The Impact Of The Chinese And Tibetan Tea-horse Trade On The Development Of Sino-tibetan Relations In The Ming And Qing Dynasties

Ever since Tang dynasty had China central government constructed a close relationship with Tibet. That relation began with a marriage between the two royal families, and changed slowly or sharply along with the history going on, became more and more complicated. There are many scholars who had paid their attention to the political and cultural links between these two nationalities, and many papers arid essays about this issue had been published, but little attention had been paid to the economic link which exist naturally. And that is what I am interested in. In this paper, I will specially focus on the history of TEA-HORSE TRADE between Tibet and China central government, and do a close reading on this economic-political relationship.Tea, a common herbal beverage for Chinese, especially for Sichuanese, had become one kind of food-mate for Tibetan daily life for some nutritional reasons; Horse, a common livestock in Tibet, is scarce in Han area but very important for them to build up their army and helpful for agriculture. Tibet is abundant of horse, but short of tea, Han, especially Sichuan and Hubei province, is abundant of tea but short of horse, so we will see the TEA-HORSE TRADE got started very naturally in the marginal area far before the government relationship was found. Documents show that Tea-Horse trade happened occasionally in Han dynasty. But it is also clear that central government did not pay much attention to it.Tang dynasty started up a new relationship with Tibet by marriage, and became more serious on the Tea-Horse trade issue. Central government established a particular market in Chiling(in today's Qinghai ) for this transnational business. As they acknowledged the importance of tea for the neighbor, The governors thought it a special way to control marginal nationalities or tribes by controlling the Tea-Horse trade.Tea-Horse Trade developed dramatically in Song Dynasty. The long term war against northern nomadic nations such as Liao and Jin made Song's shortage of war-horse a big problem. The amount of horse needed risen up sharply, and Song government changed the Tea-Horse trade from a commercial issue into a state strategy. Because Tibet had no central government in this period, Tibetan merchants acted as an important role in the trade.Tea-Horse trade kept developing in Ming dynasty, but since Tibet was a province of China in that time, the trade produced some additional features. Lots of documents show that this former semi-transnational trade had become into a totally domestic economic relationship. According to Ming's constitution, Tibetan tribes should, and they really did, send horse to central government as "Gong" and take tea back as "Reward". It was not a business anymore, it changed into a new duty for Tibetan tribes.Qing dynasty witnessed the decline of the Tea-horse trade. Rose up in north China, Qing had its own horse area. On the other hand, tea-planting had spread widely into south China, the increasing quantity and quality of tea made tea lose its importance too. The Tea-horse trade kept going, but many other products flow into the Tea-Horse market. The economic link between Han and Tibet became more and more diversified. The simple Tea-horse trade had finally changed into a need a life, not a need of war or other political strategy.