Wages for silk weaving in Suzhou and Peking, 1686 and 1752

Compiler: Christine Moll-Murata

The datafiles:
Suzhou - spreadsheet, (.xls, 18 Kb)
Peking - spreadsheet, (.xls, 16 Kb)

Further reading provided in Christine Moll-Murata, Remarks on "Wages for Silk Weaving in Suzhou and Peking, 1686 and 1752" - (.pdf, 75 Kb)

Wage data for silk weaving in Suzhou, 1686

Source
Sun Pei 孫珮 Suzhou zhizao ju zhi 蘇州製造局志 (Treatise on the [Imperial] Silk Weaving Offices of Suzhou) (1686). The preface is dated 1685, but the latest date in the text is 1686. The wages can be assumed to refer to those two years. Contained in: Peng Zeyi 彭澤益 Zhongguo jindai shougongye shi ziliao 1840-1949 中國近代手工業史資料 (Materials for early modern Chinese craft history, 1840-1949), Beijing : Zhonghua shuju 1962/1984, pp. 90-92.

Literature:
Elke Piontek-Ma, Der Bericht von Sun Pei über die kaiserliche Seidenmanufaktur von Suzhou im 17. Jahrhundert. (Heidelberg: Edition Forum 1999) (Würzburger Sinologische Schriften); for wages esp. pp. 55-62.

Wage data for silk weaving in Peking, 1752

Source
Qinding Da Qing huidian shili 欽定大清會典事例 (Imperially endorsed Collected statutes of the great Qing dynasty, with factual precedents). Reprint of 1899 edition. Taibei: Zhongwen shuju 1963. Chapt. 1195, fol. 15a/b, p. 19005

Units
tael (liang, 兩 treasury ounce, a unit of account set by the Board of Revenue and used for official accounts: 37 grams of silver, 95-99% purity.

shi 石	103,55 l
hu 斛	0,5 shi
bay 間	1. the space defined by four columns and beams within a structure;
	2. the distance between two columns, used as a unit of linear measurement

see Guo Qinghua, Visual Dictionary of Chinese Architecture. Mulgrave: Images Publishing Group 2002

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