淸代中期の杭州と商品流通 : 北新關を中心として

Abstract

During the Qing period, many Native Custom-houses were established at the important traffic points along the main commodity-circulation routes such as the Grand Canal and Yangzi River, where duties and dues were levied on goods in circulation and craft in navigation. Beixinguan was one of these custom-houses, and located at the south end of the Grand Canal, in the north of Hangzhou city. The purpose of this paper is to search the functions of Beixinguan for some aspects of commodity circulation around Hangzhou. The amount of revenue at this custom-house was not so much as that at Xushuguan 滸墅関 or Huaianguan 淮安關, because of the exemption from duties on rice, beans and so on, in order to cope with the recurrent famines in Zhejiang province. The major revenue item at Beixinguan was the duties on the Fujian-produced tobacco and on goods distributed through Qiantang River. On the other hand, silk as a noted product at Hangzhou, on which the rate of duties was fairly low, was not the main factor of fluctuating revenue at this custom-house. Although the amount of the silk in circulation, therefore, cannot be estimated through the investigation of the levies there, it seemed to be distributed partly to the southeastern provinces and mostly to the other ones and the capital through the Grand Canal. To be sure, the duties on the silk distributed to the North could not be exempted at several custom-houses in transit. However, such duties were often made exempted under the name of 'tuyi' 土宜, or annexed shipments sanctioned by the Government as a certain amount of duty-free goods on board caochuans 漕船, or grain transport ships.