Social Life Of Tsou‐hu In Liang‐huai Salt Administration During Ming Dynasty

Government began to register salt-producing households to control their activity in production and in life after the founding of the Ming dynasty. The most generally terms was used in Ming to describe these salt-producing households is tsou-hu. Since the salt, production result of tsou-hu, is vital to state income, Tsou-hu is special to normal people in social life including living behavior, revenue, social relations, social class and so on. Liang-huai Salt Administration is in position of great influence to salt production of Ming. So the life style of salt producers in this area is typical.About living behavior, salt production activity is the main contents. The work so hard that tsou-hu is living in poverty. In income aspect, ether the level or the pattern always change with policy and development of salt industry. The social relations of tsou-hu are complicated and open. There are Internal stratification and many businessman or vagrants involve in. Although tsou-hus is low in the social scale generally, someone change their occupations by become CHIN-SHIH or businessman or scholar to achieve the status mobility.