From the city of Guihua to the Mongolian plateau, how many taels of silver can a camel driver earn
Author/Sun Shuheng
One
The Wanli Tea Ceremony is mainly run by camel drivers.
Deng Jiugang, a writer who measured the Wanli Tea Ceremony with his footsteps, discovered and created the "Tea Road", and he believed that the Wanli Tea Ceremony was a long-established international trade road, which was called "the great tea road" by the Russians.
This is where the Wanli Tea Ceremony comes from. It originated after the signing of the Treaty of Nebuchu between China and Russia in 1689 and lasted until 1924. It was an international trade route dominated by the tea trade, connecting the Eurasian continent. It stretches more than 13,000 kilometers from Wuyi Mountain in Fujian, China, through Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Shanxi, Hebei, Inner Mongolia and other places, through Outer Mongolia, and finally to St. Petersburg, Russia.
Mongolian merchants played an important role in the formation and development of the Wanli Tea Ceremony. They procured tea from the south and then collected it to Naturalization (present-day Hohhot), Duolun and other places. Subsequently, they used camels as a means of transport to cross the Mongolian plateau and Siberia, passing through Ulaanbaatar, Kyakhta, Khovdor and other places, and finally transported tea to the Baikal region of Russia, as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In the mid-to-late 17th century, as the trade of the Wanli Tea Ceremony became increasingly busy, the camel transportation in the northern region was mainly dominated by Mongolian merchants, camel transport shops and Mongolian feudal nobles, who often hired a large number of young and strong laborers to serve, so the profession of "camel driver" came into being. In the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, these camel drivers gradually grew into the main transportation force of the Wanli Tea Ceremony in Inner Mongolia, North China, and Northwest China.
The camel drivers mainly came from the northern regions of Guihua City (now Hohhot), Shanxi, Hebei, Gansu and other places where the tea ceremony passed, and many of them were originally farmers whose livelihoods were withered, and changed careers to become camel drivers in order to make a living. Among these camel drivers, the Han and Hui masses make up the majority. They undertook the heavy task of transporting the tea ceremony and made an important contribution to the prosperity of commerce and trade at that time.
Two
Naturalization City is praised as a camel city, a city carried by camel drivers.
The historical materials of the Tea Road are recorded as follows, "The prosperity of the Tea Road promoted the development of the Naturalization City (now Hohhot), and the rapid rise of the Naturalization City drove the surrounding villages and towns." Due to its important position on an international trade route, Guihua City has also become the largest commercial city in northern China. ”
As an important node on the Wanli Tea Road, Guihua City (now Hohhot) is a necessary place for tea to be transported from the south to the Mongolian Plateau. Here, the tea leaves are processed and distributed before setting off again and continuing north along the tea route. With the smooth passage of the Wanli Tea Ceremony, Mongolian merchants came into being, and formed a huge commercial network during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. Guihua City is known for its abundant camel resources and the large number of camel farmers, and is praised as a camel city.
Deng Jiugang, a famous writer, said that not only the streets and alleys of Guihua City were full of camel farmers, but also Suiyuan City, which was a military castle, was also full of camel farmers after the Qianlong year. This is the case in Naturalization City, and the same is true in Suiyuan City, where camel farmers are scattered all over the city. We know that Naturalization City, as a famous shopping mall and camel city, has as many as 200,000 camels at its peak! This huge number means a huge amount of capacity, but also a huge amount of freight revenue.
Among the Mongolian merchants in the Naturalization City, the famous business names include Da Shengkui, Yuan Shengde, Tianyide and so on. The trade volume of these firms in the Mobei region is very huge, and the annual turnover in Dashengkui alone reaches 10 million taels of silver. These firms have accumulated huge wealth, such as Da Shengkui in the Guangxu period has accumulated 20 million taels of silver, employing more than six or seven thousand employees. There are 20,000 camels, and they deal in a wide range of goods, including silk, onion and garlic.
On the Wanli Tea Road, Mongolian merchants established many shops and warehouses, especially in Kulen, Kyakhta, Uriya Sutai, Kobdo and other places, forming a "buying and selling city" for Mongolian and Han ethnic groups to carry out trade exchanges. These "trading cities" not only promoted the circulation of goods, but also promoted economic and cultural exchanges between Mongolian, Chinese, Russian and other ethnic groups.
At that time, brick tea produced in Hubei, Anhui, and Fujian, and cloth produced in Henan, Jiangxi, and Shandong were transported to Mongolia through the Wanli Tea Ceremony, and were deeply loved by the local people. The trade activities of these commodities not only meet the living needs of the people in Mongolia, but also bring huge profits to merchants in Chinese mainland. It also accumulated wealth and created prosperity for the city.
Three
There are several roads from Guihua City to the Mongolian Plateau. It is a risky business trip of camel man's blood and tears.
On the Wanli Tea Road, the transportation of tea from Guihua City to the Mongolian Plateau mainly relied on camels as a means of transportation. The camel drivers pulled the camels and went to Uriya Sutai, Kobdo and Kulun. The Silk Tea Camel Road was an important trade route from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, starting from the Naturalization City and leading to Mobei and Moxi. Among them, there are three main camel roads: Qianying Road, Houying Road, and Kulun Road.
Qianying Road starts from Guihua City, passes through Kekeligen (Wuchuan), Zhaohe and other places, and finally arrives at Uriya Sutai (now Zahiharant, Mongolia), the whole journey passes through 60 stations, and the distance is about 5320~5630 miles.
Houying Road also starts from Guihua City, but the specific route is different from Qianying Road, with 54 stations, which also leads to the Mobei area.
Kulen Road leads to Ulaanbaatar, with a total of 39 stations and about 2,870 miles.
According to the records of the time, from Zhangjiakou to Kulun, the horse team traveled more than 40 days, and the ox cart took 60 days; In winter and spring, transport is carried by camels, which takes about 35 days to reach Kulen and then cross the river to Kyakhta.
For example, Da Shengkui's camel team, each camel can carry 400 catties of tea, the team travels 80 miles a day, starting from Guihua City, crossing Yin Mountain and going north into the grassland; Or along the "Zhangku Avenue" to Kulun, and then to the buying and selling city, Kyakhta, every year Qingming departure, it takes half a year to go back and forth to Kulun.
This trade route was the busiest in history. Depart from the city of naturalization and then arrive at Kulen, and then exit to Kyakhta. This is the last section of the Wanli Tea Ceremony in China, and it is also an important route connecting foreign countries and transcending national borders. It is not only an important channel connecting China and Russia, but also an important carrier of trade prosperity and cultural exchanges.
Four
The camel team and the camel driver share life and death, and it is a community of destiny.
A caravan, often referred to as a "house", is a makeshift collective of people, camels, horses, and dogs. This type of organization allows for flexible and flexible organization of equipment according to actual needs to adapt to different transport needs and road conditions.
In the caravan, the staffing is rich and diverse, including camel drivers, shopkeepers and guests. The camel driver is the main labor force of the caravan and is responsible for driving and caring for the camels and ensuring that the goods reach their destination safely. The treasurer is responsible for managing the operations of the caravan and coordinating all affairs. Sometimes, distinguished guests also travel with a caravans, usually on camels or in camel sedan chairs for a comfortable travel experience.
In addition to staffing, camel caravans are equipped with a variety of means of transport such as camels, horses, and dogs. Camels are the main means of transport for camel caravans, they are able to carry large amounts of goods and move steadily in harsh environments. Horses are used to quickly carry information and transport light items. Dogs are used to guard and protect the caravan.
According to the record of "Hui Camel Transport" edited by the famous scholar Dai Lin, the structure of the camel caravan is usually generally speaking, and the camel caravan that goes through Outer Mongolia and Xinjiang is a large and medium-sized house. The large house consists of 8 camels, each divided into two chains, each with 18 camels. 1 camelherd per chain, a total of 16 people, 288 camels. The middle house is composed of four or five small camels, with 8-10 camelherds, each chain is still 18 camels, and each house camel is less than 144 peaks, and more than 180 camels.
Camels do not compete with people for food, and the number of people needed to escort supplies makes the camel team able to carry more supplies during transportation, while the number of people and supplies required is relatively small. For example, in the camel caravan, including the bean cake for feeding the camels, the camel medicine, and the necessary food and clothing for the camel driver, only 20 to 25 percent of the total amount of materials carried by the camel caravans, and the rest are materials delivered to the destination, and the transportation efficiency is more than 100 times that of mule and horse carts.
Firms such as Da Sheng Kui, Tian Yi De, and Yuan Sheng De can send camel teams of more than a dozen houses for long-distance transportation every year. The scale of these businesses is enough to reflect the important role of camel caravans in the social and economic development of the time.
The responsibilities of the consul are indeed very important and comprehensive. Not only does he need to ensure the safety of people, livestock and goods on the camel road, but he also needs to ensure that the goods are delivered to the right place in full and on time. The consular house also needs to have the ability to respond to sudden emergencies, such as injuries to people and animals, damage to goods, natural disasters, bandits, wild animals, etc. He needs to have a lot of experience and judgment to make decisions quickly and accurately, ensuring the safety of the caravan and cargo.
Five
Life as a camel driver is full of hardships and challenges.
They usually wear thick and bulky clothing to adapt to the harsh desert environment. Camel drivers still have to walk at least 40 kilometers a day to complete heavy tasks such as stacking and unstacking.
The camel driver's job includes leading the camel caravan to transport goods, taking care of the camels' daily life and walking, etc. They need to be familiar with the habits and characteristics of camels and have certain medical knowledge and skills to deal with diseases or accidents that may arise during the transportation of camels.
Usually, camel drivers wake up early to start the day. They will carefully check the health of each camel and decide on the load size depending on the situation. During the journey, they need to keep an eye on the camel's physical condition to ensure that they can reach their destination safely.
According to the famous scholar Dai Lin's "Hui Camel Transport", the camel driver's clothing, food, housing and transportation are recorded:
Clothing: When the camel driver sets off in summer and autumn, in addition to wearing single-clip clothes, he also brings cotton clothes and leather pants. There are two types of shoes: large shoes and small shoes. The big shoes weigh five or six pounds, especially thick, pull the camel to walk a long road, not afraid of stone bumps, the soles of the feet do not bubble. Small shoes are loafers that are usually worn and are generally worn during rest.
Food: When the camel driver sets off from Guisui, he brings fried rice, fried noodles, flour and fried meat sauce (the salt is particularly heavy). Eating is to take turns to eat a big pot of rice in groups.
Housing: The tent where the camel driver lives is covered with canvas in felt. It is triangular in shape. The large tent can accommodate 15 or 6 people, and the small and medium-sized tent can accommodate 123 people, 3 or 5 people. When it's hot, some camel drivers also rest in the open air.
Travel: The camel caravan departs from Guihua City in July and August of the lunar calendar every autumn, and then releases camels at the destination, trades, and rests, and returns to Guihua City in March and April of the lunar calendar.
The caravan is on the road, walking to pee, running to. Walk from about 5 p.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. every day, and rest from midnight to the next morning.
Six
What was the income level of the camel driver in the Qing Dynasty.
According to the famous writer Deng Jiugang, from naturalization to Kyakhta, the freight of each camel is 12 taels of silver (the freight rate of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty), and if a camel household sends 100 camels to take a trip, you can get 1,200 taels of silver. This figure was almost a year's worth of silver for General Suiyuan at that time. What is the identity of General Suiyuan? It is a feudal official, the level of a product! It is equivalent to the current ministerial-level senior official. Before Qianlong, the Qing Dynasty officials' salaries were only genuine, and the first-grade officials' salaries were 180 taels of silver per year. The difference is even greater.
Naturalization City is a city of wealth and a city of hope. Even in Beijing, Hankow, and Kulun, which are thousands of miles away, people know that there are many opportunities to make a fortune in the camel city. Don't say that you are a big camel merchant, even if you are an ordinary camel driver, you can get twenty taels of silver for a trip to Kyakhta. In the Qing Dynasty, twenty taels of silver could buy thirty sheep and six horses or camels. Then when you walk the camel road again in the second year, you will no longer be a simple camel driver, and others will have to call him the shopkeeper. From the camel village shopkeeper, from the camel man, new upstarts continue to emerge, become rich people, become big bosses.
The most of the banshen on the plain of Guihua City are camel banshen, which is camel villages. Nowadays, it has become an urban village, such as the twist board, the sister-in-law board, the Tabu board, the Changhan board, the Shuiquan Village, the Tabu board, the Tianmian board, and the five roads...... In the past, it was all an authentic camel village. In camel villages and camel runs, the only measure of a person's ability, worth, and wealth is the number of camels you have. This kind of custom has influenced many people and formed a special fashion. They do not like lifeless things, precious gold and silver treasures, which they accumulate up. They don't like to spend money to build a luxurious house, buy furniture, and even less buy land. This is far from the traditional concept of Shanxi people. If they have a few dollars in their hands, as long as they count enough to buy a camel, they will immediately exchange the money in their hands for a camel and bring it back immediately. Outsiders walk into these camel villages, you can't see the difference between their rich and poor just from the housing, the houses of each family are almost identical, they are all laid with bluestone on the green mountain behind the village, adobe walls, the roof is pressed with red willow fences, the roof is smeared with a layer of yellow mud with wheat, and the whole village is full of ochre yellow color from a distance.
According to Guangxu's "Tumut Banner Chronicle", as of the thirteenth year of Guangxu, only the Tumut reclamation land can be checked to reach 57,606 hectares, and the reclamation scope has gradually expanded westward to the Hetao area, and the population of the six halls such as the Naturalization City has increased from 120,000 at the end of Jiaqing to 333,000, an increase of 177%. By the end of Guangxu, the Tumut Plain had become an agricultural area. The peasants are the main productive force in society, and their income mainly comes from cultivating the land and paying rent, and their total income does not exceed 33 taels a year.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the annual income of a well-off family was about 40 taels of silver. The annual income of ordinary people is roughly about 10~20 taels of silver. There is a minor key to prove this:
"Don't break your nose, don't grind through your camel's hooves.
Don't let the pack skew, don't bend the hump.
Walk where the grass is good, and where the water is good.
Remember to tip at noon and leave early at dawn.
Don't rub when eating and drinking, and don't be too heavy when sleeping.
Avoid bumps in the road and beware of bandits.
May the skin salt be sold at a high price, and return with a full load and abundant harvest...."
(Author's file: Sun Shuheng, pen name Hengxin Yongzai, a native of Naiman Banner, Inner Mongolia.) Member of China Financial Writers Association, Member of China Essayists Association, Member of Inner Mongolia Writers Association, Member of Inner Mongolia Poetry Society, Member of Western Essayists Association, Deputy Secretary-General of Inner Mongolia Popular Literature and Art Research Association, Senior Researcher and Deputy Secretary-General of Inner Mongolia Poetry, Calligraphy and Painting Research Association)