A Study On Illegal Mining Problem In The Ming Dynasty

Illegal mining activities during the Ming period were the social-economic phenomena that were due to the conflicts between the inherent impetus to the development of the mining industry economy and the government's rigid monopoly policy for the mining industry at that time. This dissertation has done a systematic research on the illegal mining problem in the Ming dynasty. The following issues have been discussed in this paper:the main mineral resources and their geography distributions,the evolution of the policy of the mining industry,the survey of the illegal mining activities,the components and organization methods of the illegal miners,the characteristics of and the government's countermeasures to the illegal mining activities. This article holds that there were many reasons for the illegal mining activities appearing in the Ming period,including the government's rigid monopoly policy for the mining industry,the huge profit from illegal mining,the government's invalid countermeasures,the pressure of population,the loose census register system and the decline of the state-owned mining industry. It can be safely concluded that,in certain sense,the illegal mining activities have good effect no the development of the mining industry economy,the revolution of the mode of production in the mining industry and the development of economy in remote mountain areas. Meanwhile,it does not allow ignoring its destruction effect on the stability of the nation and society as well as the ecology environment.