A Study On The Monopoly System Of Officials In The Qianlong Period Of The Qing Dynasty

Ginseng is a kind of rare plant. Because of its unique efficacy in medicine and health protection, it was always canonized by the official and civilian in ancient times. In the 17th century, the Jurchen regime move from the Northeast to the Central Plains, they paid special attention to their native place and forbid the Han nationality getting into there without permit. At the same time, they restricted and excluded the civil commercial capital by controlling the production and circulation of mink, ginseng and other northeast properties. In the period of Qianjia, the resource of ginseng had depleted gradually and so did the acquisition. So after Qing government met their own consumption needs, they forced others to finish the business sales tasks by relying on administrative orders, such as the officials, clan banners, customs, salt policy, weaving policy or other local institutions. In the Ming Dynasty, ginseng originally was a kind of ordinary commodity in folk. However, Qing government implements the administrative monopoly on the commercial distribution of Ginseng, which cracked down on private business and controlled the circulation of ginseng. In the period of Qianjia, there was a superstition of ginseng in folk, especially in the affluent area in Jiangnan where the people had strong demand of ginseng. In the meantime, there were a number of guide books about ginseng. And then it led the consumption of ginseng to be a fashion.Because of the control of the commercial trade of ginseng from the Qing government, the huge demand of ginseng in folk cannot be met. At that time, the western traders, who were worrying about the huge trade deficit between China and foreign, found the tremendous business opportunities and a surge of western ginseng trafficking boomed. In this paper, it intents to explore the relationship between governmental monopoly goods and consumer demand, especially at the time when the demand of some commodities in the developed areas cannot be met, what should the government do to reform the trade monopolies reasonably, maximize the demand of people and promote economic development. I hope that this paper could provide some advice to China's economic construction.There are three parts in this paper:production, sale and consumption. The first part is mainly about the production reforms for maintaining the northeast ginseng monopoly. Next part, it introduces the number and the profits of the ginseng in the process of price change which made by Qing dynasty during the period of Qianjia. In the last part, it is about situation of the official ginseng consumption in the southern areas, I believe these three parts are all indispensable. Only all these three parts can be given equal attention that the ginseng monopoly of the Qing can be fully demonstrate and then it could affect the result of the institute.