Growing up before the Rebellion: Merchant Organization and Local Administration in Chongqing

Abstract

Drawing on evidence from the uniquely rich archives of Ba County, this article proposes a revision of the widely shared assumption that the disastrous effects of the Taiping Rebellion led first to the flourishing and then to the fall of merchant involvement in local municipal initiatives throughout the Qing Empire. The article illustrates how the history of merchant and craftsmen participation in administrative projects can be dated to a century before the Taiping Rebellion of the mid-nineteenth century. Tracing this history back to the middle of the eighteenth century, the article represents the flourishing of merchant initiatives in the nineteenth century as the culmination of a longer trajectory of state-merchant collaboration and negotiation.