Trade System of Mongolia in the Ch'ing Dynasty

2001 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 11610376
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Asian history
• Research Institution: KYUSHU UNIVERSITY
• Principal Investigator: MORIKAWA Tetsuo Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies Kyushu u. Professor, 大学院・比較社会文化研究院, 教授 (50101275)
• Project Period (FY): 1999 – 2001
• Keywords: Chinese merchants in Mongolia / Da-sheng-kui / Gui-hua-cheng / Sui-yuan-cheng / Sui-yuan-tong-zhi-gao / rhubarb / Kyakhta

Research Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the trade system of Mongolia by the Chinese merchants in Mongolia (***) during the Ch'ing dynasty. From ancient times, nomads of Northern Asia cannot live only by products of themselves, so they imported many things produced by Southern farmers. But from when the Ch'ing dynasty conquered Mongolia in 17th century, the boundary between China and Mongolia had disappeared. From that times, many Chinese merchants made inroads into Mongolia. Since then the economic conditions of Mongolia greatly changed and many commercial cities were constructed in various places, particularly Huhhot of Inner Mongolia became its center. In recent years, the study on the trade system of Mongolia is paid attention to many Mongolists, so many researches were published from various viewpoints.
I did several investigations of materials on this theme at many domestic and Inner Mongolia's institutes during past three years and could collect many valuable materials. Based on those materials and other data, I carried out my studies on this theme, could find several new facts. One of them is the problem of trade of rhubarb. Rhubarb from China were much exported to Russia via Kyakhta in Ch'ing period. But the Ch'ing government closed the Kyakhta market and forbade to export rhubarb to Russia for the reason that Russia committed irregularities to China. Resulted from this, smuggling rhubarb out to Russia increased very much, the Ch'ing government had difficulty in controlling it. Next problem is that the salt from Alashan of Inner Mongolia was illegally exported to the northern part of China. When it was detected that the Wang of Alashan illegally exported the salt to China through Shanxi merchants, the Ch'ing government prohibited the Wang of Alashan from illegal trade. Beside these problems, I investigated the activities of Chinese merchants in Ikh khulee (now Ulanbator) and the reasons of degeneration of their activities in Mongolia about early in the 20th century.