Till the late 19th century, the Jiangsu salt industry gradually
declined, and the demand of agricultural development was
growing. The saltworks that were far away from the coastline had
low production efficiency, and grass land was usually private
reclaimed by salt workers or farmers. At this conjunction, it would
be appropriate for the government to deal with the situation in
time, and take steps to ease the tensions. However, at that time, in
fact, the coastal management and land use policy established by
government was in a sense of a paradox. On one hand, the government
began to open reclamation in some saltworks. For
example, the Rules of Scrapping Saltworks in the Guangxu period
(AD 1874e1908) was enacted; in 1897, the government decided to
support agricultural development in some saltworks, and chose the
Wuyou and Xinxing saltworks as pilot projects for open reclamation
in 1900. On the other hand, as mentioned above, in order to
cope with weak fiscal budget, the Qing government still wanted to
rely on Jiangsu coastal salt tax revenues, so although the AGSD
system and land use policy were obviously inappropriate in the late
19th century, it was still vigorously strengthened by the Qing
government. For instance, in the Daoguang period (AD 1821e1850),
the Rules of Blocking Grass was enacted by the Qing government to
prohibit the grass circulation and trafficking, and to stabilize the
grass supply; the Rules were still executed until half a century later.
In 1909, the Qing government still stipulated explicitly that agricultural
development should not endanger the saltworks.