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鹽鐵論

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Text ID
KR3a0006
Date
-73–-49
Dynasty
漢

Yántiě lùn 鹽鐵論

Discourses on Salt and Iron by 桓寬 (Huán Kuān, zì Cìgōng 次公, fl. 73–49 BCE, 漢, 撰); 張之象 (Zhāng Zhīxiàng, 1507–1587, 明, 注)

About the work

The retrospective dialogue-form record of the great Salt-and-Iron Court Conference of Shǐyuán 6 (81 BCE), in twelve juan / sixty 篇. Convened in the second year after Wǔdì’s death by the regent Huò Guāng 霍光, the conference summoned the xiánliáng and wénxué (the recommended worthies and classical scholars) of the empire to debate Imperial Counsellor Sāng Hóngyáng 桑弘羊 over the state monopolies on salt, iron and wine and over the jūnshū 均輸 / píngzhǔn 平準 redistributive systems instituted under Wǔdì. Several decades later, in Xuāndì’s reign, Huán Kuān reconstructed and elaborated the proceedings into the present sixty-篇 work — substantially Confucian in stance and in literary technique a rhetorical recreation rather than a verbatim transcript. The xiánliáng / wénxué speak in chorus against Wǔdì’s economic policy in the moral vocabulary of xiānwáng 先王 and the liù jīng 六經; Sāng Hóngyáng counters in the technical vocabulary of public revenue and frontier defence. The work is the principal extant source for early-imperial economic policy debate, and a major piece of Western Hàn classical-rhetorical prose.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that the Yántiě lùn in twelve juan was composed by Huán Kuān of the Hàn. Kuān, zì Cìgōng, was a man of Rǔnán. Recommended as Gentleman under Xuāndì, he rose to Adjutant of the Lújiāng Grand Administrator. In Shǐyuán 6 of Zhāodì (81 BCE), an edict commanded the commanderies and kingdoms to recommend men of worth and learning, to be questioned about what oppressed the people. All requested the abolition of the salt and iron monopolies and the wine excise, and they raised contesting arguments against Imperial Counsellor Sāng Hóngyáng and others. Kuān gathered up what they had argued and made the book, sixty 篇 in all. Each 篇 has its own title, but in fact each is a back-and-forth of question and answer, and all the 篇 connect head to tail. Later the wine excise was rescinded but the salt and iron remained as before; Kuān composed the work and named it after the salt and iron alone, regretting that the proposal was not carried out in full.

The closing “Záilùn” 雜論 chapter (the sixtieth) recounts the words of Zhū Zǐbǎi 朱子伯 of Rǔnán, naming over sixty of the xiánliáng — including Tang-shēng 唐生 of Màolíng 茂陵 and Wànshēng 魯萬生 of Lǔ as wénxué — and singling out for praise Liú Zǐyōng 劉子雍 of Zhōngshān 中山 and Zhùshēng 祝生 of Jiǔjiāng 九江, with veiled censure for Sāng Hóngyáng and Chē Qiānqiū 車千秋. This is the substantive bearing of the work as a whole. The matters discussed are throughout shíhuò 食貨 (revenue and provision), but the language always invokes the former kings and the Liù jīng, and the histories accordingly place it in the Rújiā class. Huáng Yúzhì’s 黃虞稷 Qiānqǐngtáng shūmù 千頃堂書目 reassigned it to shǐbù shíhuò lèi, but that is to follow the title and miss the substance. In the Jiājìng 癸丑 (1553) of the Míng, Zhāng Zhīxiàng 張之象 of Huátíng provided a commentary; though it offers no original interpretation, the historical references are roughly furnished, and we have included it for the reader’s reference.

Respectfully revised and submitted, sixth month of the forty-third year of Qiánlóng [1778].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

(Note: throughout the SKQS the personal name 弘 of Sāng Hóngyáng has been substituted as 宏 — 桑宏羊 — by Qiánlóng-taboo on the Qiánlóng emperor’s given name 弘曆.)

Abstract

The Yántiě lùn is the principal extant source for early-imperial economic policy debate and for the political-rhetorical voice of the Western Hàn wénxué class. The Salt-and-Iron Conference itself was convened on Imperial Edict in Shǐyuán 6 (81 BCE) under the regent Huò Guāng, two years after Wǔdì’s death, in part as a critique of Wǔdì’s economic legacy and in part as a tactical move against Imperial Counsellor Sāng Hóngyáng (152–80 BCE). Sāng’s defeat at the conference contributed to his subsequent execution in 80 BCE following his alleged role in Shàngguān Jié’s 上官桀 plot.

Huán Kuān, who took office only under Xuāndì (r. 73–49 BCE), did not attend the conference. The Yántiě lùn’s sixty-篇 composition is an ex post literary recreation, framed as continuous question-and-answer and in places clearly elaborated beyond what could plausibly have been delivered in court. The composition window is therefore Huán Kuān’s working career under Xuāndì, ca. 73–49 BCE; the frontmatter brackets the work to that span. The catalog meta’s “fl. -73” datum gives the upper end.

The thirty-eight central 篇 (1–41) treat the conference proper; the remaining 篇 (42–59) extend the dialogue beyond the formal conference into broader political and historical reflection (frontier policy, military expeditions, the legalist tradition of ShēnHán 申韓 and ZhōuQín, the imperial relationship with the Xiōngnú); the closing “Záilùn” is Huán Kuān’s own framing colophon. The xiánliáng / wénxué speak chiefly in the rhetoric of the Shī, Shū, Lúnyǔ and Mèngzǐ; the most quoted authority is the Chūnqiū. Sāng Hóngyáng’s voice carries echoes of the Guǎnzǐ and the legalist tradition.

The standard premodern commentary is Zhāng Zhīxiàng’s of 1553, included in the SKQS. The standard modern critical edition is Wáng Lìqì’s Yántiě lùn jiào zhù 鹽鐵論校註 (1958; rev. 1992), which superseded all previous treatments. Bibliographic record: Hàn shū yìwén zhì (no entry — the work is post-Liú Xiàng’s catalog); Suí shū jīngjí zhì; Jiù Táng shū jīngjí zhì; Xīn Táng shū yìwén zhì; Chóngwén zǒngmù; Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì; SKQS Zǐbù — Rújiā lèi; Huáng Yúzhì’s Qiānqǐngtáng shūmù (re-classified to shǐbù shíhuò).

Translations and research

  • Esson M. Gale, Discourses on Salt and Iron: A Debate on State Control of Commerce and Industry in Ancient China — chapters I–XIX, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1931. The standard partial English translation, long the only one; covers chapters 1–19. Reprint Tabei, 1967.
  • Esson M. Gale, “Discourses on Salt and Iron, Chapters XX–XXVIII”, Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 65 (1934): 73–110. The continuation of the same translation project.
  • Wáng Lìqì 王利器, Yán-tiě lùn jiào zhù 鹽鐵論校註 (定本), Běijīng: Zhōnghuá Shūjú (Xīn biān zhūzǐ jíchéng), 1992. The standard scholarly edition; Wáng’s first 1958 edition is also still cited.
  • Maijia Loewe, “The Salt-and-Iron Discourse: A Confucian-Legalist Confrontation in Han Times”, in M. Loewe, Crisis and Conflict in Han China, London: Allen & Unwin, 1974, ch. 3. The leading Western interpretive treatment.
  • Michael Loewe (ed.), Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, 1993, s.v. “Yen t’ieh lun”, 477–482 (entry by M. Loewe).
  • Hans van Ess, “The Old Text/New Text Controversy: Has the 20th Century Got it Wrong?”, T’oung Pao 80 (1994): 146–170 — discussion of the Yán-tiě lùn’s positioning in early-Hàn classical politics.
  • Yuri Pines, “Confucianism and the Salt-and-Iron Debate”, in The Everlasting Empire, Princeton, 2012.

Other points of interest

The closing roll-call in the “Záilùn” chapter (60) is the only roughly contemporary source for the names and provenances of the xiánliáng / wénxué who spoke at the conference; it is the standard prosopographical entry-point for the Shǐyuán 81 BCE participants. Within the work the chapter “Sàn bù zú” 散不足 (29) is a long catalogue of late-Wǔdì luxury consumption — frequently cited as primary evidence in modern social and economic histories of the Western Hàn.

The Qiánlóng-period taboo-substitution of 桑宏羊 for 桑弘羊 is consistent throughout the SKQS text and should be noted when citing.

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