Late Imperial China

MANAGED BY THE PEOPLE: OFFICIALS, GENTRY, AND THE FOSHAN CHARITABLE GRANARY, 1795-1845* Mary Backus Rankin At the end of 1795 a group of town leaders established a charitable granary at the large, wealthy market town of Foshan, near Canton in Guangdong province. This granary is intrinsically interesting both for its size and longevity. By 1846 the reserves stood at 1,440,000 catties (about 14,400 shi), and operations continued into the twentieth century. At times it played a significant role in maintaining social stability and ensuring some measure of well-being to the poor working families of this trading and industrial center.1 The purpose here, however, is to look at what its relatively well-documented activities reveal about the interactions between officials and local elites in the conduct of what was called Foshan's "public affairs." Certainly, neither the granary nor the town can be called typical, but this history does provide insights into state-societal processes, attitudes, and relationships that can also be seen in gazetteers of other parts of the Canton Delta. The granary in Foshan originated within the remarkable Qing dynasty program of grain storage and famine relief made familiar through the work of Pierre-Etienne Will, Bin Wong, and others.2 In the mid-eighteenth century , the grain-storage target for official ever-normal granaries was 740,000 shi in Guangzhou prefecture, which included Nanhai county where Foshan was located. During famines, officials also solicited elite contributions to supplement the official stores, and relied on local elites to help distribute relief. "The author appreciates suggestions made by Lillian Li, Robert Marks, Pierre-Etienne Will, and Bin Wong. Gao 1985:43. The charitable granary reserves were reported in catties (jin—a unit of weight) whereas figures for community and official granaries were stated in shi (a unit of volume). I have roughly converted the charitable granary figures into shi using figures from the 1831 relief distribution that indicate one shi then equalled about 100 catties (MQFB 1986:421-22). This would be roughly consistent with the eighteenth-century practice in Canton of reckoning in market shi, which was a unit of weight (rather than volume) theoretically equal to 100 catties (Chuan and Kraus 1975:82). The figures are approximate, and the equivalences might vary. One catty equals c. 1.33 pounds. 2WiIl 1990; Will and Wong 1991. Late Imperial China Vol. 15, No. 2 (December 1994): 1-52 1 2 Mary Backus Rankin Gentry-run charitable granaries (yicang) located in towns, and community granaries (shecang) in villages, were recognized additions to the official system , as they were elsewhere in China. The economic input of local men had approached that of the government in some instances during the second half of the eighteenth century. Guangzhou's ever-normal granaries had begun to decline by the beginning of the nineteenth century, but the target for grain reserves was still 670,000 shi during the Daoguang reign (1821-1850). It was not until the mid-nineteenth century rebellions that the system collapsed, leaving relief as a local elite responsibility.3 The Foshan granary cannot, however, be properly understood either as an adjunct to the official program or as an isolated local institution. An ambitious local project undertaken by a vigorous town leadership in a sphere of welfare to which officials attached great importance, it was part of a more complex web of relationships and interests. Officials ranging from governorsgeneral down to the local police chief took an interest in the affairs of so important an economic center close to the provincial capital. David Faure has already shown that a gentry network with roots in the late Ming became dominant in town affairs as these men acquired control of the main temple during the mid-eighteenth century.4 By the time the granary was founded, there was already a body of interconnected local institutions with a similarly interconnected leadership. Two lines of investigation, therefore, contribute to understanding interactions between officials and the local managers. One looks at the relationship as expressed in managerial petitions, official proclamations, and granary regulations ; the other at the place of the granary within the complex of Foshan extra-bureaucratic institutions and the town...