Between Land and Water: Fisheries Oversight in Early Modern China

Abstract The coastline of China is home to large populations whose activities cross the hazy borders between land and water. Over the course of several centuries, states tried to tie these people more tightly to the land-based regime by regulating the fisheries and the populations that depended on them. Yet new opportunities at wealth through trade, and the growing power of merchant-raiders, drew these same fisherfolk into the increasingly interconnected maritime realm. Despite imperial attempts at regulation, the coast remained unruly. This article follows changes in fishery oversight as state control was extended to the coast, but repeated crises made oversight untenable. I argue that these changes reflected a general trend among early modern empires to impose control over new environments, including forests, mountains, steppes, wetlands, and the sea. Yet the complex environments of the coast and the rising importance of sea trade made the tidal zone especially unruly.