A Study On The Tobacco Industry In Shandong Modern History

Tobacco is one of the significant cash crops in our country, and it has been a long history since humans’ smoking tobacco, however, tobacco as crop does not produce in any place of the world. The South America is always considered as the tobacco’s original place by the academic, and then tobacco generally spreads to the rest of the world. Tobacco was introduced to China from the late Ming Dynasty, when China’s traditional social commodity economy were showing its active power. It could not be separated from this background during tobacco introduced and promoted step by step. In the beginning tobacco was planted in the southeast coastal areas, then they gradually spread to China because of the tremendous smokers and huge interests, and by the Qing Dynasty Emperor Kang xi. most Chinese provinces began to plant tobacco.According to the writing YU TANG IIUJI recorded by Yang Shicong, who was born Jining County Shandong province in the late Ming Dynasty, that Shandong tobacco planting should be started in the late Ming dynasty. With the prosperous of Qing Dynasty. Shandong tobacco developed faster, and during the years of kang xi. Shandong tobacco planting has formed a large-scale development, which was not only owing to the tobacco planting suitable natural conditions, but also depended on the gradually increasing the number of tobacco smoking, that is to say, the market demand was enlarging. At the time of the Mid-Qing Dynasty many places like LinQu. Anqiu, Wei County..lining, were planting much more tobacco, which could bring profits and became important source of income of local farmers, and tobacco became an important economic crops in the local. In the premodern age tobacco produced by Shandong was sun-cured tobacco, and the well-known places of origin were:Lin qu, Yanzhou, Anqiu, Yishui. Yi County, Mengyin, Qixia, Shan county and other places. In the early twentieth century, with the introduction of flue-cured tobacco,the foreign companies operated tobacco industry in Shandong vigorously relying on Shandong suitable natural conditions, and Shandong flue-cured tobacco industry has developed rapidly. Given the development of flue-cured tobacco in Shandong, after1919. the Hue-cured tobacco market were growing quickly in Shandong Province. For instance, in addition to the Anglo-American Tobacco Company, there have been Japanese rice Star, Southern letters, Shandong Tobacco Company, China Nanyang, Shanghai, HuaCheng, Benefit and other tobacco companies. The cigarette companies of the United States Lianhua have set up long-term or temporary closing tobacco factory in Shandong, and it shew that competition was very fierce.Since the Ming dynasty until the early twentieth century, Shandong tobacco industry has been through almost three centuries of time, which became the local important industry after mid-Qing Dynasty. Modern Shandong was one of the most important provinces in China’s tobacco industry, and with its superior natural conditions and convenience of modern transportation system, the tobacco industry, especially the tobacco industry were developed rapidly. That changed the Shandong originally given priority of the soil planting structure, promoted the formation of regional planting of tobacco, and at the same time improved modern Shandong tobacco varieties. The business activities of each big tobacco companies in Shandong province droved the development of the tobacco industry in Shandong, also warmed up local commodity economy, and promoted the development of the commercialization of tobacco. In addition, for Shandong province government and the local people, tobacco was a huge source of finance, and changed people’s life habit to benefit people’s physical health. However, like most of the modern industry, Shandong tobacco industry is developed with the help of the double power of the foreigner capital and private enterprises, so it is necessary to dialectical view the development process and the final result. This paper will explore the reason of development of the tobacco industry, and the influence of the tobacco industry to modern Shandong as the important content, in addition, the limitations of the industry development in Shandong province is one of the main but not all content of this article. By discussing the development of the tobacco industry in Shandong, this paper hopes to review the road of the development of modern China, because the modern development of the tobacco industry in Shandong, is just a miniature of the development in modern China.