Ming Dynasty Salt Administration And Salt Industry And Literature

Since Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty adopted the suggestion of Sanghongyang,salt administration had always been one of the most important economic systems in feudal dynasty.The change of salt administration system will cause a wide chain reaction in society and affect the literature of a period.In the middle and late Ming Dynasty,the system of salt administration in China was undergoing a drastic change.The monopoly system of commerce gradually replaced the official monopoly system which lasted for thousands of years.The changes of the salt administration also caused the changes of literature in Ming Dynasty.This paper aims to analyze how salt administration influenced literature in Ming Dynasty,and to explore the relationship between literature and economic system.The first chapter of this paper mainly investigates the system of salt administration in Ming Dynasty and its reflection in literature.On the basis of inheriting the salt law of Song and Yuan Dynasties,the salt administration system,also named as Kaizhong Law,was established.With the aggravation of border crisis in the middle of Ming Dynasty,salt administration became a social topic of great concern to scholars in Ming Dynasty.The poetry and prose works with the theme of salt administration have emerged in large numbers.These works inherited the tradition of Debates on Salt and Iron.They exposed the salt policy issues,criticized the potential illegal actions,and called for the reform of salt administration.The problems of salt administration which appeared in the middle and late Ming Dynasty also provided inspiration for the novels such as Gold Vase Plum.The traditional poetry and vernacular novels reflected the salt politics problem from different perspectives,showing the social reality and appearance before the salt policy reform.The second chapter of this paper summarizes the scholars' common consensus on the salt administration in Ming Dynasty.They can be summarized as "benefiting businessmen,sympathize with salt producers and attach importance to wealth".Under the Kaizhong Law,the great importance of salt merchants makes scholars begin to reexamine the status of the business class and put forward a new concept of equality.The problem of salt producers was the source of many salt politics problems in Ming Dynasty,so the concept of "Xuzao" was promoted to central strategic level.With salt tax becoming an irreplaceable source of national finance,the scholars in Ming Dynasty had a new understanding of the significance of wealth,which was thought offensive to morality in neo-confucianism.Those common consensus on the salt administration influenced the thought of scholars,who were the main body of Ming Dynasty literature,and further affected their literary creation and literary activities.The third chapter to the sixth chapter of this paper discusses the influence of salt administration on literature from the perspective of salt officials,salt merchants and salt producers.The third chapter takes the Lianghuai regions as an example to analyze the influence of salt officials' involvement in regional cultural and studies the literary activities and literary creation of salt officials.The paper also discusses the historical phenomenon of salt officials' acceptance of Yang-ming's Psychological in the Lianghuai regions.The fourth chapter focuses on the analysis of the relationship between salt merchants and literature.Starting from the particularity of salt merchants in Ming Dynasty,this paper analyzes the motive of salt merchants to actively participate in literature in Ming Dynasty,which made the biographies of merchants emerge in large numbers,enriching the image of merchants in Chinese classical literature.Salt merchants' investment in opera also contributed to the prosperity of the opera in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.The activity of salt merchants in Ming Dynasty also reflected in the literary works in Ming Dynasty.The literary thoughts of salt merchants pursuing pleasure and attaching importance to eroticism are also reflected in merchants' work.The fifth chapter focuses on the thought of Taizhou School founded by Wang Gen,who was a salt producer in Taizhou.Among Wang Yangming's disciples,Wang Gen's thought is the most unique because it attaches great importance on survival and education of those so-called "innocent men and women".Wanggen's philosophy and literature work are deeply affected by his own experience in salt producing.He and his sons' literary works showed the living situation of the people in the salt-producing area,which had special literary value.The sixth chapter discusses the development of the pitying-salt-producers poem in different periods of Ming Dynasty.Pitying-salt-producers poems make detailed and true description of the production of salt and miserable life of the salt producers.The outstanding realistic poet Wu Jiaji was the first one to write pitying-salt-producers poems.His work combines the achievements of the previous generation of the poem with his unique artistic style,making the ideological and artistic character of the poem reach an unprecedented height.