The Business Rules and Order of Chongqing at Mid-Qing
It is a hot issue to focus on the research of urban commerce in Ming and Qing Dynasty, which becomes very popular in Law History Research.In the middle of Qing Dynasty, Chongqing,located in the door of Upper Yangzi River,gradually became the commercial centre in Upper Yangzi River for the development of Upper Yangzi River and the swarming of immigrants at the beginning of Qing Dynasty.Based on the legal files and contracts documents kept in Ba County Government at the Beginning of Qing Dynasty,this thesis focuses and carries out further discussion on the development and evolution of commercial rules in Chongqing in the middle of Qing Dynasty,and kinds of efforts to construct market order by local government and civil commercial society to carry out empirical research on commercial orders in specific historical period.There are many rich fruits on commercial legislation,commercial policy,habitual rules, commercial disputes,and commercial order in civil commercial society since 1980\'s.The research in the past only focuses on official institutions,and pays little attention on civil commercial rules.In fact,in need of order and regulation,the commercial people in Ming and Qing Dynasty became more and more organized.Trade unions and other organizations accordingly became prosperous,and many commercial rules came into being out of this.In recent tens of years,it attracts many people\'s attention that more and more scholars carry out profound research on relating regulations formed in civil commercial activities with the help of the analytical structure between state and society,great tradition and small tradition with the application of law and sociology of law.Anyway,such a research route may lead to another extremeness,which put all of the efforts on merchants\' own efforts to construct commercial order,which too much emphasized civil regulations\' function and role.The author believes,in institutional research the mutual communication between official institutions and civil institutions,it not suitable to polarize civil institutions,but to put commercial rules and order in Chongqing in the middle of Qing Dynasty as a unity,of which, systematical reconsideration on civil commercial rules and relating government institutions and regulations on commercial activities from local government in Qing Dynasty should be put in the structure of commercial order.What\'s more,the author believes,as a research on institutions,we can not only stay in the stage of considering the stable commercial rules,but also fully care about the development and evolution of commercial rules and their functions, the key point lies in the construction and maintenance of commercial order in Chongqing in Qing Dynasty.The author carries out it research as follows.ChapterⅠis Introduction.In this part,the author introduces the motive,purpose for this research,reviews relating research fruits,and explains the approach,materials,and relating concepts.ChapterⅡmainly discusses the survey of commercial development in Chongqing in Middle Qing Dynasty.From very ancient times,Sichuan began to develop,and the economic activities become more and more active in Middle Qing Dynasty.In the whole Qing Dynasty, Sichuan attracted immigrants from developed areas in China,and the immigrants brought deep and tremendous influence on the development in Southwest China.The continuous repair on the main and side branch of Yangtze River from the beginning of Emperor Qianlong made the upper Yangtze River in Sichuan became part of the circulating system of national market in the beginning of Qing Dynasty.The river shipment between the upper part,middle part,and the lower part of Yangtze River began to develop at this time,and Chongqing has become an important commercial centre under this context.ChapterⅢfocuses on commercial regulations and laws made by government in Qing Dynasty.In recent years,more research efforts are focused on civil commercial rules,and less effort has been put on studying the commercial regulations made by government of Ming and Qing Dynasty.Researchers mostly emphasize the tradition of controlling commerce from Chinese government to explain the lack of institutional basis for commercial law in China.In fact,the development and prosperity in Chinese society can not be neglected by "controlling commerce".There are specific chapter in Ming and Qing laws to regulate commercial activities,though these articles and regulations are not fully systematic,by the establishment and application of "Guanya System" Qing Dynasty has provided a relatively preferable environment for commercial activities.Except for state legislation,local government in Chongqing has taken many measures to construct and maintain stable commercial order to insure trading security and brought positive effects for the prosperity of Chongqing economy. Anyway,as far as local government officials in Qing Dynasty are concerned,they can not(or were unwilling to) cost much effort on the regulation of commercial activities.At the same time,the performance of local commercial activities is closely relative to the performance of local officials and the daily performance of local government,which makes local officials take some measures to secure the stable order of commercial activities.For this to be or not to be situation,local officials always issued countermeasures for the things occurred to construct and maintain commercial orders,which reveals the temporariness,and disorder,anyway the scattered efforts became the basic protection from public power for the development and prosperity of industry and commerce in Qing Dynasty.ChapterⅣis the research on merchants\' community and commercial rules.With the development of trade and commerce in Chongqing in Qing Dynasty,a lot of merchants appeared in Chongqing,there\'s a need for merchants to maintain trade safety and normal commercial environment,there\'s more and more autonomy in merchants\' community to form the trade order among merchants\' inner community,which provides support for the effective administration by local government.Some merchants\' community esp.for "Assembly Hall from Eight Provinces",plays an active role in constructing commercial orders,and has the right to participate or even decide some matters in local issues in Chongqing.Making trade rules is the major method to construct merchants\' community and maintain commercial order.Most trade rules are based on trade customs and local convention,and made after the discussion by merchants\' community,which involves many aspects.Once trade rules were made by discussion,they were effective in the trade and followed by all participants.Merchants regarded their rules equal to state law,which were deemed as the basic rules to adjust the relationship between members of the trade and relationship between different trades.It should be pointed out that scholars always regard the lowest level in the society in Ming and Qing Dynasty as the community of autonomy controlled by civil community and social organizations in recent researches.Anyway,it is not wrong in this,but it is wrong to deny the indirect control by public power and the agreement on public power from the lowest society at the same time.The author discovered after doing research in several cases that the making of trade rules is the outcome of negotiations from many parties,including trade community,merchants,the head of Eight Provence Community,and local government.The trade rules were put on record,which could make it legalized.This also revealed that different from western trade rules,the trade rules in China were not opposite to state law,which followed the basic principles of state laws,and relied on the support from local government to maintain its authority.At the same time,local government consciously upgrade trade rules to local and trade laws as the extension and compensation of state laws,which upgraded the level of order in basic commercial society,and extended the administrative system effectively into the basic levels of society.ChapterⅤfocuses on the specific trade rules and their development and operation in Chongqing in Qing Dynasty.In this chapter,the author selected the broker,Yahang,the shipper and porter as the key target.Yahang is the most important and core chain in commercial society in Qing Dynasty:for one hand,Yahang is the broker of commercial activities;on the other hand,the government made a set of regulations to regulate Yahang, and controlled the whole commercial activities by controlling Yahang.There\'re good navigation conditions for Ba County which became the most important commodities trading place and trade center in Sichuan and Southwest of China.For this reason,the navigation became an inevitable aspect to know about the commercial rules and commercial order. Furthermore,porters group is a community to be neglected in the research of commercial society in Chongqing in Qing Dynasty,and they also played roles in navigation.We can know the actual working of social institutions in the level which central state law can not reach,and also find that there are other factors to affect commercial operations beyond laws and regulations.ChapterⅥfocuses on commercial disputes and their remedies in four parts.The author first studied the forms of commercial disputes.More commercial disputes revealed the developed trade in Chongqing in Qing Dynasty,which also disclosed many problems of commercial working rules itself company with the devclopment of commercial activities.Though state laws in Qing Dynasty paid some attention to commercial activities, commercial activities regulation and commercial order maintenance still need to be regulated by trade rules made by merchants\' community.These rules to some extent were admitted by local government and cited as the source to decide cases.Anyway thcy can not compare with direct state law,which is inefficient to protect more and more prosperous trade and commerce.Secondly,the author studied the ways to mediate this dispute.When a dispute occurred, it was merchants\' choice to solve it by mediation not going to the court.Different to ordinary civil disputes mediation,commercial disputes mediation is not carried out by neighbors.For disputes between operators of the same trade,the head of the trade community and other merchants may help to mediate.Anyway,it is difficult to find a trusted mediator for large advantage involved and no stable relationship between parties,therefore,most disputes of this kind went to the court.Thirdly,the author studies the litigation activities carried out by government in solving commercial activities.Since Ming and Qing Dynasty,more and more people chose to solve disputes by litigation,esp.for commercial disputes.Anyhow,local government did not have a clear knowledge on this;they took many measures to control civil litigation.In face with this situation,merchants gradually regulated the strategy in the hope of to be helped by public power.The standard of litigation became the key concern for many scholars,which becomes a never-ending topic in academia.The author believed that state law is the prime standard to treat commercial disputes,for its rigidness trade rules or commercial customs became the main standards to deal with commercial disputes after the author\'s research in Ba County. Local government had to consider the market order or civil rules in dealing with commercial disputes.Of course,the author again pointed out here that in fact trade rules in some sense is the legislation by local government,are part of state laws,which are effective and definite at the very beginning.In the end,the author carries out special study on the "third field" put by Pro.Huang Zongzhi.It is revealed by the treatment of commercial disputes in Ba County in Qing Dynasty that it is of the same source that the commercial disputes were dealt with by local elites and local government.First,local elites dealt with local commercial disputes neither on its own intent nor on the parties\' invitation,but on the authorization from the local government.Second,the local elites have to report to local government the treatment of commercial disputes,only the treatment was agreed by local government,the result becomes effective.In another word,the "third field" put by Pro.Huang Zongzhi is not self-sufficient. Accordingly,this article considers furtherly,at that time the groups of merchants do not have enough influence to promote the development of commercial activity independently,it\'s rules in the business and the relief of commercial disputes are in support of local governments or encouragement,meanwhile it is at the guidance of public power and limitations. In Conclusion,the author gave us an entire comment on commercial rules and order in Chongqing,believing that the commercial rule system in Qing Dynasty is not a dual structure between state law and civil rules,even not a multi-structure.However,the Qing Dynasty\'s central and local governments did some work on the construction and maintenance of commercial order,as well as the efforts of businessmen tried to set up transactional order through formulate rules,so that we can not deny the truth that it exits laws which adjust commercial activity in the Qing Dynasty.But at that time the businessmen did not have the ability to maintain commercial order independently,the regulatory and other related norms should not be seen as self-sufficient civil customary law.It is a different level of the unified body which includes the laws formulated by the country.It can not better explain the situation of social governance in our country with the western dualistic vision of "country and society".