The Ba people built their Ba Kingdom in southwest China's
Sichuan-Chongqing area. Though located in a barren mountainous
area, the kingdom defeated their enemies in many wars and
prospered, owing to the precious resource it owned - salt. At sites
in the Three Gorges area on the Yangtse River formerly inhabited by
the Ba people, archeologists found cultural relics used in
primitive salt-making, providing proof to the assumption that salt
industry developed very early in this area.
Salt production in ancient times
The land of Zhongxian County lies in the middle section of the
Three Gorges, between? Fengdu, the Ghost City, and Wanzhou of
Chongqing. Though the water level of the river is rising, as
planned for the Three Gorges project, there is no threat for the
main area of Zhongxian County. The small and humble county seat
situated on the mountaintop indicates both the town's once
prosperous history and its current downhill fate. that told us this
little city came into being just because of some special function
in a special historical period, and once it lost the functional
status, it might probably face a fatal downfall.
The cultural site that archeologists called Zhongba is an hour's
drive from the county seat of Zhongxian. A hill lies between the
site and the Yangtze River. But because the nearby gully will
become a branch of the Yangtze River and be filled with water in
the first phase of the Three Gorges project, the area will be soon
submerged.
By now, archeologists have finished excavation work at Zhongba,
leaving many big and small pits on the site. Standing by a pit of
more than 10 meters deep, Sun Zhibin, head of the archeologists'
group, said this pit has a clear deep cut, showing a perfect
distribution of relic layers of different periods, from Paleolithic
era and Neolithic era through to the Xia, Shang, Western Zhou
Dynasty, Spring and Autumn period, Warring States period and the
dynasties of the Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing. The colors
and qualities of the earth in varied layers are distinctively
different.
Sun said that Zhongba is the most important cultural site in the
Three Gorges area. It's a rare case in the archeological history
that one site contains such a rich variety of cultural relics
representing such a long period of history. The great value of the
cultural information sent out by these relics is immeasurable. It's
the epitome and evidence of Chongqing's history of more than 5,000
years.
What attracts archeologists most are the instruments for
salt-making. The many pointed-bottom cups and rounded-bottom pots
indicate that primitive salt industry developed very early in this
area.
The pointed-bottom cups of red pottery are about a dozen
centimeters high, with a mouth of about six to seven centimeters in
diameter. Their walls are thin and the pottery is coarse. The
rounded-bottom pots have thicker walls with veins on the out side.
From the big quantity and coarse quality, archeologists conclude
that these two kinds of wares were not used in daily life, but for
salt production.?
The Ganjinggou area, where Zhongba is located, abounds with
brine. Actually, a large-scale salt industry existed in Ganjinggou
until the early 20th century during the Republic period. On the
opposite bank of Zhongba site, ancient brine wells can still be
found. Before the Iron Age, potteries were the most available
instruments to be used to boil brine and get salt.?
Archeologists believe their findings show that Zhongba was one
of the three ancient salt-making sites in this area, the other two
being Wazhadi and Shaopengzui. But still, as exploration is going
on, they say more evidences are needed to confirm their
conclusion.
If their conclusion is confirmed, then the history of China's
salt industry will be ascended to the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-c.1100
B.C.) and Western Zhou Dynasty (c.1100-771 B.C.) of 3000 years
ago.
Salt and the Ba Kingdom
In Records of Mountains and Seas, the Wu Kingdom in the
Three Gorges area is depicted as having been connected with the
salt industry. According to the Houhanshu (The History
of the Later Han Dynasty), the Ba Kingdom played a very
important role in the Three Gorges area, and almost all of the
kingdom's activities were related to the production of salt and
fishing.
Most of the Three Gorges area is covered by high mountains and
torrential rivers, not suitable for farming. But there were salt, a
rare and expensive material at the time, and fish. With salt, the
fishermen could preserve the fish they caught, making it possible
for them to store it as commodity for exchange. Owing to these two
vital resources, the Ba Kingdom thrived and became increasingly
powerful during a certain period of history.
According to existent records, until the later Shang Dynasty,
the Ba Kingdom remained as an important political power in the
Three Gorges area. It took part in the war to help King Wu (the
first ruler of Zhou Dynasty) attack King Zhou (the last ruler of
Shang Dynasty). The brave Ba people made their contribution in the
establishment and development of the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1100 B.C.-221
B.C.).
Various discoveries and studies show that salt production was a
great part of the mightiness of the Ba Kingdom in the later Shang
and early Zhou dynasties. As some scholars concluded: the Ba
Kingdom was built out of salt-making and developed on the basis of
salt-making.
?
During the Spring and Autumn Period (770 B.C.-476 B.C.), the Ba was
surrounded by the various states on all sides, the Chu to its east,
the Shu to its west, and the Qin to its north. Compared with the
other three, who fought frequent wars against one another, the Ba
was a much weaker force. Finally, the eastern Three Gorges area,
the salt producing center, was occupied by the Chu, which rendered
the Ba to an even weaker position. Then in 361 B.C., the Qin State
wiped out the Ba and Shu, and fought with Chu in the Three Gorges
area. Scrambling for salt was obviously the main aim of the more
than 300 years of continuous wars. It was the situation of salt
production that decided the final fate of the Ba Kingdom.
The Daning saltworks
Daning used to be one of the famous salt producers in the Three
Gorges area. With brine springs running down from the mountaintop,
it's easy to tap the natural resources and develop salt industry in
Daning, making it one of the earliest salt centers in the
area.?
In high days, Daning salt was sold to a wide range of areas,
including Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou provinces.
Today, in the county town of Daning, assembly halls left by
businessmen from Hubei, Jiangxi, Sichuan and Guangdong can still be
seen.?
According to the Annals of Wuxi County, in the Qin (221 B.C.-206
B.C.) and Han (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) dynasties, there was always an
official in charge of salt assigned to Wuxian. In later dynasties,
although the organizational system changed, the imperial court
never relaxed its control of salt. In the Song Dynasty (960-1279),
the local administrator built the Longchi (Dragon Pond) at the foot
of the mountain for the reservation and distribution of brine.
Today, the pond is still there, but salt production has stopped.
Brine, running through the holes on the control board, eventually
joins the Daning River.
With the improvement of communication, the low-price and quality
well-salt produced in Zigong, Sichuan Province, and the sea-salt
from the southeast coast gradually replaced the Daning salt. Daning
salt lost its market.
In fact, brine of Daning contains only about 5 percent of salt,
and the percentage is not much higher even in the dry season of
winter. This means that more fuel is needed to boil it, and the
cost of salt will certainly go up. And, the high percentage of
sulfur and fluorine in the water affects the salt's quality. The
local salt industry could have flourished in the ancient time only
because of the poor communication.
In 1996, all of Daning's saltworks were closed - which indicated
the total disappearance of salt industry in the Three Gorges
area.
Background:
About 200,000,000 years ago the Three Gorges area was a sea.
The Asia-Europe continent, where China locates now, had a totally
different topography, higher in the east and lower in the west.
After a series of geological movements, the Himalayas rose up, and
the southwest area, including the Sichuan Basin, became land. The
sea water held in the earth became condensed and gushed out as
brine springs.
The southeast coast, the salt lakes in the northwest and the
salt-wells in the southwest have been China's three major salt
providers. The salt in the Three Gorges area was discovered far
earlier than the well salt in Sichuan. This gave the area a better
chance to develop its salt industry.
(China.org.cn translated by Chen Lin August 12, 2003)