With the further expansion of the Jiangsu coastal salt industry,
in 1745, the government judged that private reclamation would
affect the normal development of coastal salt industry. Thus, from
1761 to 1762, the Qing government decided to check intensely the
private reclamation land area of saltworks in the Taizhou Branch,
where there was the largest area of privately reclaimed land in the
Lianghuai Saltworks. The purpose of this open examination was to
divide the land use for agriculture and for salt production; the
farmland, far away from the coastline with long-term agricultural
cultivation and utilization, could be approved for continuous agricultural
uses, but any other types of land, including newly
reclaimed land, were allowed to be used as salt production alone. It
was interesting to note that the reports on the farmland area from
local authorities tended to be more than the actual area measured
by the government. For example, at the Dingxi saltworks, the reported
farmland area was 90.6 km2, but the actual area was only
41 km2 as measured by the government during the examination,
i.e., only 45.2% of reported farmland area was recognized by the
government, and the remainder (i.e., 54.8% of the reported land
area) was requested by the government to restore the growing of
grass for decocted salt production. Nevertheless, the government
imposed certain preferential land taxes on farmland after this examination,
and gave some part of the farmland a legal status; thus,
the contradiction between reclamation and salt making was
somewhat relieved. Since 1762, the owner of the farmland recognized
by the government paid taxes for the use of the land, at a rate
of 37.5 taels of silver per hectare, and this rate remained almost
unchanged in the subsequent decades. Towards the Jiaqing period
(AD 1796e1820), the farmland taxes were 40.5 taels of silver per
hectare, very similar to the original rate. In comparison, the farmland
taxes were 72 taels of silver per hectare for the farmland
outside the salt production areas.