Gambling Farmers in Late Ch'ing Kwangtung

Ho Han-wei

Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica

   Few serious scholarly studies have been undertaken regarding the gambling farmers of Kwangtung in the late Ch'ing dynasty. There are two principal reasons for this. First, most scholars have heretofore focused on prominent mercantile forces that played an active role in history, such as the Shansi merchants, the Hui-chou merchants of Anhui, the salt merchants of Yang-chou and the Co-hong merchants of Kwangtung, as well as other merchant groups that displayed signs of growing vitality. Consequently, scholars have paid comparatively less importance to the gambling farmers of the late Ch'ing. Secondly, in the past gambling was censured by public opinion because it was considered to have a corrupting influence on public morals. Since gambling was regarded as taboo it was seldom mentioned. Therefore, source materials on gambling operations are rare, making the study of this area a difficult undertaking.

    This article aims first to fill an existing historiographical gap and, more importantly, to employ the case study of gambling operations in Kwangtung, with particular reference to the responses they elicited from both government and society, to provide a better understanding of official-merchant relations during the late Ch'ing dynasty. The most serious obstacle to conduct this study is the paucity of available written materials. Therefore, the author limits himself to threading together available fragments of historical information in order to outline the essential features of gambling operations in late Ch'ing Kwangtung. It is hoped that this study will encourage further debate regarding this issue.

    In addition to discussing the large investments of gambling farmers within Kwangtung, this article also examines the activities of Kwangtung natives outside of their province.