earticle

영어

This paper tries to investigate the actual conditions of civil transportation in the late Ming(明) Dynasty. In order to do that, I firstly analyze the details of transportation use and fare with dividing into two groups, land and water transport. And then, I examine the characteristics of civil transportation during this period by looking into the relationship between corruptible carriers, a problem requiring an urgent solution in the transport policy, and the advent of transport agents. The distinctive features of the transport services in the late Ming Dynasty are two fold. First, the transportation for regular route, serviced by the civil carriers, was well-developed centering around Jiangnan(江南) in the water transport. This form of the transport services, was produced on a commercial basis to cope with a lively movement of humans and goods. Second, the sedan chair was a commonly used transport vehicle. The sedan chair was very exclusive, so it was allowed for the limited use by law. But, so many people used it for transportation because it was a comfortable vehicle. It owed its success chiefly to the boom of tourism and the prevailing extravagance tendency in the late Ming Dynasty. And people used it as the method of a long-distance tour. Water transport fare was lower than land transport fare. Because of that, when people traveled the same distance, they attempted to take the water transport methods, if possible. Despite the success of the transportation business, problems such as breach of contracts by carriers arose. As transportation brokerage services was valuable to both customers and carriers, this problem was gradually solved. In the late Ming Dynasty, the transportation system was being formative.