全球贸易变动背景下清中后期广东硝石输入的增加

Changes in Global Trade and the Increase of Saltpeter Imports in Guangdong in the Middle and Late Qing Dynasty

硝石作为火药原料,历来受到政府的严格管控。17世纪前,通过走私的方式,亚洲形成一个以中国为中心的贸易市场。17世纪以后,东印度公司开发印度硝石,大量硝石被运往欧洲。18世纪末至19世纪初,由于欧洲硝石市场逐渐饱和,中国成为印度硝石新的目标市场。此时清朝正面临华南海上势力与林爽文起义的冲击,军用火药需求激增,而本地硝土不足,广东硝商开始采买洋船压舱咸砂(洋硝)煎硝,这可视为清政府正式规模化进口外洋硝石的发端。此后,广东硝石原料来源逐步呈现“土洋结合”的情态,18世纪末广东进口咸砂一事成为中国硝石贸易从出口向进口转变的关键节点。

Saltpeter,an ingredient for gunpowder production,had always been strictly controlled by the government.However,before the seventeenth century,Asia formed a China-centric trade market through smuggling.After the seventeenth century,the East India Company developed Indian saltpeter and large quantities of saltpeter were transported to Europe.At the end of eighteenth century and the beginning of nineteenth century,the European market was gradually saturated,and China became a new target market for Indian saltpeter.At this time,the Qing Dynasty faced the threat from maritime forces in South China and the uprising of Lin Shuangwen,and the demand for military gunpowder surged.Because the local nitrate soil was insufficient,Guangdong saltpeter merchants began to buy saltpeter from foreign shippers.This was the beginning of the Qing government’s formal large-scale import of foreign saltpeter.The production of saltpeter in Guangdong gradually combined indigenous and foreign raw materials.The import of raw materials to Guangdong at the end of the eighteenth century became a key node in the transformation of China’s saltpeter trade from export to import.