封禁・開採・弛禁 : 淸代中期江西における山地開發

Abstract

Various studies in recent years have indicated that the so-called "prosperous age" 盛世 of the mid-Qing of the 18th century was brought to a close by the ecological limits of exploitation. In order to explore this issue historically, it is necessary to clarify the perceptions of the people at the time of the ecological limits of exploitation. The responses to the ecological limits of exploitation during the Qing dynasty were shaped by three factors pulling in different directions, i.e., the prohibition of access to natural resources, fengjin 封禁, the promotion of planned development, kaicai 開採, and the deregulation of the prohibition to the access to natural resources, chijin 馳禁. I have attempted to clarify the perceptual systems that upheld arguments for each response and their relations to the methods of administrative policy. The Tongtangshan 銅塘山 dealt with in this article was called a "prohibited mountain, " because access to its resources was prohibited during the Ming dynasty in order to preserve public peace. The policy of prohibiting development was carried on during the Qing. When the rule of emperor Qianlong commenced, even the officials of the central government became conscious of the rise in the cost of food, and the planned development of natural resources began to be advocated. Receiving these demands from the central government, Chen Hongmou 陳弘謀, who was known as a capable bureaucrat, submitted a plan for the development of Tongtangshan to the throne. He deciphered the complex geography of the mountainous region and proposed the cultivation of crops suited to each environment. The crux of Chen's development plan was to limit those who were to reclaim the land to local residents. His aim was to transform the mountainous land into sustainable property, heng-ye 恆業. Within Chen Hongmou's argument for deregulation, his writings on the mountainous areas are quite detailed. He pointed out that it was possible to develop the land according to the character of the terrain and to cultivate crops, and that much wealth could be created by choosing crops that could be introduced under mountainous conditions. Chen's argument had been supported by the methods of administration built up while he served as the provincial governor, xunfu 巡撫, of Jiangxi. He determined regional administrative policy after receiving reports of investigations of local conditions and maps that he had commissioned by the magistrates of the localities that were under his jurisdiction. The administrative methods developed in the administration of Jiangxi were fully deployed in Shaanxi，his next assignment. By comparing the categories in the reports issued shortly after his appointment to Jiangxi and those after taking office in Shaanxi, one sees that he had deepened his awareness of the development of mountainous regions while ruling in Jiangxi. It is clear, for example, that he had come to grasp the vegetation of mountainous regions and had become intensely aware of the necessity of its link to land rights. The policies that Chen issued in regard to planned development were not the traditional agronomism grounded Confucian thought. They were intended to solve the "food" problem by providing the people the power to buy and sell land in order to promote commercial activity. The development of mountainous lands was not simply aimed at increasing the volume of arable land; it was also intended to put the various resources of the forests to use in establishingindustry. The argument that Chen Hongmou advanced for planned development was, nevertheless, never put into practice. A summary of the dangers as they would have been construed by local officials in regard to the development of the mountainous regions would probably include the following. In developing mountainous regions, local financing would prove inadequate, and it would be necessary for commercial capital from outside the region to provide funding. In order to seek profit beyond a fixed level, commercial capital would then promote development on scale greater than the level that had been envisioned by Chen Hongmou. This sort of development could not be sustained by the local populace. Therefore, a labor force would flow into the area, and the local food sources would be unable to support them. So the arguments must have gone, and the prohibition on the access to the resources of Tongtangshan continued. As the years went by, the policy of prohibiting access to resources grew increasingly hollow. Living in an area adjacent to the prohibited region became an advantage, as people willfully violated the border in order to develop new lands and burned or cut the woods at will. The monies attained in this manner would be paid to the soldiers and offcials who were ostensibly guarding the lands. The prohibited areas were whittled away by development from the surrounding territories. With the coming of the 19th century and change in the era name to Jiaqing, the argument for deregulation came to be instituted in the form of a confirmation of the existing reality. This argument was not advanced with any conception of promoting sustainable industries. Its institution was no more than as a stopgap remedy for the current situation. Although conscious of the problem, it had been nearly impossible for the bureaucratic apparatus to relax the prohibition that had been in place for hundreds of years. The prohibition on access to Tongtangshan was finally removed in 1869 after Taipingtianguo. By this time the capacity of the environment had already been degraded by unplanned development. The reason that Chen Hongmou was able to perceive the possibility of developing the Tongtangshan area can be laid to the fact that it was grounded on his knowledge of the environmental capacity of Tongtangshan, which he had attained in his capacity of a bureaucrat and not as an individual person. Through communications with local officials in reports etc., a functional and substantive bureaucratic organization was formed with the provincial governor at its hub and district magistrates at the outer rim. Chen by taking in information generated by local officials created a bureaucratic organization able to adapt to ever changing realities. Regional officials other than Chen who advocated a policy of prohibition could only perceive the capacity of the environment before their own eyes and could not conceive of how the scene might be changed by human intervention. The cause for this may be discovered in the fact most regional officials were organized in the standard bureaucratic structure that only served to convey the will of superiors on down to inferiors. Whether capacity of the environment could be preserved or not depended on whether the potentialities of development of the land could be perceived. In the case of Tongtangshan, unplanned developed proceeded because the successor to Chen Hongmou could not perceive its potential, and the capacity of the environment was degraded. In contrast, Jiulingshan 九嶺山 in Jiangxi was, like Tongtangshan, designated a prohibited mountain due to consideration of public order during the Ming. But the fact that the target area possessed the potential for development was clear to residents of other regions because prior to the designation, areas of cultivation had already existed, the right to the profits had been established, and a tax burden created. The implementation of the policy of prohibiting access to resources awakened a realization that by venturing to abandon this potential, it might profit the local society. In the district in which Jiulingshan was located, the amount of tax based on the potentiality of development of the prohibited area was paid instead on the basis of the entire area owned by all those with a tax burden. As a result, a public consciousness regarding the prohibited land was born, and the prohibition on access was maintained. The central area of Jiulingshan is even today a designated nature reserve. Although the policy of prohibition to the access of resources was implemented in regard to the environmental potential of Tongtangshan, those recourses were gobbled up by interlopers from other regions. The reason for this was that regional officials and elites were unable to perceive the value of mountainous lands. If they had perceived the creation of economic value through planned development, the residents of the region would have shouldered the burden of development themselves and attained regular employment in the mountains. Others, precisely because they realized there was such value and yet ventured to abandon economic profit, were able to preserve values other than economic ones, such as social stability. In the study of the history of the environment, the prohibition of access to resources has often been judged as preservation of the environment. However, to determine whether it was possible to maintain the prohibition over time, one must pursue the implementation of the policy within the reality of methods of administration and tax burden in each historical period. The study of the ecological history must be investigated within the historical circumstances.