Gold-Washing Administration Set Up at Jiankang, 1281 CE

Date and content

In 1281 CE, the eighteenth year of the Zhiyuan era, the Yuan court set up a gold-washing administration at Jiankang and made five thousand Lishui households into gold-washing households. The gazetteer records:

元世祖至元十八年辛巳，立淘金总管于建康，以溧水民户五千充淘金户，公私苛取，民甚患之。

Translated: In the eighteenth year of the Zhiyuan era a gold-washing administration was established at Jiankang, and five thousand households of Lishui were made gold-washing households; officials and middlemen alike squeezed them, and the people suffered greatly from it. This is a translation, not the words of the original.

The words "officials and middlemen alike squeezed them, and the people suffered greatly" are the gazetteer's own comment on the levy. The gazetteer gives no reason for setting the administration up.

The burden on the households

The assignment of five thousand Lishui households as gold-washing households is one of the specialised service levies on the county recorded in the gazetteer. Where the washing was done, what the quota was, and whether the five thousand were all households or only those liable to service are all unrecorded.

Consequences

Under 1287, the twenty-fourth year of the same era, the gazetteer records that the gold-washing household service was abolished, seven years after it began. It gives no reason for the abolition and no account of the aftermath. Under 1286 it also records that a "household-registering officer for the Khara-people of Jiankang and elsewhere" was appointed at Lishui; whether that had any connection with the gold-washing levy is not stated.

Uncertainties

The rank and subordination of the gold-washing administration, the quantity of gold obtained and where it went are all unrecorded, and this entry does not supply them.