The Institutions

As part of the state- and nation-building enterprise, the role of salt and its taxation generated considerable controversy in republican China. This chapter traces the evolving debate as Yuan Shikai (1859–1916, president 1912–1915) and his successors struggled to assert central control while the Reorganization Loan of 1913 secured on the gabelle created a seemingly “colonial and bizarre” Revenue Inspectorate charged with the mission of both collecting the tax to ensure repayment of the loans and modernizing the system on the principles of free marketing, equity, efficiency, and simplification. The Weberian ideotypical bureaucracy—professional, insulated, and departmentalized—seemingly delivered.1 On the other hand, Esson Gale, among the inspectorate’s earliest foreign staff, remained equivocal in explaining the apparent success: Yuan Shikai’s military control of the provinces, inflation, or unknown revenue sources appearing “as if by magic.”2 Unraveling the secrets behind the gabelle growth, the competing interests of the central government, the provinces, officials, and warlords, as well as the foreign staff at the inspectorate (and the masters that they must serve) and resourceful revenue farmers all contributed to the continued morass that was salt (yanhutu). A steady flow of revenue became the guiding principle shaping not merely the institutions but also the salt business.