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Jinghao Sun’s Paper Draft for the HK Conference

(Note: this draft is from my dissertation draft: “Jining Identified and Transformed: the Making of Late Imperial Jining and Its Modern Experience, 1289—1937.”)

Urbanization in the Absence of Rural-based Commercialization: The Pivotal Role of Transportation in Late Imperial Jining

Introduction:

The greater Jining region lies in the peripheral southwestern hinterland of Shandong province. Today, as a municipal city, though it is the most important urban center in southwest Shandong, it appears to be a secondary-level urban center. However, during the Ming and the High Qing, it was one of the most prominent commercial metropolises in the whole empire. Furthermore, under the nickname of “the Little Suzhou North of the Yangzi,” it gained an intense southern cultural feature, and manifested a kind of southern urban identity regardless of its geographical location in the North China Plain.

Jining’s idiosyncrasy resulted from the area’s distinctive ecological, economic and social fabrics and their dynamics, as well as the long-standing cultural tradition of the region. Jining as a typically commercial and cultural urban center firstly needs to be traced in the city and the region’s particular type of urbanization. Its specific path of urbanization molded the city and its vicinity’s economic disposition/setup and orientation. That was a southern-oriented economy operated by the canal mechanism. Thus, as a regional metropolis it formed a crucial node in the national network of the late imperial Chinese economy.

1. The Specific Path of Urbanization: Transportation and Communication Rather Than Local Commercialization Nourished the Urbanization

(1) Urbanization in the north:

In the long-lasing cliché which stemmed from the European experience, a city is foremost a trading center, a production aggregation, and a consumption gathering place on a functional marketing basis, though, as a system, it may be a military garrison for security control and jurisdictional seat for civil administration too, for all kind of characteristically urban inhabitants. Its marketing origin is its most salient nature. Originally, trading centers range from a small periodic market and, perhaps, a few shops to a large daily market of thousands of shops. Driven by momentum of the market, urbanites move in and out, in contrast to villagers who rarely leave the immediate vicinity of their indigenous places. Thus, cities exist as the hubs of social and geographic mobility.

However, ancient Chinese cities were identified in the western scholarship as political centers, embodying political and military rather than economic implications, while in the economic realm commerce and consumption far outstripped production, as bequeathed by Karl Marx and Max Weber. By the interpretation of Marxist “Asiatic mode of production,” China, Indian and other Oriental countries followed a framework beyond the feudalism-to-capitalism transition of the European world, and their political centers, from the economic perspective, were “parasitic” rather than “generative.” In Weber’s discourse of Chinese cities, these urban centers were administrative or bureaucratic rather than commercially productive.

Regardless of the Orientalism implicit n these model, their characterization somewhat fit imperial Chinese society, especially in its early periods. However, from the Song dynasty, new cites and towns emerged, and this new portrait of urbanization was dynamically facilitated by private commerce and production, which thrived and prevailed especially in the Lower Yangtze, and the Pearl River delta. In these advanced southern areas in the Ming and Qing, market towns flowered, and no doubt, this new development of urban space was due to progress of a vast market-driven economy from the countryside. That is to say grass-roots commercialization fostered urbanization.

However, other conditions also nourished the trend of urbanization at the same time in some other areas. Among these conditions was the massive improvement of transportation and communication. In particular, the Grand Canal assumed an important role in making possible the urbanization of the areas along its route in North China. Certainly, as William Skinner asserts, North China remained a lower level of commercialization and urbanization in the late Qing as a whole, with fewer big urban centers but with a large dense and poor agrarian population. Yet, in certain particular areas with advanced overland or sea transportation, the story could be different. The Grand Canal zone in west Shandong was a good example to involve regional urbanization and yield urban centers in the Ming and the Qing.

(2) Pre-Ming economic history of the Jining region:

Sun Zuomin's and An Zuozhang’s general Shandong history books—check later.

The territory under Shandong Administration Commission (布政使司)in the Ming and Shandong province in the Qing was a traditional agricultural area. From the Spring and Autumn period through the mid-Tang period, west Shandong as one of the most cultivatable lands of the North China Plain remained as one of China’ superior economic centers. Then incessant wars and turmoil since the mid-Tang and especially the late Northern Song made Jining, as well as other parts of the North China Plain, into an inferior economic area, in contrast to the rise of new economic centers in the Lower and Middle Yangzhi. [1] After the late Yuan wars, the newly founded Ming was faced with sparse population in west Shandong. To restore the land to cultivation, the early Ming government presided over mass population immigration which was centered in Dongchang prefecture, the Jining region’s northern neighbor. Most immigrants came from Shanxi, Zhili and the eastern peninsula of Shandong. [2] After more than a century, toward the turn of the sixteenth century the economy was restored to its mid-Tang standard in terms of productivity and taxed revenue. [3]

As in the Jining region, although Jining’s antique predecessor, Rencheng, was of long-standing importance as seats alternatively for prefectures, subprefectures or counties since remote antiquity, owing to its crucial geographical position in terms of politics and military, Jining bore substantial economic prominence during the Ming and the Qing when it stood up as a Grand Canal urban center.

Notwithstanding, the rise of Jining was not given from within, but imposed from without/outside. In view of the backwardness of its adjacent rural economy, its dramatic uprise followed a specific pathway of urbanization, i.e., without rural-based commercialization. In other words, the convenient and sophisticated network of transportation and communication of waterways and inland routes inaugurated and bred highly developed commerce and urban culture leading to the formation of a metropolis.

“Why do cities rise and decline?” William Rowe expounds, “The answer begins with the balance struck between ecology and technology.” Given a certain level of technology, topographic or other ecological conditions provide more favor to the centrality and prosperity of some cities over others. Accordingly, modifications of ecological conditions can alter existing advantageous features, consequently promoting new central places and sending others into decline. [4] The construction of the Grand Canal brought about great benefits to the inland areas of west Shandong, and Jining, in view of its go-between position in the north-south communication, took full advantage of state policy and gained centrality as a regional center, and thus became one of the most populous and prosperous cities on the North China Plain during the Ming and the high Qing, which were heydays of the Grand Canal.

The construction (finished in 1292) of the Grand Canal (the so-called Tong-Hui segment) in the Yuan extended the Grand Canal of the Sui-Tang to Dadu, i.e., the precursor of Beijing, which traversed Western Shandong, and restoration and reconstruction of Hui-Tong segment (finished in 1415) in the early Ming was critical. [5] The Grand Canal maintained the interaction of the north and the south, and Jining properly played the intermediate role in the north-south intercourse in late imperial China, reflected in voluminous documentation and oral tales.

Marco Polo passed through the city in , and write this a description touching on “the noble city of Sinjumatu (Jining)” and the “Cathay (Canal)” transportation:

(Sinjumatu) is very large and rich, and also has thriving trade and crafts. …… This city possesses such immerse shipping, I mean such a number of ships, that no one who has not seen them can believe it. Do not, however, imagine that the boats are big in themselves, though they are such as are suitable for a large river. And you must know that these boats carry so great a quantity of merchandise to Manji and across Cathay, that is truly a wonder; and when they come back, they do so fully laden. It is indeed a marvel to see the quantities of goods carried up and down the river. [6]

In 1285, in Jining the Yuan court “stationed 3,000 grain tribute ships, and recruited 12,000 corvee workers.” Shortly in 1328, added 2,000 corvee workers. [7] Among the 21 circuits (路) in the great empire, the commercial tax （商税）in Jining circuit ranked fourth as in its 12,403 liang of silver. [8]

However, in view of the restricted volume, short time and instability of the canal transportation of the Yuan whose tribute grain transportation was mainly via sea routes, Jining as a canal urban center did not sustained its significance in the Yuan, like every other canal center in the north which later became prominent in the Ming.

(3) The Grain Shipment/Shipping System and the Canal Transport

In the Shandong section of the canal, annual movement of tribute grains and other goods both in the dominating official fleets and secondary private boats, together with smuggling trade, nourished thed commercial vitality of the cities and towns in the immediate districts of the canal. Thus, the canal commercial traffic became a great source of public and private wealth, and its rhythms molded and fluctuated the life of the narrow long belt adjacent to its banks.

To be sure, the canal was built to ship tribute cargoes, but its performance furthered all kinds of commerce on and alongside the canal. Every normal year in the Ming and the Qing, the canal was crowded with tribute grain fleets as well as private barges. During the Ming, there were about 12,000 barges/ships/junks in service though that number fluctuated, and each with a 10-12 military crew. So there were more than 200,000 personnel in total. During the Kangxi reign (1662-1722), there were about 14,500, but since the Yongzheng reign (1723-1735), it remained 6,500 till the late 19th century.4 meters wide. [9] As for their carrying capacities, normally each junk contained two water-tight grain holds which accommodated about 2,000 shi. But as Leonard perceives, they rarely loaded more than 300 shi to 400 shi so that more space were given over to the crew’s private cargo.

In much of the Ming and Qing, each year the grain fleets carried some ten thousand ton (ten million kilograms) millions of bushels. In the early period of the Canal under Yongle reign (1403-1424), the fluctuating demands of the capital and the north frontiers meant that the amount of grain transported along the canal varied, which sometimes attained/climbed to five million shi. The normal grain quota of four million was set in 1472 which went through the mid-Ming to mid-Qing, while there was oscillations due to grain-cash conversion reform, tribute taxation exemption as disaster relief. [10] However, since four million shi just roughly satisfied the need of the annual consumption in the capital and the northern frontiers, it was uncommon for any reduction, as in 1493 the Ministry of Revenue and Finance turned down the request of delivering some tribute grain of the south for disaster relief in Shandong. [11] In actuality, deficiency of tribute grain frequently occurred. In 1573, in a memorial, the Superintendent of Grain Transportation (督漕御史) Zhang Xianxiang （张宪翔）expressed his contentment regarding the on-time arrival of the tribute fleets compared to the deferment in the previous year, though only 3,111,905.1 shi in 8526 ships arrived yet. In 1576, totally 2,828,575.991 shi grain was carried to Beijing in 8,120 ships. The reason for this deficit was tribute grain exemptions for Shandong, Henan and north Jiangsu. [12]

For each ship, the Qing government limited the grain load maximum as 500 shi and use age as ten years. [13] The mid-Qing saw great reforms in grain shipment: “Originally there were 14,0454 ships. In the fourth year of the Jiaqing reign (1809), because of mineralization of grain levy and depletion/reduction/elimination of the old and corroded ships, only 6,242 ships were left for actual use.” Meanwhile, the government hired merchant ships for the sake of efficiency, which prevailed especially after the mid-Qing. [14] These large number and amount also indicated the marvelous volume of the canal transportation, which affected the economy along the canal..

However, because of legal and illegal added levy, such as transportation service fee, public relation charge paid in grain in names of 加耗，加腳，過淺 , it was said quantity of the tribute fleets loaded and transported sometimes amounted to 8 million shi, in spite of some exaggeration.[15] A considerable amount of official transported grain did not get in the imperial treasure; on the contrary, a great part illegally joined commercial grain circulation alongside the canal and its relevant tribute waterways. As in Leonard’s empiricist study, the grain-tribute levis in the Qing actually “consisted of the basic tax quota, the legal surcharges added to cover the coast of spoilage, transport, and storage, and extra surcharges. The last were technically illegal, but were essential to fund administrative and shipping operations not covered in the existing budgetary scheme. These extra charges were determined by a myriad of local factors and the prices of monetary metals and rice. Adding further to this picture of regional diversity was the practice of commuting the grain tax to a currency payment, either on a temporary or permanent basis.” [16]

(Leonard 98—99: Leonard’s overview: “Grain tribute was a special category of the land tax collected in kind from specific districts in the canal zone provinces and was one of the principal taxes levied in the Qing period, along with the regular land tax, salt tax, native customs, and miscellaneous indirect tales. The total annual value of grain tribute plus surcharges in the mid-eighteenth century was 16.7 million tales, which constituted about 23 percent of the Qign state’s yearly tax revenue. In the early nineteenth century, approximately 6.2 million shi of tribute grains were collected each year, of which 2.8 million shi, or roughly 45 percent, were used to pay the costs of collection, transport, and storage. The amount of grain that actually reached the granaries in the capital totaled approximately 3.4 million shi, a decline of about 1 million shi from the early Qing period.)