An Inventory of the Number of People and Grains in Each Province During the Daoguang Period

"Inventory of Population and Grain Count in Various Provinces During the Daoguang Period" is a precious collection of historical materials from the Qing Dynasty. It was written during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty (the version compiled by the Ministry of Household Affairs in about 1835 and 1858 has been handed down). The author is unknown and anonymous. This book is compiled from official statistical archives and mainly records basic statistical data such as population and grain quantity in each province during the Daoguang period. It is the result of an institutionalized inventory of the national population and grain supply carried out by the Ministry of Household Affairs in the Qing Dynasty. As an important basic material for the study of the socio-economic history of the Qing Dynasty, it not only truly reflects the population size, grain output and collection situation of each province, but also helps us understand the basic operating mechanism of national finance, taxation and grain allocation at that time. This type of "inventory" played an important role in the Qing Dynasty's financial and administrative system. The number of people is population statistics, which is related to household registration taxes and labor collection; the number of grains is closely related to grain reserves, tax collection, disaster relief, and military supplies. By conducting inventory statistics on the number of people and crops in each province during the Daoguang period, the Qing government was able to form a detailed "baseline" on the socio-economic conditions of various places, providing reliable basis for central decision-making, fiscal budgets, food dispatch and even response to natural disasters. For today's historians, this inventory is a first-hand archive for studying social structure, population changes, regional economic differences, and even natural disasters and crowd movements in the middle and late Qing Dynasty. If you pay attention to the state governance, household registration system, grain statistics and financial operations of traditional Chinese society, this book will allow you to intuitively understand from the most basic data level how an agricultural empire maintained its huge administrative system through detailed statistics. As a historical researcher or lover of literature and history, the numbers and classifications provided in this inventory are not only cold statistics, but also vivid clues to understand the social landscape of the Qing Dynasty.