Introduction

Summary

Reconstructing and analyzing the everyday struggles of the common people within the context of the large-scale changes in the structure of the eighteenth-century Chinese economy and society is the central task of this book. More specifically, I seek to explain how the demand for changes in economic institutions and property rights, which was induced by demographic and commercial expansion, violently impinged on the lives of rural Chinese. By any measure, the economic expansion of the Chinese economy during the eighteenth century was astounding. One need look no further than China's population, which surpassed 300 million by the end of the Qianlong reign (1736–95), to understand the magnitude of the economic expansion of the eighteenth century. Intensification of cultivation, deepening commercialization of the rural economy and specialization in cash crops, introduction of new-world crops, government support for land reclamation, large-scale internal migration, and refinements and innovations in property rights and economic institutions all contributed to the economic development of the eighteenth century. Without any major improvements in technology, the eighteenth-century economy demonstrated a remarkable capacity to absorb a more than twofold increase in population. At the macroeconomic level, China's economy was more prosperous and productive by the close of the eighteenth century and evidence suggests that many peasant households adjusted to the demands of expanding markets and population growth and improved their standard of living.