Wu Haibo 
Salt Smuggling and Local Society in Lianghuai Area 
1736-1861

In the middle Qing Dynasty, salt smuggling was very active in Lianghuai Area. Under the combined action of many factors, all sectors of the society, whether salt workers, poor people, salt sellers, non-governmental organizations, salt merchants or salt officials, joined the rank of salt smuggling to make money with salt. Facing the increasingly serious phenomenon of salt smuggling, the Qing government tried every means to prevent and fight against it, but achieved little effect under the influence of the corrupt bureaucracy. The issue of salt smuggling in middle Qing Dynasty is seemingly only a risk-taking activity that all sectors of the local society were forced to do to earn a living or took risks to do simply for the sake of the high profit of salt. However, the fact is far from it. Salt smuggling can be the inevitable result of the increasingly serious political corruption in the middle Qing Dynasty. On the contrary, it is also the concentrated embodiment and reflection of the political corruption at that time.