Research Of Development Of Urban Areas With Salt Fields In Qing Dynasty

The Ming &Qing dynasties witnessed the paramount period of supply and sales of salt from its production regionsalong the Huai River.The prosperity of salt production industry has played a significant role in the regions' economic and social activities.With a considerable number of salt fields scattering around the coastal regions along the Huai River,they,be it of large or small in size,had seen to it that the salt they produced and taxes collected served as a pillar of the opulence of the local government and adequacy in public funds.By Qing Dynasty,the political and economic hubs of salt fields,where the residencies for salt field administrators were located,had developed into towns and cities,whose formation was owed to coordinative efforts of both economic and political factors,and demonstrated the regional characteristics for their development to the largest degree.Buttressed by crop transferring through watercourses and salt production industry,the urban areas along the Huai River gradually prospered in Qing Dynasty,featuring its variety,diversity and integrity.Throughout the economic system of urban areas of the region,those with salt fields were undoubtedly of utmost importance.Geographically,such urban areas,differentiated from the traditional agricultural ones in structures,patterns,and distributions,had demonstrated more of the developmental patterns and features of an urban area with salt production industry.Politically,the royal government of Qing Dynasty had attentively delegated powers to the community level,thus under the domination by local officials,there existed a check and balance of the triad among government officials on the community level,salt merchants and affluent households in the specific operation of such urban areas.Economically,salt production industry was prioritized as the primary sector,as was suggested by dint of space distribution and expansion,as well as the functions of urban areas.Also tremendously advanced were their commerce,fishery and brewery industries.In terms of cultural beliefs,a particular sense of cultural acceptance had formed among the residents of such urban areas through long-term labor.The penetration of culture had gone deep into all walks of society in the urban areas with salt production industry,which demonstrated their unique fascination in development.In general,the coastal regions along the eastern part of Huai River established a society oriented by salt production industry with conspicuous regional characteristics regarding the exploitation and application of salt resources.Activities of all kinds,including their ways of governance,social structure,business activities and cultural formulation have manifested their ubiquitous association with salt.The discovery,through crisscrossing the history of development of urban areas with salt fields along the Huai River,is that they were intact in infrastructure,well-improved in social function,gradually prosperous in business economy,and to some extent resembling the structure of modern cities.However,as such urban areas belong to the typical resource-oriented ones,it still had enormous historical restriction.As a double-edged sword,salt resources served as both the incarnator of such urban areas which brought about prosperity,and an inveterate force which destined their recession.At the turn of the period between the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China,with salt resources in depletion,the urban areas marked with salt fields of several centuries of prosperity,gradually came to its ebbing time of development,as a word which goes “the success and failure of cities was all to salt.”...