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

By Yulian Wu

From precious jade articles to monumental stone arches, Huizhou salt merchants in Jiangnan lived surrounded by objects in eighteenth-century China. How and why did these businessmen devote themselves to these items? What can we learn about eighteenth-century China by examining the relationship between merchants and objects?

Luxurious Networks examines Huizhou salt merchants in the material world of High Qing China to reveal a dynamic interaction between people and objects. The Qianlong emperor purposely used objects to expand his influence in economic and cultural fields. Thanks to their broad networks, outstanding managerial skills, and abundant financial resources, these salt merchants were ideal agents for selecting and producing objects for imperial use. In contrast to the typical caricature of merchants as mimics of the literati, these wealthy businessmen became respected individuals who played a crucial role in the political, economic, social, and cultural world of eighteenth-century China. Their life experiences illustrate the dynamic relationship between the Manchu and Han, central and local, and humans and objects in Chinese history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Release date: Jan 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781503600799

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Stanford University Press

Stanford, California

© 2017 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.

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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

Luxurious Networks

SALT MERCHANTS, STATUS, AND STATECRAFT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHINA

Yulian Wu

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA

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

Contents

Maps, Tables, and Figures

Reign Titles of the Qing Emperors (1644–1911)

Note on Transcription and Reigns and Dates

Acknowledgments

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

PART ONE | A NEW REGIME: THE MANCHU COURT AND SALT MERCHANTS

1. Courting the Court

PART TWO | FINDING THINGS IN JIANGNAN

2. Furnishing the Court

3. Collecting as a Collector

PART THREE | MAKING THINGS IN HUIZHOU

4. Luxury and Lineage

5. Materializing Morality

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

Notes

Character List

Bibliography

Index

Maps, Tables, and Figures

Map F.1. The Jiangnan region and Huizhou in late imperial China

Map 1.1. The Lianghuai and Liangzhe salt zones under the Qing

Map 1.2. Modern map of She county before 1987

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

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

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

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

Figure 3.1. A portrait of Wang Qishu when he was twenty years old

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

Figure 3.3. Seal impressions from Feihongtang yinpu

Figure 3.4. Seal impressions from Jigu yincun

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

Figure 4.2. "Leshan haoshi" arch, Tangyue village, She county, Huizhou

Figure 4.3. An illustration of Tangyue village

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

Figure 4.5. An imprint of the inkstone that Bao Xunmao gave to Ji Yun

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

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

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)

Reign Titles of the Qing Emperors (1644–1911)

(with abbreviations used in the text and notes)

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).

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 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 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 Bao-min, himself a true specialist in Chinese ancient characters, kindly helped me decipher zhuanshu and lishu from various seal collection books. Sophie 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 Reed-Smith 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 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 parents-in-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.

Map F.1   The Jiangnan region and Huizhou in late imperial China

SOURCE: 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? 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.

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.

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 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 eighteenth-century 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 eighteenth-century China.

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 today boasts an array of grand architectural projects, such as the eleven-meter-tall 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 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.

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

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 situation 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 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 compilation of these impressions. In the meantime, back in Huizhou, the stone arch whispers