Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-frp75 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T22:59:30.267Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Integration and Disintegration in North China's Grain Markets, 1738–1911

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2012

Lillian M. Li
Lillian M. Li
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of History, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA 19081
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An analysis of grain prices from Zhili (Hebei) province in North China for the period from 1738 to 1911 demonstrates that while the province's local grain markets gradually fragmented, the provincial market as a whole simultaneously grew more closely integrated with external markets, first with Fengtian (Manchuria) and later with the Lower Yangzi region. The Qing state's food policies, the deterioration of transport routes, and the condition of rural markets provide a context for understanding these seemingly paradoxical trends.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 665 - 699
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Arnold, Julean et al. . China: A Commercial and Industrial Handbook. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1926.Google Scholar
Bachao shengxun [Sacred edicts ofthe eight reigns]. Guangxu ed. Renzong reign (Jiaqing).Google Scholar
Brandt, Loren.Commercialization and Agricultural Development: Central and Eastern China, 1870–1937. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Brook, Timothy.The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chuan, Han-sheng and Kraus, Richard A.. Mid-Ch'ing Rice Markets and Trade: An Essay in Price History. Cambridge, MA: East Asia Research Center, Harvard University, 1975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coclanis, Peter A. “Distant Thunder: The Creation of a World Market in Rice and the Transformation It Wrought.” American Historical Review 98, no. 4 (10 1993): 1050–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belfield, Dennys Nicholas (ed.). The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. London: Trubner and Co., and Hongkong: A. Shortrede and Co., 1867.Google Scholar
Dunstan, Helen.Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age: A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644–1840. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fang, Guancheng.Fang Kemin (Guancheng) gong zouyi [The memorials of Fang Guancheng]. 8 juan. 1851 ed. Reprinted 2 vols. Taibei: Wenhai, 1967.Google Scholar
Frank, Andre Gunder.ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gongzhongdang (GZD). Palace Memorial Archives, National Palace Museum, Taibei. (Designated by date and number).Google Scholar
Gongzhongdang zhupizouzhe (ZPZZ). Palace Memorial Archives, First Historical Archives, Beijing. (Designated by date, topic, box or volume number if needed.)Google Scholar
ZPZZ, CZCC. Caizheng cangchu [Financial affairs, granaries]Google Scholar
ZPZZ, NZZJ. Neizheng zhenji [Internal affairs, relief].Google Scholar
Gongzhongdang Qianlongchao zouzhe (GZDQLCZZ) [Memorialsfrom the Palace memorial archives: Qianlong reign]. 75 vols. Taibei: National Palace Museum, 1979–1989.Google Scholar
Guo, Songyi. “Qingdai guonei de haiyun maoyi [The coastal trade among the Chinese in the early Qing”.” Qingishi luncong, no. 4 (1982): 92–110.Google Scholar
He, Hanwei.Guangxu chunian (1876–1879) Huabei de da hanzai [The big North China drought, 1876–1879]. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Huang, Philip C. C.The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huangchao jingshi wenbian (HCJSWB) [Anthology of statecraft writings of the Qing dynasty]. Compiled by He Changling. n.p., 1826.Google Scholar
Ishihara, Jun. “KakokushŌ ni okeru Min, Shin, Minkoku jidai no teikiichi-bunpu, kaisŌ, oyobi chūshin shūraku no kankei ni tsuite [Periodic markets in Hebei province during the Ming, Qing, and Republican periods—their distribution and relation with the social strata and central villages].” Chirigaku hyŌron 46, no. 4 (04 1973): 245–63.Google Scholar
Jifu tongzhi [Comprehensive gazetteer of the capital region]. n.p.,1884. Reprinted 1934.Google Scholar
Kwan, Man Bun. “The Merchant World of Tianjin: Society and Economy of a Chinese City.” PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1990.Google Scholar
Latham, A. J. H., and Neal, Lany. “The International Market in Rice and Wheat, 1868”1914.” Economic History Review, Second Series 36, no. 2 (1983): 260–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavely, William, and Wong, R. Bin. “Revising the Malthusian Narrative: The Comparative Study of Population Dynamics in Late Imperial China.” Journal of Asian Studies 57, no. 3 (1998): 714–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, James Z., and Feng, Wang. One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700–2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Lillian M. “Grain Prices in Zhili Province, 1736–1911: A Preliminaiy Study.” In Chinese History in Economic Perspective, edited by Rawski, Thomas G. and Li, Lillian, 69–99. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Li, Lillian M. “Fighting Famine in North China: State, Market, and Ecological Crisis, 1698–1998.” Book manuscript in preparation.Google Scholar
Li, Lillian M., and Dray-Novey, Alison. “Guarding the Food Security of Beijmg in the Qing Dynasty: State, Market, and Police.” Journal of Asian Studies 58, no. 4 (11 1999): 992–1032.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marks, Robert B.Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphey, Rhoads. “The Treaty Ports and China's Modernization.” In The Chinese City Between Two Worlds, edited by Elvin, Mark and Skinner, G. William, 17–71. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perdue, Peter C.Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500–1850. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1987.Google Scholar
Perdue, Peter C. “The Shape of the World: Asian Continents and the Scraggy Isthmus of Europe.” Bulletin ofAsian Scholars, 10 3, 1998.Google Scholar
Pomeranz, Kenneth.The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society, and Economy in Inland North China, 1853–1937. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pomernaz, Kenneth.The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozman, Gilbert.Urban Networks in Ch'ing China and Tokugawa Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Rozman, Gilbert.Population and Marketing Settlements in Ch'uing China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Rowe, William T.Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Sands, Barbara, and Myers, Ramon H.. “The Spatial Approach to Chinese History: A Test.” Journal of Asian Studies 45, no. 4 (1986): 721–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shina shŌbetsu zenshi [Complete gazeueer of China's provinces]. Vol. 18 (Zhili province). Tokyo: TŌa dobunkai, 1920.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. “Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China.” Reprinted by the Association of Asian Studies from the Journal of Asian Studies, 1964–1965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skinner, G. William. “Introduction: Urban Development in Imperial China.” In The City in Late Imperial China, edited by Skinner, G. William, 3–32. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. “Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China.” In The City in Late Imperial China, edited by Skinner, G. William, 211–49. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. “Cities and the Hierarchy of Local Systems.” In The City in Late Imperial China, edited by Skinner, G. William, 275–351. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. “Social Ecology and the Forces of Repression in North China: A Regional-Systems Framework for Analysis.” Paper prepared for the ACLS Workshop on Rebellion and Revolution in North China, Harvard University, 27 07–2 08 1979.Google Scholar
Spence, Jonathan D.The Search for Modern China. New York: Norton, 1990.Google Scholar
Wang, Yeh-chien. “The Secular Trend of Prices During the Ch'ing Period (1644– 1911).” Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong 5, no. 2 (1972): 347–71.Google Scholar
Wang, Yeh-chien. “Food Supply and Grain Prices in the Yangtze Delta in the Eighteenth Century.” In Proceedings of the Second Conference on Modern Chinese Economic History, 423–59. Taipei: Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, 1989.Google Scholar
Wang, Yeh-chien. “The Secular Trend of Rice Prices in the Yangzi Delta, 1638–1935.” In Chinese History in Economic Perspective, edited by G., Thomas Rawski and Li, Lillian M., 35–68. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Will, Pierre-Etienne.Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth-Century China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990. [Translated from 1980 French edition.]Google Scholar
Will, Pierre-Etienne, and Wong, R. Bin, with James, Lee.Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, R. Bin.China Tranrformed: Historical Change andthe Limits of European Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Woug, R. Bin, and Perdue, Peter C.. “Grain Markets and Food Supplies in Eighteenth- Century Hunan.” In Chinese History in Economic Perspective, edited by Rawski, Thomas G. and Li, Lillian M., 126–44. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Wu, Chengming.Zhongguo zibenzhuyi yu guonei shichang [Chinese capitalism and domestic markets]. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chuban she, 1985.Google Scholar
Wu, Hui and Xianhui, Ge. “Qing qianqi de liangshi diaoji [The allocation of grain in the early Qing dynasty].” Lishi yanjiu 4 (1988): 122–35.Google Scholar
Yamane, Yukio. “Mm Shin jidai Kahoku ni okeru teikishi ]Periodic markets in North China during the Ming and Qing periods[.” Shiron 8 (1960): 493–504.Google Scholar
Zhang, Gang, “Qingdai Zhili shangpin jingji fenxi [Analysis of the commercial economy of Qing-dynasty Zhili].” Hebei shiyuan xuebao 3 (1985): 99–104.Google Scholar
ZPZZ. See Gongzhongdang zhupizouzhe.Google Scholar