清代盐政的市场化倾向——兼论数据史料的文本解读

Marketization Tendency of the Salt Administration in the Qing Dynasty:On Text Elaboration of the Historical Data

将清代文献中大量人口、盐引、盐课等原始数字视为文本加以解读,可以发现清代各盐区的盐引分配,基本上与本盐区的市场容量吻合,这说明清代各盐区的盐引分配具有一定的市场导向性。清王朝的各盐区盐课派定额符合普通老百姓的负担水平,显示出其在特定意义上的行政合理性,文献中经常出现的"茹淡"现象,需要另行解释。本文主要得益于对数字史料的"文本解读"方法,即不对数字进行分析、批判再加以估算,而是将数字史料当作文本,回归历史场景,直接依原始数据去理解当时行为者的决策。

In this paper, we use the original numbers of population, salt certificates and salt taxes in the literature of the Qing Dynasty to interpret it as a text. It is found that the salt distribution of salt areas in the Qing Dynasty is generally consistent with the market capacity of these salt areas, which indicates that the salt distribution in the Qing Dynasty had a certain degree of market orientation. The salt tax of each salt area was in line with the quantity that common people can afford, showing its administrative rationality. Thus the ＂Ru Dan＂ phenomenon frequently referred to in the literature need to be justified by evidences. This finding benefits from a text elaboration, which takes figures as situated text arising from particular historical contexts and interpret them from the view of decision makers, instead of analyzing, criticizing and estimating the data.