Rice Prices, Food Supply, and Market Structure in Eighteenth-Century South China

Abstract

RICE PRICES, FOOD SUPPLY, AND MARKET STRUCTURE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SOUTH CHINA* Robert B. Marks Introduction The story line is well known: commercialization and population growth fueled increasing economic prosperity in south China during the eighteenth century. Wet rice cultivation in China's southernmost provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi supported a population that grew from about fifteen million to twenty-eight million during the reign of the Qianlong emperor (173695 ), about seven percent of whom lived in towns and cities, the largest concentration (about 600,000) in Guangzhou. Whether owned or rented, farms managed by peasant families produced raw materials for handicraft industries such as silk weaving, and consumption goods such as sugar cane, tea, and tobacco, in addition to providing for the family's subsistence needs. To sustain such a diversified economy and growing population, both urban dwellers and rural producers of commercial or other non-food crops had to "This paper is a revision and expansion of a paper first given at the 1987 Qing Social and Economic History Conference in Shenzhen. A Graves Award in 1985 supported two months of research at the Number One Historical Archives in Beijing, followed two years later by another month's research. The latter was made possible by the indulgence of Whittier College's president who allowed me the luxury of scholarly work in addition to more bureaucratic duties. Many people have helped in the course of writing the paper. Qiu Yuanyou, head librarian at Beijing Teacher's College, introduced me to the archives at the Number One; Liu Wei and Wang Daorui, archivists at the Number One helped me locate, use and interpret various sources; fellow researchers at the Number One—Jack Wills, Tom Buoye, Lillian Li, Robert Antony, and David Kelly—shared ideas and experiences; Whittier College students Keith Black and Susan Ingersoll entered data and the former helped with preliminary statistical analyses; and Thomas Rawski kindly critiqued an earlier version. Kathy Walker, Robert Gardella, Katie Lynch, Yeh-chien Wang, and Kenneth Pomeranz offered numerous suggestions for improvement; Thomas Rawski, Lillian Li, and two anonymous readers for Late Imperial China critiqued the penultimate version of the paper. I express my sincerest thanks and gratitude to all of them, but the interpretations and mistakes that remain are mine. Special thanks goes to Professor Chen Chunsheng, whose pathbreaking master's and doctoral theses and willingness to share his ideas and findings, are exemplars of international colleagiality. Late Imperial China Vol. 12, No. 2 (December 1991): 64-116© by the Society for Qing Studies 64 Rice Prices, Food Supply, and Market Structure65 have a regular and reliable supply of food. To do so was not an insurmountable task, but the political, social, and economic organization necessary was nonetheless, quite impressive, especially when it is remembered that the population and land area of the two provinces were about the same as that of France during the same period. The problem of food supply in eighteenthcentury south China thus is an interesting and significant one; the purpose of this paper is to analyze the problem, paying particular attention to the commercialization of rice and the subsequent structure of the market for rice in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. These provinces were chosen both because of prior interest in south China (Marks 1984), and because the configuration of the provinces enables testing and refinement of G. William Skinner's theses regarding China's macroregional structure (Skinner 1977). Geographically, the Nanling mountain range on the northern boundary of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces forms the watershed between the Yangzi River drainage system and the rivers which flow to the south. Three major rivers—the East, North, and West—comprise a separate drainage system that empties into the South China Sea through the Pearl River delta. With the exception of easternmost Guangdong, the two provinces comprised what Skinner has called the "Lingnan" macroregion. Studies of other parts of China have documented the exchange of commodities and the existence of both local and long-distance trade in food, and some have begun to estimate how well developed and integrated the resulting market was.1 Those are problems to be addressed in this paper, too. Other questions include: How did food...