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清代雲南銅礦工業
The Copper Mining Industry in Yunnan during the Ch'ing Period
並列摘要
During the Ch'ing period (1644-1911) copper coins continued to serve as a medium of exchange in the market although silver had become an important component of the money supply since the Ming (1368-1644). As the supply of copper coins grew, the government imported Japanese copper for its mints. Due to a limited supply in Japan, however, the export of this ＂foreign copper＂ to China decreased after the mid-eighteenth century. Realizing that Chinese mints could not depend on copper imports from Japan, the Ch'ing government made an effort to develop the copper mining industry in Yunnan, a province with the richest deposit of copper in China. As part of their territorial expansion in Asia, the Mongols had taken over the non-Chinese kingdom of Tali in Yunnan in 1253. This conquest made Yunnan an integral part of China, and thereafter, a number of copper mines in that province began producing copper. By the mid-Ming period the government had set up mints in Yunnan so as to use copper for coinage. However, the copper mining industry in Yunnan did not develop on a large scale until the last quarter of the seventeenth century, after the Manchus had suppressed the rebellion of Wu San-kuei. By the mid-Ch'ing period copper mining flourished everywhere in Yunnan, but the mines in Tung-ch'uan prefecture of northern Yunnan were the most important. From 1740 to 1811 Yunnan annually produced over 90 million catties of copper for the mints in Peking and other provinces. During these years the province produced more than 10 million catties of copper each year, the largest output exceeding 14 million catties or more than 8,700 tons in 1766. As the annual output of copper throughout the world amounted to only 50,000 short tons in the 1840s, we can appreciate the important role Yunnan played in the world copper mining industry of this period. Wealthy businessmen from the Kiangnan, Hu-kwang, Szechwan and Kwangtung invested large amounts of capital to develop certain copper mines in Yunnan during the mid-Ch'ing period. One source shows that a large copper mining firm employed over one hundred thousand laborers; the total number of employees in Yunnan's mining industry probably came to several million. Copper mining not only give employment to the poor, but to immigrants from Kweichow, Szechwan, Hunan, Hupei, Kwangtung and Kwangsi. The government exercised monopoly control over minting cash and carefully controlled the supply of copper from Yunnan where it taxed and purchased the largest share of copper production. At first copper mines operated at a profit because the government offer price covered production costs. After some years of operation, however, production costs increased because many mines became exhausted. As more time passed miners worked in deeper pits. They mined under conditions of flooding where heavy rains or underground streams usually concealed the deep seams. In some copper mine over one thousand people did nothing more than pump water day and night from the mine. Furthermore, the industry also began to suffer fuel shortages. For copper smelting 1,400-1,500 catties of charcoal were required to produce 100 catties of copper during the mid-Ch'ing period. Soon deforestation occurred in the areas of copper mining, and consequently fuel costs rose sharply. These cost factors explain why copper mining became more expensive, and when the price paid by the government did not cover these new production costs, the industry became less profitable. When the Moslem War broke out in Yunnan in 1856 most of the copper mines were already deserted, and they did not produce copper for the next 18 years. When the war ended in 1874 the government did try to revive the industry, but thereafter copper production in Yunnan never approached its pre-war level.