The Market System Of The Eastern Part Of Sichuan Province Before The Found Of Chongqing Custom

With the collective effort of the scholars both nation and abroad, the research of market, which began in the 1930's, has acquired abundant outcomes. But as far as regional research is speaking, the majority of these researching outcomes are concentrated on some limited regions, such as the central and downer region of Yangtze River, the estuary of Zhujiang, and the northern provinces of China, while the researches on the Upper Yangtze provinces are relatively insufficient. As the result, this article has emphasized on the eastern part of Sichuan province, which is characteristic on marketing development in the Qing Dynasty, investigated the capacity, layer and commodity structure of its market, and furthermore, the interaction between this region and the outer market. The structure of this article is mainly divided into three parts; the first chapter is the academic explanation of three key words: the eastern part of Sichuan province, market structure, and the found of Chongqing custom. Generally speaking, the main part of the Eastern Sichuan province includes the following seven districts: Chongqingm, Kuizhou, Suiding, Youyang, Shizhu and Zhongzhou. These districts are highly coincident in climate, ecology and economic development. Moreover, in the concept of native people, it has already been a characteristic economic region, which is distinctly different with the surrounding regions. The peripheral part of Eastern Sichuan province includes Tongnan, Shehong, Suining, Shehong, Guangan, Yuechian and nanchong. This region is relatively different with the above mentioned seven districts, but in the Qing dynasty, they get more and more dependent with the main part of Eastern Sichuan province. So, the investigation on the peripheral part will help to clarify the expansion and reframe of Eastern Sichuan economic region. The so called "market structure"is a commodity circulate net, which is made up of a series of inter-connected markets. Nowadays, the investigation on "market structure"is mainly based on three observing angles. Jiangshoupeng divided the "market system"into three parts, named commodity market, labor market and finance market. So, we can call his theory as "obligation system". According to the different developing level, American scholar William?G?Skinner divided the Chinese market into eight layers, namely normal market town, median market town, central market town, relatively large city, regional city, regional metropolitan and central metropolitan. Thus, we can summarize his theory as "layer system". The Chinese scholar Xutan also put forward the notion of "network system". Based on Skinners theory, Xu divided the market into three layers, named "rural bazaar, commercial market town, and circulate pivot city", and investigate the interaction of every network. So, we can call her theory as "network system". The found of Chongqing custom was on March 1st, 1891, from then on, Chongqing has become another metropolitan, which can trade with the foreigners directly. The found of Chongqing custom can be regarded as a verge, from which the traditional economy has been gradually transformed into the modern economy. More and more new economic factors entered into this region, its commodity market, labor market and finance market have undergone a lot of structural transformations. The second part of this article is mainly about the "obligation system"of Eastern Sichuan province before the found of Chongqing custom. The description about the commodity market can be summarized into two aspects. The first aspect is the export commodities, including cereal, salt, opium, medicine and some sorts of man-made products. The majority of export commodities are agricultural products and raw materials, this phenomenon reflects the stagnation of the regional industry. The other aspect is mainly about the import commodities, such as cotton and Guanghuo. The import of cotton is basically because the scarcity of native cotton. And the marketing channel of Guanghuo can hardly be broadened in a fairly long period. This phenomenon proves the introverted inclination of the regional economy. A self-providing style controlled the economic development of this region. Because of the economic development and population inflation, a fairly large number of free labors have been existed in the Eastern Sichuan market. The majority of them were distributed in the field of transportation and mining. The existence of these employable labors has offered many kinds of services, which was crucial to the market development, and meanwhile, it has also testimonied the developing course of the regional market. But on the other hand, the living conditions of these labors were very gloomy. They suffered extremely heavy burden, but received only pitiful salary. In this market, they were arranged in a very passive position. They can neither negotiate with the market, nor take the advantage of the market to improve their living condition and professional capability. Before the found of Chongqing custom, the finance market of Eastern Sichuan was made up of five parts: Hehui, pawnage, usury, Piaohao and Qianpu. Hehui is a reciprocal financial organization, which set up by the peasants. The aim of this organization was temporarily collect the unused funds of the peasants, so as to cope with the seasonal fund scarcity. Pawnage was professional financial service; it received commodities as collateral, and on the other hand, offered loans to the clients. Usury is a kind of loan. The central service offered byPiaohao was remote remittance. They not only served the merchants, but also maintained friendly relationship with the local government. Qianpu is the primeval stage of Qianzhuang. Its central service was receiving savings, distributing loans and exchanging the currency. So to say, a financial service with wide coverage has already come into being in the Eastern Sichuan regional market. The third chapter of the article discussed the "layer system"of the Eastern Sichuan regional market. Before entering the specific description, the article pointed out three points of doubts upon Skinner's theory: first, as for some important indexes, Skinner has not mentioned clearly. Second, some criterions put forwarded by Skinner were not theoretically summarize. Third, some criterions used by Skinner were not feasible to every specific research. And then, the article put forwarded its own criterions t divide the market layers: first, the percentage of the wholesaling trade; second, the developing level of its subsidiary markets. Third, the retailing commodities and services offered by the markets. According to the above mentioned criterions, the article divided the Eastern Sichuan market into four layers, namely "bazaar, market town, middle commercial cities and large metropolitans. Bazaar was set up by the rural inhabitant, so as to supply their living and producing demands. According to their different location, we can label it into two types: "rural bazaar"and "downtown bazaar". Market town is the intermediate link between bazaar and commercial cities. On one hand, they collected the productions of every bazaar, and on the other hand, it also purchases a large number of commodities from the outer market, and distributes it to the subsidiary bazaars. The middle commercial cities and the large metropolitans have some characters in common, such as they all includes a great deal of complex commercial operation; their commercial activities appears much more regular and organizational; they all possess plentiful and stable commodity markets. But their differences were also very obvious. First, the metropolitans always located in the transportation center of the whole economic region, while the middle commercial city always located in the transportation center of the sub-regions. Second, the metropolitan always in charge of collecting the commodities from the whole economic region, while the middle commercial cities always in charge of collective the commodities from the sub-regions. Third, the metropolitan was able to maintain long-period and large-scale interaction with the outer markets, while the trade of the middle commercial cities is largely limited into its own commercial region. The conclusion: During this period, the market of the Eastern Sichuan province has undergone a systematical developing course. It possessed a large...