and guided the revision of this book. Conversations with Paula Findlen and Alex Stateman on luxury consumption in early modern Europe prompted me to rethink my analysis on collecting culture and merchant-literati relationships. Richard Vinograd and Pang Huiping generously shared their expertise on Chinese art and art history. Professor Susan Naquin, who served as our discussant at the 2013 annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies, provided valuable comments on the chapter of tributes and objects. I would also like to thank Guo Qitao for organizing a panel on chastity cult at the 2014 AAS meeting, where I received thoughtful suggestions from Katherine Carlitz, Fei Si-yen, and Janet Theiss. Tobie Meyer-Fong and another anonymous reader from Stanford University Press read the manuscript in its entirety and offered extremely useful suggestions on every aspect of this book, including argument, structure, and style. Their comments contributed greatly to the overall quality of this book. I am of course responsible for any remaining mistakes. Many scholars in China shared their knowledge and insights and provided support that allowed me to complete this project. Professor Fan Jinmin from Nanjing University and Professor Wang Zhenzhong, a specialist of Huizhou study from Fudan University, shared their expertise on the merchant culture of late imperial China. I was also fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet Bian Xiaoxuan, professor emeritus of literature at Nanjing University, who encouraged me to pursue this project and generously shared his expertise on the history and sources of Yangzhou. I am grateful to Professor A Feng at the Chinese Academy of Social Science for his illuminating insights into Huizhou studies. Qiu Yuanyuan, a great colleague and a



acknowledgments

xv

good friend, answered my questions on the banner system and court culture. Mao Liping from Renmin University provided tremendous help in locating sources in Beijing. I also thank Professor Dong Jianzhong from Renmin University, who not only provided important insights into the tribute system but also generously shared his own notes on tributary documents. Researcher Zhang Li from the First Historical Archive taught me Manchu and shared valuable firsthand knowledge of Manchu documents. My long-term friends Liu Jiao and Lu Kanghua, whom I have known since my time at Nanjing University, offered thoughtful insight on many documents and helped me locate sources in China. Numerous local villagers in Huizhou were exceptionally helpful to my fieldwork. I would like to especially thank Bao Shumin from Tangyue village, Xu Xiaojun from Huangshan, Xu Ji and Pan Qiang from Xu village, Huang Jizhen and Huang Yaguang from Tandu village, and Feng Youjin from Tunxi district for sharing their memories of their ancestors and providing valuable information on the local culture, customs, and sources of Huizhou. Local scholar Dong Jian from the Tunxi Museum generously shared his research on Huizhou seal carving, and Professor Cheng Jiyue provided expert knowledge of Huizhou architecture. Thanks especially to my friend Wang Xiaohua, who hosted me in Huizhou many times from 2003 onward; his hospitality and broad social networks made this project possible. I am immensely indebted to many teachers, colleagues, and friends who offered help at different stages. Teachers from Nanjing University taught me how to read classic Chinese and how to appreciate Chinese historical writings. In particular, Professor Zhao Yi first inspired my interest in cultural history and guided me to explore an interdisciplinary approach. At UC Davis, Katharine Burnett, Mark Halperin, Michelle Yeh, Chen Xiaomei, Robert Borgen, and Sophia Lee offered valuable comments on different chapters of this book. My colleagues and friends Li Guotong, Nicole Richardson, Sean Marsh, Jeremiah Jenne, Wang Yan, Elad Alyagon, and Lin Shan, listened to my ideas on numerous occasions and shared my joy and frustration. I am particularly grateful to my “academic older sisters,” Lu Weijing and Li Guotong, who were always there when I needed them, offering suggestions and encouragement and instilling confidence. Weijing’s husband Ye Baomin, himself a true specialist in Chinese ancient characters, kindly helped me decipher zhuanshu and lishu from various seal collection books. Sophie

xvi

acknowledgments

Volpp generously shared her interest in material culture with me. I also would like to thank Mark Elliott for sharing his insights into Manchu studies, teaching me Manchu, and introducing me to the book The Social Life of Things. My Manchu classmate and good friend Elif Akcetin provided very useful comments and suggestions on the introduction. Eugenio Menegon offered valuable advice on manuscript revision and submission. At the University of South Carolina, my new home institution, the history department has provided a supportive environment as I brought this book to completion. I am particularly indebted to Kathryn Edwards and Matthew Melvin-Koushki, excellent non-China historians, who both offered crucial suggestions as to the argument and structure of this book and were endlessly generous in helping me articulate my thoughts in English. I also thank Michael Hill for keeping our East Asian scholarly circles lively and for answering many of my questions during the revision process. Lunches and conversations with Guo Jie sustained my passion for Qing history and gender studies while also being wonderfully relaxing. My graduate students from Material Culture class further helped me refine my thoughts on how to use objects to tell history. A generous fellowship from the UC Davis Humanity Institute, a ReedSmith summer research fellowship and block grants from the History Department at UC Davis, and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University, together with a new faculty fellowship from the University of South Carolina, allowed me to visit various libraries and archives, complete my fieldwork in China, and write and revise this book. I am grateful to many friends who helped me gather materials and to knowledgeable and helpful librarians and staff at various libraries. Sophia Lee generously took the time from her own research trip to help me to access a dissertation from Harvard University. Wang Yan, Qiu Yuanyuan and Lin Shan obtained important sources for me from different libraries I was unable to travel to. Professor Hu Yan helped me locate an important illustration with which the book is graced. Chen Lemin in the Genealogy room of Shanghai Library patiently assisted me with every one of my endless requests. I would like to thank Mei-Yun (Annie) Lin from Peter J. Shields Library at UC Davis, Deborah Rudolph from the C. V. Starr East Asian Library at UC Berkeley, Xue Zhaohui from the East Asian Library at Stanford University, Shen Jin and Ma Xiaohe from the Harvard-Yenching Library, and all those many unnamed librarians and staff members from the



acknowledgments

xvii

First Historical Archive in Beijing, China National Library, Shanghai Library, Yangzhou Library, Chinese Academy of Social Science Library, Beijing University Library, the Library of Qing History Institute, Nanjing University Library, Renmin University Library, and Zhejiang Library, who helped me access materials and provided advice. I wish to thank the Harvard-Yenching library, the C. V. Starr East Asian Library at UC Berkeley, and the department of rare books in Renmin University library for allowing me to use images from their book collections. My sincere thanks also goes to my editor Jenny Gavacs at Stanford University Press for her interest, encouragement, and faith in my project. Kate Wahl, James Holt, and Anne Fuzellier also assisted me at different stages of the publishing process. Jay Harward worked with me with patience and provided the professional skills necessary to turn my manuscript into this book. Portions of Chapter 5 were published in Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender 17 (2015). This material is reprinted here with permission. Last but not least, I am deeply grateful to my family. My parents, Wu Zhenyi and Zhu Lijie, have been supportive of every decision I have made and patiently bear the pain of separation as I have made my home on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. They also provided tremendous help when my son was born, giving me the time needed for completing the revision. Without their strong and endless support this project could never have been completed. I dedicate this book to them. I also wish to thank my parentsin-law, John and Lynn Palmer, who flew across the country to take care of our son so that I could write in my office. My little Jin always made me laugh and lifted my spirits whenever I was frustrated. Finally, my fondest love and gratitude goes to my husband, Erik Palmer, for patiently listening to my thoughts, for keeping faith in me to complete this book, and for bringing joy and happiness into my life. W. Y. L.

Luxurious Networks

Beijing

JIANGSU

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Y E L LOW SEA

Yangzhou Nanjing Riv er

Grand Canal

ANHUI

Changzhou Wuxi

gzi Yan

Lake Tai

N

Kunshan

Suzhou Shanghai

Jingxian Mt. Jiuhua

Jingde Mt. Huang

Ningguo

JIANGXI

Fuch

Xi

un

Ri

ver

Hangzhou Jixi Yixian Mt. Qiyun Shexian Shaoxing Qimen Xiuning Chun’an (Haiyang) n’a Duchang nR iver Jingdezhen Wuyuan Huizhou Lake ZHEJIANG Boyang Boyang 0 0

50 50

100 mi 100

150 km

EAST CHINA SEA

Map F.1  The Jiangnan region and Huizhou in late imperial China s o u r c e : Adapted with permission of Stanford University Press from Tobie Meyer-Fong: Building Culture in Early Qing Yangzhou (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), and Guo Qitao, Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage: The Confucian Transformation of Popular Culture in Late Imperial Huizhou (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005).

introduction

Merchant Culture in the Material World of Eighteenth-Century China On February 3, 1769, the Qianlong emperor awarded Lady Fang, mother of a wealthy salt merchant, the Honor of Chastity. Lady Fang lived in Choushu village in She county of Huizhou and had been widowed for twenty-nine years. Along with this title, the court, following the regulations that the Yongzheng emperor had established in 1723, granted thirty taels of silver to Lady Fang’s family to encourage them to erect a chastity arch to display her virtuous deeds. Lady Fang’s son, Wang Xun, was a head salt merchant in Yangzhou who not only conducted business there but also helped the court’s official, the salt administrator, manage the salt monopoly system. Wang’s father had passed away just after Wang was born, so his mother, Lady Fang, raised him on her own. Wang Xun, like many other wealthy Huizhou salt merchants, went through a complicated and costly process to construct a chastity arch for his late beloved mother in his home village. He bought a specific type of large stone in the neighboring province and had them shipped to She county via the Xin’an River. Wang also hired masons to carve decorative patterns on the beams. In 1775, six years after the imperial honor was granted, this chastity arch was finally erected.1

The arch that Wang Xun constructed still stands in the field outside Choushu village, among the four arches straddling the pathway heading to the village (see Figure I.1). It measures 11.5 meters (37.7 feet) tall and 9.5 meters (31.1 feet) wide. Four columns divide the arch into three bays, each topped by three roofs. In the middle bay on the top, a stone slab, adorned by highly decorative dragon carvings and inscribed with the words “imperial edict” (shengzhi ) in the emperor’s calligraphy, was placed. It reminded and still reminds the local residents of the honor Lady Fang received from the emperor. This arch is by no means unique in Huizhou, a region deep in the southeastern part of Anhui province about 230 miles inland from Shanghai and the native place of many wealthy salt merchants like Wang. Since 2002, when I first began my research in Huizhou, I passed, observed, and touched stone arches of many shapes and sizes. Gazing upon the tall columns and delicate carvings of these monumental objects, however, I was struck by some questions: Who built these chastity arches? How and why did they build them? Why were some of the arches better preserved than others? 1

2

introduction

Figure I.1  Chastity arch for Lady Fang, Choushu village, She county, Huizhou. This arch, along with three others, was placed on a main road entering the ­village.

What kinds of stones were used? How much did they cost? These questions, seemingly simple, are generally ignored by scholars, let alone answered. When this material object was finally completed, the complicated process that produced it was, ironically, buried in history. An exploration of these questions reveals the elaborate process Huizhou salt merchants went through to construct a stone arch in their hometowns during the eighteenth century. More importantly, the incredible investment and energy that these businessmen expended calls for an examination of the unique historical context they inhabited. Evidence shows that the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) incorporated public display into their empire-wide cultivation project ( jiaohua), promoting the construction of chastity arches to publicize the virtuous deeds of moral exemplars in the local society. Huizhou salt merchants such as Wang Xun participated in this imperial project by deploying the resources they had—wealth, knowledge of construction, and networks with craftsmen and shipmasters—to successfully build arches. Their wealth, the ultimate foundation of merchants’ sponsorship, was itself a product of the Manchu court’s salt monopoly ­policies. An examination of the production of these arches, therefore, reveals a dynamic



merchant culture in the material world

3

network between the court and Huizhou salt merchants that involved state policies and money circulation. This relationship was materially expressed by the chastity arches and was conducted and operated through merchants’ activity of building these monuments. Exploring the obscured processes of how and why these arches were made thus enables us to gaze into the activities and agenda of Huizhou salt merchants when they interacted with these monument objects and, more importantly, to study the historical environment in which this interaction took place.2 The stone arch is one of the many objects that engaged the time and attention of these Huizhou salt merchants. From the precious jade articles prepared for the imperial court to the ancient bronze seals preserved in luxurious residences in Jiangnan, from the refined seal compilation books to the ebony steles inscribed with elegant calligraphy, merchants were surrounded by objects. Each one—big or small, expensive or cheap, splendid or plain— had a hidden history embedded in its production, purchase, exchange, and display. How and why did these businessmen devote themselves to these things? What can we learn about eighteenth-century China by examining the relationship between merchants and objects? This book is the result of my effort to answer these questions. Locating Huizhou salt merchants in the material world of eighteenthcentury China uncovers the unseen history of a dynamic interaction between these merchants and the objects that surrounded them. This interaction indicates the emergence of a novel and vital network between the Qianlong emperor, the imperial household department, court officials, and Huizhou salt merchants, one constructed between the capital, Beijing; the urban centers of Jiangnan; and the remote countryside of Huizhou. Made possible by the Qing government’s salt monopoly policies, this network was constellated through the movement of a variety of objects the wealthy merchants produced and consumed. This book challenges the conventional paradigm of status negotiation that interprets merchants’ activities as a simple emulation of literati, proposing rather to examine Huizhou salt merchants’ motivations and behaviors in the specific spaces, institutions, and relationships they inhabited. In instrumentalizing their relationship with the court, the Huizhou salt merchants played an essential role as cultural, economic, and political mediators. In the process, these merchants both experienced and shaped the political, economic, and cultural transformations of eighteenthcentury China.

4

introduction

huizhou salt merchants in high qing china (1683–1839) The rise of Huizhou salt merchants was an integral part of a High Qing story, a period that was named the “prosperous age” (shengshi ) and was considered the apex of Manchu rule. Although dating schemes of this period differ slightly, scholars agree that the High Qing era covered the eighteenth century and was characterized by dramatic economic growth, flourishing luxury consumption, an explosive population boom, and enlarged social mobility.3 The accelerating prosperity and status of Huizhou salt merchants was part of a process of historical production involving imperial power, the salt monopoly, and migration and mobility unique to the High Qing ­period. In 1644 Manchu armies from the northeast took over China. In order to obtain revenue from wealthy salt merchants to support military endeavors and initiate economic recovery for the new state, the new Qing government quickly reestablished the salt monopoly system that had fallen into disarray during the wars marking the transition from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) to the Qing. It then gradually developed its own policies. The new Qing salt monopoly system, discussed in Chapter 1, not only helped the Jiangnan salt merchants accumulate wealth in a short time but also granted some of these merchants quasi-official status, which brought with it political privileges. As a result, these Jiangnan businessmen became one of the wealthiest merchant groups and strong allies of the Qing court in Qianlong’s reign (1736–1795). Although the Jiangnan merchants conducted their salt business and resided in the Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones, in which the urban centers of Yangzhou and Hangzhou were the most prosperous, most had not been born in these wealthy cities. Their place of birth was Huizhou, which lay approximately 125 miles west of Hangzhou and was connected to Jiangnan urban centers by the Xin’an River. The region’s topography was defined by myriad mountains and rivers, so fruitful opportunities in agriculture were few, which led many locals to seek fortunes through trade with nearby urban Jiangnan.4 In fact, most of these salt merchants came from She county, one of the six counties in Huizhou, especially the western reaches of the region (Shexi ).5 These wealthy merchants never forgot their homeland. They sent money back to Huizhou by building residences, purchasing land, patronizing lineage-related constructions, and financing charitable projects. Thanks to these merchants’ investments, the remote Huizhou countryside even to-



merchant culture in the material world

5

day boasts an array of grand architectural projects, such as the eleven-metertall stone arch that Wang Xun built for his mother. These majestic buildings place modern Huizhou in a unique position. Throughout the rest of China, little of the built environment constructed during the Ming and Qing dynasties survives. Many of the buildings that were spared the destruction of the Cultural Revolution were unfortunately destroyed by the aggressive modernization programs that began in the 1980s. To be sure, the tumult of the numerous rebellions and wars that marked the nineteenth and twentieth centuries wrecked Huizhou villages. The steep mountains of Huizhou, however, made it difficult for modern industry to develop, a condition that slowed the speed of modernization in this area. The landscape of the High Qing, featuring high mountains and serene rivers dotted with grand architectural monuments—most of which were underwritten by wealthy salt merchants—endures to this day. Most villagers share a small number of surnames, identifying themselves with common ancestors, restoring the written genealogies of their heritage destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and keeping alive their regional customs. The enduring landscape and social environment of Huizhou, therefore, provides opportunities for the historian to reconstruct the material scene where historical events took place and where historical figures lived. The lives of these Huizhou salt merchants were, in many ways, unique. They were one of the wealthiest merchant groups in the High Qing era, such that the salt taxes they submitted to the state made up half of the salt revenue.6 In addition, they were a highly visible, if not the most visible, merchant group in the eighteenth century. Not only was their financial contribution to state revenue formally recognized, but their participation in social and cultural activities in Jiangnan urban centers and in Huizhou villages was also widely acknowledged. Contemporary literati produced numerous writings, including genealogies, gazetteers, novels, and anecdotes, that took note of these Huizhou salt merchants’ lives. These salt merchants, relying on their financial strength, also made, purchased, exchanged, and displayed a large number of objects that allowed them to express ideas and intentions (see Figure I.2). These sources, both texts and objects, not only serve as the necessary foundation of this book but also reveal these men’s privileged status. The unprecedented privileges that they enjoyed—their incomparable wealth and their visibility—led historians to explore the political and social elements that brought these salt merchants into this new

6

introduction

Figure I.2  The elaborate gate carving on the female ancestral hall “Qing yi tang,” Tangyue village, She county, Huizhou.

sociopolitical prominence. In other words, even though the lives and circumstances of these Huizhou salt merchants were not identical to those of other merchants, the uniqueness of these merchants bespeaks important social and political changes in the eighteenth century. A close focus on the distinctiveness of these merchants’ political and economic roles, therefore, provides a clear window onto much larger political and social transformations in High Qing China.

exploring merchant culture in a material world The wealthy Huizhou salt merchants were educated and could write. When printing culture expanded and literacy increased in the eighteenth century, even more literati and merchants entered the world of writing, but this



merchant culture in the material world

7

s­ ituation also made it much harder for literate men, including scholars and merchants, to gain recognition through their writings. In addition, compared to those of their scholarly counterparts, the written accounts left by merchants were relatively meager.7 Circumstances also prevented them from participating in many of the traditional venues for written expression. Yet the seemingly low profile of textual records written in merchants’ own hands certainly does not mean that they had no desire to express themselves. On the contrary, merchants may have been more eager to express themselves because they did not pass the civil service examinations and, therefore, were not guaranteed higher status in local society.8 Merchants expressed themselves by doing things. From the sixteenth century onward, when Huizhou merchants began to dominate the salt business in Jiangnan, they actively participated in social and cultural affairs at Jiangnan urban centers and in their home villages at Huizhou. In contrast to the relatively low-key or mixed social reception of their writings, Huizhou salt merchants’ activities received much broader attention, in particular in their interactions with objects. A wide range of social groups produced abundant written descriptions about what Huizhou salt merchants did with things. The Qianlong emperor commented many times on the projects that Yangzhou salt merchants had prepared for the emperor’s southern tours. For instance, he once complained that “merchants have drawn water into a spouting fountain that shoots dozens of feet in the air,” and it “really detracts from the pristine [surroundings].”9 On other occasions, the emperor seemed to enjoy the preparations that merchants had arranged. He wrote several poems to praise the elegant gardens that merchants had designed to host the imperial visits or the refined objects that they used or displayed. When the emperor visited Huizhou salt merchant Wang Yushu’s garden, for example, he acclaimed that “the nine Tai Lake stones which are irregularly but beautifully placed [in Wang’s garden] inspired admiration for the ancient time (cuozhi jiufeng chu guqing ).”10 Qianlong’s comments, sometimes expressing adulation and sometimes disdain, were all directed at merchants’ activities and especially at the objects that merchants had prepared. At the same time, the scholarly elites in Jiangnan frequently depicted merchants, especially the wealthy Huizhou salt merchants, as people who were obsessed with expensive furniture and ostentatious clothing. Record of the Painted Boats of Yangzhou (Yangzhou huafang lu), the famous book describing the social lives of eighteenth-century Yangzhou, for instance, gives

8

introduction

a vivid description of salt merchants’ lives. The following paragraph is one of the most popular accounts illustrating the stereotype of salt merchants: There was a lover of horses who raised several hundred of these animals. Each day a single horse’s maintenance ran to several tens of taels. In the morning they were taken to the outskirts of the city and in the evening they were taken back. So rich was their coloring that the onlooker’s eyes were dazzled. There was a lover of orchids who planted orchids everywhere from the gate to the inner studios. There was one who erected wooden nude female statues in front of his inner halls, all mechanically controlled, so as to tease and surprise his guests.11

There is no doubt that the author was critical of the luxurious lifestyle of these nouveaux riches.12 This obviously negative description, however, also hints at the author’s grudging admiration for the skills that enabled merchants to produce such extravagance. Finally, in the countryside of Huizhou itself, many merchants also left their marks in local gazetteers or genealogies, where the public or private constructions that they patronized were described and recorded. My fieldwork interviews reveal that even today local villagers still remember wealthy ancestors, mostly through the material objects that those merchants built. For instance, the history of the famous Huang family of merchants was recorded by Xu Chengyao (1874–1946), a local scholar of She county, in his book.13 These merchants are remembered in their home village of Tandu because they built a stone bridge still in use today.14 People’s memories, in other words, are attached to objects, albeit often recorded in written words. Whatever the source of these records and memories, it was the material objects that made the Huizhou salt merchants visible. In addition to the textual representation of merchants’ lives, sources also reveal a dynamic world in which the merchants closely dealt with objects and costly materials. Imperial memorials show the head merchants going to the Suzhou market, purchasing expensive zitan wood (a type of purple hardwood), and supervising skilled craftsmen to make beautiful furniture for the Qianlong emperor. We also see the salt merchant Wang Qishu (1728–1798) collecting enormous numbers of seals (hand-carved stamps or “chops”), storing them in his studio, classifying them into different categories, ­carefully making an impression of each seal, and proudly circulating his



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c­ ompilation of these impressions. In the meantime, back in Huizhou, the stone arch whispers the story of the life of salt merchant Wang Xun. All in all, the eighteenth-century Huizhou salt merchants made, collected, exchanged, and displayed a broad variety of things. Some of these objects’ histories were recorded in written documents; others left traces with their existence, their materiality, and their physical characteristics. No matter what kind of message these objects left, they allow historians to examine the interactions between salt merchants and specific artifacts, thereby providing a new perspective through which we can explore their activities, intentions, and agenda. These objects therefore serve as valuable sources for historians. Indeed, close analysis of material objects is indispensable for the study of merchant culture in eighteenth-century China.

using objects to tell history The study of material culture has developed quickly in the last three decades. As some scholars have defined it, the purpose of material culture studies is to understand and explore “the way people live their lives through, by, around, in spite of, in pursuit of, in denial of, and because of the material world.”15 The concept of material culture consists of two parts: “objects” and “the meanings they hold for people.”16 The meaning of each object emerges from an active and mutual contact between things and people. ­Human agents use objects—the things that they can see, feel, own, and ­exchange—to communicate ideas, construct relationships, and identify themselves. Through these human-object interactions, individuals respond to and negotiate with the shared learned values and ideas of a particular society, and in turn shape and create meanings.17 Objects are therefore not merely reflections of culture but “the means by which it [culture] is ­created.”18 The meanings embedded in and created by objects change when objects move. Indeed, objects are not static. As Arjun Appadurai has argued in his influential article on the social life of things, the meanings of things “are inscribed in their forms, their uses, their trajectories.” Through “the analysis of these trajectories,” scholars “can interpret the human transactions and calculations that enliven things.” In this context, “from a theoretical point of view human actors encode things with significance,” and “from a ­methodological

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point of view it is the things-in-motion that illuminate their human and social context” (emphasis in original).19 Recent scholarship has further developed this framework by emphasizing people’s attachment to objects. Rather than only describing the “culturally informed economic biography” of an object, which focuses on a commodity’s changing status in the economic realm, these scholars emphasize the interactions between people and specific objects.20 As anthropologist Janet Hoskins argues, “Things can be said to have ‘biographies’ as they go through a series of transformations from gift to commodity to inalienable possession, and persons can also be said to invest aspects of their own biographies in things.”21 Similarly, Judith Zeitlin, a scholar of Chinese literature, follows the trajectory of a musical instrument and explores the “intertwined social and cultural lives of the ­instrument and its owners.”22 Long engaged with the analysis of textual sources, historians have also turned to material objects as alternative sources and for new research themes, arguing that “objects themselves are not simple props of history, but are tools through which people shape their lives.”23 Historical figures, in other words, not only lived with objects but also used them to achieve their goals and influence their society. By locating individuals’ interactions with objects in a specific historical context, historians could delineate the meanings embedded in and mediated through these artifacts, examine these people’s agenda and their motivations that drove their actions, and explore the social context in which they lived.24 This book studies the dynamic interactions between Huizhou salt merchants and a broad variety of things. I examine the physical characteristics of these things—their size, weight, material—as well as their life histories of production and circulation. A variety of textual evidence—including imperial edicts and memorials, gazetteers and genealogies, essays and poems of the literati, and catalogs and illustrations—enables us to contextualize the objects with which the merchants interacted; it also enriches our understanding of Huizhou salt merchants’ experiences and the historical context in which they resided. Based on both material and textual sources, therefore, we can investigate the materiality and life history of specific objects and, in  turn, delineate the symbolic and cultural meanings that these objects carried, the social networks that they generated, and the individuals they connected.



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An examination of the “life history” of objects—how they were chosen, produced, exchanged, and displayed—allows us to uncover merchants’ intentions and strategies. Tracing the life history of an object is like peeling an onion: through layer upon layer the meaning continues to open. An exploration of the construction process for chastity arches serves as a good example here. By examining the materiality of the stone, I discovered that most Qing Huizhou arches were made of a stone called “tea garden green.” This finding led me to trace its origins, which revealed that the stones could be found only in the mountains of neighboring villages. The discovery pushed me to consider the mining and transportation process, and finally allowed me to evaluate the financial support necessary for the procedure. All of this information, derived from arch builders’ choices of a specific type of stone, provided the foundation to examine how the merchants built these monumental objects and what merchants were displaying through these objects. These artifacts not only bore witness to a wide range of Huizhou salt merchants’ experience and activities, but also made entangled and sometimes hidden social relations visible and concrete. For instance, a detailed analysis of the materiality of an ancestral hall and a stele that the Bao merchants invested in their home village, Tangyue, reveals an unexpected agenda of these wealthy men: their patronage to the lineage was not merely a display of their moral behavior; instead, they deftly used these charitable projects to construct and strengthen an extensive network with court ­officials. While placing merchants’ interactions with objects at the center of my analysis, I have also located them in a specific context of High Qing China in which these objects were produced or used. A delicate piece of zitan wood furniture that was made in Yangzhou and was finally used by the Qianlong emperor in his palace records Huizhou salt merchants’ assistance to the salt administrator in satisfying the emperor’s fondness for Jiangnan-made objects. A sturdy stone arch that praised the moral behavior of a chaste widow from a salt merchant family constantly reminded local Huizhou commoners of the Confucian morality of female fidelity that the Qing state promoted highly. A contextualization of these objects allows us to “read” the specific political, cultural, and economic meanings embedded with them, thereby leading us to explore and understand the social environment in which these Huizhou salt merchants lived.

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rethinking the paradigm of status negotiation Careful scrutiny of the interactions between merchants and objects enables us to uncover the motivations and agenda of eighteenth-century Huizhou salt merchants. A discovery of these dimensions forces a rethinking of the conventional understanding of merchants’ activities in late imperial China. The rise of merchants and their upward social mobility in the Ming and Qing dynasties have received extensive scholarly attention. Confucian ideology ranked merchants lowest in the “four strata of occupations” (scholarofficials, farmers, artisans, and merchants), because, according to that orthodoxy, merchants did not do honest labor but rather profit from the labor of others. Moreover, unlike the gentry, who received state-conferred degrees, merchants were not able to achieve a higher social status through academic achievement. Accordingly, merchants strove to negotiate their social status and move up the social ladder by using the examination system, clan organization, and print culture to their advantage. The social categories of merchant and scholar-official, in this context, began to blur.25 Prevailing scholarship depicts merchants as a group eager to enter the scholar-official elite or literati (shi ). This portrayal explains one aspect of the crucial and sometimes fraught relationship between literati (shi ) and merchants (shang ). It is, however, mostly based on the written texts about ­merchants that literati produced. One of the most representative examples is the writing from the famous manual of connoisseurship titled Treatise on Superfluous Things (Zhangwu zhi ). This manual was edited by Wen Zhenheng (1585–1645), a famed late-Ming literatus who came from a well-known scholarly family in Suzhou. As Craig Clunas elegantly demonstrates, the Treatise on Superfluous Things is a book about the “assertion of the difference between people as consumers of things.” The editor of this book aimed to use consumptions of specific things to classify people in a “hierarchically structured” society.26 Wen Zhenheng’s close associate Shen Chunze ­confirmed this goal in his preface for the Treatise: Recently the sons of the rich and one or two dullards and persons of mean status have abrogated to themselves the status of “aficionados.” At each attempt at connoisseurship they utter some vulgarity, besmirching anything which comes into their hands with their wanton fumbling and grabbing, to



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an utter pitch of vileness. A gentleman of true tastes, talents and sentiment thus takes vows not to even mention “elegance.” Ah, it has already gone too far!27

“The sons of the rich,” as Shen stated, consumed the objects that scholarly elites used in order to emulate the life of the literati. Here Shen clearly disdains these rich people’s attempt at connoisseurship and sharply criticizes their vulgar taste. This negative description of merchants’ luxury consumption, however, was a perception of the literate elites. Indeed, as Craig Clunas has pointed out, Treatise of Superfluous Things and the texts that it replicates and modifies constitute “a discourse about . . . how [society] was perceived by the literate elite.”28 The merchants’ own voices and opinions, in other words, are missing. In the High Qing period, some literati continued to depict merchants as a group of people who were eager to become scholarly elites. The Yangzhou salt merchants, according to these literati, “enjoyed summoning well-known scholars as a means of self-aggrandizement.” This description of merchants, as Michael Chang has argued, was a result of the literati’s effort to maintain their privileged status as men of letters “in an age marked by shifting and fluid social boundaries and increased social competition.”29 For the same reason, the dismissal of wealthy merchants’ taste in luxury consumption persisted. As the passage from Record of the Painted Boats of Yangzhou cited earlier shows, some literati were aware of the superior financial ability of merchants to consume extravagant objects. Like Shen Chunze, these literati derided merchants’ use of these luxury items as wasteful and vulgar.30 This stereotype of merchants’ vulgar taste indicates anxiety among High Qing literati over the gradually deteriorating boundary between themselves and salt merchants.31 The paradigm of literati-merchant status negotiation is built on the prerequisite concepts of social status. This paradigm assumes two clearly defined social categories: scholars and merchants, with the former enjoying higher status than the latter. Status, however, was a rather fluid concept in the High Qing period. A variety of social elements, including political privileges, economic prosperity, and social networks, provided more opportunity for men to identify themselves outside the credentials of obtaining officialdom through civil service examinations and through qualifications to speak authoritatively about classical texts. While some scholarly elites

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still ­emphasized and, to some extent, tried to reestablish this static and hierarchical relationship through their writings, the commercial elites, even when they consumed the objects that the literati used, might obtain social recognition from other resources instead of mimicking scholarly elites’ consumption habits. In its exclusive focus on the issue of status negotiation, this binary paradigm oversimplifies the lived complexity of merchants’ experience in political, economic, and cultural realms. Thus it elides the possibility that merchants might identify, understand, and enjoy themselves outside the realm of literati-merchant competition. Given these weaknesses, the analytical framework to study merchants in the High Qing period must be rethought to incorporate what commercial families actually did. Some scholars have begun to describe this much more complicated picture of commercial families in late imperial China. For example, when the civil service examination competition became more severe, commercial families developed different strategies to maintain family prosperity and status. Arranging for one son to conduct the business was considered equally important to assigning a son to study for the exams. The Li family in Shandong province, as Susan Mann discusses, selected their brightest sons to remain at home and take charge of the family’s investments.32 Here we see that when historians focus on what the commercial families actually did, the emphasis on merchants’ desire to enter the scholarly elite is insufficient to explain their strategies. My argument is not to deny the tension between literati and merchants. Rather, my point is that, while becoming a literatus might be an important goal for merchants, it was by no means the only or even primary focus in their lives. The goals and motivations of merchants should be explored in a specific historical context and be examined in specific relationships with other social groups. The Huizhou salt merchants, as this book shows, should be placed in the political environment of the High Qing period and, in particular, in their connection with the Qianlong court.

the new court-merchant network In the eighteenth century, the Huizhou salt merchants constructed an extensive and close connection with the Qianlong emperor and his bondservants and court officials. This network was a product of the Manchu



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e­ mperors’ ethnic policies in the Jiangnan area, and at the same time it allowed these merchants to obtain unprecedented privileges in the High Qing period. In the last three decades, Qing historians have challenged the old paradigm of sinicization or assimilation in Manchu governance—the idea that the Qing completely adopted Han Chinese policies and culture. Scholars have focused on the Inner Asian traditions of Manchu political policies, understanding the Qing as a multiethnic and multicultural empire.33 As historians have argued, the Qing rulers incorporated Han Chinese culture as one part, albeit a very important part, of a model of universal rulership that was also shaped by their Inner Asian roots. No matter how deep their identification with Chinese civilization, the Manchu rulers continued to preserve their distinct ethnic identity and culture.34 Previous scholarship has demonstrated the Manchu court’s use of these political strategies and their construction of their identities by exploring their administration of the non-Han regions and their strategic policies dealing with non-Han people. What happened to Manchus’ ruling power among Han Chinese and particularly in Jiangnan, the cradle of Han Chinese culture and the economic center of the former Ming dynasty? There is no doubt that the court adopted political strategies from the Ming to woo Han scholarly elites, including using Confucian ideologies, operating a civil service examination system, and recruiting Han Chinese scholars into its bureaucracy. The political situation in High Qing Jiangnan, however, was distinct from that of the Ming dynasty. Even during the most prosperous time of Qianlong’s reign, as Philip Kuhn shows, anxieties among Jiangnan Han commoners continued. These agitations were more or less related to the Manchus’ severe ethnic policy.35 The Manchu emperors, in this context, developed their own political strategies to project their power into the Jiangnan area. In his analysis of the intriguing relationship between the Kangxi emperor and his bondservant Cao Yin, Jonathan Spence shows how the Manchu emperor monitored Jiangnan by appointing his personal agent as salt censor to oversee salt administration in the Lianghuai area during the consolidating period of the Qing dynasty.36 By focusing on the imperial courts’ southern tours, Michael Chang demonstrates how the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors revived the practice of imperial touring “in order to assert and expand Qing ethnodynastic rule” in the Jiangnan area.37

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The institutional changes in salt monopoly polices in Jiangnan were also the product of early-Qing ethnic policies. The early-Qing emperors were suspicious about the loyalty and moral integrity of their subjects, especially in the Jiangnan area.38 In addition, Manchu rulers depended heavily on the revenue generated by salt merchants to underwrite their military victories and territorial expansion.39 Since the Kangxi reign onward, therefore, in order to resolve these problems, the Manchu government made two significant changes in the salt monopoly system inherited from the late Ming: the appointment of the new emperors’ bannermen, and in particular the bondservants, as salt bureau officials and the establishment of the head merchant position to incorporate wealthy salt merchants into management of the salt business for the government. These two changes allowed the emperors to send their personal bondservants to Jiangnan and, at the same time, helped the rulers, especially the Qianlong emperor, receive vast wealth from the lucrative salt business.40 These new salt monopoly policies in Jiangnan led to the rapid rise of Huizhou salt merchants in Qianlong’s reign. These merchants not only accumulated wealth but also obtained political privileges that they had been unable to accrue in the Ming. More importantly, the institutional changes created a new and dynamic emperor-merchant relationship. Both the Qianlong court and the Huizhou salt merchants constructed personal ties within the institution of the salt monopoly. While the emperor appointed his trusted bondservants as salt bureau officials to supervise salt monopoly affairs and fulfill the emperor’s requests, the Huizhou salt merchants established personal connections with the emperor’s bondservants by helping them on both fronts. The Qing salt monopoly system thus may be compared to a trellis: while the Manchu emperors and their officials ostensibly enforced their power through formal bureaucratic institutions, the complicated personal networks—growing like vines inside the system—allowed both the Manchu court and Jiangnan salt merchants to negotiate and pursue their own agendas.41 Historians have called attention to this connection.42 Ho Ping-ti takes note of the relationship between the Qianlong emperor and one wealthy salt merchant, Jiang Chun, in his classic study of Yangzhou salt merchants.43 In his illuminating analysis on the Qianlong emperor, Alexander Woodside describes how this “merchant-loving” emperor not only visited salt merchants’ homes when he was traveling in the Lower Yangzi area but also protected



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merchants’ privileges.44 Antonia Finnane notes that the imperial government bonded with the Yangzhou salt merchants through an examination system and imperial visits to Jiangnan.45 In her examination of the construction and renovation prepared for southern tours in eighteenth-century Yangzhou, Tobie Meyer-Fong demonstrates how the Qianlong emperor imbued Yangzhou’s landscape with his influence and imperial power, thereby tightening the relationship between this Jiangnan urban center and the capital. The salt merchants who financed and managed these projects played a role in ­mediating this relationship.46 By further focusing on Qianlong’s southern tours, Michael Chang has argued that the Qianlong court used salt merchants to counterbalance the social power of scholarly elites, seeking both to encourage and control the ascendance of commercial elites.47 This important scholarship has noted the new connections between the court and the Jiangnan salt merchants, demonstrating how the Qing emperors used these wealthy men to achieve the court’s economic and political agenda, but there has been no detailed research on how exactly these relationships worked and were constructed. Through which channels (e.g., institutional or personal, material or textual) did the merchants and the court connect? Moreover, while previous studies primarily discuss this relationship from the perspective of the court, such an approach, to some extent, elides the merchants’ own roles and muffles their voices. What role did the merchants play in their relationship with the Qianlong emperor and his bannermen and officials? What benefits did the merchants obtain through this relationship? The answer as to how and why these tradesmen established and maintained their network with the court, in other words, is unclear. This book takes the perspective of Huizhou salt merchants and explores how these wealthy merchants used a wide range of objects to facilitate and strengthen their network with the Qianlong court. The “court” in this study refers to the Qianlong emperor, the bondservants of the Imperial Household Department, and the court officials. While on many occasions, the bondservants and officials followed the emperor’s orders, evidence also shows that in some cases they went counter to the emperor’s will. The “court,” in other words, was composed of members with agendas that sometimes differed. Nevertheless, the Huizhou salt merchants constructed direct and indirect relationships with these players and, at the same time, expanded their own influences in local society. They closely worked with the emperor’s bondservants, and even with the emperor in some occasions, to produce and procure

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refined furnishings for court use; at the same time they influenced the taste and style of luxury consumption in Jiangnan. They also spent tremendous wealth and energy to patronize genealogy and ancestral halls in Huizhou to enlarge their network with court officials, promoting luxury consumption in the countryside of Huizhou. In addition, they went through a complicated process to construct chastity arches to participate in the court’s cultivation project in their home villages, publicizing imperially recognized moral exemplars in the local community. Capitalizing on their ties to the court, therefore, the Huizhou salt merchants cast the net of their influence and connections widely. Consequently, they affected state policies, morality, taste, and consumption. This crucial court-merchant relationship illuminates our understanding of the Manchus’ new strategies and their political influences in the cultural and economic heartland of the former Ming dynasty. The wide range of objects that these tradesmen procured or made—including fine furnishings, valuable arts, precious books, and chastity arches—demonstrates how the Huizhou salt merchants’ wealth, broad social networks, managerial skills, and refined tastes made them the perfect candidates to serve the court. The Manchu rulers not only incorporated the Huizhou salt merchants into the administration of the salt monopoly, but they also invited these wealthy businessmen, purposely or not, to participate in imperial projects, such as the Qianlong emperor’s massive court collections and moral cultivation campaigns. Through this court-merchant connection, the Qianlong emperor overcame the deficiencies of the formal bureaucratic structure, strengthened the emperor’s own control, and expanded the central government’s ruling power in both the urban centers of Jiangnan and the remote countryside of Huizhou.

transforming merchant culture in high qing Analysis of Huizhou salt merchants’ network with the Qianlong court provides a new perspective through which we can examine merchants’ changing position in the High Qing. This issue has certainly been of interest to historians: previous scholarship has demonstrated how the political and economic changes from the late Ming to the High Qing led to the litarati’s



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more welcoming attitudes toward wealth and trade. The present book goes beyond this premise to posit the emergence of an unprecedented type of court-merchant relationship; to this end, it investigates the ways in which the new Manchu regime directly and indirectly reconfigured the social order, and the transformation the merchants’ position in society underwent as a consequence.48 From the late sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, more elites took paths outside officialdom for diverse reasons. Because of their disappointment with toxic court life and corrupt eunuch-dominated politics, the late-Ming elites alienated themselves from state bureaucracy and invested their energy into the welfare of local communities. The Manchu conquest advanced this trajectory. The Ming-Qing transition wars and the Manchu takeover, as Joanna Handlin Smith has argued, “loosened literati commitment to serving the state and drove scholars loyal to the Ming to forsake officialdom for other types of livelihoods.” In this context, “many writers questioned their political and social institutions and the values associated with them.”49 This trend further continued in the High Qing because the increasingly intensified tension between a growing population and the limited number of government posts forced many elites to look for alternative occupations other than being bureaucrats. In the meantime, a changing monetary system altered attitudes toward wealth and the ideal social hierarchies. As Richard von Glahn argues in his classic analysis of the history of the god of wealth, the High Qing commercial economy demonstrated a feature of maturity and stability and thus “stood in marked contrast to the rapid oscillations between boom and bust that plagued the late Ming.”50 The concept of a god of wealth, in this context, transformed from a maleficent deity characterized by diabolical force to benign gods that became “a euhemerized embodiment of public and domestic virtue” in the eighteenth century. When the god of wealth “legitimated the prosperity enjoyed by the merchants who patronized its cult,” attitudes toward wealth shifted from anxiety to enjoyment.51 In reality, the revival of the economy after the brutal Ming-Qing transition, which galvanized the eighteenth-century commercial revolution, allowed more people to be involved in trade than ever before. By the mid-Qing era, more scholarly elite families involved themselves in commercial activities.52 The combination of these changes produced shifts in the relationship between literati and merchants. As Mary Rankin and Joseph Esherick have

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argued, from the late Ming to the mid-Qing era, “Literati disdain for mercantile activity eventually became more pro forma than real.” If the merchant class began to blur with scholarly elites in the late Ming, Rankin and Esherick suggest, “the social/cultural fusion of merchant and gentry elites was largely accomplished in the commercialized zones by the end of the eighteenth century.”53 This social reconfiguration provided a much more flexible and fluid space for merchants to be identified with their business background. The description of merchants’ lives in local histories and private writings began to show different features in the eighteenth century. The written records of Ming merchants often failed to mention merchants’ trading experiences and sometimes even left out their business background entirely. Unlike their predecessors, Qing merchants were more willing to identify or to be identified with their commercial activities. In the early Qing, for example, in the written record of merchant philanthropic activities these merchants’ identities became much more visible than those of the late-Ming businessmen.54 In addition to these political and economic changes, the new eighteenthcentury salt monopoly policies also created spaces for the salt merchants to seek opportunities that benefited them directly. When the Huizhou salt merchants constructed relations, both material and personal, with the Qianlong emperor and his court, the merchants’ most powerful patron, this connection provided a new and powerful resource that they could use in order to gain legitimacy and recognition. These businessmen’s involvement in the salt monopoly system made them visible in the literati’s writing. The biographies composed for Huizhou salt merchants clearly point to these rich men as merchants (shang or gu in Chinese) and particularly acknowledge their assistance to court officials in managing the salt business in Jiangnan. The merchants’ participation in imperial projects also helped them receive honor from the court and win admiration from scholarly elites. For example, Wang Qishu, the famous bibliophile and Huizhou salt merchant in Hangzhou, constructed a personal relationship with the prominent court official Ji Yun (1724–1805), the chief editor of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (Siku quanshu), because of his contribution to the largest imperial book collection project in the Qing. The specific scholarly environment in eighteenth-century China, the rise of the intellectual movement of substantive studies (shixue), also carved out a social space for merchants to legitimize their position. From the sev-



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enteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, many scholars participated in discussions of substantive learning, which developed from debates about the relationship between knowledge (zhi ) and action (xing ).55 The proponents of substantive learning staked out a position against what they called “empty talk” (kongtan) and advocated practicality (shijian), that is, putting thought into action. As William Rowe writes, “by the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, statecraft concerns had become linked to an initially separate scholarly movement promoting practical or substantive learning, emphasizing ritual-moral correctness and, somewhat incongruously, managerial technique that often appeared amorally pragmatic.”56 The advocacy of substantive learning nourished an admiration for salt merchants’ managerial skills and practical knowledge. These skills and knowledge were materially expressed through the objects that the merchants came into contact with and contracted for. For example, the refined zitan cabinet that satisfied Qianlong’s taste could be presented to the court because of the salt merchants’ ability to locate, purchase, and produce it. Likewise, the grand and sturdy stone arch could be erected only because of Wang Xun’s ability to find the right stone and hire skillful craftsmen. The success of producing these objects demonstrated these Huizhou salt merchants’ ability to put thought into practical action, helping them to obtain applause from the court and contemporary intellectuals.

merchants and consumption in eighteenth-century china The period from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century in Chinese history has been known for its economic prosperity and expanded consumption. Scholars refer to this period as a second commercial revolution.57 In doing so, they follow historians of Ming China who have masterfully demonstrated that new imported Mexican silver, accelerating regional and crossregional markets, and growing interests in luxury consumption contributed to a commercial revolution in China, especially in the Lower Yangzi delta.58 This commercial revolution continued in the eighteenth century. After the brutal economic damage caused by the Ming-Qing transition wars, the Manchu rulers’ consolidation policies laid the groundwork for rapid economic revival. The Qing soon entered a “prosperous age” and became

22

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“­ possibly the most commercialized country in the world.”59 Luxury consumption quickly revived in the empire, especially in the Lower Yangzi area and in Beijing. The study of luxury consumption in the late Ming has received particular scholarly attention.60 In his groundbreaking work, for instance, art historian Craig Clunas argues that “the creation of new types of luxury goods and their wide circulation, the idea of culture itself as a commodity, the degree of attention given to the specifics of luxury consumption over a broad range of writers, the decline of state sumptuary control, and the idea that there  is positive benefit in such luxury consumption” characterize the late Ming as a consumer society. The fundamental transformation of consumption patterns in late Ming Jiangnan was an “invention of taste” through which elites attempted to discriminate among commodities by valuing and ranking “things.”61 In contrast to the rich discussion of consumption patterns in the late Ming, however, very few scholars have engaged in a close depiction of the characteristics of consumer society in the eighteenth century.62 Likewise, while scholars have noted that merchants were the main patrons of luxury goods, the question of merchants’ role in luxury consumption has not received the scholarly attention it deserves.63 Wen Zhenheng’s Treatise on Superfluous Things, as discussed earlier, demonstrates scholar-elites’ anxieties caused by the new wealth’s active participation in luxury consumption. Merchants’ interactions with different kinds of expensive and precious objects in the eighteenth century, as this book shows, revealed their continued enthusiasm for extravagant things. Wealthy merchants’ presence in luxury consumption, in other words, had been acknowledged by their contemporaries from the late Ming to the High Qing. This book thus aims to extend the analysis of luxury consumption into the eighteenth century and, in particular, to analyze merchants’ role in High Qing consumer society. As the following chapters show, the Huizhou salt merchants’ connection with the court enabled them to play an important and, to some extent, a leading role in luxury consumption. In order to prepare refined tributary objects for the court’s use, the merchants devoted themselves to producing, procuring, and collecting valuable items. When these objects traveled between Beijing and Jiangnan, they facilitated an exchange of taste and style between the capital in the north and Jiangnan markets in the south. The Qianlong emperor and his taste became popular in the Jiangnan market



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through merchants’ consumption. At the same time, the merchants were able to establish themselves as trendsetters because of their familiarity with court style resulting from their close ties with the Qianlong emperor and his taste. Going beyond their consumption activities in Jiangnan urban centers, the Huizhou salt merchants also found new sites of luxury consumption in the countryside. In the rural fields outside major metropolises, these merchants consciously and consistently transferred huge amounts of money accruing to them from favorable salt monopoly policies to their rural homeland of Huizhou in order to patronize lineage-related projects. They adorned their ancestral shrines with beautiful paintings and calligraphy, transforming routinized ritual buildings into highly decorated constructions with aesthetic taste. They also erected splendid chastity arches to display the moral behavior of their proud family members while participating in court-sponsored cultivation projects. These objects functioned in effect as luxury items sanctioned by Confucian moral example. While these commercial families displayed their business success in the form of luxurious monuments that celebrated lineage and family accomplishments and solidarity, they also furthered and strengthened connections with literati and officials in Jiangnan and Beijing via the cultural and moral implications embedded in these objects. The circulation of these things therefore highlights salient triangular connections, both material and personal, between the capital of Beijing, Jiangnan urban centers, and the merchants’ native place of Huizhou. Not only did the actual objects facilitate these connections, but the Huizhou salt merchants’ production and consumption of these objects also propelled a reciprocal relationship among different regions and social groups involving capital, taste, reputation, and moral issues. To be sure, the changes in dynasties did not completely change the trajectory of luxury consumption in late imperial China. In the urban centers of eighteenth-century Jiangnan, such as Yangzhou and Hangzhou, merchants devoted themselves to cultural enterprises like collecting and art patronage, echoing the luxury consumption in the late Ming. However, a focus on merchants’ interaction with specific objects shows their new roles in commerce and consumption in the High Qing period. These changes in luxury consumption between the late Ming and High Qing illuminates our understanding of the second commercial revolution.

24

introduction

chinese merchant and material culture in the early modern world Scholars of different cultures have applied material culture studies to exploring the past. The study of making, circulating, and consuming objects allows historians to examine the dynamic interaction between objects and people in different spaces and times in order to investigate interactions in consumer society, daily life, and global trade.64 Many of the merchant activities and social trends discussed in this book bear a revealing resemblance to counterparts in early modern Europe, such as the rapid rise of merchants, the emergence of merchant collectors, and the prominence of merchants as patrons of art. Like merchant collectors in eighteenth-century China, the wealthy businessmen of Europe, such as Hans Jacob Fugger (1516–1575), played an important role in the history of collecting.65 In explaining merchants’ rising influence and their interests in material objects, historians of China benefit by drawing inspiration from historians of Europe. For instance, when examining early modern Italian collectors’ devotion to collecting natural objects, Paula Findlen demonstrates that “travel, discovery, and collection all served to deepen one’s sense of identity.”66 How, I wonder, would the High Qing salt merchants have thought about their own identity in the context of their collecting obsession? Or was the question of identity even a concern? When Renata Ago analyzes the possessions owned by “the middling class” from seventeenthcentury Rome, she argues that “it was not necessarily true that the end goal of this accumulation of objects was to transcend one’s social class and live like an aristocrat.”67 Ago’s challenge to the long-standing model of social emulation made me raise the question posed in this book: did the salt merchants of eighteenth-century China want to become only scholarly elites? The patterns that emerged in China before the nineteenth century were partially caused by the growing economy and expanding trade that happened globally.68 Yet these phenomena cannot be divorced from specific local social structures, political environments, and cultural contexts. For instance, although being a collector became a phenomenon in eighteenthcentury China and Europe alike, the concept of the “collector” (shoucangjia) emerged as a social category in China alone.69 The reasons behind the emergence of this social category lie in the political transformations from the Ming to the Qing dynasty, as well as the Manchu court’s empire-wide



merchant culture in the material world

25

­ roject to collect and classify books and objects, the links between which p will be explored in this book. As Dorothy Ko has argued, “While the meaning of Chinese history has to be sought in the unique context of China’s cultural and historical dynamics, its significance lies in what it can teach us about the shared richness of human experience” (emphasis in original).70 By providing this history of merchant culture in eighteenth-century China, this book enriches our understanding of the relationship between people and material objects in the eighteenthcentury world—and perhaps also in the present.

sources and structure The book brings an interdisciplinary approach to evidence ranging from official documents to genealogies and folklore, from literary texts to material objects. Documents from the court, including memorials, imperial edicts, and the records of the Imperial Household Department, record the Huizhou salt merchants’ strategies to build connections with the court. Materials from literature, including literary anthologies and miscellanies (biji ), provide literati’s description of merchants’ activities. Illustrated compendia, such as colophons and seal impression compilations ( yinpu), enable historians to analyze salt merchants’ collection activities. In the salt merchants’ home villages of Huizhou, an incredible store of local documents that are now called “Huizhou sources” (Huizhou wenshu)—such as genealogies, letters or notes, and stone inscriptions—provide useful information about merchants’ patronage of lineage structure.71 The oral sources, including the interviews with living villagers today, help us understand how wealthy salt merchants were perceived and remembered by ordinary commoners. Going beyond traditional textual evidence, an analysis on the material characteristics and cultural biography of specific objects—including furniture, seals, steles, and stone arches—reveals the motivations and agendas of the merchants who invested in or made them. The book contains five chapters and is divided into three parts. Part One (Chapter 1) sets the scene for this study, examining the historical and political reasons for the Huizhou salt merchants’ rise and their connection with the court in the High Qing period. It explains how the Manchu court reformed existing salt monopoly policies by appointing the emperors’

26

introduction

b­ ondservants as salt bureau officials and by establishing the new position of head merchant. These two policies injected the Manchu emperors’ own networks into the salt monopoly institution and allowed the court to effectively exert influence on the wealthiest commercial centers of the Lower Yangzi area. The Huizhou salt merchants, on the other hand, created new and direct ties with the court by obtaining head merchant positions. These merchants thus achieved unprecedented economic and political privileges that took advantage of the Manchu court’s own ethnic strategies. Part Two consists of two chapters that focus on merchants’ activities in urban centers of the Lower Yangzi valley (Jiangnan). Chapter 2 examines the Huizhou head merchants’ interaction with the most precious and expensive goods in eighteenth-century Jiangnan. It explores how these businessmen produced and procured objects for imperial use through the tribute system ( gongwu), manufacturing (huoji ), and the Qianlong emperor’s empire-wide book collecting project. This chapter shows in detail how the Huizhou salt merchants procured objects from local workshops, markets, and private collections and how their personal networks and managerial ability enabled them to “run errands” for the court. While the salt merchants supplemented formal state bureaucratic systems and served as the emperor’s informal agents in Jiangnan, they also facilitated an exchange of style and taste between the capital and Jiangnan. Focusing on different kinds of objects, Chapter 3 discusses merchants’ roles in collecting culture during the High Qing period by presenting a case study of the salt merchant Wang Qishu and his collection of seals. The Qianlong emperor’s personal interest in collecting and his compilation of a large series of court-sponsored catalogs led to a recognition of collectors in Qing society. Collectors (shoucangjia) emerged as a unique social category, and collecting came to be seen as a valued form of expertise. By locating Wang Qishu’s case in this High Qing context, the chapter examines how Wang used different elements associated with his seal collection to assert himself as a collector. Wang’s contemporaries also saw him as a collector passionate about seals, as an expert in seal connoisseurship, and as financially capable of amassing a distinguished collection. Through his collected objects, Wang assumed the role of “collector”—a new social status symbol— and thereby legitimized his position in society. Moving into Huizhou, Part Three (Chapters 4 and 5) examines ­merchants’ interaction with different objects in another geographical and cultural space.



merchant culture in the material world

27

Chapter 4 takes the case of the Bao family from Tangyue village to explore the ways in which salt merchants patronized lineage construction projects as a means to expand the influences of their families or lineages in the rural countryside of Huizhou, on the one hand, and to strengthen a connection with prominent officials and literati in the court and Jiangnan urban centers, on the other. By tracing the construction process of three lineage projects sponsored by the Bao household—the publishing of a new genealogy, the construction of a shrine celebrating “Parental Love and Filial Piety,” and the donation of charitable lands—the chapter shows how the Bao merchants patronized specific lineage construction projects, which functioned as luxury items sanctioned by Confucian moral example. Through these cultural objects, the Bao family expanded their influence in their home community in Huizhou and displayed their moral values and refined taste for the benefit of urban scholarly elites, creating connections between the countryside and the city. Chapter 5 examines the salt merchants’ role in the construction of chastity arches—stone structures honoring women who maintained chaste widowhood—in She county in Huizhou. In the High Qing era, the Manchu court systematically patronized the construction of monumental objects, such as stone arches, with the dual object of inculcating Confucian morality in their illiterate subjects and displaying their imperial legitimacy. The Huizhou salt merchants, seeing an opportunity to expand their influence, devoted themselves to chastity arch construction in the local community of Huizhou, thus publicizing the virtuous deeds that the court rewarded. While these merchants used their economic prowess to participate in the state’s cultivation project, their financial support of these arches was itself a product of the court’s salt monopoly policies. At the same time, these monuments gave these wealthy businessmen the opportunity to bolster their reputations, display their wealth, and lay claim to legitimate dominance in local society. *** By situating Huizhou salt merchants in circuits of production, consumption, and circulation of specific objects that they produced and consumed, this research reveals a new and crucial network between the imperial court and these wealthy merchants. Rooted in the Manchus’ new salt monopoly policies and facilitated and strengthened by objects, this network enabled

28

introduction

the merchants to expand their influence to state politics, taste and consumption, and central-local relationships. A focus on these artifacts also demonstrates a transregional dynamic between the capital, Jiangnan, and Huizhou, which the merchants inhabited. By exploring these newly formed and revived networks and spatial dimensions, this research interprets merchants’ activities and motivations outside the conventional framework of status negotiation and highlights the political, economic, and social characteristics and transformation of eighteenth-century China.

part one

A New Regime: The Manchu Court and Salt Merchants

one

Courting the Court In 1757, the Qianlong emperor conducted his second southern tour in Jiangnan. The wealthy salt merchants in Yangzhou made the arrangements for the imperial visit. They not only financed the court’s travels from Beijing, but also provided the food, lodging, and entertainment for the emperor and his retainers. Before the emperor’s arrival, one of the head merchants named Jiang Chun (1720–1789; zi Yingchang, hao Heting), under the supervision of staff and eunuchs sent by the court, renovated his splendid garden to receive the emperor. Jiang Chun’s preparations proved to be a great success. The emperor was delighted by Jiang Chun’s garden and granted it a special title: Jing xiang yuan (The garden of tranquility and fragrance). The emperor also, surprisingly, met with Jiang in person. During Jiang’s audience with him, the emperor untied his own golden-silk-thread pouch ( jin si hebao) and gave it to Jiang as a gift. The emperor also awarded Jiang Chun, along with other three head merchants, the honorary title “the chief minister of the Imperial Parks Administration” (Fengchenyuan qing ), referring to a position that belonged to the Imperial Household Department.1

Although salt merchants had long been an important group in Chinese history, the economic and political privileges that the High Qing Jiangnan salt merchants received were extraordinary. The Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) was the first to establish salt monopolies, making the central government the only institution legitimated to operate the salt business and collect revenues from it. But from the start, the difficulties created by the limited size of the bureaucracy and the vast scale of the salt business required the central ­government to delegate power to the salt merchants. As the only licensed businessmen who were allowed to trade salt, these merchants obtained tremendous profits. By Qing times, the Jiangnan salt merchants, most from Huizhou, were clustered in Yangzhou and Hangzhou, and conducted business in the Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones. Jiang Chun was one representative of the many salt merchants who not only gained remarkable favor from the Manchu court but also participated in Jiangnan cultural activities by collecting antiques, publishing books, and patronizing fine arts. The story that begins this chapter was only the beginning of the intimate relationship between the Qianlong emperor and Jiang Chun. Twenty-seven years later, in 1784, during his sixth southern tour, 31

32

a new regime

the emperor once again visited Jiang Chun’s residence. This time, Jiang Chun brought his son Jiang Zhenxian—who was only six years old—with him. When the emperor invited Jiang Chun’s son to make a wish, the boy answered that he wished the emperor to grant him longevity. The emperor happily issued a decree that Jiang Zhenxian “shall live for one hundred years” (shou zhi baisui ). During their conversation, the Qianlong emperor rubbed the head of Zhenxian and granted him his own pouch. As the scholar Yuan Mei (1716–1798) later commented, the imperial favor that Jiang Chun received was “unprecedented” ( gu wei you ye).2 This chapter explores the historical and political reasons for the Huizhou salt merchants’ new and close relationship with the Manchu court in the High Qing period. This court-merchant network, as we shall see, originated from particular changes in salt monopoly policies. Although the Qing salt monopoly system continued the practices of the prior Ming dynasty, it added two new elements: the appointment of the emperors’ bondservants as salt bureau officials and the establishment of the head merchant position. These institutional changes created new opportunities for the Huizhou salt merchants to connect with the emperor’s bondservants and ultimately the Qianlong emperor himself. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first part presents the institutional history of the salt business, exploring how the Manchu court used a hereditary franchise system that served as the foundation for the Qing salt monopoly. The second and third parts discuss how the Manchu court developed two new policies to achieve its political goals, expanding its own network in the salt monopoly system and incorporating Han Chinese merchants into the management of the salt business. The last section, drawing on materials from confessions, demonstrates how the salt merchants took advantage of institutional changes to build up their connections with the court in High Qing period.

the hereditary franchise system: legacy from the late ming Even after the Ming government fell, the general structure of the salt monopoly policy, particularly in the form of the hereditary franchise system, remained intact. That hereditary franchise system, implemented in 1617,



courting the court

33

enabled the Huizhou merchants to dominate the salt business in Jiangnan. Understanding this hereditary franchise system is critical for comprehending how the Jiangnan salt merchants operated their business and accumulated wealth in the Qing.3

From Grain-Salt Exchange System (kai zhong fa) to Hereditary Franchise System (gang fa) Generally speaking, the Ming salt monopoly policies underwent three phases: from the grain-salt exchange system (kai zhong fa) to the “paying silver for salt” system, and finally to the hereditary franchise system ( gang fa). These phases mark a transformation from a state-controlled salt business to a monopoly system with more state-merchant cooperation in the late Ming. At the beginning of the Ming dynasty, the central government employed a grain-salt exchange system to meet the needs of the military defense against the Mongols on the northern frontier. Through the grain-salt exchange system, salt merchants delivered grain to the military posts on the frontier in exchange for government-issued tickets to buy salt from designated salt fields and then sell salt in designated areas.4 The state, in this process, controlled salt production and operated the salt business as, in Yang Jeou-yi’s term, “a wholesaler.” The merchants, on the other hand, retailed salt in the frontier area under state control.5 As early as the 1410s, however, this grain-salt exchange system collapsed, because of delayed salt allocations from the state to the merchants, and abuse of the salt monopoly system by the court and powerful officials. The policy was gradually replaced by a monetized policy of “paying silver for salt,” a system that was institutionalized in 1491. Under this new policy, the merchants could obtain a salt license to conduct their salt business by simply paying silver to the office of the salt commissioner and thus avoided the trouble of delivering grain to the frontier.6 This new policy of “paying silver for salt” caused a power redistribution among salt merchants. Before the policy was put into practice, Shanxi and Shaanxi merchants were the major businessmen who delivered grain to the frontier; geographically, these merchants’ business areas were closer to the north. This situation changed, however, as a result of the new policy. The “paying silver for salt” policy now allowed salt merchants to conduct their business in areas where the salt commissioners worked. A massive number

34

a new regime

of salt merchants, therefore, emigrated to the cities of the most profitable salt regions, such as Yangzhou and Hangzhou. Huizhou was much closer to these salt areas than to Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, and the Xin’an River facilitated transportation between Huizhou and Jiangnan. The Huizhou merchants then began to establish and expand their business in Jiangnan, and gradually obtained dominant power in the salt business there.7 Their descendants, the main subjects of this book, would eventually become the most influential salt merchants in High Qing. The new policy failed to save the ruined economy of the Ming government. On the contrary, it weakened Ming military power on the northern frontier because more merchants moved inland and stopped delivering salt and grain to the frontier. Moreover, the money from the policy of “paying silver for salt” was often embezzled by court power holders and officials, who stopped buying grain for frontier troops.8 As Ho Ping-ti has argued, “the break-up of the grain-salt exchange system ushered in a period of transition and confusion in salt administration during which the frontier merchants abandoned their northern colonizing posts and became salt merchants of the interior provinces, particularly of the Liang-huai area.”9 In order to resolve these problems, the Ming state in 1617 made one last effort, initiating yet another salt monopoly policy—the hereditary franchise system—in Lianghuai.10 In the hereditary franchise system, “the state organized salt merchants with old licenses for the Huainan sector of Lianghuai into ten syndicates ( gang ).” The government here also enacted a policy that allowed only the merchants whose names were registered with the government to have salt licenses. In this way, every salt merchant had to enroll in a syndicate in order to access the salt trade.11 Through the hereditary franchise system, the work of the merchants was closely tied to specific areas. Unlike the grainsalt exchange system, which allowed merchants to trade in any salt region, the hereditary franchise system used a fixed group of selected merchants to conduct the salt trade in a specific region. While the merchants were now regulated more by the state, they also obtained more power in the salt business. Once the hereditary franchise system was launched, merchants—not the state—played a dominant role in the “production, initial acquisition, transportation, and retail” of salt. The hereditary franchise system thus allowed merchants to control or even monopolize the salt business “under the



courting the court

35

state’s sanction.”12 This policy nurtured the rise of enterprising Jiangnan salt merchants in the Qing dynasty.

The Qing Salt Monopoly Policy in the Lianghuai and Liangzhe Salt Zones In 1644, after the Qing conquest of China, the new government sought an easy and reliable source of revenue to support its military endeavors. The salt business was highly lucrative, but the new Manchu rulers lacked experience in managing a state-run salt monopoly. They therefore adopted the hereditary franchise system of the late Ming, hoping to quickly build up the state treasury by collecting revenue from wealthy salt merchants.13 The system they adopted comprised eleven salt zones.14 Each salt zone was further divided into three subzones, based on the distance between the salt markets and the production sites: (1) salt production sites, (2) the areas close to the production sites, and (3) the areas distant from production sites. The salt in the areas farthest away from the production sites was taxed more heavily than the salt sold in areas close to the production sites. The reason for the heavier tax was that the government assumed that the salt sold in areas farther away from its production site would, because of larger demand, be easier to sell.15 The Manchu court operated different policies in individual salt zones. The Lianghuai and Liangzhe zones covered the salt business in the Jiangnan area, the most prosperous area of the Qing dynasty (see Map 1.1). These two salt zones, because of their large amount of revenue, drew special attention from the Qing government. This was especially true for the most remote subzones in Lianghuai and Liangzhe, which were called the gang areas ( gang an).16 In order to secure taxes from these gang areas, the Qing government used the hereditary franchise system to manage the business. Each gang area consumed the salt that the state designated for it. The state also guaranteed that only the merchants who assumed the tax quota within the specific gang areas could sell the salt allocated to them. Because the gang areas often had a larger population, these merchants gained the most profit, and the state received most of its revenue from these merchants.17 The wealthy Huizhou salt merchants conducted most of their business in these gang areas of the Lianghuai and Liangzhe.

36

a new regime

Yell ow

River

ZHILI Beijing Tianjin SHANXI Taiyuan

Jinan SHANDONG

N

GANSU ai R Hu

HENAN

SICHUAN

zi

HUBEI Hankou

er Riv

Ya n

Changsha HUNAN

YUNNAN

I

g

Chengdu

GUIZHOU Guiyang

Kunming

Huaian JIANGSU Yangzhou

iver

Zhenjiang

ANHUI Anqing

Nanchang

Hangzhou Huizhou II ZHEJIANG

JIANGXI FUJIAN

Fuzhou

Guilin

West River GUANGXI

Salt sector boundary Provincial boundary Grand Canal

Haizhou

Kaifeng

SHAANXI Xian

I Lianghuai salt II Liangzhe salt

Guangzhou GUANGDONG

0 0

300 mi 500 km

Map 1.1  The Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones under the Qing s o u r c e : Adapted with permission of the Harvard University Asia Center from Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550–1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), page 46. © 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Many scholars have concluded that the Lianghuai salt zone was the most important salt market for the Qing government. The Lianghuai salt zone encompassed parts of the provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Henan, and Jiangxi. Divided by the Huai River, the Lianghuai salt zone consisted of two sections: Huaibei (the area north of the Huai River) and Huainan (the area south of the Huai River). According to one calculation, “since Lianghuai produced 40% to 50% of the total salt revenue at various times of the Qing, the gang area of Huainan alone delivered approximately



courting the court

37

28% to 35% of the salt revenue of the entire country.”18 The city of Yangzhou served as the center of the Lianghuai salt business. The wealthiest salt merchants (who were usually Yangzhou salt merchants) operated in the gang area of the Huainan subzone.19 Because of its economic importance, the Huainan subzone has received the most attention from current scholars.20 The Qing government practiced unique policies in the Huainan subzone. These practices, Yang Jeou-yi argues, were the key reasons for the rise of the Yangzhou salt merchants. As Yang explains, the Lianghuai salt monopoly policies had two distinguishing characteristics. The first and most important one was that the Huainan gang area offered “franchised certificates” without restricting merchants to a single “franchised salt territory” in which they were responsible for buying, delivering, and retailing salt. Almost all the major salt zones were regulated by this franchise system. The Huainan gang area, however, was an exception. The Huainan salt merchants were only responsible for buying salt from production sites and shipping it from Yangzhou to other regions. They were, however, not responsible for retail, which fell to local merchants. The Huainan salt merchants therefore avoided the danger of unsuccessful ­retailing.21 The Huainan salt merchants were also able to decide the quantity of salt that they were willing to sell each year, based on the capital they could invest. If one salt merchant did not have enough funds for shipments, the head merchants could arrange for other merchants to take a larger quota, in order to meet the revenue requirement for the Huainan gang area. Thanks to this unusual arrangement, Yangzhou merchants “were not individually required to assume a fixed quota of salt shipment every year” and “they were less vulnerable to the fate of confiscation by the state.”22 These institutional advantages helped make Yangzhou salt merchants the wealthiest merchants in eighteenth-century China.23 The Liangzhe salt zone, which covers part of the territories of the Jiangnan salt business, also contributed a large amount of revenue to the state in the High Qing, ranking second among all the salt zones.24 The Liangzhe salt zone encompassed part of the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi. The Qing state offered hereditary franchised salt territories in Liangzhe.25 Although the Liangzhe salt merchants lacked the economic privileges that Huainan businessmen enjoyed, they still accumulated wealth from their gang area through the hereditary franchise system. In fact, the

38

a new regime

Huizhou salt merchants, who had dominated the salt business in Hangzhou (the center for Liangzhe region) since the late Ming, quickly recovered from the destruction of the Ming-Qing transition.26 These salt merchants soon joined their Yangzhou counterparts among the wealthiest and most prominent merchants of High Qing.

novel policies in the qing: appointing the emperors’ own bannermen The new Qing government adopted the franchise system from the late Ming for its own salt monopoly system. Yet the Manchu rulers also developed several novel features for the institution to serve its new political agenda. Among them, two stand out. The first was the direct appointment of bannermen and, more significantly, the emperors’ own bondservants, as the salt administrators in Jiangnan salt bureaus and the practice of keeping them at their posts for an extended period of time. The second feature was the establishment of a new head merchant system, by which the state appointed wealthy salt merchants to assist the official bureaucracy’s salt administrators. Both of these new policies allowed the Qing emperor to inject his own personal networks into the administration of the salt monopoly. The Jiangnan salt merchants, especially the merchants in Lianghuai, by the same token, took full advantage of the new policies, deftly forging ties with both officials in the salt bureaucracy and, ultimately, the court. These two institutional transformations, as the following section shows, were products of the Qing rulers’ ethnic policies, an unintended consequence of which was to propel the rise of the Huizhou salt merchants during the High Qing. In order to understand these new policies, a brief introduction to the complicated bureaucracy of the Qing salt monopoly system in the Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones is necessary.27 The head official of the local salt administration was called the salt censor (xunyan yushi ), a title that was replaced by salt administrator ( yanzheng ) during Kangxi’s reign.28 As the head of the local salt business administration, the salt censor/salt administrator supervised salt trade and collected revenue. This official appointment varied in different salt zones. In the Lianghuai salt zone, for example, because of the high profits generated by the salt business, the office of salt ­administrator



courting the court

39

maintained a separate office from the regular provincial bureaucracy. In this way, the salt administrator could manage the salt business and collect revenue independently from the local officials. In 1830, the Lianghuai position of salt administrator was abolished and became a joint appointment with the governor or governor-general of the province.29 The salt administration operated differently in the Liangzhe area. Since early in the Qing, the “jurisdiction over the salt administration was given to provincial officials at one time and to salt administrators at another.” From 1726 to 1793, the governor-general or governor of Liangzhe handled the area’s salt affairs. But in 1793, in order to eliminate official corruption in the salt business, the Qianlong emperor asked the superintendent of imperial silk manufacturing (zhizao) of Hangzhou to take over the affairs of the Liangzhe salt administration. This policy continued until 1821.30 A position with lower official standing than that of the salt administrator but still important was that of salt controller ( yanyunshi ). Under the supervision of the salt administrator, the salt controller managed various jobs on the ground, including shipping the salt, collecting taxes, and allocating money.31 Salt controllers were usually Han Chinese officials with jinshi (metropolitan) degrees. During the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns, these Chinese officials also became the centers of literati communities and organized many cultural projects, especially in Yangzhou.32 For the salt monopoly system operating in the Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones, the first reform that Manchu emperors initiated was the method by which the salt censor/salt administrator was appointed. At the beginning of the Qing dynasty, following Ming policies, the Office of the Censorate (duchayuan) sent officials, exclusively Han Chinese with jinshi degrees, to serve as salt censors.33 This practice changed during Kangxi’s reign. As scholars have argued, the Kangxi emperor established a policy of appointing primarily bannermen as salt administrators.34 Among all the bannermen, the Manchu ruler especially favored the bannermen from his own three banners, which were called the Upper Three Banners (shang san qi ). These three banners were the Bordered Yellow, Plain Yellow, and Plain White and included all three ethnic divisions—Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese—of each banner.35 The Qing emperors particularly favored the bondservants from the Imperial Household Department, an institution that supervised internal affairs. “The imperial bondservant companies were spoken of as ‘inner companies,’” and therefore were “opposed to the ‘outer,’ or ­non-bondservant

40

a new regime

companies of the regular Eight Banners.” These bondservants were thus seen as the “emperor’s personal property.”36 The bondservants who served in the Imperial Household Department also came from the emperor’s three banners.37 From the Kangxi emperor to the Qianlong emperor, most of the officials who were appointed as Lianghuai salt administrators came from the emperor’s own three banners. As Jonathan Spence has demonstrated in his classic study, most of the Manchu officials appointed for this position by Kangxi from 1691 to 1695 came from Upper Three Banners. Cao Yin and Li Xu, who served in this post in alternate years from 1704 to 1713, were Imperial Household Department bondservants.38 This trend continued during Yongzheng’s and Qianlong’s reigns.39 As Table 1.1 shows, the Yongzheng emperor appointed four salt administrators. Among them, only the first official was Han Chinese. The other three were Manchu, and at least two of them belonged to the Imperial Household Department. During the reign of Qianlong, the appointments of imperial bondservants to Lianghuai peaked. Among the sixteen salt administrators sent to Lianghuai, only one, Yin Huiyi, was a Han Chinese official and a jinshi holder. He was appointed during the transition from Yongzheng to Qianlong and stayed at his post for only one year. All the rest were bannermen. Among them, twelve either belonged to the emperor’s three banners or served at the Imperial Household Department.40 In addition, the Qing emperors extended the tenure for salt administrators.41 Originally, the salt administrator was allowed to stay at the post for only one year. During Kangxi’s reign, as mentioned earlier, Cao Yin and Li Xu held the office for four and five years, respectively, through the practice of being alternately appointed. During Qianlong’s time, Giking ( Ji-qing) served a total of nine years; Ciowande (Quan-de) and Pu-fu served eight years; G’ao Hu¯ng (Gao Heng) and Ilingga (Yi-ling-a) served seven years; Li Zhiying served five years; and Juntai (Zhun-tai) served four years.42 The appointments of salt administrators in Liangzhe were similar to appointments in Lianghuai, but there were some differences. From 1668, the Kangxi emperor began to appoint Manchu officials and Han officials as salt administrator alternately.43 After 1688, however, the Kangxi emperor “ceased appointing Chinese holders of advanced degrees to the office and used only Manchus until the end of his reign.”44 During Kangxi’s reign, these officials only stayed in the post for one year.45 The Yongzheng emperor, by contrast,

Banner

Han Chinese Manchu Manchu Manchu, Bordered Yellow* Han Chinese Manchu Manchu, Plain Yellow* Manchu Manchu, Plain Yellow* Manchu Manchu, Plain Yellow* Manchu, Bordered Yellow* Manchu, Plain Yellow* Manchu Han Bannerman (?), Plain White* Manchu, Plain White (?)* Manchu Manchu, Plain White (?)* Han Bannerman Manchu, Plain White (?)* Han Bannerman Manchu, Plain White* Han Bannerman Han Bannerman, Plain White* Han Bannerman

Name

Xie Cilü Ge-er-tai Ilaci (Yi-la-qi) G’ao Bin (Gao Bin)a Yin Huiyi Samboo (San-bao) Juntai Giking Pu-fu Giking Pu-fu G’ao Hu¯ng (Gao Heng) Pu-fu Iobaši (You-ba-shi) Li Zhiyingc Ilinggad Inju (Yin-zhu) Ilingga Tu-ming-a Ilingga Ciowande Zheng-ruie Ciowande Ba-ning-af Dong Chun

1723 (YZ1)–1724 (YZ2) 1724 (YZ2)–1730 (YZ8) 1730 (YZ8)–1732 (YZ10) 1732 (YZ10)–1736 (QL1) 1736 (QL1)–1737 (QL2) 1737 (QL2)–1740 (QL5) 1740 (QL5)–1744 (QL9) 1744 (QL9)–1752 (QL17) 1752 (QL17)–1754 (QL19) 1754 (QL19)–1755 (QL20) 1755 (QL20)–1758 (QL23) 1758 (QL23)–1765 (QL30) 1765 (QL30)–1768 (QL33) 1768 (QL33)–1770 (QL35)b 1770 (QL35)–1775 (QL40) 1775 (QL40)–1776 (QL41) 1776 (QL41)–1778 (QL43) 1778 (QL43)–1781 (QL46) 1781 (QL46)–1782 (QL47) 1782 (QL47)–1784 (QL49) 1784 (QL49)–1787 (QL52) 1787 (QL52)–1788 (QL53) 1788 (QL53)–1793 (QL58) 1793 (QL58) 1793 (QL58)–1795 (QL60)

Dates

table 1.1 Salt administrators for the Lianghuai salt zone, 1723–1799

Served in IHD Served in IHD Served in IHD Served in IHD Served in IHD

Served in IHD Served in IHD Served in IHD Served in IHD Served in IHD

Served in IHD

Served in IHD

Served in IHD Served in IHD

Served in IHD Served in IHD

(continued )

Relationship with Imperial Household Department (IHD)

Manchu, Plain White* Manchu, Plain White* Han Bannerman, Plain White* Manchu, Plain White*

Su-leng-eg Zheng-rui Šuru (Shu-lu) Zheng-rui 1795 (QL60) 1796 (JQ1) 1796 (JQ1)–1797 (JQ2) 1797 (JQ2)–1800 (JQ5)

Dates

Served in IHD

Served in IHD Served in IHD

Relationship with Imperial Household Department (IHD)

n o t e s : Asterisks (*) denote banners that were part of the emperor’s three banners. This table includes officials’ names from the first year of Yongzheng’s reign (1723) to the third year of Jiaqing’s reign (1799) when the Qianlong emperor passed away. Unless otherwise noted, these officials’ names, the years that they served in Lianghuai, and their biographies are taken from Lianghuai yanfazhi (Guangxu edition, Xuxiu Siku quanshu 842–845), 131:15b–18b, 137:25a–37a. The banners to which these officials belonged and the spelling of their Manchu names are also taken from Qing shi gao, Qing guo shi, Guoshi liezhuan, and the online database Qingdai dang’an renming quanwei ziliao chaxun. a For G’ao Bin’s biography, see Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), 310:10629–10634. b The official list in Lianghuai yanfazhi (Guangxu edition) did not specify the year that Iobaši was appointed. According to the online database Qingdai dang’an renmin quanwei ziliao chaxun, Iobaši served from 1768 (QL33) to 1770 (QL35). c Lianghuai yanfa zhi stated that Li Zhiying was a Han bannerman (hanjun). However, Qing guo shi recorded that Li belonged to the Manchu Plain White Banner of the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu manzhou zhengbaiqi ). See Qing guo shi (1928; reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), vol. 7, 683–684. d Lianghuai yanfa zhi stated that Ilingga belonged to Plain White Banner. According to Guoshi liezhuan, Ilingga belonged to the Manchu Bordered Yellow Banner of the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu manzhou xianghuangqi ). Dongfang xuehui comp., Guoshi liezhuan (Taipei: Mingwen shuju, 1985), 17:14a. It is unclear which source is correct. e Qing guo shi, vol. 8, 666–669. f Guoshi liezhuan, 40:7b. g Qing guo shi, vol. 8, 461–463.

Banner

Name

table 1.1 Salt administrators for the Lianghuai salt zone, 1723–1799 (continued)



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43

seems to have not particularly favored Manchu officials, placing three Han officials and two bannermen. Among them, the Han official Li Wei—who reformed the salt monopoly policies in Liangzhe and brought prosperity to the salt market—won the emperor’s favor, holding this post for two years.46 From 1736 (QL1) to 1797 ( JQ2), however, bannermen officials were once again in the majority. According to the official list of The Salt Compendia of Liangzhe, twenty-nine bannermen and twelve Han Chinese officials were chosen (see Table 1.2). Even when a Han official was appointed, he often served with another bannerman. For example, in November 1738 (QL3-10), the Han Chinese official Zhang Ruozhen was appointed as the provincial administration commissioner (buzhengshi ) in charge of the salt business. In the next month, the Han bannerman Lu Chao, who belonged to the Bordered Yellow Banner, was appointed as the governor of Zhejiang province (Zhejiang xunfu), also responsible for salt affairs. The same pattern of staffing happened again in 1762, when Solin (Suo-lin), who came from the Plain Blue Banner, was sent to Liangzhe as the provincial administration commissioner and the Han Chinese jinshi Xiong Xuepeng from Jiangxi province was appointed the Zhejiang governor.47 The Qianlong emperor was also inclined to appoint the bannermen from his own three banners to supervise Liangzhe salt operations. Among the twenty-nine bannermen, seventeen came from the emperor’s own banners, one was an imperial family member, and the rest came from Plain Red, Plain Blue, or Bordered Blue banners.48 At least six bannermen served in the Imperial Household Department.49 In some years, the emperor even directly appointed his bondservants from the Imperial Household Department to manage salt affairs in Liangzhe. For instance, in 1795, Yokiyan (Yue-qian), who was serving as a director in the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu langzhong ), was sent by the emperor to Liangzhe. Compared to the official list of Lianghuai salt zones, the percentage of officials from the emperor’s own banners in Lianghuai is higher than the percentage in Liangzhe. Although this chapter does not systematically compare the policies used in Liangzhe with those in Lianghuai salt zones, a subject that deserves a separate study, most superintendents of imperial silk manufacturing in Hangzhou were Imperial Household Department bondservants. The fact that the Qianlong emperor had already placed his own bondservants in Hangzhou at the post of superintendent of imperial silk manufacturing (zhizao) may have made him less enthusiastic about appointing his bondservants as salt

Canggan (Chang-an) Tang Suizu Gu-conga Fang Guancheng Yunggui (Yong-gui) Ka-er-ji-shan Gioroi yarhašan (Jue-luo ya-er-ha-shan) Zhou Renji Ološu¯n (E-le-shun)b Zhou Renji Ka-er-ji-shan Yang Tingzhang Yang Yingju Mingšan (Ming-shan) Zhuang Yougong Mingšan Solin (Suo-lin)

Ji Zengjun Zhang Ruozhen Zhang Ruozhen Lu Chao Zhang Ruozhen Zhang Ruozhen De-pei

Name

3/1742 (QL7-2) 2/1747 (QL12-1) 11/1747 (QL12-10) 5/1748 (QL13-5) 9/1749 (QL14-8) 1/1750 (QL14-12) 1/1752 (QL16-12) 7/1754 (QL19-6) 9/1754 (QL19-8) 12/1754 (QL19-11) 3/1756 (QL21-2) 4/1756 (QL21-4) 2/1759 (QL24-2) 4/1759 (QL24-4) 5/1759 (QL24-5) 12/1760 (QL25-11) 11/1762 (QL27-10)

Manchu, Plain Red Han Chinese Manchu, Bordered Blue Han Chinese Manchu, Plain Yellow* Han bannerman, Bordered Yellow* Han bannerman, Plain white* Manchu, Plain Blue Han Chinese Manchu, Plain Blue Manchu, Plain Blue

1736 (QL1) 10/1736 (QL1-9) 11/1738 (QL3-10) 12/1738 (QL3-11) 11/1740 (QL5-10) 8/1741 (QL6-7) 8/1741 (QL6-7)

Date appointed to supervise salt affairs

Han Chinese Han Chinese Han Chinese Han bannerman, Bordered Yellow* Han Chinese Han Chinese Manchu, member of imperial family (zongshi ) Manchu, Plain Yellow* Han Chinese Manchu, Bordered Yellow* Han Chinese Manchu, Plain White* Manchu, Plain Yellow*

Banner, relationship with Imperial Household Department (IHD)

table 1.2 Officials supervising the salt monopoly in the Liangzhe salt zone, 1736–1797

Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu Min Zhe zongdu Zhejiang xunfu Min Zhe zongdu Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang buzhengshi

Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu Min Zhe zongdu

daxueshi, libu shangshu Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang buzhengshi Min Zhe zongdu

Official title when appointed

Gioroi langg’an (Jue-luo lang-gan) Gu Xuechao Haining Gui Jingzhao Fusong Gioroi canglin (Jue-luo chang-lin)

Fu-le-hun Fu-song Ilinggaf

Fu-le-hun Chen Huizu Wang Jintai Fucanggan (Fu-chang-an)e

Xiong Xuepeng Gioroi yungde (Jue-luo yong-de) Cui Yingjie Xiong Xuepeng Fu-le-hun Xiong Xuepeng Wang Shanwang Samboo (San-bao)c Wang Shanwang Samboo Li Zhiyingd

Han Chinese Manchu, Bordered Blue Han Chinese Han Chinese Manchu, Plain Blue Han Chinese Han Chinese Manchu, Plain Red Han Chinese Manchu, Plain Red Han bannerman (?), Plain White*, served at IHD Manchu, Plain Blue Han Chinese Han Bannerman, Plain White* Manchu, Bordered Yellow*, served at IHD Manchu, Plain Blue Manchu, Plain Yellow* Manchu, Plain White (?)*, served at IHD Manchu, Plain Blue Han Chinese Manchu, Plain Blue Han Chinese Manchu, Plain Yellow* Manchu, Plain Blue 11/1786 (QL51-10) 3/1789 (QL54-3) 10/1790 (QL55-9) 12/1790 (QL55-11) 12/1790 (QL55-11) 2/1793 (QL58-1)

11/1782 (QL47-10) 12/1782 (QL47-11) 4/1786 (QL51-4)

11/1780 (QL45-11) 2/1781 (QL46-2) 10/1782 (QL47-9) 11/1782 (QL47-10)

12/1762 (QL27-11) 4/1768 (QL33-3) 11/1768 (QL33-10) 12/1769 (QL34-12) 1/1771 (QL35-12) 1772 (QL37) 1/1773 (QL38-1) 3/1773 (QL38-3) 10/1777 (QL42-9) 4/1780 (QL45-3) 6/1780 (QL45-5)

(continued )

Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu

Min Zhe zongdu Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu

Min Zhe zongdu Min Zhe zongdu Zhejiang jiangjun Hubu shilang

Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu Min Zhe zongdu Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang buzhengshi Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu Daxueshi, Min Zhe zongdu Zhejiang xunfu

Bordered Yellow*, served at IHD Manchu, Plain White* Manchu, Plain White* Plain White*, served at IHD Manchu, Plain White* Manchu, Plain Red Plain White*, served at IHD Manchu, Plain Red

Ciowande

Alimboo (A-lin-bao) Gioroi giking (Jue-luo ji-qing)

Yokiyan (Yue-qian) Gioroi giking Ioide (Yu-de) Su-leng-e

Ioide

2/1793 (QL 58-1); 1794 (QL59) 3/1794 (QL59-2) 7/1794 (QL59-7); 2/1795 (QL60-2) 3/1795 (QL60-r2) 6/1796 (JQ1-5) 9/1796 (JQ1-8) 10/1796 (JQ1-9); 1797 (JQ2) 10/1797 (JQ2-9)

Date appointed to supervise salt affairs

Zhejiang xunfu

Neiwufu langzhong Zhejiang xunfu Zhejiang xunfu Sanpin qing xian jian zuoling

Joint appointment with zhizao yunshi Zhejiang xunfu

Official title when appointed

n o t e s : Asterisks (*) denote banners that were part of the emperor’s three banners. This table includes officials’ names from the first year of Qianlong’s reign (1736) to the second year of Jiaqing’s reign (1797). The next appointments were made in 1799 (JQ4) after the Qianlong emperor passed away and thus is not included. Unless otherwise noted, these officials’ names, the years that they supervised the salt monopoly in Liangzhe, and their official titles are all taken from Liangzhe yanfa zhi (Tongzhi edition, Xuxiu Siku quanshu 841–842), 22: 5b–8b. Information on the banners to which these officials belonged and the spelling of their Manchu names was collected from Qing shi gao, Qing guo shi, and the online database Qingdai dang’an renming quanwei ziliao chaxun. a LZYFZ recorded that Gu-cong belonged to the Plain White Banner, which might be a mistake. According to his biography in Qing shi gao, Gu-cong came from the Bordered Yellow Banner. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, 310:10637–10639. b LZYFZ did not specify Ološu¯n’s banner. According to his biography in Qing shi gao, Ološu¯n belonged to the Bordered Blue Banner. Zhao et al., Qing shi gao, 338:11060–11061. c LZYFZ may have mistakenly recorded Samboo as a member of the Bordered Blue Banner. According to Qing shi gao, Samboo belonged to the Plain Red Banner. Zhao et al., Qing shi gao, 320:10761–10762. Note that the person named Samboo listed here is different from Samboo, who served as salt administrator in the Lianghuai salt zone. d See footnote c of Table 1.1. e Fucanggan was the son of Fu-heng. Zhao et al., Qing shi gao, 301:10451–10453. f See footnote d of Table 1.1.

Banner, relationship with Imperial Household Department (IHD)

Name

table 1.2 Officials supervising the salt monopoly in the Liangzhe salt zone, 1736–1797 (continued)



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censors.50 Nonetheless, the bannermen officials, especially the ones from the emperor’s own banners, still outnumbered Han officials in the Liangzhe salt zone. The Qing emperors’ preference in appointing bannermen officials, and particularly the ones from their own banners, as salt administrators in Jiangnan clearly served their political agenda. The Kangxi emperor deliberately expanded his “personal bureaucracy” in Lianghuai to closely monitor the local affairs and to secure his control.51 When the Qianlong emperor came to the throne, the Manchu rulers had already consolidated their power. Installing bondservants in salt zones, therefore, provided a channel for the Qianlong emperor to justify the collection of money for the court’s private use. In other words, one main responsibility of the bondservants was to obtain profit from the salt monopoly for Qianlong.52 These bondservants, as shown in Chapter 2, also arranged production and searched out fine furnishings for the emperor from Jiangnan.

novel policies in the qing: appointing the head merchants When the Qing emperors seized personal control of the salt monopoly institutions by placing bannermen and bondservants as the officials in charge of the salt business, they also incorporated Han Chinese salt merchants into the salt monopoly network in Jiangnan. These merchants were called “head merchants.” They were often the wealthiest ones and shared the largest investment in the salt trade. They assisted the salt censor/salt administrator and salt controller in managing the business and collecting revenue.53 Despite the important role that the head merchants played in salt business management, the head merchant position was an informal post and therefore a detailed official account on how this post was operated is lacking. However, because of the head merchants’ active participation in the salt monopoly system and the privileges that came with their position, a variety of ­documents—including the emperor’s edicts, salt administrators’ memorials, and genealogies and gazetteers in Huizhou—recorded their activities and biographies. These sources are often fragmentary, but they provide valuable information on the family background of these head merchants and the

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ways in which they connected with the imperial court in the Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones. Many of the Qing head merchants were the descendants of salt merchants from the Ming. According to Wang Zhenzhong, during Jiajing’s reign (1521–1567), the state began to select wealthy merchants who were called “guest master” (kezhang ) as the representatives of salt merchants to communicate with the salt officials.54 By the end of the sixteenth century, many frontier and inland merchants with smaller amounts of capital had gone bankrupt. Consequently, the surviving inland merchants were able to purchase salt tickets at a low price from bankrupt merchants and to sell them for a higher price later.55 These merchants, called tunhu at that time, dominated the salt markets. Many of these tunhu were the ancestors of the wealthy salt merchants during the Qing.56 In the Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones, Qing salt merchants consisted of two groups: the “transport merchants” ( yunshang ), who were responsible for delivering salt, and the “salt yard merchants” (changshang ), the ones who produced salt.57 The head merchant system was established to manage the transport merchants.58 This position was hereditary and was thus often held by the same merchant household for two or three generations, with each incumbent using a “business name” handed down through the generations instead of his personal given name.59 Head merchants were charged with two main tasks: first, to check whether each transport merchant shipped and retailed his quota of salt, and second, to make sure each of these merchants paid his taxes on time. In addition, the head merchants helped formulate some of the policies of the salt administration and guarded against salt smuggling.60 These head merchants’ responsibilities, which were often referred to as salt tasks ( yanwu), were considered government affairs ( gongshi ) or government tasks ( gongwu). The salt administrators often treated them as their right-hand men (zuoyoushou).61 In a word, these head merchants were extensively involved in the salt monopoly management and provided indispensable assistance to the officials in the salt monopoly institution. The head merchant system was most developed in Lianghuai. There, the salt merchant organization consisted of merchant chiefs (dazong or shouzong ), head merchants (zongshang ), and small transport merchants (sanshang ).62 The head merchants were first appointed during Shunzhi’s reign.63 There were usually twenty-four to thirty head merchants in Lianghuai. The merchant chiefs, usually fewer than five, were the superiors of the head



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merchants. The merchant chief system began around the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and continued until the Daoguang reign.64 The information from court documents and Huizhou local records shows that most of the head merchants in Lianghuai came from certain villages in western She county (Shexi ) in Huizhou. These villages included the home of the Wang merchants from Qiankou, the Wang merchants from Choushu, the Cheng merchants from Censhandu, the Huang merchants from Tandu, the Jiang merchants from Jiangcun, the Hong merchants from Guilin, and the Bao merchants from Tangyue (see Map 1.2).65 Here I select

JIXI COUNTY

Huangcun Jieshi Fuxi

Lantian

Xucunzhen

Jiekou

Nanxinan

Tunxi

ZHEJIANG PROVINCE

r

Fengkou Lingshan Shitan Jingtan Chengkan Wangjinling Guilin Fu’e Jiangcun Changxi Shuyuan Choushu Dali Xucun Bei’an Dingtan Qiankou Tangmo Tangyue Shexian Shenduzhen Tandu Chengtang Shiqiao Etian Zhengcun Songtang Xixinan Hongkeng Yicheng Miantan Xiaochuan Shangchanglin Yansizhen Censhandu Xiongcun Zhangtan Shigang Xin’an Riv Huangdun e

Xiaoxi

N

Capital Rivers Roads

XIUNING COUNTY

0 0

5 5

10 mi 10

15 km

Map 1.2  Modern map of She county before 1987 n o t e s : Villages in She county depicted on this map, including Choushu, Qiankou, Censhandu, Tandu, Jiangcun, Tangyue, and Guilin, all located near one another in western She county (Shexi ), produced prominent head merchants during the Qianlong period. These head merchants’ families also practiced intermarriage with each other to strengthen their networks; such marriages include those between Huang merchants from Tandu village and Jiang merchants from Jiangcun village (Chapter 1), and between Bao merchants from Tangyue and Wang merchants from Etian as well as Hong merchants from Guilin (genealogical chart in Chapter 4). The Xin’an River is a crucial transportation line between She county and Zhejiang province, and many villages are located along it. Miantan, hometown of the wealthy salt merchant and collector Wang Qishu (the main subject of Chapter 3), was located on the Xin’an River.

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Jiang Chun as an outstanding but representative example to examine these Huizhou head merchants’ backgrounds and activities, and, in particular, their networks both in-group and with the court. Jiang Chun was considered “the most colorful head merchant during the second half of the eighteenth century” and enjoyed the most favor from the Qianlong emperor, who met with him and gave him gifts on several occasions.66 His name was mentioned most frequently in memorials and edicts, indicating regular interaction between Jiang Chun and court officials and even the emperor. Jiang Chun’s privileges in this respect were somewhat exceptional, but the manner in which he attained them was representative. His social background and his activities were thus identical to those of other Huizhou head merchants. Jiang Chun succeeded Huang Lüxian, a head merchant from Tandu village, and played a leading role in salt affairs in the years from 1768 to 1788. Jiang Chun came from Jiangcun, a single-surname village named for his lineage. His great-grandfather, Jiang Guomao, had given up his scholarly career and become a salt merchant in Yangzhou. Guomao’s son Jiang Yan continued the family business.67 Yan’s son Jiang Chengyu succeeded to Jiang Yan’s business and became a head merchant. Jiang Chun inherited this position, and the business name Jiang Guangda, during Qianlong’s reign. Later in his life when Chun lacked capital for business, the Qianlong emperor lent him money from the Imperial Household Department treasury.68 After Jiang Chun passed away, the Jiang family began to decline and, as a consequence, the business name Jiang Guangda rarely appeared in memorials. Jiang Chun’s cousin Jiang Fang (1727–1793, zi Xudong, hao Chengli and Yannong; business name Jiang Ritai) was also a salt merchant who traded in Hubei province.69 Jiang Fang and Jiang Chun worked closely with each other, assisting each other’s businesses, hosting numerous parties in Yangzhou, and even publishing poetry anthologies together.70 Jiang Chun’s family background shows that these Huizhou salt merchants’ business depended heavily on their household and lineage connection. Jiang Chun inherited the salt business and the head merchant position from his father. Although a detailed account of Jiang Chun’s trade is missing, evidence shows that Jiang Chun and Jiang Fang worked with each other on salt business. Going beyond their family/lineage network, Jiang Chun also maintained a complicated relationship with other head merchants from Huizhou. Chun’s hometown, Jiangcun, is located in western She county.



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As noted earlier, during the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns, almost all the identified head merchants came from this area.71 The distance between these head merchants’ home villages was usually less than one day’s walk.72 At the same time, these head merchants also maintained intermarriage relationships. Jiang Fang, for instance, married the niece of Huang Lüxian (business name Huang Yuande), a representative of the powerful salt merchants from Huang lineage in Tandu village. Huang Lüxian’s father, Huang Yizheng, first brought wealth to the Huang family during the Kangxi and Yongzheng reigns because of his success in salt business. Yizheng’s four sons were called the “four ingots” (sida yuanbao) for their wealth and social influence.73 Huang Lüxian was Yizheng’s second son and became the most influential head merchant in Lianghuai from about 1758 to 1768. Not only did officials refer to Huang as the merchant chief in the memorials, but they also listed him at the top of a group of merchants when mentioned to the emperor.74 Huang Lüxian’s younger brother Huang Lüling married his daughter to Jiang Fang and in turn strengthened the connection between Jiang merchants and Huang merchants. As a result of these hometown connections and marriage relationships, these High Qing Huizhou head merchants were more or less related to each other. These head merchants became connected to the Qianlong emperor and the Imperial Household Department by managing the salt business and by collecting “voluntary contributions” from Lianghuai salt merchants to finance a variety of imperial projects. Many memorials had referred to Jiang Chun, chief delegate of the Lianghuai salt merchants, in their dispatch of financial support for the Qianlong emperor’s military campaigns. In 1773, for instance, the salt administrator and bondservant Li Zhiying reported that the Lianghuai salt merchants led by Jiang Guangda and Cheng Qiande were willing to donate four million taels of silver to support the emperor’s Jinchuan campaigns.75 Two years later, Ilingga reported that the merchant chief Jiang Chun, on behalf of five hundred other salt merchants in ­Lianghuai, wanted to donate, again, one million taels of silver for the court to reward the generals who won the military victory in Jinchuan.76 Scholars have also noted salt merchants’ contribution to Qianlong’s southern tours. As Michael Chang shows, the Yangzhou salt merchants collectively “donated” a large quantity of silver to the Qianlong emperor’s first four southern tours in the 1750s and 1760s and put on spectacular festivities to entertain him.77 Many of these head merchants came from

52

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Huizhou, and Jiang Chun, one of the most powerful of them, not only arranged the tours but also hosted the emperor in his residences several times. Because of their contributions to southern tours, Jiang Chun and the other Huizhou head merchants received awards, both honorary titles and financial benefits, from the court.78 The Huizhou head merchants’ service to southern tours apparently satisfied the Qianlong emperor’s needs and thus enabled them to take part in court celebrations outside Jiangnan. For instance, in early 1770, Jiang Chun led another ten or so head merchants to Tianjin to celebrate the Qianlong emperor’s birthday. The Changlu salt merchants who were in charge of the salt business in Tianjin were supposed to prepare the celebration entertainment for the court. However, in the Qianlong emperor’s opinion, the preparations by Changlu merchants were “rather indelicate” (weimian cushuai ). In contrast, the emperor was quite pleased with the Yangzhou head merchants’ management of his southern tours. The emperor thus specifically asked the Yangzhou salt merchants, who, in the emperor’s words, “knew how to do things” (anshi zhiren), to demonstrate entertainment (zaji ) and present extraordinary performance with elaborate site decoration ( paidang ) to the court in order to “entertain the empress dowager” ( yi qia cihuan).79 As different sources recorded, the Qianlong emperor not only knew Jiang Chun’s name but also praised him as a merchant who could “understand things” (xiaoshi ). In a case shown in the next section, because Jiang Chun helped the salt administrator catch a eunuch escaped from the palace, the Qianlong emperor personally recognized Jiang’s ability and acclaimed his activity as “pretty good” (shenshu kejia). The emperor also rewarded Jiang with several honorary titles including provincial administration ­commissioner (buzhengshi ) and chief minister of the Imperial Parks ­Administration (Fengchenyuan qing ), a post belonging to the Imperial Household ­Department. The Qianlong emperor personally knew the names of these head merchants. Not only were these merchants often listed in memorials, the emperor also specifically asked the salt administrators to make and present to the court lists of the merchants who helped the government with famine relief or contributed to various imperial projects.80 Jiang Chun’s case might demonstrate an intimate relationship between him and the emperor, but this personal tie also existed between the emperor and other head merchants. This newly developed court-merchant network provided an unprecedented



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53

opportunity for Huizhou salt merchants to expand their influence in the different aspects of High Qing society, as discussed in later chapters of this book. The head merchant policy was also practiced in the Liangzhe salt zone. Here, the head merchants were called jiashang. Distinct from Lianghuai, where it is clear that almost all the influential salt merchants served as head merchants during their lives, the situation in Liangzhe is more opaque. Sources indicate that some of the influential Huizhou salt merchants in the Liangzhe salt zones—most of whom resided in Hangzhou—were, in fact, head merchants. During Yongzheng’s reign, for example, Wu Zhuo (1676– 1733; business name Wu Yongfeng), one of the most famous bibliophiles in Jiangnan, was a head merchant.81 As with many Huizhou head merchants in Yangzhou, Wu Zhuo’s family originally came from Tantang village in western She county, and his great-grandfather moved to Hangzhou.82 Because he donated 110,000 taels of silver to the court, he was rewarded with a higher official position in 1729.83 The status of some of the salt merchants in Hangzhou, however, is difficult to identify. For example, one famous bibliophile and prominent seal collector, Wang Qishu, who will be discussed in Chapter 3, was also a salt merchant from She county. Wang conducted his salt business in Hangzhou and later purchased an official title in Beijing, but whether he was a head merchant is unknown. Notwithstanding the less-developed head merchant system, the hereditary franchise system and the economic development of the Liangzhe area led to the prosperity of Hangzhou salt merchants who, as shown by Wu and Wang’s cases, had the resources to patronize cultural productions. The Hangzhou salt merchants, like their Lianghuai counterparts, were eager and used their special resources to forge connections to the court. Liangzhe merchants lavishly celebrated the birthdays of the emperor and the empress dowager.84 They contributed a considerable sum to Qianlong’s southern tours.85 The Liangzhe salt merchants also donated money to build a salt granary ( yan yicang ); the head merchant Wu Yuru acted on behalf of the other merchants and asked for wooden plaques with the Qianlong emperor’s calligraphy as a reward.86 Mount Putuo in Zhejiang province, a famous pilgrimage site of the deity Guanyin, became an opportunity for the Hangzhou salt merchants who sought favor from the empress dowager. In 1771, along with the Lianghuai merchants and the Changlu merchants, the Liangzhe merchants were allowed to travel to Beijing—a privilege granted

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a new regime

by the court—because the Liangzhe merchants could build a scene replicating Mount Putuo for the empress dowager.87 In sum, the head merchant position provided a fertile opportunity for salt merchants, especially the ones in Yangzhou, to form and strengthen ties with bondservants and, ultimately, the imperial court. Their fund-raising activities and organizational expertise brought them the attention and confidence of the Imperial Household Department and the Qianlong emperor. The head merchant position, as shown here, provided the ultimate resource for obtaining this privilege. When head merchants were connected to each other, cooperation and conflicts coexisted. The next section therefore examines the ways in which the Huizhou salt merchants used different strategies to win this crucial position.

connecting to the court In order to take advantage of the new policies concerning the salt monopoly system, merchants needed to connect with salt administrators—the emperor’s bannermen and bondservants—to make themselves part of the salt monopoly institution. In conventional historical accounts, these maneuvers are usually dismissed as corruption, glossing over the workings of the personal networks that became intertwined with political institutions. Confessions of guilt in intracourt infractions, however, contain rich materials concerning this issue and have enabled historians to explore Huizhou salt merchants’ strategies to construct personal networks with court officials. A case that warrants examination began in 1744, with an illicit attempt to influence head merchant appointments in the Lianghuai salt zone.88 Two palace secretaries (zhongshu), Jiang Tan and Ka-tong-a, conspired to falsify letters to the new Lianghuai salt administrator, Giking, in order to win favor for Jiang Tan’s merchant relatives in Yangzhou. The chief culprit in the case, Jiang Tan, originally came from a Huizhou salt merchant family, but he had registered his residence as Daxing county in the capital district. With the title of juren (provincial exam degree holder), Jiang Tan passed the examination in 1742 and was appointed as a secretary in the court. The examiner of his test was Šenggan (Sheng-an), an official from the Imperial Household Department. Jiang Tan had maintained this student-teacher relationship with Šenggan since 1742 and had even visited Šenggan on special



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occasions, such as birthdays and festivals. Ka-tong-a, Šenggan’s son, was also a coworker and friend of Jiang Tan. The case arose from Jiang Tan’s plan to introduce his salt merchant relatives in Yangzhou to Giking, who had been appointed as the new Lianghuai salt administrator in July 1744. At that time, Jiang Tan’s uncles Jiang Zhuzhou and Jiang Guangda (aka Jiang Chun), as well as his relatives Wang Qiyuan and Luo Zhenyu, were all involved in the salt business in Yangzhou. In order to help his relatives win some favors from the new salt administrator, Jiang Tan asked Ka-tong-a to request a letter from his father, Šenggan, and send it to Giking. Through this letter, Jiang planned to ask Giking to “take care of” (zhaoying/zhaokan)—meaning politically favor—his relatives. In order to help Jiang Tan, Ka-tong-a invited Jiang Tan to his house to meet his father and to request the letter in person. Unfortunately, Jiang Tan’s plan backfired. Šenggan admitted that he knew Giking, but he would not write a letter to him. Šenggan believed it inappropriate to directly approach Giking, because they were of different status. As Šenggan stated, while he was the previous chief manager of the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu zongguan), Giking had served only as a low-ranking official clerk (Man. bithesi; Ch. bi-tie-shi ).89 Šenggan viewed Giking negatively because Giking came from a commercial family and was also, in Šenggan’s opinion, not a pleasant person. After Šenggan rejected Jiang Tan and Ka-tong-a’s request, they planned to obtain a letter from Fu-heng, then chief manager of the Imperial Household Department. Ka-tong-a tried to approach Fu-heng through Fu-heng’s nephew Guan-deng, whom he personally knew. This plan also failed. In the end, under pressure from Jiang Tan, Ka-tong-a falsified two letters, one attributed to his father Šenggan and one to Fu-heng. Jiang Tan sent these two letters to Giking, who immediately found them to be forgeries. The records of the case clearly demonstrate Jiang Tan’s goal: to connect his relatives with the new salt administrator. As Jiang Tan later confessed, he wanted the salt administrator to zhaoying—patronize—his salt merchant relatives in Yangzhou. Jiang Tan claimed that a favor from the salt administrator would “bring face” ( geixie lianmian) to these merchants. Ka-tong-a’s confession, however, reveals Jiang Tan’s more specific ulterior motive: to enable his uncles to achieve head merchant positions through their relationship with Giking. In Jiang Tan’s opinion, the head merchants who were appointed by the salt administrator were especially honored, or “had face”

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( you lianmian) in his words. According to both Jiang Tan and Ka-tong-a’s confessions, Jiang Tan admitted that he criticized the other head merchants, who were not his relatives, for their poor managerial ability. In contrast, he claimed that his relatives could dependably accomplish tasks and hoped that a personal letter to Giking would inspire the new salt administrator to favor Jiang’s relatives over the other merchants. Jiang Tan’s failed efforts highlight the importance of the salt administrator’s power in the process of appointing head merchants in Lianghuai. Despite the crucial role that head merchants played, the selection standards for ranking qualified candidates were rather ambiguous. In a 1677 memorial, salt administrator Hao Yu stated that he selected twenty-four salt merchants who “had the most wealth and franchised certificates (zizhong yinduo zhiren).”90 But when merchants possessed similar amounts of wealth, who should or would be selected? In a 1724 memorial, the vice minister of the Ministry of Revenue (hubu shilang ) stated that the Salt Business Bureau ( yanyuan) selected two to five people who could “clearly manage affairs (banshi mingbai )” as merchant chiefs (dazong ).91 Yet this too was a rather ambiguous criterion. What were the standards for measuring managerial ability? The person who made the final decision, as Jiang Tan’s case shows, was the salt administrator. His personal preference influenced, or might even determine, the selection of head merchants. Apparently, it was also common for the new salt administrator to reassign head merchants. Securing a good relationship with the salt administrator, therefore, became one of the primary strategies for salt merchants to obtain a head merchant position. Jiang’s strategy to forge connections between his uncles and Giking can thus be understood. Jiang Tan’s case also underscores the deep involvement of court connections in the salt monopoly. Indeed, the foundation for Jiang’s plan was to find the right person in court networks who had connections to Giking. Jiang’s strategy, ultimately, was to use the networks in the court, and especially in the Imperial Household Department, to obtain privilege for his relatives in Yangzhou. The complicated networks in the Imperial Household Department— including family ties, banner membership, bureaucratic connections, and friendships—provided different avenues for Jiang Tan to form personal relationships with officials in the Imperial Household Department, and



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­ ltimately to reach the salt administrator. Jiang, first of all, personally knew u Šenggan because of their previous teacher-student relationship, a significant tie in an elite’s life, especially for each of their political careers. Jiang was able to connect further with Šenggan through his son, Ka-tong-a. Jiang also understood the importance of the supervisor-staff relationship in the Imperial Household Department. Jiang chose Šenggan to write the letter because Šenggan had served as the chief manager of the Imperial Household Department. In Jiang’s opinion, which was later confirmed, Šenggan must know Giking because Giking had previously worked there. The Manchus’ banner system could also be used for network construction. When Šenggan refused to write the letter, Jiang Tan tried, again through his friend Ka-tong-a, to form a tie with the current chief manager of Imperial Household Department, Fu-heng. Jiang evidently felt that because Ka-tong-a’s family came from the same banner as Fu-heng, they must know each other well. In fact, Ka-tong-a did know Fu-heng’s nephew Guan-deng and tried to arrange the letter through him. In addition to these connections, Jiang Tan’s relationship with his colleague and friend Ka-tong-a enabled him to connect with these officials in the first place. This friendship helped Jiang ask Ka-tong-a to arrange for the letters from both Šenggan and Fu-heng. As Ka-tong-a later confessed, Jiang asked him how they could claim a friendship (qingyi ) if Ka-tong-a did not arrange for the letters. Because of this personal relationship, Ka-tong-a felt shame for failing to obtain the letters for Jiang, offering this as the explanation for the forgeries he finally produced. It may seem that Jiang Tan was solely responsible for the actions in this case, but ultimately, his family in Yangzhou was the de facto force behind his activities. Salt merchant families sent their clan or family members to Beijing and provided the support necessary for them to become officials in the court. When Jiang Tan tried to connect his uncles with the officials, he was helping his clan relatives (benjia qinqi ). The Yangzhou head merchants, in this sense, constructed a connection with the salt administrator through their lineage/family connection. After the Huizhou salt merchants obtained the head merchant positions through a complicated network system in the court, as shown in Jiang Tan’s case, this position further provided opportunities for these merchants to advance their connection with the court. As mentioned earlier, the head

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merchants not only operated the salt business but also were in charge of various tasks serving the court, such as arranging and hosting the emperor’s southern tours. Managing these tasks enabled these businessmen to interact directly with the emperor’s retainers. The case of eunuch Zhang Feng illustrates this connection. In 1765, Zhang Feng lost money while gambling with other eunuchs in the palace and decided to escape. On June 21, Zhang stole the empress’s golden edict ( jince), as well as other treasured belongings from the emperor’s harem, and absconded from the palace, claiming that he wanted to take leave at home.92 On July 29, Zhang arrived in Yangzhou by boat. To raise money to continue his travels, Zhang attempted to sell a watch from his loot to the merchant chief Jiang Chun. On September 4, Jiang Chun reported to salt administrator G’ao Hu¯ng that a man with a northern accent was wandering around his residence and hoping to sell some goods to him. Gao secretly sent runners to Jiang Chun’s house. Finally, with the assistance of the runners, Jiang Chun caught Zhang and sent him to G’ao Hu¯ng’s office. Zhang was finally sent back to the court for punishment.93 While this case shows a close relationship between salt administrator G’ao Hu¯ng and head merchant Jiang Chun, it also reveals a connection between Jiang Chun and eunuch Zhang Feng before this incident. Indeed, as Zhang Feng later confessed, he once came to Yangzhou to examine the construction and decoration of the Jing xiang yuan, which the Qianlong emperor planned to visit during his second southern tour. As a consequence, Zhang had met and probably worked with Jiang Chun. Through the process of managing the imperial tours, the head merchants formed ties with people from the court, including the court officials and the emperor’s retainers.94 Finally, because of Jiang Chun’s contribution to catching the delinquent palace eunuch, the Qianlong emperor personally gave him the praise and honorary titles mentioned earlier. The preceding cases demonstrate the existence of complicated and intertwined networks among Huizhou salt merchants, the Qianlong emperor, the Imperial Household Department, the emperor’s retainers, and the emperor’s bondservants who were also salt administrators. The Huizhou salt merchants used different strategies to connect with different parties. As a result, they inserted their own networks into the court network and the salt monopoly institution—whence came their special economic and political privileges in the High Qing period.



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conclusion During the early Qing, Manchu rulers, in order to collect taxes to pay for their military campaigns and consolidate their ruling power, continued the hereditary franchise system used in the late Ming to revive the salt business. Through the hereditary franchise system, a small fixed group of merchants monopolized the salt business in the Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones, accumulating great amounts of wealth in a short time. In addition, the special policies of the franchised salt territory and the franchised certificates in the gang area of the Huainan subzone especially favored the Yangzhou salt merchants, making them some of the wealthiest tradesmen in the ­empire. While adopting late-Ming policies, the Qing emperors also developed two unique changes to reform the salt monopoly system: a systematic appointment of bannermen officials, especially bondservants from the Imperial Household Department, in the most lucrative posts, and the establishment of the head merchant position. These two changes served the Qing court’s own political agenda: the Qing emperors were able to inject their own networks into the salt monopoly institution, making them far more effective than their Ming counterparts in exerting their influence in the wealthiest Jiangnan commercial centers. At the same time, the new policies also provided opportunities for the Huizhou salt merchants to achieve unprecedented economic and political privileges in the High Qing. The fact that the bannermen officials, and especially the emperor’s own bondservants, were sent to Jiangnan as salt censors/salt administrators provided myriad opportunities for the merchants to form direct alliances with the court, and especially with the Imperial Household Department. Through the head merchant position, the Huizhou salt merchants thus integrated their own networks into the salt monopoly institution. With their newfound political status and accumulated wealth, these Huizhou salt merchants undertook a number of projects to strengthen and display their privileges. These projects, closely interacting with and often centering on material objects, extended from the urban centers of Jiangnan to the merchants’ remote hometowns in Huizhou. First and foremost, these merchants needed to consolidate their direct relationships with the court. One of the most effective ways to achieve this goal, for the merchants, was to ­procure and produce the finest objects from Jiangnan for the emperor. That is the subject of the following chapter.

part two

Finding Things in Jiangnan

two

Furnishing the Court In 1772, on behalf of the imperial court, Ingliyan ( Ying-lian), the grand minister of the Imperial Household Department, ordered Li Zhiying to produce the interior decorations for the Yihe Studio ( Yihe xuan) inside the Ningshou Palace, a refined residence that was designed for the Qianlong emperor’s retirement. Li Zhiying, a trusted bondservant of the emperor, was at that time the salt administrator of Lianghuai salt zone. This order came with detailed instructions including a model (tangyang ) and a standard foot measure adopted by the Public Works Ministry ( yingzao chi ). Two other models of the interior design, along with ninety-six sketches (huayang ), soon arrived from the court. Upon receiving the letter from the court, Li immediately began production. He selected salt merchants familiar with the making of court interior decorations—whom he called shu’an shangren—to manage the projects. These merchants purchased high-quality materials necessary for the decorations, selected and hired skilled craftsmen, picked an auspicious day to begin, and supervised the work. Eight months later, on September 10, 1773, all the commissioned work was completed. After he scrutinized the results, Li carefully packed each item and asked his own servants to deliver the packages to Beijing by boat.1

This episode describes one of the many tasks that the salt administrators in Yangzhou managed in the eighteenth century for the court: procuring and making objects for imperial use. The Qianlong emperor, who commissioned these tasks, was famous for his insatiable fondness for the finest things from Jiangnan. He collected artwork and antiques and also requested specific objects to be made here. Jiangnan was famous for its production of fine art in the late Ming and High Qing. Along with this fame, the region also boasted some of the empire’s most skilled craftsmen. For all these reasons, the Qianlong emperor’s bondservants, the salt administrators, were given the tasks of procuring and producing things for court use. Producing these objects in Jiangnan, however, was by no means easy. For practical reasons, interior decorations meant for court use were often produced within the walls of the Forbidden City, where craftsmen could customize them for the actual space of the buildings.2 Therefore, distant Jiangnan was not an ideal place to make things for court. While these exquisite objects all made their way to the palace in Beijing, the actual procurement and production process remained unclear to historians: How did the emperor collect such a vast 63

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number of items from Jiangnan? How were these objects sought out and produced? Who paid for these things? This chapter aims to answer these questions. I show that the Yangzhou salt bureau was one of the institutions that arranged the procurement and production of a great number of objects that the court requested from Jiangnan. The memorials often referred to this arrangement as “running errands for the emperor” (banchai ). The emperor’s bondservants, the Yangzhou salt administrators, were placed in charge, subject to the court’s orders. An individual salt administrator, however, would not be able to manage these tasks on his own. The Yangzhou head merchants thus helped the salt officials look for, purchase, and make these objects. In most memorials, these assistant merchants were referred to as the “knowledgeable merchants familiar with the job” (shu’an shangren or shu’an tuoshang ).3 The newly reformed salt monopoly system made the shipping of these refined objects from Jiangnan to Beijing possible. As seen in Chapter 1, the changes in the Qing salt monopoly policy placed merchants in a new direct relationship with the Manchu court. By tracing the circuit of the objects that the salt merchants procured and produced, this chapter examines how these luxurious items provided an effective channel through which merchants could facilitate and reinforce their connections with the court. In the meantime, the exploration of the salt merchants’ management of these fine objects reveals the mechanisms that the Qianlong emperor used to access wealth and materials in the urban centers of Jiangnan. The chapter is composed of five parts. The first three sections each examine a type of object that merchants submitted to the throne: tributary goods, court-commissioned objects, and rare books for the imperial book collection project titled The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries. The fourth section explains the salt merchants’ financial involvement in these tasks. The last part examines how the flow of these objects helped create a circuit of taste and style between the court and Jiangnan.

managing tributary goods (gongwu) in yangzhou The Qianlong emperor received a great number of refined objects from Jiangnan through a widely operated tribute system. Most of these tributary



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goods ( gongwu) were commodities circulating in the Jiangnan market. This section examines how these tributes were searched for, selected, and presented to the emperor. While the Lianghuai salt administrators were often in charge of managing the tributes, the Yangzhou salt merchants, through their broad networks, provided indispensable assistance in preparing these luxury goods. The tribute system has a long history in China.4 The name of this system came from the gifts ( gong ) that were presented to the Chinese emperor. Although gong is translated as “tribute” in English, as Mark Elliott has pointed out, the meanings of these two words do not correspond exactly. The word gong “in fact referred to any gift presented to the emperor [emphasis in original].” Therefore, the tribute system was “a framework that structured relations between the emperor and any outsiders who might approach him”— with “outsiders” including “everybody outside the court.”5 Indeed, two forms of tribute existed in China: diplomatic and domestic. In the case of diplomatic tribute, the tributary goods were presented by foreign envoys to the Chinese emperor as part of China’s diplomatic relations with other countries. The foreign envoys presented gifts and performed court rituals to Chinese emperors to acknowledge China’s eminent and supreme status. At the same time, these foreign emissaries received valuable objects from the emperor and, more importantly, the opportunity to trade with China. Internal tribute, on the other hand, occurred inside the empire, between the emperor and his subjects.6 In order to express their admiration for and loyalty to the emperor, privileged social groups, including the imperial nobles, qualified officials, and sometimes commoners on special occasions, presented their gifts to the court. In response, the emperor would reward these people with favors or other benefits. The internal tribute system therefore provided a channel of communication between the emperor and his subjects, and in the meantime emphasized a hierarchical relationship between the ruler and his officials. These emperor-subject interactions were mediated through gift exchange. The Qianlong emperor fully incorporated the tribute system into his political culture.7 The great increase in the tributary documents called “tribute lists” ( gongzhong jindan) during his reign—amounting to half of the total number of the lists in the Qing dynasty—demonstrates the predominance of the tribute system.8 More importantly, both the quantity and the quality

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of tribute exceeded those received during other reigns. By comparing the tributary lists from Guangdong province during the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns, Yang Boda has found that “the variety, quality and quantity of the items [from Qianlong’s reign] multiplied in a geometric progression.” After the eighteenth century, for example during the Daoguang era, valuable items, such as dragon robes, precious zitan wood furniture, and jade desk decorations, all disappeared from the tribute lists.9 The various names of the tribute forms, as well as the diverse reasons and occasions for presenting tribute, further show the Qianlong emperor’s encouragement of tribute from local officials. The standard tribute in the Qing was “annual tribute” (suigong ) or “routine tribute” (changgong ). The gift presenters were supposed to voluntarily submit their goods to the emperor on three specific dates in one year: the emperor’s birthday, the New Year, and the Dragon Boat (duanyang ) festival. In addition to these “routine” tributes, individuals also presented goods on other occassions. For example, officials could present their gifts to the emperor during imperial tours outside the Forbidden City, such as the trips to Mount Tai, Mount Wutai, and the Jiangnan area. This tribute was thus called “welcoming imperial carriage tribute” ( yingluangong ) or “road tribute” (lugong ).10 Tribute submission became so commonly practiced during the Qianlong reign that it could even take place without any reason. Officials could simply present their gifts when they were called into the palace by the emperor.11 The Qianlong emperor even requested specific items to be submitted to the court. These requested things were often difficult to find or make in Beijing.12 The emperor therefore appointed specific officials, usually his bondservants who served as local bureaucrats, to search for these objects. These “gifts” that lost their nature of being presented voluntarily were called “commissioned tribute” (chuanbangong ). The Yangzhou salt administrators, as the Qianlong emperor’s trusted bondservants, needed to submit a large number of tributary goods on their own and were also in charge of arranging the commissioned tributes for the court.13 The salt administrators, however, did not handle such a vast scale of tribute preparation solely by themselves. Instead, they often “selected merchants to manage the goods” (xuanshang lingban).14 These merchants, as the memorials reveal, were the Yangzhou head merchants. For instance, in 1793 when the newly appointed salt administrator Ba-ning-a investigated his predecessor Ciowande’s management of tributes, he called on the current



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head merchants, who were led by Huizhou salt merchant Hong Zhenyuan, and asked them how Ciowande handled the tribute. Through his investigation, Ba-ning-a concluded that “the tributary goods from the Lianghuai salt zone . . . were always managed by the merchants.”15 While court documents contain abundant lists on the objects that were submitted from Yangzhou, a detailed account of the procurement process is missing. A lack of documentation on this matter was probably caused by the vague and sometimes conflicting attitudes toward who should be responsible for tributes. In fact, both the Qianlong emperor and some of his officials agreed that the Lianghuai salt administrators “should prepare tributary goods” (liying beiban gongwu) by themselves, and it was thus “disrespectful” ( fei jingjin zhidao) to ask merchants to do it.16 However, by drawing scattered evidence from edicts, memorials, and local anecdote collections (biji ), we can use an example of jade tribute to reconstruct how these merchants searched for and arranged luxurious gifts for the emperor. This jade tribute case appears in the Qianlong emperor’s edicts responding to Ciowande’s memorial in 1784 (QL 49), which describe how the salt administrator Ilingga appointed head merchant Jiang Chun to arrange a tribute of jade articles. These jade objects were presented by Ilingga during Qianlong’s southern tour in 1784. As Ciowande’s memorial recorded, Jiang Chun first arranged for some businessmen (mai mai ren) to purchase jade objects. After the goods were accepted by the emperor, Jiang arranged for reimbursement to the businessmen through the salt administrator.17 These edicts and memorials do not specify who these jade businessmen were, but a confession from a jade smuggling case, along with accounts in biji, reveals a close personal relationship between Jiang and one jade seller, Gu Youjian. The jade smuggling case, in which Gu Youjian appeared, was investigated by the salt administrator Ilingga in 1779 (QL 43). During the trial, the criminal Niu Si confessed that after he delivered the raw jade from Xinjiang to Yangzhou, he sold the material to two men named Li Tailai and Gu Youjian.18 Although the court documents did not specify who these two men were, Li Dou’s Record of the Painted Boats of Yangzhou recorded Gu’s biography in the section about people who associated with Jiang Chun. As the biography says, “Gu Youjian is a Suzhou person who has a good eye for antiques. . . . Though he came from a poor family, he was so generous that knowledgeable people ( youshizhe) admired him.”19 This brief reference portrays Gu as a person who, though born into modest means, became quite

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wealthy within a short time and was generous to other people. Because his biography mentions neither his degree nor his literary talent, Gu probably never took the examination nor was classically educated. Given the fact that Gu actually bought a considerable amount of uncut jade for a sum of seventeen thousand taels of silver, it is most likely that Gu was involved in the jade business, either buying and selling jade in Xinjiang or commissioning the production of jade articles for the trade. It is difficult to confirm whether Gu was the businessman who helped Jiang acquire the jade objects in 1784, but it is reasonable to suggest that Gu might have provided some jade objects to Jiang for tribute use, a business arrangement that would also bring profits to Gu. It is also likely that Gu helped Jiang evaluate and select jade. As the preceding case demonstrates, the Huizhou salt merchant Jiang Chun’s connections with businessmen helped him locate potential tributes for the emperor. Gu Youjian was certainly not the only person who associated with Jiang. Jiang also knew other skilled men who could make highquality products. For example, Wang Dahong, a local calligrapher from She county, was an expert in chime-clock making (zi ming zhong ). He resided in Jiang Chun’s house for several years, and Jiang “often presented Wang’s clocks as tribute” (chang yi Wang suozhi chonggong ).20 In addition to these businessmen and artisans, the Huizhou salt merchants also had a broad network of connoisseurs who could help them evaluate the quality of the objects. This step was especially important in the case of submitting antiques and ancient artworks. While the Qianlong emperor frequently commanded his bondservants to look for antiques, calligraphy, paintings, and rare books from Jiangnan, he rejected most items in these categories, either because he judged the tribute to be forged or simply because it was not good enough. Even Li Zhiying, one of Qianlong’s favorite bondservants, who had won the emperor’s compliments on handling tributes well, failed to meet Qianlong’s standard. In June 1770, Li submitted sixty pieces of zang jing paper (the paper used for recording Buddhist scripts), sixteen pieces of rice paper from Xuan, one piece of Mi Fu’s (1051–1107) large-character calligraphy, and pieces of calligraphy from a famous poet and calligrapher Su Shi (1037–1101).21 Yet all the calligraphy works were rejected by the emperor, who pronounced them forgeries.22 While the Qianlong emperor gradually developed his own advanced skills in connoisseurship and maintained a high standard for artworks, knowing how to ensure the artworks’ quality and authenticity became especially important.23



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In this context, the merchants’ patronage of various connoisseurs in antiques, painting, and calligraphy played a crucial role in helping them evaluate artworks. For instance, Jiang Chun’s friend Wang Ge was depicted as “knowing the secret way to appreciate ancient paintings and bronze and jade objects.” Another one of Jiang’s patrons, Wen Qi, was famous for his vast acquaintance with antiques and enjoyed a reputation as a connoisseur ( jianshangjia ).24 Jiang Chun was by no means the only salt merchant who associated with such people. In fact, most of the Huizhou head merchant families in eighteenth-century Yangzhou were known for their circles of talented people who excelled in all kinds of art. Bao Zhidao’s (1743–1801) household in Tangyue village in She county—which produced three generations of head merchants in the late Qianlong reign—was friends with Huang Dexu, who specialized in antique (shi guqi ), painting, and calligraphy connoisseurship.25 With the help of these connoisseurs, the head merchants were able to meet the emperor’s standards. In 1780, for instance, Qianlong accepted several paintings submitted by the salt administrator Ilingga on behalf of Jiang Chun26—the only paintings he accepted during that year.27 The Huizhou salt merchants’ expansive relationships with businessmen and talented people enabled them to find a large quantity of luxury goods for the Qianlong emperor. Obtaining and evaluating these cultural items, however, was only the first step in tribute management. The salt merchants also developed a system to store and submit these commodities. Ba-ning-a’s memorial in 1793 provides valuable insight here. In that year, as mentioned earlier, Qianlong appointed Ba-ning-a to investigate whether the previous salt administrator, Ciowande, had illicitly sought personal profit while he was holding office. The emperor instructed Ba-ning-a to pay attention to Ciowande’s management of tributary goods. As Ba-ning-a reported: The goods from the Lianghuai salt zone that were used to express local people’s sincerity (beiwu shuchen) were always managed by the salt merchants; the previous salt administrator Ciowande did not attend to these matters at all. [After the goods were viewed], the emperor often only accepted one or two items. The rest were always returned to the merchants and were stored in a warehouse (Wubentang ). [The merchants would later] resubmit these goods in response to future requests ( peida zaijin). There were also files (dangce) recording lists of tributary goods.28

As this statement shows, the Huizhou salt merchants developed a tribute managing system that included complete files of all tribute items submitted,

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and a specific storehouse, Wubentang, in which the objects were preserved. Wubentang was the head merchants’ office in Yangzhou, containing the vault where money was stored. Specific staff personnel were appointed to be in charge of this warehouse.29 In addition, the merchants not only submitted tributes but also had a system in place to receive, log, and preserve gongyu (the gifts rejected by the emperor) and then wait for another occasion to submit them again. In this way, the salt merchants did not waste these expensive goods or their own time and were also prepared for the next submission. The Huizhou salt merchants, in other words, established a systematic procedure to handle the process and monitor the tribute on their own official premises. When the Qianlong emperor flooded the salt bureau in Jiangnan with requests for refined tribute objects, the Lianghuai salt administrators were required to respond with an enormous quantity of tributary goods. These demands opened a door for the Huizhou salt merchants to come to the local officials’ assistance, acquiring and arranging for tribute commodities. The merchants’ social and patronage networks with local businessmen and connoisseurs enabled them to find and evaluate the goods that met the Qianlong emperor’s expectations. Their management also lightened the salt administrator’s burden and strengthened their own connections with the emperor’s bondservants.

making court-commissioned objects (huoji) In addition to tributes, the Qianlong emperor also used craftsmen across the empire, in Beijing and regional urban centers, to produce objects for court use (huoji ).30 During his reign, the Qianlong emperor requested a variety of objects to be made in Yangzhou. This section focuses on the production process of these Yangzhou-made things and explores the role that Huizhou salt merchants played in it. More specifically, I analyze how the Qianlong emperor’s taste directed the production of these objects and how the salt merchants conformed to his strict requirements. Among the objects the Qianlong emperor regularly commissioned to be made in Yangzhou, jade articles ( yu huoji ) were the most frequently requested.31 Many other things, such as golden leaves, letter papers, and



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q­ uotidian objects including dishes and furniture were also required.32 In addition to individual items, the emperor also ordered large sets of objects to be made in Yangzhou. One of the most famous such jobs was the interior decoration (neiyan zhuangxiu/zhuangxiu wujian) for Qianlong’s garden in the Tranquillity and Longevity Palace (Ningshou gong ). The orders for this project included a wide variety of items such as windows, porcelain roof tiles, and different kinds of furniture or furniture components.33 Just as in the case of arranging tributes, the emperor often appointed the salt administrators to manage the production of these refined objects. The Lianghuai head merchants, again, provided necessary assistance. An examination of a specific task that the salt administrator arranged for the court allows us to trace the actual production procedure. We will use the interior decorations that Li Zhiying prepared for the rooms in Yunzhen Studio ( Yunzhen zhai) in Changchun Garden (Changchun yuan) as an ­example.34 On June 5, 1770, Sanhe (San-he), the chief manager of the Imperial Household Department, submitted to the emperor the design sketches (huayang ) of windows and cabinets for Yunzhen Studio. After the Qianlong emperor approved it, Sanhe sent down these designs and a standard foot measure to Li Zhiying and asked him to arrange the production of these pieces. Li Zhiying received this order on June 22, 1770, and immediately started the project. As Li reported in his later memorial: Your servant [I] selected merchants who were familiar with [this kind of task] (shu’an shangren). I asked them to go to Suzhou to select and purchase zitan wood (tiao mai zitan). [I also asked them to] vet and hire craftsmen (xuan gu gongjiang ) to discuss the new design (zhuoding xinshi huawen) and then to make the [furniture] precisely according to instructions ( yiyang chengzuo). The production was started on the auspicious day of July 3, 1770. . . . After manufacture commenced, your servant went to the workshop ( gongsuo) to check [the progress of production] every other day, with the intention of ensuring that the quality of these things would be exquisite ( jingzhi ) and not crude (cucao). Under [my] supervision and constant pressuring, production finished on August 18, 1770.35

As this memorial reveals, while the salt administrator received the order from the Imperial Household Department, the salt merchants who were familiar with these tasks conducted the work, which comprised two major tasks: purchasing raw materials and selecting and hiring craftsmen.36

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The extant documents, unfortunately, do not provide detailed information on how, in practice, these objects were produced in Yangzhou.37 An analysis of the materiality of zitan wood and its availability in the High Qing, however, enables us to understand the situation in which these merchants were positioned to accomplish these tasks and helps us reconstruct how they purchased the raw materials. Zitan is a purplish-brown, lustrous hard wood. It is often compared to jade because of its beauty and because it is difficult to carve.38 Zitan mainly grew on the Malay peninsula and in Indonesia. In China, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces also produced some but in very small amounts. Most zitan, therefore, was imported from Southeast Asia.39 Both the Ming and Qing courts favored zitan. The hardness of the wood made zitan perfect material for furniture: it lasts a long time and it allows delicate carving. Yet the hardness of the wood—associated with a long growth period—limited its availability and production. The Ming court had stockpiled large quantities of the material.40 However, because of its slow growth, zitan supplies had quickly diminished under the pressure of excessive consumption. At the end of the Ming, even the formerly plentiful zitan wood in Southeast Asia had nearly disappeared. By the mid-Qing, because of diminishing resources of zitan, the Manchu court had to collect any zitan that could be found in the markets.41 As recorded in Li’s memorial, these merchants traveled to Suzhou to purchase wood. This suggests that during the mid-Qing era, not much zitan was available in Yangzhou market. I have not located direct sources on how these merchants found zitan; what we can delineate from the documents on the timber business in late imperial China, however, was the important role that the Huizhou salt merchants’ network played in the process. Wealthy Huizhou salt merchants used zitan furniture in their own residences and thus should have known where to purchase this precious wood. As a private secretary named Wu Zhichang recorded, he was once invited to a party at a prominent Huizhou salt merchant’s home and was impressed by the side walls of a room; these walls were covered by zitan panels, with refined and exquisite carvings of natural scenes and human figures.42 Historians have also noted that from the late Ming onward, Huizhou merchants, in particular merchants from Wuyuan county, began to dominate the timber business in Jiangnan. These businessmen purchased a variety of wood from regions with rich timber sources such as Sichuan and Guizhou in southwest China and then gathered and traded these materials



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in Jiangnan markets.43 In 1738, as Fan Jinmin shows, the Huizhou merchants owned at least ninety-four timber stores in Suzhou.44 Given the fact that most Yangzhou head merchants came from Huizhou, it is highly possible that these salt merchants located these precious materials in Suzhou through their hometown connections. These head merchants regularly purchased other precious materials besides zitan for the court as well. One document preserved in the Grand Council, apparently a copy of a reimbursement report, recorded a variety of materials that head merchants purchased from 1758 to 1762.45 According to this source, five head merchants—Huang Yuande, Jiang Guangda, Xu Shangzhi, Wang Lütai, and Li Yongda—successfully found a great quantity of the precious woods, in addition to zitan, preferred by the imperial court, including hongmu (blackwood), huangyang, xichi, nanmu, and xiangfeizhu (xiangfei bamboo).46 The first three merchants on this list came from the western region of She county in Huizhou.47 The difficult and complicated task of purchasing these precious and rare materials was only the first step in the production process; next came selecting and hiring craftsmen. Making these objects was by no means easy. The quality and quantity had to conform to the strict requirements and instructions specified by the Qianlong emperor—the ultimate standard against which craftsmen’s skills were measured. Even though these objects were produced in Yangzhou, the Qianlong emperor and his imperial household still carefully supervised and firmly controlled the production process through various communication mechanisms.48 As the preceding case demonstrates, the Imperial Household Department would first send instructions to the salt administrator, usually including sketches, a standard foot measure, and scaled sketches and models of proposed buildings where the items would be used.49 These models, sketches, and foot measure specified size, structure, and design for the decoration.50 In addition, the particular patterns to be carved on room panels or other components were carefully detailed by the court. The palace craftsmen usually designed the pattern first, and then the Qianlong emperor would review it. After the emperor confirmed the design, the craftsmen sketched the patterns and sent them down to the salt administrator. For the more delicate designs, after the work was finished, the salt administrator would have to hire a painter or craftsman to draw the designs that had been carved on the objects and submit them to the emperor for detailed review.51

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If the emperor was dissatisfied with the completed work, the craftsmen had to remake the objects. The process for making jade objects was even more strictly controlled by the court. In addition to the imperial jade workshop, Ruyi Hall, the Qianlong emperor set up eight local workshops to fashion jade objects. The Yangzhou workshop, because of its skilled jade carvers who resided in the  area, produced a variety of objects for the court.52 The Qianlong emperor usually authorized each step in the production process and ranked the finished products according to his own aesthetic standards.53 Sometimes the emperor asked the salt administrator to submit a wood sample of the prospective jade object for him to review in order to ensure that the design and carving technique met his personal standards.54 On other occasions, the emperor sent down a sample jade object for the salt administrator to copy.55 Above all, meeting the emperor’s standards was the ultimate goal for local artisans and the essential criterion that the merchants used to hire craftsmen. What, then, were Qianlong’s standards? As Li Zhiying reported in his memorial cited earlier, he aimed to make these zitan furniture exquisite ( jingzhi ) and not crude (cucao). The Qianlong emperor had also once complained of the poor quality of the items that he had recently received from Yangzhou. According to the emperor, the craftsmen who made these objects did not follow the models (burushi ), and the finished objects themselves were quite crude (cucao).56 These two sources show that a qualified craftsman needed to master two types of skill. First, he needed to be able to avoid any imperfection in the manufacturing process, such as mistakes in carving the ornamentation, polishing the surface, or assembling the composition; his skill, in this sense, would produce a sophisticated and delicate object instead of a crude one. Second, the craftsman needed to be able to precisely follow the court instructions. The artisans needed to be familiar with the style preferred by the court and have the skill to re-create that style. The imperial court did not always send down models or detailed instructions; sometimes it allowed the local artisans to design the pattern for the commissioned goods. In this situation, knowing how to create a design that would meet the emperor’s standards required even more skill on the part of the craftsmen.57 The salt merchants’ broad networks, as introduced in the previous section, helped them to locate and work with the very best craftsmen and artisans. For instance, one of head merchant Jiang Chun’s friends, Gu Licheng,



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was famous for mansion construction ( gongshi zhi zhi ). As Li Dou recorded, “The design sketch and scale (tuyang chicun) of all the court-commissioned inner structures and room decorations that were made in Lianghuai were all made by Gu’s hand.”58 It is tempting to imagine that Gu must have assisted Jiang in finishing some of the construction projects for the palace. Jiang’s friend Pan Chenglie was also good at house construction. Yangzhou native Wen Qi, another friend of Jiang’s, had a reputation for broad knowledge in technical plans for the manufacturing of all kinds ( gongcheng zuofa).59 It is highly possible that Pan and Wen participated in some of the manufacturing projects for the imperial court as well. Finally, in addition to purchasing materials and hiring craftsmen, the salt merchants also helped supervise the production process. Li Zhiying, as stated by himself, only “occasionally” (bushi ) went to the workshop to check on the workers’ progress.60 Instead, he appointed “competent merchants (xiaoshi shangren) to follow the measurements that were sent by the court and carefully supervise the manufacturing process (xiangshen jianzao).”61 Given the large scale and complexity of these productions, it would have been impossible for a salt administrator who was also in charge of salt business to supervise the entire manufacturing process on his own.62 The salt merchants, in this context, might be the de facto supervisors who checked on the manufacturing process on the ground.

finding rare books for the emperor While the tributary goods and court-commissioned objects supplied items for court use according to a regular schedule, the grand projects that the Qianlong emperor occasionally commissioned also provided opportunities for merchants to serve the court. The compilation of The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries was one of these special projects. The Qianlong emperor designed the Four Treasuries project to collect and make copies of all the books in the empire. In so doing, he intended not only to revive the long tradition of imperial book collecting practiced by previous dynasties but also to demonstrate his personal encompassing of and mastery over Han Chinese culture.63 In the collecting process, many books, especially the precious ones, had been preserved by private owners and were not available on the market. The emperor, who had no direct means of accessing some of the

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largest private collections in Jiangnan, deputized salt merchants who had such access to search for the books. The nature of these rare books therefore made Yangzhou salt merchants the perfect agents for the court. Through these merchants’ networks, the emperor executed his empire-wide book collection project and, more importantly, extended his imperial reach to the local, granular level in an unprecedented fashion. A brief introduction of the book collection process will help us understand how and why the emperor needed to incorporate Yangzhou salt merchants in this project. In 1772, the court organized and developed an institutional system with extensive networks to carry out the Four Treasuries project. The first step was to collect the best editions of books from the entire empire. In practice, the process of collecting books for the Four Treasuries consisted of four stages. In the first stage, the prefects were to collect books from book owners. Second, these books would be gathered in book bureaus (shuju), where the local educational officials would inspect and evaluate the books. Third, the book bureaus would select the best edition of each book. And, finally, the governor would send the selected books to Beijing. After the books were delivered to the palace, the court would then hire more than seven hundred editors, collators, and copyists—including some high-ranking government officials at court and leaders in the literary circles of the day—to compile, evaluate, and write carefully annotated catalogs for all of the included works.64 Throughout this process, collecting books from private owners was the most difficult and complicated part. The emperor first sent edicts to governors-general (zongdu) and provincial governors (xunfu), who in turn transmitted Qianlong’s orders to the prefects (zhifu) under their jurisdiction. The magistrate then charged his clerks ( jiaoguan and xundao) to look for books in private collections in the local society. In the meantime, the emperor asked his governors, particularly those in provinces where private libraries were extensively developed, to establish ad hoc centers known as book bureaus to receive, select, and evaluate valuable books.65 Overall, the bureaucracy for the Four Treasuries project ranged from governors-general and provincial governors to county magistrates and clerks, all working through book bureaus. Yet even this complex institutional network was unable to collect all the books that the emperor wanted. As the edicts will show shortly, the Qianlong emperor had heard of the fame of some most renowned Chinese



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b­ ibliophiles in Jiangnan and was concerned that his officials would not be able to search thoroughly in these private collections. Aware of this problem, Qianlong turned to his salt administrator and head merchants to search for books in Yangzhou, where the prominent merchant bibliophiles resided. On April 20, 1773, Qianlong ordered Governor-General G’ao Jin to look for and purchase books in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas. Under pressure, G’ao Jin at once expedited the search for books in the Jiangsu area and sent the collected books to the Suzhou book bureau.66 Meanwhile, G’ao Jin sent an express delivery letter ( feizha) to the Yangzhou prefect to ask him to investigate in person the book collection belonging to the salt merchant family of Ma Yu, and to make a book inventory for G’ao Jin. Ma Yu was the son of the famous art patron and salt merchant Ma Yuelu (1697–1766?; zi Peixi, hao Bancha). Yuelu and his brother Ma Yueguan (1688–1755; zi Qiuyu, hao Xiegu), who were known as “The Two Mas of Yangzhou” (Yangzhou er ma), won their fame by sponsoring various cultural activities in eighteenth-­ century Yangzhou. Their library contained one of the best book collections in Jiangnan.67 Although the Ma brothers were well known as art patrons, they were also head merchants. Ma Yueguan was acknowledged and praised by the emperor for the food and funds he provided in the wake of disasters.68 Ma Yu himself was referred to as a head merchant and inherited the library from his father.69 After G’ao Jin had carefully examined Ma Yu’s list, he selected 133 items, of which he sent 68 to the Suzhou book bureau. Regarding the remaining 65 items, G’ao Jin commanded Yangzhou officials to borrow them from the Ma family and examine them in Yangzhou. Following Qianlong’s edict issued on April 24, 1773, however, the process of collecting books in Yangzhou completely changed. The emperor decided to ask Yangzhou salt administrator Li Zhiying to be in charge of this task and use head merchants as book collector agents. As he stated in his edict: Li Zhiying originally came from the Hanlin Academy, so he is personally familiar with classical books ( yu dianji qiwei shangjin). Now he is a salt administrator, so it will be easy to make him do this [collect books from salt merchant bibliophiles]. Therefore, he needs to send the head merchants who understand things (zongshang nei xiaoshi zhiren), such as Jiang Guangda and so forth, to broadly visit [book collectors] and borrow books by using connections through their relatives and friends ( yin qin ji you). There is no need to ask government clerks (lixu) to manage this thing, and moreover it will not cause trouble (bubi jiashou lixu, gengke buzhi zirao).70

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As this edict shows, Qianlong acknowledged the fact that the Yangzhou salt merchants were the most prominent book collectors in Jiangnan; more importantly, he understood that the most effective way to obtain access to these private collections was through merchants’ personal connections, which probably existed because of established business relations and which gave them the best knowledge of private collections in Yangzhou. In the next two weeks, the Qianlong emperor closely checked on the process of replacing Governor-General G’ao Jin and his bureaucracy with the salt administrator and the head merchants. Having promptly responded to the emperor’s order on April 24, Li Zhiying had already picked eight head merchants in Yangzhou and commanded them “to use their relatives and friends and broadly visit [book collectors] to borrow books ( guangwei fangjie)” before May 11. Li also summoned Ma Yu to his office and announced Qianlong’s edict to him. As Li described, Ma “was enthusiastically willing to lend the books.” On May 19, the Qianlong emperor stated that the books that had been sent to the Suzhou book bureau, as well as the books left in the Yangzhou office, should be returned to Li Zhiying, who would deal with them together.71 At this point, Li finally replaced G’ao Jin and the Yangzhou local officials to assume responsibility for the Four Treasuries project.72 The following memorials show that these head merchants accomplished their job well. After the official had selected 776 books from the collection of Ma Yu, the emperor still suspected that Ma was hiding other rare books at home. In order to eliminate the emperor’s suspicion, Li Zhiying promised that he would “secretly and thoroughly inquire or visit” (xiangxi mifang ) Ma’s private library. The key word in this phrase, fang, means “visit and inquire,” implying that a close investigation of Ma’s collection needed to be implemented under an intimate or personal circumstance. What Li did was to ask the head merchants led by Jiang Chun for information on the Ma family. These head merchants later reported to Li Zhiying: Ma Yu is a punctilious fellow (weiren xiaoxin jinchi ). Because his household collected a large quantity of books and he worried that some books might get lost, he composed a book list clearly recording each item to facilitate later audits (zhuyi dengming, yibian chakao). The book list that he presented [to the salt administrator] is his private record of his book collection (cangshu sizhang ). [This book list] thus includes every detail and leaves nothing out



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(xianxi buyi, ju kai zainei ). Jiang Guangda and other head merchants often visited [Ma Yu’s] house, and they had there seen this book list.73

As this report shows, Jiang Chun had been a friend of Ma’s family for years, and he had frequently visited Ma’s house. Jiang might have constructed this friendship with Ma Yu because they were both head merchants. Thanks to this relationship, Jiang himself had seen Ma’s private record. Because this record matched the book list that Ma showed to the official, Jiang confirmed that Ma had shown everything to the official. As we have seen, the key element leading to the success of this search was Jiang’s relationship to Ma. Without their close connections, the emperor’s bondservant Li would not have been able to inquire about or visit ( fang ) Ma’s private collection, at least not easily or swiftly. Based on these head merchants’ report, as Li stated in the same memorial, he was finally convinced that Ma Yu had indeed presented the entirety of his collection to the court “without reserving anything in secret” (si wu bieyou micang zhi shi ). Qianlong also worried about corruption. The nature of these rare books, and the fact that most of them were preserved by private collectors, signaled potential trouble from the local clerks. In the edict issued on June 6, 1773, the emperor had ordered, “Do not let the clerks in charge of this work [returning books to Fan Maozhu] detain the books (kouliu queshao), and do not let the clerks (xuli ) extort [bribes as a condition for] . . . returning books ( jieduan xusuo).”74 Incorporating the involvement of these salt merchants would, in Qianlong’s opinion, help avoid these corrupt activities that might be caused by clerks. The merchants’ personal connection with the bibliophiles would prevent them from coercing or extorting the other book collectors. The emperor’s strategy to cooperate with merchants seems to have been successful. As Li reported in his last memorial to the throne on September 6, 1774: I did not establish a book bureau. I did not commission the governor to undertake [the Four Treasuries project] and also did not make use of clerks. Therefore, it seems that there have been no corrupt practices, such as clerks changing the books or extorting from the bibliophiles.75

The book collecting in Yangzhou turned out to be a huge success. Li Zhiying submitted 1,780 books in total, among which 932 titles were ­submitted

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by Jiang Chun and other head merchants.76 Jiangsu province submitted the most books to the government, totaling 4,808 titles.77 Among these books, almost one fifth were located by the head merchants.

salt merchants financial support The procurement and production of refined objects for court use, as discussed earlier, were by no means easy. The salt administrators lacked ties with local businessmen and specialists. With their main responsibility to manage the already complicated and tedious salt business in the Lianghuai, it was also difficult for them to handle such a volume of refined goods on their own. Because of their broad networks with businessmen, craftsmen, and connoisseurs of arts and antiques as well as managerial abilities, the Yangzhou salt merchants provided indispensable assistance to the salt administrators. Beyond those reasons, however, these wealthy merchants’ economic prowess laid down another foundation enabling these businessmen to serve the court. As previously shown, the Lianghuai salt administrators arranged to supply three types of goods for the court: voluntary tributes, commissioned tributes, and court-commissioned objects. In theory, the cost of preparing these goods should have been covered by various regular budget sources. But this was often not the case. In many occasions, as court documents indicate, the head merchants had to pay for these expensive things from their own pockets. A brief introduction of the financial arrangement of these objects will help us understand merchants’ economic involvement in these tasks. The budget for voluntary tribute was supposed to come from the salt administrators’ own salary. Before 1770 (QL 35), salt administrators had been able to choose between two means of paying their voluntary tribute: using government funding or spending their own “integrity-nourishing money” ( yang lian yin). In 1770 (QL 35), however, the head of the Grand Council, Fuheng, decided to raise the salary of the Lianghuai salt administrator to fifteen thousand taels, in order to force the salt administrator to pay for the entire cost of tribute.78 The emperor approved Fu-heng’s decision, and this policy remained in effect for the rest of Qianlong’s reign.79



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It was common, however, for a salt administrator to use merchants’ money to arrange for his own tributary goods. This practice became so common that it even aroused the attention of the emperor. In 1776, Qianlong asked Inju ( Yin-zhu) to investigate the former salt administrator Ilingga, who, as the emperor noticed, abnormally submitted more tributes than his integritynourishing money should have been able to afford. Qianlong suspected that Ilingga must have asked the salt merchants to arrange the tribute for him, and he “appropriated it as his own” ( juwei jiyou). Qianlong criticized this as “especially inappropriate” ( you shu feili ).80 Ilingga apparently did not learn from this lesson and was accused by Qianlong again four years later. In September 1780, after Ilingga submitted some tributes, Qianlong immediately found Ilingga’s name on another list of tributary goods. The emperor soon discovered that the gifts that Ilingga submitted the first time were actually gifts from salt merchants. Qianlong was angry and wrote: Previously, the salt administrators always asked the salt merchants to arrange the tributary goods for them. I already sent down the edict to prohibit this activity. . . . The money from the salt administrator and the salt merchants must be clearly separated.81

Qianlong wanted to prohibit the salt administrator from using salt merchants’ money for tribute in order to maintain a clear separation between the salt administrator’s budget and the salt merchants’ own wealth. Yet the fact that Qianlong frequently sent down edicts to ban this unscrupulous activity and even appointed officials to investigate these actions reveals the frequency with which it occurred. Unlike the voluntary tribute that was supposed to be paid for by the officials themselves, the “commissioned tribute” and the production of “commissioned objects” were always covered by two special funds established by the Lianghuai salt administration: an annual fund of forty-eight thousand taels, known as the “fund for external expenses” (waizhi yin), and an annual fund of forty thousand taels titled “fund to cover the shortfall in the fund for external expenses” (waizhi bufu yin). The latter covered the expenses from preparing tribute and imperial commissions when the “fund for external expenses” was inadequate.82 As scholars have argued and my evidence shows shortly, in the Qianlong reign, the money for these two funds was collected from the salt merchants. Whatever remained of these funds each year, if

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anything, would also be delivered to the treasury of the Imperial Household Department.83 Even though these funds were designed to pay for these goods, in many cases they were not used for that purpose. For instance, on October 25, 1771 (QL36-9-18), Li Zhiying reported on expenditures for jade object production in Yangzhou. Li mentioned that for the previous year, he managed to make thirty-five jade articles. He needed, however, to spend the “fund to cover the shortfall in the fund for external expenses” (waizhi bufu yin) on only nineteen of them. He had not needed to pay for the other sixteen objects because the manufacturing cost for these pieces had been very low.84 This kind of case commonly appeared in memorials and were referred to as reimbursement (zouxiao). These documents were used to report on the expenditure involved in the production of the commissioned objects for the emperor’s review.85 In other words, other salt administrators, just like Li, had also not spent the money from the funds to pay for the manufacturing fee. Instead, the Yangzhou salt merchants paid for some of these expensive items. A later memorial on jade manufacturing illustrates the process. On November 17, 1792 (QL57-10-4), the salt administrator Ciowande reported that the salt merchants, who were responsible for making these jade pieces, had already paid for the salary and food of the craftsmen as well as the manufacturing materials. Since the salt merchants had made the payment, Ciowande planned to deliver the saved forty thousand taels, the entire “fund to cover the shortfall in the fund for external expenses,” to the imperial workshop at the palace.86 The Qianlong emperor, surprisingly, sent down an edict on November 30, 1792 (QL57-10-17) to criticize Ciowande: Heretofore, the Lianghuai area always collected a “fund to cover the shortfall in the fund for external expenses” (waizhi bufu yin) of 40,000 taels according to each gang. This fund was preserved in the treasury ( yinku) and was supposed to pay for the manufacture. . . . These merchants already contributed ( yingzheng ) to the “fund to cover the shortfall in the fund for external expenses,” but now they are required to pay for the salary and food for the craftsmen again. This is not the way to relieve merchants (xu shang zhi dao) and it looks so cheap (xiaoqi )!87

As this memorial reveals, the Qianlong emperor was angry because Ciowande went against his will to squeeze the merchants, who were charged twice—first by contributing to the “fund to cover the shortfall,” which was set up to pay for the cost of manufacturing the imperial commissions, and



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again when the salt administrator asked them to pay for the actual manufacturing cost. This practice, by which the merchants both funded the budget and paid the actual cost of the court-commissioned manufactures, was partially caused by the reimbursement system that was implemented in the production process. The merchants had to pay for the costs of making or purchasing these expensive objects on their own first and received reimbursement from the court afterward. For example, the salt administrator Iobaši ( You-ba-shi) once submitted a memorial to report the jade objects and antiques that were provided by the merchants. In this memorial, Iobaši, writing on behalf of the salt merchants, stated that because during the previous year only a few commissioned objects had been made in Yangzhou and the cost had been low, the merchants had stated that “if they report the cost and thus receive the money [from the fund] (kaibao jiazhi, juling yinliang ) . . . they will feel uneasy (nanyi zi’an).”88 The merchants’ claim of feeling “uneasy” here was likely not genuine. Just as with their voluntary donations to the emperor’s military campaigns, these businessmen hoped to win the emperor’s favor by contributing to his privy purse. In practice, the logic of this reimbursement system seems to have been based on the principle that the court need only pay the exact cost of the objects after their production or purchase, thereby avoiding the trouble of dealing with the difference between budgetary and actual expenditures. Nonetheless, the reimbursement system made personal wealth a central requirement for the people who could assist the salt administrator by taking these tasks. The wealthy salt merchants, in this sense, became desirable partners for the court. The flow of capital did not move in only one direction. Although these merchants financed a variety of objects for court use, the favor they won from the emperor likely led to extra profit for their salt business. As imperial documents recorded, the Qianlong emperor sometimes allowed the Yangzhou salt merchants to trade extra salt in each shipment, which allowed for increased profit.89 For instance, as Michael Chang has discussed in detail, because of contributions by salt merchants to the emperor’s southern tour in 1761, the emperor ordered them to trade extra salt without “increasing the licensing fees charged to the merchants.”90 The emperor’s generosity could have been the result of multiple circumstances, such as preventing shortages of salt in the Jiangnan area. In many cases, however, he also wanted to “nourish merchants” (xushang ) so that they would have enough capital

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to conduct their business and in return would secure revenue for the state. Although it is difficult to calculate how much the merchants received in this quid pro quo scheme with the court, nevertheless, the merchants received financial benefits in return for contributions to the emperor’s privy purse. These mutual economic benefits form another dimension of the court-­ merchant relationship. In dealing with this complicated payment process, different parties demonstrated their own, and sometime conflicting, interests in deciding who should pay for these luxuries. The Qianlong emperor refused, at least in the preceding cases, to let the merchants pay out of their own pockets for these commissioned goods. As shown in the edict on November 30, 1792, Qianlong criticized Ciowande as being “cheap” (xiaoqi ) when Ciowande asked the merchants to pay for jade articles. The emperor wanted these costs to be covered by arrangements he had made—or at least preferred to think that they were. He expressed discomfort with the implications of corruption if merchants’ private money was spent. In other cases, however, the emperor used the merchants’ funds, though through an indirect way. The emperor once asked Li Zhiying to make some interior decorations (zhuangxiu) for Chunhua Studio (Chunhua xuan). Li relied on the salt merchants to finish the project. The Qianlong emperor, however, was later enraged by the reimbursement that the salt merchants requested because the cost claimed by the merchants was higher than his expectation. When the emperor questioned salt controller Zheng Dajin about the cost, Zheng had to admit that the expenditure was “truly ridiculous” (shishu huangtang ) and he scorned the merchants for their bad “habits” (xiqi ). According to Zheng, the merchants always purchased the most expensive materials and would pay whatever price the craftsmen asked for their labor, even when these workers “arbitrarily proposed a price higher than the true value” (renyi fukai ). At the end, the emperor agreed with Zheng’s critique of the merchants and decided to approve only half of the reimbursement. The merchants, in other words, paid for the other half of the expenditure.91 In addition to the emperor, the Imperial Household Department was another important player in this situation. Given that the Yangzhou salt administrators mainly came from the Imperial Household Department and that the saved funds would directly go to it as well, it is reasonable to suggest that the Imperial Household Department might want to take advantage of the merchants’ deep pockets to pay for the commissions.



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The bondservants’ behavior, which in some cases went counter to the emperor’s will, was motivated by a variety of factors that are beyond the scope of this chapter. Nonetheless, these contrasting attitudes between the emperor and the Imperial Household Department clearly reveal that the “court” was actually not of one interest, but of many. In the meantime, the salt administrators, on behalf of the merchants, often requested that the emperor allow the merchants to pay for these commissions. We could certainly understand this kind of request as a way that the bondservants could try to squeeze money from the merchants. These merchants themselves, however, because of the potential financial benefits they might receive from the court, as mentioned earlier, also wanted to win favor from the emperor by paying for these commissioned goods. No matter who wanted the merchants to pay, their different and even contrasting attitudes reveal a complex network of interests, including those of the emperor, the Imperial Household Department, and the merchants. Sometimes it was the emperor’s bondservants who wanted to use the merchants’ money to cover costs. Other times, it was the merchants themselves who desired to contribute to the court and so to obtain future benefit. It is also possible that the emperor was putting on a performance to emphasize that he cared about his subjects. Regardless, all of these interests and motives interacted to create an opportunity for the Yangzhou salt merchants to prepare objects for court use, thereby creating and strengthening new court-merchant ties.

a circuit of taste between court and jiangnan By the Qianlong reign, the landscape of Yangzhou had been greatly shaped by the imperial court through the emperor’s southern tours. Many historical buildings and scenic sites were rebuilt and renovated to host and entertain the emperor and his retainers.92 Along with the political extension of imperial power into Jiangnan, the style representing court taste became more popular in this region. As the famous painting Prosperous Suzhou (Gusu fanhua tu) portrays, the shopkeepers and merchants in Suzhou offered objects for sale that conformed to “capital style” or “tribute style,” a fact that their advertisement labels made clear, which would be presented to the court

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for the emperor’s use. Many local stores used these advertisements to emphasize the connection between the court and the specific goods that they were selling, such as “silk used by the emperor” (shangyong duansha), “tribute silk for the capital” ( jinjing gongduan), “candles for the capital” ( jinjing lazhu), and “court-fired porcelain” ( guanyao).93 The question of what exactly “capital style” or “tribute style” was goes beyond the scope of this chapter, but the fact that the capital or tribute style functioned as a “brand” indicated a growing popularity of court taste in Jiangnan market.94 Indeed, as Fan Jinmin argues, the fact that the local merchants used descriptors like “used by the emperor” (shangyong ) and “inner-court made” (neizao) on their store signs shows that tributary goods were treated as high-quality and desired luxuries in the local society.95 By procuring and producing objects for court, the Huizhou salt merchants not only propelled the movement of a large number of precious items but also facilitated an exchange of style and taste between the capital and Jiangnan. They therefore played the role of intermediators to foster a mingling of taste and style between north and south, center and locale. Evidence shows that the Huizhou salt merchants’ style, which was represented through the possessions that they used and displayed in their residences, was favored by the emperor. Upon his visits to merchants’ residences in Yangzhou during his southern tours, the Qianlong emperor had expressed his interest in the items that he saw. The Huizhou salt merchant Wang Yushu, for example, owned a beautiful garden in Yangzhou. Qianlong visited Wang’s residences three times during his southern tours. The emperor was particularly impressed by the nine pieces of beautiful Tai Lake rock that Wang displayed in his garden. He wrote two poems praising these rocks and granted a name to the garden.96 The emperor finally requested two of the beautiful Tai Lake rocks from Wang Yushu’s garden to be delivered to the palace in Beijing.97 In addition to the objects traditionally valued by the court or elites, the emperor also liked and even admired the new and innovative objects or decorations that the salt merchants used, such as large glass plates for window panes. Glass was produced in China as early as the Yuan dynasty, but not until the Qing dynasty were glass plates used for windows.98 This new use of glass can be traced to the introduction of European techniques; glass window panes began arriving in China from Europe during the seventeenth century and China’s elites—Yangzhou salt merchants among them—started



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using them during the eighteenth century.99 The same Wang Yushu household, for instance, used glass windows in its Yangzhou residence. As Li Dou described, Wang’s glass plates were quite large, approximately three chi (feet) across, and completely clear (buge xianyi ). In another small hall overlooking the garden and nestled next to an impressive Tai Lake rock, the Wang family also used a five-color stained glass (wuse boli ). The merchants favored these glass windows because they complemented the garden design well, allowing people to enjoy natural scenes while staying inside. Qianlong was impressed by Wang’s design and bestowed a name, Cheng kong yu (Clear Emptiness Studio), on one of Wang’s glass-windowed halls.100 Because of his ­fascination with glass, the Qianlong emperor also incorporated the design of glass throughout his own gardens in the palace.101 As mentioned earlier, most interior decorations for court use were produced within the walls of the Forbidden City so that the production could best fit the actual space of the buildings. Given the fact that the emperor chose to go through all the trouble of producing some interior decorations in Jiangnan, it is reasonable to suggest that Qianlong might have wanted to emulate for his palace some of the styles that he had seen in Jiangnan, especially the ones from merchants’ residences. Indeed, by ordering the salt administrators to produce interior decorations in Yangzhou, the emperor intentionally incorporated the “Jiangnan style” that was articulated in these objects in the court furniture and construction. As historian Zhang Shuxian argues, through the production of the interior decorations for the garden of Ningshou Palace, some of the unique crafting technique in Yangzhou was introduced to the court. For instance, a technique called tie diao zhuhuang, widely used in southern China, was adopted by the court to make furniture. This technique required the craftsman to carve delicate images on the inner yellow skin of a piece of bamboo and then embed this carved skin on the furniture as decoration. The craftsmen would first boil, dry, and flatten the inner yellow bamboo skin and then glue these skins on the surfaces of other objects. Next, the craftsman would carve various images on these skins. This technique was employed to make furniture in Ningshou Palace, including such objects as wooden space dividers and screens ( geshan), and was used to decorate the walls under the windows (kanqiang ). A beautiful zitan bed used in Juanqin Studio (Juanqin zhai) of Ningshou Palace and still preserved in the Forbidden City was also decorated with these carved bamboo skins.102

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It is hard to tell whether the merchants themselves designed the fashionable decorations or whether artisans and connoisseurs did. Nevertheless, the merchants’ consumption of luxurious objects strengthened their broad network with people with aesthetic taste and nurtured their knowledge and ability to evaluate refined goods. At the same time, the merchants’ wealth, as discussed in the previous section, financed these precious items. The Yangzhou salt merchants thus were positioned to cater to the emperor’s needs as agents of the court. Through this reciprocal relationship between the court and merchants, the salt merchants and court created a mixture of taste and style between the north and the south. The emperor’s preferences and evaluation of merchants’ objects enabled him to display and insert his taste in Jiangnan. The wealthy Yangzhou salt merchants themselves also modernized their taste to “follow the lead of Beijing where the Manchu Qing court set the tone for leisure environments.”103 Through merchants’ consumption of precious objects, therefore, the imperial court influenced and shaped taste and style in Yangzhou. As Tobie Meyer-Fong has argued, “The local arbiters of taste in Yangzhou, increasingly salt merchants and those they patronized . . . reinvented the city as a southern extension of the capital, rather than a northern outpost of Jiangnan.”104 In the meantime, because of their extensive contact with court objects, the merchants had more chances to understand court style and obtain the knowledge to re-create them. While the capital style became popular in the Jiangnan market, these wealthy merchants, with the endorsement of the emperor, left their mark on Yangzhou landscape. The salt merchants, in this context, became the trendsetters of Jiangnan with the endorsement of the court.

conclusion This chapter explores the dynamic relationship between the imperial court and the Huizhou salt merchants by looking at how the merchants supplied a wide array of fine furnishings to the throne. By detailing the actions of the salt merchants in preparing three types of objects from local workshops, markets, and private collections, the chapter reveals these merchants’ indispensable assistance in “running errands” for the emperor’s bondservants in



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the Lianghuai salt bureau. Evidence shows that the nature of these objects— their rarity, skilled craftsmanship, and high cost—made salt merchants the ideal agents to supply them. The merchants’ broad social networks with businessmen, craftsmen, and connoisseurs in the local society of Jiangnan enabled them to seek out and purchase these precious goods. A systematic way to handle the procedure developed by the merchants also released the salt administrators from these complicated tasks. Their economic power made them a reliable source for purchasing or producing these expensive objects. Finally, the merchants’ refined taste helped them both to understand and to meet the emperor’s high standards. Procuring and producing these commissioned objects for the emperor, therefore, enabled merchants to construct and strengthen a new and direct relationship with the emperor and the Imperial Household Department. The Yangzhou salt merchants’ contribution in “running errands” for the court illuminates our understanding of the Qianlong emperor’s methods of ruling. The bondservants who served in the salt bureau in Jiangnan extended the emperor’s personal network in local society; these bondservants, however, lacked connections with local businessmen and specialists. In this context, the salt merchants, with their broad social connections, served as the emperor’s personal agents to overcome the limitations of the emperor’s existing networks with bondservants. These merchants not only supplemented formal state bureaucratic systems but also expanded Qianlong’s empire-wide network of informal contacts and control in the Jiangnan area. Scholars have discussed the Qianlong emperor’s preference for an “informal and personalized government” that relied on “the emperor’s personal power and authority and used informal intervention to address dysfunctional elements of the bureaucracy.”105 The Jiangnan salt merchants, as the chapter shows, constituted the informal connections for the Qianlong emperor. These direct and personal ties gave the emperor access to the economic, social, and political networks in the strategic Jiangnan area, permitting a flow of goods, services, capital, and culture between the court and this vital region. Finally, the flow of these objects from Jiangnan to the throne reveals how taste played an important role in creating new connections between the court and the salt merchants. The Qianlong emperor expressed his own taste in requesting or accepting the things presented to or made for him.

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The merchants, conversely, developed their taste in response to signals from the court. The salt merchants’ own lifestyle energized their extended social networks with local businessmen, connoisseurs, artisans, and specialists in different fields. It also nurtured their knowledge and taste in selecting and evaluating refined and precious goods. The salt merchants’ pursuit of luxurious objects made them culturally sophisticated and thus capable of serving and pleasing the emperor.

three

Collecting as a “Collector” In 1772, the Qianlong emperor initiated the Siku quanshu project, variously translated as the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries or the “four treasuries encyclopedia,” to search for, collect, and copy all the books from his empire. The emperor particularly called upon book collectors to voluntarily loan their rare works to the throne. After two years, in 1774, the complicated process of book searching came to an end and the emperor happily acknowledged that he had received the most valuable books from his empire and now owned the largest book collection. On June 22nd of the same year, the emperor awarded Wang Qishu and other three bibliophiles an Imperially Authorized Comprehensive Corpus of Illustrations and Books from Ancient Times to the Present (Qinding gujin tushu jicheng ), in appreciation for loaning a great number of valuable books. This synthesis, in Qianlong’s comment, was rarely found outside the court (renjian hangou). In the following years, the Qianlong emperor rewarded, again, these book collectors with special editions of the imperially printed records of the emperor’s martial conquests in Central Asia. On top of that, the emperor granted them poems specifically designated for their book collections, written in the emperor’s own calligraphy. Upon the arrival of these gifts, Wang Qishu built a library called the Imperial Book Hall ( yushu lou) in his hometown of Miantan, a small village in the southern reaches of She county in Huizhou, to preserve the books from the court. Together with this library, Wang built a Pavilion of the Emperor’s Poem ( yushi ting ) to display this special gift. Many scholars visited this pavilion, either drawing pictures or composing essays and poems to praise the honor that Wang had received.1

Wang Qishu (1728–1798; zi Xiufeng, Shenyi; hao Ren’an, Huaigu), the wealthy salt merchant honored in this episode, was born to a successful commercial family in Huizhou and spent much of his life conducting salt business in Hangzhou. Wang and two of the three other bibliophiles mentioned previously, Bao Shigong and Ma Yu, had received valuable objects from the Qianlong emperor for their contribution to the imperial book collection multiple times. All three of them also shared a similar background: they all came from Huizhou salt merchant families and resided in Jiangnan urban centers. This episode not only reveals a flourishing collecting culture in High Qing China, but more importantly, it highlights a new and dynamic relationship between the emperor’s imperial project and Huizhou salt merchants’ private collection enterprises. These newly developed reciprocal 91

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court-merchant interactions, as shown in this chapter, shaped and transformed the culture of collecting in High Qing China. The characteristics of the collecting culture underwent a transformation in the eighteenth century. The Qianlong emperor’s enthusiasm in collecting various objects and his commitment to producing numerous catalogs of his collections distinguished High Qing collecting culture from that of the late Ming. Not only did the court lead the flourishing collecting activity in the eighteenth century, but imperial collecting projects also acknowledged the existence and highlighted the visibility of “collectors” (shoucangjia) as a specific social group. Collecting, in this context, emerged as a recognized and valued form of expertise. In response to the court’s expanding influence in collecting, some wealthy Huizhou salt merchants took the opportunity to devote themselves to constructing their own private collections. Unlike their merchant collector predecessors, these merchants were inevitably drawn into imperial collecting projects. When these collectors contributed numerous objects to the imperial collection, they received cultural capital in the form of honor and recognition from the emperor. Their connections with the court enabled these merchants to win admiration from their contemporaries, enjoying an unprecedented degree of visibility and attention in the High Qing period. In order to locate merchant collectors in this new political and cultural environment, a new interpretation to understand these tradesmen’s motivations in collecting is needed. The conventional understanding of merchants’ devotion to collection argues that commercial elites in late imperial China took up roles as collectors and art patrons in order to mimic the behavior of men of letters. By taking the famous bibliophile and seal collector Wang Qishu as an example, I argue that imitating an elite’s behavior was not the motivation, at least not the only one, for merchant collectors. Based on a detailed analysis of how Wang carefully constructed and lavishly displayed his seal collection, Wang’s intention to display himself as an expert collector, a self-image that enabled him to be seen and recognized by the society, is readily seen. In this environment when “collector” became a newly formed social category, wealthy merchants fashioned themselves as members of this category and competed for social recognition. This chapter begins by demonstrating how the Qianlong emperor’s endeavor to construct imperial collections created a unique political and social context in which “collector” as a social category gained ground. Following



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this analysis, I discuss how Huizhou salt merchant collectors were integrated into imperial collection projects by presenting their precious objects to the emperor and by receiving recognition and honor from the court in response. The next section focuses on Wang Qishu and his seal collection. I examine how Wang skillfully fashioned himself a persona as an expert seal collector by highlighting specific elements associated with this collection as well as how he was identified by these elements.

“collector” as a social category The practice of collecting cultural objects such as books, calligraphy, and paintings has a long history in China. As early as the Song dynasty (960– 1279), while the court and wealthy elites were both devoted to collection, “collecting and writing about books, art, and antiquities became an arena in which the educated elite and the throne subtly competed for cultural leadership.”2 In the late Ming, when economic prosperity spurred an upsurge in luxury consumption, collecting culture reached a new peak. A significant number of elites, including scholars and merchants, committed to construct private collections. Some literati even began to use “taste” (i.e., how to value and rank objects) as a barometer to evaluate a person’s social status.3 The ability to accumulate, and more importantly, to evaluate objects helped an individual obtain social recognition. When this commercial revolution expanded during the High Qing period, collecting culture continued to flourish. The High Qing collecting culture inherited some patterns from the late Ming; the enlarged influence of imperial collecting projects, however, generated new features. Collecting shifted its role from being an admired cultural hobby of scholarly elites to being an essential element in creating a social identity. Collectors, in this context, gradually emerged as a social category. The brutal Ming-Qing transition wars (c. 1640–1680) disrupted the fabric of the social economy and destroyed some of the greatest private collections of the late Ming. Xiang Yuanbian (1525–1590) from Jiaxing, for instance, was one of the most famous collectors in the late Ming.4 In 1645, when the Qing army conquered Jiahe, Xiang’s family collections, accumulated over several generations, “were completely plundered by the battalion commander (qianfuzhang ) Wang Liushui.” As the early-Qing painting and calligraphy dealer Wu Qizhen recorded, after the war, the collections from the

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six branches of the Xiang family were lost.5 The wars that deeply disturbed great families who had devoted their time and resources to collecting in the late Ming, however, unexpectedly caused a resurgence of recollection in the early Qing and afterward. Many objects from Xiang’s collection reappeared on the market for purchasing and recollection. In other words, objects that had been formerly preserved in private collections had been snatched away from families in the throes of war and entered the channels of commerce. The political uncertainty caused by the dynastic transition also motivated individuals to engage in collecting activities. As scholars have argued, a discourse on collecting inspired the Ming loyalists who refused to serve the Qing court to reminisce about late-Ming culture.6 Some late-Ming officials, even with their willingness to serve the Qing court, were still anxious about losing their positions in the newly established Qing government. This anxiety made them devoted to collecting. Sun Chengze (1593–1675), for instance, who received a jinshi (metropolitan) degree in 1631 and was appointed as a magistrate in the late Ming, accepted an office under Li Zicheng’s regime and later served the Qing court after 1644. Because of political battles in the court, however, Sun was permanently relieved of office in 1654. Afterward, Sun devoted himself to writing and collecting and finally published a wellknown work on his private collection.7 During the Qianlong emperor’s reign, collecting culture reached a new peak. Manchu policies to revive the postwar economy proved effective, providing an accumulation of wealth and a fertile environment for the consumption of luxury goods. Along with the economic growth, a matured market system facilitated the circulation of valuable objects. People of means, including the emperor, princes, scholars, and merchants, regardless of their social status, assembled new collections through gift exchanges, commerce, and patronage. Collecting once again became a fashionable and popular practice in Jiangnan and in the capital of Beijing. The rise of collecting culture in the High Qing, however, was not a simple repeat of the late Ming phenomenon. New to the High Qing collection culture was a newly emerged recognition of “collectors” or shoucangjia as a unique social group. Here I am not claiming that collectors only existed in the High Qing era. Rather, the focus emphasizes the formation and visibility of collectors as a social category. A barometer that could help historians quantify the visibility of this group of collectors is to trace the use of term shoucangjia. As the data from Four



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Treasuries shows, the use of the term shoucangjia steadily grew from the late Ming to the High Qing. This term appears sixty-four times in total; eleven entries were in the late Ming and the rest occurred in the Qing before 1781.8 This word first appeared in the famous scholar Wang Shizhen’s (1526–1590) essays, referring to calligraphy collectors.9 During the Ming-Qing transition, because individuals’ continuous devotion to collecting and the catalogs on books, paintings, and calligraphy proliferated, the word shoucangjia appeared more often in writings.10 In the eighteenth century, because of the court’s growing interest in imperial collections, the use of this term was greatly enlarged: not only did more books and individuals use this term, but the meaning of the word was also expanded. The Qianlong emperor’s enthusiasm and endless efforts in constructing imperial collections provided an environment in which collectors or shoucangjia emerged as a highly visible social group. The Qianlong emperor’s personal interest in collecting fostered a rise of collecting culture in Beijing and beyond.11 The emperor, by quantity, was the most successful collector. In order to enhance his influence with his erudite subjects and enjoy acquiring desirable objects, the emperor trained himself as both a connoisseur and practitioner of the arts and collected all kinds of artworks. His collection of goods from all over the world was used to show his broad interests as well as to represent his determination to pursue an “expansion of central power.”12 Through his constant accumulation of valuable objects, the Qianlong emperor was able to compile catalogs to record and display the books and artworks preserved in his palace. Besides the famous Four Treasuries project introduced in Chapter 2, the emperor also published catalogs on art such as The Imperially Endorsed Catalog of the Precious Collection of the Stone Canal Pavilion (Qinding Shiqu baoji ), as well as on antiques including A Catalog of Ancient Ritual Bronzes (Xiqing gujian).13 The Qianlong emperor’s devotion to collecting and his commitment to compiling imperial catalogs enabled him and his court officials to trace, organize, and record court-collected objects in a systematic way. These catalogs not only recorded the basic information of specific items such as author, size, or weight, but also traced and sorted out the collection history of these objects. These imperial collecting projects thus thoroughly examined the activity of collecting itself and highlighted the existence of collectors on an unprecedented scale. Indeed, the imperial catalogs used shoucangjia the most. For instance, the annotations (tiyao) of the Four Treasuries—which required

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the court editors to trace the circulation history of a specific book—used the term shoucangjia eight times, because many rare books were collected and preserved by private collectors.14 Another imperial book catalog, the Imperially Endorsed Catalog of the Tianlu Linlang Library (Qinding tianlu linlang shumu), used this term three times.15 The imperial catalogs on paintings and calligraphy likewise used this word to describe the collection situation of an artwork. The Imperially Endorsed Catalog of the Precious Collection of the Stone Canal Pavilion, a catalog that recorded paintings and calligraphy preserved by the court, referred to shoucangjia six times.16 A Catalog of Ancient Ritual Bronzes, a catalog of court-collected antiques, also used shoucangjia to refer to individuals collecting bronze vessels.17 The Qianlong emperor’s interest, or a demonstration of his interest, in studying the history of antiques and artwork also acknowledged the existence of collectors. In his comment on a Song painting, for instance, the emperor explained that he was unable to locate the collecting history of this painting because the edges of the painting were cut off and thus the seal imprints that might provide information on the previous collectors had all disappeared.18 The emperor also used the term shoucangjia to refer to contemporary collectors. In his comment on the famous painter Mi Yuanhui’s (1074–1153) painting, the emperor stated that he recently purchased this work from an anonymous collector.19 Along with the expanded use of this term, the meaning of shoucangjia was also broadened in the eighteenth century. Until the early Qing, based on data from the Four Treasuries, the term shoucangjia only appeared in the catalogs or colophons of books, paintings, and calligraphy, and only referred to the owners of these kinds of collections.20 During the High Qing era, however, the term began to be used to describe those who collected other objects, such as inkstones and bronze vessels.21 In other words, the use of shoucangjia expanded the types of materials a “collector” could collect. This term also began to appear in books outside catalogs and connoisseurship writings. In 1734, for example, in the “editorial principles” ( fanli ) of the new edition of The Gazetteer of Shanxi Province (Shanxi tongzhi ), the compilers claimed that “there were not many shoucangjia in the history of Shanxi province” because the inconvenient transportation system constrained its book trade.22 The fact that a gazetteer used the term shoucangjia shows the popularity and wider circulation of the term.



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The discourse on the value of collecting also changed. The meaning of “collecting” shifted from a hobby for personal appreciation and enjoyment in the late Ming to a pursuit of scholarly work in the High Qing. Scholarship, in other words, became a crucial element of collecting culture in the High Qing period. This shift added prestige to the activity of collecting and further facilitated the formation of collectors as a social category. Collection in the late Ming was described as a leisure pursuit for individual pleasure. In response to this late-Ming legacy, collectors in the early Qing argued for the scholarly value of collecting. A famous early-Qing ­collector, Yao Jiheng (b. 1647), for example, had “justified collecting and connoisseurship as textual learning (xiaoxue) and the transmission of knowledge about ancient rites and institutions.”23 As Li Wai-yee has commented, “Yao might have felt the need to distinguish his project from its late Ming counterparts, which were by then often criticized as mere frivolity, vain ‘exercises in taste and appreciation.’”24 In the eighteenth century, the flourishing evidential studies (kaozheng ) movement played a key role in further propelling this shift. This intellectual movement aimed to investigate and unlock the original meaning of ancient classics through “a set of epistemologically unified techniques” including phonology, etymology, and paleography. As Benjamin Elman has argued, “The emergence of evidential discourse involved the placing of proof and verification at the center of the organization and analysis of the classical tradition.”25 Just as evidential scholars incorporated a systematic and technical approach to discover the “true” meaning of the classics, collecting was also seen as a channel through which individuals could pursue authentic knowledge. The Qianlong emperor’s personal assessment and evaluation of artworks exemplified this orientation toward studying in collecting. According to Kohara Hironobu, the Qianlong emperor’s connoisseurship of paintings and calligraphy “bypassed traditional connoisseurship as practiced by Ming or early Qing scholars and collectors, whose judgments were made primarily on stylistic bases.” Instead, the emperor relied on textual evidence to evaluate an artwork.26 Qianlong’s connoisseurship, in other words, shifted from an analysis based on style to the scholastic arena associated with the examination of texts. The court’s management of its massive collections also represented and promoted this transformation on the meaning of collecting from aesthetic

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pleasure to a scholarly pursuit. When a large number of artworks, antiques, and books flew into the court, the Qianlong emperor ordered his officials to describe, classify, and categorize every type of object. These court officials’ extraordinary effort resulted in numerous catalogs containing a detailed description of each object and sometimes even the history of specific things. The court, in other words, compiled these catalogs to study the objects collected and preserved by the emperor. The Four Treasuries project, for example, was not only a simple accumulation of books; instead, one of its primary goals was to facilitate a study of the content and history of all the books in the empire through a systematic collecting, cataloging, and editing of books. This book collection project therefore disparaged the “enjoyment of refined leisure” as “frivolous and trivial” and aimed to provide correct and precise texts to the scholars.27 In this context when collectors emerged as a valued expertise group and when collecting served as a mechanism for scholarly inquiry, elites in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries began to discuss the features of this group, further signifying the formation of collectors.28 The prolific writer Hong Liangji (1746–1809), for example, once categorized and ordered the individuals who collected books (cangshujia) into a hierarchical system: There are different ranks (deng ) of book collectors. Some must inquire into the original meaning [of the texts] (tuiqiu yuanben) and amend and correct the omissions (zheng queshi ) after they obtain a book. This kind of person is called a textualist (kaodingjia). . . . Next are people who can differentiate each edition [of a book] (bian qi banpian) and correct the errors (zhu qi cuoe). This kind of person is called a collator ( jiaochoujia). . . . Below them are the people who collect different editions of books. Their collections can make up for the decline in book preservation. Meanwhile, their collections permit knowledgeable people to examine books. This kind of person is called a collector (shoucangjia). . . . Below them we find the people who search for refined books and desire only Song editions. They do not completely understand the author’s meaning, but they are very familiar with the dates of various editions. This kind of person is called a connoisseur (shangjianjia). . . . Finally at the bottom we have the people who serve old families of book collectors that have declined and want to sell their books at a low price, or who serve rich people who are interested in books but need someone to assess the price. These book sellers can tell whether the book is really an old book or a fake one by merely looking at the books. They can also easily tell if the book is a Fujian edition or a Sichuan edition, a Song edition or a Yuan edition. This kind of person is called a profiteer (lüefanjia).29



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Hong Liangji’s writing lays out a hierarchical ranking of the individuals who collected books (cangshujia). Not every book collector, according to Hong’s standard, was labeled as a collector (shoucangjia). Instead, the individuals who collected books could be classified into different categories depending on the level as which they were engaged in scholarly work. Their category, in other words, was determined by the relationship between a collector and his ability to study and examine books. Therefore, the textualists positioned at the top of Hong’s list refer to the individuals who could understand “the original meaning” of a book and could provide addenda. The collators who came next obtained the knowledge to differentiate editions of a book and were able to correct errors. Hong identified the people in these two categories by their scholarly ability but not their collecting ability. The collectors (shoucangjia) who were positioned in the middle were characterized as individuals who accumulated and preserved different editions of a book. They were unable to correct errors in the text, but the books they preserved could facilitate other scholars’ learning. In Hong’s opinion, these people were identified by their collecting activity and their collected objects, in this case the books. The status of these collectors was not as prestigious as that of textualists and collators, but they enjoyed higher status than the connoisseurs (shangjianjia), who only knew the publishing information of a book but failed to understand its true meaning. By comparing collectors to other categories, Hong Liangji set up a definition for collectors: they were the individuals who were expert in accumulating books and whose collection would facilitate scholarly learning. Ultimately, Hong’s categorization reveals a scholar’s recognition of the formation of collectors—in this case book collectors—as a specific social group. The individuals who devoted themselves to book collection grew into such a visible group that Hong found it appropriate to not just acknowledge their existence but to examine their characteristics as a unique social formation. Hong Liangji was by no means the only elite who noted the existence of collectors. In the early nineteenth century, the scholar Qian Yong (1759– 1844) also acknowledged the popularity of collecting and listed “collecting” (shoucang ) as an individual section in his anecdote book titled Miscellaneous Remarks on Lü Garden (Lüyuan conghua). This section records information about famous calligraphy and paintings that Qian saw. He sorted these collectors into three levels: at the top were true connoisseurs (shangjian), the second rank were the aficionados who wanted to participate in ­connoisseurship

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(haoshi ), and those at the bottom were nothing more than profit seekers (mouli ).30 Qian discussed the relationship between textual study (kaoding ) and connoisseurship (shangjian). He reiterated the importance of textual study (i.e., searching for the original meaning of a text) in collecting culture, a point that Hong Liangji emphasized. According to Qian, the collectors in the Song and Yuan dynasties lacked the ability to conduct textual study, and therefore their colophons for a painting or calligraphy were often “superficial and imprecise” (kongshu buqie). In contrast to Hong’s analysis, however, Qian highlighted the importance of connoisseurship, which would enable a collector to distinguish authentic goods from forgeries (wu zhi zhen wei ). In Qian’s opinion, both textual study and connoisseurship constituted necessary elements for being a qualified collector. The famous late-Qing bibliophile Geng Wenguang (1830–1908) continued this discussion on collectors. Geng emphasized the dual importance of collecting and connoisseurship. According to Geng, “[if a collector] collects [books] without differentiating [the quality of a given book] (shoucang er buze shan’e), he cannot be called a specialist ( jia).”31 It is important to note that Geng’s emphasis on the use of the Chinese term jia not only demonstrates his recognition of collectors as a specific social category but also implies that, to him, collectors are a group of people with a specific form of expertise. Geng stated that only collectors who are able to both accumulate and evaluate books can be called jia. No matter how scholars in the mid and late Qing evaluated the role of scholarly learning and connoisseurship in collecting culture, these elites’ continuous discussions on who collectors (shoucangjia) are and what collecting (shoucang ) was reveal a growing social recognition of this new category.

collecting for the emperor In the eighteenth century when the Qianlong emperor’s devotion to imperial collection promoted a flourishing collecting culture across the empire, some wealthy Huizhou salt merchants took a leading role in this arena, actively constructing private collection enterprises in local society. It was certainly not the first time in Chinese history that commercial elites had participated in collecting. In the late Ming, like their scholarly counterparts, merchants extensively took part in luxury consumption. Their participation in collection grew so large and lavish that scholarly elites found it necessary



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to complain about merchants’ “vulgar” taste in order to disparage the value of these tradesmen’s endeavors. Yet the specific political and social context of the High Qing period, especially the merchants’ involvement in courtsponsored collection projects, increased these merchants’ visibility and expanded their influence in collecting culture, thereby distinguishing them from their late-Ming predecessors. The Qianlong emperor’s enthusiasm in possessing precious objects encouraged private collections. In the Lower Yangzi area, both scholarly and commercial elites accumulated books, arts, and antiques. They wrote poems or essays praising antiques, calligraphy, and paintings from their own collections or from the private studios of others.32 Among the private collectors, the Huizhou salt merchants constructed some of the most powerful collections in the empire. Some of these merchants were positioned at the center of collecting enterprises in urban society. For example, Ma Yueguan and Ma Yuelu, the brothers who were introduced in Chapter 2, boasted one of the most famous collections of paintings, calligraphic masterpieces, antiques, and stone rubbings in the empire.33 Their fine collections of rare books allowed them to contribute to the Four Treasuries project. Salt merchants also conducted collecting activities in their home villages of Huizhou. Huang Chongxing (1821–1908), a descendant of the prominent head merchants from Tandu village, once compiled a book titled Comments on Appreciating Paintings of Caoxin Studio (Caoxinlou duhua ji ), in which Huang recorded his colophons on the paintings that his family had previously collected.34 In this book, Huang summarized the most famous private collections in Huizhou: In earlier times, prominent families and clans from Xiuning and She counties included the Cheng family’s Tonggu Studio, the Bao family’s Ansu Studio, the Wang family’s Hanxingyan Studio, and the Cheng family’s Xunle caotang Studio. These great families have been prominent for over one hundred years, mostly collecting and preserving books from the Song and Yuan dynasties, calligraphic rubbings, famous ink, fine ink stones, rare incense, and costly medicines, as well as precious vessels, jade ornaments, and ancient plates and basins. All the things they displayed to visitors were precious items that connoisseurs could admire and appreciate. Among their collections, their book collection was especially rich.35

Huang Chongxing’s comments, though brief, described a flourishing collecting culture in High Qing Huizhou. At least one of these prominent

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families, the Bao household, produced head merchants. As described in detail in Chapter 4, one of the Bao descendants, Bao Zhidao, came to power as a head merchant in the late eighteenth century and brought economic profits and political privileges to his family and clan. This household had collected a large amount of valuable calligraphic art. They carved their lists of these art pieces on a series of steles, and from these they made duplicate rubbings that they subsequently distributed in booklet form under the title Model Calligraphic Steles of the Ansu Studio (Ansu xuan fatie).36 Although Huang Chongxing did not include his own family in this list, his book was in fact a celebration of his family’s incredible collection of precious paintings. Like the Bao family, Huang’s ancestors had also occupied the position of head merchants in Yangzhou in the eighteenth century for at least two generations. Every merchant collector had his own reasons to devote himself to collecting. However, the Qianlong emperor’s high demand for valuable artworks and precious objects galvanized these private merchant collectors’ motivation. As demonstrated in Chapter 2, the emperor was interested in all kinds of things, including ancient antiques, valuable paintings, calligraphy, and skillfully crafted objects. In order to build up his imperial collection, the emperor commanded his officials to look for precious objects throughout the empire while also calling on individuals to submit their treasures to the court. As one of the wealthiest groups and as assistants for Jiangnan salt administrators, Huizhou salt merchants readily assumed responsibility for purchasing and procuring fine furnishings for the court. Many merchants’ collections served as storage for potential tributary goods. Huang Chongxing, for example, stated that many paintings from his family collection were “the leftover tribute” ( gongyu). In other words, one primary goal of Huang’s merchant ancestors in collecting these paintings was to prepare tributary goods. Indeed, local elites, including Huizhou salt merchants, often sent valuable objects to the court through bondservants and court officials. For instance, on behalf of salt merchants, the salt administrator Iobaši presented a variety of items including a ruyi (an S-shaped ornamental object as a symbol of good luck) made in zitan wood with jade inlays and different kinds of jade vases and ornaments.37 The Huizhou salt merchants also presented gifts to the emperor when they were seen by the emperors during his tours.38 Not only did these salt merchants submit their private collections through the regular tribute system, they were also drawn



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into specific imperial collection projects at different times. The most representative example is the merchants’ contribution to the Four Treasuries project. As shown in Chapter 2, when the emperor called on private collectors to voluntarily loan their rare works to the throne, many merchant bibliophiles contributed their books. The Qianlong emperor’s interest in collecting, in this context, encouraged salt merchants to pursue private collections. While the court constantly received precious items from the merchants, these tradesmen also benefited from their contributions to the imperial collection. The objects that traveled from the merchants’ private collections to the court provided an effective mechanism through which the merchants could win recognition from the court and society. If a private collector’s objects were selected by the emperor, it meant that he might own some of the best things in the empire. Indeed, when Huang Chongxing emphasized that his family collection was part of “the leftover tribute,” he used tributary goods as evidence that the paintings collected by his family were of high quality. This court’s recognition of these merchants’ collections, in other words, could be used to strengthen their reputations as respected owners and connoisseurs. The salt merchants’ involvement in the Four Treasuries project best illustrates this point. When the court called on private collectors to voluntarily loan their rare works to the throne, four bibliophiles—three of whom were Huizhou salt merchants—stood out, submitting more than five hundred rare books to the court and thereafter receiving imperial awards for their contribution. By participating in the Four Treasuries project, these merchant bibliophiles and their abilities in book collecting were recognized by the emperor. As scholar and book collector Zhu Wenzao (1735–1806) commented, because of the Four Treasuries project, “the name of the ‘Insufficient Knowledge Studio’ (Zhibuzu zhai ) [owned by Bao Tingbo] was directly heard by the emperor (shang che tian ting ).”39 The emperor demonstrated his recognition of these merchant bibliophiles by awarding them precious gifts that were rarely found outside the court in return, as we read in the opening episode of this chapter. The fact that their books were selected by the court meant that these tradesmen owned some of the most sought-after books in the empire. This imperial recognition thus brought these merchants not only honor but also reputations as successful bibliophiles. These merchants certainly knew the value of this recognition and lavishly displayed their honors in public. Bao

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Tingbo (1728–1814), for instance, opened a special room in his house, which he named the Hall of Books Bestowed by Imperial Grace (cishu tang ) to preserve the awarded books from the emperor.40 When Bao published a new edition of his book collection titled Collectanea from the Insufficient Knowledge Studio, he displayed the emperor’s poem commenting on Tang que shi, a rare Ming-edition book from his collection, on the front page. The emperor acclaimed Bao’s devotion to book collection as virtuous as he wrote in a poem: “the studio is called ‘Insufficient Knowledge (zhibuzu),’ but how could the ‘Insufficient Knowledge Studio’ be lacking? Is not this thirst for books virtuous?”41 Bao made a separate cover page specifically for this book and retitled it “The Imperially Perused Tang que shi ” (Yulan Tang que shi) to highlight the court’s acknowledgment. On this page, Bao used a dragon pattern, a motif that represented the emperor’s authority, as decoration to demonstrate the commendation that he had won from the emperor. Like Bao Tingbo, another merchant bibliophile, Wang Qishu, also consciously displayed imperial honors. Wang built a library titled Imperial Book Hall in his hometown Miantan to preserve the books from the court. At the same time, he constructed a pavilion to signify his honor for receiving the emperor’s poem. He invited scholars to visit these buildings in Miantan and requested pictures or essays or poems from them to celebrate his honors.42 These merchants’ connections with the court brought them recognition from prominent elites, including court officials. Wang Qishu’s expanded networks serve as a representative example here. Ji Yun (1724–1805), a prestigious scholar and official who was also the chief editor of the Four Treasuries project, began to associate with Wang after Wang lent his books to the court.43 Wang liked to record his social networks in his writings but left no clue about his relationship with Ji before the Four Treasuries project.44 After the project, however, as Wang noted, Ji Yun frequently visited Wang’s house in Beijing and chatted with Wang about Ji’s experience in Urumqi.45 Ji even visited Wang’s houses in Miantan and wrote ten poems to praise his residences. As Ji wrote in his poem, the key element that grounded his relationship with Wang was Wang’s contribution to the Four Treasuries project. Ji composed a poem titled “The Always Simple Book Room” (Lüsu shuting ) to Wang: Once, editing “jade character books,” [for the Four Treasuries] (nang jiao yuzi shu),



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I encountered one that you [Wang] submitted to the court (shi feng jun suoxian). Beyond the bibliophiles’ selection of seven summaries (Qilüe jiantai yu), You still had many rare books that were difficult for people to find ( you duo ren weijian). Who is it that has achieved so much ( jindai zhe yi shei )? He lives in deep mountains amid the clouds (shanshen yun manman).46

According to Ji Yun’s poem, the precious books from Wang Qishu’s collection provided the key channel through which they associated with each other. Ji recalled the time when he was editing the Four Treasuries project and he encountered the books from Wang’s collection. Because of these books, Ji put himself at the same position as Wang, emphasizing the fact that they were both contributing to the emperor’s collection. Wang’s connection to the court, which was considered prestigious at the time, provided a reason for Ji to connect with Wang.47 Wang’s case thus shows that while High Qing Huizhou salt merchants’ collections were drawn into the Qianlong emperor’s imperial projects, these tradesmen also won the court’s favor and obtained social recognition through their collections.

collecting as a collector In the eighteenth century, with imperial recognition, collectors emerged as a newly visible social category and collecting became a valued form of expertise. These conditions made room for merchants to assume a visible place in society. In response, wealthy merchants skillfully fashioned themselves a persona as collectors. This self-construction as expert collectors emboldened them to assume leadership of collecting activities, thereby winning them social recognition and elevating them above their peers. Wang Qishu, a famous bibliophile and seal collector, was one of these merchant collectors (see Figure 3.1). Wang Qishu was a merchant, poet, official, editor, and publisher. Born to a salt merchant family from Miantan, a small village in southern She county in Huizhou, Wang’s grandfather and father spent much of their lives on the canals of Jiangnan, where they owned a successful business.48 Like most salt merchant families, the Wangs invested in the education of their sons, with the expectation that they would pass the civil service ­examinations.

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Figure 3.1  A portrait of Wang Qishu when he was twenty years old. From Wang Qishu, Feihongtang yinpu, published in the Qianlong period. s o u r c e : Courtesy of the Chinese Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library. Copyright President & Fellows of Harvard College.

Wang prepared to take the examinations but eventually chose to enter the salt business in Hangzhou because of “the burden of family responsibilities” ( jiyan jialei ).49 As a result of Wang’s contributions to the imperial treasury, he received an official position from the court and served in Beijing for several years.50 Yet he was a man of many talents. In his leisure time, he wrote poetry. He published a six-juan (fascicles, literally “scrolls,” a counting unit for traditional Chinese books) anthology of poetry and took an active interest in recording anecdotes. He collected the stories that he had heard when he served in the office in Beijing and published them together in an anecdote collection.51 Wang was also known for selecting, editing, and publishing one of the largest anthologies of women’s poems, titled Collected Fragrances (Xiefang ji ).52



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As all of this suggests, Wang Qishu had a penchant for writing. He liked to compose poems and record anecdotes and also actively published his writings. Most of Wang’s writings, however, were forgotten. Few elites praised his poems, and mention of Wang’s talents as a writer was rare.53 Even on the occasions when Wang’s writing was mentioned, the tone of some of the comments was dismissive. When the famous literatus Qian Daxin (1728– 1804) wrote a preface for Wang’s anecdote collection, for instance, Qian produced what the later scholar Huang Shang (1919–2012) has termed “a carelessly-composed essay as a courtesy” (caocao yingchou zhi zuo).54 Wang Qishu’s collection, however, tells a different story. Wang was widely recognized as a collector. Yuan Mei even compared Wang to the model collectors Gu Aying (1310–1369) and Xu Liangfu (?–1395) of the Yuan dynasty, depicting Wang as a person who loved collecting and a person who “admired the personality of and liked to befriend famous scholarly gentlemen.”55 In addition to his book collection, Wang was also famous for collecting seals ( yin), stamps that had been used for millennia to place vermilion markings on official documents. Wang’s fellows often depicted Wang as a person who was surrounded by thousands of seals, a man who spent his time either examining his collections or editing seal impression books.56 Wang’s obsession with his seal collection was also a popular topic in the writings of his contemporaries, such as Qian Yong, who vividly described how Wang begged Qian for a Han dynasty bronze seal.57 This image of Wang was the result of his careful construction and conspicuous display of his collection. Before museums first appeared in China during the late Qing, catalogs and illustration books served as the medium through which collectors displayed their objects outside their studios. Wang composed twenty-eight seal imprint catalogs, of which seventeen still exist.58 These catalogs functioned as a two-dimensional museum through which Wang displayed his collection and also provide valuable sources for historians to examine Wang’s motivations. In his “editorial principles,” Wang often stated his intention for the publication as well as the rules he had followed to edit and arrange. Meanwhile, many prefaces, postscripts, and poems written by Wang’s fellows for his publications included various comments on and evaluations of Wang’s collection. These seal imprint catalogs themselves, including their size, categorization, composition, and publishing materials, represent Wang’s preferences. Based on these materials, the following section ­demonstrates

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how Wang fashioned himself a persona as a collector by highlighting specific elements of his seal collection including value, quantity, variety, and a format of display.

Value: Collecting Seals for Conducting Evidential Studies As discussed earlier, the changing discourse on the meaning of collecting added a new scholastic perspective to this activity. Wang Qishu, likewise, argued for the scholarly value of seal collecting and particularly claimed that seal collections would help scholars learn ancient characters and thus facilitate evidential studies. By emphasizing the link between seal collection and evidential studies, Wang built up a consensus about what such acts of seal collecting meant. Through this consensus, Wang justified his passion to collect seals. Seals were traditionally considered a noncollectible item because of their practical use. In the late Ming, the use of soft stones as the primary material for seal carving elevated the cultural value of the seal. Since it was much easier to engrave the soft soapstone, literati began to carve seals themselves.59 Because of their own participation in seal carving, by the sixteenth century, elites recognized the seal as an independent aesthetic object. The cultural status of seals, as a result, was transformed from that of a functional object produced by craftsmen to an art form.60 Collecting seals, in turn, became a popular activity among literati who often emphasized the enjoyment of pure pleasure (wan) of seal collection. As art historian Bai Qianshen has noted, there was “[an] intense and widespread fascination with unusual characters among calligraphers, seal carvers, and even publishers in the late Ming.” This fascination came from “a cultural climate in which novelty was encouraged,” and it also suited the cultural life of entertainment and leisure in the late Ming.61 Writings on seal connoisseurship in the late Ming also highlighted the aesthetic value of seals, focusing on carving styles and aesthetic appreciation. Crafting seals were thus considered an idle pleasure fit for a scholar’s studio. In the eighteenth century, however, the rise of the evidential studies movement provided a new narrative through which scholars could evaluate seals. As mentioned earlier, the evidential scholars aimed to recapture the original meaning of ancient classics through techniques such as phonology, etymology, and paleography. For many scholars, paleography—the study of ancient characters referring to the so-called seal style (zhuanshu) used before



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the Han dynasty—provided an important foundation for understanding ancient texts.62 The characters on ancient seals were thus a key source for interpreting these historical works. Wang Qishu leveraged this connection between seals and seal style script to elevate the status of seal collection. According to Wang, the most important and primary goal for collecting seals was to study ancient characters and conduct evidential studies. Wang clearly pointed out that the value of seal imprint books was that the “six writing scripts (liushu) originated from paleography (xiaoxue) and thus [seal imprint books] would bring great benefits [to our learning] (dayou biyi ).” “Liushu” here referred to the six writing styles in ancient texts, of which seal script was one. Seal imprint books therefore were “not merely goods for appreciation and pleasure in literati studios ( fei tewei wenfang shangwan zhipin)” but for scholarly use.63 Wang Qishu also compared his interest in seal collection with an appreciation of the study of bronze and stone engravings. Wang once said: Great writings by ancient people were always carved in bronze and stone and could thus be preserved forever. The [writings] that recorded official titles and names were preserved by being carved on seals. When Ouyang Xun saw the Suojing stele, he stayed looking up at the stele for three days and then could leave. Regarding seal carving, I have the same obsession. I search for [these seals] by any means, preserve them in their bamboo cases, and make vermilion impressions from them.64

Here, Wang compared his passion for seal carving to that of the famous Tang calligrapher Ouyang Xun (557–641), who obsessively studied steles. Scholars of evidential studies believed that bronze and stone carvings, which included steles, provided reliable information for understanding ancient classics.65 The official titles and names on the seals, as Wang argued, functioned the same as the great documents carved on bronzes and stones. By comparing his seal collection to Ouyang Xun’s examination of a stele, Wang elevated the value of his seal collection to a scholarly exploration of ancient documents. The standard that Wang Qishu employed to select seals for his seal impression books also indicated his emphasis on evidential studies. In the “editorial principles” for a compilation of ancient seal imprints, for instance, Wang stated: Among the bronze seals from the Han dynasty, the carved characters on some of them were destroyed or not clear, but the [fastening] knob (niu) and

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the color of the seals were well preserved. I could not exclude most of these seals. However, if the impressions of the seal were good but the seals were not the original ones (ruo kemian suijia, xishi linmo), I would not include them.66

The key principle for selecting seals, according to Wang, was to pick what he believed to be the “original” ones.67 The originality became a crucial criterion here because, as seals were considered a source for studying ancient characters, the “original” ones from ancient times would effectively serve this function. By highlighting this link between seal collection and evidential studies, Wang Qishu established seal collecting as a valued form of expertise with scholarly meaning. This scholarly value helped Wang win endorsement from his contemporaries. Many of Wang’s fellows argued that seal carving was no longer a trivial skill (xiaoji ); instead, studying seals would help scholars truly understand classics. Ge Chun, for example, claimed that “[seals] were one part of investigating ancient culture and broad learning (kaogu boxue). How can you play with these things only for personal enjoyment (wanwu shiqing )?”68 Some important High Qing evidential scholars also advocated this scholarly value of seal collection. Cheng Yaotian (1725–1814), who studied with Dai Zhen (1724–1777)—one of the founders of evidential studies—emphasized the practical function of seals ( yong ) when he composed a preface for Wang’s book.69 According to Cheng, most scholars in the eighteenth century could not differentiate seal script (zhuanzhou) from clerical script (lishu) and contemporary scripts ( jinti, such as cursive script, running script, and regular script). “Only the Confucian scholar with broad knowledge (boxue zhiru),” Cheng argued, “could have a thorough understanding of classics and explore the various ancient Chinese books based on seal script characters.” Cheng believed that an ability to recognize seal scripts provided the foundation to “correct the mistakes and recover the original meaning of the characters and understand the full breadth of those meanings (xi qi yuanwei ).” The other media that ancient Chinese was written on, such as silk or bamboo, had long since perished, but only the stone seals remained. Therefore, seals were the very medium that carried seal scripts and thus made these ancient scripts visible to contemporary scholars. In this context, Cheng concluded, “characters that were used in ancient times are also suitable for use today (zi jinhu gu, yong shihu jin)” because they could help contemporary scholars to study ancient texts.70 The famous scholar Li



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E (1692–1752) put this argument in a more explicit way, arguing that seals not only should be used to record official titles and people’s names in history but could also be used to “authenticate books and paintings ( jianding tuji shuhua)” and thus “enable descendants from thousands of years later to examine history (shi qianzai xia you suo kao).”71

Quantity and Variety Wang Qishu consciously featured the quantity and variety of his seal collection. As we shall see shortly, Wang demonstrated a desire, and sometimes even an obsession, to possess a collection that contained a large number of seals in all varieties, no matter when they were carved or what kind of material on which they were carved. Wang once compared his seal compilation to previous ones and emphasized that his book contains forty separate juan, far more than any of the other impression books in history. Because he had collected and displayed this wide array of seals, Wang claimed, “the people who were looking for wood would never lack trees in the forest; and the people who were fishing for pearls would feel like they were swimming in the Southern Ocean.”72 Through this metaphor, Wang proudly claimed that anyone who was interested in seals could find every type of seal in his publication, with boundless possibilities to explore. To Wang, the size of his collection mattered because it was the quantity and variety of his seals that distinguished him from the common run of his peers. The first and foremost feature of Wang Qishu’s seal collection is its quantity. Wang Qishu possessed a large number of seals. His vast economic resources certainly would have allowed him to create such a massive collection. Over the years, Wang accumulated ancient seals by purchasing them from other private collectors and antique markets.73 Yet Wang was never satisfied just with the seals that he could buy directly. He employed a variety of measures, including gift exchange and patronage, to enlarge his collection. Wang’s broad network, including the people from his hometown in Huizhou and in the urban centers where he resided, was key to his ability to acquire seals, especially ones made by contemporary carvers. Wang’s homeland of Huizhou had been a famous place for seal carving since the late Ming.74 Wang himself actively constructed and maintained his relationships with these carvers, thereby preparing for his future requests for seals. For example, when Wang Qishu went back to visit his ancestors’

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graves, one of the fellow clansmen of Wang’s nephews (zuzhi ), Wang Fen, came to see him. Wang generously lent Wang Fen his seal impression books and also allowed Fen to study his seal collection. Thanks to Wang’s generosity, Fen greatly improved his seal carving technique, and he later contributed to Wang’s seal collection.75 Wang also built connections with artists outside his lineage. In the fall of 1756, Wang went back to his hometown because of a lawsuit. It was certainly not a pleasant time in Wang’s life and he was reluctant to see anyone, with one exception: Wu Shijie, a famous seal carver in Huizhou. Wang and Wu spent hours and hours together appreciating seals and discussing carving styles.76 Later, Wu carved several seals for Wang. Outside Huizhou, Wang built up networks in urban centers like Hangzhou, where he lived, and other places where he sojourned. Hangzhou was undoubtedly the center of Wang’s efforts in seal collecting. There he participated in a variety of local activities, like poetry gatherings, to find new specimens. In the spring of 1745, Wang joined the West Lake Poetry Club, through which he made friends with seal carvers, including Ding Jing (1695– 1765) (see Figure 3.2). Ding founded the Zhe school of seal carving and was seen as the most prominent seal carver in eighteenth-century Hangzhou. They continued their friendship for the next twenty years. Ding not only carved seals for Wang but also helped him compile seal impression books.77 Outside Hangzhou, Wang built up relationships with literati and artists whose seals were often found in Wang’s seal impression books.78

Figure 3.2  Impression from a seal that the master carver Ding Jing carved for Wang Qishu. The inscription (left), which was carved into the side of the seal, explains how Wang requested the seal from Ding. From Feihong yiji, likely published in 1937. s o u r c e : Courtesy of the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley.



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While Wang commissioned seals from his friends, he also collected a considerable number of seals through his patronage of seal carvers. Wang supported the carvers, especially those at an economic disadvantage, in his studio, Flying Swan Studio (Feihongtang ). Wang even wrote and published an eight-volume collection of biographies of contemporary seal carvers, titled Biography of the Seal Carvers of Flying Swan Studio (Feihongtang yinren zhuan). In doing so, he built a seal carving community with himself as the center. Numerous seal carvers resided in Wang’s house, where they could peruse seal impression books for inspiration as they carved. Zhou Fen, the son of a poor artisan, stayed in Wang’s studio for several years. He greatly improved his carving skill by reading Wang’s seal impression books and emulating classical seals.79 Wang’s Seal Collection of Flying Swan Studio (Feihongtang yinpu) published 176 seals carved by Zhou Fen. Not only did struggling artists find themselves a home at Flying Swan Studio, but famous seal carvers were also provided with substantial compensation.80 The various categories of Wang Qishu’s seal collection also speak for the massive quantity and wide variety of his collection. Wang Qishu adopted several criteria, including novel ones that he invented, to classify and order his seals in publication. Wang often grouped his seals chronologically by date of production. He was interested in the seals from earlier dynasties. One of Wang’s most influential seal impression catalogs is Ren’an’s Ancient Seal Collection (Ren’an jigu yincun), which records the ancient seals made before the late Ming.81 In the “editorial principles,” Wang wrote the following: The first seal impression books were published in the Xuanhe period [Song dynasty]. After that, more seal impression books were compiled in different dynasties. Recently, imitating these seal impression books has become popular. These imitations have lost the sincere and simple style of the ancients. Furthermore, those with narrow knowledge are not able to distinguish genuine seals from forgeries ( guashizhe meiyu zhenjian yanke), and thus their carving style is strange and vulgar (xianguai cusu). People learned from [these people] and they were misguided. Therefore the genuine style only can be seen by [those with] clear eyes (mingyan cunzhen).82

As this guideline shows, Wang articulated the major motivating factors for publishing the old (gu) seals. He believed that contemporary people, who had limited knowledge, were not able to recognize the genuine style of old seals. It was his intention, by displaying genuine pieces, to educate and thus establish an authentic taste for ancient carving styles.83

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Besides ancient seals, Wang also collected contemporary seals. Wang’s largest and most prominent seal publication, The Seal Collection of the Flying Swan Studio, is a catalog of seals by High Qing carvers. Publishing this catalog was a long-term project. It took thirty-one years and was completed in 1776. During the process, Wang continuously requested seals from contemporary seal carvers. It finally became a massive compilation with forty juan divided into five sections ( ji ).84 While chronology was a commonly used criterion to group seals, Wang Qishu remained unsatisfied, inventing new structures of categorization. Wang was the first person in recorded Chinese history who grouped seals according to the seals’ material.85 The outcome of this effort is a catalog titled Seal Categories of Tui Studio (Tuizhai yinlei ). The Chinese word lei here means “category” or “type.” As Wang claimed in the “editorial principles”: The Seal Categories of the Tui Studio is compiled to display [the seals that were made of] gold, silver, precious stones, crystal, jade, stone, porcelain, ivory, bamboo, and wood from my collection. All these materials are listed in equal proportions ( gezhong binglie). [All of the seals] including famous seals and seals owned by prominent people will be categorized in ten categories (li lei wei shi ). This compilation will follow the order of these categories. With all the materials listed, the great seal carvings are all accounted for.86

The emphasis of this publication, as we have seen, is the materiality of seals. Wang also categorized his collections based on the size of the seals. It seems that he was fascinated by tiny seals. In 1754, he published a catalog dedicated to small seals, titled Tiny Seals from Brocaded Pouch ( Jinnang yinlin).87 This book contains 228 seals, all of which are smaller than three fen or 9.9 millimeters. Some of the seals were only 3.3 millimeters.88 He also compiled a catalog titled Appreciation of Tiny Seals (Xiuzhen yinshang ), a short compilation glowing with his affection for the smallest carved artwork. Wang could have simply categorized all of his seals into ancient seals and contemporary seals, or official seals and private seals, as many previous collectors did. But he chose to adopt various standards and even invented new ones for displaying his collection. While collectors often focused on the history and function of seals, Wang also highlighted materiality and shape. Wang’s adoption of a wide range of diverse display criteria was a statement that his collection included every possible category. Not only did he own seals from different time periods, he also possessed seals in different



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­ aterials and sizes. In other words, he was eager to collect as many seals as m possible in as many categories as possible.

Display In addition to highlighting the meaning and content of his collection, Wang Qishu also intentionally sought the best format to display his collection. While current exhibitions are often held in a three-dimensional place such as a museum or gallery, Wang’s exhibitions took place in a two-dimensional space: the seal impression catalog, or yinpu. The quality of this medium, the catalogs, offered another channel for Wang to distinguish himself from his peers. Wang paid a great deal of attention to the physical appearance of his compilations. He chose the most expensive publishing materials and also worked tirelessly on book design. Wang’s persistent efforts—his incredible investment, his meticulous attention to material, and his enduring devotion to publishing—might be interpreted in different ways. But after painstakingly collecting and categorizing his seals, Wang was eager to display and share his collection in the best way possible. Wang’s publishing of his seal books as luxury items, in other words, was not only a demonstration of conspicuous consumption. Rather, it represented his desire as a collector to exhibit his collection effectively. Publishing seal impression books required significant capital. A highquality seal catalog required each seal to be carefully stamped on each page individually, a particular method of seal publishing called qianyin. The process involved two steps: first, to make a woodblock for each page with the description of the seal; second, to stamp the seal on each page according to the description. This complicated process made it impossible to publish qianyin on a massive scale, granting the limited copies an elevated status.89 Wang published most of his seal impression books using this method. As he once stated, “I do not hesitate to make a huge investment to use vermilion seal paste (zhusha ni ), clear paper from Yue ( jie Yuechu), the best ink made from the soot of burnt Tong oil (ding yanmo), and the colorful brocade case to make and decorate this yinpu. Those people who only pursue profit cannot be mentioned on equal terms [with me] ( fei yu shelizhe suo ke tongri yu).”90 Wang might have carefully compared all kinds of materials to publish his books, meticulously searching for the best paste, paper, ink,

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and wood case that could be used to store the catalogs. He must not have invested in these books for profit, not only because he says as much in the last sentence, but also because of the limited number he could print through this method. Wang’s willingness to invest such a great amount in these books might hint at his desire to show off his wealth. Yet his claim reveals his desire to spend more money to make sure his books were published with the best possible quality. Wang paid full attention to the design for each catalog, both in terms of size and page arrangement. For instance, Wang chose to publish his Seal Collection of the Flying Swan Studio with paper measuring 28.7 centimeters by 18.5 centimeters (11.3 inches by 7.28 inches), the largest of his collection. While Wang himself did not directly mention why he published such large books, his readers, impressed by the beautiful arrangement of the book, confirmed that Wang would have chosen the spacious page to make the book more comfortable to read. As one reader, Wang Shuqi, wrote enthusiastically in his postscript: When I opened the book, my eyes and mind suddenly felt open and clear (xinmu huoran). All the seals, whether strange or original, were placed into a united system ( guaiguai qiqi, lian’er weiyi ). The delicate strokes and the dots with heavy ink were unevenly but neatly placed with each other (xianbo nongdian, cuoluo qijian).91

Wang also published catalogs in smaller sizes. His book Tiny Seals from Brocaded Pouch, measuring 7.8 centimeters by 5.8 centimeters (3.07 inches by 2.28 inches), won a reputation as the smallest seal impression book ever published.92 As with his motivation for making large books, Wang decided to publish books in this size to satisfy his reader’s potential needs: he wanted his readers to be able to carry around the books in their pocket. Wang once claimed: I worried that the previous compilation had too many volumes and was too heavy, and thus would be difficult for people to appreciate. When [readers] have this book in hand, it is like Mount Peilin for Mount Tai and River Hutuo for the Yellow River. After they climb the mountain and cross the river [Peilin and Hutuo], they can enjoy the natural scene in advance.93 Moreover, this book is not as coarse and heavy as Gu Congde’s reprinted compilation in the Ming dynasty.94



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By invoking Gu Congde’s (1520?–?) compilations, Wang highlighted the advantage of his books, being light and easy to carry around. As Wang imagined, his readers would appreciate seal impressions when they could easily hold the books. The composition of the seals on each page was also crucial. Wang Shuqi’s postscript, cited earlier, shows how he found it comfortable and pleasant to read Wang Qishu’s compilation. While Wang rarely explained how he wanted the page to be arranged, the appearance of his catalogs speaks for itself. First of all, as was necessary in creating a qianyin book, Wang never stamped seals on both sides, as the good seal pastes always penetrated the page, thus destroying the images of the impressions on the reverse side. Wang Qishu also often varied the arrangement of pages, such as the pages of The Seal Collection of the Flying Swan Studio, which were equally divided into two or four even spaces, according to the size of the seal. The contents of the seal impressions were listed right under the impression, with the carver’s name inscribed on the left corner (see Figure 3.3). The woodblock frame consisted of two straight lines, one of which was thicker than the other. In contrast to this rather organized format, Ren’an’s Ancient Seal Collections was arranged in a different way. Each page could contain one to five seals, depending on seal size. The woodblock frame for this catalog was designed with a dragon pattern that graced the page with a soft blue rather than the harsh black lines often used to color the frame (see Figure 3.4).95 Just as a museum curator needs to consider how to arrange objects so as to allow visitors to enjoy an exhibition in the most effective and comfortable way, Wang took into full account the importance of delighting his readers and enabling them to appreciate the seal impressions. Wang neatly organized the stamp arrangement in his publications, paying close attention to aesthetics. As one reader stated, “the position as well as the looseness and density were always exquisite and delicate (weizhi shumi, anpai pomiao).”96 Wang’s efforts made his seal impression books popular among both seal connoisseurs and bibliophiles. Even in the twentieth century, when the famous bibliophile Huang Shang encountered Wang’s compilation in the market, he was amazed by its composition and the arrangement of the seals on each page. As he expressed, this compilation showed “a vast array of beautiful and fine things. . . . [E]ven after two hundred years, the vermilion impressions are still bright and lustrous (danzhu huanran), and their wonderful essence is

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Figure 3.3  Seal impressions from Feihongtang yinpu, published in the Qianlong period. This book adopted a particular method of seal publishing called qianyin. This method requires the publisher to produce a woodblock for each page with the description of the seal first, then stamp the seals on each page accordingly. The upper right seal was carved with the four characters Xiufeng shouzou. As Xiufeng is Wang’s courtesy name (zi ), the seal carver Huang Yue specifically made this one for Wang. s o u r c e : Courtesy of the Chinese Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library. Copyright President & Fellows of Harvard College.

completely revealed ( jingcai bixian).”97 The fine materials that Wang carefully chose to make his books were obviously central to their quality. Wang’s seal impression books were not the only high-quality publications in the eighteenth century. He was, however, one of the most dedicated private publishers and truly devoted himself to the physical appearance of his books. Wang’s attention to design shows his eagerness to display his collection in all of its glory. Each seal impression book, arranged in such an elegant form, might have followed certain printing strategies, but profitmaking was not a priority. Rather, Wang’s persistent devotion to detail in publishing should be interpreted from the perspective of his identity as a



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Figure 3.4  Seal impressions from Jigu yincun. This catalog also adopted the qianyin printing method. s o u r c e : Courtesy of the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley.

c­ ollector. As a collector, Wang carefully created these books because he wanted his readers to appreciate the beauty of his seals. The seal impression catalogs are not simply extraordinary books. They are two-dimensional exhibitions that provided a medium for Wang to display his collection and invite evaluation of his collected objects. Yet even more so, it was a channel through which Wang could find his voice about aesthetics and beauty, through which Wang could express his own subjectivity as a collector.

identified as a collector Wang Qishu’s persistent accumulation and conspicuous display of his seal collection, as examined earlier, demonstrated how he constructed his identity with the social category of collector. In other words, he wanted to be

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identified with the seals that he collected. Indeed, he used the Chinese term pi, meaning obsession, to declare his passion for seals. According to Judith Zeitlin’s definition of pi in late imperial China, Wang’s pi can be described as a habitual and excessive fixation on seals associated with seal collecting.98 Wang asked a famous seal carver, Huang Yi (1744–1802), to carve a seal with two characters yinpi (obsessed with seals) for himself.99 His fellows also widely used the term yinpi to address him.100 Wang Qishu’s self-image as a devoted seal collector was widely recognized by his peers. They depicted Wang with three primary themes: obsession, erudition, and wealth. Through these themes, Wang’s image as a wealthy collector, a true lover of seals, and a connoisseur with broad knowledge was established. Wang Qishu was singled out because of his obsession with seals. Wang’s contemporaries used various terms, such as hao and shi (both meaning “to be fond of”), in addition to the term pi, to characterize him as a seal lover. All three words signaled an understanding of collectors’ relationship with their collected objects, a particular understanding grounded in an earlier saying of the Song dynasty. Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), a northern Song dynasty official and intellectual, famously said: “Objects often accumulate around those who love them (wu chang juyu suohao).”101 The core of this statement is that the collector’s own delight, hao, was the key reason for him to accumulate objects. According to this logic, collectors could be identified by the objects they accumulated because it was the collector’s own delight that led to his collection. The meaning of shi and in particular pi is slightly different from hao because of the stronger emotional attachments that were contained in these two words. However, both shi and pi clearly implicated the collector-object relationship that was stated in Ouyang’s quotation.102 Wang’s contemporaries widely employed Ouyang’s phrase to describe Wang’s collecting activities. Wang Peng once wrote a postscript to Wang in which he commented, “Objects often accumulate around those who delight in them (wu juyu suohao), and then precious goods accumulate to a great number (bao ji er jiaduo).”103 This image became one of the primary themes most associated with Wang’s enterprises. Wang Qishu’s massive collection also brought him a reputation as a person interested in broad knowledge. Wang was often described as bo, a term meaning “erudition” or “broad.” Bo was used as an adverb to depict how Wang broadly collected seals, such as in the phrase jiansou bocai (broadly search for and select).104 In most cases, it was used as an adjective to describe Wang’s knowledge of seals and ancient characters, in phrases such as boya



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(well-informed and refined), bogu (broadly acquainted with ancient things), bowu (broadly knowledgeable of things), boxue (well versed in a wide range of studies), and botong (having broad knowledge).105 Bo was a crucial quality in a collector as it provided the foundation for being considered a connoisseur.106 Having broad experience seeing, touching, and examining objects was necessary for a collector to develop his taste and acquire the ability to distinguish genuine seals from forgeries. Wang himself was confident that he had developed these skills in just such a manner. He claimed that by publishing catalogs and seal impression books, he could establish general precepts or rules about taste while also informing public values concerning art. Some elite contemporaries agreed with Wang. They noted approvingly that Wang’s breadth of experience allowed him to specialize in various types of seals and gave him a sharp eye for distinguishing true antiques from forgeries ( ju zhihui yan).107 Wang’s friend Ge Chun once noted that “Wang was broadly acquainted with the six writing scripts, and therefore could correctly discern things that were suspected to be the same from those with minor differences.”108 Yet even though bo was a necessary prerequisite for being a qualified connoisseur, it did not guarantee connoisseur status. In fact, there was a potential danger in being too bo, as one’s taste could suffer from being indiscriminate. Qian Yong once complained that Wang “did not care whether [the seal] was refined or coarse, beautiful or ugly; he valued everything highly.” Because of this, he believed, Wang “was insufficiently discriminating” (shao jianbie).109 Thus, even though Qian Yong spoke highly of Wang’s passion and devotion to seal collecting, he disparaged Wang’s connoisseurship, implying that he often failed to evaluate the quality of the seals. Too broad a collection might lower the quality of the objects. With regard to Wang’s case, therefore, this concept of bo created two discourses. On the one hand, bo opened a sphere in which Wang was able to advertise his extensive possessions and his wide range of knowledge. On the other hand, being called bo carried potential pitfalls, opening a collector up to criticism for being indiscriminate in taste. The tricky relationship between bo and astute discrimination provided a discursive field in which elites were able to devalue as well as praise Wang’s role as a collector. Either way, Wang Qishu himself continued to expand his collection. He proudly identified himself and enjoyed being identified as a collector with an impressive number of seals.

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Last but not least, ownership was another crucial part of the collecting culture. Ultimately, the core of a private collection was the collector’s ability to purchase and preserve his property, the collected objects. Wang’s extensive publishing projects were, of course, claims on his possession of these objects, and Wang’s ability to accumulate these precious seals was consequently recognized and emphasized. His considerable financial commitment to his collection won praise from his elite acquaintances. In commenting on Wang’s seal collection, the High Qing poet Zhou Xuanwu (fl. 1757?) compared Wang to the famous collectors Ni Zan (1301–1374) and Gu Aying of the Yuan dynasty. Zhou remarked that Ni and Gu had been able to collect numerous precious works of art because they were wealthy. Zhou continued: Wang’s wealth was not less than that of these two people. Wang collected and accumulated ancient seals, thoroughly differentiated the genuine antiques from the forgeries, and finally compiled them into a book. His contributions matched these others’ [Ni and Gu]. . . . Wang by nature was interested in ancient things, and his resources allowed him to reach his goal [li zuyi zhi zhi ].110

Here the word li (literally “power”) emphasized Wang’s economic ability to collect seals. Zhou was not the only person who mentioned Wang’s wealth. The poet and official Zhu Zhang (fl. 1771?) once observed that Wang “was ready to spend substantial sums” (buxi zhongpin) to invite contemporary seal carvers to reside in his house.111 While praising Wang’s generosity in patronizing seal carvers, Zhu’s choice of the word zhongpin also subtly points to Wang’s financial strength.112 Compared to Zhou Xuanwu’s and Zhu Zhang’s relatively implicit praise for Wang’s wealth, the comments of Wang’s friend Sun Chendian were much more direct. In his preface for Wang’s ink collection, Sun openly commented that “Xiufeng [Wang Qishu] owns a great fortune and is also devoted to ancient things (duozi er haogu),” and he predicted that Wang’s activities would inspire prosperity for future generations (qifa houren).113 All these qualities were certainly not separate. Instead, their relationship with one another crafted a holistic picture of Wang as a collector. As Wang’s friend Qiu Ruyu depicted: “Wang Qishu had the heart to pursue ancient things, the knowledge to differentiate among ancient things, and the ability to assemble [a collection of seals] ( yi haogu zhixin, ju jiangu zhishi, you youli



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yi huiji zhi ). As a result, products made by people everywhere were accumulated.”114 Qiu’s description precisely points out the three characteristics of Wang as a collector: his obsession with seals, his broad knowledge, and his ability to accumulate objects. Wang successfully portrayed himself as a collector, a new social category through which he stood out in Qing society and sought recognition from his contemporaries.

conclusion This chapter examines the changing characteristics of collecting culture in the eighteenth century. The economic revival and subsequent explosion in production of material goods during the High Qing is reminiscent of the period of economic prosperity and luxury consumption in the late Ming. The court’s expanding influence in collecting enterprises, however, distinguished the High Qing from the collecting culture of the late Ming. The Qianlong emperor’s personal interest in collecting and his compilation of large-scale court-sponsored catalogs led to the enhanced recognition of collectors in Qing society. Collectors emerged as a unique social category, and collecting came to be seen as a valued form of expertise. The sociopolitical perception of collecting, in short, underwent a transformation. As society increasingly identified people with the large number of organized objects they possessed, some of the wealthy Huizhou salt merchants eagerly laid claim to the social category of collector. A careful analysis of how the salt merchant Wang Qishu narrated, accumulated, arranged, and displayed his seal collection shows that Wang strategically employed different elements associated with his seal collection to assert himself as a collector. These elements, including meaning, size, and the display format, led to recognition from his contemporaries, who saw him as a collector passionate about seals, an expert in seal connoisseurship, and a man of substance financially capable of amassing a distinguished collection. Through his objects Wang garnered the credentials necessary to portray himself as a collector above his peers. The Qianlong emperor’s enthusiasm for collecting and his sponsorship of imperial projects also created opportunities for merchant collectors to construct and strengthen their connections with the court. The court’s increasing demand for artworks and antiques prompted merchants, who prepared

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tributary goods for the court, to engage in their own private enterprises as well. This court-merchant relationship conferred credentials on such merchants and added value to the objects they collected, helping them enhance their reputation and thus their visibility in collecting culture. The analysis of Huizhou salt merchants’ collections challenges the conventional paradigm of elite-merchant status negotiation and proposes a new framework for understanding merchants’ motivations in collecting. By accumulating precious objects, the merchants contributed to the imperial collection, winning the emperor’s favor and recognition. At the same time, the court’s involvement helped create the social identity of shoucangjia with which the merchants could identify and fashion themselves. The merchants’ collecting culture, therefore, was heavily shaped by the Qianlong emperor’s own imperial collection. While a similar pattern existed between merchants and scholarly elites over object collecting, merchants’ primary goal in the accumulation of objects was not necessarily to imitate the lifestyle of men of letters and thereby transcend their own social status. Instead, merchants used collected objects to construct their social identity and to strengthen connections with the court.

part three

Making Things in Huizhou

four

Luxury and Lineage In 1785, Bao Zhidao (1743–1801; zi Chengyi, Kenyuan), a head merchant in Yangzhou, decided to rebuild an old shrine in Tangyue, his home village in the remote hills of She county. This shrine, titled the Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine on Dragon Mountain (Longshan Cixiao tang ), celebrated the moral deeds of two ancestors from the Bao clan. The shrine was originally constructed in the Song dynasty, but by the Ming it had fallen into disrepair. With Zhidao’s financial support and arrangement, the three main halls of the shrine were quickly completed by the end of the year. Three years later he wrote an epigraph explaining his initial agenda for this project; the epigraph was then carved on a stele to be placed inside the shrine. Surprisingly, in 1798, nine years after his epigraph was finished, Zhidao returned to this project and arranged for a Yangzhou painter to create a painting narrating the story about the filial piety involved in the shrine’s founding. He further asked a skilled carver from a neighboring village, Huang Tianyu, to carve the painting into stone, and he then embedded the stone in the wall of the shrine.1

This restored shrine is only one of the many projects undertaken by Bao Zhidao. Like many other Huizhou salt merchants, Zhidao and his brother, sons, and nephew (his “household”) resided in Yangzhou but continually financed lineage-related projects that would benefit clan members in their hometown. Huizhou salt merchants’ lineage patronage itself is not a new story for historians of China. At least since the late Ming, salt merchants had actively participated in publishing genealogies, constructing ancestral halls, and donating charitable lands to the poorer members of the clan.2 While these merchants’ patronage was largely focused on and often resulted in some kind of object, such as a nicely printed genealogy or a highly decorated shrine complex, we do not have a detailed examination of what these objects look like and how these merchants managed to make them, nor an exploration of the specific outcomes or the social influence of these things. This chapter addresses these questions by focusing on the actual objects involved in the Bao household’s benevolent activities, including printed genealogies, filial piety shrines, and artistic steles (bei ) associated with charitable lands. The lineage construction projects that flourished in Ming and Qing Huizhou were designed to consolidate clan history, help the poor, and maintain harmony among lineage members. Patronage of these projects was 127

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thus considered moral behavior. An examination of the material characteristics of the outcome of the patronage, however, reveals the nature of these lineage-related objects as conspicuous but morally accepted consumption. The Bao merchants’ expenditure on the production of these projects, as this chapter shows, surpassed the cost needed to fulfill their function of charity. Lavishly financing these projects, however, was celebrated as moral behavior that followed the Confucian tenet of filial piety. Joanna Handlin Smith has discussed the intriguing relationship between wealth and charity in the late Ming.3 Inspired by Smith’s discussion, my analysis here examines how the Bao merchants turned these lineage construction objects into a display of both wealth and morality. The Baos, I argue, constructed themselves as “virtuous merchants” by using lineage organizations that functioned as luxury items masquerading in the guise of Confucian morality. An exploration of the Baos’ interactions with these objects also discloses unexpected transregional social connections that the merchants skillfully established. The lineage-related objects, with their inherent moral message and attached artistic taste, served as mechanisms through which the Bao merchants exercised their influence in their home village. More importantly, they forged and strengthened the networks with the elite community in cosmopolitan Jiangnan and Beijing. A study of these objects therefore illuminates a unique political and social context in which Huizhou salt merchants lived in High Qing China. This chapter begins with an analysis of Bao Zhidao and his household’s economic and political rise in Qianlong’s reign. The following sections trace the construction of three specific lineage projects sponsored by the Bao merchants: the publication of a new branch genealogy, the reconstruction of the Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine (Cixiao tang ), and the donation of charitable lands ( yitian). The last section focuses on the transregional networks that Bao merchants strengthened through these charitable projects.

the rise of the tangyue bao lineage The rise of Bao Zhidao and his household in Qianlong’s reign exemplifies how Huizhou salt merchants moved from a relatively obscure background to prosperity through the salt business and, more importantly, through the head merchant position that the court granted. Like many other head



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­ erchants, Bao Zhidao and his household came from Tangyue, a small vilm lage located in the western part of She county.4 According to their genealogy, the Bao lineage had lived in Tangyue since the Song dynasty and reached its first peak during the late Ming when jinshi degree holder Bao Xiangxian (1506–1578), a sixteenth-generation grandson of the founding ancestor, successively held office in the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War.5 After Xiangxian’s death, however, the Tangyue Bao lineage gradually declined. Bao Zhidao revived the prestige of the family name during Qianlong’s reign. By the time Zhidao was born, the family had directed its attention toward mercantile endeavors. As the family genealogy records, Zhidao’s great-grandfather, Bao Shicheng, founded the family’s first business, and Zhidao’s grandfather and father continued these merchant pursuits. These men enjoyed a reputation as honest merchants, but they were not able to bring prosperity to the family (see Figure 4.1).6 Zhidao’s talent in the salt trade changed the trajectory of his family. Following the family’s instructions, Zhidao gave up his studies when he was only eleven years old and began working as an accountant in Poyang, Jiangxi province. He continued this career in Zhejiang and Hubei before accepting a position as an accountant for the salt merchant Wu Zunde in Yangzhou. During the twenty years that Zhidao worked for Wu, he earned Wu’s full trust while accumulating the economic and social capital to successfully launch his own salt business in the Huainan salt district.7 The turning point came in the middle of Qianlong’s reign. Because of his success in the salt business, Zhidao was appointed as one of the head merchants in Yangzhou. As explained in Chapter 1, these quasi-official appointments placed head merchants in important positions that directly connected them with the emperor’s bondservants and the court; thus they could not only accumulate wealth but also enjoy political privileges. Zhidao was a head merchant for twenty years.8 The Salt Compendia of Lianghuai notes that Zhidao had already become a head merchant in the middle of Qianlong’s reign.9 Yet his name appears for the first time as a head merchant in extant imperial documents in 1790, the fifty-fifth year of Qianlong’s reign. In this year the Qianlong emperor was celebrating his eightieth birthday, and the Yangzhou head merchants presented opera performances for him in Beijing. After the performances the emperor rewarded the head merchants by raising each official title by one rank.10 In the emperor’s edict Zhidao is

Bao Xianyu 㩚ဒሃ

Bao Buchi 㩚ṉቁ

Wang Pei (W) ứ㓄 (Etian) Bao Lunlu 㩚೔㍒

Bao Lunxuan 㩚೔㌺

Bao Taiqi 㩚Ὀᆊ

Bao Jun 㩚ᆒ

Ye Desui (W) ⴥᚓ㐙 (Qiujiatang)

Wang Guigu ⋤᱇ጡ (Hongyuan)

Bao Shufang 㩚ₙⰾ

Wang Side (W) ứᅄᚫ (Etian)

Wang Hedi (W) Lady Zhao (C) ⋤࿴ᘵ ㉿Ặ (Hongyuan) (Jiangdu)

Bao Zhidao 㩚ᚿ㐨

Bao Yixuan 㩚ᐅ⍏

Bao Chongcheng 㩚ᓫᇛ

Bao Xunmao 㩚໐ⱱ

Lady Xu (C) 許氏 (Hongyuan)

Zheng Yifeng 㒯൤㬅 (Zhengcun)

Cheng Xunshou ⛬カኖ (Huaitang)

Wang Dangshi ứ␜᫬ (Etian)

Bao Sui 㩚㐙

Bao He 㩚࿴

Hong Fu ὥ㰊 (Guilin)

s o u r c e : This chart is based on information recorded in Bao Cong, ed. Tangyue Baoshi Xuanzhong tang zhipu, 10:1–15. l e g e n d : – Head merchant, – Daughter, W – Wife, C – Concubine, arrows indicate marriage. For the figures who did not come from Tangyue village, their home villages are noted in parentheses.

Figure 4.1  Genealogical chart of the Bao family of Tangyue, She county, Huizhou.

Bao Jipei 㩚⧤ᇵ

Lady Wu (C) 藀葢 (Tianjin)

Bao Qiyun 㩚┇忳

Bao Yiyuan 㩚ᐅ⎌

Bao Yiai 㩚ᐅ⎌

Bao Tingda 㩚ᘐ㐩

Bao Fengren 㩚㐂ோ

Bao Fengyi 㩚㐂⩏

Bao Jingzhuang 㩚ᩗⳁ

Bao Zhiyuan 㩚⮴㐲

Bao Mingtang 㩚᫂ር

Bao Shuyun 㩚᭩ⱁ

Bao Xuetong 㩚Ꮵ㏻

Bao Fengjie 㩚㐂ᮽ

Bao Shichen 㩚ኈ⮧



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referred to by his business name, Bao Youheng. Among the twenty-five head merchants who were rewarded, Bao Youheng is listed as the sixteenth. The relatively low position of Bao’s name indicates that he was not the leading merchant, a status that would change just years later. Over the next two generations, because of the hereditary nature of the head merchant position, Zhidao’s household continued to expand its salt business, as well as to benefit from political advantage. After Zhidao passed away in 1801, his first son, Bao Shufang (1763–?; zi Xifen), succeeded him, inheriting his father’s business name and ultimately becoming the leader of the head merchants (see Figure 4.2).11 In 1806 (JQ 11) the Manchu salt administrator in Lianghuai, Elebu (E-le-bu) (1747–1830), submitted a memorial reporting on the salt merchants’ petition to help the victims of a flood in Gaoyou. In this document, Elebu’s reference to Bao Youheng as the leader of the head merchants shows that Bao Zhidao’s household had assumed this high position no later than 1806.12 After Shufang served as

Figure 4.2  “Leshan haoshi ” arch, Tangyue village, She county, Huizhou. This arch was built in 1820 to honor the benevolent activities of Bao Shufang and Bao Jun, whose names were inscribed on the beam of the arch.

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the head merchant, his business name, Bao Youheng, was inherited by his nephew, Bao Chongcheng, the first son of Shufang’s younger brother, Bao Xunmao (1766–?; zi Genshi, Shutang).13 The name Bao Youheng last appears in an extant palace memorial in 1813 (JQ 18), when another salt merchant accused Bao of conducting illegal salt trade.14 Zhidao’s only brother, the much younger Bao Qiyun (1752–?; zi Fangtao, hao Pizhai), was also a Yangzhou salt merchant. After their mother passed away, Zhidao’s wife, Lady Wang, raised Qiyun like her own son, fostering a rather close relationship between the two. This connection brought Qiyun into his brother’s networks and facilitated Qiyun’s own business. As the extant sources show, Qiyun was a successful merchant in Yangzhou in the early Jiaqing reign. In 1804 the Yangzhou salt business office ordered some wealthy salt merchants in Huainan to transfer their business to Huaibei (the area north of the Huai River) where local businessmen were short of capital. Qiyun was named one of these Huainan merchants because of his success in his business.15 While Shufang and Qiyun continued the family’s salt business, Zhidao’s younger son, Bao Xunmao, took a different path. Instead of participating in the salt trade, Xunmao received an opportunity to work in the imperial court. In 1784 during emperor Qianlong’s last southern tour, Xunmao was granted the title of “specially granted juren” (teci juren) and was appointed to the Grand Secretariat (Neige zhongshu) because he presented a fine piece of prose to the emperor. He was thereafter promoted several times.16 Though it appears that Xunmao was not involved in his family’s salt business, his political career depended heavily on his family background. Being permitted to present a piece of prose to the emperor required economic and political capital. It is reasonable to imagine that without his family connection with the salt administrator, it would have been impossible for Xunmao even to be seen by the emperor, never mind standing out among other Jiangnan elites. Even after Xunmao served at the court, his official rank was still tied to his family salt business. In 1811 after Xunmao’s son, the salt merchant Bao Chongcheng, contributed to dike construction along the Huai River, the emperor raised Xunmao’s official rank as a reward.17 At the same time, as discussed later, Xunmao’s position at the court also played an important role to help Bao merchants build their connections with prominent court officials. Xunmao’s political connections, in other words, enabled his family to maximize its benefits and influence.18



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The rise of Zhidao’s household in the High Qing perfectly demonstrates the crucial role of the head merchant position in social advancement. When Zhidao’s son and his grandson inherited this position, “the Bao household began to rise” (er qijia zi longlong qi ), reaching the pinnacle of its success in the late Qianlong and the early Jiaqing reign.19 Based on their economic and political success in Lianghuai, members of the Bao household began to sponsor various public constructions for their lineage in their hometown of Tangyue.

creating a luxury genealogy In the spring of 1800, when Zhidao’s cousin Bao Cong visited Yangzhou, Zhidao suggested that they should compile a new genealogy for their own branch. Zhidao promised that he would pay the publishing costs, and Bao Cong would write it. Zhidao passed away in 1801, before the genealogy was completed. Bao Cong and his son continued the project and finally published the genealogy in 1806.20 This story about compiling a genealogy is not unusual. Editing and publishing genealogies had been common in Huizhou since the Ming dynasty, and merchants took a leading role in promoting this endeavor. Previous scholars have deftly analyzed the politics of genealogy production and demonstrated how the writers and compilers manipulated the content of ­genealogies to create a clan “history” that served a specific agenda.21 A genealogy, in other words, is “a strategic text” that defines the relationships among lineage members and produces “certain social effects.”22 Bao Zhidao, like other compilers, manipulated this genealogy to serve his own purpose. However, Zhidao and his successive compilers were able to produce certain social effects not only by composing and arranging the textual contents but also by investing and designing the physical attributes of the genealogy itself. Therefore, I treat this clan record as an object and focus on its materiality, exploring its current appearance and the procedure of how and why it was produced. First of all, a brief introduction of the Bao lineage and its genealogy publication history will help clarify the reasons of Zhidao’s patronage. The Bao lineage in She county claimed descent from a single ancestor, “the venerable sire Rong” (Rong gong ), who, according to genealogical records, founded the Bao lineage in Tangyue during the Song dynasty. As recorded in the 1760

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genealogy, three of his great-grandsons established their own branches, comprising three main descent groups (zu) of the Bao lineage. The Bao descent group in Tangyue was one of them, while the others lived in She villages, Shuyuan and Yanzhen. In the Ming dynasty, Bao Xiangxian from Tangyue village, a member of the sixteenth generation since sire Rong, obtained the highest official title in the Bao lineage. Because Xiangxian’s residence bore the title Xuanzhong, his line was named Xuanzhong tang. Tang literally means “hall,” and here it refers to the localized lineage of the Xiangxian’s descent group. Bao Xiangxian had three great-grandsons, who further divided Xiangxian’s branch into three branches. These branches were called fang, literally meaning “room.”23 Bao Zhidao and his household belonged to the second fang.24 Zhidao was certainly not the first member in the Bao lineage to sponsor a genealogy. In fact, in 1760, a newly compiled genealogy recording information on the three descent groups (zu) of the Bao lineage was published.25 In contrast to this one, however, Zhidao’s genealogy focused exclusively on the localized lineage (tang ) of Xuanzhong to which he belonged. Therefore, Zhidao compiled a branch genealogy (zhipu) but not one that records the entire lineage (zongpu). One obvious function of this new genealogy was to record detailed information about Xuanzhong tang and thus to establish a history for Zhidao’s own localized lineage (tang ). The new genealogy identified Xiangxian as his apical ancestor, though it still acknowledges sire Rong as the first ancestor. By focusing only on the descendants of Bao Xiangxian, this branch genealogy was able to record detailed information on the lineage members of Xuanzhong tang. The selection of Xiangxian for Xuanzhong tang was also a calculated decision; he had gained the highest official title in the Bao lineage, and therefore naming him the founding ancestor immediately created a glorious history for Zhidao’s own localized lineage (tang ).26 Besides using text to establish and highlight the history of his localized lineage, Zhidao’s household also used the genealogy’s physical attributes to make a statement. A genealogy itself, as an object, generates social relationships and produces meanings. Because of its confidential character, a genealogy was treated as privileged and even sacred by lineage members. As the only authorized written document, a genealogy contains important information of a lineage, such as the transmission of descent, prominent members’ biographies, and regulations for lineage management. The genealogy makers often carefully estimated the number of copies that they needed and



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limited the distribution. A common practice in Huizhou was to preserve at least one copy in the ancestral hall; the rest would be distributed among important lineage members. In some cases, in order to prevent extra copies from being produced illegitimately, a lineage would destroy the woodblocks upon completion of a genealogy. Because of its sacred nature, financing and making such a precious object for the lineage was considered a benevolent and prestigious task. The number of copies of Zhidao’s genealogy was also limited. Only nineteen of the new genealogies were made, and most were distributed to the prominent members of Xuanzhong tang.27 Except for the copy for the ancestral hall, the senior leaders of the generation feng, the generation of Zhidao’s grandfather, kept fourteen copies. Zhidao’s household was supposed to receive only one copy, but in the end they received three, including copies for Zhidao’s second son, Xunmao, and his younger brother, Qiyun.28 The fact that Zhidao’s household owned extra copies of this precious object indicates the superior status of his household. The Bao merchants also aimed to compile an expensive and luxurious genealogy. The material characteristics of this new genealogy are stunning. An investigation of its physical properties, including length, size, production materials, and printing method, reveals that Zhidao’s household consistently chose the most expensive options for publishing, far exceeding normal expectations for the creation of a genealogy. Zhidao’s genealogy consisted of twenty-two juan separated into six books. Including information for the lineage members descended from Bao ­Xiangxian, it covered the history of the household line from the mid-Ming to the mid-Qing times. In contrast to the previous Bao lineage genealogy with wider time frame and coverage, Zhidao’s genealogy is surprisingly long. This branch genealogy followed the main structure of the previous genealogy published in 1760, including important categories such as imperial rewards (chenzhang ), ancestors’ images ( yixiang ), diagrams of tombs (mutu), lineage charts (shixi ), biographies (zhuanzhi ), and prose records (wenhan).29 It was, as Zhidao expressly desired, as formal as any genealogy made before.30 The genealogy was comparatively large: a woodblock edition measuring 353 millimeters by 227 millimeters (13.89 inches by 8.93 inches), with a 240-millimeter-by-175-millimeter (9.44-inch-by-6.88-inch) block frame (bankuang ).31 Scholar Xu Xiaoman, who has examined 219 genealogies produced in the Shanghai area during the Qing and Republican periods, states that the largest genealogy he has seen measures 303 millimeters by

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182 ­millimeters (11.92 inches by 7.16 inches) with a block frame 235 millimeters by 165 millimeters (9.25 inches by 6.49 inches).32 While it is impossible to know the metrics of the largest genealogy ever produced, clearly Zhidao meant his to be particularly sizable.33 Each of the six books is covered by blue cloth speckled with gilt. On the left side of each book is a white tag, made from a glossy, soft, and elegant material, and giving the name of the genealogy and the book number. The text is printed on high-quality white bamboo paper (bailianshi zhi ), with an extra piece of paper added inside each folio page. This method of bookbinding was usually reserved for repairing ancient texts, as these extra sheets were neither commonly used in genealogies nor particularly necessary. Despite being superfluous, this method enhanced the quality of Zhidao’s book by making it more durable. The covers, tags, and paper of a copy held today at Renmin University are still in excellent condition three hundred years after publication. Each half page has thirteen lines, with as many as twenty-six big characters and twenty-six small ones per line. The printer placed small characters in rows of two in an organized and meticulous manner, each carefully arranged line placed within a double-edged frame. The characters, written in classic “Song-style” typeface, are clean and precise. The preface is more stylized. Text was printed in several of the standard calligraphic styles, including running hand script (xingshu), clerical script (lishu), and standard script (kaishu). Text was also accompanied by images, lineage charts (shixitu), tomb diagrams (mutu), drawings of ceremonial sacrifices, and perhaps most impressively, a map of the whole village (see Figure 4.3). It was uncommon for genealogies to include village maps because it required a skilled artist to carve the image on woodblock. The fact that this new genealogy included such an elaborate and detailed image speaks to its high quality and cost. Given the painstaking artistry that clearly went into the genealogy’s production, it is reasonable to suggest that the compilers purposely chose highquality materials and employed skilled workers to construct this lineage record. These expenses, however, were not the determining factors of the cost of making a genealogy. In fact, the cost of printing a genealogy was largely dependent on the quantity—that is, the number of volumes and copies— and the printing method.34 As mentioned earlier, for Zhidao’s genealogy, only nineteen copies of the twenty-two-juan work were needed. Therefore, the largest portion of the total cost would go to the printing method.



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Figure 4.3  An illustration of Tangyue village. This map includes the major buildings and landscape in and around Tangyue. On the right page, six arches and one pavilion are shown on the main path entering the village. Beside the last three arches entering the village are three building complexes: from top to bottom, the shrine for filial ancestors (Shi xiao ci ), the main Bao lineage ancestral hall titled “Dunben,” and the Xichou school (Xichou shuyuan). In the top right corner of the right page, the shrine of Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine on Dragon Mountain (Longshan Cixiao tang) stands at the top of Dragon Mountain. Note that an imperial stele ( yubei ) is shown beside the shrine. s o u r c e : Bao Cong, ed. Tangyue Baoshi Xuanzhong tang zhipu, 18:1–2. Courtesy of Renmin University Library.

Indeed, what really distinguished the expenditure of Zhidao’s genealogy was its printing method. Two methods—woodblock (diaoban) and movable-type (huozi )—were available in the eighteenth century. Scholars have shown that woodblock printing was more expensive than wooden movabletype printing, at least in the Jiangnan area. In particular for genealogy production, movable-type printing was a much more economical choice. According to Xu Xiaoman, some lineages spent roughly two thirds to four fifths of allocated funds for the production of genealogies using block carving. In contrast, for lineages that used movable type, the overhead cost required one third to less than one tenth of their funds. This difference is explained

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by the special nature of genealogies. Compared to other contemporary publications, genealogies required a smaller number of carved wooden characters, in part because generational names were repeatedly used.35 Zhang Xiumin, a specialist in Chinese printing history, also notes that it was more economical to use woodblock printing for large quantities of books as well as for books meant to be republished. In contrast, it was more reasonable to use movable-type printing for genealogies, which required relatively few copies and were rarely republished.36 The existing genealogies also confirm that most genealogies were printed in wooden movable type.37 In addition to these rationales, it might also have been cheaper and more convenient to adopt this method in particular in Huizhou, because the county had supported professional genealogy makers since the Ming dynasty.38 These itinerant specialists usually carried over twenty thousand carved characters with them, minimizing the cost of each new font.39 The Bao merchants, however, chose woodblock printing to make nineteen copies of his new genealogy. In general, books made in woodblock printing were of higher quality than those printed with movable type. Using woodblock printing could avoid the mistakes that were often caused by movable-type printing, such as selecting the wrong characters, misordering or dropping characters, or even dislocating the lines on each page. The appearance of a woodblock-printed book was also usually of better quality. The characters were generally in the same size since they were carved by the same person. Books printed by movable type often had characters in different sizes because the individual movable blocks might have been carved by different craftsmen at different times; the level of block damage also varied.40 The appearance of the genealogy itself, especially the quality of carving and typesetting, further confirms Bao’s preference for quality over economy. Since carving required the most intensive labor in the printing process, publishers usually needed to devote most of their funds to recruiting carvers.41 In addition, carving and typesetting fees depended on the format of the typesetting and the quality of the woodblock. Publishers normally did not use one carver to complete the entire project; instead they preferred to delegate certain categories, such as large characters, small characters, blank spaces, and illustrations, to individual specialists. As Xu Xiaoman states: Presumably differences in rates are tied to differences in the skill and time required for each task; carving a preface or postscript, which might use



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e­ xceptionally large characters or characters written in an artistic calligraphic style, required more skill and time than, for example, the carving of the smaller, craftsman’s-style ( jiangti ) or Song-style (Songti ) characters of the body of the genealogy. And certainly the carving of illustrations and maps, too, demanded more skill and effort than the relatively simple scooping out of the blank spaces of the text.42

Bao Zhidao’s new genealogy included different kinds of carvings, not only characters of different sizes in different styles but also illustrations, maps, and generation charts. These all required different types of woodblocks and therefore raised the cost of publishing. In addition, the precise, clean Songtype characters in the text and the characters in different calligraphic styles in the prefaces necessitated highly skilled craftsmen to carve the woodblocks.43 Because of its decorated cover, high-quality paper, elegant characters, precise images, and expensive printing method, Zhidao’s genealogy finally became a luxury item. The reason for investing in this genealogy in such a lavish way could first be explained by conspicuous consumption. Through this expensive object, Zhidao and his household—who financed the genealogy project—could display their wealth to the lineage members in Tangyue and elsewhere. In addition, not only did Zhidao enhance the status of his localized lineage, but he also foregrounded his leadership among the members in Xuanzhong tang. Indeed, the changed structure and the expanded content of this genealogy all highlighted the status of Zhidao’s own household. For instance, the newly added category “charitable land” ( yitian) recorded information only about lands donated by Zhidao’s household, including references to his wife, Wang Side (1742–1803), and his younger brother, Bao Qiyun. Within the text of the genealogy itself, members of Zhidao’s household received the most elaborate description. Their biographies are much more detailed than those of the other members. Finally, this new genealogy also highlighted the imperial honors the Bao household received.44 By voluntarily financing a project beneficial to his lineage, Zhidao behaved as a filial clan descendant. His expenditure on this genealogy was thus considered a moral deed that enabled him to escape criticism for being extravagant. This new genealogy therefore illustrated how a lineage charitable project, when turned into luxury consumption, provided a site for building moral reputation while also displaying wealth and power.

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Demonstrating the power of his household in Huizhou, however, was only one part of Zhidao’s agenda. The social influence of this genealogy went beyond Huizhou when Zhidao circulated it from Huizhou to Yangzhou and even to Beijing. As Bao Cong recorded: My older cousin [Zhidao] really took the genealogy seriously. He kept a draft in Yangzhou to add to or delete the contents. He broadly sought advice, circulated the genealogy, and quickly revised it in response.45

After Bao Cong finished the draft, Zhidao successfully solicited prefaces from leading scholars and officials, including the former president of the Ministry of Revenue, Cao Wenzhi (1735–1798, zi Jinwei, hao Zhuxu); the famous official and scholar Ji Yun; and the prominent calligrapher Wang Qisun (1755–1818, zi Nianfeng, hao Tifu).46 These activities reveal Zhidao’s desire to solidify connections with the elite from Jiangnan and the court through his patronage to the lineage, a topic that will be further explored in the following sections.

reconstructing a culture of filial piety Making a new genealogy was only one project that Bao Zhidao patronized in Tangyue. As the story at the beginning of this chapter shows, Zhidao also initiated, managed, and supported another charitable project: rebuilding the old Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine on Dragon Mountain. When he began the project in 1785, no one foresaw that the shrine’s complexity and expense would extend the reconstruction over the next twenty years. After the shrine was established, Zhidao himself wrote an epigraph in 1789 to record the reasons for rebuilding this shrine and the construction process. The epigraph was then carved on a stele, which was placed in the shrine soon after. In 1798 the Yangzhou painter Xue Quan was commissioned to create a painting of the story, and the local carver Huang Tianyu carved the painting into stone. This stone is still displayed on the temple walls today. Unlike his genealogy, which was compiled and distributed in a relatively reserved way, Zhidao’s shrine and its attached objects were designed for public view in the community. The architecture, the painting, and the stele provided



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different channels through which Zhidao glorified and spread the filial story of his lineage. The Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine was built to memorialize the virtuous deeds of Bao Zhidao’s two ancestors, Bao Zongyan and his son Bao Shousun. According to the legend, during the wars at the end of the Song dynasty, Bao Zongyan and Bao Shousun attempted to escape from bandits by fleeing to Dragon Mountain. Zongyan was captured, and his son, who had hidden in the grass, came out boldly and asked the bandits to kill him instead of his father. The father insisted that he himself should die, because his son needed to carry on the family name. In the end the bandits were so moved by the love between father and son that they released them both.47 Although this story and its didactic value were recognized by the government and noted scholars in the Yuan and early Ming, by the late Ming, it had faded from memory in Huizhou. Bao Shousun’s son built a shrine to mark the place where the bandits made their capture, and the Yuan scholar Jie Xisi (1274–1344) wrote the characters ci and xiao, the twin values of parental love and filial piety, on a stone plaque adorning the shrine. Official histories also included this story, first in the “filial piety” section of the Song History and later in the Ming History. The fame of this father and son peaked in the early Ming, when the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–1424) rewarded the Bao lineage by granting them permission to erect an arch commemorating their righteous ancestors. However, this glorious history did not last in the Ming. At some point, the cixiao shrine was replaced, and the temple that stood there no longer specifically memorialized Bao’s virtuous ancestors.48 In the early Qing, although the story itself was recorded in some official compilations, the Bao legend had not regained attention until Zhidao’s rebuilding project.49 As introduced earlier, Bao Zhidao’s shrine project produced three testimonials to the culture of filial piety: the shrine, the painting, and the stele. These testimonials provided different mechanisms through which Zhidao communicated with a variety of audiences. To begin with, the shrine was set in public space, where it became a symbol for Tangyue village. It was designed to remind local Tangyue villagers of their glorious patrilinear tradition, as well as Zhidao’s wealth and power. As Zhidao explained in his epigraph, “This shrine was built on the site where father and son fought to sacrifice themselves. Therefore [this shrine] will allow descendants to know their ancestors’ righteousness ( fengyi ).”50

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In addition to the shrine complex, the painting and the stele provided a different medium for Zhidao to display his glorious family history and his munificent patronage. The painting and stone carving, though produced by different artists, constituted a single project, and it was expensive and complicated to produce both of them. Xue Quan, who was commissioned to make the painting, was a famous artist in Yangzhou. Zhidao asked Xue to copy the illustration of this story from a published work titled Knowing History by Using Individual Stories as a Mirror (Renjing yangqiu).51 Zhidao deliberately chose the illustration from this book for its quality and fame (see Figure 4.4). The book was a reproduction of woodblock paintings from the late Ming and was considered one of the most refined illustrated woodblock books of its time. Its fame came from its carver, Huang Yingzu (1563–?), whose woodblock carvings were known for their vivid images and refined carving lines. Huang Yingzu was a descendant of the Huang lineage of Qiu

Figure 4.4  An illustration from Knowing History by Using Individual Stories as a Mirror (Renjing yangqiu) that depicts the virtuous deeds of Bao Zhidao’s two ancestors. From Wang Tingne, Renjing yangqiu (1600), 10:33b–34a. https:// shuge.org/ebook/ren-jing-yang-qiu/.



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village in She County in Huizhou.52 This lineage produced the most ­famous woodblock carvers during the late Ming and thus heavily influenced printing culture in Jiangnan urban centers such as Nanjing and Hangzhou. In fact, the name of “Huang lineage of Qiu village” itself had become the “brand” representing high-quality woodblock painting.53 In addition to asking Xue Quan to produce the painting by copying the illustration from a famous woodblock book, Zhidao also had the stone carver, Huang Tianyu, also known as Huang Guokui, carve the painting on a stele. Huang Tianyu was the descendant from the same Huang lineage of Qiu village that produced the original woodblock Xue Quan used for his painting. Although we have yet to find direct sources on Huang Tianyu’s work, evidence suggests that Tianyu’s younger brother, Huang Guoda, was a famous book publisher in Huizhou.54 As another descendant from this Qiu village, Huang Tianyu likewise enjoyed this privileged family background of artisanal carving. The combination of Xue Quan’s painting with Huang’s carving skills guaranteed the quality of the stele. In other words, by asking Xue Quan to use this famous woodblock illustration as a model and then engaging another Huang lineage carver to carve the painting on the stone, Zhidao linked his project to the Huang lineage’s reputation and skill while also ensuring high quality in the stone carving. Zhidao’s extraordinary effort in this painting and stone carving makes us question his agenda. This becomes even more striking when we look at the timeline by which he managed this project. The painting was produced twelve years after the shrine was rebuilt and nine years after Zhidao’s epigraphic stele was erected. Additionally, Zhidao never mentioned in his epigraph any plan of making a painting and a stone carving. Indeed, why did he choose a painting over other media, such as a beautiful piece of prose, which could be easily delivered and exchanged? In fact, Zhidao did write an epigraph for the shrine and successfully commissioned a poem about it from the scholar Liu Daguan (1753–1834).55 Liu’s lengthy poem in response suggests that Zhidao’s epigraph would have sufficed to generate awareness of his moral deeds and to elicit responses. By locating his activities in a broad social and intellectual context in the High Qing period, I argue that Zhidao used this painting and stele to mimic a procedure of making pictorial stone carvings of virtuous stories, a practice that originated in the Han dynasty and raised scholarly interest in the High Qing. The creation of a stele to accompany his ancestors’ moral story

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therefore allowed Zhidao to join the fashion of studying bronze and stone ( jinshixue) and helped him to construct social networks. The timing of when the painting and the stele were made provides the first clue of the connection between Zhidao’s project and bronze and stone study. As mentioned earlier, Zhidao began to build the shrine in 1785, but it was not until 1798 that he requested a painting from Xue Quan. The thirteen years between 1785 and 1798 coincide precisely with the revival of the study of the stone carvings from what was to become the famous Han ­dynasty Wu Liang Shrine. The Wu Liang Shrine stone carvings had ­attracted scholars’ attention during the Song dynasty, but not until the midQing era did scholars once again investigate the stone monuments of the shrine itself and of the Wu family cemetery.56 During the Qianlong reign, with the rediscovery of the monuments that had been buried in Yellow River silt, scholarly interest in the Wu Liang Shrine and its carvings grew rapidly. According to art historian Wu Hung’s description, this revival began in 1786 when the noted antiquarian and seal carver Huang Yi accidentally came upon the burial site of the Wu family. With the assistance of some local gentry, Huang Yi excavated the site, found the missing monuments, preserved the stone reliefs, and finally restored the shrine. Huang’s excavation and preservation work stimulated a burst of concentrated study of bronze and stone carvings from the Wu Liang Shrine. From 1786 to 1805, Wu Liang Shrine stone carvings attracted the attention of the most eminent scholars of the time.57 Even those who did not conduct specific research on the shrine also took an interest in this new discovery.58 Zhidao’s shrine was finished in 1786, the same year the burial site of the Wu Liang Shrine was discovered. Xue Quan made his painting in 1798, in the middle of the revival of research on the shrine. Given the fact that some of Zhidao’s friends were involved in studying the Wu Liang Shrine, it is reasonable to suggest that Zhidao might have been inspired by the rediscovery of the stone carvings and decided to imitate the Han people’s activities.59 The painting colophon that Xue Quan composed confirms this hypothesis: The ancient sages most emphasized proper human relationships ( yilun), which they wrote down in books. However they still worried that people of later times would be too used to their own customs and unable to recognize the importance of human relationships. Therefore the sages transmitted their standards for moral behavior through paintings ( fu tuo yu tu yi chuan qishi ).



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People in the Han dynasty always drew pictures portraying royalty, filial piety, righteousness, and martyrdom on the stone walls of family cemeteries, and thus we can follow their virtuous activities. Today when we see the painting of how the father and son from the Bao family vied to sacrifice themselves, how does this story not inspire our parental love and filial piety? Even though I am not gifted, I would like to complete this painting and help to promote morality in society.60

As this colophon shows, Xue explained why he made this painting and foresaw the effect of this stele on the local community of Tangyue. He understood that his painting was only the first step of this project and that the final product would be a stone carving of his painting. Xue also explained the importance of making a stone carving of his painting: after the pictorial stele was embedded in the wall of the shrine, the visibility of the painting would provide an effective way to promote morality in public, especially among illiterate people. More importantly, Xue clearly connected his painting to Han dynasty pictorial steles. As he emphasized, this educational function of the stele had been established in the Han when people “drew pictures portraying royalty, filial piety, righteousness, and martyrdom on the stone walls of family cemeteries.” Here Xue Quan might or might not be referring specifically to the Wu Liang Shrine. Nonetheless, this reference to Han dynasty pictorial steles indicates that both Xue Quan and Zhidao used Han stone carvings as a model when they worked on this project. As this pictorial stele stimulated High Qing scholars’ interest in stone carvings, Zhidao was able to use the painting and stele to solicit connections with eminent scholars outside Huizhou. Jiang Fan (1761–1831, zi Ziping, hao Zhengtang ), an intellectual famous for his study in ancient bronze and stone carvings, clearly stated Zhidao’s agenda. As Jiang wrote in a poem, “[Zhidao] searched for and collected the stories of his virtuous ancestors and carved them on the stele (souji le zhenmin), and asked for poems from eminent men ( gengqi mingliu shi ).”61 Some literati directly compared Zhidao’s shrine and stele with the ones in the Wu Liang Shrine, demonstrating their excitement about Zhidao’s recreation of this ancient practice. As the famous poet and scholar Yuan Mei (1716–1798, zi Zicai, hao Jianzhai, Cunzhai, Suiyuan) wrote in a vernacular poem for the Bao shrine: Didn’t you see the pictures of the virtuous people in Wu Liang Shrine? Their kind facial expressions will be passed down for thousands of years. A man

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(nan’er) lives in the world. If he can be remembered for his fame in filial piety and righteousness, there is no need to record his picture in the Qilin pavilion and Lingyan pavilion.62

Here Yuan’s “a man” has a double meaning. It refers not only to the filial person who was portrayed in the picture but also to Zhidao as a filial “man.” By comparing Bao’s pictorial stone carving to the monuments in the Wu Liang Shrine, Yuan implied that Bao’s virtuous story would be remembered forever. Many writers also appreciated Zhidao’s effort to use images to convey moral messages. A picture (tu) as a medium could convey history (shi ). A picture could make a virtuous story come alive and thus help to spread moral messages among a semiliterate public.63 Zhidao’s contemporaries understood this function of image and highlighted the aspiring influence that this stele could bring to the local community. For instance, Zeng Yu (1759–1831, zi Shufan, hao Bingu), a prominent scholar and a salt monopoly controller of Lianghuai, pointed out that “the shrine can serve to preserve the ancestral tablets, but the painting can transmit the message as a historical story (tuhua liuchuan tong shishi ).”64 Poet Zhou Yan also expressed praise that “[Zhidao] had made the painting to record the story from the past (huitu yi ji wangshi ), and thus the true principle would be enduring (zhenchuan buxiu yi ).”65 Likewise, scholar Jiang Fan commented that “this shrine and painting would certainly benefit the common people (shoushi li kebi ).”66 In this context, Zhidao’s action to make this stele was considered virtuous. Some elites praised Zhidao not only as a filial son but also as a virtuous descendant of the Bao lineage. As Jiang Fan commented, “The ancient people performed good deeds but their stories are always lost in history. Without virtuous descendants, these ancient stories will disappear.”67 Literatus Zhou Yan also extolled Zhidao as a great descendant of the Bao ancestors, pronouncing that he was as virtuous as they. Zhou further attested that the great creator (dazao) favored the Bao lineage because they produced great descendants.68 In sum, Bao Zhidao made every effort to materialize and publicize his family’s story by producing different objects. The physical presence of the shrine visualized Zhidao’s patronage in the local society of Huizhou. The painting and the stele, on the other hand, transformed Bao ancestors’ moral story into visual representations, a two-dimensional medium that Zhidao



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used to display his moral deeds outside Huizhou. Many elements that resulted from this project—the moral messages expressed through this shrine, Zhidao’s own virtuous deeds, and most importantly, the recreation of pictorial stone carvings—allowed Bao merchants to solicit prose and poetry from the prominent writers of the day. Zhidao, who funded and arranged these projects, therefore used the cultural meaning contained in these objects to form a cross-regional communication with urban elites in Jiangnan and Beijing.

charitable land: a pretext for art projects Like his older brother Zhidao, Bao Qiyun also expended extraordinary effort in sponsoring lineage construction. The difference between Zhidao and Qiyun lay in strategy. In his project of donating charitable lands, Qiyun used his moral deeds, namely, buying land and donating to his lineage organization, as a pretext for sponsoring art projects. The aesthetic taste expressed through these lineage-related objects served as a channel for Qiyun to deepen his moral significance and, more importantly, to facilitate his ties with famed elites. Qiyun was devoted to donating charitable land to his lineage in Tangyue. Even before he obtained wealth through the salt business in Lianghuai, Qiyun had already given land for charitable causes. In 1785 when he went back to Tangyue to visit the family tomb, he noticed that many villagers worried that the drought that year might cause an increase in the price of rice the following spring. In order to give aid to the less fortunate members of his lineage, Qiyun used all his savings to buy extra rice and establish a granary, all done with the goal of keeping rice prices stable. The next year, after Qiyun sold the rice, he used the money to purchase three mu of charitable lands for his lineage. This land became his initial endowment, named (as explained shortly) Tiyuan hu. Over the next ten years, Qiyun continued to purchase lands for Tiyuan hu, ultimately establishing a charitable estate of more than 540 mu (approximately 89 acres; mu is a Chinese area unit of measurement). He donated all these lands to his lineage for aiding the poor, including widows and widowers, orphans, and old men and women without offspring ( guan gua gu du).69 Later Qiyun endowed another charitable estate

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with more than 500 mu; he named this estate Dunben hu, sharing the same name with the Bao ancestral hall in Tangyue.70 In explaining his motives in donating charitable lands, Qiyun performed as a truly virtuous person, distinguishing himself from those who donated lands solely because they had wealth to spare. His donation of charitable lands, he claimed, resulted from his father’s teaching: his father had always asked him to learn from Fan Zhongyan’s (989–1052) generous donation of charitable estates.71 He also repeated the story of how his father always helped the poor in the lineage, even when his household was not wealthy. In order to carry out his father’s wish, Qiyun named the charitable lands Tiyuan hu, with yuan (origin) meaning that his generosity had originated from his father’s activities and teachings, and ti meaning that, as his son, Qiyun observed and understood his father’s wishes. Through this narrative, Qiyun highlights two significant messages. First, both his father’s and his own virtuous patronage derived not from their wealth, but from their true morality, and second, he himself was a filial son who carried out his father’s wishes.72 After the establishment of this charitable land, the Bao lineage needed to prevent the land from being used or even sold for private interests. The lineage members, at least partially, depended on the government to protect the lands. They petitioned the magistrate of the Huizhou prefecture to officially recognize and enforce the rules for managing a charitable estate. This was a complicated procedure. The Baos petitioned twice, in 1797 and 1805, and successfully received both times the local government’s official announcements of how to proceed. A petition first had to be proposed by lineage members who had passed the prefectural exam or who already had some kind of official position in the county office. Next, the petition would be reviewed by officials at different levels of the bureaucracy, including the general surveillance circuit of Anhui province (Anhui fenxundao), the provincial administration commissioner of Anhui (Anhui buzhengshi ), the surveillance commissioner of Anhui province (Anhui anchashi ), the provincial governor of Anhui (Anhui xunfu), and the governor-general of Jiangnan and Jiangxi provinces (liangjiang zongdu). Finally, after the petition had been accepted by the government, separate permissions from the provincial governor and the surveillance commissioner would be sent to the local family stating that the provincial administration commissioner would allow the Bao lineage to carve the government’s announcement on the stele; the family should



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submit the stele rubbing to the office for government records. This stele was established in Tangyue to remind local commoners of the regulations for using charitable land.73 The benefits of having these officials involved in this charitable land project, however, went beyond receiving a set of officially established rules. After the petition, Qiyun invited prominent officials to write essays celebrating the role his lands played in the local community, as well as verifying his own benevolent patronage. Zhu Gui (1731–1807, zi Shijun, hao Nanya), the provincial governor of Anhui province, composed a record for Tiyuan hu in 1797. Chen Dawen (?–1815, zi Jianting) wrote another essay for Dunben hu in 1805 stating that as the governor-general of Jiangnan and Jiangxi provinces, he had had a chance to examine carefully Qiyun’s donation of a charitable estate through the petition submitted from the Bao clan.74 The petition therefore not only gave the Bao lineage the government involvement they sought but also helped Qiyun solidify his social connections. Through this process Qiyun displayed his generous patronage to the officials in charge of Anhui province, including the high-ranking governor-general of Jiangnan and Jiangxi. This behavior made his name known in official circles and accounts for his success in obtaining celebratory essays and epitaphs from these distinguished individuals. Yet Qiyun’s projects had barely begun. In 1797, the same year Zhu Gui wrote his essay, Qiyun asked the renowned scholar Huang Yue (1750–1841) to copy Zhu’s prose in his own calligraphy.75 Five years later, Qiyun obtained the same essay copied in the hand of Grand Secretary Liu Yong (1720–1805, zi Chongru, hao Mu’an, Shi’an).76 Then again, in 1805, right after Chen Dawen finished his eulogy, Qiyun invited Liang Tongshu (1723–1815, zi Yuanying, hao Shanzhou, Buweng), who was working in the Imperial Academy, to contribute his own calligraphic rendering of Chen Dawen’s prose.77 After Qiyun received these various calligraphic copies of Zhu Gui’s original piece, he carved them on stone and embedded the stele in the wall of the renovated ancestral hall. Everything Qiyun did after he established a charitable estate made the project far more complicated than simply being a display of benevolent activity. If Qiyun merely wanted to improve his reputation, he could have requested a prose record of his charitable deeds. Instead, he invited multiple excellent calligraphers to copy the prose. The complexity of this extravagant project transformed Qiyun’s sponsorship of a charitable estate into a work

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of art. Making steles to exhibit in ancestral halls certainly solidified Qiyun’s contribution to the lineage and enabled him to expand his influence in local society. However, Qiyun had his sights set on horizons beyond the village of Tangyue. Calligraphy carved on stone could not only be displayed in the ancestral hall; it could also be used for making rubbings, the ink-on-paper copies of carved inscriptions on stone, metal, or other firm substances.78 Qiyun sent these rubbings back to the original authors, the calligraphers, and other scholars to request further responses. In other words, Qiyun strategically used these artworks—calligraphy, stele, and rubbings—to create continuous reciprocal channels connecting him to official literati elites. The moral message that the rubbings conveyed was important in helping Qiyun win the favor of prominent elites. Equally important, however, was his understanding of the elite’s appreciation for fine calligraphy and rubbings. In traditional China, calligraphy was considered a basic skill for the literati, but it was also an ability that was highly respected in the wider society. A request for a calligraphic copy of an essay or a poem appealed to a scholar because such an invitation not only acknowledged the recipient’s talent but also allowed him to display it. Transcribing the calligraphy into rubbings added additional cultural meaning to this project. A rubbing, though an object that duplicated the texts on the stone, retained its own artistic and scholarly values. The varied materiality of rubbings—including the thickness of the paper, the quality of the ink, and the craftsmen’s skills in transferring characters from stones— made each piece an artwork.79 In the High Qing period, rubbings of ancient stones or bronzes were especially favored by intellectuals. Along with the growing interest in inscriptions on bronzes and stones from early times, many believed that these inscribed characters would help them understand the true meaning of the classics. Some calligraphers also began to expand their studies by following calligraphy from actual rubbings made from old stones. In this context, rubbing collection and connoisseurship flourished.80 Qiyun’s stele was certainly not an antique, but his decision to make a rubbing from a stele imitated this admired cultural practice. These two reasons—the literati’s appreciation of calligraphy and their interest in rubbings—helped Qiyun elicit responses from eminent men. For example, after Zhu Gui composed a prose for Qiyun’s charitable land, Qinyun asked Liu Yong to write this prose in his calligraphy. Qiyun then carved the calligraphy on a stele from which he made a rubbing. After Liu Yong



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received this rubbing of Zhu Gui’s prose in his calligraphy, Liu wrote back to Qiyun and jokingly suggested that maybe he should ask Zhu Gui about his opinion of the calligraphy.81 Liu Yong appreciated the opportunity to display his talent in calligraphy by writing Zhu Gui’s prose and hoped Zhu might recognize his ability. By requesting the calligraphy and circulating the rubbings, therefore, Qiyun strategically took advantage of the relationships between these prominent elites to construct his own network with them. Liu Yong might not write calligraphy for Qiyun, but he would definitely write a calligraphic copy of Zhu Gui’s prose. Without a doubt, Qiyun benefited the most from this process. He built and displayed a broad social network that bolstered his cultural capital in the eyes of other elites. As Zhu Gui once claimed, because of “this prose and this calligraphy” (siwen sishu), Qiyun’s generosity would be remembered and respected for generations.82 Liu Yong clearly commented that his elegant calligraphy perfectly matched Qiyun’s moral deeds. After receiving the rubbing, Liu happily composed a colophon saying that “I think the meaning of my calligraphy (biyi ) is as fine as that of calligraphy written by ancient people. How can we say Pizhai’s [Qiyun] benevolent deeds are not as good as the ancients?”83 Qiyun went even further. He decided to produce Chen Dawen’s prose in one of the most influential calligraphy styles, the Yan script. The Yan script was created by Yan Zhenqing (709–785) in the Tang dynasty (618–907). It was a model for writing standard script (kaishu) and thus became the beginning style for children to learn. In order to complete this project, Qiyun collected the characters ( ji zi ) written in Yan script, probably based on the extant rubbings from stone inscriptions, and used these to compose a copy of the official Chen Dawen’s prose for the charitable estate. Of course, ­Qiyun did not make this calligraphic production solely for his own entertainment. In 1808, after Qiyun collected the Yan-style characters for the essay, he brought the new version with him on his visit to Chen Dawen. When Chen saw his prose rewritten in the Yan script, he was pleased to write a colophon for it. Another stele project followed. Six years later, Qiyun had this new prose essay carved in Yan script, along with Chen’s comment, on two sets of stones of six pieces each; he preserved them separately in Huizhou and Yangzhou. Today, one set of stones is displayed in the Tianning temple in Yangzhou. Unfortunately, only one piece remains of the other set. It is preserved in Tangyue village.84

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As discussed earlier, Qiyun purposely displayed his interests and taste in artworks by making his own calligraphic productions. But why did he choose to use the Yan script? One possible reason is that Qiyun might not have been good at calligraphy and thus had to collect characters from a standard calligraphy script. But this does not explain his choice of the Yan script. Yan Zhenqing, for whom the script was named, was not only an excellent calligrapher but also a prominent Tang official famous for his loyalty to the imperial household. He helped pacify the An Lushan rebellion, and later, when he was sent by the imperial household to persuade another rebel general to surrender, he sacrificed his life. Because of Yan Zhenqing’s morality, his calligraphy was seen as the representation of upright behavior and honesty. In other words, Yan’s calligraphy not only represented refined taste, it also conveyed a Confucian moral message.85 This illuminates a possible intention behind Qiyun’s choice of Yan script: by collecting characters from the Yan-script calligraphy to compose the charitable estate record, he may have aimed to highlight his benevolent activities as a patron of his own lineage organization through the use of this particularly “moral” script. Yet the moral implications of the Yan script are only part of the story. Qiyun’s later decision to make this Yan-script prose into a stele reveals another reason for his choice. Unlike Zhidao’s stele project, which catered to elites’ new interests in the study of bronze and stones, Qiyun chose a style that could also be used for educational purposes. A look at the stone carving reveals that each stone was divided into six columns. Each column was divided by eighteen lattices, with six in a vertical position and three horizontal. Each lattice square contained one character. This layout looks like the format of a calligraphy textbook for beginners. It is highly possible that Qiyun made rubbings of these stone carvings and subsequently promulgated them to help people learn the Yan script. This motivation did not go unnoticed. As Chen Dawen stated, because Yan Zhenqing’s calligraphy had become increasingly rare, Qiyun “planned to collect the Lu Master’s calligraphy to teach beginners in the study of calligraphy.”86 By making this stele, therefore, Qiyun added another dimension to his public image: a member of the local elite who intended to promote elementary education using basic calligraphy. Qiyun’s decisions regarding calligraphic style, in this context, were not simply artistic. Using the Yan script was a material expression of thought and intention. By rewriting prose in the classical Yan script, he incorporated



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the moral implications into his charitable land productions, demonstrating his aim to promote local education. In this way, he ensured that his charitable estate project would be remembered forever, just like Yan’s calligraphy. As Chen Dawen commented, “Not only will the calligraphy be handed down for generations, but also will Qiyun’s labor in the name of charity be forever remembered.”87

constructing transregional networks The luxurious objects that Bao merchants invested in—genealogy, shrines, steles, and rubbings—enabled the Baos to display their economic prowess and construct their moral reputation in local society of Huizhou. As already explained, these objects provided different mechanisms through which the Bao merchants broadly connected with eminent men of the day. Their connections, as this section discusses, crossed the boundaries between Huizhou, Jiangnan, and Beijing as well as the division between rural and urban. The Bao merchants not only interacted with elites in Yangzhou where they resided for their business but also extensively communicated with the officials at the court. In fact, some of the elites with whom the Baos connected in Yangzhou also came from Beijing. The Bao merchants’ charity in lineage construction was thus used to strengthen their relationship with the court. It became an integral part of Huizhou salt merchants’ innovative strategy in High Qing China. Many scholars and officials contributed their writings to praise the Bao merchants’ charitable projects. As shown in previous sections, Cao Wenzhi, Ji Yun, and Wang Qisun, for example, wrote prefaces for Zhidao’s genealogy. Zhu Gui, Liang Tongshu, Chen Dawen, Huang Yue, and Liu Yong contributed their essays or calligraphy to extol Qiyun’s charitable lands. Also, a significant number of scholars committed their writings or artwork to Zhidao’s Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine and pictorial stele. Ji Yun wrote a piece of prose for Zhidao’s new shrine to commemorate his filial ancestors. It was transcribed by Tiyeboo (Tie-bao) (1752–1824, zi Yeting, hao Meian), a Manchu official and one of the most famous Manchu calligraphers in the eighteenth century.88 Poet Wu Xilin (1746–1818) wrote a lengthy and elegant essay in the rhythmical prose style ( pianti wen) to praise the shrine.89 The

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noted poets Yuan Mei and Faššan (Fa-shi-shan) (1753–1813, zi Kaiwen, hao Shifan, Wumen) both composed poems and published them in their own anthologies.90 As a later family document, Eulogy of the Ancestors of the Bao Clan, recorded, eight poets—Zeng Yu, Jiang Fan, Huang Chengji (1771– 1842), Zhou Yan (fl. 1776), Chu Runshu (?–?), Deng Shiru (1739/1743?–1805), Yang Lun (1747–1803) and Qian Dong (1752–1817?)—composed individual poems to compliment the painting of the stele of the shrine.91 The authors associated with the Baos came from a diverse range of social backgrounds. Most of them were famous scholars, writers, or artists at the time. Jiang Fan and Huang Chengji, for example, were two well-known scholars who devoted themselves to the Confucian classics ( jingxue).92 Liang Tongshu and Deng Shiru both won their reputations for their talent in calligraphy. Deng was particularly famed for his skills in the zhuan and li style calligraphy; he also became the representative of a new calligraphy school, the bei (monument) school, which followed the rubbings of ancient stone carvings.93 Surprisingly, a number of these writers held important positions at the court. The scholar Ji Yun, as explained in Chapter 3, was the chief editor of the largest imperial book compilation, The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries. Zhu Gui, a prominent official in the eighteenth century, served the Qing court for six decades and was honored both by the Qianlong and the Jiaqing emperors.94 Cao Wenzhi served as a vice president on various boards and finally became a president of the Ministry of Revenue.95 In addition to their connections with Han officials, the Bao merchants also maintained relationships with non-Han elites at the court. Faššan was a Mongolian noble who belonged to the Plain Yellow Banner.96 Tiyeboo also came from the Manchu Plain Yellow Banner and served at several important posts at the court, including department director on the Ministry of Personnel offices and an expositor of the Hanlin Academy.97 These elites did not simply write something perfunctorily for Bao merchants to praise their benevolence, merely to fulfill their social obligations, but in fact put effort into their writings.98 Consider, for example, a collection of poems praising the pictorial stele in the Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine. All these contributors, except the poet Qian Dong, composed their poems in the ancient style ( guti ) rather than the more conventional eightline stanza (lüshi ).99 Most of the poems are thus lengthy, longer than twenty lines. The longest poem includes thirty lines and three hundred characters.100 The poems often begin with a description of the moral legend, demonstrat-



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ing the writers’ familiarity with the Baos’ family story. As they transferred the narrative to Zhidao’s moral deeds, they highlighted his rebuilding of this shrine. The main focus of their writings was to celebrate Zhidao’s filial piety, a message that Zhidao had clearly expressed in his epigraph.101 These contributors might or might not have read Zhidao’s epigraph, but they clearly understood the key point that he meant them to address. These elites’ effort to satisfy the Bao merchants’ requests indicated their inclination to maintain their relationship with this commercial household. Indeed, many of these officials and scholars wrote for the Bao merchants more than once. Ji Yun, for instance, wrote a preface to Zhidao’s genealogy and also contributed an essay to his shrine. Some contributors, such as Cao Wenzhi, Faššan, and Yuan Mei, included their prose or poems in their own anthologies, publicly displaying their connections with the Bao merchants.102 The explanations for why these elites, including some prominent officials and scholarly elites, would want to engage in the Bao merchants’ benevolent activities are complicated. The most obvious reason is an economic concern: the Bao merchants certainly presented some kind of honorarium, often a substantial one, to facilitate these writings. For instance, in order to thank Ji Yun, who wrote a piece of prose to celebrate the rebuilding of the shrine, Zhidao’s son Xunmao presented as payment (runbi ) a beautiful and precious inkstone made from the famous Longwei rock from Huizhou. Longwei inkstone had been ranked as one of the best inkstones since the Song dynasty, becoming an object desired by scholars since that time. As an inkstone collector, Ji truly appreciated this gift and even composed a colophon to record it (see Figure 4.5).103 After Zhidao passed away, Xunmao also asked Zhu Gui to write a biography for his late father and offered him payment (runbi ).104 The Bao merchants had also been patrons to some of these elites. For example, Zhidao financed Yuan Mei’s book and helped Yuan’s family members. When Yuan Mei’s younger sister passed away at an early age and left a son in poverty, Zhidao published the sister’s anthology and helped her son to find a job.105 Zhidao’s elder son, Shufang, constantly supported the scholar Wu Xilin when he fell upon hard economic times.106 The fundamental reason for this broad scholarly contribution, however, went beyond a simple patronage relationship. Bao merchants’ extended connection with urban elites was rooted in their success in achieving the head merchant position. Some of the prominent officials knew Bao Zhidao directly through the salt business. Zeng Yu, for example, was appointed as

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Figure 4.5  An imprint of the inkstone that Bao Xunmao gave to Ji Yun, who later included this imprint in a catalog of his inkstone collection. From Ji Yun, Yuewei caotang yanpu (Hejian: Jishi yuewei caotang, 1916).

the salt monopoly controller of Lianghuai in 1793 and worked in Yangzhou until 1805. Zhidao became head merchant no later than 1790 and must have assisted Zeng in the management of the salt business in the Lianghuai area. In addition, Zeng played a role as the leader of the literati circle in Yangzhou during his official appointment there. As Wang Qisun commented, “After Bingu [Zeng Yu’s alternative name (hao)] was appointed as the salt controller (zhuanyun shi ) in Lianghuai, the elites under Heaven who were famous for writing poetry all came to gather in Yangzhou.” Zeng built a garden behind the salt monopoly office and hosted many literati gatherings there.107 Zeng’s literati circle would have enabled Zhidao’s household to build up more connections with contemporary Jiangnan elites. In fact, many authors connected to the Bao merchants associated with Zeng, such as Wang Qisun, who contributed a preface to Zhidao’s genealogy. A poet and painter, Qian Dong, wrote a poem to praise Zhidao’s painting of the shrine. Among the few stories about Qian Dong, the most well known is the one in which he drew a painting of a Chinese herbaceous peony (shaoyao) blossoming with three flowers ( yishu san’e) in Zeng Yu’s garden. Though we do not have



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­ irect evidence, it is tempting to imagine that the Bao merchants might have d known Wang Qisun and Qian Dong through Zeng Yu. In addition to this direct connection mediated through the salt monopoly system, evidence shows that many elites in the High Qing period understood the essential role that the Yangzhou salt institution played in the state economy; similarly they acknowledged the importance of head merchants in the salt monopoly system. This recognition, in turn, helped the Baos win respect from the official-scholar elites. In a private letter to Zhidao’s younger son Xunmao, Faššan mentioned that “because the affairs of the Yangzhou salt business ( yanwu) went well in the spring, [Xunmao’s] brother and nephew will continue their positions without question.”108 Wu Xilin, another official who was a close friend of Xunmao, noted that the affairs of the salt business had recently been mismanaged and that the government was planning to implement fundamental reforms in Yangzhou.Wu was concerned and consulted with Xunmao.109 These official elites, regardless of whether they were involved in the salt monopoly system, all expressed their interest in or concern about this government affair. The political privilege of the head merchant position was, therefore, a key element in securing scholarly encomia on the Bao merchants’ lineage construction project. As the preceding examples illustrate, Zhidao’s son Xunmao, who held a position at court, also played a crucial role in constructing Bao’s network with educated men in Beijing. For example, Xunmao invited Zhu Gui, a court official, to write a biography of his father.110 Xunmao also secured a piece of prose from Ji Yun on Zhidao’s shrine. Faššan, as a Mongolian noble and an official in the imperial court, likewise had a close relationship with Xunmao. As Faššan recorded, he once invited Xunmao to drink together and randomly stopped by Xunmao’s residence in Beijing and invited him to take a short trip.111 Xunmao’s position thus provided the basic qualifications necessary for him to associate with high officials. It is important to note that Xunmao’s service for the court was a direct result of his father’s success in the salt business and therefore his network was itself a product of his family business. These cross-regional networks disclose a dynamic matrix of social connections that merchants skillfully created and lived in during the High Qing. These luxurious objects—genealogy, shrines, steles, and rubbings—would not have been possible without Bao Zhidao’s success in winning the head merchant title. This position enabled them to accumulate economic and

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political capital that funded the charitable projects and shaped the material characteristics of these lineage-related objects. It was also through this privileged position that the Bao merchants were able to construct broad social networks with eminent men at the court. Conversely, the charitable projects that the Bao merchants conducted in Huizhou provided mechanisms through which the Bao merchants further strengthened this network. The objects that the Baos invested in consequently functioned as nodes that brought together all these connections, energizing the particular dynamics of this matrix.

conclusion This chapter takes the Bao household’s charitable projects in Tangyue as a case study, exploring the dynamic relationship between salt merchants and the lineage-related objects in which they invested in Huizhou. An analysis of the material characteristics of a high-quality genealogy, decorated buildings, beautiful stone carvings, and elegant rubbings reveals that these charitable projects formed, by nature, one type of luxury consumption. These objects did not simply require significant wealth to produce; some of them also expressed exceptional aesthetic taste. Bao merchants’ motivation in patronizing these projects thus went beyond both mere charity and the need to construct a moral reputation. These extravagant buildings and steles served as public display for the Bao merchants to bolster their wealth and political privilege in the local community of their home village in Huizhou. The Bao merchants’ agenda, however, went beyond Huizhou. A trace of the life history of these objects further reveals that the Bao merchants used these objects to construct and strengthen their networks with the eminent men in the urban centers of Jiangnan, and particularly at the court. The Bao household transformed the Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine into a cultural edifice with a painting and a stone carving, mimicking the practice of pictorial stone carvings of moral stories in the Han dynasty. The charitable lands, on the other hand, were used to facilitate connections through artistic taste. The Bao merchants, in other words, skillfully manipulated the social meanings and implications represented by these objects—including Confucian morality, scholarly interest, and artistic taste—to share interests with



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elites and to solicit and extend their connections beyond the boundaries of lineage and Huizhou. While previous scholarship has acknowledged Huizhou salt merchants’ network with the literati in Jiangnan urban centers, this case study uncovers the Bao merchants’ strategy to maintain and strengthen their ties with court officials. A study of the Bao merchants’ charity in their hometown thus illuminates the complex relationships between the salt merchants, the salt monopoly system, and the extravagant cultural productions in Huizhou. The essential foundation of the Bao family’s lineage projects originated from their connection with the court formed through the head merchant system. By serving as a head merchant, Bao Zhidao rapidly accumulated wealth and the political power that enabled him to patronize lineage construction in their hometown. Conversely, the salt merchants developed their social connections through their patronage of lineage construction in Huizhou and further strengthened those connections with officials at the court. The case of the Bao merchants therefore represents the larger matrix in which Huizhou salt merchants lived, a matrix that was constellated by the material objects with which the merchants painstakingly worked. Last but not least, a close examination of Bao merchants’ charity projects in Huizhou highlights the importance of rural areas even in the matter of luxury consumption. When the Bao merchants spent the wealth accumulated in Yangzhou on lineage construction in their hometown Tangyue, they consumed luxury goods in a remote rural area and propelled circulation of capital. These investments, at the same time, allowed them to strengthen networks with the urban elites in Jiangnan and Beijing, all the while increasing their moral reputation in both social circles. In contrast to previous research, which has studied the Yangzhou salt merchants’ relationship with their hometown by viewing the rural from the vantage point of the urban, this analysis views the Huizhou homeland as the center from which relationships and networks emanated. By turning their patronage of lineage organizations into luxury consumption in Huizhou, the Bao merchants initiated interactions with elites in metropolitan Beijing and Jiangnan. The merchants’ hometown, in other words, served as an important site through which the merchants constructed cross-regional ties.

five

Materializing Morality [The government] confers honors on righteous persons and chaste widows and gives them money to construct an arch. However, local people always see this as empty words ( juwen) and never build an arch. I worry that as time goes by, [the moral deeds honored] will be forgotten (minmo), and we will be unable to make the common people see and be moved by them (buneng shi min yousuo guan’gan).

—the yongzheng emperor, 17231 Wang Tingrui’s wife, Lady Fang, was a native of She county. She gave birth to a son when she was nineteen years old. When her son was only one month old, her husband passed away. Lady Fang wanted to follow her husband by committing suicide but her family stopped her. When her husband was buried, she cut a lock of her hair and placed it in the coffin. She swore that she would raise her son and dutifully serve her grandmother-inlaw and parents-in-law. . . . After her son grew up and married, Lady Fang fell sick. She refused to take medicine and claimed: “I have finished my duties as ‘the one who has yet to die’ (weiwangren, meaning widow). I should follow my husband to the underworld. Why should I take medicine?” . . . [Lady Fang] maintained her chastity for twenty-nine years. She received an imperial award in the middle of Qianlong’s reign. Her son Xun and grandson Chengbi were head salt merchants in Huainan. Their business name is Zhaotai.

—lady fang’s biography from The Salt Compendia in Lianghuai 2

This final chapter returns to the opening story of this book, the construction of Lady Fang’s chastity arch in Huizhou. Chastity, which is loosely defined as the ideal and practice of widow fidelity, was usually demonstrated by widows not remarrying. The concept of chastity underwent transformation from its origins in the Song dynasty through the High Qing. In late imperial China, the central government institutionalized widow chastity using state awards and also promoted it among ordinary people, making widow fidelity the most admired female virtue.3 The Qing court, like the rulers from the previous dynasties, promoted female fidelity as an essential moral ideology in its empire. However, the new phenomenon that emerged in the Qing court’s moral cultivation project ( jiaohua) was its emphasis on the medium. As shown in his edict, the Yongzheng emperor desired and even demanded that local commoners 160



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build arches to commemorate the virtuous deeds of chaste widows. This policy of the Yongzheng emperor was advanced by his son, the Qianlong emperor. The Qing court, in other words, turned its eyes to monumental objects and used them as a major medium for public display to effectively convey Confucian moral values in local society. Through these monuments, the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors aimed to impress upon subjects, both local elites and illiterate commoners, a philosophy of life that would make them loyal and dutiful to the imperial court. As the key phrase in the edict, “to see and to be moved” ( guan’gan), indicates, memorial arches were to be a part of a daily routine, gazed upon by the emperor’s people as part of common practice. These monuments would thus be a critical medium for communicating the court’s values to commoners who, in the emperor’s eyes, needed to be moved by the deeds of the moral exemplars. Responding to the Manchu emperors’ promotion of arch construction, the wealthy Huizhou salt merchants acted as the main patrons for a large number of high-quality chastity arches in their home villages in the High Qing.4 Their sponsorship brought Huizhou fame as the homeland of stone arches and the chastity cult. Lady Fang’s arch was one of these monuments. In 1775, Lady Fang’s son Wang Xun, the Yangzhou head merchant, built a beautiful and splendid stone arch to commemorate his beloved mother in his hometown Choushu. This arch is still standing today (see Figure I.1 in the Introduction). The physical appearance of this arch—its main beam inscribed with Chinese characters “chaste and filial” ( jie xiao), its highly decorated stone slab carved with “imperial edict” (shengzhi ), and its large size and sturdy column base—all reminded local villagers of the virtuous deeds of his mother and the imperial honor that she received, or at least so Wang Xun hoped. The arch that Wang Xun built, therefore, was a Huizhou salt merchant’s response to the Qing court’s initiative to spread its ideology of moral cultivation throughout the empire. The Manchu court’s cultivation project, in particular its promotion of female chastity, was embraced by Han literati in the eighteenth century. Many elites, such as prominent scholars and gazetteer editors, composed essays, biographies, and poems to celebrate chaste widows’ virtue for their community. While the Huizhou salt merchants commonly invited literati to record and celebrate the virtuous deeds of their chaste women at home, they themselves rarely wrote on such matters. These chastity arches thus provided an alternative avenue for Huizhou salt merchants to participate in

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this imperial cultivation project on their own terms. Through these monuments, the merchants publicized the Confucian moral behaviors the court sought to convey to their illiterate subjects. At the same time, they used these arches to achieve their own agendas—displaying, in spectacular form, the moral virtue of their families, the honor bestowed on them by the court, and their superior economic status, itself a product of a court-merchant relationship created by salt monopoly policies. Focusing on these chastity arches, therefore, this chapter examines the ways in which Huizhou salt merchants used monumental objects to build a connection with the court, on the one hand, and to upgrade their local standing by way of their championing of imperially promulgated moral values, on the other. Our discussion begins with a general analysis of how the imperial government used the arches to further its political agenda. It then focuses on the perspective of wealthy salt merchants and analyzes how they patronized chastity arches to display their power in their home villages.

materializing the cultivation project The Manchu court was certainly not the first imperial power to promote moral cultivation projects. The Ming government established a state award system to celebrate superior moral practice, especially women’s fidelity. While this system continued into the Qing, the rulers implemented different strategies to convey imperial honors. The Manchu emperors were particularly interested in displaying moral exemplars in public through monumental objects, but at the same time also doubted whether these moral deeds were actually honored and admired in local society. Because of these concerns, the court specified regulations to encourage and support arch construction. The sprouting of arches in She county of Huizhou, including chastity arches, was a response to the Manchu initiative. The Ming dynasty promulgated models for chaste female behavior through an imperial awards system ( jingbiao), gradually formulating a more precise definition of chastity so the court could better identify female virtuous behavior and systematize the award procedures. This imperial award system established in the Ming was detailed and comprehensive.5 Among all the categories of virtuous deeds—including filial sons (xiaozi ), dutiful



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grandsons (shunsun), righteous husbands ( yifu), and chaste wives ( jiefu)— only those in the last classification, however, involved “specific criteria and were thus evaluated on an individual basis.”6 Accordingly, much attention was devoted to the petition and award process. The central government emphasized that the candidates needed to meet specific criteria and that local officials had to truly fulfill their responsibility to nominate chaste widows for recognition.7 The Ming directive on how to publicize widows’ honors, however, was relatively simple. At the beginning of the dynasty, the Hongwu emperor (r.  1368–1398) stated that all the widows’ households might be exempted from corvée service (chumian benjia chaiyi ) and that the chaste widows would be honored by jingbiao menlü, a testimonial of merit presented and displayed at the household gate.8 The phrase jingbiao menlü implies the court’s intention to honor these virtuous deeds in public in order to “improve local customs” ( yi yi fengsu). Although this directive was frequently mentioned in the Collected Statutes of the Great Ming (Da Ming huidian), its regulations were rather ambiguous: they did not clearly state how exactly to publicly recognize moral works. Later, the Ming court developed specific methods to publicize moral deeds, such as constructing Pavilions for Rewarding Morality ( jing shan ting ) and erecting steles carved with women’s names, ages, and hometowns. Yet these methods were irregularly applied and were therefore relatively inconsequential.9 The construction of chastity arches, objects designed to display imperial honor, was certainly practiced in the Ming. Arch construction, lifang, was mentioned in sections of the Collected Statutes of the Great Ming.10 However, specific policies regarding execution of the arches were inadequately outlined in the jingbiao section of this work. In other words, a set of systematic regulations that the commoners could follow to build arches was not established by the Ming court. This situation changed in the Qing. The Manchu court advanced this moral cultivation project and, at the same time, paid close attention to arch construction.11 The Qing government’s promotion of female fidelity was an integral part of its ethnic politics to stimulate Confucian morality in its empire. As conquering outsiders conscious of Han Chinese’s disdain for their “barbarian” roots, the Manchu rulers embraced Chinese cultural norms, including filial devotion, political loyalty, harmonious co-residence, and chastity, to enhance their claim as legitimate rulers who understood and sustained the Confucian moral system. In addition, the court’s strong

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support for female fidelity revealed that Manchu ethnicity was “subject to a gendered bifurcation.”12 Promoting the virtuous-widow cult, as Mark Elliott has argued, even applied to Manchu bannerwomen because, from the court’s point of view, “the acculturation of Manchu women” did not compromise their “Manchuness” and enabled the court to depict a dynastic image for itself as “civilized.”13 In sum, the construction of the chastity cult “became an integral part of the Manchus’ ambitious plan to build a unified empire out of diverse local cultures.”14 The Qing court, in this context, “assumed the role of primary patron and claimed custody of even the minutest details of chastity practice.”15 In the process of promoting this moral campaign, the Manchu rulers, in contrast to the Ming court, expressed their growing enthusiasm for arch construction. Indeed, along with a broader moral cultivation project, Qing records show a growing tendency to encourage the construction of various kinds of monumental objects. The court awarded seven categories of virtuous candidates including “distinguished officials and respected village scholars” (minghuan xiangxian); “filial and chaste” ( jie xiao) persons; those “conducting righteous activities” ( yixing ), “living one hundred years” (baisui ), and “adopting orphans” (shouyang guyou); “one birth with three boys” ( yichan sannan); and those who “voluntarily buried skeletons” (shou mai kugu).16 In addition to the lengthy description of award criteria, the court stated that the candidates in all these categories would receive an honor with some form of public display. The “distinguished officials and respected village scholars” would be memorialized in the local shrines. All the rest of the exemplars would receive a wooden tablet with the emperor’s calligraphy ( yushu) that could be hung at the entrance of the recipient’s home. The awardees for three of the categories, “filial and chaste” people, those “conducting righteous activities,” and those “living one hundred years,” would be awarded thirty taels of silver to build a commemorative arch.17 Regarding arch construction in particular, the Manchu court announced detailed rules to be applied to different categories, and eventually made them fixed regulations (dingshi ). The imperial awards for “righteous activities,” for example, were initiated in the second year of Yongzheng’s reign (1724), when the emperor granted thirty taels of silver to a commoner from Huanggang county in Hubei province to build an arch. The emperor detailed that the arch should be titled “eight generations living together” (bashi tongju).18 Throughout his reign, the Yongzheng emperor continued to grant various



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titles—such as “strengthening the fundamental and emphasizing/nurturing the custom” (dunben housu)—to celebrate similar virtuous deeds. The Qianlong emperor continued this custom and codified a fixed regulation to promulgate this type of practice.19 Qianlong ordered that the “local commoners who donate wealth to help the poor and give relief to the locality” ( juanzi zhouji, huiji benxiang ) should receive the imperial title of “taking pleasure in benevolence and delighting in charity” (leshan haoshi ).20 These arches with imperial titles were indeed constructed in the local society. The Bao merchants, who were discussed in Chapter 4, erected one stone arch carved with this title in Tangyue village in 1820 to honor the righteousness of the merchant Bao Shufang and his son Bao Jun (refer back to Figure 4.2). Among the seven categories of virtuous deeds, the category of “filial and chaste” received the most attention from the court. In fact, two thirds of the content in “customs and cultivation” ( fengjiao)—a section that specifies the rules of the imperial award system—was devoted to regulations concerning the “filial and chaste.”21 Four types of exemplars—filial son (xiaozi ), dutiful grandson (shunsun), righteous husband ( yifu), and chaste wife ( jiefu)—were included in this section.22 The policies on chastity, as one important part of the “filial and chaste” category, were well developed in the Qing. Over the course of the High Qing era, the criteria for identifying a chaste widow shifted from vague to specific and from strict to lenient.23 All these changes expanded the eligibility for awards, which ultimately similarly developed the ability of the court to publicly recognize what it considered desirable behavior. According to the Imperially Endorsed Edition of the Regulations and Precedents of the Qing Dynasty (Qinding da Qing huidian zeli ), the imperial awards for chastity were established in 1648.24 Five years later, in 1653, the Shunzhi emperor first specified the regulations for arch construction, granting candidates among Han commoners as well as Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese bannermen thirty taels of silver to construct chastity arches.25 After 1660, the Shunzhi and Kangxi emperors frequently mentioned the regulations for granting arch funding.26 During Yongzheng’s reign, the regulations governing arch construction were finally fixed as statutes (dingli ). In 1723 when the Yongzheng emperor came to the throne, he issued an edict that contained specific regulations on arch construction. It was in the same edict that the emperor explained why chastity arches should be erected. The reasons, as shown in the paragraph cited at the beginning of this chapter, are rooted in the emperor’s concern

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about the reliability of local people’s views on the chastity cult. As he complains, even though the court has already granted arch construction funds, “local people always see this as empty words ( juwen) and never build an arch.” Commoners’ ignorance of arch construction, in the emperor’s opinion, would eventually result in moral deeds being “forgotten” and the court “being unable to make the common people see and be moved ( guan’gan) by them.”27 The phrase guan’gan is layered with meaning. As the edict itself states, the Yongzheng emperor aimed to convey the moral message to commoners by making them “see and be moved” by the virtue honored in the monumental arches. In addition, the chastity arch also enabled him to display his imperial authority to his Han subjects. This focus on granting imperial titles to virtuous candidates, therefore, underscored the Manchu court’s desire to display their legitimacy as rulers of China. When these stone arches were erected, with stone slabs adorned by highly decorative dragon carvings and inscribed with the words “imperial edict” (shengzhi ) in the emperor’s calligraphy, they reminded local commoners of the fact that these honors were granted by the Manchu court. In other words, through arch construction, Manchu rulers explicitly targeted Han commoners and visually displayed the mandate of heaven won by these minority rulers. The underlying premise of Yongzheng’s emphasis and insistence on arch construction has drawn the attention of contemporary scholars—the premise that social roles can be naturalized through a powerful form of indoctrination, the bodily habit. The stone arches created, at least as the Yongzheng emperor wished, an important context in which ordinary members of society “lived through” ideology.28 By erecting chastity arches, the emperor enabled his subjects to see these monuments in their daily lives, hoping they would be inspired by the morality and imperial power that the arches represented. That is, when the visual encounter of the arches became part of local people’s daily lives, the norms of social hierarchy that the arches represented—the hierarchical relation between men and women and between ruler and ruled—would be internalized.29 In order to mandate the use of an arch to instruct local people, therefore, the Yongzheng emperor established a set of arch construction policies. He decreed that the government should fund two types of arches to commemorate virtuous practices related to female chastity. The first type was the individual arch honoring one or more widows from the same family. This



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type of arch had been granted since Shunzhi’s reign.30 The second type was called the grand arch (dafang ), which honored all of the exemplary women in a given area.31 The Yongzheng emperor asked local officials first to build a shrine honoring chaste and filial women ( jie xiao ci ) “at the capitals and in every administrative seat, including military garrisons (wei ),” after which a “grand arch” ought to be erected outside the entrance to the shrines “on which names of women who received testimonials of merit would be inscribed.”32 Candidates from the Eight Banners were also considered eligible under this regulation.33 The emperor also stipulated rules that would finance the construction of these shrines and arches. The Qing court continued the Ming policy of granting thirty taels to fund arches, but the Manchu emperors went further to explain in detail the origin of these monies and how they ought to be distributed. According to Qing policy, local officials could use the regular taxes (zhengxiang qian liang ) to finance these projects, for which they would then be reimbursed by the Ministry of Public Works ( gongbu). The Ministry of Public Works would also sponsor the construction of arches for Eight Banner candidates. The local authorities ( yousi ) were responsible for renovating these arches regularly (bushi xiuqi ).34 Regarding the thirty taels for arch construction funding, in order to prevent corruption among local clerks, the Yongzheng emperor ordered that “the family of the awardee should receive these funds in person (benjia juling ). [The local officials] should grant the funds in the hall of the local office, but not through the hands of clerks (bujing lixu zhi shou).”35 In addition, the Yongzheng emperor expanded the categories of virtuous women who could be granted individual chastity arches or commemorated on the grand arches. According to one of the emperor’s edicts in 1725, if a woman committed suicide to safeguard her sexual purity from bandits, this woman’s family could be granted an individual arch and the virtuous woman’s name could be carved on the grand arch as well.36 In the next year, exemplary daughters-in-law (xiaofu), who had previously been excluded from this imperial awards system, were approved to receive the honor.37 All these regulations were set as fixed statutes (dingli or chengli ) in the edicts. In sum, the Qing court enthusiastically promoted moral exemplars in public. The exemplars from all the moral categories would be honored with some kind of public display, through either tablets, local shrines, or arches. Among these three options, the Manchu rulers most favored the arches.

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Not only did the court specifically state that all the awardees from the main three moral categories should be granted commemorative arches, but they also encouraged arch construction by conferring specific titles carved on the arches for each category.38 Regarding chastity arches in particular, Manchu monarchs, especially the Yongzheng emperor, gradually created regulations to specify the arch construction process, clarifying who should be rewarded, what types of chastity arches should be granted, and how to finance the construction.39 In other words, when compared to the brief notes about arch construction left by the Ming court, the Qing emperors’ treatment of the subject shows far more care.

huizhou salt merchants as arch patrons Huizhou was and is famous for its high-profile chastity cult. Its fame was constructed both by extensive writing on the virtuous behavior of chaste widows in this area and by the erection of a large number of chastity arches. Many literati, particularly the ones from Huizhou, devoted themselves to a celebration of chaste women in the local villages. The gazetteers contain numerous stories on chaste widows in the section of “exemplary women” (lienü). In addition, local elites also composed poems, biographies, and eulogies to praise female fidelity. A local scholar, Wang Hongdu (1646–1722), for example, once composed a book titled The Biographies of Virtuous Women in Xin’an (Xin’an nüshi zheng ) in which Wang recorded the virtuous behavior of many chaste widows from Huizhou.40 By writing about these women and their moral deeds, these scholars not only constructed and displayed a superb moral reputation locally but also answered the court’s call to cultivate morality in their communities. While scholarly elites used text to carry out the court’s moral messages, the wealthy salt merchants financed and constructed a large number of spectacular chastity stone arches. These monuments allowed these tradesmen to use objects, a different medium from the one that their scholarly counterparts used, to participate in the imperial cultivation project. The number of stone arches constructed in High Qing Huizhou surpassed the ones built in other regions in late imperial China. Most of these arches were in She county.41 As scholars have noted, of the 129 arches still



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standing in Huizhou, 101 are located in She county. Arches are usually divided into three categories depending on their function. The first type functions as the gate of an architectural complex. The second type serves as a geographical landmark for bridges and roads. The third type, which is also the focus of this chapter, is the monumental arch honoring the morality of local people who were recognized by the emperor.42 The arches in the third category could be further divided into four subcategories that represented different kinds of exemplary conduct: honorable officials and metropolitan degree holders ( jinshi ), chaste/filial women, righteous/filial men, and long-lived individuals. The chastity arches, numbering 42 out of a total of 101 in She county, were one of the most popular types. Most of these chastity arches were constructed in the years from Qianlong’s reign to Jiaqing’s reign.43 Even though chastity arch construction was commonly practiced in Qing Huizhou, identifying the particular patrons of a particular arch is not easy. Most of the time, sponsors did not leave their names on the objects. However, by combining fragmentary textual evidence from official and family documents as well as the carved inscriptions from the arches themselves, we can trace the connections between the salt merchants and arch construction in She county. When the court attempted to publicize widow fidelity to local commoners, we see that the salt merchants became intermediaries who sponsored these monumental objects. Local documents such as genealogies provide evidence of wealthy salt merchants financing arches for their families and lineages. Genealogy of the Huang Lineage of Tandu Village (Tandu xiaoli Huangshi zupu), for example, recorded that in 1723, their lineage member Huang Yixuan—a wealthy salt merchant in Yangzhou during Yongzheng’s reign—rebuilt a stone arch allied to a filial piety shrine. The arch engraving confirmed Huang Yixuan’s sponsorship.44 Extant arches also show that the salt merchants and their descendants built many individual stone arches, celebrating their own success and morality. In addition to the arch “taking pleasure in benevolence and delighting in charity” (leshan haoshi ) mentioned earlier, an arch titled “imperially bestowed honor for four generations” (enrong sishi ) was built in Qiankou village in 1740. This arch was awarded to the head merchant Wang Yinggeng’s grandparents, his parents, himself, his wife, his son, and his daughter-in-law. Wang Yinggeng, who was famous for his renovation of Pingshan Hall in Yangzhou, generously contributed to famine

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relief and won the court’s praise several times.45 Another arch, inscribed “gloriously rewarding three generations” (rongbao sanshi ), was erected in 1762 in Choushu village. It honors the head merchant Wang Tingzhang’s grandfather, his father, and himself. Wang Tingzhang (business name Wang Qiyuan) brought honor and wealth to his family and lineage after he was appointed as head merchant and passed this title to his son Wang Tao (1735– 1769), who arranged two of Qianlong’s southern tours (see Figure 5.1).46 In addition to the information here from Huizhou local records, The Salt Compendia of Lianghuai also provides valuable documentation on chastity arches. The section “exemplary women” (lienü) recorded the names of a large number of chaste widows who were honored by the court. The families of these women were allowed to build individual arches ( fengjing jianfang ).47 Many of these widows had married salt merchants from Huizhou. Some of the chaste widows’ husbands were explicitly identified as Huizhou merchants (Huishang ).48 We can also identify the status of some merchants because of the important role that they played in managing salt affairs for the

Figure 5.1  Left: Arch titled “rongbao sanshi,” built in 1762 to honor the salt merchant Wang Tingzhang and his family. Choushu village, She county, Huizhou. Right: This arch was constructed in an especially spectacular form as two stone lion statues were carved and attached to the main columns of the arch.



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court. For instance, the head merchant Wu Jialong’s mother Lady Zheng was honored in 1727.49 Wu Jialong, whose business name was Wu Yuda, received the official title of Fengchenyuan qing from the Qianlong emperor in 1757.50 Although most arches in Huizhou have been destroyed, those extant confirm that salt merchant families did sponsor their construction. The family of Wu Zikang, for instance, constructed an arch in the village of Xiachanglin in She county to honor three chaste widows from his household: Zikang’s wife, Lady Cheng; his sister-in-law, Lady Luo; and his daughter-in-law, Lady Wang.51 To take another example, a chastity arch that still stands in the village of Choushu honored Lady Wu, wife of merchant Wang Zuhui. Lady Wu was recognized for her chastity and filial piety ( jie xiao) by the court in 1744, and her arch was erected in 1750.52 Some chaste women’s biographies also provide detailed information on salt merchants’ efforts to report their virtuous widows’ cases. One of the most representative examples is Lady Fang’s story, cited at the beginning of this chapter.53 Lady Fang’s biography does not mention explicitly who sponsored her arch, though it appears that her son Wang Xun built it. First of all, in common practice, a chaste widow’s son often applied for the honor for his mother and built an arch afterward. This action not only helped the awardee’s family publicize the virtuous deeds of their family members but also enabled the son to fulfill and display his filial piety. The engravings on Lady Fang’s arch further confirm this practice. As the engravings indicate, the local officials involved in her award came from Jiangdu county in Yangzhou, including the magistrate of Yangzhou prefecture, the magistrate of Jiangdu county, and the county academy instructor ( jiaoyu). According to the chastity award application process, the instructor of the county academy ( jiaoshou, jiaoyu, or xundao) was the person who received reports on individual cases from local people.54 In other words, Lady Fang’s case was reported in Jiangdu county. Evidence shows that Wang Xun was conducting salt business and resided in Yangzhou. As court documents recorded, in 1794, a salt merchant named Wang Zhaotai was interrogated by court official Ciowande for an investigation of Ba-ning-a when he served as a salt administrator in Yangzhou in 1793.55 Wang Zhaotai was the business name of Wang Xun and his son Wang Chengbi. Although it is unclear who was involved in this case, we can be sure that Wang Xun’s family was doing business in Yangzhou late in Qianlong’s reign. It is thus reasonable to

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deduce that Lady Fang’s case was submitted in Jiangdu county by her son Wang Xun. Besides examining evidence for the salt merchants’ sponsorship of chastity arches, it is equally important to ask why some people might not want to build a stone arch. Financial status was one of the major factors governing arch construction: some families were not able to afford one, even with imperial subsidies. A fragment of a Huizhou document once belonging to a salt merchant family, titled “Treatment of Chastity and Filial Piety” ( jie xiao shijian), provides valuable information on the cost of the application process for a chaste widow award. As this document shows, a wealthy Huizhou merchant family had to budget fifty-five taels of silver as gifts for officials, local teachers, and clerks who were involved in the application, in order to be able to report their family’s case.56 This document not only confirms Huizhou merchants’ interest in reporting the cases of chaste widows from their households but also discloses the importance of financial means in this procedure. More than that, the expense for the building of a stone arch was also high. The cost of the stone used to build an arch, as well as the fees for the labor involved in transporting materials and construction, required payment of a veritable fortune from the awardee’s household. Tang Yaoqing (1763–1831), the wife of the nineteenth-century Changzhou scholar Zhang Qi (1765–1833), struggled to save the stones she had purchased with help from a kinsman to build an arch for Zhang’s mother, Lady Jiang.57 Her struggle uncovers the painful reality that building an arch was expensive. Therefore, it was common for ordinary families to forgo building arches in favor of other priorities, such as successful examination candidates giving thirty taels as a gift to high-level officials.58 In sum, based on the evidence—including salt merchants’ flourishing in the High Qing era, their motivation to build stone arches, and the many cases of arches in tribute to chaste widows from salt merchant households— wealthy salt merchants were leading patrons of chastity arches in She county during the High Qing.

building a stone arch While building a stone arch was not an uncommon practice in Huizhou, no detailed accounts of the actual construction process survive. This lacuna was



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probably caused by the fact that arch construction was largely considered craftsmen’s work and thus a less interesting subject for the elites to record. However, an analysis of the materiality of the arch, combined with the fragmentary records from genealogies, gazetteers, and elites’ writings, enables historians to reconstruct the building process. Such a reconstruction testifies to the considerable effort merchants invested in this procedure. Most of the chastity arches in She county were made of stone.59 During the Ming and Qing dynasties, three types of stone were used for monumental arches: sandstone, granite, and “tea garden greenstone” (chayuanqing ).60 Among these, tea garden greenstone was favored above the others. Sandstone is the softest material and thus easy to carve, but it is easily damaged by the forces of nature. Granite is harder than sandstone and therefore lasts longer, but because of its special structure, the carving process often causes it to break into large chunks. Tea garden greenstone, out of the three, is hard enough to last but is also good for carving because of its high density. Stones used for arches in Huizhou went in and out of favor, but by around the early seventeenth century, local people of She county overwhelmingly chose to build arches out of greenstone. A late-Ming scholar, Fang Zhaoyan, once commented that “the ‘tea headstream stone’ was used to build arches in Huizhou (chayuanshi, Huizhou quzuo paifang ).” Since the Chinese character for “headstream” ( yuan) is pronounced the same as that for “garden,” Fang Zhaoyan was referring to tea garden greenstone here.61 According to a local specialist in Huizhou architecture, Cheng Jiyue, the shift occurred during the Wanli reign (1573–1620), and it can largely be attributed to new tools and styles of arch construction.62 According to Cheng Jiyue, the famous Xu Guo (1527–1596) arch, built in 1584, serves as a milestone for understanding this development. Because this arch made in tea garden greenstone was extremely difficult to cut, the arch designers chose a style that required less carving.63 The Xu Guo arch thus introduced a new style: the top of the arch has columns that point toward the sky. This design contrasts with the typical roof style popular in the Ming, where the columns were protected under the eaves of a roof (see Figure 5.2). A large number of extant Qing arches embody this style of “pointing toward the sky” (chongtian). The mountains surrounding She county, however, offered only sandstone and granite. It was possible that, sometimes, the arch builders were able to use the stones from an old arch that were available, for whatever reasons. The Bao lineage from Tangyue village, for instance, once used the ­column

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Figure 5.2  Left: An arch with roofs, 1507, Xu village, She county, Huizhou (background removed to highlight arch structure). Right: An arch with columns pointing toward the sky (chongtian), 1774, Shuyuan village, She county, Huizhou.

stones from two old arches to build new ones.64 But in most cases, the sponsors needed to seek greenstone outside of Huizhou. These greenstones came from Chun’an county in Zhejiang province. The influential scholar Hong Liangji, a native of Huizhou, provides some useful information on this matter. Hong once wrote an essay in praise of Cheng Guangguo, a successful salt merchant from She county, for building a new trail connecting She county to Jingde. Hong pointed out that “because She county stone is too easily weathered, it could not be used to build a pathway” (Sheshi yi le buke yong ).65 Hong did not identify what kind of stone this “She county stone” was, but he was probably referring to sandstone. Hong further explained that since there was not enough appropriate stone in nearby mountains, Cheng Guangguo acquired paving stones from Zhejiang.66 As The Continued Gazetteer of Yanzhou Prefecture (Xuxiu Yanzhou fuzhi ) recorded, “50 li to the east of Chun’an County, the two peaks Chapo and Xi’nan face each other. . . . In the valley between is found hard greenstone (qishan chan qingbi jianshi ).”67 These greenstones were the tea garden greenstones. According to the ­gazetteer, the officials and commoners from both Huizhou and



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Zhejiang all came to mine these stones.68 Apparently, Cheng Guangguo, as a salt merchant, obtained the knowledge of where and how to find these greenstones.69 Since these stones were located outside Huizhou, complications in the construction process compounded. The salt merchants first needed to purchase greenstones, which involved mining the stones in the mountains of Chun’an county and then organizing their delivery back to She county. The tea garden greenstone was most likely transported by boat along the Xin’an River, a major channel connecting Huizhou and Zhejiang province during the Qing. Yet most of the villages in She county are located in mountains far from the Xin’an River. The entire transportation process must have involved, at enormous cost, delivering these giant stones via river and then hauling them overland by road and along mountain trails. After these stones were delivered to the villages, the salt merchants needed to manage the actual construction of the arches. The specific column-andbeam structure of arches made this process anything but easy. Understanding this requires a brief examination of the general history of architecture in Huizhou and the construction elements of stone arches in particular. Historically, most Chinese buildings were constructed with a wooden columnand-beam structure in which columns and beams were arranged and held together by mortises and tenons (see Figure 5.3).70 The model for the stone

Figure 5.3  Left: Mortise-and-tenon joint in arch construction. Right: Mortise-and-tenon joint diagram (illustration by Erik Palmer).

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arch originated from the wooden gates marking the subdivision of a city before the founding of the Yuan dynasty. From Yuan to Ming, the function of arches was gradually transferred from gates to individual memorial buildings. During the Ming, the material for an arch also changed from wood to stone. Although the function and material both changed, the later stone arches still followed the same basic structure of wooden gate construction.71 The arches during the High Qing in Huizhou therefore mimicked the construction process already made popular by wooden structures. The main structure for a stone arch comprised the main beam and two supporting columns. This structure seems simple, but the actual construction process was rather difficult. The difficulty came from the materiality of stone: stone is much heavier than wood and thus more difficult to move. Based on Nancy Berliner’s description of the construction of a Huizhou house, and on my own discussions with Feng Youjin, a traditionally trained stone mason in Huizhou, I conclude that the process for building a stone arch consisted of three steps. First, the stone mason would prepare all the materials, including carving the tenons, mortises, and any decorations on the beams and columns. This step differs from the house building process, during which the assembled unit of columns and beams would be erected together. Second, the columns would be erected. Then the mason would lift the stone beam with ladders, ropes, and bamboo poles. Feng Youjin added that, because of the height, weight, and especially the inflexibility of stone, before the local factory began to use modern electrical machines to lift the beam, Huizhou local masons raised the beam by accumulating dirt underneath it.72 Finally, when the beam was lifted to the right height, masons on ladders would insert the beam tenon into the mortise of the two columns. After this step, a stone arch was completed. In the entire construction process, setting the main beam is not only the most crucial part but also the most difficult. It is not hard to imagine that merchants needed to hire more laborers to help lift the columns and beams. Fitting the beam into the columns was a dangerous step, one that required proficiency. The arch patron, once again, needed to find the right mason to complete the task. I have not yet found sources recording either the cost of arch construction or how long the project often lasted, but the Tangyue Bao genealogy provides some clues for us to estimate. The Bao lineage once built two stone arches. Both of them were rebuilt from old ones, meaning the mason could use some old stone pieces from the previous arches. The design for these two



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arches was relatively simple, with no complicated carving on the columns and beams. Even with all these advantages, it still took the Bao lineage one year to make these two stone arches.73 As seen earlier, the size and style of individual arches varied, with larger ones requiring more financial and labor investment. Some arches were also inscribed with beautiful and elaborate decorations, which needed more time to complete. Therefore, it would have taken a long time, probably one to two years on average, to build a new medium-size stone arch. Any estimate of the cost should include payments for purchasing and transporting stones and the labor fee for carving and erecting the arches. Thus, the entire process of building a stone arch in High Qing Huizhou was complicated, expensive, and time-consuming. This was largely so because the material used to build arches, the tea garden greenstone, was not produced in local quarries. The arch builders thus needed to mine, purchase, and deliver these materials from neighboring provinces. In addition to that, the column-and-beam structure adopted from wooden architecture was more difficult to construct with stone. For these reasons, the salt merchants needed to provide a significant amount of labor and financial support to build these monuments.

displaying a stone arch The tedious and costly arch construction procedure, however, did not stop these Huizhou salt merchants. A significant number of wealthy businessmen devoted their wealth and energy to erecting a chastity arch for their virtuous grandmother, mother, sister, or daughter. While the Manchu court’s promotion of arch construction could be explained as an integral part of its cultivation project, commercial elites were eager to devote themselves to this endeavor in order to further their own agenda. Because the written sources that directly reflect the merchants’ goals are scarce, we need to turn to the material characteristics of the stone arch itself to explore their thoughts and motivations. As discussed in the previous chapters, by investing not only their wealth but also their time and energy in making, collecting, or building specific things, the Huizhou salt merchants projected their thoughts and interests onto a variety of objects such as precious zitan furniture, rare books, ancient

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seals, or pictorial steles.74 While all these objects provided an alternative form of expression, the stone arch had its own material characteristics, that is, it is by nature a monument. As Bruce Trigger argues, “Monumental architecture and personal luxury goods become symbols of power because they are seen as embodiments of large amounts of human energy and hence symbolize the ability of those for whom they were made to control such energy to an unusual degree.”75 Chastity arches, with their colossal scale and lavish decoration, were designed and built for public display.76 An analysis of the rich political and cultural meanings of these chastity arches, as well as their complicated construction process, therefore, offers a unique avenue for exploring merchants’ agenda. I argue that the merchants’ construction of chastity arches both served practical concerns and embodied a type of conspicuous consumption. By erecting these monumental objects, commercial elites sought in the first place to maintain family harmony and prosperity even when absent from their home villages. Second, the arches enabled their erectors to signify and exercise their leadership in local Huizhou society. Motivated by their own agenda, the merchants were nevertheless furthering the court’s project by building arches to celebrate and promote female chastity in their hometowns. The merchants’ commitment to encourage and reward female virtuous behavior was rooted in the specific social context of Huizhou. The Manchu court’s promotion of the chastity cult, in this context, meshed with the Huizhou salt merchants’ own interests. With salt merchants conducting their business far from home, the role of women in managing the household became especially important.77 As Antonia Finnane has argued, it was necessary for the merchants to “cultivate a culture of constancy for their women, both for their own peace of mind and for the good order of Huizhou society.” This socioeconomic factor made Huizhou publishers particularly interested in producing writings in the female piety genre.78 It was for the same reason that the Huizhou merchants devoted themselves to building chastity arches, as a different and complementary channel to promote the virtue of their wives and mothers. Indeed, some arch titles celebrated these women’s efforts to maintain the harmony and prosperity of their households. For instance, an arch designated to honor Bao Wenyuan’s wife, Lady Wu, built in 1787 in the village of Tangyue, was inscribed with the four characters maicun yixian, meaning “to maintain the sole blood line of the family.” This title emphasized Lady Wu’s efforts to raise the only son of the household and maintain



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the family name. Another Tangyue arch built in 1767 was inscribed with the two phrases lijie wangu (maintaining chastity to raise the sole male descendant) and shizhen quanxiao (maintaining chastity to fulfill filial piety). This arch pointed to the chaste widow’s other primary responsibility in the household: taking care of her in-laws. In addition to these arch inscriptions, the biographies of virtuous widows who were honored with an arch also highlighted their fidelity to their marital family. Lady Fang’s story, cited earlier, provided detailed narratives on how she dutifully served her parentsin-law until their death and raised her son until he married. The chastity arches therefore served as a constant reminder of women’s virtue and, more importantly, a visible reminder of women’s ability to preserve the harmony of a household while their menfolk sojourned outside Huizhou. Merchants’ desire to maintain family order by rewarding women’s virtue can also be confirmed in written records. Many merchants invited scholars to compose biographies for their wives and mothers. Such writings, which were often preserved in the authors’ own anthologies or in merchant genealogies, highlighted the virtuous deeds of these women. For example, in the genealogy of the Bao lineage in Tangyue village, the head merchant Bao Zhidao’s wife Wang Side was praised for the way she managed her own household and the households of other women in the lineage. As the biography explains, [When] her husband [Bao Zhidao] conducted salt business in Yangzhou, she managed every family affair, big or small, in the household by herself (shi wu juxi yi you furen zhihua). She spent little money on herself and ate plain food. However, she used the money that she saved to purchase a piece of land of a hundred mu. She distributed the rental fee of this land to the other women in the localized lineage of Xuanzhong (Xuanzhong tang ). This charitable land was thus named “Frugality” ( Jiejian hu).79

Wang Side’s abilities in household management and her fidelity to the lineage were indeed praiseworthy, but as we see here, she was considered all the more impressive because her husband, Bao Zhidao, was away in Yangzhou. Given the fact that this genealogy was sponsored by Bao Zhidao and his sons, Zhidao’s household may have wanted to display the actions of their hardworking female relative to the public. This would serve the dual goal of showing his family’s virtues to outsiders and maintaining the stability of his home while he and other male family members were outside Huizhou.80

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By constructing the arches, therefore, these tradesmen rewarded their female family members’ contribution to the household and lineage by holding them up as moral exemplars to the local community of Huizhou. Ultimately, at least as these arch builders hoped, promoting this court-sponsored chastity cult in their home villages would help improve their local standing while accommodating their sojourning lifestyle. In addition to this practical concern, constructing an arch was also a public performance. The arch’s visibility, which was rooted in its materiality and construction process, enabled the wealthy merchants to display symbolic capital as well as their economic privilege in a public and enduring manner. The physical characteristics of the monumental arch—its giant size and impressive ­carvings—magnified its visibility. Most arches were quite large. Among extant chastity arches in She county, the tallest one is 13 meters (42 feet 7 inches) high and 10.4 meters (34 feet 1 inch) wide. Even the smallest one is 4.7 meters (15 feet 5 inches) high and 2.9 meters (9 feet 6 inches) wide, making it most likely taller than many other buildings erected in the town before the twentieth century. With regard to land use, in She county these stone arches were usually erected in an open field without high buildings surrounding them. This setting made the arches appear especially majestic. The arches also served as geographic markers, placed on a main road either entering the village or crossing through. In other words, village members walked under or near stone arches every day (refer back to Figure 5.1). The complicated construction process of a stone arch also attracted commoners’ attention. The entire project might last several months. A common peasant, man or woman, who lived in She county during the High Qing might see wealthy merchants erect arches several times and witness various stages of construction. The last few steps were the most difficult but also most crucial ones because they determined the success of the arch building project. On the day when the mason lifted the columns and beam, the patron needed to hire extra laborers to help. Because the merchants purposely used the ceremony as a way to demonstrate power and improve the family’s reputation, it would not be difficult to imagine how the arch builders invited villagers from near and far to watch and celebrate the completion of a chastity arch. In fact, as a nineteenth-century painting shows, many people—including privileged scholars and poor commoners—gathered to witness the event (see Figure 5.4).81



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Figure 5.4  An arch construction image titled “fang biao qianqiu” (arch eulo­ gizing the virtue for a thousand years). From Wu Youru (1830–1897), Wu Youru huabao, ji 12, “gujin mingsheng tushuo” (Illustrations of scenic sites past and present), 15a.

Because all arch construction projects required approval by the emperor, erection of a chastity arch displayed the favor of the imperial court, a form of symbolic capital that would bring reputation to the awarded households.82 Indeed, the imperial awards system was designed to cultivate virtue through display, culminating in the moment when imperial honor was received. The renowned author Wu Jingzi (1701–1754), in his famous satiric novel The Scholars (Rulin waishi ), vividly described how both scholarly elites and salt merchants celebrated the honors of their chaste family members in a grand and lavish way. These virtuous widows had imperial permission to display their tablets in the local chastity shrine, and the moment of “welcoming the tablets to the shrine” (ruci ) was the focal point of the ceremony. In the novel, a low-ranking scholar plans to celebrate this honor by inviting gentry from the entire clan, “approximately 140 to 150 people,” to watch the cer-

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emony. On the same day, a salt merchant whose mother also received the same honor finances a splendid ceremony with drama performances and a lavish banquet. As a result, “people from four counties and eight villages and living more than ten li away” (sixiang bazhen jishi li lu) gather for the event.83 Wu Jingzi’s tale satirizes people’s attitudes toward poor scholars and wealthy merchants, but his description also underscores the fact that receiving an imperial award was a public event that both scholarly elites and wealthy merchants clearly understood. This court-bestowed honor was clearly expressed and highlighted through the physical appearance of the arch. At the top middle of each chastity arch, often directly under the roof, was a stone slab inscribed with the words “imperial edict” in the emperor’s calligraphy and decorated with dragon carvings. The stone slabs to the left and right were inscribed with the name and titles of all the officials who were involved in the application process. These lists included teachers from the local county who were at the bottom of the bureaucracy and officials with higher positions such as Minister of Rites (libu shangshu), whose office resided in the palace. A detailed record of titles and ranks indicated that the court had validated a chaste widow’s case and thus granted the imperial honor. The virtue that the Qing court endorsed and the salt merchants wished to display, as discussed earlier, included female fidelity. The moral behaviors of these faithful mothers, wives, and daughters-in-law not only helped the merchants maintain order in their families but could also be used to enhance the reputation of these households. In addition, undertaking the complicated and costly procedure of building arches allowed merchants to fulfill their duties as filial sons and, at the same time, publicize their own virtuous deeds of filial piety. Although extant sources on arches did not specifically speak of this agenda, the documents on merchants’ construction of female ancestral halls in Tandu village clearly point to the salt merchant Huang Yizheng’s eagerness to memorialize his mother in order to pay back “motherly love” (mushi zhi en).84 Merchants’ demonstration of chaste widows’ virtue as court-bestowed symbolic capital was itself an outcome of the vague nature of the Qing court’s award system for men. It was much easier for merchants to be granted permission to build an arch for female honorees than for male honorees. The two main types of male arches built in She county honored either jinshi degree holders’ service to the court or other elites’ righteous activities.



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The application for imperial recognition of these two categories was difficult and complicated. In eighteenth-century Jiangnan, the population boom had made the number of jinshi degrees proportional to the population substantially smaller, making them much more difficult to attain.85 As for awards for “righteous activities,” some head merchants managed to attain them, but these were even more exceptional cases. Because no established criteria existed for these two award categories for men, each candidate was evaluated on an individual basis. By contrast, the imperial court had established clear standards for honoring chaste widows. A gender dynamic, in this context, guided the choices of commercial families. In addition to symbolic capital, these merchants also displayed their economic prowess through an arch’s grand size and enduring materiality. From the search for stones to the final step when the beam was set atop the columns, merchant patrons managed a complex process requiring wealth, materials, labor, and skill. As mentioned earlier, not every family could afford a stone arch. For wealthy salt merchants, however, the upscale expense of arches provided opportunities; they even built arches of enormous size with beautiful carvings, conspicuously displaying the wealth that they spent on these monuments. This economic prowess, in the meantime, was itself a product of their connections with the court. As shown in Chapter 1, the Huizhou salt merchants accumulated their wealth from the salt business largely because of privileges rooted in the salt monopoly policies. Thus, the arches not only displayed imperial honor but also signified the economic and political connections between the court and these commercial elites. Merchants’ display of their privileged economic status would presumably have been well received in the local community. Even the local villagers today still have a sense of the value and quality of the stones. For instance, an elderly lady from Tandu village, Huang Jizhen, did not know the name of tea garden greenstone, but she clearly informed me that the white sandstone was not as good as the green because the greenstone was “smooth and shiny” ( guangguang de). She complained that the only arch left in Tandu village today was made from white sandstone and it was the worst one in comparison to the other arches. All the good arches that were made from greenstone, she claimed, had been torn down. The villagers in She county might not know the specific place where the stone came from, but they clearly knew whether the stone was found in She county or not—in Huang Jizhen’s words, whether the stone was “local” (bendi de) or not. The stones

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that came from outside were, in their view, more precious and valuable, if only because they had to be transported over a long distance.86 The local commoners’ ability to evaluate stone quality came from their daily interactions with the materials. When I was examining the stones in Xu village, a tofu maker who was passing by told me that the green smooth stone (qing hua shi ) was the best to use in making tofu. The reason, he explained, was that this type of stone was not only smooth enough to rub the beans, but, more importantly, it always kept the temperature low during the process. He further pointed out that granite was also used to make tofu, but he disliked it because the stone itself accumulated heat too readily. Huang Jizhen from Tandu village also told me that villagers made tofu using greenstone, the same material for building arches. For knife sharpening, however, almost every household used red sandstone because that kind of sandstone was relatively soft. Local people even have a nickname for it, calling it pig liver stone (zhugan shi ). Arch stones were also used to build the villages’ infrastructure, such as bridges and roads. In this way, their daily relationship with these public works deepened their knowledge of the materials. It is reasonable to assume that during the eighteenth century, when tools and technology were much less developed than today, stone was even more deeply embedded in commoners’ daily lives than it is in the lives of the contemporaries who spoke with me. Local people’s knowledge of the material characteristics of stone arches thus conveys their understanding of the expense involved in their construction. By building chastity arches, therefore, these wealthy salt merchants aimed to achieve their own agenda in the local society of Huizhou. They intended to cultivate a culture of chastity for maintaining the harmony of their own household and the order of Huizhou society while they had to leave home for trade. In the meantime, these arches also provided an ideal public medium for merchants to advertise their moral reputation and commercial wealth, both of which signified imperial associations. There is little doubt that local residences interacted with these chastity arches on their own terms. They might or might not have received the moral messages that these arches were supposed to convey.87 However, from the perspective of the arch builders, these monuments provided a powerful venue for them to buttress their claims of prestige and thus legitimized their leadership in the local society of Huizhou. These arches, therefore, constituted one of the most public material embodiments of the power of the salt merchants.



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conclusion Focusing on chastity arches, a specific type of monumental object, this chapter analyzes the ways in which the Huizhou salt merchants participated in the Qing court’s cultivation project in the local community of eighteenthcentury Huizhou. These stone arches, which were by nature a form of public display, provided a channel through which the ideology of female fidelity was transmitted to and perceived by different constituents. The Qing court consciously used arches to spread its ideology of moral cultivation throughout the empire. In the Manchu emperors’ opinion, these chastity arches would help inculcate Confucian morality and acceptance of their ruling authority in their subjects and also help assert their dynastic legitimacy. The Qing court’s commission to promote female fidelity, and more importantly, its strategy to carry out moral messages through public display, provided an opportunity for Huizhou salt merchants to take part in this imperial campaign. By virtue of their financial resources and managerial skills, these wealthy merchants undertook the complicated, tedious, and costly process of construction, erecting numerous chastity arches to memorialize the virtuous deeds of their female family members in the High Qing period. Their sponsorship of the construction of these arches allowed these merchants to bolster their reputations, display their wealth, and legitimize their dominance of local society. Given the fact that the arch was itself a product of merchants’ involvement in the salt monopoly system, another form of connection between the court and the merchants, this specific type of monumental object materially expressed the economic and political network between the court and the Huizhou salt merchants.

conclusion

Cultured and Cosmopolitan Men (tongren) Objects, Merchants, and the Manchu Court in High Qing China Upon adulthood, [Shen Dacheng] travelled half the world (zu zong ban tianxia), and befriended cultured and cosmopolitan men and learned Confucians (tongren juru) throughout the empire (hainei ). His learning encompassed all subjects (qixue wusuo bujiu): astronomy, mathematics, music, illustrations and genealogies/charts (tupu), the six ancient scripts (liushu), the seven notes of scales (qiyin), geography, the Buddhist and Daoist scriptures, and divination (huangqian rendun). [He] finally completed that great endeavor pursued throughout the ages and dwelt on the path of learning (qiong qianqiu zhi jueye er jindai ).1

—jiang chun, preface to Xuefuzhai ji During the reigns of Kangxi and Yongzheng, there were three cultured and cosmopolitan men (tongren) among the salt merchants in Yangzhou whose gardens were famed. One of these gardens is located in the Kangshan area of nanhexia. This garden was the residence of Jiang Chun (hao Heting); it is the most famous despite being the last built. During the Qianlong reign, the emperor visited it and gifted the calligraphy he wrote [therein] to Jiang. . . . As for the [Kangshan] garden of [Jiang Chun], the baichi wutong studio garden of Wang Maolin (hao Jiaomen), and the xiaolinglong studio garden of Ma Yuelu (hao Bancha), they were all equally famous. . . . These three men, Wang, Ma, and Jiang, were all salt merchants, and Wang and Ma also sat for civil service examinations. . . . As for the term xiaolinglong, . . . linglong refers to a type of stone from Tai Lake. These [prized] stones are distinguished by their naturally occurring holes and narrow and convoluted shape, and need no carving. . . . When the court initiated the Four Treasuries project, the Ma brothers’ book collection was considered the finest in the region. Because they voluntarily lent a great number of books to the court, they were rewarded by the emperor with The Imperially Authorized Comprehensive Corpus of Illustrations and Books from Ancient Times to the Present.2

—liang zhangju, Langji congtan

In the mid-nineteenth century, the scholar and official Liang Zhangju (1775–1849) visited the old and famous scenic locations of Yangzhou. In his inquiry into the history behind some of its celebrated gardens, Liang recorded that three salt merchants, Jiang Chun, Wang Maolin, and Ma Yuelu, 186



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were considered “cultured and cosmopolitan men” (tongren) in the High Qing period. Jiang Chun and Ma Yuelu were Huizhou head merchants, and Wang Maolin came from a salt merchant family.3 Liang Zhangju did not specify what he meant by the term tongren, but he clearly had in view their common ownership of gardens. This trait identified by Liang Zhangju is nevertheless telling. As physical sites performing their owners’ agency and including objects testifying to their owners’ tastes and skills, these gardens directly embodied the merchants’ status as tongren. Their mastery of the variety of skills on display in their gardens reflected the expansion of their political, economic, and cultural influence and the multiple roles they played in eighteenth-century Yangzhou. The cost of building such gardens reflected their success in the salt business. Moreover, Jiang Chun’s garden was a prime site of literary production through writers’ residences and a favored venue for the Qianlong emperor’s visits. Ma Yuelu’s garden boasted both an unparalleled Tai Lake stone display and one of the finest book collections in the empire. The term tongren would seem to be merited. Indeed, the salt merchant Jiang Chun himself used this term in his preface to his friend Shen Dacheng’s essay collection.4 There he described Shen Dacheng as friend to the “cultured and cosmopolitan men and learned Confucians” of the ­empire—tantamount to asserting his membership in this group. In short, Jiang was quite explicit in his admiration for these tongren, exemplified by Shen, a man whose learning “encompassed all subjects” and whose range of inquiry was exceptional.5 The use of the word tongren, by the Huizhou salt merchants themselves as well as by those referring to them, highlights the transformed position of these tradesmen in High Qing China, a main theme of this book. As this term indicates, these merchants were not depicted as the nouveaux riches who strove to behave like literati; instead, they emerged as “cultured and cosmopolitan men” who distinguished themselves with knowledge and skill in a wide range of fields, as well as their ability to do things managerially. These features, as Liang Zhangju noted, were recognized through the objects and possessions they owned and displayed. It was also through these objects that these salt merchants constructed extensive connections with the Qianglong emperor and the court—phenomena that further underscore these tradesmen’s new position and roles. By examining the dynamic relationship between salt merchants and the objects surrounding them, I argue that these merchants not only played an important role in state revenue

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but also expanded their influence in the political, cultural, and commercial realms of eighteenth-century China.

merchants and their things By tracing the life histories of a spectrum of objects—goods sold in Jiangnan markets, seals resting on scholars’ desks, steles embedded in Huizhou ancestral halls, and stone arches towering over bucolic village landscapes—this book has tracked the crucial relationship between Huizhou salt merchants and the objects surrounding them. The objects they interacted with provided an essential basis for these merchants to construct networks, claim position, and fashion identity in High Qing society. Through these objects, these merchants played multiple roles in the fluid material world of High Qing China. A close examination of these roles—ranging from the emperor’s informal agents to arbiters of taste, from lineage patrons to moral ­advocates—reveals salt merchants’ roles as political and social mediators in the eighteenth century. The precious objects that the Huizhou salt merchants submitted to the court disclose the merchants’ new service to the court outside the formal bureaucracy system. Thanks to their broad networks, their outstanding managerial skills, and their abundant financial resources, these salt merchants were ideal candidates for producing and procuring the best objects in Jiangnan for imperial use. The Qianlong emperor acknowledged these merchants’ abilities and resources and made them work closely with his bondservants not only to manage the lucrative salt business but also to prepare and arrange refined things in Jiangnan. Huizhou salt merchants, therefore, served as the Qianlong emperor’s informal agents. In order to better manage the objects that the emperor desired and to provide a place for hosting the Qianlong emperor’s southern tours, these Huizhou salt merchants actively engaged with luxury consumption themselves. Many merchants used and displayed precious items in their residences and devoted resources to private collections of antiques, artwork, and books. On the basis of their familiarity with the objects that the court favored or disfavored, these merchants played a role in mediating style and taste between the court and Jiangnan market. In the context of “capital style” or “tribute style” being welcomed in urban centers of the Lower Yangzi area, these merchants’ interactions with the objects favored by the emperor made



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them trendsetters in luxury consumption there, positioning themselves at the forefront of fashion and taste. In addition to their new roles in the urban setting of Jiangnan, these merchants also expanded their influence in their hometowns, remote villages nestled in Huizhou. Here, the merchants played the role of lineage patrons. The family of head merchant Bao Zhidao financed high-quality genealogies, built decorated ancestral halls, and donated charitable lands to poor villagers in their hometown of Tangyue. A close examination of the material objects in which the Bao merchants invested—especially objects that did not economically contribute to the livelihood of poor lineage members, such as stone carvings, calligraphy, rubbings, and paintings—uncovers the nature of the Bao merchants’ patronized projects as conspicuous consumption. By consistently transferring wealth accumulated from their business in urban centers to their hometown, the Bao merchants not only improved the lineage infrastructure to aid the members in economic trouble but also engaged luxury consumption in the rural area of Huizhou, sanctioned by Confucian moral example. Such activities could be monumental. A large number of chastity arches that the salt merchants financed and built in Huizhou allowed them to play a role as advocates for the Qing court. The Manchu emperors aimed to inculcate their illiterate subjects with Confucian morality through daily interactions with these monuments, making local commoners “see and be moved” by the morality the arches represented. Many Huizhou salt merchants endured the difficulties of the construction process and erected the arches. Building these arches fulfilled multiple purposes for the merchants as well. They sought to bolster their reputations, display wealth and ability, legitimize dominance and power, and simply memorialize beloved female family members. No matter their intentions, however, the final construction of arches served, at least partially, the court’s political agenda. The salt merchants, in this light, enhanced this mode of communication between the central government and local society, helping to transmit ideologies on behalf of imperial power to local residences.

the paradigm of status negotiation The multiple roles that merchants played in High Qing society enable us to reconsider the paradigm of status negotiation, an interpretation arguing that

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merchants tried to mimic the behavior of men of letters (shi ). According to this paradigm, merchants’ devotion to arts or antiques, for example, was often explained as their desire to identify themselves as shi by using the same consumable objects as scholars. This paradigm offers a powerful explanation for the complicated literati-merchant (shi-shang ) relationship in late imperial China, which certainly became more tangled as commercial forces reached into every element of social life. Some merchants indeed emulated the comportment of scholarly elites, aiming to obtain cultural capital and win social respect, at least in the eyes of those elites. The findings in this book, however, underscore the limitations of this paradigm. As proposed in the introduction of this book, the goals and motivations of the Huizhou salt merchants should be explored in the specific historical context of the High Qing period and examined in specific relationships with other social groups. By analyzing the ways in which these merchants dealt with objects, the study has presented a more complex experience of merchants themselves. In contrast to the typical caricature of merchants as “shi-wannabes,” these wealthy businessmen appear as individuals with various agendas. In many cases presented in this book, a merchant’s delight in and enthusiasm about certain objects was far more complex than a simple interpretation of social status negotiation would suggest. A wealthy head merchant’s interest in building fancy gardens and collecting precious objects was not just the result of his wish to copy the Jiangnan literati lifestyle. In fact, his interest and effort in these endeavors could also be for the purpose of managing tributary goods for the court and hosting the Qianlong emperor’s visits. In the process of managing these tasks, merchants had to decorate their gardens with the newest fashion or collect the best objects in order to entertain and impress the emperor. Merchants’ activities, therefore, could be understood in terms of their practical goal of serving and pleasing the court. A careful examination of the relationship between Huizhou salt merchants and the objects they collected also enables us to propose an alternative interpretation to understand their motivations in collecting. By analyzing how salt merchant Wang Qishu narrated, accumulated, arranged, and displayed his seal collection, this book argues that Wang used different elements associated with his seal collection—including meaning, size, and display format—to construct his self-identity as a “collector” (shoucangjia). In the historical context of the eighteenth century, when collectors emerged



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as a social category and collecting was considered a valued form of expertise, these wealthy salt merchants’ devotion in collection can be understood as their effort to build a self-image as a collector, an identity with which they could identify themselves and that could be recognized and remembered.

practical skills in the statecraft era New insights into the variegated roles of salt merchants and the varied motivations that these merchants had in playing these roles also uncover a crucial social phenomenon, namely, the increasing legitimacy of merchants’ practical and commercial skills in Qianlong’s reign. Not only were merchants increasingly secure and confident in their own roles, but literati were also more respectful of merchant talent. This new phenomenon enables us to examine the changing position of Huizhou salt merchants and sheds new light on our understanding of the influence of substantive learning in the statecraft era of eighteenth-century China. A discourse of statecraft ( jingshi ) that emphasized practical knowledge and skills prevailed in the eighteenth century. From the seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, many scholars participated in the discussion of substantive learning and advocated practicality. The promotion of substantive learning encouraged literati to appreciate the salt merchants’ management skills as well as their practical actions. Increasing numbers of elites began to compose biographies for head merchants or their family members. These biographies often describe the merchants as the people involved with government affairs ( gongshi ), especially “salt affairs” ( yanwu), serving as the officials’ right-hand men (zuoyoushou) based on their “strong ability” ( ganli/ gancai ).6 The fact that the elites were willing to identify the commercial activities of these families, instead of avoiding their commercial background, shows that the salt merchants’ administrative ability had legitimized their merchant status.7 More than that, as discussed in Chapter 4, the scholarly elites who associated with the Bao family frequently talked about the head merchant position and the importance of salt revenue in the state economy. These elites demonstrated their acknowledgment and even admiration of the Bao merchants’ ability in conducting their salt business and managing the salt monopoly system.

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Not only did the scholarly elites take note of merchants’ abilities in assisting government affairs, they also admired these businessmen’s abilities to simply do things. The scholar Jiang Fan wrote a poem to praise Bao Zhidao’s construction of the Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine in his hometown:8 Vulgar Confucians like to indulge in empty talk (suru shang kongtan); For them, subjects like parental love and filial piety are just an excuse for more conversation (cixiao wei koushi ). However, the real gentleman values putting one’s words into practice ( junzi gui gongxing ); Encouraging and promoting the right human relationships is practicing Confucian ideas.9

Here Jiang Fan clearly points out that Zhidao was a “true gentleman” ( junzi ) because he practiced (xing ) Confucian activities. More interestingly, Jiang compares the salt merchant Zhidao favorably to “vulgar Confucians”: because Zhidao was practicing Confucian deeds, Jiang distinguished Zhidao from “vulgar Confucians” who only talked about morality but never practiced it. In other words, Jiang recognized Zhidao as a real gentleman because of his actual actions to promote Confucian morality. This acknowledgment and appreciation of the salt merchants’ practical skills, the fact that they knew how to do things and they did things, enabled the merchants to claim their legitimacy in the society. The Huizhou salt merchants consciously distinguished themselves by their practical skills and knowledge. As discussed earlier, the salt merchant Jiang Chun showed his admiration for individuals, like his friend Shen Dacheng, who mastered all kinds of knowledge and skills. In the same preface, Jiang also explicitly expressed his dismissal of certain types of literati. As Jiang stated: Most literati (shi ) waste their talent (zi bi qi neng ) on vulgar studies (suxue), throwing away their whole lives on poems and essays. They ignore entirely all other pursuits (wu pangwu), disavow all other responsibilities (wu jianying ), and have no sense of right or wrong, honor or dishonor (wu shifei rongru zhi jian). How can we possibly call them men (shi ) of outstanding talent, intelligence, and courage (haojie zhi shi )?10

In this statement, Jiang directly criticized literati who only focused on “vulgar learning,” meaning writing poems and ancient prose. These literati, in



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Jiang’s opinion, did not deserve a reputation for outstanding talent, intelligence, and courage. Like Jiang Fan, Jiang used the word su—a label often applied to “vulgar” merchants—to describe narrow-minded study and empty talk, an implication of a failure to practice the values being touted. Two other important phenomena appear in Jiang Chun’s preface. First, prefaces were usually written by well-known scholars and by invitation. Here, however, Jiang Chun, as a merchant, was invited to write a preface for a member of the literati elite.11 Second, Jiang Chun boldly expressed his opinion about literati, a discourse that was almost entirely dominated by scholar elites. While it was common for literati to talk about merchants, it was not common for the latter to discuss the former in print. Both of these phenomena point to the rising profile of Huizhou salt merchants in the High Qing. In the eighteenth century, when scholars started to take note of the practical knowledge and managerial techniques of merchants, these salt merchants offered a counterpoint to ordinary Confucians who only pursued useless study and empty talk. A changing attitude toward merchants was thus highlighted in the new discourse of statecraft.

transregional networks A focus on the artifacts that Huizhou salt merchants produced and consumed also allowed these tradesmen to be situated in the circuits of production, consumption, and circulation of extravagant objects. The movement, or the social life, of these objects uncovers transregional ties between the political center of Beijing, the cosmopolitan cities in the Lower Yangzi, and their homeland in the rural countryside of Huizhou. On the one hand, these objects were the products of the relations that Huizhou salt merchants had with different groups, including the imperial court, scholarly elites, traders and connoisseurs, and artisans and craftsman. On the other hand, the same objects also provided a channel through which these wealthy commercial elites furthered their social connections. Previous scholarship has extensively studied how the Huizhou salt merchants’ activities crossed the boundaries of Jiangnan urban centers and their home villages, but when we consider luxury objects, merchants’ close ties with the imperial court stand out.12 Not only did the merchants facilitate

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communications between Jiangnan and Huizhou through the movement of human, capital, and objects, but their activities in these two locations also helped them establish and maintain networks with the court. As Chapter 2 explores in detail, the Huizhou salt merchants constructed a direct network with the Qianlong emperor and the emperor’s bondservants by procuring and producing a variety of objects in Jiangnan for court use. The Bao merchants, as shown in Chapter 4, used a series of objects generated from their patronage of a shrine reconstruction in their home village to solicit poems and essays from the court officials. The privileges created by this relationship with the court legitimized and lifted the position of salt merchants as a social group. This study also highlights the importance of their home village, the rural area of Huizhou, in constructing transregional networks. While Huizhou was a place that was showered with the riches salt merchants brought back from Jiangnan urban centers, home villages and the Huizhou prefecture also provided valuable items for the merchants to advance their agendas. More specifically, Huizhou’s natural resources, skilled craftsmen, and tradition in art production made the merchants’ homeland a center from which their relationships and networks emanated.13 The unique natural resources produced in Huizhou played an important role in merchants’ activities of gift exchange. The illustrative example is Bao Xunmao’s gift, or payment, to Ji Yun in exchange for Ji’s essay. The object that Xunmao presented was a piece of beautiful inkstone made from Longwei rock from Huizhou. The Longwei mountain was one of the few quarries in China that produced rocks suitable for making inkstone. The materiality of this type of rock, its hardness, smooth surface, and its ability to grind and maintain wetness of ink, made Longwei inkstone one of the most desired collectable items in the Qing. The locality of Huizhou matters here. The inkstone itself derived a large part of its economic and cultural value from its rareness and “geographic separation.”14 As Huizhou natives, Bao merchants might have found it relatively easier to obtain. More importantly, the Baos had a special relationship with this type of inkstone because the object represented the place that they came from. By selecting a “local special” (techan) from their homeland as a gift, therefore, the Bao merchants expressed their sincerity to Ji while emphasizing their connection to something precious (see Figure 4.4).



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The inkstone that Xunmao presented to Ji was revered not only because of its precious material but also its refined production quality. Craftsmen’s skills, in other words, added important value to the inkstone. Indeed, craftsmen’s talent and ability nurtured in the local villages of Huizhou also facilitated salt merchants’ social networking. As mentioned in Chapter 4, the Huang lineage of Qiu village in She county had established their reputation for producing vivid and delicate book illustrations. The Bao merchants took advantage of this source from their home village. They invited a descendant of the Huang lineage to engrave the stone carving based on a famous late-Ming illustration book that was also made by the same Huang lineage. By doing so, the Bao merchants incorporated Huang carvers’ refined carving skills into their lineage construction project and re-created the admired stone carving. Their re-creation of the stone carving attracted the attention of contemporary elites and helped the Baos maintain and strengthen their network with them. The rich tradition of art production and private collection also made Huizhou a center for salt merchants to expand their connections. In addition to the famous Huangshan painting school popular in the late Ming and early Qing, Huizhou, and especially She county, also nurtured some of the best seal carvers because of its flourishing publishing activities.15 It is unclear whether Wang Qishu’s obsession with seal carving was formed because of this environment in Huizhou, although it is highly possible. But we can be sure that this long-nourished interest in and practice of seal carving formed a community of seal carvers in eighteenth-century Huizhou. This flourishing local community enabled Wang to solicit seals from contemporary carvers and to expand his network with the individuals who took an interest in this art form. By investing in and producing certain objects in their home villages in Huizhou, therefore, these salt merchants constructed a dynamic and fluid urban-rural and central-local relationship in the High Qing period.

the qianlong emperor’s political strategies in jiangnan The court-merchant relationship also illuminates our understanding of the Qianlong emperor’s political strategies in Jiangnan. As Qing scholars have

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argued, the Manchu emperors intentionally appointed their bondservants to be in charge of important positions in Jiangnan, thereby extending the emperors’ personal networks to this crucial area. This book demonstrates how Huizhou salt merchants played an important role as mediators helping the imperial court penetrate local society. The Manchus’ salt monopoly polices—appointing the emperor’s own bondservants as salt administrators in Jiangnan salt zones and establishing the head merchant position—created a new political environment within which Jiangnan salt merchants could connect with Beijing and “run errands for the emperor.”16 The Huizhou salt merchants’ contribution in “running errands” shows a dynamic relationship between merchants and court institutions, demonstrating an extensive network that the Qianlong court created to expand its power in Jiangnan society. While the Qianlong emperor had inserted his network in Jiangnan by sending his trusted bondservants, the limitations of the court’s existing personal agents also appeared. By examining the specific tasks that were assigned to these bondservants, such as preparing tributary goods and searching for rare books for the Four Treasuries project, this book discloses that these bondservants lacked the local knowledge and connections necessary to complete the tasks. It was thus practical to entrust salt merchants who could obtain these resources to fulfill the requests from the emperor. The Qianlong emperor, in other words, used merchants to overcome the limitations of his personal network. In essence, while bondservants were nodes of influence working throughout the empire, salt merchants were the threads that connected them, thus strengthening and completing a fully functional net that the court could use to extend its reach. The Qianlong emperor not only used these merchants as agents but, more importantly, also included them as one integrated part of his own networks. These Han merchants were not part of a formal bureaucracy whose members were selected through the exam system. In fact, the emperor acknowledged merchants’ nonofficial status and addressed them as “those who are not recorded on the official registration roster” (weideng shiban zhi ren).17 However, the merchants were fulfilling official work by carrying out imperial policies, assisting in the salt business, and arranging the court’s southern tours.18 Rewarding them for services, the emperor generously granted these merchants official titles. On several occasions, because of these merchants’ assistance in managing one of the southern tours, the emperor awarded



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some of these salt merchants the honorary title of Fengchenyuan qing; the Fengchenyuan, the Imperial Parks Administration, was one of the three institutes (sanyuan) in the Imperial Household Department that supervised imperial hunting grounds and gardens.19 The title of Fengchenyuan qing designated the chief minister of this institute.20 To be sure, this title might be an empty position granted by the court but lacking any recognizable power, but it belonged to the Imperial Household Department, part of the inner court, instead of the formal civil service system, which comprised the outer court bureaucracy. The fact that the emperor granted these salt merchants a position in the Imperial Household Department reveals the emperor’s intention to incorporate these commercial elites as his own personal agents. The Qing emperor’s incorporation of merchants into his own network marks a political and social disjunction that separates the Qing empire from the Ming.21 The salt merchants’ service to the court demonstrates the Manchu court’s agenda to incorporate nonofficial merchants into its political order. The Qing court used these tradesmen’s abilities and personal social networks to supplement both the formal state bureaucracy and the emperor’s own networks. The court’s strategy bears some resemblance to Beatrice Bartlett’s description of Yongzheng’s inner-court entities that could function “beyond the reach of the administrative code.”22 The Jiangnan salt merchants provided a similar kind of “extralegal dynamic” for the Manchu emperor to manage the salt business and collect salt revenue in Jiangnan while also obtaining benefits for his court. This court-merchant relationship also expressed the Manchu rulers’ notion of monarchy, characterized by the strengthening of the emperorship and imperial authority. The Qing emperors, as alien rulers, placed the person of the emperor in a “much more central position than he was accorded by traditional Confucian notions emphasizing the ritual centrality of the monarch.”23 These Han Chinese salt merchants, as the local assistants to these bondservants, effectively expanded Qianlong’s own network of informal contacts and control at the local level. The appointment of the salt merchants, therefore, underscores the Qianlong emperor’s desire to expand court power. Finally, this court-merchant relationship reveals a flexible political strategy of Manchu rulers.24 Chinese history has never lacked examples of the government’s use of salt merchants, as taxes from business interactions were always an important resource for stabilizing a fledgling government.25 In the

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early years of the Qing dynasty, while some Jiangnan Han elites, who would later be brought into the imperial fold, were resisting the new minority rulers, the Manchus allied with merchants who were eager to reestablish their businesses. The salt merchants’ ready dependence on the government thus created leverage on which the Manchu rulers could draw. During the High Qing period, Huizhou salt merchants’ resources—including their potential financial contribution to Qianlong’s military campaigns, their broad social networks in the local society of Jiangnan, and their managerial abilities in the salt business—all made cooperation with these merchants an important and necessary part of Manchu’s political agenda.

merchants, the court, and commercial revolution Going beyond the court’s political strategies, stories of Huizhou salt merchants and their objects also reveal a dynamic relationship between the Qianlong emperor’s policies, merchants, and artifacts. The cases presented in this book disclose that the Qianlong emperor purposely used objects to implement his policies. Through the production, procurement, circulation, and display of certain objects, the emperor expanded his influence, both intentionally and unintentionally, into the economic and cultural fields of local society, including the empire’s heartland of Jiangnan and remote villages in Huizhou. This increased interaction between the court and local society in the High Qing period, which the Huizhou salt merchants mediated, advances our understanding of the Ming-Qing commercial revolution. Objects played a significant role in Qing political culture. The Qianlong emperor commanded all the books in the empire to be collected for building his own library, while portraying himself as a cultivated ruler who understood Han Chinese culture but also playing an arbitrary role in book production. The Qianlong emperor’s enthusiasm about fine furnishings from Jiangnan not only was a simple result of his personal taste but also reflected his desire to collect and use every single thing that was made by the best craftsmen from his empire. Through a different set of objects, the Qing court also used monuments to promote its moral cultivation and domination project. Chastity arches, for example, served as a medium for the Qing court to give material expression to its cultivation project, transmitting



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messages about hierarchy and morality to local villagers. These Manchu emperors strategically used the political and cultural implications that these objects contained to achieve their political agenda.26 Through these objects, the court’s influence expanded into the luxury markets of Jiangnan. The Qianlong emperor’s revival of the tributary system and his enthusiasm for precious objects from Jiangnan resulted in an unprecedented traffic of luxury goods flowing from the Lower Yangzi area to the capital. The large-scale movement of these objects in turn led to a new vogue for “capital taste.” As the famous eighteenth-century painting Prosperous Suzhou shows, some stores even advertised their goods as “capital style” or “tribute style” to attract customers.27 In other words, the Qianlong emperor’s demand for acquiring and making objects in Jiangnan advanced the circulation of fashion and craftsmanship between the court and local society. The Jiangnan salt merchants facilitated this dissemination of “capital style” through their preparation of goods for court use. They had access to detailed instructions from the court, even from the emperor himself, for the proper production of artifacts. In addition, Qianlong’s rejection and acceptance of tributary goods gave them a sense of how to select an object that would best meet the emperor’s standards. When merchants built gardens in Yangzhou that catered to Qianlong’s taste or collected precious objects as potential tributary goods, they were able to respond to the arbiters of court taste. Their use and collection of objects displayed a style welcomed at the court, and their practices ultimately spread “capital style” throughout urban society in Jiangnan. While the combination of salt merchants’ actions and court activity facilitated the flow of objects, it also helped galvanize the emergence of local tastes heavily influenced by the court.28 The court also extended its influence to the rural area. Many scholars of Qing China have demonstrated how the central government in Beijing, in an effort to bolster and secure its legitimacy, used different methods to control local society throughout its vast territory. By focusing on what the sojourning salt merchants did in Huizhou, this book demonstrates how these tradesmen helped the Qing court extend its influence, especially in the ideological and symbolic realms, to rural Huizhou, the remote corner of the Qing empire. The new forms of economic and political capital that the merchants obtained enabled them to play a dominant role in village lineage affairs. The Tangyue Bao household, for example, rebuilt ancestral halls, donated charitable lands, and compiled genealogies in their ­hometown. Many

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merchants also financed the expensive stone arches and helped Huizhou win a reputation for supporting and nurturing chaste widowhood. The merchants’ patronage, in this context, visualized the court’s presence in the local community. The steles standing in the ancestral hall and stone arches erected in the fields recorded honors bestowed by the court on the merchants and the economic and political privilege they accumulated through the salt monopoly system. These objects have reminded local people of the merchants’ prosperity even to this day. The merchants’, and particularly the head merchants’, role as mediators to connect the court and Huizhou was even recognized and spotlighted in local official writings. During Qianlong’s time, the newly compiled Gazetteer of She County created, for the first time, a new category of “imperial favor” (shu’en), which was used exclusively to list Huizhou head merchants’ awards.29 The Qing court’s expanding influence in Jiangnan and Huizhou, which was partially caused by its strategic use of objects, enables us to rethink the narrative of the Ming-Qing commercial revolution. Historians of late imperial China have highlighted major shifts from the Ming to the Qing, including the realms of court politics, empire construction, ethnicity, gender relations, and urbanization.30 The so-called second commercial revolution, which occurred from the middle of the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, was characterized by rapid economic growth, expansion of the market system, and the rise of luxury consumption. Some scholars have begun to note the differences and transformations of consumer cultures from the late Ming to the High Qing.31 This book argues that commercial growth and social opportunities of the High Qing were intimately shaped by new political realities. The transition to a new regime offered new sets of opportunities and strategies and changed the lives of Huizhou salt merchants. The evidence presented here demonstrates that there was a difference between the merchants’ activities in luxury consumption in the High Qing as opposed to the late Ming. As the rising Huizhou salt merchants in the Jiangnan area began participating more actively in the culture of luxury consumption, merchants began to influence and even establish currents of taste and fashion for the time. The experience of salt merchants, therefore, demonstrates the different effects of commercial forces on cultural and social phenomena in the late Ming and High Qing. It illuminates our understanding of consumption patterns and of Manchu political culture.



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In the eighteenth century, material objects played an important role in many aspects of social life. The intriguing roles that objects played not only have inspired historians to examine how people lived in a specific region, but also have enabled scholars to explore connections crossing geographical and cultural boundaries. An examination of Huizhou salt merchants and their interactions with objects represents the experience of one group of merchants in a specific historical and spatial context of High Qing China. By studying the rich evidence in and about material objects, this book provides a channel for readers to examine the complicated lived experiences of these wealthy tradesmen. These merchants eventually emerged as “cultured and cosmopolitan men” who played a crucial role in the economic, social, and cultural world of eighteenth-century China. Their life experiences also illustrate the dynamic relationship between the Manchu and Han, central and local, and humans and objects in Chinese history.

Notes

introduction 1.  Relying on imperial policies in court documents, records from gazetteers, my examination of the arch itself, and the information provided by local informants, I reconstructed this episode about how a Huizhou salt merchant built a chastity arch for his mother. For Lady Fang’s biography, see Lianghuai yanfa zhi [hereafter LHYFZ] (1806), 51:41a–b. 2.  I chose the word “interact” here because it includes the meaning of various constructed relationships between people and objects: people not only viewed and touched arches but also thought about and made judgments based on the physical properties of objects. Scholars have used the term “interact” to describe humanobject relationships. For instance, historian Leora Auslander has stated, “Historians can learn a great deal both from the objects with which people interact every day and from the insights that other disciplines bring to their study”: Leora Auslander, “Beyond Words,” American Historical Review 110, no. 4 (2005): 1044. 3.  Susan Mann discusses the concept of the High Qing era in Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 19–20. Mann also traces the history of scholarly use and discussions of this term (236–237, footnote 1). I follow Mann’s dating scheme of this period, which derives from Frederic Wakeman, “High Ch’ing, 1683–1839,” in Modern East Asia: Essays in Interpretation, ed. James B. Crowley (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1970), 1–28. 4.  Many scholars have argued that because of Huizhou’s natural environment, doing business became the best and most practical way for Huizhou people to survive. Huizhou merchants traded various kinds of objects, among which salt, timber, and tea were the major commodities. In general, scholars agree that the Huizhou salt merchants began to play an important role in the salt business in the late Ming. See Fan Jinmin, “Mingdai Huizhou yanshang shengyu Lianghuai de shijian yu yuanyin,” Anhui Shixue, no. 3 (2004): 5–11; Guo Qitao, Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage: The Confucian Transformation of Popular Culture in Late Imperial Huizhou (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 15–19, 50–74.

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5.  Huizhou prefecture comprises six counties: She, Xiuning, Jixi, Yi, Qimen, and Wuyuan. 6.  For statistics supporting the importance of total salt revenue of the Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones, see Yang Jeou-yi, “The Muddle of Salt: The State and Merchants in Late Imperial China, 1644–1911” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1996), 97. See also Chen Feng, Qingdai yanzheng yu yanshui (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1988), 74, 171. 7.  The concept of merchants’ “scholarly counterparts,” whom I also refer to as literati or scholarly elites, was rather vague in the High Qing period. The decreasing ratio of official positions to exam candidates, as well as an increasingly expanding market system, led many educated male elites to take up different occupations, such as serving as secretaries or private tutors and sometimes even conducting business at some points in their lives. The term “scholarly counterparts” in this book refers to the people who were recognized through their appointments as officials or scholarly work or whose primary goal was to obtain appointments as officials through civil service examinations. 8.  As scholars have indicated, merchants used various resources to “open arenas of activity outside the state-sanctioned paths of degree acquisition, office holding, and Confucian scholarship”; Joseph W. Esherick and Mary Backus Rankin, “Introduction,” in Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance, ed. Joseph W. Esherick and Mary Backus Rankin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 9. 9.  Quoted in Michael G. Chang, A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 244. 10.  Li Dou, Yangzhou huafang lu (hereafter YZHFL; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1960; reprinted in 2004), 166. Wang Yushu’s son, Wang Changxin, was a head merchant. For more information about the Wang family, see Ming Guang, “Cong Jiamei yuan dao Jiufeng yuan: Yangzhou yanshang shiren Wang Yushu fuzi kao­ lüe,” Yangzhou Daxue Xuebao 14, no. 4 (2010): 97–102. For more examples on the Qianlong emperor’s comments on merchants’ gardens, see YZHFL, 268. 11.  YZHFL, 148–150. Ho Ping-ti translated the longer version of this paragraph in “The Salt Merchants of Yang-Chou: A Study of Commercial Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 17, no. 1–2 (1954): 155– 156. I adopt Ho’s translation here with minor changes. 12.  Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 155. 13.  Xu Chengyao, Sheshi xiantan (1936; reprint, Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2001), 830–831. 14.  I first heard the story about how the four wealthy salt merchants from the Huang family built the stone bridge “sanyuan” for their mother from local villager Huang Yaxian in May 2002. Huang called these four merchants “the four ingots” (sida yuanbao) because of their financial strength and their privileged status in the village. Later I found out that Li Dou also called these four merchants “four ingots” in his book. YZHFL, 290.



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15.  Ann Smart Martin, “Material Things and Cultural Meanings: Notes on the Study of Early American Material Culture,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 53, no. 1 (1996): 5. 16.  Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello, “Introduction: Writing Material Culture History,” in Writing Material Culture History, ed. Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 2. 17.  Martin defines objects as “complex bundles of individual, social, and cultural meanings grafted onto something that can be seen, touched, and owned.” She argues that objects “symbolize and communicate intangible ideas, build relationships, and proffer pleasure.” Ann Smart Martin, Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 9. Archaeologist Ian Hodder also rejects the idea that material culture only reflects culture. Hodder argues that material culture “is imbedded in culture” and “it is symbolic, active, and communicative.” For a summary of Hodder’s argument, see Ann Smart Martin and J. Ritchie Garrison, “Shaping the Field: The Multidisciplinary Perspectives of Material Culture,” in American Material Culture: The Shape of the Field, ed. Ann Smart Martin and J. Ritchie Garrison (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997), 14–15. 18.  Martin, Buying into the World, 9. Some scholars view artifacts as “reflections of culture.” They share the underlying premise that human-made objects have an inherent and attached value and that this value reflects the cultural beliefs of individuals who made or used these objects. By studying material productions, scholars can therefore “discover the beliefs—the values, ideas, attitudes and assumptions— of a particular community or society at a given time”: Jules David Prown, “The Truth of Material Culture: History or Fiction?,” in History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, ed. Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 1. Also see Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method,” Winterthur Portfolio 17, no. 1 (1982): 1–19. For a summary of views toward the relationship between objects and culture and the development of material culture studies, see John ­ ieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture (Princeton, NJ: K Princeton University Press, 2003), 15–19. 19.  Arjun Appadurai, “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value,” in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 5. 20.  Igor Kopytoff formulated the concept of the “culturally informed economic biography” of an object, demonstrating how an object’s cultural status changes as the relationship between the object and the market shifts. Igor Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process,” in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 64–91. For the criticism of Kopytoff’s study of the social life of things, see Janet Hoskins, “Agency, Biography and Objects,” in Handbook of Material Culture, ed. Chris Tilley et al. (London: Sage, 2006), 74–84;

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and Judith Zeitlin, “The Cultural Biography of a Musical Instrument: Little Hulei as Sounding Object, Antique, Prop, and Relic,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 69, no. 2 (2009): 395–396. 21.  Hoskins, “Agency,” 74. 22.  Zeitlin, “The Cultural Biography,” 396. 23.  For a summary of recent studies on material culture and history, see ­Gerritsen and Riello, “Introduction,” in Writing Material Culture History, 1–13; quotation is on 2. Some historians have even gone further and argue that “objects not only are the product of history, they are also active agents in history.” Auslander, “Beyond Words,” 1017. Jonathan Hay argues that luxury objects even “think with us materially” to create pleasure and in turn function as decoration: Jonathan Hay, Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010), 13, 61–89. 24.  A contextual approach, proposed by Ian Hodder, might be useful for historians to study objects. See Martin and Garrison, “Shaping the Field,” 14–15. 25.  For a detailed discussion of the fluidity of the status system, see Ho Ping-ti, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368–1911 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 53–86. 26.  Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 73. 27.  I adopt Craig Clunas’s translation here (Superfluous Things, 74). 28.  Clunas, Superfluous Things, 73. 29.  Historians have argued that confusion between merchants and gentry certainly occurred in the Qing dynasty but remained incomplete. In this context, some literati “articulated an acute sense of social distinction between genuine ‘men of culture and learning’ (shidafu) and mere social climbers with money.” Michael Chang provides a nice summary on this matter: A Court on Horseback, 245–250; quotation is on 249. 30.  For other descriptions of salt merchants’ luxury lifestyle, see YZHFL, 148– 150. Ho Ping-ti cited this paragraph in The Ladder of Success, 158–159. As Ginger Cheng-chi Hsü claims, “This same passage is frequently used as a classic example of the conspicuous consumption of Chinese merchants in general.” Ginger Cheng-chi Hsü, A Bushel of Pearls: Painting for Sale in Eighteenth-Century Yangchow (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 14–15. 31.  Michael Chang also argues that the Qianlong emperor characterized merchants as “accustomed to luxury and waste” to meet his own political agenda including appealing to scholarly elites: Chang, A Court on Horseback, 245–246. 32.  Susan Mann, Local Merchants and the Chinese Bureaucracy, 1750–1950 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987): 70–93. 33.  Most relevant to this study are Evelyn S. Rawski, “Reenvisioning the Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History,” Journal of Asian Studies 55, no. 4 (1996): 829–850; Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Mark



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C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); and Joanna Waley-Cohen, “The New Qing History,” Radical History Review 88 (2004): 193–206. 34.  Pamela Crossley argues that “in a universalist order of the sort constructed by the Qing,” the labeling of “Manchu” and “Chinese” is meaningless. However, she agrees that “portions of the institution derived from the khanship that arose in the northeast. They survived and were valued for what they were.” Therefore, she claims that “as universalists, the eighteenth-century Qing rulers, and the Qianlong emperor in particular, were cognizant of the diverse sources of their order and were meticulous in expressing them.” Pamela Crossley, “The Rulerships of China,” American Historical Review 97, no. 5 (1992): 1483. 35.  Philip Kuhn, Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 1–72, particularly 49–72. 36.  Jonathan Spence, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 166–212. 37.  Chang, A Court on Horseback, 27. 38.  Kuhn, Soulstealers, 51–59. 39.  Alexander Woodside, “The Ch’ien-lung Reign,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 9, ed. John K. Fairbank (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 272–273. 40.  Lai Hui-min discusses in detail how the Qianlong emperor and his Imperial Household Department strove to receive economic profits from Jiangnan salt merchants; sometimes the emperor even took the money that was supposed to go to the state. Lai Hui-min, “Qing Qianlong chao de yanshang yu huangshi caizheng,” in Ming Qing Dang’an yu lishi yanjiu guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 2008), 918–938. Preston Torbert also mentions the economic relationship between salt merchants and the Imperial Household Department. Preston Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department: A Study of Its Organization and Principal Functions, 1662–1796 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 103–110. 41.  I borrow this metaphor from political scientist Andrew Nathan’s study on factionalism in the CCP’s politics. Andrew Nathan, “A Factionalism Model for CCP Politics,” The China Quarterly 53 (Jan.–Mar. 1973): 44. See also Ben Hillman, “Factions and Spoils: Examining Political Behavior Within the Local State in China,” The China Journal 64 (July 2010): 1–18. 42.  Joseph Fletcher, “On Future Trends in Ch’ing Studies—Three Views,” Ch’ing-shih wen-t’i 4, no. 1 (1979): 105. Joseph Fletcher has already asked, “On whom, besides the emperor’s servants (eunuchs, bondservants, bannermen, and scholar-officials), did the emperor rely to support the interests of his central government against the interests of the landowners? . . . To what extent was the court in unacknowledged touch with merchants and other unofficial elements?” Scholars have also argued that the salt monopoly system provided a mechanism through which the wealthy Jiangnan salt merchants and the government could cooperate

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with each other. See Thomas A. Metzger, “The Organizational Capabilities of the Ch’ing State in the Field of Commerce: The Liang-Huai Salt Monopoly, 1740– 1840,” in Economic Organization in Chinese Society, ed. William E. Willmott (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972), 9–45. 43.  Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 159–161. 44.  Woodside, “The Ch’ien-lung Reign,” 239–241, 272–273. Woodside argues that state economics fundamentally determined the ties between salt merchants and the emperor. The phrase “merchant-loving” appears on 267. 45.  Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550–1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), 118–127. 46.  Tobie Meyer-Fong, Building Culture in Early Qing Yangzhou (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 165–195. 47.  Chang, A Court on Horseback, 219–259. 48.  Tobie Meyer-Fong has pointed out the importance of understanding merchants’ changing positions in Manchu’s new regime. Tobie Meyer-Fong, “Review of A Bushel of Pearls: Painting for Sale in Eighteenth-Century Yangchow,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 62, no. 2 (2002): 466. 49.  Joanna Handlin Smith, “Social Hierarchy and Merchant Philanthropy as Perceived in Several Late-Ming and Early-Qing Texts,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41, no. 3 (1998): 417–451; quotation is on 423. Yu Yingshi also points out that the Ming-Qing transitions wars forced more elites to conduct business. See Yu Yingshi, Zhongguo jinshi zongjiao lunli yu shangren jingshen (Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 2001), 208–209. 50.  Richard von Glahn, “The Enchantment of Wealth: The God Wutong in the Social History of Jiangnan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 51, no. 2 (1991): 714. 51.  As Richard von Glahn argues, because of unstable currency and undeveloped social institutions that would accompany the economy’s rapid growth, the lateMing Jiangnan economy “was robust, but also highly volatile.” In the eighteenth century, in contrast, the exploitation of Yunnan’s copper mines helped establish “the reliability of currency and stability of prices.” The growth of trade associations and welfare institutions provided necessary support to a growing and expanding market system. Richard von Glahn, “The Enchantment of Wealth,” 712–714. 52.  Mary Backus Rankin and Joseph W. Esherick, “Concluding Remarks,” in Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance, 331. 53.  Rankin and Esherick, “Concluding Remarks,” 331. Yu Yingshi discusses the elites’ changing attitudes toward merchants from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. Yu, Zhongguo jinshi, 191–217. 54.  See Smith, “Social Hierarchy,” 420–426. 55.  The discussion of the relationship between knowledge (zhi ) and action (xing ) began in the Song dynasty (960–1279) with Zhu Xi’s commentary on the Doctrine of the mean and grew fiercely controversial in the late Ming as disciples of Wang Yangming criticized Zhu Xi orthodoxy. For a detailed discussion of zhi-xing debate and shixue, see William Rowe, Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite



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C­onsciousness in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 109–152, esp. 133–137. 56.  William Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2009), 59. 57.  The first economic revolution lasted from the late Tang (618–907) to the Song dynasty (960–1279). From the late eighth century to the Song, China experienced steady population growth, a move away from strict government control of the marketplace, a corresponding increase in economic specialization and commercialization, an increase in interregional and foreign maritime trade, and rapid technological innovation and urbanization. Patricia Ebrey, Cambridge Illustrated History of China, 2nd edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 141–144; and Joseph P. McDermott and Shiba Yoshinobu, “Economic Change in China, 960– 1279,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 5, ed. John W. Chaffee and Denis Twitchett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 321–436. 58.  Timothy Brook, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 59.  Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 122. 60.  Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things; Joanna Handlin Smith, “Gardens in Ch’i Piao-chia’s Social World: Wealth and Values in Late Ming Kiangnan,” Journal of Asian Studies 51 (1992): 55–81; Li Wai-yee, “The Collector, The Connoisseur, and Late Ming Sensibility,” T’oung Pao second series, vol. 81, fasc. 4/5 (1995): 269–302; Wu Jen-shu, Pinwei shehua: Wan Ming de xiaofei shehui yu shidafu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2008); Zhang Changhong, Pinjian yu jingying: Mingmo Qingchu huishang yishu zanzhu yanjiu (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2010). 61.  Clunas, Superfluous Things, 171. 62.  By focusing on the decorative arts for domestic consumption from the late Ming to the High Qing, Jonathan Hay has provided an illuminating discussion on how luxury objects interacted with human beings and functioned as a privileged source of pleasure. Hay, Sensuous Surfaces. 63.  Joanna Handlin Smith has asked the question of merchants’ role in the lateMing commercial revolution. She points out that “rich merchants may have introduced new consumption habits to the bureaucratic elite.” Joanna Handlin Smith, “Review of Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China,” Journal of Asian Studies 51 (1992): 885–887. Smith herself briefly discussed how a late-Ming salt merchant, Wang Ruqian, used his beautiful garden to gain access to literary circles. Smith, “Gardens,” 73–74. Several scholars have studied merchants’ patronage from the late sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. See Zhang Changhong, Pinjian yu jingying; Jason Chi-sheng Kuo, “Huichou Merchants as Art Patrons in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries,” in Artists and Patrons: Some Social and Economic Aspects of Chinese Painting, ed. Li Chu-tsing (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989), 177–188; Jonathan Hay, Shitao: Painting and Modernity in Early Qing China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001), 19–23, 42–50; and Hsü, A Bushel of Pearls, 17–63.

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64.  For a recent summary of material culture studies in the early modern period (1500–1800), see Paula Findlen, “Early Modern Things: Objects in Motion, 1500– 1800,” in Early Modern Things: Objects and Their Histories, 1500–1800, ed. Paula Findlen (New York: Routledge, 2013), 3–27. 65.  Mark Meadow, “Merchants and Marvels: Hans Jacob Fugger and the Origins of the Wunderkammer,” in Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Pamela Smith and Paula Findlen (London: Routledge, 2001), 182–200. 66.  Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature, Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 294. 67.  Renata Ago, Gusto for Things: A History of Objects in Seventeenth-Century Rome, trans. Paula Findlen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 8. 68.  In the past decade, many historians have explored global interactions by looking at how commodities were made, circulated, and consumed across national boundaries and even continents. Following are a few examples: Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (London: Bloomsbury, 2008); Caroline Frank, Objectifying China, Imagining America: Chinese Commodities in Early America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello, “Spaces of Global Interactions: The Material Landscapes of Global History,” in Writing Material Culture History, 111–133. 69.  I thank Paula Findlen and Alex Stateman for their very helpful discussions on collecting and commercialization in early modern Europe. This concept of “collector” will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3. 70.  Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 25. 71.  For a detailed introduction of Huizhou sources, see Joseph P. McDermott, The Making of a New Rural Order in South China: Volume 1: Village, Land, and Lineage in Huizhou, 900–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 16–38. chapter 1 1.  See Qianlong’s edict on 3/21/1757 (QL22-2-2), recorded in G’ao Jin (Gao Jin) et al., comp., Nanxun shengdian (1771; reprint, Taipei: Xinxing shuju, 1989), 69:8a. The story that the Qianlong emperor summoned Jiang Chun was recorded in Ruan Yuan’s biography for Jiang Chun and Jiang Fang. Ruan Yuan, “Jiang Heting Chengli ergong hezhuan,” in Jiang Chun and Jiang Fang, Xin’an er Jiang xiansheng ji (1804), 1a–7a. For information on Jiang Chun’s interaction with eunuchs before the tour, see the case of eunuch Zhang Feng, which was recorded in G’ao Hu¯ng’s memorial on 9/5/1765 (QL30-7-21), Lufu zouzhe 03-1397-053 (hereafter LFZZ). For information on Fengchenyuan, see Qi Meiqin, Qingdai neiwufu (Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin daxue chubanshe, 1998), 93–94. Also see Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985), 212.



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2.  Jiang Zhenhong, “qidi Zhenxian mujie,” in Jiang Chun and Jiang Fang, Xin’an er Jiang xiansheng ji, 10:1a–2a; Yuan Mei, “Gaofeng guanglu dafu Fengchenyuan qing buzhengshi Jianggong muzhiming,” Xiaocangshanfang wenji, in Yuan Mei quanji (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1993), vol. 2, 32:576–577. 3.  Scholars have extensively studied the salt monopoly system in the Ming and Qing. My discussion on salt monopoly policies here is thus largely built upon previous scholarship. For specific terms, I follow Yang Jeou-yi’s translations from “The Muddle of Salt.” 4.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 16–18; Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 135. 5.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 18–19. 6.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 23–39; Fan Jinmin, “Mingdai Huizhou yanshang shengyu Lianghuai de shijian yu yuanyin,” Anhui Shixue, 3 (2004): 7-8; Zhang Haipeng and Wang Tingyuan, eds., Huishang yanjiu (Hefei: Anhui renmin chubanshe, 1995), 159–162. 7.  Zhang and Wang, eds., Huishang yanjiu, 161; Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 39–42; Fan, “Mingdai Huizhou,” 8–9. 8.  To resolve this difficult situation, the state started a new policy by asking the merchants to deliver silver—instead of grain—to frontier posts “as the prerequisite for obtaining salt licenses.” Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 42–44. 9.  Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 136. 10.  Ibid., and Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 54. 11.  Quotation is in Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 55. Ho Ping-ti also points out that gang refers to “the salt-conveying flotilla,” or shipment and argues that only the merchants who could pay salt revenue in advance received the license to sell salt. Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 136. 12.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 55–71; quotation is on 64. 13.  Yang shows how the Manchu decision makers debated what salt monopoly policy they should use, Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 134–137. Chen Feng discusses how the Qing ruler reestablished the salt monopoly policies during the Shunzhi reign. Chen Feng, Qingdai yanzheng yu yanshui (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1988), 22–25. 14.  The eleven salt zones are: Hedong, Changlu, Shandong, Lianghuai, Liangzhe, Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shaangan, and Fengtian. Chen Feng, Qingdai yanzheng, 59–60. The Fengtian salt zone was the only new added salt zone in the Qing. The first eight salt zones were the major markets. Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 74. Also see Ni Yuping, Boyi yu junheng: Qingdai Lianghuai yanzheng gaige (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2006), 9. 15.  Yang argues that “salt in the areas closer to production sites was levied with a lighter tax rate than salt sold in the areas farther away from the production sites. The idea was that despite higher prices due to higher taxes, salt in areas farther away from the production sites would still sell because the distance from the production sites made illegal salt less likely and because a larger population there generated enough demand. . . . [A]s for the areas where salt was produced, salt was tax free.”

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Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 76. Also see Yang Jeou-yi, “Qingdai yanzhuanmaizhi zhi tedian: yige zhidumian de poxi,” Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica 47 (2005): 5–6. Chen Feng also argues that the farther away the salt merchants delivered the salt, the higher the price of the salt was. The Qing rulers and the officials acknowledged the problems of salt zone division, but in order to secure its high salt revenue from the Lianghuai area, they continued the existing division in this area. Chen, Qingdai yanzheng, 59–75. 16.  In two other salt zones, Changlu and Hedong, the most remote subzones were also called gang an. 17.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 76–79. 18.  Ibid., 97–98. Chen Feng also concluded that the revenue from Lianghuai area was 49 percent of the revenue from the whole country. Chen, Qingdai yanzheng, 171. 19.  Only parts of the territories in the Huainan sector are in the gang area. The market of Huainan’s gang area included Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, and part of Anhui. The Huainan gang salt merchants usually purchased salt at production sites and then shipped it from Yangzhou to Hankou and Nanchang, where the salt was sold to retailers who finally sold the salt in Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi. Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 99–102. 20.  Such as Xu Hong, Qingdai Lianghuai yanchang de yanjiu (Taipei: Jiaxin wenhua jijinhui, 1972); Chen, Qingdai yanzheng; and Ni, Boyi yu junheng. 21.  The merchants shipped the salt to Hankou, where the retailers sold the salt to the Huguang area (Hubei and Hunan provinces), and to Nanchang, where the salt retailers sold the salt to Jiangxi province. In Hankou and Nanchang, the Huainan salt merchants sold the salt to retailers called “small shippers” (shuishang and shuifan). Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 94–99, and “Qingdai yanzhuanmaizhi,” 19–20. Wang Fangzhong also points out that the Qing government practiced special policies in the Lianghuai salt zone but does not discuss in detail the advantage of this policy. Wang Fangzhong, “Qingdai qianqi de yanfa, yanshang yu yanye shengchan,” in Zhongguo yanyeshi luncong, ed. Chen Ran et al. (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1987), 302. 22.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 103–105. 23.  In addition to these institutional reasons, Yangzhou salt merchants also enjoyed the special privilege of using silver in their business transactions. Because of this, these merchants were able to avoid economic loss caused by the unstable ratio between silver and copper. Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 108–110. 24.  The Liangzhe salt zone submitted 907.281 taels of silver in the mid-Qing era. Chen, Qingdai yanzheng, 74. 25.  Wang Fangzhong, “Qingdai qianqi de yanfa,” 302. 26.  Because the Huizhou area was connected with Zhejiang province via the Xin’an River, Zhejiang, and especially its capital Hangzhou, was the first choice for Huizhou people to establish business. Fan, “Mingdai Huizhou,” 11.



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27.  For more detailed studies on the salt monopoly bureaucracy, see Xu, Qingdai Lianghuai yanchang, 8–12; Ni, Boyi yu junheng, 15–20. 28.  Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), 116:3351. 29.  Spence, Ts’ao Yin, 174; Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 213. 30.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 210-212; quotation is on 211. 31.  The local salt monopoly administration was divided into six ministries: Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Justice, and Works. Officials from these six ministries assisted the salt controller. In the Lianghuai area, because it dealt with the largest amount of revenue, the government even set up nineteen departments. For a detailed description of these departments, see Ni, Boyi yu junheng, 17. 32.  See salt controller Zeng Yu’s example in Chapter 4. 33.  Zhao et al., Qing shi gao, 116:3349–3352. Also see Li Keyi, “Qingdai de yanguan yu yanzheng,” Zhongguo Shehui Jingjishi Yanjiu 4 (1990): 41. Ni Yuping points out that the salt censor/administrator was appointed by the Ministry of Revenue and usually served for one year. Ni, Boyi yu junheng, 15. For the situation in the Lianghuai salt zone, see Spence, Ts’ao Yin, 174. For information on officials appointed for the Liangzhe salt zone, see the official list in Liangzhe yanfa zhi [hereafter LZYFZ] (Tongzhi edition; reprint, Xuxiu Siku quanshu 841–842), juan 22. 34.  Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department, 103–104; Li Keyi, “Qingdai de yanguan,” 41–42. 35.  For more information about the distinctions among the Upper Three Banners and the Lower Five Banners, see Elliott, The Manchu Way, 79, 83, 404–405 note 147, 407 note 163. 36.  Elliott, The Manchu Way, 83. 37.  According to Ding Yizhuang, the bondservants of the three banners (baoyi sanqi ) in the Imperial Household Department were those selected from the Upper Three Banners (shang san qi ). The Imperial Household Department banners were called the Inner Three Banners (nei san qi ). These were independent from the Outer Eight Banners (wai ba qi ). Ding Yizhuang, “Manzu shidafu qunti de chansheng yu fazhan: yi Qing dai neiwufu Wanyan shijia weili,” in Shang Hongkui xiansheng bainian danchen jinian zhuanji (Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe, 2006), 293. Also see Qiu Yuanyuan, Zhaoxun jingjiao qiren shehui: koushu yu wenxian shuangchong shijiao xia de chengshi bianyuan qunti (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2014), 20–21. Because the Upper Three Banners belonged to the regular Outer Eight Banners, it seems that Ding and Qiu separate the Inner Three Banners from the Upper Three Banners. Chen Guodong, on the other hand, states that because members of the Upper Three Banners constituted the Imperial Household Department, scholars often refer to bondservants from the Upper Three Banners as the Imperial Household Department Three Banners (neiwufu san qi ) or “Inner Three Banners” (nei san qi ). Chen Guodong, “Qingdai neiwufu baoyi sanqi renyuan de fenlei jiqi qixia zuzhi,” Shi Huo 12, no. 9 (1982): 326. Nevertheless, the members of the Inner Three Banners and Upper Three Banners were all the emperor’s bannermen.

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38.  In 1684, the emperor began to show an obvious preference for bannermen serving as salt officials. From 1687 until 1714, Spence notes, “only ‘Manchus’ were appointed.” Spence reveals that the salt censors of Lianghuai in 1691 (KX30), 1692 (KX31), 1694 (KX33), and 1695 (KX 34) were all Upper Three Banner bondservants. Spence, Ts’ao Yin, 174–175. 39.  Based on the data from Lianghuai yanfazhi (Jiaqing edition), Torbert demonstrates that from 1684 to 1796, “the total number of bannermen officials was forty while the number of Chinese was only six.” Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department, 104. 40.  Torbert argues that in the Lianghuai salt zone, bondservants of the Imperial Household Department “commanded a strong, if not dominant, position in the salt administration from the late seventeenth century and a near monopoly by the late eighteenth century.” Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department, 104. 41.  Xu, Qingdai Lianghuai yanchang, 11. 42.  My data are slightly different from Yang Jeou-yi’s calculation. Yang states that Ciowande served eight and half years, Giking and Pu-fu both served eight years, G’ao Hu¯ng served seven years, and Juntai served four years. Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 221, note 30. 43.  See the official list in LZYFZ, 22:2a–3b. 44.  Spence, Ts’ao Yin, 175. Spence’s observation is mostly correct. The only exception happened in 1714, in which the Kangxi emperor appointed Han Chinese Tao Yi as salt administrator. LZYFZ, 22:5a. 45.  LZYFZ, 22:2–5. 46.  See Zhang Xiaoye, “Li Wei yu Qingdai qianqi yanzheng,” Lishi Dang’an 3 (1993): 93–99. 47.  LZYFZ, 22:6–7. 48.  The bannermen from Plain Blue or Bordered Blue banners dominated the salt business in Liangzhe from 1759 to 1780. 49.  It is highly possible that the actual number of Imperial Household Department bondservants might be more than this. 50.  In fact, the Qianlong emperor asked the superintendent of imperial silk manufacturing to be in charge of salt business in the Liangzhe area from 1793 to 1821. Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 212. 51.  Spence, Ts’ao Yin, 213–225. 52.  The bondservants not only helped the emperor to profit from the salt business but also arranged the “forced” loans to the salt merchants at an annual interest rate of 12 percent. Regarding the imperial loans to the salt merchants, see Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department, 106–108; Li, “Qingdai de yanguan yu yanzheng,” 42; Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 286. Yang Jeou-yi shows how Qianlong received money from his bondservant from the Lianghuai salt zones under different names, such as “idle money with no specific use” (wuzhuo xiankuan) and “saved money” ( jieshengyin). Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 262–289, 306.



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53.  Many scholars have discussed the head merchant system, such as Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 137-138; Wang Sizhi and Jin Chengji, “Qingdai qianqi Lianghuai yanshang de shengshuai,” Zhongguoshi Yanjiu 2 (1981): 67–68; Wang, “Qingdai qianqi de yanfa,” 305–307; Chen, Qingdai yanzheng, 32–38; Wang Zhenzhong, “Qingdai Lianghuai yanwu shouzong zhidu yanjiu,” Lishi Dang’an 4 (1993): 101– 104; Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 466–494. 54.  Wang, “Qingdai Lianghuai yanwu,” 103. 55.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 51–53. 56.  Fuji Hiroshi identified some of the Huizhou salt merchants by the surnames of Wu, Wang, and Huang as powerful inland merchants in the Ming dynasty. These merchants were the ancestors of some of the wealthy salt merchants in the Qing. Hiroshi’s point was cited by Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 65. Also see Fan, “Mingdai Huizhou,” 8–9. 57.  Ho, “The Salt Merchants,”132–135; Wang, “Qingdai qianqi de yanfa,” 305; Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 69. 58.  The state implemented this system in Lianghuai, Changlu, Liangzhe, Hedong, Shandong, and Liangguang salt zones. Chen, Qingdai yanzheng, 32. 59.  In palace memorials, the emperor and officials usually referred to merchants by their business names. Business names were successive in families. If a son inherited the head merchant position from his father, that son would be addressed by the emperor and the official by the same name as his father. For a list of head merchants’ business names, see Lin Yongkuang and Wang Xi, “Qingdai yanshang yu huangshi,” Shixue Yuekan 3 (1988): 20. 60.  Chen, Qingdai yanzheng, 32–35. Yang also points out that “once the salt merchants-in-chief had deliberated and decided on the issues given to them, their decisions would be adopted and executed as policies by the salt commissioner and the Salt Administrator or presented by the latter as proposals/petitions to the court.” Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 475. 61.  For instance, the head merchant Wang Futang from Choushu village was praised as a person who could “manage the governmental salt tasks ( yanwu), and officials depended on him and treated him as their right-hand man (zuoyoushou).” A Yangzhou elite, Jin Zhaoyan (1718–1789), once composed a biography for Wang Futang’s wife in which Jin briefly introduced Wang. Jin Zhaoyan, “Wang furen zhuan,” in Zongting guwen chao (Xuxiu Siku quanshu 1442), 3:9–11. 62.  Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 137; Wang, “Qingdai Lianghuai yanwu,” 108; Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 470. 63.  It is not completely clear when the head merchant system was first established in Lianghuai. Based on Hao Yu’s palace memorial, Wang Sizhi and Jin Chengji argue that this position was first established in 1677. Wang and Jin, “Qingdai qianqi Lianghuai yanshang,” 67. Chen Feng, however, argues that it was established in Shunzhi’s reign. Chen, Qingdai yanzheng, 33. 64.  For the number of head merchants, see Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 123, 356 note 27. For information on merchant chiefs, see Ho, “The Salt Merchants,”

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137–138. Ho points out that the appointment of merchant chiefs was prohibited after 1724, but the thirty head merchants remained the controlling group until 1831. Wang Zhenzhong, on the other hand, argues that the merchant chief system (shouzong ) started no later than 1768 and was still in use in 1822. Wang, “Qingdai Lianghuai yanwu,” 101. 65.  For an account of the basic information—including their names, business names, and family backgrounds—on some of the influential Huizhou head merchants in Lianghuai, see Wu Yulian, “Tasteful Consumption: Huizhou Salt Merchants and Material Culture in Eighteenth-Century China” (PhD diss., University of California, Davis, 2012), 48–55. Some head merchants will also be introduced when they appear in this book. 66.  Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 160. For more information on Jiang’s family, see Ho, The Ladder of Success, 287–289. For Jiang’s biography, see LHYFZ, 44:15b–16a and Ruan Yuan, Huaihai yingling ji (1798; Reprint, Xuxiu Siku quanshu 1682), wu ji, 4:19a–20a. 67.  For Jiang Guomao and Jiang Yan’s biographies, see LHYFZ, 46:6a–6b; 44:10b–11a. 68.  Li Zhiying’s memorial on 2/21/1762 (QL27-1-28, ZPZZ 04-01-01-0311-007) and on 5/13/1774 (QL39-4-4, LFZZ 03-0619-030) mentioned Qianlong emperor’s loan to Jiang Chun. After Jiang Chun passed away, his garden, Kangshan caotang, was sold. His son continued to use the business name Jiang Guangda and still owned the position of head merchant until 1821. Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” ­160–161. 69.  Jiang Fang was referred to as his business name Jiang Ritai in Iobaši ( Youba-shi)’s memorial on 4/30/1768 (QL33-3-14, ZPZZ 04-01-38-0045-008). Ruan Yuan also noted that Jiang Fang conducted business in Hubei province. Ruan Yuan, Huaihai yingling ji, wu ji, 4:24a–b. Ho Ping-ti states that Jiang Fang “achieved fame as a poet, artist, and connoisseur.” Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 161. Jiang Fang’s father was Jiang Chengjie, who became a prefect thanks to the recommendation of the Imperial Prince Yi, Yu¯n siyang (Yun-xiang), in 1723. See the biography of Jiang Chengjie, LHYFZ, 45:11b–12a. Y¯un siyang, the thirteenth son of the Kangxi emperor, was the Yongzheng emperor’s most trusted brother. 70.  Jiang Chun and Jiang Fang published their poems together in Xin’an er ­Jiang xiansheng ji. 71.  The famous salt merchants Ma Yueguan and Ma Yuelu, brothers who came from Qimen county, were exceptions. Ma merchants will be introduced in detail in Chapter 2. 72.  Wang Zhenzhong visited the villages of Censhandu, Tangyue, Tandu, and Xixi’nan by walking and riding a bike. Wang Zhenzhong, “Shexian Ming Qing Huizhou yanshang guli xunfangji,” Yanyeshi Yanjiu 2 (1994): 34–43. My own fieldwork also confirms that the villages of Tandu, Censhandu, Tangyue, Qiankou, Choushu, and Jiangcun are close to each other. 73.  Huang Yizheng’s eldest son, Huang Sheng, devoted himself to publishing. His third son, Huang Lüling, was an official who was in charge of the circuit of



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Wuhan Huang De (Wuhan Huang De dao). His fourth son, Huang Lüang, whose business name was Huang Zhongde, was honored with an official title in 1757 by the Qianlong emperor. See Lin and Wang, “Qingdai yanshang yu huangshi,” 19–20. Possibly because of the salt scandal in 1768, one of the most famous corruption cases in the High Qing period, the Huang family appears to have declined in stature, as the members were rarely mentioned in memorials after that. The salt scandal of 1768 was one of the most serious corruption cases in Qianlong’s time. From 1746 to 1768, three salt administrators, Giking, Pu-fu, and G’ao Hu¯ng, allowed the salt merchants to trade extra salt above their quota but did not submit appropriate taxes for these extra shipments to the court. The Qianlong emperor discovered these missing tax payments and harshly punished these officials. Giking passed away before 1768, but Pu-fu and G’ao Hu¯ng were executed by decapitation. Chang, A Court on Horseback, 235–236. 74.  G’ao Hu¯ng’s memorial on 5/8/1755 (QL-20-3-28, LFZZ 03-0636-088) mentioned that Huang Yuande was willing to donate 100,000 taels of silver to repair the city wall. On 10/26/1757 (QL22-9-14, ZPZZ 04-01-35-0456-016), Huang Yuande represented a group of salt merchants who donated one million taels of silver. On 10/24/1760 (QL25-9-16, ZPZZ 04-01-35-0459-004), Huang Yuande and other salt merchants donated 100,000 taels of silver to celebrate the empress dowager’s seventieth birthday. 75.  Cheng Qiande was the business name shared by Cheng Zhan and Cheng Di from Censhandu village. Censhandu saw the quick rise of the Cheng merchants during the early years of the Qianlong reign. Cheng Dadian was the first salt merchant from Censhandu to move to Yangzhou in the late Ming. Four of Cheng Dadian’s sons—Cheng Liangru, Cheng Liangneng, Cheng Shi, and Cheng Liangheng—all worked in the salt business in Yangzhou. Cheng Shi’s son Cheng Hong, grandson Cheng Zhan, and great-grandson Cheng Di were all salt merchants. Zhan and Di were head merchants who shared the business name Cheng Qiande. See Cheng Hong’s biography in Cheng Wengui ed., Xin’an Censhandu Chengshi zhipu (China National Library, Beijing), 5:91b; also LHYFZ, 43:26a. Since this business name was frequently referred to in the memorials from 1749 to 1788, they probably were the merchant chiefs, who usually represented the salt merchants in communications with the salt administrators and, at times, with the imperial court. Their business name was listed in Huang Tinggui’s memorial on 6/3/1749 (QL14-4-19, ZPZZ 04-01-01-0181-001). Li Zhiying’s memorial on 7/3/1770 (QL35-R5-11, LFZZ 03-0229-019) records that Cheng Qiande and Cheng Deda went to Shandong to be seen by the emperor. In Li Zhiying’s memorial on 10/7/1773 (QL38-8-22, LFZZ 03-7959-016), Cheng Qiande and other salt merchants wanted to donate four million taels of silver to support Jinchuan military campaigns. According to Ciowande’s memorial on 10/21/1784 (QL49-9-8, LFZZ 03-0637-063), Cheng Qiande again represented the salt merchants to donate money to the court. In Ciowande’s memorial on 1/6/1785 (QL49-11-26, LFZZ 03-0637-064), Cheng Qiande represented other merchants to donate one million taels of silver for the emperor’s banquet for

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a thousand elders. For more information on Cheng merchants, see Wu, “Tasteful Consumption,” 49–51. 76.  Li Zhiying’s memorial on 10/7/1773 (QL38-8-22), LFZZ 03-7959-016; Ilingga’s memorial on 10/15/1775 (QL40-9-21), ZPZZ 04-01-31-1247-007. There are many other memorials on this issue: on 2/10/1788 (QL53-1-4), Ciowande reported that the Lianghuai salt merchants intended to donate two million taels of silver for the imperial court to reward the soldiers who defeated the rebellion of tiandihui in Taiwan. LFZZ 03-0637-075. Also see Wang, “Qingdai qianqi de yanfa,” 305; Chen, Qingdai yanzheng, 34. Michael Chang also mentioned salt merchants’ “voluntary contributions” to Qianlong’s Jinchuan campaign. Chang, A Court on Horseback, 225. 77.  Chang, A Court on Horseback, 219–259, particularly 226–233. Chang also argues that Jiang Chun and some other most powerful head merchants put pressure on (squeezed) smaller merchants and made profits for their own pockets. Also see Meyer-Fong, Building Culture, 165–195. 78.  Chang argues that the Qianlong emperor allowed the salt merchants to trade more salt without increasing the licensing fees charged to merchants. Chang, A Court, 228–229. In 1762, the Qianlong emperor awarded Huizhou head merchants including Huang Lüxian, Hong Zhengzhi, Jiang Chun, Wu Xizu, Xu Shiye, Wang Lide, Wang Bingde, Wang Tao, Cheng Yangzong, Cheng Di, and Wu Shanyu for their contributions to Qianlong’s third southern tour. G’ao Jin et al., comp., Nanxun shengdian, 70:8a. 79.  See Iobaši’s memorial on 1/8/1770 (QL 34-12-12), ZPZZ 04-01-14-0035-0660002; Iobaši’s memorial on 2/26/1770 (QL 35-2-2), LFZZ 03-0618-070. For the meaning of paidang, see Wang Hanmin, “‘Paidang’ kao,” Hunan Keji Daxue Xuebao 13, no. 6 (2010): 127–129. 80.  One example is Giking’s memorial on 10/17/1744 (QL 9-9-12), LFZZ 030077-014 and ZPZZ 04-01-35-0620-004. 81.  Wu Zhuo was not only a successful bibliophile but also a poet. In his Hangzhou studio, Wu Zhuo hosted many parties for and with literati. Wu Zhuo’s two sons, Wu Cheng and Wu Yuxi, continued their father’s practice of book collecting; the Wu family formed a prominent book collection in Hangzhou during High Qing. Nancy Lee Swann, “Seven Intimate Library Owners,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 1 (1936): 363–390. Also see Xu Yanping, “Huae yu yunxiang: Qiantang Wangshi Zhenqi tang shiren qun,” Hanxue Yanjiu 27, no. 4 (2009): 261–293. 82.  Zhang Zeng, “The biography of Wu Xiugu,” in Wu Zhuo, Zhulu hongfei ji (1924). 83.  LZYFZ, 18:23–24. LHYFZ also records another business name for a salt merchant called Wu Yuanfeng. He might be a relative of Wu Zhuo. 84.  For example, Yunggui’s memorial on 6/10/1751 shows that the merchants Wu Yuru, Xue Dayou, Ye Ruchun, and Wu Dasheng were willing to donate fifty thousand taels of silver to celebrate the empress dowager’s birthday. ZPZZ 04-0114-0025-032. Ten years later in 1761, the salt merchants from Liangzhe salt zone



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submitted a donation to the empress dowager’s birthday again. Zhuang Yougong’s memorial on 4/21/1761 (QL26-3-17, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0032-038). Later that year, some Liangzhe salt merchants also went to Beijing to celebrate the empress dowager’s birthday. Zhuang Yougong’s memorial on 11/14/1761 (QL26-10-18, ZPZZ 0401-14-0033-029). In 1770, the Liangzhe salt merchants wanted to finance Wanfo building to celebrate the emperor’s birthday, but their request was declined. Xiong Xuepeng’s memorial on 2/1/1770 (QL35-1-6, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0036-051). 85.  Ka-er-ji-shan’s memorial on 1/19/1750 (QL14-12-12, ZPZZ 04-01-35-  0621-016). 86.  Canggan’s memorial on 10/13/1743 (QL8-8-26, ZPZZ 04-01-35-0448-022 and his memorial on 10/01/1746 (QL11-8-17, ZPZZ 04-01-35-0620-015). 87.  Fu-le-hun’s memorials on 2/26/1771 (QL36-1-12, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0037-003; ZPZZ 04-01-14-0037-031). 88.  There are three documents for this case in palace memorials from the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu zouzhe [hereafter NWFZZ]). Two of them are the case confessions, one from Jiang Tan (NWFZZ 05-0066-020) and one from Ka-tong-a (NWFZZ 05-0066-021). The last one is a memorial (NWFZZ 05-0066019) from Fu-heng to report the case to the emperor; he asked for permission to send Jiang Tan and Ka-tong-a to the Ministry of Justice (xingbu). All three documents were dated 11/11/1744 (QL9-10-8). 89.  Bi-tie-shi usually ranked from the seventh to the ninth levels, available to Manchus, Mongols, and Chinese, but only to bannermen. They served in the inner court. Hucker, A Dictionary, 378; Qi, Qingdai neiwufu, 107–108. 90.  Hao Yu’s original document was cited by Wang Sizhi and Jin Chengji; see Wang and Jin, “Qingdai qianqi Lianghuai yanshang,” 67. 91.  LHYFZ, juan 25, section of “kecheng” 9, “management funds” ( jingfei ), shang. Cited in Wang, “Qingdai lianghuai,” 103. 92.  Jince, made in gold, was an imperial edict used to confer the empress’s title. 93.  Ho briefly mentioned this case in “The Salt Merchants,” 160. For more detailed information, see G’ao Hu¯ng’s memorial on 9/5/1765 (QL30-7-21, LFZZ  03-1397-053). 94.  Yangzhou head merchant had already constructed connections with palace eunuchs before Qianlong’s reign. For example, in 1714, the Kangxi emperor discovered that the head merchant Ma Delong tried to bribe the eunuch who was working in the tea house of the Imperial Household Department. Li Xu’s memorial on 1/24/1714 (KX52-12-9), Li Xu zouzhe (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1976), 149. chapter 2 1.  Li Zhiying’s memorial on 9/10/1773 (QL 38-7-24, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0041-021). 2.  Zhang Shuxian, “Yangzhou jiangyi: Ningshougong huayuan neiyan zhuangxiu,” in Gongting yu difang: shiqi zhi shiba shiji de jishu jiaoliu, ed. Dagmer Schäfer (Beijing: Zijincheng chubanshe, 2010), 125.

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3.  In memorials, merchants were addressed by similar terms with minor changes, but all these terms indicate that these merchants were familiar with the job and they were reliable. For instance, shu’an shangren was used in Li Zhiying’s memorial on 8/22/1770 (QL35-7-2, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0036-034). Shu’an tuoshang was used in Li Zhiying’s memorial on 9/19/1773 (QL38-7-24, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0041-021). Anshu tuoshang was used in Li Zhiying’s memorial on 5/13/1774 (QL29-4-4), in Gongzhongdang Qianlong chao zouzhe (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1982), vol. 35, 179–180. Xiaoshi shangren was used in Li Zhiying’s memorial on 11/19/1773 (QL3810-6, LFZZ 0133-091; 009-1937-1938), cited in Zhang, “Yangzhou,” 136. 4.  Western scholars have studied the Chinese tribute system since the 1930s to understand China’s foreign relations. John K. Fairbank first established the influential tribute system model. He argues that through the tribute presented by foreigners, the ruler of China claimed “the mandate of heaven to rule all mankind.” Chinese emperors also sent their own envoys abroad to “confer the imperial seal and reorganization upon vassal rulers.” In the meantime, foreign countries used the tribute system to receive permission to trade with China. John K. Fairbank, “Tributary Trade and China’s Relations with the West,” Far East Quarterly 1, no. 2 (1942): 135, 136. Fairbank’s model was reassessed by later scholars. Joseph Fletcher shows the complexity and flexibility of tribute system deployed by the Manchu government with the Inner Asian countries. Joseph F. Fletcher, “Ch’ing Inner Asian, c. 1800,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10, ed. Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank (London: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 35–106. At the Association for Asian Studies annual conference of 1995, two panels focused on the tribute system, aiming to “reconsider the multilayered political, economic, and ceremonial significance of tribute” and examine the “practical implications” of the tribute system in the Qing dynasty. The abstracts for these two panels can be found at http://208.75.20.218/absts/1995abst/china/csess46.htm (accessed December 31, 2015). 5.  Mark C. Elliott, Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World (New York: Longman, 2009), 128–129. For more information on the tribute system, see 126–161. 6.  This form of tribute system is much less well known, especially in Englishlanguage studies. Chinese scholars have published the pioneering work. Yang Boda, for example, examines the tribute goods from Guangdong province to the throne in the Qing dynasty. Yang Boda, “The Characteristics and Status of Guangdong Handicrafts as seen from Eighteenth Century Tributes from Guangdong in the Collection of the Former Qing Palace,” in Qingdai Guangdong gongpin (Beijing: Gugong bowuyuan, 1987), 39–67. Dong Jianzhong also examines internal tribute presented by Qing nobles and officials. Dong Jianzhong, “Qing Qianlong chao wanggong dacheng guanyuan jingong wenti chutan,” Qingshi Yanjiu (January  1996): 40–50, 66. Also see Chen Guodong, “Neiwufu guanyuan de waipai, wairen yu Qianlong gongting wenwu gongji zhijian de guanxi,” Guoli Taiwan Daxue Meishushi Yanjiu Qikan 33 (2012): 248–262. In the AAS conference of 1995,



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Chia Ning discussed two forms of tribute system in her paper “Tribute, Frontier, and Manchu State Remaking: Mongol Tribute in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century China.” In the same conference, Nancy Park also examined the internal tribute presented by the provincial officials to the throne and discussed how the burden of providing tribute related to the rise of corruption in the eighteenth century. http://aas2.asian-studies.org/absts/1995abst/china/csess46.htm; http://aas2  .asian-studies.org/absts/1995abst/china/csess65.htm (accessed May 15, 2016). 7.  The Qing tribute system began to be institutionalized during Kangxi’s reign and reached its peak in Qianlong’s time, then gradually declined afterward. The extant documents recording tributary goods from Kangxi’s reign are extremely rare. Yang Boda states that “only five lists of the Kangxi reign survive.” However, more than five hundred lists from Yongzheng’s reign survive, and this shows that the tribute system gradually developed in the early eighteenth century. Yang, “The Characteristics and Status,” 40. 8.  Dong, “Qing Qianlong chao,” 40. Since the Kangxi reign, the tributary goods were well documented in specific records called “tribute files” ( gongzhong jindan and gongdang ). Gongdang was made by the staff of the Imperial Workshop (zaobanchu) in Yangxin Hall, recording “the entries, quantities and the emperor’s comments” on jindan. As Yang Boda has pointed out, gongzhong jindan was officially called a “tribute list” ( gongdan) or “tribute memorial” ( gongzhe). The staff working in the imperial court usually called it a “presenting list” ( jindan). Yang Boda estimates that more than ten thousand tribute lists from Qianlong’s reign are extant. See Yang, “The Characteristics and Status,” 40, 45. 9.  Yang, “The Characteristics and Status,” 46, 50. 10.  The Manchu emperors Kangxi and Qianlong showed an extraordinary devotion to hunting at the imperial hunting grounds, Mulan, in Rehe. These hunting events provided an opportunity for imperial nobles and officials to submit their tributes, which was called Mulan gong. Dong, “Qing Qianlong chao,” 42. 11.  This type of tribute was called “tribute presented upon an imperial summons” (zhaojiangong ). 12.  Dong, “Qing Qianlong chao,” 42. 13.  Yang Jeou-yi argues that one important duty of the salt administrator was to send tributes. Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 248. 14.  For instance, this phrase was used in Inju ( Yin-zhu)’s memorial on 12/10/1776 (QL41-10-30, ZPZZ 04-01-12-0176-064). 15.  Ba-ning-a’s memorial on 5/12/1793 (QL58-4-3, ZPZZ 04-01-12-0243-092). Hong Zhenyuan came from Guilin village in She county, which produced several prominent head merchants. The most famous Hong merchant was Hong Zhengzhi (1710–1768) (business name Hong Chongshi). Hong Zhengzhi was awarded the title of Fengchenyuan qing before 1762 and was promoted one rank by the Qianlong emperor for his contribution to the emperor’s third southern tour. G’ao Jin et al., comp., Nanxun shengdian, 70:8a. After 1762, the business name Hong Zhenyuan frequently appears in the palace memorials. According to Zheng Zhiliang, this name 

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may refer to Hong Zhengzhi’s eldest son, Hong Zhaogen. “Lun Qianlong shiqi Yangzhou yanshang yu kunqu de fazhan,” Beijing Daxue Xuebao 40, no. 6 (2003): 101. It is not clear why Hong Zhaogen did not use his father’s business name, but Zhaogen succeeded in the salt business. Yangzhou local folklore mentioned that Hong Zhenyuan was the leader of Yangzhou salt merchants. Wang Zhenzhong, “‘Huainan yanke ji’ xiaokao,”Yanyeshi Yanjiu 2 (1996): 65. For more information on Hong merchants, see Hong Yeyuan, ed., Guilin Hongshi zongpu (1923), juan 5, and YZHFL, 235. 16.  Juntai made this claim and the Qianlong emperor agreed with him. See Juntai’s memorial on 8/8/1744 (QL9-7-1) (ZPZZ 04-01-35-0449-017). 17.  Qing Gaozong Chun huangdi shilu (reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 1207:53–54; 1208:9–10; 1209:22–23. Ciowande was able to uncover this case, because Ilingga did not pay back the total cost of six hundred thousand taels of silver to the merchants who purchased these jade objects. These merchants then reported this problem to the new salt administrator. 18.  For more information on this case, see Ilingga’s memorials on 1/1/1779 (QL43-11-14, ZPZZ 04-01-08-0192-006) and on 1/3/1779 (QL43-11-16, ZPZZ 0401-08-0192-004). 19.  YZHFL, 278. 20.  Xu, Sheshi xiantan, 674. Wang Dahong’s biography was also recorded in YZHFL, 282. 21.  Li Zhiying’s memorial on 6/24/1770 (QL35-R5-2, ZPZZ 04-01-14-  0036-038). 22.  Qinggong neiwufu zaobanchu dang’an huizong (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2005), vol. 34, 107, 110. 23.  Kohara Hironobu, “The Qianlong Emperor’s Skill in the Connoisseurship of Chinese painting,” in Chinese Painting Under the Qianlong Emperor, ed., Ju-hsi Chou and Claudia Brown. Phoebus 6, no. 1 (1988): 56–73; Dong Jianzhong, “Cong jingong, chaojia kan Qianlong chao Qinggong shuhua de shoucang,” in Ming Qing gongting shi xueshu yantaohui lunwen ji (Beijing: Zijincheng chubanshe, 2011),  437–440. 24.  YZHFL, 280, 282. 25.  YZHFL, 151. 26.  Theoretically, those with lower official rank or without official titles were not qualified to present their gifts to the emperor in person, but their goods could be presented by the qualified officials. For example, the Yangzhou salt merchants commonly presented their gifts through the salt administrators. 27.  Dong, “Cong jingong,” 439, note 8. 28.  Ba-ning-a’s memorial on 5/12/1793 (QL58-4-3, ZPZZ 04-01-12-0243-092). 29.  Wang, “Qingdai Lianghuai,” 103. 30.  Evelyn Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 175–176. For more ­information



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on imperial workshops and the craftsmen, see Wu Zhaoqing, “Qingdai zaobanchu de jigou he jiangyi,” Lishi Dang’an 4 (1991): 79–85, 89. 31.  The Yangzhou workshop was especially famous for its manufacture of large jade objects. The famous jade mountain ( yushan) called Da Yu zhishui tu was made in Yangzhou. Xu Qixian and Zhou Nanquan, “‘Da Yu zhishui pu’ yushan,” Gugong Bowuyuan Yuankan 4 (1980): 62–65, 68. Also see Fu Chonglan, Zhongguo yunhe chengshi fazhan shi (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1985), 338. 32.  For instance, in 1769, the salt administrator Iobaši was asked to make golden leaves in Yangzhou. Iobaši’s memorial on 11/3/1769 (QL34-10-6, ZPZZ 04-01-140035-032). Also see Li Zhiying’s memorial on making tiles for Ningshou palace. Memorial on 9/10/1773 (QL 38-7-24, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0041-021). 33.  The orders were made from 1770 (QL35)-1775 (QL40) when the emperor’s bondservant Li Zhiying was serving as the salt administrator in Lianghuai. See Nancy Berliner et al., The Emperor’s Private Treasures from the Forbidden City (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), chap. 3, especially 130–136. 34.  The commissioning of interior decorations might not have been a common occurrence, but the examples we have reflect a process parallel to that for the procurement of other objects and are thus helpful in understanding the relationship between salt merchants and the court. 35.  Li Zhiying’s memorial on 8/22/1770 (QL 35-7-2, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0036-034). 36.  The process of making jade objects was a little different. Since raw jade was not supposed to be traded in local society without imperial authorization, the court usually supplied the uncut jade to the salt administrators. However, the salt merchants still needed to purchase the manufacturing materials such as baosha, a type of abrasive sand that was used to shape and decorate the jade. It was also the salt merchants’ responsibility to hire and pay the salary and provide food for the jade carvers. See Ciowande’s memorial on 11/17/1792 (QL57-10-4, ZPZZ 04-01-36-  0116-010). 37.  Zhang Shuxian has noted that Chinese historical documents rarely recorded production techniques. According to Zhang, many craftsmen were illiterate, and thus they often orally passed down their knowledge. On the other hand, the literati who were interested in recording the construction information often lacked the necessary knowledge to understand the procedure and thereby recorded inaccurate information. Zhang, “Yangzhou jiangyi,” 125–126. 38.  Berliner et al., The Emperor’s Private Treasures, 112. 39.  Hu Desheng, “Chuantong yingmu jiaju de mucai,” Gugong Bowuyuan Yuankan 2 (1989), 84–85, 89. 40.  Craig Clunas, Chinese Furniture (London: Bamboo, 1988), 40. 41.  Hu, “Chuantong yingmu jiaju,” 89. 42.  Wu Zhichang, Kechuang xianhua (Xuxiu Siku quanshu 1263), 3:8a–9b. This wealthy merchant should be the head merchant Hong Zhengzhi from Guilin village. Wang, “‘Huainan yanke ji’ xiaokao,” 65.

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43.  For a more detailed introduction on Huizhou merchants’ timber business in late imperial China, see Li Linqi, “Huishang yu Ming Qing shiqi de mucai maoyi,” Qingshi Yanjiu 2 (1996): 1–9. 44.  Fan Jinmin, “Qingdai Suzhou chengshi wenhua de fanrong xiezhao—Gusu fanhua tu,” in Ming Qing yilai Jiangnan shehui yu wenhua lunji, ed. Xiong Yuezhi and Xiong Bingzhen (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 2004), 285. 45.  LFZZ 03-1102-014. 46.  For more information on these hard wood, see Hu, “Chuantong yingmu jiaju,” and Clunas, Chinese Furniture, 37–41. 47.  Xu Shangzhi is the business name of Xu Shiye, who came from Lukou village. See Lin and Wang, “Qingdai yanshang yu huangshi,” 20. For information on Huang Yuande and Jiang Guangda, see chapter 1. 48.  Zhang, “Yangzhou jiangyi,” 138–150. 49.  For instance, in 1772 (QL 37), Ingliyan, the grand minister of the Imperial Household Department, sent a letter with instructions to the Lianghuai salt administrator Li Zhiying, ordering him to produce the interior decorations for the Yihe Studio inside the Ningshou Palace. The instructions included a model and a foot measure. One month later, Ingliyan sent Li Zhiying another two models of the interior design for the Shoule Hall and the Jingqi Studio, along with ninety-six sketches. Li Zhiying’s memorial on 9/10/1773 (QL 38-7-24, ZPZZ 04-01-14-  0041-021). 50.  For more examples, see Zhang, “Yangzhou jiangyi,” 135–154. 51.  For instance, after Li Zhiying finished the interior design for Ningshou Palace, he submitted the painting with engraving pattern along with the production to Beijing. See Li’s memorial on 9/10/1773 (QL 38-7-24, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0041-021). 52.  Yang Boda, “Yuan Ming Qing gongyi meishu zongxu,” Gugong Bowuyuan Yuankan 4 (1984): 6. The Yangzhou workshop had produced large jade objects and many smaller things, such as jade dishes, screens, and ornaments. For example, Ilingga was once given twelve pieces of uncut jade and three pieces of yuzi (naturally small piece of jade), and was commissioned to make different types of jade dishes. See Ilingga’s memorial on 1/10/1780 (QL 44-12-4, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0043-073). 53.  Yang Boda, “The Glorious Age of Chinese Jades,” in Jade, ed. Roger Keverne (New York: Lorenz Books, 1995), 162. 54.  In 1771, Li Zhiying received a large piece of uncut green and white jade along with four pieces of sketch painting from the court through his family servants. This jade was of high quality. Li arranged for jade carvers to make the sample in wood for the emperor to review. These jades were made into a famous decorative object called Dantai chunxiao. See Li’s memorial on 6/14/1771(QL 36-5-2, ZPZZ 04-01-140037-075). 55.  For example, in the middle of 1778 (QL 43), the imperial court sent down six jade spittoons to Ilingga and asked him to follow these models to make the same objects. Ilingga’s memorial on 12/3/1779 (QL44-10-26, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0043-085). 56.  Ciowande’s memorial on 4/20/1785 (QL 50-3-12, ZPZZ 04-01-12-0209-016).



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57.  For more discussion on the exchange of skill and technique between the court and local society in High Qing, see the essays in Dagmer Schäfer, ed., Gongting yu difang: shiqi zhi shiba shiji de jishu jiaoliu (Beijing: Zijincheng chubanshe, 2010). 58.  YZHFL, 278. 59.  YZHFL, 278, 282. 60.  Li Zhiying’s memorial on 5/13/1774 (QL39-4-4), Gongzhong dang Qianlong chao zouzhe, vol. 35, 179–180; Li Zhiying’s memorial on 9/10/1773 (QL 38-7-24, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0041-021). 61.  Li Zhiying’s memorial on 11/19/1773 (QL38-10-6, LFZZ 0133-091), cited from Zhang, “Yangzhou jiangyi,” 136. 62.  Li Zhiying once stated that the salt merchants arranged to make all the interior decorations for the court and he “was unable to carefully check” (buneng xijia chahe) the cost of these objects after they were completed. Li Zhiying’s memorial on 8/24/1771 (QL36-7-15, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0037-072). 63.  Kent R. Guy, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Ch’ien-lung Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 16–17; Elliott, Emperor Qianlong, 117–123. 64.  For a more detailed discussion on book collecting process, see Huang  Aiping, Siku quanshu zuanxiu yanjiu (Beijing: Renmin daxue chubanshe, 1989), 22–35. 65.  Guy, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries, 88–89. 66.  As G’ao Jin stated in a memorial to the throne on 5/6/1773 (QL38-r3-15), he had already established a book bureau in Suzhou in 1772. See Zuanxiu Siku quanshu dang’an [hereafter Zuanxiu] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1997), 79–82. 67.  Arthur W. Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (1644–1912) [hereafter ECCP] (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), 559–560. 68.  Samboo’s memorial on 4/3/1739 (QL4-3-2, ZPZZ 04-01-01-0036-025). 69.  Huang Tinggui’s memorial on 6/3/1749 (QL14-4-19, ZPZZ 04-01-01-0181001). 70.  Zuanxiu, 86–88, Li Zhiying’s memorial on 5/11/1773 (QL38-r3-20); quotation is on 87. 71.  Zuanxiu, 86–88, Li Zhiying’s memorial on 5/11/1773 (QL38-r3-20) and Zuanxiu, 91–92, Qianlong’s edict to G’ao Jin, Sa-zai, and Li Zhiying. 72.  On May 6, 1773, G’ao Jin submitted a memorial to Qianlong, saying that he had stopped his work on the Ma family library holdings and that Li Zhiying had replaced him. Zuanxiu, 72–73, Qianlong’s edict to Li Zhiying, issued on 4/24/1773 (QL38-r3-3), and Zuanxiu, 79–82, G’ao Jin and Sa-zai’s memorial on 5/6/1773 (QL38-r3-15). 73.  Zuanxiu, 101–103, Li Zhiying’s memorial on 6/8/1773 (QL38-4-19). It is possible that because Jiang was a friend of Ma, he might have still given this report, even if Ma had not turned over all his books. 74.  Zuanxiu, 115–116, Qianlong’s edict to Samboo; quotation is on 116.

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75.  Zuanxiu, 233–235, Li Zhiying’s memorial on 9/6/1774 (QL39-8-1); quotation is on 235. 76.  Zuanxiu, 623, Inju’s memorial on 7/19/1777 (QL42-6-15). 77.  The majority of the books had been collected and delivered to Beijing by 1774 (QL 39). Zhejiang province submitted 4600 titles, ranking the second to the Jiangsu province. See Huang, Siku quanshu Zuoxiu Yanjiu, 35 and Jiang Qingbo, “Qianlong chao Zhejiang sheng xiang Sikuguan chengsong tushu de shumu,” Lishi Dang’an 3 (2009): 121. 78.  Scholars have conducted detailed research on the financial situation of tributary goods and court-commissioned objects; see Yang Jeou-yi’s section “Preparing Tributes and Performing Imperial Commissions” in “The Muddle of Salt” (289–308) and Lai Hui-min’s “Qing Qianlong chao de yanshang yu huangshi caizheng,” 918–938. Based on their scholarship, I briefly lay out here the way of paying officials’ tribute from Yongzheng’s era to Qianlong’s time. I adopted Yang’s translations for specific financial terms. During Yongzheng’s reign, the Lianghuai salt administrators used their “integrity-nourishing money” of fifteen thousand taels to arrange tributes. In Qianlong’s time, however, as a result of the increasing quantity and enhanced quality of the tributary goods, the salt administrator’s stipend became inadequate. Accordingly, the policies detailing payment for these goods began to change. The first change happened in 1741 (QL 6). On 8/8/1744 (QL9-7-1), salt administrator Juntai submitted a memorial to report how he managed the tributary goods in Lianghuai salt zones. He claimed that before he was appointed as a salt administrator in 1740 (QL 5), his predecessors had been using “idle money with no specific use” (xiankuan) to pay for the tributes, and sometimes they even asked salt merchants to procure the goods. Juntai thought this practice was inappropriate. Therefore, he decided to send this “idle money with no specific use” back to the imperial court, starting in 1741 (QL 6). However, without this “idle money,” Juntai’s own integrity-nourishing money was not enough for the tribute. He thus set up an annual fund of twelve thousand taels for tribute use. In the same year, Lianghuai established an annual fund of forty-eight thousand taels titled “fund for external expenses (waizhi yin)” to pay for administrative costs. The tributary fund of twelve thousand taels was one part of this “fund for external expenses.” However, from 1741 to 1761, Qianlong still expected his salt administrators to use their integrity-nourishing money to purchase tribute goods. According to Yang Jeou-yi, in early 1749 (QL 14), Qianlong wrote a letter to the acting salt administrator G’ao Jin, complaining that the former salt administrator Giking paid for tribute entirely with the “fund for external expenses,” but not from his own salary. The policy was revised again in 1761 (QL 26). In this year, because the salary of the Lianghuai salt administrator was cut to ten thousand taels, the salt administrator G’ao H¯ung proposed to set up an annual fund of 40,000 taels as a backup to the “fund for external expenses.” Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 296–302. This fund was called the “fund to cover the shortfall in the fund for external expenses” (waizhi bufu yin).



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79.  In 1770 (QL 35), Fu-heng also set up the rule that “the fund for external expenses” (waizhi yin) should only be used on the “works and furnishings commissioned by the imperial court.” Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 304. In other words, the salt administrator was expected to use his own salary to pay for any voluntary tribute that was not specifically commissioned by the court. For example, in 1776 (QL 41), the emperor dispatched the new salt administrator, Inju, to inquire whether the previous salt administrator, Ilingga, arranged the tribute in a proper manner. In his report to the emperor, Inju stated that Ilingga followed the rules established by Li Zhiying, who was in the post of Lianghuai salt administrator from 1770 (QL 35) to 1775 (QL 40). Following Li’s example, Ilingga took seventeen thousand taels of silver from his own integrity-nourishing money to arrange for the annual tribute. See Inju’s memorial on 12/10/1776 (QL41-10-30, ZPZZ 04-01-12-0176-064). 80.  Inju’s memorial on 12/10/1776 (QL41-10-30, ZPZZ 04-01-12-0176-064). 81.  Ilingga’s memorial on 9/21/1780 (QL45-8-23, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0043-006). 82.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 298–301; Lai, “Qing Qianlong chao,” 923–924. For a brief discussion of these two funds, see note 78 of this chapter. 83.  Yang, “The Muddle of Salt,” 298; Lai, “Qing Qianlong chao,” 920–926. 84.  See Li Zhiying’s memorial, ZPZZ 04-01-35-0911-028. 85.  For instance, on 7/19/1769 (QL 34-6-17, ZPZZ 04-01-35-0908-006), Iobaši submitted a memorial reporting the cost of making jade objects. In this report, he stated that among the fifty pieces of jade articles, three pieces were inexpensive, so he did not need to use money from the fund to pay for them. For a similar case, see Li Zhiying’s memorials on 9/4/1772 (QL37-8-8, ZPZZ 04-01-14-0040-007). 86.  Ciowande’s memorial, ZPZZ 04-01-36-0116-010. 87.  The Qianlong emperor’s edict was issued on 11/30/1792 (QL57-10-17). See Ciowande’s memorial on 12/17/1792 (QL57-11-4, ZPZZ 04-01-35-0932-002). 88.  Iobaši’s memorial on 7/19/1769 (QL34-6-17), ZPZZ 04-01-14-0035-0071. 89.  See Giking’s memorial on 4/1746 (QL11-r3), LFZZ 03-0612-048. 90.  Chang, A Court on Horseback, 228–231. Also see Lin Yongkuang and Wang Xi, “Qingdai yanshang yu huangshi,” Shixue Yuekan 3 (1988): 20. See Qianlong’s edict on 11/16/1756 (QL21-r9-24), in G’ao Jin et al., comp., Nanxun shengdian 2:13a. 91.  See Li Zhiying’s memorial on 8/24/1771 (QL36-7-15, ZPZZ 04-01-14-  0037-072). 92.  Meyer-Fong, Building Culture, 165–195; Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 188–199. 93.  Lai Hui-min discusses the use of these advertisements in “Gusu fanhuatu” and argues that many of these goods were in fact made in Jiangnan for court use. Lai Hui-min, “Guaren haohuo: Qianlong di yu gusu fanhua,” Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica 50 (2005): 214–219. 94.  The question of whether “capital style” existed and if so, what it means is a subject that deserves a separate scholarly study. Here I simply borrow this phrase, which appeared in the painting, to describe the situation of how the style favored by the court was received in the Jiangnan market.

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95.  Fan, “Qingdai Suzhou,” 271. 96.  For more information about this garden and the rocks and the Wang family, see YZHFL, 166–172; Qianlong’s poems were recorded in YZHFL, 166. Also see Ming Guang, “Cong Jiamei yuan dao Jiufeng yuan, 97–102. 97.  YZHFL, 169. 98.  Yang, “Yuan Ming Qing,” 14. 99.  Berliner et al., The Emperor’s Private Paradise, 175. 100.  YZHFL, 168–171. 101.  Berliner et al., The Emperor’s Private Paradise, 175. 102.  Zhang, “Yangzhou jiangyi,” 154–160. 103.  Hay, Sensuous Surfaces, 312–313; quotation is on 313. 104.  Meyer-Fong, Building Culture, 167. 105.  Zhang Ting, “‘Penitence Silver’ and the Politics of Punishment in the Qianlong Reign (1736–1796),” Late Imperial China 31, no. 2 (2010): 62. chapter 3 1.  For the Qianlong emperor’s awards to Wang Qishu, see Qianlong’s edict on 6/22/1774 (QL39-5-14), in Zuanxiu, 210–211. 2.  Patricia Ebrey, Accumulating Culture: The Collections of Emperor Huizong ­(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008), 17. Ronald Egan has provided an illuminating discussion on elites’ collection and their aesthetic pursuit in northern Song dynasty. See Ronald Egan, The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). Collecting books was always considered a valuable elite activity. The increasing number of catalogs of private libraries since the Song dynasty show that private book collecting was already a popular activity in China before the Ming. 3.  See Craig Clunas’s discussion on “the invention of taste” in Superfluous Things, 171. 4.  For more information about Xiang’s collection, see Liu Jinku, “Mingdai Xiang Yuanbian he ta de shoucang shijie, shang,” Rongbaozhai: Jianshang Yu Shoucang 11 (2010): 228–237; “Mingdai Xiang Yuanbian he ta de shoucang shijie, xia,” Rongbaozhai: Jianshang yu shoucang 1 (2011): 206–211. 5.  Only a few items were preserved, due solely to the efforts of Xiang Yuanbian’s son Xiang Pi. Wu Qizhen, Shuhua ji, collated by Shao Yan (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000), 99. Both sources were cited and discussed in Zhang Changhong, Pinjian yu jingying, 218. For the definition of qianfuzhang, see Hucker, A Dictionary, 152. 6.  Li Wai-yee, “Shibian yu wanwu,” Bulletin of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica 33 (2008): 35–76. 7.  The book title is Notes Written to Idle Away the Summer of 1660 (Gengzi xiaoxia ji ). Sun Chengze was dismissed from office because of his relationship with Chen Mingxia. For more information on Sun Chenze, see Frederic Wakeman, Jr.,



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The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in SeventeenthCentury China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 425, 796–798, 962– 963, 988, and ECCP, 669–670. 8.  My examples were based on the collections of the Four Treasuries, which was compiled in 1781. Many books that were produced in Qianlong’s reign were not included in this project and thus were missing from this data. It is reasonable to suggest that the use of shoucangjia in the eighteenth century was broader than what I discussed here. 9.  Wang Shizhen, Yanzhou sibu gao (Siku quanshu 1279–1281), 170:16b. Yanzhou sibu xugao (Siku quanshu 1282–1284), 157:8b. Another late-Ming scholar, Wang Keyu (1587–?), used shoucangjia four times to refer to painting collectors in his book Shanhu wang, finished in 1643. Wang Keyu, Shanhu wang (Siku quanshu 818), 21:31a; 42:44b; 43:13a; 46:27b. 10.  Wang Wan (1624–1691), Feng Wu (1627–1707), Jiang Chenying (1628– 1699), Qian Zeng (1629–1701), Zhu Yizun (1629–1709), Gao Shiqi (1645–1704), Mao Qiling (1623–1716), and Shen Jiyou (1654–1699) all referred to shoucangjia in their writings to describe individuals who collected rare books, precious paintings, and calligraphy works. Wang Wan, Yaofeng wenchao (Siku quanshu 1315), 41:22b; Feng Wu, Shufa zhengchuan (Siku quanshu 826), “preface,” 2a; 9:17a; Jiang Chenying, Zhanyuan ji (Siku quanshu 1323), 8:37a; 8:50b; Zhu Yizun, Pushuting ji (Siku quanshu 1317–1318), 45:7a; Gao Shiqi, Jiangcun xiaoxia lu (Siku quanshu 826), “fanli,” 1a; Mao Qiling, Xihe ji (Siku quanshu 1320–1321), 68:18a; Shen Jiyou, comp., Zui li shi xi (Siku quanshu 1475), 10:25b.The famous bibliophile Qian Zeng’s Dushu minqiu ji used shoucangjia to describe book collectors; cited in Ji Yun and Yungiong ( Yong-rong) et al., “Qinding Siku quanshu zongmu,” 135:7b. Sun Chengze used the term shoucangjia three times in Gengzi xiaoxia ji (Siku quanshu 826), 2:9a;  6:7b; 8:6b. 11.  For a discussion on the Qianlong emperor’s interest in collection, see Harold L. Kahn, “A Matter of Taste: The Monumental and Exotic in the Qianlong Reign,” in The Elegant Brush: Chinese Painting Under the Qianlong Emperor 1735–1795, edited by Ju-hsi Chou and Claudia Brown (Phoenix Art Museum, 1985), 293–297. 12.  Regarding Qianlong’s collection, see Elliott, Emperor Qianlong, 113–117. 13.  Not only was the emperor himself devoted to collecting, but other nobles and high officials in Beijing also participated in this cultural activity. Qianlong’s son Yongsing ( Yong-xing), for example, was famous for his talent in art production and collection. 14.  Ji Yun and Yungiong et al., “Qinding Siku quanshu zongmu,” 66:39b, 85:17b, 112:30b, 113:26a, 126:20b, 153:14a. In the annotation for a Ming book Jia cang ji, the term “shoucangjia” appears preceding the text; see Wu Kuan, Jia cang ji (Siku quanshu 1255), “tiyao,” 1b. This term also appears in the annotation for Wu Qizhen’s Shu hua ji, a book that was categorized by the court as one that needed to be banned and destroyed ( jinhui ). The annotations for the jinhui books were included in the reprinted version (1983) of Siku quanshu. See Siku quanshu 5, 352.

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15.  Qinding tianlu linlang shumu (Siku quanshu 675), 1:20b; 2:29a; 9:7b. 16.  Qinding shiqu baoji (Siku quanshu 824–825), 6:13b; 10:43b; 29:68a; 29:81a; 42:23b; 42:41a. One of the entries (29:81a) recorded a colophon from Wang Hongxu in the fifth year of Kangxi’s reign. 17.  Qinding xiqing gujian (Siku quanshu 841–842), 23:86a; 30:7a. 18.  See the Qianlong emperor’s comments on the Song painting Da Yu zhishui tu. Qing Gaozong, Yuzhi wenji (Siku quanshu 1301), er ji, 18:3a. 19.  See the Qianlong emperor’s comments on Mi Yuanhui’s painting Xiaoxiang baiyun tu in Qinding shiqu baoji (Siku quanshu 824–825), 42:41a. Qianlong also used shoucangjia to refer to painting collectors (Qinding shiqu baoji, 42:23b) and book collectors (Yuzhi wenji, er ji, 14:8a). 20.  The only exception is Mao Qiling’s Xihe ji. Mao used shoucangjia to refer to the collectors of the instrument qin (zither). Mao Qiling, Xihe ji, 68:18a. 21.  An anonymous author also referred to inkstone collectors as shoucangjia in his writing. See Yanshanzhai zaji (Siku quanshu 872), 3:7a. The annotation of Four Treasuries claimed that the author must have lived in the eighteenth century. For reference on bronze vessels, see Qinding xiqing gujian (Siku quanshu 841–842), 23:86a; 30:7a. 22.  Juo-luo Shi-lin et al., “fanli,” in Shanxi tongzhi ( Yongzheng edition; Siku quanshu 542–550), 6a. 23.  Li Wai-yee, “The Collector, The Connoisseur, and Late Ming Sensibility,” T’oung Pao, second series, vol. 81, fasc. 4/5 (1995): 273, note 6. For Yao Jiheng’s biography, see ECCP, 811. 24.  Li, “The Collector,” 273, note 6. 25.  Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 26, 45. 26.  Kohara Hironobu, “The Qianlong Emperor’s Skill in the Connoisseurship of Chinese Painting,” in Chinese Painting Under the Qianlong Emperor, edited by Ju-hsi Chou and Claudia Brown. Phoebus 6, no. 1 (1988): 60. 27.  Li, “The Collector,” 299; for a discussion on the goal of this project, see Elliott, Emperor Qianlong, 121. 28.  In addition to the court, private collectors and connoisseurs also referred to this term. For example, a collector of calligraphy rubbings, Li Guangyin, once commented that all the shoucangjia in his time strove to collect a famous rubbing from Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy. Li Guangying, Jinshi wen kaolüe (Siku quanshu 684), 8:5b. 29.  Hong Liangji, “Beijiang shihua,” in Hong Liangji ji, collated by Liu Dequan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001), 2271. 30.  Qian Yong, Lüyuan conghua (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006), 261. 31.  Geng Wenguang, Wanjuan jinghua lou cangshu ji (Ha’erbin: Heilongjia renmin chubanshe, 1992), 142:3863. 32.  For a study of book collection in eighteenth-century Jiangnan, see Swann, “Seven Intimate Library Owners.”



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33.  Ho, “The Salt Merchants,” 157; Hsü, A Bushel of Pearls, 17–63. 34.  For more information on Tandu Huang merchants, see Chapter 1. Chong­ xing was still able to compile his painting colophons into a book because he had seen all the works before most of them had gotten lost in the wars of the middle of the nineteenth century. Even after the mid-nineteenth century, in which most family  collections were disbanded because of the decline of the salt business, the paintings that were left in the Huang family inspired the artistic talent of another family descendant, Huang Binhong (1865–1955), who eventually became one of China’s most famous painters of the twentieth century. 35.  Huang Chongxing, Caoxinlou duhua ji (Guangxu edition); reprinted in Huang Binhong and Deng Shi, eds., Zhonghua Meishu congshu, first collection, vol. 1 (Beijing: Beijing guji chubanshe, 1998), 116. 36.  Ansu xuan was the name of one room in Bao’s residence in Huizhou. The stones are currently displayed in the Tianning temple in Yangzhou. 37.  Iobaši presented the gifts in 1770. See Qinggong neiwufu zaobanchu dang’an huizong, vol. 33, 457–458. 38.  For instance, on May 10, 1757 (QL22-3-23), seventeen head merchants led by Huang Yuande, Hong Chongshi, and Jiang Guangda presented sixteen pieces of jade items and sixteen pieces of porcelain to the Qianlong emperor during his southern tours. Gongzhong jindan (tribute list) 0103. Li Zhiying, on behalf of the salt merchants, also presented gifts to the emperor during his trip in Shandong. See Gongzhong jindan 0053, tribute list on 3/20/1771 (QL36-2-5). I thank Dong Jianzhong for sharing his notes on tribute list with me. 39.  Zhu Wenzao, preface to Bao Tingbo, comp., Zhibuzuzhai congshu (reprint, Taipei: Xingzhong shuju, 1964), 9. For more information on Zhu Wenzao, see ECCP, 807, 822. 40.  Weng Guangping, “Cishutang ji,” cited in Ye Changzhi, Cangshu jishi shi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1989), 526–527. 41.  Bao, Zhibuzuzhai congshu, 25. 42.  For information on the Imperial Book Hall and the Pavilion of the Emperor’s Poem, see Shen Shuyan, Yicaitang wenji (Xuxiu Siku quanshu 1458),  5:24a–25b. Ji Yun visited Wang’s house and wrote ten poems for some of Wang’s building, see Ji Yun, Ji Xiaolan shiwen ji ( Yangzhou: Jiangsu guangling guji ­keyinsuo, 1997), 352. 43.  Ji Yun passed the provincial examination when he was twenty-three years old and soon became a scholar of the Hanlin Academy. ECCP, 120. 44.  Wang often recorded how he exchanged poems with literati, especially famous literati, and how he attended gatherings of poetry clubs in his poems. See Wang Qishu, Shuicao qingxia lu (Beijing: Beijing guji chubanshe, 1998). 45.  Wang Qishu, Shuicao, 9:139, 13:204. 46.  Ji Yun, Ji Xiaolan shiwen ji, 352. 47.  Wang also associated with Zhu Yun (1729–1781) and Lu Xixiong (1734– 1792), both of whom were deeply involved in the Four Treasuries project. Zhu Yun

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suggested to the Qianlong emperor the collection and preservation of rare books from across the empire, which resulted in the Four Treasuries. Lu Xixiong, like Ji Yun, was appointed as a chief editor of the Four Treasuries until it was complete. For Zhu Yun and Lu Xixiong’s biographies, see ECCP, 198–199, 544–545. As Wang recorded, he hosted a gathering with Zhu Yun in 1775 and he also visited Zhu Yun’s residence. Wang, Shuicao, 2:23–24; 13:195. For Wang’s connection with Lu Xixiong, see Shuicao, 15:234. It is not completely clear how Wang Qishu knew Zhu and Lu, but it is reasonable to suggest that Wang’s contribution to the Four Treasuries project might have helped to facilitate their networks. 48.  Wang Qishu’s grandfather was Wang Zhili and his father was Wang Guangyue. For Wang Qishu’s biography, see ECCP, 810–812. 49.  See Fang Yuejie, preface to Wang Qishu, Feihongtang chugao, in Ren’an shicun, juan er (Xuxiu Siku quanshu 1446), 1a–1b. Wang’s short biography, which was recorded in Huizhou fuzhi and was carved on the stele of the Hangzhou Xiling seal club (Xiling yinshe), states that Wang conducted salt business in Hangzhou. This biography was included in Min Erchang, comp., Beizhuan ji bu (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1973), 1529; Wang Peizhi, Xiling yinshe moya shike (Hangzhou: Xiling yinshe chubanshe, 2007), 90. 50.  In 1778, when Wang was approximately 50 years old, he was appointed as the vice director of the Ministry of Revenue in charge of the Shandong office (Hubu Shandong si yuanwailang ), because he had contributed to the imperial treasury to support the military campaigns in Sichuan province. In 1781, Wang was promoted to director of the Bureau of Operations on the Ministry of War (Bingbu zhifangsi langzhong ). Qin Guojing et al., comps., Qingdai guanyuan lüli dang’an quanbian, vol. 21, 54, 63, 353, 356. Wang also served as the director of the bureau of waterways and irrigation on the Ministry of Works (Gongbu dushuisi langzhong ) in Beijing. Min, Beizhuan ji bu, 1529; ECCP, 810. For explanation of official titles, see Hucker, A Dictionary, 301. 51.  The anecdote collection is titled Shuicao qingxia lu. 52.  Wang Qishu, comp. Xie fang ji (Collected fragrances). 1785. Beijing University Library. 53.  Yuan Mei once cited Wang Qishu’s two poems. Yuan Mei, Suiyuan shihua buyi, in Yuan Mei quanji (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1993), vol. 3, 5:669. 54.  Huang Shang, Qianchen mengying xinlu (Ji’nan: Qilu chubanshe, 1989), 54. 55.  Yuan, Suiyuan shihua buyi, 5:669. Gu Aying was a wealthy collector and a poet. Gu is also famous for having a broad social network. See Wang Deyi, Li Rongcun, and Pan Bocheng, eds., Yuanren zhuanji ziliao suoyin (Taipei: Xinwenfeng chubanshe, 1990), 2188–2190. 56.  For instance, a scholar Zhu Zhang once depicted Wang as follows: “My friend Wang Xiufeng (Qishu) is obsessed with ancient things. He has collected hundreds of shelves of books and is also good at composing poems. Wang has obtained almost ten thousand ancient seals and has compiled a catalog with thirty-two juan. This catalog includes all kinds of materials (for seal carving) such as gold, jade,



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clamshell, agate, ivory, and porcelain. . . . Wang has also spent a considerable amount of money inviting famous seal carvers to his home. By discussing seal carving with these carvers . . . he was able to collect almost ten thousand contemporary seals, and published these seal impressions in forty juan titled Feihongtang yinpu. Almost half of these skilled seal carvers’ seals were included.” Zhu Zhang, preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Han tongyincong (1752; reprint, 1935), 2b–3b. 57.  Qian, Lüyuan conghua, 315. 58.  I list the extant seal impression catalogs in the bibliography. 59.  Soapstone (pyrophyllite) was already used for seal carving in the Han, but the famous Yuan painter Wang Mian “was traditionally credited for beginning the use of soft soapstone to engrave seals.” Jason Chi-sheng Kuo, Word as Image: The Art of Chinese Seal Engraving (New York: China Institute in America, 1993), 30–31. As Bai Qianshen states, “the use of soft stone for seal carving was not common until Wen Peng found a large quantity of the material in Nanjing and began to carve it into seals.” Wen Peng (1498–1573) was the oldest son of one of the most famous calligraphers and painters in late Ming, Wen Zhengming (1470–1599). Bai Qianshen, Fu Shan’s World: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 51. 60.  For a detailed discussion on the cultural transformation of seals, see Li ChuTsing and James C. Y. Watt, eds., The Chinese Scholar’s Studio: Artistic Life in the Late Ming Period: An Exhibition from the Shanghai Museum (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 11–13; Bai Qianshen, Fu Shan’s World, 50–71. Beyond the elites’ rising interests in seals, seal carving also “opened up one more way for literati to adapt their traditional interests into other means of livelihood.” Joseph Mc­Dermott, “The Art of Making a Living in Sixteenth Century China,” Kaikodo Journal 5 (1997): 74. 61.  Bai, Fu Shan’s World, 60. 62.  For a discussion on paleography and seal style calligraphy, see Elman, From Philosophy to Philology, 68–70. 63.  Wang Qishu, comp., “Editorial principles,” Feihongtang yinpu [hereafter FHTYP] (Seal collection of Flying Swan Studio), Qianlong version. Reprint, Lingshi shanfang, 1912–1930. 64.  Lu Zengyu recorded Wang’s quotation; see Lu’s preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Jigu yincun (Collection of ancient seals), reprint of Ren’an jigu yincun, ed. Wang Shaozeng (1804), 2b–3a. 65.  Benjamin Elman argues that the evidential study scholars “were committed to the use of bronze and stone inscriptional evidence to verify the Dynastic Histories.” Elman, From Philosophy to Philology, 71. 66.  Wang Qishu, “Editorial principles,” Jigu yincun, 1b. 67.  As Jason Kuo argues, “during the later part of the Qing dynasty, as part of the intellectual pursuits of the Evidential Research and Bronze-and-Stone Studies movements, the production of yinpu became more faithful to the original seals.” Kuo, Word as Image, 57.

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68.  Ge Chun, postscript to FHTYP, fourth ji, 6:1b. Zhou Xuanyou also used the same phrase, see Zhou Xuanyou’s preface to FHTYP, second ji, 1:2b. 69.  For Dai Zhen’s biography, see ECCP, 695–700. 70.  Cheng Yaotian, preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Qiushi yincui (1756). 71.  Li E’s preface to FHTYP, third ji, 3:2a. 72.  Wang Qishu, “Editorial principles,” FHTYP, 2a. 73.  Wang Qishu, “Editorial principles,” Jigu yincun, 1a. 74.  One of the two famous seal carving schools in the late Ming originated in Huizhou. In the Qing, Huizhou continued to produce prominent seal carvers such as Chen Sui (1607–1692), Wang Zhaolong (1722–1780), Ba Weizu (1744–1793), and Hu Tang (1759–1838). 75.  Wang Qishu, Feihongtang yinren zhuan (reprint, Jiulong: Boyazhai, 1977), 4:5. Wang’s zuzhi Wang Cheng and zudi (fellow clansmen of Wang’s younger cousin) Wang Bin all benefited from Wang’s seal collection. Wang, Feihongtang yinren zhuan, 5:2; 5:4b–5a. 76.  Ibid., 3:6b–7a. 77.  Ibid., 2:1. Ding Jing’s thirty-eight seals were recorded in FHTYP. 78.  For instance, when Wang visited Lanjiang (Lanxi county, in Zhejiang province), he became friends with Yu Yuanzhi, who later carved for Wang. Wang, Feihongtang yinren zhuan, 2:4b–5a. 79.  Ibid., 4:1b–2a. 80.  These seal carvers carved seals for Wang, and also helped him to edit seal impression catalogs. For example, Zhang Panshi, Qian Lefu, and Wang Zifu were all invited by Wang to take up residence in his compound. Ding Jing described this in one of the seal inscription. See Qin Zuyong, Qijia yinba, reprinted in Huang Binhong and Deng Shi, eds. Zhonghua meishu congshu, second collection, vol. 3 (Beijing: Beijing guji chubanshe), 139–140. 81.  This compilation included thirty-two juan. Wang invited Jin Nong to inscribe the book title and printed his own portrait with the publication. The book title and his portrait represented Wang’s ownership of this book. 82.  Wang Qishu, comp., “Editorial principles,” Ren’an jigu yincun (1760), 1a. 83.  Ren’an jigu yincun might be Wang’s most famous compilation of ancient seals, but it was by no means the only one. In 1752, Wang published another compilation that featured bronze seals from the Han dynasty titled Han tongyincong. In 1766 and 1769, Wang published yet another two collections of ancient bronze seals, titled Gu tongyincong and Han tongyinyuan respectively. 84.  This compilation was thus gradually accumulated and published in several versions over time. According to Shen Huixing, Wang compiled the first eight juan before 1749 and asked Shen Deqian, Zhou Xuanwu, and Wang Shuqi for prefaces. Another version with four ji and thirty-two juan was preserved in the Shanghai library. Shen Huixing, “Feihongtang yinpu jiankao,” in Ming Qing Huizhou zhuanke xueshu yantaohui lunwen ji (Hangzhou: Xiling yinshe chubanshe, 2008): 213–233.



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85.  Chen Zhenlian, “Zhongguo yinpushi yanjiu daolun,” in Zhongguo yinpushi tudian (Hangzhou: Xiling yinshe chubanshe, 2011), 21. I also have not seen any other seal impression books that were categorized in this way before Wang Qishu. 86.  Wang Qishu, comp., “Editorial principles,” Tuizhai yinlei (1767), 1a. 87.  Jinnang means “brocaded pouch,” which is often made in a small pocket size. This book title thus refers to the tiny seals that could fit into a small pocket. 88.  1 fen equals 3.3 millimeters. Wang Qishu published Jinnang yinlin in 1754. I was not able to observe this compilation in person. The description came from Huang Changming, Zhuanke nianli (Taipei: Zhenwei shuwu chubanshe, 2001), 220. Chen Zhenlian also states that Jinnang yinlin fits in the palm of your hand. Chen, “Zhongguo yinpushi,” 23. 89.  Kuo, Word as Image, 57. 90.  Wang, “Editorial principles,” FHTYP, 5a–5b. 91.  Wang Shuqi, postscript to FHTYP, first ji, 8:1b. 92.  Chen, “Zhongguo yinpushi,” 23. In addition to Jinnang yinlin (1754), Wang also published Xiuzhen yinshang (1771) in a small size. 93.  Peilin was the place where pilgrims held a sacrificing ceremony before the formal one on Mount Tai. Hutuo was a river’s name. This sentence is a metaphor, meaning that this compilation could help the readers to appreciate the seals while they read another seal impression catalog previously printed by Wang, Jigu yincun, which was in a much larger size and contains more juan. 94.  Zhu Zhang recorded Wang Qishu’s statement in his preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Han tongyincong, 4a–4b. Gu Congde is a well-known seal carver and seal collector. He published Jigu yinpu which is believed to be the first yinpu displaying the impressions of ancient seals in the Ming. His compilation was famous for its beautiful impressions of original seals, but only a few copies of the book were printed. In 1757, some book merchants reprinted his book by using woodblock printing instead of making impressions of individual seals. The quality of these books was much worse. Here, Wang might be referring to these reprinted copies. 95.  Wang Qishu, comp., Han tongyincong, Jinnang yinlin, and Huitang yinwai (1788) also used a different pattern for the frame. 96.  Zhuang Yougong, postscript to FHTYP, fourth ji, 8:2a. 97.  Huang, Qianchen mengying xinlu, 53. 98.  Zeitlin proposes three general principle of pi: “First, obsession describes a habitual fixation on a certain object or activity, rather than on a particular person, and it is particularly associated with collecting and connoisseurship. Second, it must be excessive and single-minded. Third, it is a deliberately unconventional and eccentric pose.” Judith Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 64. 99.  Wang Qishu, comp., Xiaoyunlou jiyin, ce 3. Zhu Yongxi also carved a seal with “yinpi ” for Wang (FHTYP, first ji, 2:20a). Chen Lian made a seal with three characters “yinpi sheng” (a scholar with seal obsession) for Wang (FHTYP, third ji, 4:15a).

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100.  Dai Tingxi, preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Tuizhai yinlei, 3a. Wu Cheng, poem for FHTYP, third ji, 5:1a. 101.  Ouyang Xiu, preface to Jigu Lu muxu, in Duncan Campbell, Timothy Cronin, and Cindy Ho, trans., “Passage from Ouyang Xiu: A Record of Collected Antiquity (Jigu Lu),” China Heritage Quarterly 24 (December 2010), http://www  .chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship.php?searchterm=024_ouyangxiu.inc&  issue=024. 102.  Pi has been used in the writing of collecting and connoisseurship in the ninth century. Judith Zeitlin, “The Petrified Heart: Obsession in Chinese Literature,” Late Imperial China 12, no. 1 (1991): 4. 103.  Wang Peng, postscript to Wang Qishu, comp., Han tongyincong (1752; reprint, 1935), 2a. Numerous elites used Ouyang Xiu’s phrase juyu suohao to praise Wang’s devotion to seal collection. See Xu Guangwen, postscript to Wang Qishu, comp., Jigu yincun, 2a; Wu Jun, postscript to Wang Qishu, comp., Jingleju yinyu. 104.  Wang Shaozeng, preface to the reprint edition (1804) of Wang Qishu, comp., Ren’an jigu yincun, 1b. Dai Tingxi also praised the fact that the seal materials that Wang collected were extensive and broad. Dai Tingxi, preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Tuizhai yinlei, 3b. 105.  Cheng Yaotian used “boya shigu” in his preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Qiushi yincui, 2a; Wang Shaozeng used “bogu” in his preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Ren’an jigu yincun, 1a; Wu Chen used “bogu” in his poem to FHTYP, third ji, 5:1a; Wang Shuqi used “bowu shigu” in his postscript to FHTYP, first ji, 8:1a; Ge Chun used “botong” in his postscript to FHTYP, fourth ji, 6:2a. 106.  Cong Ellen Zhang has demonstrated that the ideal of “erudition” (bo) was established and promoted in the Song. The men of learning, especially the ones in the lower echelons of the literati class, used this new scholarly ideal, erudition in all sorts of miscellaneous things, to validate credentials outside moral cultivation and mastering the classics. See Cong Ellen Zhang, “To Be ‘Erudite in Miscellaneous Knowledge’: A Study of Song (960–1279) Biji Writing,” Asia Major, third series, vol. 25, no. 2 (2012): 43–77. 107.  Dai Tingxi, preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Tuizhai yinlei, 3a. 108.  Ge Chun, postscript to FHTYP, fourth ji, 6:2a. 109.  Qian Yong, Lüyuan conghua, 315. 110.  Zhou Xuanwu, preface to FHTYP, third ji, 5:2b. 111.  Zhu Zhang, preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Han tongyincong, 3a. 112.  The question of whether eighteenth-century people began to invest in collections for economic benefit is not completely clear yet. Wang Zhenzhong and Zhao Li argue that in the Ming and Qing dynasties, Huizhou merchants’ devotion to and interest in collecting antiques and artworks were motivated by their pursuit of commercial profit. Wang Zhenzhong and Zhao Li, “Ming Qing shidai Nanjing de huishang jiqi jingying wenhua,” Zhejiang Shehui Kexue 2 (2002): 150–160. In terms of Wang’s case, some instances imply that his collection cannot be entirely separated from its economic function. Before Wang’s death, he had sold pieces of



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his collection. Xu Chengyao, Sheshi xiantan, 302. After Wang passed away, his descendants sold his seal collections to other wealthy families. See Wang Shaozeng, preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Ren’an jigu yincun, 1a–2a. 113.  Sun Chendian, preface to Wang Qishu, comp., Feihongtang mopu (Xuxiu Siku quanshu 1113), 2a. 114.  Qiu Ruyu, postscript to Wang Qishu, comp., Qiushi yincui, 1b–2a. chapter 4 1.  For information on the reconstruction of Cixiao tang, See Bao Zhidao, “Longshan Cixiao tang ming bing xu,” and Bao Xunmao, “Ti Longshan Cixiao tang tu,” in Bao Cong, ed., Tangyue Baoshi Xuanzhong tang zhipu [hereafter XZTZP], 22:18b–19a, 26a–26b; and Bao Shumin and Bao Lei, eds., Fanglin ji (Hefei: Anhui wenyi chubanshe, 2008), 38–41. 2.  For a discussion on the development of lineage institutions in Huizhou in the early and mid Ming, see McDermott, The Making of a New Rural Order in South China, 169–234. 3.  According to Smith, while scholars and merchants openly displayed their wealth by building splendid gardens, they also contributed to the community by spending money on charity. Smith, “Gardens,” 74–77. 4.  In the account that follows, the term “Bao household” refers to the males in Zhidao’s immediate descent line, including his brother, sons, nephews, and grandsons. For more information on Bao Zhidao, see Liu Miao, “Huishang Bao Zhidao jiqi jiashi kaoshi,” Jianghuai Luntan 6 (1983): 58–67. 5.  XZTZP, juan 3. 6.  See Zhang Dengbiao, “Bao xiansheng zhuan,” Wang Zhida, “Chaoyi dafu Bao jun Shengruo zhuan,” Fan Laizong, “Chaoyi dafu Bao jun jiazhuan,” and Bao Zhidao, “Xianmu Zheng taishuren xinglue,” XZTZP, 21:14b–15b; 21:16a–17a; 21:19b–20b; 21:20b–21b. 7.  YZHFL, 296. See also Bao Zhidao’s biography, LHYFZ, 46:36 and XZTZP, 10:7b–9b. 8.  Wang Qisun, “Zhongxian dafu Kenyuan Baogong xingzhuang,” XZTZP, 21:21b–24b. 9.  Zhidao had already become a head merchant and established a “group insurance policy” ( jintie zhi ) to insure the livelihood of merchants’ families. LHYFZ, 44:7b. 10.  XZTZP, 1:27a. 11.  See Bao Zhidao’s biography in LHYFZ, 46:35a–35b. 12.  ZPZZ 04-01-02-0074-011. 13.  In 1811, Bao Youheng volunteered to donate three hundred thousand taels of silver for dike construction along the Huai River. See Akdangga (a-ke-dang-a)’s memorial on 2/21/1811 (JQ16-1-28, ZPZZ 04-01-35-0635-078); Akdangga’s memorial on 3/28/1811 (JQ 16-3-5, ZPZZ 04-01-05-0128-006).

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14.  Beling (Bai-ling)’s memorial on 10/13/1813 (JQ 18-9-20, ZPZZ 04-01-010547-027). It turns out that another merchant, Tong Youqing, tried to squeeze some money from Bao by blackmailing him. 15.  Three imperial vermilion instructions recorded this event, dated on 4/17/1804 (JQ9-3-8), 5/11/1804 (JQ9-4-3), and 5/21/1804 (JQ9-4-13). These instructions were recorded in XZTZP, juan 1:32. The instructions were also carved on the stele established in the ancestral hall in Tangyue. 16.  XZTZP, 1:35b. 17.  Akdangga’s memorial on 3/28/1811 (JQ 16-3-5, ZPZZ 04-01-05-0128-006). 18.  XZTZP records many imperial edicts rewarding Xunmao’s performance and his contributions to the court. These certainly brought honor to Zhidao’s ­household. 19.  Bao Zhidao’s biography, XZTZP, 10:7b. 20.  See Bao Cong, preface to XZTZP. 21.  See Michael Szonyi, Practicing Kinship: Lineage and Descent in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 26–55. For a study on genealogy writing in Huizhou, see McDermott, The Making of a New Rural Order, 96–99. For a case study on Huizhou salt merchants’ compilation of a genealogy, see Bu Yongjian, “Qingchu Shexian Huaitang Chengshi de wenhua jiangou,” Shi Lin 5 (2004): 52–61. For Tangyue Bao merchants’ activities, see Zhao Huafu, “Shexian Tangyue Baoshi zongzu ge’an baogao,” Jianghuai Luntan 2 (1993): 77–84. 22.  Szonyi, Practicing Kinship, 27. 23.  Johanna Meskill argues that “the fang are usually thought of as having been established by the sons of the first ancestor who settled in the family’s current place of residence, so that division into fang usually occurs in the second generation of the most recent generation sequence, often ten or twenty generations prior to the last recorded generation.” Johanna Meskill, “Chinese Genealogy as a Research Source,” in Family and Kinship in Chinese Society, ed. Maurice Freedman (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1970), 150. In Zhidao’s genealogy, the great-grandson of the first ancestor, Bao Xiangxian, established three fang, so the division into fang occurs in the fourth generation. 24.  Historians and anthropologists have worked extensively on the Chinese kinship system. While historians adopted specific terms and concepts from the anthropologists, “there are special problems in studying kinship without access to living informants.” Therefore, historians need to “make some modifications” in terminology. James Watson, “Chinese Kinship Reconsidered: Anthropological Perspectives on Historical Research,” China Quarterly 92 (1982): 589–622; Patricia Ebrey and James Watson, Introduction to Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000– 1940, ed. Patricia Ebrey and James Watson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 1–15. In this chapter, I adopt the terminology from Ebrey and Watson’s introduction. The terms are listed according to the size of the discussed group, from larger groups to smaller ones: descent groups (zu), localized lineage (tang ), branch ( fang ), and household. The meaning of each term is introduced in the text. For more information on Bao lineage, see Bao Guangchun, Tangyue baoshi sanzu zongpu



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(1760) and XZTZP. For information on Bao Xiangxian, also see Liu, “Huishang Bao Zhidao,” 62. 25.  Bao Guangchun, ed. Tangyue Baoshi sanzu zongpu. 26.  Zhidao’s choice here reminds us of a common strategy in genealogy writing—the creation of a founding legend. Tracing descent from an ancestor was a common strategy in genealogy writing in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Some foundation legends were commonly used to assign settlement and property rights. See David Faure, “The Lineage as a Cultural Invention: The Case of the Pearl River Delta,” Modern China 15, no. 1 (1989): 7. 27.  Bao Cong, “Editorial principles,” XZTZP, 4a. 28.  Zhidao and Bao Cong were the editors, so each of them received one copy. One copy was distributed to Zhidao’s younger brother Qiyun because he donated charitable lands. Another copy was given to Zhidao’s son Xunmao, who was serving as an official in Beijing. According to Bao Cong, the lineage decided to give Xunmao one copy in order to help familarize him with lineage affairs in Huizhou. Bao Cong, “Editorial principles,” XZTZP, 4a. 29.  The new genealogy also made some changes. It deleted several categories such as “original last name” ( yuanxing ), “original ancestor” ( yuanzu), and “original branch” (benzong ). It also deleted the category of “chaste and martyred women” ( jie lie), because these women’s deeds were recorded in their own biographies. Bao Cong’s “Editorial principles” for XZTZP also lists the changes that the new genealogy made. 30.  Bao Cong, “Editorial principles,” XZTZP, 1a–2a. 31.  Some other salt merchants in She county also made their genealogies in a similar size. For example, the genealogy of the Cheng lineage from Huaitang village  measures 354 millimeters by 262 millimeters, with a 274-millimeter-by-  220-millimeter frame. Cheng Qidong, ed., Xin’an Huaitang Chengshi Xiancheng tang chongxu zongpu (1673). The genealogy of the Huang lineage from Tandu village measures 373 millimeters by 232 centimeters, with a 280-millimeter-by-200-millimeter frame. See Huang Chenhuai, ed., Tandu xiaoli Huangshi zupu (1731). 32.  Xu Xiaoman, “Preserving the Bonds of Kin: Genealogy Masters and Genealogy Production in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang Area in the Qing and Republican Periods,” in Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, ed. Cynthia J. Brokaw and Kai-wing Chow (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 348. 33.  Zhang Xiumin points out that the woodblock genealogies produced in Shaoxing or Changzhou were usually larger than those from other areas, measuring as high as 460 millimeters and as wide as 370 millimeters. Zhang Xiumin, Zhongguo yinshua shi (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 2006), 601–602. 34.  Regarding the cost of making this genealogy, I follow Xu Xiaoman’s classification, which divides the cost as carving/typesetting, printing paper, printing and binding, and other materials, such as ink, thread for binding, cover papers and wooden boards to encase the genealogies. Xu argues that the expenditures for other materials “usually do not exceed 6 percent of total costs.” Xu also points out that

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“since printing and binding were the low-skill tasks of the book-production process,” they subtract only a small amount from the total cost. Xu, “Preserving the Bonds of Kin,” 352–357; quotations are on 356. 35.  Ibid., 355. 36.  Zhang, Zhongguo yinshua shi, 629. 37.  Wu Zhan, “Zhongguo gudai jiapu zhong de muhuozi yingyong,” Beijing Yinshua Xueyuan Xuebao 8 (2006): 75–77. 38.  Chen Rui, “Mingdai Huizhou jiapu de bianxiu jiqi neirong yu tili de fazhan,” Anhui Shixue 4 (2000): 24. 39.  Zhang Xiumin discusses the professional genealogy makers from Zhejiang province. Zhang, Zhongguo yinshua shi, 600. 40.  Based on the genealogies preserved in the Shanghai library, a considerable number of High Qing Huizhou genealogies were in fact made in woodblock. It was not until the late Qing and the Republican periods that the number of movablewood type genealogies surpassed the ones in woodblock. In other words, it was common for Huizhou people to use woodblock to print genealogies in the High Qing. Given the fact that Huizhou merchants patronized most of the genealogy production, this preference represents a common interest in making high-quality genealogies among the merchants. Zhidao’s choice was thus representative among Huizhou merchants, demonstrating a desire to display wealth through the act of making and printing genealogies. 41.  Son Suyoung, “Publishing as a Coterior Enterprise: Zhang Chao and the Making of Printed Texts in Early Qing China,” Late Imperial China 31, no. 1 (2010): 111. 42.  Xu, “Preserving the Bonds of Kin,” 355. 43.  Because carvers rarely left their names on their work, it can be difficult to determine who carved the woodblocks for Bao’s genealogy. 44.  Some records in the genealogy functioned as a kind of contract, defining the relationship between Zhidao’s household and the others in the local community. For example, in the category “sacrificial ceremonies” (sishi ), the new genealogy set forth the rules for managing the Xuanzhong shrine rebuilt by Zhidao. The rules specified how to use the income from the land that Zhidao donated to pay for the costs of maintaining the shrine, and how to allocate the space within the shrine among the three fang. There were additional rules for the use of charitable lands donated by Qiyun and Wang Side. By financing this genealogy, Zhidao’s family participated in creating policies that would guarantee the management of the shrine and the charitable lands according to their specifications. 45.  Bao Cong, “Extended preface” (zhipu xuxu) to XZTZP, 1a. 46.  Together with Cao Wenzhi, Zhidao planned and built a local Confucian school in Huizhou. Because of this relationship, Zhidao was able to ask Cao to write the first preface for his new genealogy. Wang Qisun knew Zhidao’s son Bao Xunmao while he was working in Rehe. When Wang came to Yangzhou, Zhidao showed him the genealogy and Wang wrote a preface in 1801. See Cao Wenzhi and



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Wang Qisun’s prefaces in XZTZP. For Wang Qisun’s information, see ECCP, 658–659. 47.  See Chen Yanhui, “Cixiao tang ji,” in Bao Guangchun, ed., Tangyue Baoshi sanzu zongpu, 191:8b–9a. There is another version of this story. Before the bandits decided to kill Zongyan and Shousun, the wind blew the bush and made some noise. The bandits thought some soldiers were coming to catch them and immediately escaped without killing the father and son. One interpretation of this version claimed that Zongyan and Shousun were rewarded by heaven because of their parental love and filial piety. See Bao Shousun’s short biography in Gujin tushu jicheng (reprint, Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1934), section of “minglun huibian,” shi zu dian, 433:28a. 48.  Zhidao’s father, Bao Yiyuan (1718–1760), often complained that after people moved the shrine into the village, the original spot on the Dragon Mountain became difficult to trace. Yiyuan’s complaints imply that this glorious memory began to be forgotten by even the lineage members. Bao Zhidao, “Longshan Cixiao tang ming bing xu,” XZTZP, 22:18b–19a. 49.  In addition to Bao Shousun’s biography in Gujin tushu jicheng (see note 47), the story could also be found in Ding Tingjian and Zhao Jishi, eds., Huizhou fuzhi (1699, reprint, Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1975), 15:23b. 50.  Bao Zhidao, “Longshan Cixiao tang ming bing xu,” XZTZP, 22:18b–19a. 51.  Wang Tingna ed., Renjing yangqiu (1600), 10:34. Michela Bussotti has discussed the images of Renjing yangqiu. See Michela Bussotti, “Images of Women in Late-Ming Huizhou Editions Lienü zhuan,” Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender 17, no. 1 (2015): 98–99. 52.  Huang Yingzu’s information was recorded in a genealogy edited by Huang Kaicu, Qiuchuan Huangshi chongxiu zongpu (1832), 1:25a. 53.  Zhang Xiumin has discussed the Huang carvers from Qiu village and named them the Huizhou School. Qiu village was also called Qiuchuan village. For more information on Huang lineage carvers, see Zhang, Zhongguo yinshua shi, 356–364. 54.  In 1811 Guoda and the other thirteen lineage members from Qiu village published the maps for Xichui zongtong shilue, an important book about geography of Xinjiang. The Huang family also carved the map for Shexian zhi during Daoguang’s reign. Zhang, Zhongguo yinshua shi, 677–678. 55.  Liu Daguan, “Bao Kenyuan qi ti Cixiao tang ji,” in Yuqinshanfang shiji,  2:18a–19a. 56.  Wu Hung, The Wu Liang Shrine: The Ideology of Early Chinese Pictorial Art (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989), 4. 57.  Weng Fanggang (1733–1818) published the Records of Bronze and Stone Inscriptions of the Former and Later Han, and later Ruan Yuan (1764–1849) finished Records on Bronze and Stone from the Shanzuo Region. Qian Daxin (1728–1804), Bi Yuan (1730–1797), and Wang Chang (1725–1806) also delved into the research of these newly unearthed carvings. Wang Chang also recorded all the inscriptions from the Wu cemetery in Jinshi cuibian. Wu, The Wu Liang Shrine, appendix B, 330. For

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details of the excavation and studies of the Wu Liang shrine, see The Wu Liang Shrine, 4–70. 58.  For example, Yuan Mei mentioned the pictorial images from the Wu Liang shrine in his writings. Yuan Mei, Suiyuan shihua (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1982), 7:231. 59.  Zhidao’s friend Yuan Mei probably introduced the Wu Liang shrine to the Bao family. Yuan mentioned Wu Liang shrine in Suiyuan shihua, 7:231. 60.  Xue Quan’s colophon was recorded in Bao and Bao, eds., Fanglin ji, 41. 61.  The physical characteristic of the painting—being lightweight and ­portable—made it possible for Zhidao to display his moral deeds and family history to distant urban elites in Yangzhou. On different occasions, Zhidao showed the painting to scholars or officials and requested poems or essays recording their reactions. For instance, Jiang Fan once traveled from Beijing to Yangzhou, where he stayed with Zhidao. According to Jiang, “They [Zhidao’s household] showed me the painting about their ancestor’s moral deeds.” Jiang Fan’s poem was recorded in Bao Youque, ed., Baoshi songxian lu [hereafter BSSXL], 1936, shang, 4:22. 62.  Qilin and Linyan Pavilions are ancient allusions. Qilin Pavilion was first established in the Han palace. The Han emperor hung the portraits of his best generals and officials in the pavilion. Lingyan Pavilion had the same function. In later literary allusions, the Qilin and Linyan Pavilions were used to represent men’s success in officialdom or military exploits. Yuan Mei, Xiaocangshanfang shiji, in Yuan Mei quanji, vol. 1, 36:883–884. 63.  Katherine Carlitz has argued that “illustration was often justified on moral grounds. It was conventionally asserted that pictures could reach a semi-literate public as the written word could not, and thus illustration is common in popular didactic literature (like mythical accounts of the birth of Confucius, or miracles wrought by his disciples) and popular history (stories of famous campaigns, narratives of dynastic rise and fall).” Katherine Carlitz, “The Social Uses of Female Virtue in Late Ming Editions of Lielü Zhuan,” Late Imperial China 12, no. 2 (1991): 121. 64.  BSSXL, shang, 4:22a. 65.  BSSXL, shang, 4:22b–23a. Yang Lun commented that “[Zhidao] also made the painting and wrote an epigraph in order to extol the family virtue.” BSSXL, shang, 4:23b. 66.  BSSXL, shang, 4:22. 67.  BSSXL, shang, 4:22b. 68.  Huang Chengji also noted that “because of their virtuous descendants, the fame of their ancestors was able to come down forever.” Yang Lun commented that as a descendant, Bao Zhidao was able to inherit his father’s will: “[He] rebuilt the shrine and established ritual sacrifices to his ancestors.” BSSXL, shang, 4:22b–23a; 4:22b; 4:23b. 69.  Bao Cong, “Tiyuan hu tian ji,” XZTZP, 19:1b–2a. 70.  Bao Cong, “Dunben hu tian ji,” XZTZP, 19:25b–26a.



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71.  Fan Zhongyan was a prominent politician and literary figure in Song China. He established inalienable lands called charitable estates ( yitian) that provided income for educational and other needs of clan members. Through his estates, Fan aimed to hold property jointly for the benefit of all clan members. 72.  Bao Cong, “Tiyuan hu tian ji,” XZTZP, 19:1b–2a. 73.  XZTZP 19:21a–23b; 39b–42b. 74.  Zhu Gui, “Baoshi yitian ji,” 19:24b–25a; Chen Dawen, “Baoshi yitian ji,” XZTZP 19:42b–43b. For Zhu Gui’s biography, see ECCP, 185–186. 75.  The stele is displayed in the ancestral hall in Tangyue village. 76.  Zhu Gui, “Baoshi yitian ji,” 19:24b–25a. For Liu Yong’s biography, see ECCP, 536–537. 77.  Chen Dawen, “Baoshi yitian ji,” XZTZP 19:43b. It is unclear whether Qiyun directly knew these officials. Evidence shows that Qiyun’s nephew Xunmao exchanged letters with these three officials. It is highly possible that Qiyun asked for the calligraphies through Xunmao’s networks. Liang Tongshu was a scholar of Hanlin Academy and a well-known calligrapher. ECCP, 505. 78.  Kenneth Starr, Black Tigers: A Grammar of Chinese Rubbings (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008), 3. 79.  Wu Hung, “On Rubbings: Their Materiality and Historicity,” in Writing and Materiality in China, ed. Judith Zeitlin et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 29–72. 80.  Kenneth Starr, Black Tigers, 32. 81.  Liu Yong called Zhu Gui xiangguo, the respectful title for the senior grand secretary of the Cabinet. See “Liu Shi’an xiangguo ba,” XZTZP, 19:25. 82.  Zhu Gui, “Baoshi yitianji ba,” XZTZP, 19:44a. 83.  Ibid. Pizhai was Bao Qiyun’s alternative name (hao). 84.  Bao Shumin, who is living in Tangyue village today, keeps the last piece of the stone in his residence. The characters on the stone are as follows: “There are a total of six pieces of stones. One set of the steles was hidden under the stone board in front of Wanfo Hall of Baolun temple outside of Yangzhou.” 85.  For a discussion of Yan Zhenqing’s calligraphy style and the political implications of his calligraphy, see Robert Thorp and Richard Ellis Vinograd, eds., Chinese Art and Culture (New York: Prentice Hall, 2001), 241–242. 86.  Sire Lu (Lu gong ) is a posthumous title of Yan Zhenqing. Chen Dawen’s note was carved on the last stone of this set with Yan-script prose. The stone is displayed in Tianning temple in Yangzhou. 87.  Ibid. 88.  Ji was very pleased and thus wrote another colophon to thank Zhidao. Ji Yun, “Shixiao ci ba,” XZTZP, 22:25a–26a. For Tiyeboo’s biography, see ECCP, 717–718. 89.  Wu Xilin, “Longshan Cixiao tang tu xu,” in Wu Xilin, Youzhengweizhai piantiwen jianzhu (reprint, Shanghai: Jinzhang tushuju, 1931), 10:2b–4a.

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90.  For Yuan Mei’s and Faššan’s biographies, see ECCP, 955–957, 227–228. 91.  These poems were collected in a section titled “Colophons on the Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine Painting” (Ti Longshan cixiao tu). BSSXL, shang,  4:22a–23b. 92.  Jiang Fan was an ardent exponent of the school of Han learning. He wrote a notable book, Guochao hanxue shichengji, which consists of biographies of fifty-six scholars of the School of Han learning. ECCP, 137–138. 93.  ECCP, 505, 715–716. 94.  For Zhu Gui’s biography, see ECCP, 186. 95.  ECCP, 739. 96.  Faššan was an official, scholar, and poet. ECCP, 227–228. 97.  ECCP, 717–718. 98.  Chinese historians have noted that many elites composed writings to praise virtuous behaviors of an individual or a family in the context of social obligations. See Beverly Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity: Gender and Social Change in China, 1000–1400 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 380. 99.  Qian Dong’s poem is the shortest one among the poetry collection. It is a lüshi with eight lines and five characters in each line. BSSXL, shang, 4:23b. 100.  Jiang Fan composed this poem. BSSXL, shang, 4:22a–b. 101.  Zhidao explained that he rebuilt this shrine to fulfill his father’s wish to propagate the virtue of their ancestors, a wish that similarly motivated him to expand his salt business for twenty years. Zhidao, “Longshan Cixiao tang ming bing xu,” XZTZP, 22:18b-19a. 102.  Cao Wenzhi, Shiguyanzhai wenji, 21:15b; Yuan Mei, Xiaocangshanfang shiji, in Yuan Mei quanji, vol. 1, 36: 883–884; Faššan, Cunsutang shi chuji lucun, 1807 (Xuxiu Siku quanshu 1476), 22:12. 103.  This colophon was carved on the inkstone. Ji Yun, Yuewei caotang yanpu (1916). 104.  Zhu Gui’s letters to Xunmao, in Ming Qing mingren chidu mobao (reprint, Hangzhou: Xiling yinshe chubanshe, 2011), di er ji, juan 1. 105.  Yuan Mei’s letter to Zhidao, Ming Qing mingren chidu mobao, di er ji, juan 1. 106.  Wu Xilin’s letters to Bao Xunmao. See Ming Qing mingren chidu mobao, di er ji, juan 1. 107.  Zeng collected these poems and published an anthology named as Hanshang tijin ji. Wang Qisun, “Tijinguan ji,” in Tipu weiding gao (Xuxiu Siku quanshu 1481), 6:16a–17b. For Zeng Yu’s literature activities, also see YZHFL, 172–173. 108.  Ming Qing mingren chidu mobao, di er ji, juan 1. 109.  According to Wu’s letters, he participated in literary activities with Xunmao in Yangzhou and also met Xunmao in Beijing. Ming Qing mingren chidu mobao, di er ji, juan 1.



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110.  See Zhu Gui’s letter to Bao Xunmao, in Ming Qing mingren chidu mobao, di er ji, juan 1. 111.  Faššan, “Yue Bao Shutang xiaoyin” and “Sanyue huiri chenqi fang Bao Shutang shiyu fanzhou luhe,” in Cunsutang shi chuji lucun, 22:15b; 23:16b. chapter 5 1.  Qinding da Qing huidian zeli [hereafter QDDQHDZL] (Qianlong edition; Siku quanshu 622), 71:9a. 2.  LHYFZ, 51:14. 3.  Mark Elvin, “Female Virtue and the State in China,” Past and Present 104 (1984): 111–152. For a discussion on the chastity cult in the Song and Yuan dynasties, see Bettine Birge, Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yuan China (960–1368) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 200–282, and Beverly Bossler, Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity: Gender and Social Change in China, 1000–1400 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 414–416. For an analysis on the expansion of the “chastity cult” in the Qing, see Susan Mann, “Widows in the Kinship, Class, and Community Structures of Qing Dynasty China,” Journal of Asian Studies 46, no. 1 (1987): 37–56; also refer to Susan Mann, Precious Records, 23–26. 4.  Wei Zeneng’s study of Huizhou arches examines how Huizhou merchants fostered arch building. Wei Zeneng, “Teisetsu hibô—Anki shô Kishô no teisetsu hibô o chûshin ni,” Tagen Bunka 8 (2008): 227–241. 5.  In the first year of the Ming dynasty, the court established the jingbiao system to award superior moral practice from the categorized social groups of filial son, dutiful grandsons, righteous husbands, and chaste wives. In 1457, the Ming court ordered that the candidates from two more categories—the five generations living together and those who were known as filial and friendly—should also be awarded by the state. Da Ming huidian (Wanli edition; Xuxiu Siku quanshu 790), 79:8a–11a. 6.  For the other categories, regulations on how to award them were vague. Da Ming huidian, 79:8b. Also see Fei Si-yen, “Writing for Justice: An Activist Beginning of the Cult of Female Chastity in Late Imperial China,” Journal of Asian Studies, 71, no. 4 (2012): 995. 7.  For a more detailed account on the development of the chastity awarding system in the Ming, see Fei Si-yen, You dianfan dao guifan: cong Mingdai zhenjie lienü de bianshi yu liuchuan kan zhenjie guannian de yangehua (Taipei: Guoli Taiwan daxue chuban weiyuanhui, 1998), 67–127. 8.  Da Ming huidian, 79:8b. 9.  In 1394, the Ming court declared that the moral deeds of filial sons and chaste widows should be recorded in the jing shan ting. Later in 1511, the court issued an edict particularly for the women who safeguarded their sexual purity from bandits through self-mutilation and suicide in Shanxi province. In order to memorialize

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their superior moral activities, the court decided to establish stone steles carved with these women’s names, ages, and hometowns beside the jing shan ting. Finally in 1569, the Longqing emperor (r. 1567–1572) decreed that if a chaste widow lived to age one hundred, her household might be awarded the title of “chastity and longevity” (zhenshou zhi men). Da Ming huidian, 79:9a–11a. 10.  For instance, in 1513, when the court revised the regulations concerning “people who were chaste, filial, and with other superior activities” from imperial families, it stated that the filial and chaste candidates might be rewarded, but that “they were not allowed to petition for arch construction” (buxu zouqing jianli paifang ). This regulation was further revised in Wanli’s reign. In 1582, the moral candidates from imperial families could “build arches and receive a jingbiao award”  (lifang jingbiao). Da Ming huidian, 57:31b–32a. 11.  For an analysis on general transformations in the chastity cult from the Ming to the Qing, see Janet M. Theiss, Disgraceful Matters: The Politics of Chastity in Eighteenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 26–38. 12.  Mark C. Elliott, “Manchu Widows and Ethnicity in Qing China,” Comparative Studies in Society and History (1999): 62. 13.  Elliott, “Manchu Widows,” 62–66. Elliott has also noted that “if, as Mann and others have persuasively argued, having Han women obey the dictates of a strict neo-Confucian loyalty was important for the dynastic image, the expansion of the same sort of values among banner women themselves was even better evidence of how far [they were] from their uncivilized roots.” Quotation is on 63. 14.  Mann, Precious Records, 44. Qing historians have observed a much tighter control of female sexuality in the High Qing. The Yongzheng emperor’s famous emancipation policy, as Matthew Sommer has argued, reinforced the regulation of sexuality, allowing “a uniform standard of sexual morality and criminal liability” to be “extended across old status boundaries.” Female virtue, he shows, was further applied to the “debased people” who had previously been exempted from this moral imperative. Matthew Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 5. 15.  Fei, “Writing for Justice,” 1009. 16.  QDDQHDZL, 71:1a–27a. 17.  QDDQHDZL, 71:5b, 7a, 21b, 23a. 18.  QDDQHDZL, 71:21b. 19.  QDDQHDZL, 71:22a. 20.  QDDQHDZL, 71:22b. 21.  QDDQHDZL, 71:3b–21a. 22.  In addition to “filial and chaste,” the QDDQHDZL also developed detailed policies on “distinguished officials and respected village scholars,” which headed the first category of “people conducting righteous activities.” 71:1a–3b. 23.  Most changes were made in Yongzheng’s edict of 1723. One stipulation changed the term of celibacy, from twenty years of chastity to fifteen years of chas-



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tity. It was further reduced to ten years in the early nineteenth century. In addition, the age for a widow who could be rewarded was reduced from fifty sui to forty sui. (“Sui ” is age in Chinese. It is measured from the lunar year of one’s birthday as year one) Elvin, “Female Virtue and the State,” 124. Also see Mann, Precious Records, 23. 24.  QDDQHDZL, 71:3b. 25.  The fund came from different sources. The local officials were expected to grant the money for Han local commoners, whereas Manchu, Mongolian, and Hanjun candidates would receive funding from the Ministry of Revenue (hubu). QDDQHDZL, 71:5a. 26.  For instance, in 1660, the Shunzhi emperor approved arch construction funds for the relatives of chaste widows from Guangxi province. QDDQHDZL, 71:6a. In 1672, the Kangxi emperor ordered that women who had committed suicide to avoid rape should receive the same award as chaste widows. The local officials, therefore, should give the women’s families thirty taels of silver for arch construction. QDDQHDZL, 71:7a. 27.  QDDQHDZL, 71:9a. 28.  Yongzheng’s words recall Pierre Bourdieu’s argument of the relationship between “objective” social reality and the internalized “subjective” mental worlds of individuals. Bourdieu used the term “habitus” to explain how human beings’ actions or manners articulate the world. Habitus, according to Bourdieu, is “an acquired system of generative schemes objectively adjusted to the particular conditions in which it is constituted.” See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 95. Bourdieu introduces “habitus” as an analytical term to make visible the “system” that he discerns as an integral part of behavior in daily practice. Through habitus, human beings react and adjust to the institutions, rules, and material objects of their society. My study was also inspired by Francesca Bray’s Technology and Gender, which discusses the relationships between space and individual behavior. Bray aims to “retrieve the messages conveyed by technical practices and products, to see how social roles were naturalized through that most powerful form of indoctrination, the bodily habit.” Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 2. For example, Bray analyzes the structure of the house to demonstrate how the building embodied the hierarchies of gender, generation, and rank inherent in the Chinese social order. 29.  The Manchu emperors used different ways to shape the moral habits of commoners who could not read. The Kangxi emperor, for instance, made his officials read aloud the didactic moral prescriptions “Sixteen Maxims” twice a month in every village. Elliott, Emperor Qianlong, 35. Unlike Kangxi’s lecture program, however, which was still based on written texts, the court intended to use the stone arches to make moral exemplars and hierarchical power dramatically vivid in the minds of local people through direct physical contact. 30.  QDDQHDZL, 71:5a.

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31.  In She county, only one arch of this type survives; it was used to commemorate 65,078 chaste women in the Huizhou area. It was built in 1905 in the county seat. 32.  QDDQHDZL, 71:9b–10a. Also see Mann, “Widows in the Kinship, Class, and Community Structures,” 42. 33.  QDDQHDZL, 71:10a. 34.  QDDQHDZL, 71:10a. The literal translation of yousi is “those who have offices.” It is “a vague reference to governmental officials in charge of activities at issue in particular contexts.” Hucker, A Dictionary, 587. 35.  The Yongzheng emperor issued the edict in 1735. QDDQHDZL, 71:18a. 36.  QDDQHDZL, 71:11a–b. 37.  QDDQHDZL, 71:11b. 38.  The Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors liked to present their own calligraphy to the awardees. This seems to suggest that they were willing to be personally involved in the award process. 39.  QDDQHDZL, 71:5b–11b. 40.  Wang Hongdu, Xin’an nüshi zheng, 1706. 41.  Bian Li, “Huizhou de paifang,” Xun Gen 1 (2001): 73. Jin Yuankao’s fieldwork in 1993 shows that there are 97 arches in Huizhou. Song Zilong and Jin Yuankao, Huizhou paifang yishu (Hefei: Anhui meishu chubanshe, 1993). These 97 arches comprise only a fraction of the total number of arches erected in the course of the Qing dynasty. Based on gazetteer records and the number of extant arches today, one may estimate that the original total might have exceeded one thousand. Researching gazetteer records, Bian Li found that before 1820, there were 147 arches in Jixi county and 187 arches in Xiuning. Bian Li, “Huizhou de paifang,” 72. Today, 14 of those stone arches are still extant in Jixi, and 3 still stand in Xiuning. This data is based on Song and Jin’s records. My own oral history interviews have led me to conclude that most of the stone arches were torn down after 1949, especially during the Cultural Revolution. In addition, after the economic reforms in the 1980s, still more stone arches were disassembled so that the high-quality stones could be used to build bridges and roads. Interview with Pan Qiang in Xu village on August 28, 2010; interview with Huang Jizhen in Tandu village on August 29, 2010. Luo Laiping, a local villager from Chengkan village, also claims that one stone arch in his village was torn down after 1978 because some local officials wanted to use the arch stones to build the foundation for a government building. Luo Laiping, Huizhou wenhua gucun: Chengkan (Hong Kong: Tianma chuban youxian gongsi, 2006), 148. 42.  Pan Guxi et al., eds., Zhongguo gudai jianzhu shi (Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 2001), vol. 4, 416. In Huizhou, this third type was the most popular. 43.  Among the 42 extent chastity arches in She county today, 15 were built in Qianlong’s reign and 5 were built in Jiaqing’s reign. See Wu Yulian, “‘Let People See and Be Moved’: Stone Arches and the Chastity Cult in Huizhou during the High Qing Era,” Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender 17, no. 1 (2015), 121.



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44.  See Huang Yuanbao and Huang Jingguan eds., Tandu Huangshi zupu ( Yongzheng edition), 6:3. In addition to Huang Yixuan’s funding, the salt merchant Bao Zhidao who was introduced in Chapter 4 also supported the erection of two stone arches—cixiao fang and xiaozi fang in 1776 in Tangyue, the neighboring village of Tandu. See Bao Yiyuan, “Chongxiu cixiao xiaozi liangfang beiji,” XZTZP, 22:15b. 45.  For Wang Yinggeng’s contribution to famine relief, see Samboo’s memorial on 4/9/1739 (QL4-3-2, ZPZZ 04-01-01-0036-025) and Juntai’s memorial on 10/8/1742 (QL7-9-10, ZPZZ 04-01-01-0077-033). For Wang Yinggeng’s biography, see LHYFZ, 46:31b–32a. Wang Yinggeng was also rewarded in 1733 ( YZ11), see Xu Chengyao and Shi Guozhu, eds., Shexian zhi (1937; reprint, Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1998), 5:1b. For Wang Yinggeng’s involvement of Pingshan Hall, see Meyer-Fong, Building Culture, 153–154, 162, 164. Wang Yinggeng’s descendants continued to be recognized by the court. In 1757 Yinggeng’s grandson, Wang Lide (business name Wang Qinyu), and Wang Lide’s younger brother, Wang Bingde, were both rewarded by the Qianlong emperor with an official title in 1762 (QL27) for their contributions to the emperor’s southern tour. G’ao Jin et al., comp., Nanxun shengdian, 70:8a. 46.  Huang Tinggui referred to Wang Tingzhang as a head merchant in his memorial on 6/3/1749 (QL14-4-19, ZPZZ 04-01-01-0181-001). Wang was also rewarded in 1757. See Lin and Wang, “Qingdai yanshang yu huangshi,” 19–20. Wang Tingzhang hired an elite, Wu Guangguo, to assist him to manage the salt business. After Tingzhang passed away, Wu continued to assist Wang Tao. See Jin Zhaoyan, “Wu Yannong zhuan,” in Zongting guwen chao, 2:1–3. Tingzhang’s younger brother, Wang Jinhou, had a son, Wang Tan, who was also a head merchant. 47.  LHYFZ, juan 50–52. 48.  For instance, Wu Zikang and his younger brother Wu Zichong were identified as Huizhou merchants and both of their wives were officially recognized in 1668. LHYFZ, 50:4b. Also see the examples of Zheng Hong and Zhu Qi in LHYFZ, 50:7a, 16a. 49.  LHYFZ, 50:4a. 50.  Lin and Wang, “Qingdai yanshang yu huangshi,” 19. Wu Jialong’s award was also recorded in Xu and Shi, She xian zhi, 5:2a. 51.  LHYFZ, 50:4b–5a. 52.  See arch inscription and LHYFZ, 50:13b. 53.  LHYFZ, 51:14. 54.  Generally speaking, regarding petitions from Han commoners, county officials were responsible for reporting cases to the prefecture level. Then the prefectural officials would present the requests to officials of the circuit (dao) district. After the dao official reported the cases to the regional inspector (xun’an yushi ), the inspector had to verify the petitions and then bring them forward to the Ministry of Rites (libu). The Ministry of Rites then investigated the cases once more before finally conferring the honors. See QDDQHDZL, 71:3b–4a. 55.  For more information of this case, see ZPZZ 04-01-12-0249-088, 04-01-350480-020, 04-01-01-0462-022, 04-01-01-0462-029. These documents were also

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published in Wang Che, “Qianlong wushijiu nian chaban Ba-ning-a yu yanshang jiaojie lianzong an,” Lishi Dang’an 1 (1994): 3–11. 56.  See Wang Zhenzhong, “Paifang daole? Richu er zuo,” Dushu 2 (1999): 108. 57.  Susan Mann, The Talented Women of the Zhang Family (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 36. 58.  Zheng Yan and Wang Yuejin, Anshang fang: koushu, wenzi he tuxiang ­(Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2008), 59. 59.  According to Jin Yuankao, among the ninety-seven extant arches in Huizhou, only two were made of wood and rest are stone arches. Song and Jin, Huizhou paifang yishu. 60.  I made this conclusion based on my own examination of stone arches in Huizhou, interviews with specialists in Huizhou architecture, and some written documents. Some specialists informed me that Yi county greenstone (Yixian qing ) was also used in arch construction in Huizhou. During my fieldwork I did not find any arches in She county built with this type of greenstone, although some arches in Yi county were known to feature greenstone. Ming scholar Fang Zhaoyan once commented that the stones from Yi county were often used as lintels (menyan) and railings (langan). According to Fang, Yi county stone is blue and turns black when it is rubbed with walnut oil. This comment was recorded in Fang Yizhi, Wuli xiaoshi (Siku quanshu 867), 7:30a. 61.  Fang Zhaoyan is a student of the famous Ming scholar Fang Yizhi (1611– 1671). Fang Zhaoyan’s comment was recorded in the section titled “rare stone” (qishi ) in Fang Yizhi’s Wuli xiaoshi. The earliest extant copy of Fang Yizhi’s book dates to 1664. Therefore, it is assumed that tea garden stone was used for arch construction before the early-Qing period. Fang Yizhi, Wuli xiaoshi, 7:30a. 62.  Cheng Jiyue is a specialist in Huizhou architecture. He has published (with co-author Cheng Shuo) a monograph on Huizhou buildings in late imperial China. Cheng Jiyue and Cheng Shuo, Huipai gu jianzhu: changyang gujian bowuguan  (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2001). 63.  The fact that the detailed carvings on the Xu Guo arch have been preserved better than those on the sandstone arches built after 1584 helps confirm that the tea garden greenstone indeed lasts longer. 64.  XZTZP, 22:15b. 65.  Hong Liangji, “Xinxiu Ruoling dao ji,” in Hong Liangji ji, 1045–1046. 66.  Hong Liangji, “Xinxiu Ruoling dao ji,” 1045. 67.  Lü Changqi and Yu Bingran, eds., Xuxiu Yanzhou fuzhi (Wanli edition; reprint, Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1991), 2:15b–16a. 68.  Lü and Yu, eds., Xuxiu Yanzhou fuzhi, 2:16a. 69.  For Huizhou merchants’ activities in Yan prefecture in Zhejiang, see Zhu Biheng, “Lun Ming Qing Huishang zai Zhejiang Qu Yan er fu de huodong,” Zhongguo Shehui Jingjishi Yanjiu 3 (2000): 10–19. 70.  For general information on column-and-beam construction and wooden joinery of Chinese buildings, see Nancy Berliner, Yin Yu Tang: The Architecture and



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Daily Life of a Chinese House (Boston: Tuttle, 2003), 116–117. For references on the column-and-beam structure of Huizhou buildings, see 128–134. 71.  Pan et al., Zhongguo gudai jianzhu shi, vol. 4, 416. 72.  Feng Youjin claimed that although he can only speak to his own experience, he learned the techniques from earlier generations of masons in Huizhou. I interviewed Feng Youjin on August 31, 2010, in the Tunxi district of Huangshan. 73.  XZTZP, 22:15. 74.  Many merchants also involved themselves in printing culture, playing the role of patron to publish classics, illustrations, and the poetry and essays authored by scholars. The publication of Lienü zhuan with beautiful illustrations, for example, is a facet of their immersion in print culture. See Bussotti, “Images of Women”; Carlitz, “The Social Uses of Female Virtue.” Because books are material things, merchants’ participation in printing culture could also be understood as one type of interaction between them and objects. 75.  Bruce Trigger, “Monumental Architecture: A Thermodynamic Explanation of Symbolic Behavior,” World Archaeology 22, no. 2 (1990): 125. 76.  The only practical function of an arch was to serve as a village landmark. 77.  For a detailed study on Huizhou women’s economic activities and their participations in public domain, see A Feng, Ming Qing shidai funü de diwei yu quanli (Beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2009). 78.  Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 231. 79.  XZTZP, 10:9a. 80.  The Bao family’s praise for their female members is only one example of many biographies praising diligent wives and doting mothers in merchant families. Harriet Zurndorfer argues that in the Ming dynasty, the elites commonly claimed “Huizhou females were particularly diligent and frugal. . . . [T]hese women were also known for their chastity.” See Harriet T. Zurndorfer, “The Hsin-an Ta-tsu Chih and the Development of Chinese Gentry Society 800–1600,” T’oung Pao 67, no. 3–5 (1981): 198. For more High Qing cases, see the biography of head merchant Jiang Chun’s wife Lady Luo in Shen Dacheng, “Luo furen zhuan,” Xuefuzhai ji (Xuxiu Siku quanshu 1428), 19:13–16. 81.  Wu Youru, Wu Youru huabao, ji 12, Gujin mingsheng tushuo, 15a. 82.  With regard to symbolic display, see Mary Backus Rankin and Joseph W. Esherick, “Concluding Remarks,” in Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance, ed. Joseph W. Escherick and Mary Backus Rankin, 326. 83.  Wu Jingzi, Rulin waishi (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1993),  253–259. 84.  See Wu Yulian, “Xianghuo liaorao zhong de guifan yu jiyi: Huizhou diqu nücitang yanjiu,” Nüxue xuezhi: funü xingbie yu yanjiu 18 (2004): 18–21. Huang Yizheng was the father of head merchant Huang Lüxian, who was introduced in Chapter 1. Construction of a female ancestral hall reveals Huang Yizheng’s emotional attachment to his mother. This emotional attachments constitutes an important reason to build an arch.

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notes to chapter 5 and conclusion

85.  For more information on the examination system and social mobility, see Ho, The Ladder of Success, 168–194. 86.  Huang Jizhen was born in 1933 and has been living in Tandu village in her entire life. I interviewed Huang Jizhen on August 29, 2010, in Tandu village. 87.  For a discussion on local residents’ responses to chastity arches, see Wu, “‘Let People See and Be Moved,’” 148–162. conclusion 1.  Jiang Chun, preface to Xuefuzhai ji, in Shen Dacheng, Xuefuzhai ji, 1a–1b. 2.  Liang Zhangju, Langji congtan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 21–22. Liang was a descendant of a scholar family and was classically educated. He became a jinshi and was selected a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy in 1802. Liang composed these miscellaneous notes around 1846–1847. For Liang’s biography, see ECCP, 499–500. 3.  Wang Maolin’s family conducted salt business in Yangzhou, but Wang became a jinshi in 1667 (KX6). LHYFZ, 46:9b. Wang Maolin married his daughter to Cheng Wenzheng, who became a jinshi in 1691 (KX30). Cheng Wenzheng came from a head merchant family. His grandfather was Cheng Liangru, the older brother of Cheng Shi (see Chapter 1, note 75). Wenzheng’s father, Cheng Zhiying, served as “head merchant and merchant chief for over twenty years.” Wenzheng’s son Cheng Mengxing won another jinshi title in 1712 (KX51) and became a famous scholar in Yangzhou. For Zhiying and Wenzheng’s biographies, see LHYFZ, 44:9; 46:14b–15a. 4.  Shen Dacheng was employed as private secretary by Lu Jianceng (1690–1768), who was the chief commissioner of the salt monopoly of Lianghuai from 1737 to 1738 and 1753 to 1762. During this period Shen worked for Lu in the compilation of the latter’s Guochao shanzuo shi chao. ECCP, 357. 5.  In addition to tongren, the term tongru was also used. Hu Minghui has provided a thorough discussion on the use and rich meaning of tongru. Hu translated tongru as “broadly learned scholars.” According to Hu’s study, this term was used to describe Chinese intellectuals in the eighteenth century who “recognized the equal importance of humanist vision and technical methodology for understanding the classical world.” Hu Minghui, China’s Transition to Modernity: The New Classical Vision of Dai Zhen (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015), 15–23; quotation is on 21. 6.  For instance, Jin Zhaoyan used these words to praise Lady Tang’s husband, the head merchant Wang Futang. Jin also used “gancai ” to describe head merchant Jiang Shengyi’s ability in his biography for Shengyi’s daughter. See Jin Zhaoyan, “Wang furen zhuan,” and “Wangmu Jiang gongren zhuan,” in Zongting guwen chao, 3:9–11, 3:11b–13b. Shen Dacheng used “ganli ” to describe another salt merchant, Luo Lun. See Shen Dacheng, “Fang ruren zhuan,” in Xuefuzhai ji, 19:10–12. 7.  Scholars not only recognized the salt merchants’ managerial skills but also highlighted the practical skills of merchants’ wives. They praised women’s ability in accounting and economic management, for the household and for the husband’s



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governmental affairs. See Shen Dacheng, “Luo furen zhuan” and “Fang ruren zhuan,” in Xuefuzhai ji, 19:13–16a; 19:10–12. 8.  Jiang Fan was a scholar of the Suzhou school and an ardent exponent of the school of Han learning. He wrote a notable book, Guochao hanxue shi cheng ji, which consists of biographies of fifty-six scholars of the School of Han learning. He associated closely with the high official Ruan Yuan and with Wang Jie, who was the Grand Secretary from 1787–1802. ECCP, 137–138. 9.  BSSXL, shang, 4:22b. 10.  Jiang Chun, preface to Shen Dacheng, Xuefuzhai ji, 1a–1b. 11.  From the time of the Ming dynasty, even though it was quite common for merchants to write poems, it was rare for a merchant to write prose, especially a preface. It is true that Jiang was Shen’s patron for ten years, and it seems that Jiang also published Shen’s work, but still an invitation from a scholar to write a preface for his essay collection reflected Jiang’s prestige. 12.  For discussions on Huizhou salt merchants’ activities in Jiangnan and Huizhou, see Wang Zhenzhong, Ming Qing Huishang Yu Huai Yang Shehui Bianqian (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1996); Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 213–294; and Du Yongtao, “Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment: The Pans of Suzhou in Qing China,” Late Imperial China 27, no. 1 (2006): 31–65. 13.  Jonathan Hay has discussed the relationship between luxury and geography and reveals Huizhou’s importance as an “out-of-the-way production centre.” Hay, Sensuous Surfaces, 42–51; quotation is on 46. 14.  Ibid., 42, 46. 15.  For a study of the Anhui painting school, see James Cahill, ed., Shadows of Mt. Huang: Chinese Painting and Printing of the Anhui School (Berkeley, CA: University Art Museum, 1981); for more information on seal carvers in She county, see Bai Qianshen, Fu Shan’s World, 56. 16.  Yuan Mei’s biography for Jiang Chun is the best example here. See Yuan Mei, “Gaofeng guanglu dafu Fengchenyuan qing buzhengshi Jianggong muzhi­ ming,” in Xiaocangshanfang wenji, 32:576–577. 17.  Qianlong’s edict on 3/21/1757 (QL22-2-2), G’ao Jin et al., comp., Nanxun shengdian, 69:8a. 18.  The extent to which these head merchants become involved in the salt monopoly policy is not completely clear. Although the salt merchants were probably not the decision makers, documents show that it was common for the merchants to propose suggestions to the salt administrators on managing the business. Also, numerous examples exist of the sudden decline of wealthy head merchant households, showing that these merchants and their businesses were vulnerable. They had to walk a fine line when dealing with the imperial court, which might smile or frown upon them in the twinkling of an eye. 19.  This title was given to the merchants who had already obtained third rank (sanpin) positions. Qianlong’s edict on 3/21/1757 (QL22-2-2); G’ao Jin, Nanxun shengdian, 69:8a.

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20.  The description of the Imperial Parks Administration is recorded in Zhao Erxun et al. Qing shi gao under the category of “Imperial Household Department,” 118:3435–3438. Also see Hucker, A Dictionary, 212. 21.  Ho Ping-ti has mentioned the different and even contrasting ways that the Qianlong emperor, compared to the first and third Ming emperors, dealt with wealthy merchants, claiming that “it reflected a basic change in the attitude of the imperial government toward rich merchants.” Ho, The Ladder of Success, 83. 22.  Beatrice S. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in MidCh’ing China, 1723–1820 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 6. 23.  Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate’s Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Ch’ing China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), xiv. 24.  For a summary on Manchu rulers’ cultural and political strategies, see Evelyn S. Rawski, “The Qing Formation and the Early-Modern Period,” in The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time, ed. Lynn Struve (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 226-235. 25.  For an example in the Tang dynasty, see Mark Lewis, China’s Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2012), 83. Antonia Finnane cites S. N. Eisenstadt’s theory that explains government’s reliance on merchants. According to this theory, merchants were “free-floating” and more amenable to recruitment than landowners who were “embedded resources.” Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 120. 26.  Some scholars have touched on the subject of the relationship between objects, technology, and Qing politics. For instance, Pamela Crossley has discussed how the multichambered cabinets of curiosity (duobaoge) embodied the Qianlong emperor’s ideology of “universal sovereignty.” Crossley, A Translucent Mirror, 38. Dagmer Schäfer and other scholars have described the important role that the imperial court played in disseminating and circulating practical knowledge. Dagmer Schäfer, ed., Cultures of Knowledge: Technology in Chinese History (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2012), and Gongting yu difang. Jonathan Hay also provides an illuminating discussion on the cultural authority of the court in Kangxi’s reign in “The Diachronics of Early Qing Visual and Material Culture,” in The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time, ed. Lynn A. Struve (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 303–334. 27.  A few pioneering scholars have demonstrated how the Qianlong emperor might insert his own taste into Jiangnan. See Guo Fuxiang, “Qianlong di yu Suzhou yuqi diaoke,” Gugong Xuekan 6 (2010): 209–223; Lai Hui-min, “Guaren haohuo”; and Lai Hui-min, “Suzhou de dongyanghua yu shimin shenhuo (1736–1795),” Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica 63 (2009): 1–48. 28.  I have no intention to claim that all of Jiangnan elites accepted the Qing court’s taste. The scholarly elites, in fact, had mixed reactions toward these new trends. While some literati expressed admiration for the merchants’ glorious dwellings and precious collections, other outspoken and prominent scholars criticized merchants’ consumption as extravagant or decadent. A deeper analysis of this



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c­ onflict and of local trends in taste and fashion is needed to probe these tensions adequately. 29.  Zhang Peifang and Liu Dakui, eds., Shexian zhi (1771; reprint, Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1975) 10:2a–5b. Since High Qing times, the gazetteers of Huizhou and She county have often recorded the honors that the head merchants received from the imperial court. See Ma Buchan and Xia Luan, eds., Huizhou fuzhi (1827; reprint, Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1975), juan 10, section 2:23–24; juan 12, section 5:23–24; section 5:35–36; section 5:52–56. Xu Chengyao also highlighted the influence and privilege of the eight head merchant households in She county, differentiating it from the gazetteers of previous times. Xu Chengyao and Shi Guozhu, eds., Shexian zhi, 1:6. 30.  Recent scholarship has reexamined the importance of dynastic tradition and the differences between the Ming and Qing dynasties. As discussed in the introduction, scholars have demonstrated how the Manchu court’s political strategies were different from the ones from the Ming. Scholars have also reexamined the economic and cultural transformations from the Ming to the Qing. For instance, in her analysis of Ming urbanization, Fei Si-yen argues that “the institutional and cultural practices that arose in response to late Ming urbanization invariably bear a distinct dynastic signature.” Fei Si-yen, Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 252. 31.  Craig Clunas mentions scholars’ changing attitudes toward luxury consumption from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. Clunas, Superfluous Things, 168–173. Jonathan Hay highlights the Kangxi emperor’s influence in porcelain production in his article “The Diachronics”; Wu Jen-shu discusses the “rupture (duanlie)” between the consumer culture in late Ming and High Qing. Wu Jen-shu, “Ming Qing xiaofei wenhua de xinqujing yu xinwenti,” Xin Shixue 12 (2006):  231–233.

Character List

(Note: Chinese characters for the names from the Bao lineage have been provided in the genealogy chart: Figure 4.1. I will provide zi or hao for a person from Bao lineage in this list if that is available.) A-ke-dang-a (Akdangga) 阿克當阿 Anhui anchashi 安徽按察使 Anhui buzhengshi 安徽布政使 Anhui fenxundao 安徽分巡道 Anhui xunfu 安徽巡撫 anshi zhiren 諳事之人 anshu tuoshang 諳熟妥商 Ansu xuan fatie 安素軒法帖 Ba-ning-a 巴寧阿 Ba Weizu 巴慰祖 Bai-ling (Beling) 百齡 bailianshi zhi 白連史紙 baisui百歲 banchai 辦差 bankuang 版框 banshi mingbai 辦事明白 bao ji er jiaduo 寶積而加多 Bao Qiyun 鮑啟運 (zi Fangtao 方陶, hao Pizhai 甓齋) Bao Shousun 鮑壽孫 Bao Shufang 鮑漱芳 (zi Xifen 席芬, 惜分) Bao Wenyuan 鮑文淵 Bao Xiangxian 鮑象賢 Bao Xunmao 鮑勲茂 (zi Genshi 根實, Shutang 樹堂) Bao Youheng 鮑有恒

Bao Zhidao 鮑志道 (zi Chengyi 誠一, Kenyuan 肯園) Bao Zongyan 鮑宗巖 baosha 寶砂 bashi tongju 八世同居 bei 碑 beiwu shuchen 備物輸忱 bendi de 本地的 benjia juling 本家具領 benjia qinqi 本家親戚 benzong 本宗 bi-tie-shi (bithesi) 筆帖式 Bi Yuan 畢沅 bian qi banpian 辨其板片 Bingbu zhifangsi langzhong 兵部職方司郎中

biyi 筆意 bo 博 bogu 博古 botong博通 bowu 博物 boxue 博學 boxue zhiru 博學之儒 boya 博雅 bubi jiashou lixu, gengke buzhi zirao 不必假手吏胥, 更可不致自擾 buge xianyi 不隔纖翳 bujing lixu zhi shou 不經吏胥之手

257

258

character list

buneng shi min yousuo guan’gan 不能使民有所觀感 buneng xijia chahe 不能細加查核 burushi 不如式 bushi 不時 bushi xiuqi 不時修葺 buxi zhongpin 不惜重聘

buxu zouqing jianli paifang 不許奏請建立牌坊

buzhengshi 布政使 cangshu sizhang 藏書私帳 cangshujia 藏書家 Cao Wenzhi 曹文埴 (zi Jinwei 近薇, hao Zhuxu 竹虛) Cao Yin 曹寅 Caocao yingchou zhi zuo 草草應酬之作

Censhandu 岑山渡 Chapo 茶坡 chang yi Wang suozhi chonggong 常以汪所製充貢

Changchun yuan 長春園 changgong 常貢 changshang 場商 chayuanqing 茶園青 chayuanshi, Huizhou quzuo paifang 茶源石, 徽州取作牌坊 Chen Dawen 陳大文 Cheng Dadian 程大典 Cheng Deda 程德大 Cheng Di 程玓 Cheng Guangguo 程光國 Cheng Hong 程洪 cheng kong yu 澄空宇 Cheng Liangheng 程量衡 Cheng Liangneng 程量能 Cheng Liangru 程量入 Cheng Qiande 程謙德 Cheng Shi 程奭 Cheng Wenzheng 程文正 Cheng Yaotian 程瑤田 Cheng Zhan 程旃

Cheng Zhiying 程之韺 chengli 成例 chenzhang 宸章 Choushu 稠墅 chuanbangong 傳辦貢 chumian benjia chaiyi 除免本家差役

Chun’an 淳安 Chunhua xuan 淳化軒 cishu tang 賜書堂 cixiao 慈孝 cixiao fang 慈孝坊 Cixiao tang 慈孝堂 “cixiao wei koushi” 慈孝為口實 congtian 沖天 cucao 粗糙 “cuozhi jiufeng chu guqing” 錯置九峰出古情

dafang 大坊 Dai Zhen 戴震 Dantai chunxiao 丹臺春曉 danzhu huanran 丹朱煥然 dangce 檔冊 Daxing 大興 dayou biyi 大有裨益 dazao 大造 dazong 大總 deng 等 Deng Shiru 鄧石如 Ding Jing丁敬 ding yanmo 頂煙墨 dingli 定例 dingshi 定式 Dong Chun 董椿 duanyang 端陽 dunben housu 敦本厚俗 Dunben hu 敦本戶 duozi er haogu 多資而好古 E-le-bu (Elebu) 額勒布 enrong sishi 恩榮四世 er qijia zi longlong qi而其家自隆隆起



character list

Fa-shi-shan (Faššan) 法式善 (zi Kaiwen 開文, hao Shifan 時帆, Wumen 梧門) fanli 凡例 fang 房 (chapter 4) fang 訪 (chapter 2) fang biao qianqiu 坊表千秋 Fang Zhaoyan 方兆兖 fei jingjin zhidao 非敬謹之道 fei tewei wenfang shangwan zhipin 非特為文房賞玩之品

fei yu shelizhe suo ke tongri yu 非與射利者所可同日語

feizha 飛札 Feng Youjin 馮有進 Fengchenyuan qing 奉宸苑卿 fengjiao 風教 fengjing jianfang 奉旌建坊 fengyi 風義 Fu-heng 傅恒 Fu-le-hun 富勒渾 fu tuo yu tu yi chuan qishi 復托於圖以傳其事

gongsuo 工所 gongwu 公務 (government tasks) gongwu 貢物 (tribute) gongyu 貢餘 gongzhe 貢摺 gongzhong jindan 宮中進單 gu 古 Gu Aying 顧阿瑛 Gu Congde 顧從德 Gu Licheng 谷麗成 Gu Lian 顧廉 gu wei you ye 古未有也 Gu Youjian 顧又簡 guaiguai qiqi, lian’er weiyi 怪怪奇奇, 聯而為一 Guan-deng 官登 guan gua gu du 鰥寡孤獨 guan’gan 觀感 guanyao 官窯 guangguang de 光光的 guangwei fangjie 廣為訪借 guashizhe meiyu zhenjian yanke 寡識者昧于甄鑒贗刻

gancai 幹才 ganli 幹力 gang 綱 gang an 綱岸 gang fa 綱法 Gao Bin (G’ao Bin) 高斌 Gao Heng (G’ao Hu¯ng) 高恒 Gao Jin (G’ao Jin) 高晉 Ge-er-tai 噶爾泰 geixie lianmian 給些臉面 “gengqi mingliu shi” 更乞名流什 geshan 隔扇 gezhong binglie 各種並列 Gongbu dushuisi langzhong 工部都水司郎中

gongcheng zuofa 工程做法 gongdan 貢單 gongdang 貢檔 gongshi 公事 gongshi zhi zhi 宫室之制

Gusu fanhua tu 姑蘇繁華圖 guti 古體 guya 古雅 hainei 海內 Hao Yu 郝浴 haojie zhi shi 豪杰之士 haoshi 好事 Hong Chongshi 洪充實 Hong Zhaogen 洪肇根 Hong Zhenyuan 洪箴遠 Hong Zhengzhi 洪徵治 hongmu 紅木 Huang Binhong 黄宾虹 Huang Chengji 黃承吉 Huang Dexu 黃德煦 Huang Guoda 黃國達 Huang Guokui 黃國逵 Huang Jizhen 黃繼珍 Huang Lüang 黄履昂

259

260

character list

Huang Lüling 黄履灵 Huang Lüxian 黄履暹 Huang Sheng 黃晟 Huang Tianyu 黃天宇 Huang Tinggui 黃廷桂 Huang Yi 黃易 Huang Yixuan 黃以璿 Huang Yizheng 黃以正 Huang Yingzu 黃應祖 Huang Yuande 黃源德 Huang Yue 黃鉞 Huang Zhongde 黃中德 Huanggang 黃岡 huangqian rendun 皇潛壬遁 huangyang 黃楊 huayang 畫樣 Hubu Shandong si yuanwailang 戶部山東司員外郎

Huishang 徽商 “huitu yi ji wangshi” 繪圖以紀往事 Huizhou wenshu 徽州文書 huoji 活計 ji 集 Ji-qing (Giking) 吉慶 ji zi 集字 Jixi 績溪 jiyan jialei 虀鹽家累 jia 家 jiashang 甲商 jianding tuji shuhua 鑒定圖籍書畫 jianshangjia 鑒賞家 jiansou bocai 兼搜博採 Jiang Chengjie 江承玠 Jiang Chengyu 江承瑜 Jiang Chun 江春 (zi Yingchang 潁長, hao Heting 鶴亭) Jiang Fan 江藩 Jiang Fang 江昉 (zi Xudong 旭東, hao Chengli 橙里, Yannong 硯農) Jiang Guangda 江廣達 Jiang Guomao 江國茂

Jiang Ritai 江日泰 Jiang Tan 江菼 Jiang Yan 江演 Jiang Zhuzhou 江助周 jiangti 匠體 jiaochoujia 校讎家 jiaoguan 教官 jiaohua 教化 jiaoshou 教授 jiaoyu 教諭 jie lie 節烈 Jie Xisi 揭傒斯 jie xiao ci 節孝祠 “jie xiao shijian” 節孝事件 jie Yuechu 潔越楮 jieduan xusuo 藉端需索 jiefu 節婦 Jiejian hu 節儉戶 jieshengyin 節省銀 jince 金冊 “jindai zhe yi shei” 津逮者伊誰 jindan 進單 jinjing lazhu 進京蠟燭 jinjing gongduan 進京貢緞 jinshixue 金石學 jinti 今體 jintie zhi 津貼制 jing shan ting 旌善亭 jingbiao 旌表 jingbiao menlü 旌表門閭 jingcai bixian 精彩畢現 Jingde 旌德 jingshi 經世 jingxue 經學 jingzhi 精致 ju zhihui yan 具智慧眼 juwei jiyou 據為己有 juwen 具文 Juanqin zhai 倦勤齋 juanzi zhouji, huiji benxiang 捐資周急, 惠濟本鄉 “junzi gui gongxing” 君子貴躬行

Ka-er-ji-shan 喀爾吉善 Ka-tong-a 喀通阿 kai zhong fa 開中法 kaibao jiazhi, juling yinliang 開報價值, 具領銀兩 kaishu 楷書 Kangshan caotang 康山草堂 kanqiang 檻牆 kaodingjia 考訂家 kaogu boxue 考古博學 kaozheng 考證 kezhang 客長 kongshu buqie 空疏不切 kongtan 空談 kouliu queshao 扣留缺少 leshan haoshi 樂善好施 li 力 Li E 厲鄂 li lei wei shi 釐類為十 Li Tailai 李泰來 Li Wei 李衛 Li Yongda 李永大 Li Zhiying 李質潁 li zuyi zhi zhi 力足以致之 lifang 立坊 lifang jingbiao 立坊旌表 lijie wangu 立節完孤 lishu 隸書 lixu 吏胥 liying beiban gongwu 理應備辦貢物 Liang Tongshu 梁同書 lingyan 凌煙 Liu Yong 劉墉 liushu 六書 Longshan cixiaotang 龍山慈孝堂 Lu Chao 盧焯 Lu Jianceng 盧見曾 Lu gong 魯公 lugong 路貢 Lukou 路口 Luo Zhenyu 羅振裕

character list

261

lüshi 律詩 lüsu shuting 律素書廳 lüefanjia 掠贩家 Ma Delong 馬德隆 Ma Yu 馬裕 Ma Yueguan 馬曰琯 (zi Qiuyu 秋玉, hao Xiegu 嶰谷) Ma Yuelu 馬曰璐 (zi Peixi 佩兮, hao bancha 半槎) mai mai ren 買賣人 maicun yixian 脈存一線 Mi Yuanhui 米元暉 Miantan 緜潭 minmo 泯沒 Ming-shan (Mingšan) 明山 minghuan xiangxian 名宦鄉賢 mingyan cunzhen 名眼存真 mouli 謀利 mu 畝 Mulan gong 木蘭貢 mushi zhi en 母氏之恩 mutu 墓圖 nan’er 男兒 nanmu 楠木 nanyi zi’an 難以自安 “nang jiao yuzi shu” 曩校玉字書 nei san qi 內三旗 neiwufu langzhong 內務府郎中 neiwufu zongguan 內務府總管 neiyan zhuangxiu 內簷裝修 neizao 內造 Ni Zan 倪瓚 Ningshou gong 寧壽宮 niu 鈕 Niu Si 牛四 paidang 排當 Pan Chenglie 潘承烈 peida zaijin 配搭再進 pi 癖

262

character list

pianti wen 駢體文 Poyang 鄱陽 Pu-fu 普福 qi旗 qifa houren 啟發後人 qilin 麒麟 “Qilüe jiantai yu” 七略簡汰餘 Qimen 祁門 qishan chan qingbi jianshi 其山產青碧堅石

qishi 奇石 qixue wusuo bujiu 其學無所不究 qiyin 七音 Qian Daxin 錢大昕 Qian Dong 錢東 qianfuzhang 千夫長 Qiankou 潛口 qianyin 鈐印 qing hua shi 青滑石 Qing yi tang清懿堂 qingyi 情意 qiong qianqiu zhi jueye er jindai 窮千秋之絕業而津逮 Qiu 仇 Qiuchuan 虯川 Quan-de (Ciowande) 全德

renjian hangou 人間罕覯 renyi fukai 任意浮開 Rong gong 榮公 rongbao sanshi 榮褒三世 ruci 入祠 Ruan Yuan 阮元 runbi 潤筆 ruo kemian suijia, xishi linmo 若刻面雖佳, 係是臨摹 Sa-zai 薩載 San-bao (Samboo) 三保 (Table 1.1) San-bao (Samboo) 三寶 (Table 1.2) San-he (Sanhe) 三和 sanshang 散商

sanyuan 三院 Shaanxi 陜西 “shanshen yun manman” 山深雲漫漫 Shanxi 山西 shang che tian ting 上徹天聽 shang san qi 上三旗 shangjianjia 賞鑒家 shangyong duansha 上用緞紗 shao jianbie 少鉴别 shaoyao 芍藥 She 歙 Sheshi yi le buke yong 歙石易泐不可用 Shexi 歙西 shenshu kejia 甚属可佳 Sheng-an (Šenggan) 盛安 shengshi 盛世 shengzhi 聖旨 shi史 shi 嗜 (to be fond of) “shi feng jun suoxian” 時逢君所獻 shi guqi 識古器 shi qianzai xia you suo kao 使千載下有所考

shi wu juxi yi you furen zhihua 事無鉅細一由夫人指畫

shigu 嗜古 shigu you qipi 嗜古有奇癖 shijian 實踐 shishu huangtang 實屬荒唐 shixi 世系 shixitu 世系圖 shixue 實學 shizhen quanxiao 矢貞全孝 shou mai kugu 收埋枯骨 shou zhi baisui 壽至百歲 shoucang er buze shan’e 收藏而不择善恶

shoucangjia 收藏家 “shoushi li kebi” 壽世理可必 shouyang guyou 收養孤幼 shouzong 首總 Shu-lu (Šuru) 書魯 shu’an shangren 熟諳商人



character list

shu’an tuoshang 熟諳妥商 shu’en 殊恩 shuju 書局 Shuyuan 蜀源 shuifan 水販 shuishang 水商 shunsun 順孫 si wu bieyou micang zhi shi 似無別有秘藏之事

sida yuanbao 四大元寶 sishi 祀事 siwen sishu 斯文斯書 sixiang bazhen jishi li lu 四鄉八鎮幾十里路

Songti 宋體 “souji le zhenmin” 搜輯勒貞珉 Su-leng-e 蘇楞額 “suru shang kongtan” 俗儒尚空談 suxue 俗學 suigong 歲貢 Suo-lin (Solin) 索琳 Tandu 潭渡 tang 堂 Tang Yaoqing 湯瑤卿 tangyang 燙樣 Tangyue 棠樾 techan特產 teci juren 特賜舉人 Tiyuan hu 體源戶 tiao mai zitan 挑買紫檀 Tie-bao (Tiyeboo) 鐵保 tie diao zhuhuang 貼雕竹黃 tongren 通人 tongren juru 通人鉅儒 tu 圖 Tu-ming-a 圖明阿 “tuhua liuchuan tong shishi” 圖畫流傳同史事

tupu 圖譜 tuyang chicun 圖樣尺寸 tuiqiu yuanben 推求原本 tunhu 囤戶

263

wai ba qi 外八旗 waizhi bufu yin 外支不敷銀 waizhi yin 外支銀 wan 玩 wanwu shiqing 玩物適情 Wang Bingde 汪秉德 Wang Chengbi 汪承璧 Wang Dahong 汪大黉 Wang Fen 汪芬 Wang Futang 汪黻堂 Wang Ge 汪舸 Wang Lide 汪立德 Wang Liushui 汪六水 Wang Lütai 王履泰 Wang Maolin 汪懋麟 (hao Jiaomen 蛟門) Wang Qishu 汪啟淑 (zi Xiufeng 秀峰, Shenyi 慎儀; hao Ren’an 訒葊, Huaigu 槐谷) Wang Qisun 王芑孫 Wang Qiyuan 汪啓源 Wang Qinyu 汪勤裕 Wang Shuqi 汪樹琪 Wang Tao 汪燾 Wang Tingzhang 汪廷璋 Wang Xun 汪勳 Wang Yinggeng 汪應庚 Wang Yushu 汪玉樞 Wang Zuhui 汪祖輝 wei 衛 weideng shiban zhi ren 未登仕版之人 weimian cushuai 未免粗率 weiren xiaoxin jinchi 為人小心謹飭 weiwangren 未亡人 weizhi shumi, anpai pomiao 位置疏密, 安排頗妙 Wen Peng 文彭 Wen Qi 文起 wenhan 文翰 wu chang juyu suohao 物常聚於所好 Wu Jialong 吳家龍 wu jianying 無兼營 wu pangwu 無旁騖

264

character list

wu shifei rongru zhi jian 無是非榮辱之見 Wu Shijie 吳士傑 Wu Xizu 吳禧祖 Wu Yongfeng 吳永豐 Wu Yuda 吳裕大 Wu Yuru 吳玉如 Wu Yuanfeng 吳元豐 wu zhi zhen wei 物之真偽 Wu Zhuo 吳焯 Wu Zichong 吳自充 Wu Zikang 吴自亢 Wu Zunde 吳尊德 Wubentang 務本堂

Wuhan Huang De dao 武漢黃德道

wuse boli 五色玻璃 Wuyuan 婺源 wuzhuo xiankuan 無着閑款 xi qi yuanwei 悉其原委 xichi 鸂鶒 Xi’nan 溪南 xiqi 習氣 Xiachanglin 下長林 xianbo nongdian, cuoluo qijian 纖波濃點, 錯落其間 xianguai cusu 險怪粗俗 xiankuan 閑款 xianxi buyi, ju kai zainei 纖細不遺, 俱開在內 Xiang Yuanbian 項元汴 xiangfeizhu 湘妃竹 xiangguo 相國 xiangshen jianzao 詳慎監造 xiangxi mifang 詳細秘訪 xiaofu 孝婦 xiaoji 小技 xiaolinglong 小玲瓏 xiaoqi 小氣 xiaoshi 曉事 xiaoshi shangren 曉事商人 xiaoxue 小學

xiaozi 孝子 Xie Cilü 謝賜履 Xin’an 新安 xinmu huoran心目豁然 xing 行 xingshu 行書 Xiong Xuepeng 熊學鵬 Xiuning 休寧 Xu Guo 許國 Xu Liangfu 徐良夫 xushang zhi dao 恤商之道 Xu Shangzhi 徐尚志 Xu Shiye 徐士業 xuan gou wuliao 選購物料 xuan gu gongjiang 選僱工匠 xuanshang lingban 選商領辦 Xuanzhong tang 宣忠堂 Xue Quan 薛銓 xun’an yushi 巡按御史 xundao 訓導 xunyan yushi 巡鹽御使 Yan 顏 Yan Zhenqing 顏真卿 yanwu 鹽務 yanyuan 盐院 yanyunshi 鹽運使 Yanzhen 巖鎮 yanzheng 鹽政 yang lian yin 養廉銀 Yang Lun 楊倫 Yao Jiheng 姚際恒 Yi 黟 yi haogu zhixin, ju jiangu zhishi, you youli yi huiji zhi 以好古之心, 具鑒古之識, 又有力以彙集之 Yi-la-qi (Ilaci) 伊拉齊 Yi-ling-a (Ilingga) 伊齡阿 yi qia cihuan 以洽慈歡 yi yi fengsu 以易風俗 yichan sannan 一產三男 yifu 義夫 Yihe xuan 頤和軒

yilun 彛倫 yishu san’e 一樹三萼 yitian 義田 Yixian qing 黟縣青 yixiang 遺像 yixing 義行 yiyang chengzuo 一样成作 Yin Huiyi 尹會一 yin qin ji you 因親及友 Yin-zhu (Inju) 寅著 yinku 銀庫 yinpi 印癖 yinpu 印譜 Ying-lian (Ingliyan) 英廉 yingluangong 迎鑾貢 yingzao chi 營造尺 yingzheng 應徵 yong 用 Yong-xing (Yongsing) 永瑆 You-ba-shi (Iobaši) 尤拔士 “you duo ren weijian” 猶多人未見 you lianmian 有臉面 you shu feili 尤屬非理 youshizhe 有識者 yousi 有司 yu dianji qiwei shangjin 與典籍氣味尚近 Yulan Tang que shi 御覽唐闕史 yushan 玉山 yushi ting 御詩亭 yushu 御書 yushu lou 御書樓 Yuan Mei 袁枚 yuanxing 原姓 yuanzu 遠祖 Yue-qian (Yokiyan) 岳謙 yunshang 運商 Yunzhen zhai 蘊真齋 zaji 雜技 zang jing 藏經 zaobanchu 造辦處 Zeng Yu 曾燠 (zi Shufan 庶蕃, hao Bingu 賓谷)

character list

265

Zhang Qi 張琦 Zhang Ruozhen 張若震 zhaokan 照看 zhaojiangong 召見貢 Zhaotai 肇泰 zhaoying 照應 “zhenchuan buxiu yi” 真傳不朽矣 zhenshou zhi men 貞寿之門 zheng queshi 正缺失 Zheng-rui 徵瑞 zhengxiang qian liang 正項錢糧 zhi 知 Zhou Xuanwu 周宣武 Zhu Gui 朱珪 (zi Shijun 石君, hao Nanya 南崖) zhu qi cuoe 注其錯訛 Zhu Wenzao 朱文藻 Zhu Zhang 朱樟 zhugan shi 豬肝石 zhusha ni 硃砂泥 zhuyi dengming, yibian chakao 逐一登明, 以便查考 zhuanshu 篆書 zhuanyun shi 轉運使 zhuanzhou 篆籀 zhuanzhi 傳志 zhuangxiu wujian 裝修物件 Zhun-tai (Juntai) 準泰 zhuoding xinshi huawen 酌定新式花紋 zi bi qi neng 自蔽其能 zi jinhu gu, yong shihu jin 字近乎古, 用適乎今 zi ming zhong 自鳴鐘 zizhong yinduo zhiren 資重引多之人 zongshang 總商 zongshang nei xiaoshi zhiren 總商內曉事之人

zouxiao 奏銷 zu 族 zu zong ban tianxia 足踪半天下 zuzhi 族侄 zuoyoushou 左右手

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Index

Ago, Renata, 24 ancestral halls and shrines. See halls, ancestral; shrines, ancestral anthologies, 25, 50, 106, 155 antiquity, appeals to, 143–145 Appadurai, Arjun, 9 arches: ancestral, 141; benefits to court, 189; chastity, 160–185; construction process, 172–177; display of, 177–185; extant, 169– 171, 248n31, 248n41, 248n43; financing, 167, 169, 172, 176–177, 200; and gender dynamic, 182–183; inscription on, 169–171, 178–179, 182; location, 168–169, 180; materiality, 11, 172–185; as a medium, 161, 166, 168, 184, 198; merchants as patrons, 169– 172; purposes of, 11, 18, 161–162, 169, 177– 184, 189, 198–199; size, 1, 180; as sources, 25; types, 169, 182–183 Auslander, Leora, 203n2 Bai Qianshen, 108, 233n59 bamboo: construction material, 176; material for seal, 114; technique of tie diao zhuhuang (carving on bamboo skin), 87; xiangfeizhu (type of bamboo), 73 Ba-ning-a, 66–67, 69, 171 bannermen, 16, 38–47, 56–57, 59, 154, 165 banner system, 39–40, 56–57, 213n35, 213n37; women, 167 bannerwomen, 164, 167 Bao Cong, 133, 140, 239n28 Bao lineage, 11, 49, 101–102, 127–159, 189, 199; ancestors and branches, 128–134, 141; arches, 165, 176–177 Bao Qiyun, 132, 135; and charitable lands, 139, 147–153; network, 149–151

Bao Shousun, 141 Bao Shufang, 131–132, 155, 165 Bao Tingbo, 103–104 Bao Xiangxian, 129, 134 Bao Xunmao, 132; and court, 132, 157; and genealogy, 135; network, 155–157, 194, 240n46, 243n77 Bao Zhidao (business name: Bao Youheng), 102, 127, 129–133, 138–139, 192; genealogy, 133–140, 240n44; household of, 69, 127, 129–133, 189, 237n4; network, 140, 143, 144–147, 155, 240n46; patronage of artisans and connoisseurs, 69; shrine, 140–147; and Yuan Mei, 145–146, 155 Bao Zongyan, 141 Bartlett, Beatrice, 197 Berliner, Nancy, 176 Bian Li, 248n41 bondservants of emperors, 14–15, 16, 38–47, 59, 84–85, 89, 196 books: materiality of genealogy, 135–140; materiality of seal impression catalog, 115–119. See also collecting: books; printing; publishing Bourdieu, Pierre, 247n28 Bray, Francesca, 247n28 bronze and stone, study of (jinshixue), 144; and reputation, 69, 144–146, 150; and seals, 109–110, 233n67. See also rubbings bureaucracy, 15; and charitable lands, 148– 149; and chastity arch, 182; and Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, 76; salt merchants’ unofficial networks as supplement to, 16, 48, 89, 188, 196–197, 215n61; and salt monopoly, 38–47. See also officials business names, 48, 50, 131–132, 215n59

287

288

index

calligraphy, 68, 69, 108–109, 149, 151–152, 153; bei (monument) school, 154; and collection (see under collecting); emperor’s, 1, 53, 164, 166, 182; and morality, 152–153, 243n85; as skill, 150–151, 154. See also Yan Zhenqing Cao Wenzhi, 140, 154–155 Cao Yin, 15, 40 Carlitz, Katherine, 242n63 Catalog of Ancient Ritual Bronzes (Xiqing ­gujian), 95, 96 Censhandu village, 49, 216n72, 217n75. See also She county Chang, Michael, 13, 15, 51, 83, 206n29, 206n31, 218nn77–78 characters, written. See scripts charitable lands (yitian), 127, 139, 147–153, 189, 199; government regulation of, 148– 149; for women, 179 chastity: definition of, 160; and display, 180– 184; and ethnicity, 163–164; and family stability, 178–179; and Huizhou, 168–169; Ming, awards in, 162–163; and “motherly love,” 84; Qing, awards in, 163–168. See also arches; imperial award system Chen Dawen, 149, 151, 152–153 Chen Feng, 212n18, 215n63 Cheng Jiyue, 173 Cheng lineage: of Censhandu village (see Censhandu); of Huaitang village, 239n31 Cheng Qiande, 51 Chen Guodong, 213n37 Cheng Yaotian, 110, 236n105 Choushu village, 49, 161, 170, 171, 215n61, 216n72. See also She county Chu Runshu, 154 Ciowande (Quan-de), 40, 66–67, 69, 82, 84, 171 civil service examinations. See examinations clans. See lineages classics, 13, 68, 97, 108–110, 154 Clunas, Craig, 12–13, 22, 255n31 collecting, 31, 91–124; acquisition of objects, 111–113; as alternative to officeholding, 94; books, 53, 75–80, 91, 93, 98–99, 101, 103– 104, 186, 187; calligraphy, 93, 95, 97, 101, 102; catalogs of collections, 25, 107–108 (see also seal impression catalog); categorization, 114–115; display, 115–119; in Europe, 24; and evidential studies, 97–100, 108–111; by imperial court (see Complete Library of the Four Treasuries; Qianlong emperor); as

investment, 236n112; and knowledge (bo), 120–121; Ming-Qing transition, effect on, 24, 93–94; and obsession (pi), 120, 195; paintings, 93, 97, 101; and pleasure, 120; and reputation, 120–121; seals, 53, 107–123; in Song era, 93; standards for, 111–115; types of collectible items, 108–111; and wealth, 122; in Yuan era, 107, 122. See also collector; connoisseurship; Ming era collector: as identity, 119–124, 190; as social category, 92–100, 195; and the word shoucangjia, 24, 92, 94–96, 98–100, 190 colophons, 25, 96, 100, 101, 144–145, 151, 155 Comments on Appreciating Paintings of Caoxin Studio (Caoxinlou duhua ji), 101 common people, 11, 146, 166, 180; appreciation of arches by, 184. See also morality: instruction of common people in Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (Siku quanshu), 20, 91, 98, 154; collecting process, 75–80, 103, 186, 196; and network, 104–105; as source, 94–96 Confucian ideology. See ideology, Confucian Confucian morality. See morality, Confucian connoisseurship, 12–13, 68–69, 97, 99–100; and seal collection, 121–123. See also collecting; taste construction projects. See arches; lineage construction projects; shrines consumption: conspicuous, 115, 128, 139, 178; luxury, 12–13, 22–23, 88, 158–159, 188–189; and morality (see under morality). See under Ming era corruption, 54–55, 67–68, 79, 81–84, 217n73 corvée labor, 163 court, imperial: definition, 17; furnishing objects for, 8, 80–85 (see also tribute, courtcommissioned object, and Complete Library of the Four Treasuries: collecting process); privy purse, 47, 83; relationship with salt merchants (see under salt merchants). See also cultural exchange; Imperial Household Department court-commissioned object (huoji), 11, 70–75; craftsmen (see under craftsmen); materials (see jade; stone; wood); Qianlong’s standard, 73–74. See also model; standard foot measure craftsmen, 223n37; and arch construction, 21, 173; and court-commissioned object, 8, 63, 70, 71, 73–75, 82, 84, 87, 198; and

genealogies, 138, 139; and rubbings, 150; from Huizhou, 194–195 Crossley, Pamela, 207n34, 253n26 cultural exchange: between court and Jiangnan, 22–23, 74, 85–88, 188–189, 199, 254n28. See also taste Cultural Revolution, 5, 248n41 Dai Zhen, 110 Daoguang emperor, 66 Deng Shiru, 154 Ding Jing, 112, 234n80 Ding Yizhuang, 213n37 disaster relief, 52, 77, 131, 147, 169–170 Dong Jianzhong, 220n6 economy, 18–19 edicts, 25, 47, 67 education, 6–7, 12, 68, 105–106, 152–153 Eisenstadt, S. N., 254n25 Elliott, Mark, 65, 164, 213n35, 230n27, 246n13 Elman, Benjamin, 97, 233n62, 233n65 emperors: endorsements by, 85–88; granting of honors (see imperial award system); role of, 197. See also banner system; bannermen; bondservants; court; salt merchants: relationship with court Esherick, Joseph, 19–20, 204n8 ethnicity: and gender, 163–164; and identity, 15; in Qing empire, 15–16; of salt administrators, 38–47 etymology, 97, 108 eunuch, 219n94. See also Zhang Feng Europe. See collecting: in Europe evidential studies (kaozheng), 97, 108–111, 233n65, 233n67. See under collecting; salt merchants; seals examinations, civil service, 54, 68, 148, 182– 183, 204n7; and salt administrators, 40, 43; and salt merchants, 7, 12, 17, 105–106, 186 Fairbank, John K., 220n4 family. See kinship system; lineages Fang, Lady (honoree of arch), 1, 160–161, 171, 179 Fang Yizhi, 250n61 Fang Zhaoyan, 173, 250nn60–61 Fan Jinmin, 72–73, 86, 203n4 Fan Zhongyan, 148 Faššan (Fa-shi-shan), 154, 155, 157 Fei Si-yen, 255n30

index

289

Fengchenyuan qing, 31, 52, 171, 196–197 filial piety (xiao), 127, 128, 139, 148, 155, 165, 171, 182, 192; to in-laws, 171, 179; shrine of, 140–147 Findlen, Paula, 24 Finnane, Antonia, 17, 178, 254n25 Fletcher, Joseph, 207n42, 220n4 friendship, 56–57 Fugger, Hans Jacob, 24 Fu-heng, 55–57, 80 furniture, 7, 8, 11, 25, 66, 70–75, 84, 87 G’ao Hu¯ng (Gao Heng), 40, 58, 217n73 G’ao Jin (Gao Jin), 77, 78 gardens, 7, 31, 58, 71, 86–87, 156, 186–187, 190, 199 gazetteers, 5, 8, 25, 47, 96, 200, 248n41, 255n29; “exemplary women” (lienü), 168 Ge Chun, 110, 121 gender. See chastity; charitable lands: for women; halls, ancestral: female; imperial award system; women in salt merchant families; see under arches; ethnicity genealogies, 5, 8, 18, 25, 47, 127, 133–140, 169, 179, 189, 199; for a branch (zhipu), 134; cost of, 136–137; distribution of, 135; for entire lineage (zongpu), 134; materiality of, 135– 139; printing, 137–138, 240n40; purposes of, 133, 134–135 Geng Wenguang, 100 Giking ( Ji-qing), 40, 54–57, 217n73 glass, 86–87 god of wealth, 19 government affairs (gongshi), 48, 191 granaries, 53, 147 Grand Council, 80 Gu Aying, 107, 122 Gu Congde, 116–117 Guilin village, 49, 221n15, 223n42. See also She county Gu Licheng, 74–75 Guo Fuxiang, 254n27 Gu Youjian, 67–68 halls, ancestral, 18, 127, 135, 148, 149–150, 189, 199; female, 182 Hanlin Academy, 77, 154, 231n43, 252n2 Hay, Jonathan, 206n23, 209n62, 253n13, 254n26, 255n31 head merchants (zongshang), 16, 32, 37, 38, 58, 59, 64, 66–67, 155–156, 187, 190, 191,

290

index

head merchants (continued ) 196; appointment of, 47–54, 56; and arch construction, 161, 169–170, 171, 183; and collecting, 101–102; and Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, 77–80; and connoisseurs/artisans, 69, 74–75; and court-­ commissioned objects, 71–75; merchant chief (dazong ), 48, 56. See also Wubentang High Qing era: definition of, 4; distinguished from late Ming (see under Ming era); “prosperous age” (shengshi), 4, 21 histories, official, 141 Hodder, Ian, 205n17, 206n24 Hong Liangji, 98–100, 174 Hongwu emperor, 163 Hong Zhenyuan, 67 Ho Ping-ti, 16, 34, 204n11, 211n11, 215n64, 216n69, 254n21 Hoskins, Janet, 10 Huang Binhong, 231n34 Huang Chengji, 154, 242n68 Huang Chongxing, 101–102, 103 Huang Dexu, 69 Huang lineage of Qiu village, 142–143, 195. See also Huang Tianyu (Huang Guokui); Huang Yingzu Huang Lüxian, 50–51, 218n78 Huang Shang, 107, 117 Huang Tianyu (Huang Guokui), 127, 140, 143 Huang Yi, 120, 144 Huang Yingzu, 142–143 Huang Yizheng, 51, 182 Huang Yue, 118, 149, 153 Huizhou, 18, 161, 234n74, 240n40; location and environment, 1, 4–5, 203n4, 212n26. See also She county huoji. See court-commissioned object identity: ethnic (see under ethnicity); of salt merchants (see under salt merchants). See also collector: as identity ideology: Confucian, 12; moral, 160, 161, 166, 185 (see also morality) Ilingga (Yi-ling-a), 40, 51, 66–67, 69, 81, 224n52, 224n55, 227n79 imperial award system (jingbiao), 160, 162, 167, 181–182; application process, 171, 182; categories, 163–165; for men, 182–183. See also Ming era: imperial award system “imperial favor” (shu’en), 200

Imperial Household Department, 25, 39–40, 43, 50, 55–57, 59, 63, 71, 73, 82, 84–85, 89. See also Fengchenyuan qing Imperially Endorsed Catalog of the Precious Collection of the Stone Canal Pavilion ­(Qinding Shiqu baoji), 95, 96 Imperially Endorsed Catalog of the Tianlu ­Linlang Library (Qinding tianlu linlang shumu), 96 Imperially Endorsed Edition of the Regulations and Precedents of the Qing Dynasty ­(Qinding da Qing huidian zeli), 165 Ingliyan (Ying-lian), 63, 224n49 Inju (Yin-zhu), 81, 227n79 ink, 107, 115, 116, 117, 122, 150, 194 inkstone, 96, 230n21; Longwei, 155–156, 194–195 integrity-nourishing money ( yang lian yin), 80–81, 226n78, 227n79 interior decorations. See court-commissioned object (huoji); furniture Iobaši (You-ba-shi), 83, 102, 223n32, 227n85 jade: cost, 68, 82–84; as material of courtcommissioned object (huoji), 70, 74, 102, 223n31, 223n36, 224n52; smuggling case, 67–68; trade, 223n31, 223n36; tribute, 66, 67, 102, 231n38 Jiang Chun (business name: Jiang Guangda), 16, 50–54; and Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, 77–79; family, 49, 50; Kangshan garden, 186–187, 216n68; network, 50–51, 68–69, 74–75, 78–79, 192–193; and Qianlong emperor, 31–32, 50, 52, 58, 67; southern tours, 31–32, 51–52, 58, 67, 187; and Yuan Mei, 32. See also Jiangcun Jiangcun ( Jiang village), 49, 50, 216n72. See also She county Jiang Fan, 145, 146, 154, 192 Jiang Fang (business name: Jiang Ritai), 50, 51 Jiang Tan, 54–58 jiaohua. See moral cultivation jingbiao. See imperial award system jinshixue. See bronze and stone, study of Jin Yuankao, 248n41 Ji Yun, 104–105, 140, 153–155, 157, 194 Juntai (Zhun-tai), 40, 222n16, 226n78 Kangxi emperor, 15, 39, 40, 47, 165, 219n94, 221n10, 247n26, 247n29 kinship system, 238n24 Ko, Dorothy, 25

Kopytoff, Igor, 205n20 Kuo, Jason, 233n59, 233n67 labor, 12, 84, 138, 172, 177, 180, 183. See also corvée labor Lai Hui-min, 207n40, 226n78, 227n93, 254n27 Lianghuai salt zone, 15, 34–39, 47, 48–49 Liang Tongshu, 149, 153, 154 Liang Zhangju, 186–187 Liangzhe salt zone, 35–39, 48, 53 Li Dou, 67, 75, 87, 204n14 lineage construction projects, 127–159; and bronze and stone studies, 143–144; and networks, 140, 143–146, 149–153, 153–158, 189; purposes, 127–128, 139–140, 141, 143–147, 148, 149–150, 152–153 lineages, 25, 50–51, 57, 127–128, 133–134, 189. See also kinship system; lineage construction projects literacy, 6–9, 223n37 literati, 5, 6–7, 12–14, 93, 108, 145, 150, 156, 161, 168, 204n7. See also salt merchants: relationship with literati and officials; status, social, of salt merchants: paradigm of status negotiation Liu Daguan, 143 Liu Yong, 149–151, 153 Li Xu, 40 Li Wai-yee, 97 Li Zhiying, 40, 51, 63, 68, 71, 74, 75, 77–80, 82, 84, 220n3, 223n33, 224n49, 224n51, 224n54, 225n62, 227n79, 231n38 Lu Xixiong, 231n47 mandate of heaven, 166, 220n4 Mann, Susan, 14, 203n2, 245n3 manufacturing (objects for court). See courtcommissioned object (huoji) markets, 8, 21, 22, 26, 48, 65, 72–73, 75, 86, 88, 94, 111, 188, 199, 208n51; salt, 35, 36–37, 43; wood (see under wood) marriage, 51 Martin, Ann Smart, 205n17 material culture, study of, 9–11 materiality. See under arches; books; genealogies; seals Ma Yu, 77–79, 91 Ma Yueguan, 77, 101 Ma Yuelu, 77, 101, 186–187 measures. See standard foot measure

index

291

memorials, 25, 47, 67, 78, 215n59, 220n3, 221n8; reimbursement (zouxiao), 82 Meskill, Johanna, 238n23 methodology, 2–3, 9–11, 22, 24, 25, 127–128, 169 Meyer-Fong, Tobie, 17, 88, 208n48 Miantan, 105 migration, 4, 33–34 military, 33, 34, 4, 16, 51 Ming era, compared with Qing, 255n30; arch construction, 163–164, 167–168, 176; collecting, 92, 93–98, 100–101; economy and consumption, 19, 22–23, 200–201; imperial award system, 162–165; moral cultivation, 162–164; salt policies, 32–33, 39, 48, 59; taste, 22–23, 93, 100–101; unofficial networks, 197 miscellanies (biji), 25, 67 model (tangyang) for court-commissioned objects, 63, 73 monetization, 33–34. See also silver moral cultivation, Qing promotion of, 2, 18, 160–168. See also under Ming era morality: Confucian, 11, 18, 27, 145, 152, 158, 161–163, 189, 192 (see also filial piety); and conspicuous consumption, 23, 127–128, 149–153, 178; display of, 152–153, 164–185; instruction of common people in, 146, 160–162, 166–167, 189; and poetry (see under poetry); and reputation, 139, 148, 159 museums, 107, 117 Nathan, Andrew, 207n41 Ningshou palace, 63, 71, 87 Ni Yuping, 213n33 Ni Zan, 122 “nourish merchants” (xushang), 83–84 novels, 5. See also Scholars, The officials, 13–14, 17–18, 182; and Bao merchants, 132, 140, 148–151, 153–159; and Complete Libraries of the Four Treasuries, 76, 77; court, 33, 54–58, 95, 98, 102, 104; local, 66, 148–149, 163, 167, 171, 247n25; of salt bureau, 16, 38–47, 48, 64, 81, 191. See also bureaucracy; literati; salt merchants: relationship with literati and officials Ouyang Xiu, 120 Ouyang Xun, 109 painting, 140, 180, 195; and collection, 68, 93, 95, 96, 101–103; connoisseurship of, 69, 97,

292

index

painting (continued ) 99–100; as a medium, 140, 141–146. See also Prosperous Suzhou paleography, 97, 108–109 Pan Chenglie, 75 paper, 68, 70, 115–116, 139; rice paper, 68; white bamboo paper, 136; zang jing paper, 68 parental love (ci), 141, 145, 192 patronage of arts and crafts, 31, 68–69, 77, 103, 113, 195 philology, 97, 108 phonology, 97, 108 poetry, 50, 104, 106, 107, 253n11; and ­morality, 143, 154–155, 192; and networks, 104–105, 112, 143, 145–146, 153–157, 194, 231n42, 231n44; style of, 154 porcelain, 71, 86, 114, 231n38, 233n56 practicality (shijian), 21, 191 printing: culture, 6; technology, 115–118, 136– 139, 142–143, 235n94. See also genealogies privy purse. See court, imperial: privy purse prose pieces, 132, 149–152, 153–155, 192, 194, 253n11 Prosperous Suzhou (Gusu fanhua tu), 85, 199 public works, 132, 184. See also granaries publishing, 31, 106, 143, 195, 216n73; genealogies, 133, 135, 139; seal impression catalog, 114, 115–118, 121. See also printing Qian Daxin, 107, 241n57 Qian Dong, 154, 156–157 Qiankou village, 49, 169, 216n72. See also She county Qianlong emperor, 14–18: as collector, 18, 24– 25, 92, 95, 102 (see also Complete Library of the Four Treasuries); as connoisseur, 68, 97–98; and corruption, 81–82, 84; and court-commissioned objects, 70–71, 73–75, 199; and imperial honors, 1, 166 (see also Fengchenyuan qing); political strategies, 89, 195–198; salt policies, 32, 40, 43; and scholarship, 98 (see also Complete Library of the Four Treasuries); southern tours, 7, 15, 17, 31–32, 51–52, 58, 67, 86, 132, 170, 187, 190, 231n38; taste, 22–23, 74, 86–87, 188–189; and tribute, 64–70, 199, 231n38 Qian Yong, 99–100, 107, 121 Qiu Ruyu, 122 Rankin, Mary, 19–20, 204n8 Record of the Painted Boats of Yangzhou (Yangzhou huafang lu), 7, 13, 67

revenues, 5, 16, 35–38. See also taxation rocks, Tai Lake, 7, 86, 186, 187 Rowe, William, 21, 208n55 Ruan Yuan, 216n69, 241n57 rubbings, 101, 102, 149, 150–152, 154, 157, 189. See also bronze and stone, study of rural areas, 23, 153, 159, 193–195, 199 salt: production, 33, 34, 35, 48; retail, 33, 34, 37, 48, 212n19, 212n21; transport, 34, 37, 48, 212n19, 212n21 salt administrators: appointment of, 15–16, 38–47; furnishing objects for court (see Complete Library of the Four Treasuries; court: furnishing objects for; court-­ commissioned object; tribute); salary, 80, 226n78, 227n79. See also ethnicity: of salt administrators; salt merchants: relationship with salt administrators salt affairs ( yanwu), 48, 157, 191 salt censors. See salt administrators salt controller, 39, 47, 84, 146, 156 salt merchants, 1–28; and arches, 1, 161–162, 168–184; benefits received by relationships with court, 50, 83–84, 92, 103–105, 129, 131–133, 151, 155–158, 159, 182, 183, 200; business name (see business names); as collectors, 92, 100–124; connection to home region, 4–5, 8, 11, 23, 50–51, 101–102, 104– 105, 111–112, 127–159, 160–185, 189, 193–195; and disaster relief (see disaster relief); as emperor’s informal agents, 26, 76, 89, 188, 196–197 (see mediators under this heading; statecraft); and evidential studies, 108–111; families, 49–51 (see also Bao Zhidao: household of); financing court objects, 80–85; gifts to emperor (see court: privy purse); identity of, 24, 119–123, 188, 190–191; local networks, 67–69, 72–73, 74–75, 78–79, 112, 194–195; location of, 33–35, 49; management of large projects, 21, 73, 75–76, 140–153, 168–172, 189, 192; as mediators, 3, 86, 89, 161, 188, 196, 200; relationship with court, 7, 14–18, 31–59, 63–90, 102–105, 153– 158, 161–162, 168–172, 178, 181–182, 187, 193–200; relationship with literati and officials, 7–8, 12–13, 18–21, 22, 104–105, 128, 149–151, 153–158, 190, 191–193; relationship with salt administrators, 11, 48, 55–56, 222n26, 253n18; “scholarly counterparts” of (see literati); stereotypes of, 8 (see also status, social, of salt merchants: paradigm of

status negotiation); and substantive studies (see substantive studies); and taste (see cultural exchange; taste); wives of (see women in salt-merchant families). See also head merchants (zongshang ); salt monopoly: hereditary franchise system salt monopoly, 31; bureaucracy (see bureaucracy); evolution of policy in Ming and Qing, 4, 32–38, 39, 59, 196; hereditary franchise system, 32–38, 59; salt zones, 35–38, 211n14. See also head merchants: appointment of; head merchants: merchant chief; salt administrators; salt controller Schäfer, Dagmar, 254n26 Scholars, The (Rulin waishi ), 181–182 scripts, 108–111, 136, 151–153 Seal Collection of the Flying Swan Studio (Feihongtang yinpu), 113, 114, 116, 117 seal impression catalog (yinpu), 25, 107, 111–114, 234n80; as display, 115–119; as a medium, 107 seals: catalogs (see seal impression catalog); collecting (see under collecting); and evidential studies, 108–111; materials, 108, 114, 233n59; as scholarly source, 108–109 Šenggan (Sheng-an), 54–57 She county, Huizhou, 4–5, 49–51, 53, 73, 101, 105, 129, 142–143; and arches, 168–169, 173, 174–175, 180, 182, 183, 248n31; Shexi, 4, 49, 53. See also names of individual villages in the county Shen Chunze, 12–13 Shen Dacheng, 186–187, 192–193, 252n6 shengzhi (“imperial edict” displayed on arches), 1, 161, 166, 182 shoucangjia. See under collector shrines, ancestral, 140–147, 189; Parental Love and Filial Piety Shrine (Longshan cixiao tang), 127, 140–147; purposes of, 141–142, 145–146. See also Wu Liang shrine Shunzhi emperor, 48, 165, 247n26 Siku quanshu. See Complete Library of the Four Treasuries silver, 33–34, 211n8, 212n23 sinicization, 15 sketch (huayang ) for court-commissioned ­objects, 63, 71, 73, 75, 224n54 Smith, Joanna Handlin, 19, 128, 208n49, 209n63, 237n3 Sommer, Matthew, 246n14 sources, 25. See also material culture, study of; methodology

index

293

southern tours. See under Jiang Chun; Qianlong emperor Spence, Jonathan, 15, 40, 214n38 standard foot measure (yingzao chi) for court-commissioned objects, 63, 71, 73 statecraft (jingshi), 21, 191–193. See also government affairs; salt affairs status, social, of salt merchants, 7, 19, 88, 105–124 (esp. 120–121), 128, 139, 186–193, 196–198, 199–201; paradigm of status negotiation, 12–14, 124, 189–191 steles, 109, 127, 140, 141–146, 148–150, 151–152; purposes of, 146 stone: inscriptions on, 25; for seals, 108; types and sources of, 11, 173–176, 183–184. See also arches: materiality; bronze and stone, study of; rocks; rubbings; steles style. See taste substantive studies/learning (shixue), 20–21, 191–193 Sun Chendian, 122 Sun Chengze, 94, 229n10 superintendent of imperial silk manufacturing (zhizao), 39, 43 Tandu village, 50, 216n72. See also She county Tangyue village, 11, 137, 147, 176, 179, 189, 199, 216n72. See also She county taste, 22–23, 73–74, 93, 121; “capital style,” 85–86, 188, 199, 254n28; “Jiangnan style,” 87, 254n28; merchants’, 12–13, 88, 89–90, 188–189, 199–200; promotion of, 113; seen as frivolous, 97, 110. See also connoisseurship; cultural exchange; Qianlong emperor taxation, 5, 35, 167 teacher-student relationships, 57 titles, honorary. See Fengchenyuan qing Tiyeboo (Tie-bao), 153–154 tofu, 184 tongren (“cultured and cosmopolitan men”), 186–201 Torbert, Preston M., 207n40, 214nn39–40, 214n52 transport: of objects for court, 64, 76, 86; of salt (see salt: transport); of stone, 175. See also Xin’an River Treatise on Superfluous Things (Zhangwu zhi), 12–13, 22 tribute (gong), 64–70, 220n4, 220n6, 221n7; commissioned tribute (chuanbangong), 66;

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tribute (continued ) diplomatic tribute, 65; domestic/internal tribute, 65–66; financing, 80–85; “leftover” items, 69–70, 102–103; managing system, 69–70; occasions for, 65–66; and salt administrators, 63, 64, 66–67; and salt merchants, 66–70, 102, 199; tribute lists (gongdan), 65–66; types of, 66; voluntary, 51–52, 80–81. See also court, imperial: privy purse; jade Trigger, Bruce, 178 type, movable, 138–139. See also printing: technology urban areas and culture, 7–8, 64, 70, 101, 111– 112, 143, 147, 153, 155–157, 188, 199 von Glahn, Richard, 19, 208n51 Wang Dahong, 68 Wang Fen, 112 Wang Ge, 69 Wang Hongdu, 168 Wang Maolin, 186–187 Wang Peng, 120 Wang Qishu: biography of, 105–106; as book collector, 91–92, 104–105; and Ji Yun, 20, 104–105, 231n42; as seal collector, 8–9, 92– 93, 105–123, 195; and wealth, 122–123; and women’s poetry, 106; and Yuan Mei, 107 Wang Qisun, 140, 153, 156–157, 240n46 Wang Shizhen, 95 Wang Shuqi, 116, 234n84, 236n105 Wang Side, 139, 179 Wang Tao, 170, 218n78 Wang Tingzhang, 170 Wang Xun, 1–2, 161, 171 Wang Yinggeng, 169 Wang Yushu, 7, 86–87, 204n10 Wang Zhenzhong, 48, 216n64, 216n72, 236n112 Weng Fanggang, 241n57 Wen Qi, 69, 75 Wen Zhenheng, 12–13, 22 women, exemplary, 1, 168 (see also under gazetteers); in salt-merchant families, 139, 178–179, 184, 251n80, 252n7; status of in Qing, 246nn13–14, 246n23. See also arches; halls, ancestral: female; chastity; Fang, Lady

wood: for court, 73; market, 72–73; zitan (see zitan wood) woodblock printing: and genealogies, 135, 137–139; and seal impression catalog, 115, 117. See also Huang lineage of Qiu village; printing: technology Woodside, Alexander, 16–17 world history, 24–25 writing systems. See scripts Wubentang, 70 Wu Hung, 144 Wu Jialong, 171 Wu Jingzi, 181–182 Wu Liang shrine, 144–146, 241n57, 242nn58– 59 Wu Qizhen, 93–94, 229n14 Wu Shijie, 112 Wu Xilin, 153, 155, 157 Wu Yuru, 53, 218n84 Wu Zhuo (business name: Wu Yongfeng), 53 Xiang Yuanbian, 93–94 Xin’an River, 1, 4, 34, 49, 175, 212n26 Xu Chengyao, 8, 255n29 Xue Quan, 140, 142, 143–145 Xu Liangfu, 107 Xushang. See “nourish merchants” Xu Xiaoman, 135–136, 137, 138–139, 239n34 Yang Boda, 66, 220n6, 221nn7–8 Yang Jeou-yi, 33, 37, 211n15, 215n60, 226n78 Yang Lun, 154, 242n65, 242n68 Yan Zhenqing, 151–153 Yao Jiheng, 97 yinpu. See seal impression catalog Yongle emperor, 141 Yongzheng emperor, 40–43, 160–161, 164– 168, 197, 246n23 Yuan Mei, 32, 107, 145–146, 154, 155, 242nn58–59 Zeitlin, Judith, 10, 120, 235n98 Zeng Yu, 146, 154, 155–157, 244n107 Zhang Feng, 58 Zhang Shuxian, 87, 223n37 Zhang Xiumin, 138, 239n33, 240n39, 241n53 Zhao Li, 236n112 Zheng Dajin, 84 Zheng Zhiliang, 221n15 Zhou Fen, 113

Zhou Xuanwu, 122, 234n84 Zhou Yan, 146 Zhu Gui, 149–151, 153, 154, 155, 157 Zhu Wenzao, 103

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Zhu Yun, 231n47 Zhu Zhang, 122, 232n56 zitan wood, 8, 11, 21, 66, 71–73, 74, 87, 102 Zurndorfer, Harriet, 251n80