Not unexpectedly, the historical, artistic, and ethnographic data about salt production in China are far more complete for recent periods than they are for more remote antiquity. Information that is contemporaneous with the pre-Han Zhongba remains is scarce and difficult to interpret. This brief review highlights some of the existing information about salt production in China, and particularly in the Sichuan area (see also von Falkenhausen). I discuss some of the institutions that developed in association with the large-scale salt production that emerged in the last two millennia as the technologies for accessing brine and producing salt improved.

background

As would be expected from a region with a history and geography as complex and multifaceted as China, salt production involved all possible salt sources and many different manufacturing techniques. Along the eastern coast, salt production involved seawater. Salt was won from salt lakes in the north central, northwestern, and Tibetan regions and was produced using brine from springs and salt wells in Sichuan and Yunnan. The central government intermittently maintained various forms of a monopoly on salt production and trade starting in approximately 117 b.c. This monopoly was established based on a precedent set by the state of Qi – located on the Shandong Peninsula – which maintained full state coffers with a monopoly of sea salt production starting around 685 b.c.