ABSTRACT
Several Chinese dynasties likewise encouraged trade and benefited from close ties with mer-
chant families, including the dynasties of the Sung (960-1279 CE), the Mongol (1271-1368
CE), and the Qing (1644-1911 CE), although others severely curtailed it (e.g. the Ming
[1368-1644 CE]). As Beaujard (2005, pp. 457-458) notes, in many empires, private tradesmen
‘furnished merchandise as well as services to elites’, for instance, in the form of tax collection or
conversion of goods into their money equivalents for state operations. He concludes that gener-
ally, ‘capitalist networks could hardly do without the state because they require[d] a stable world
to develop their operations and/or a military force to defend their access to vital resources’
(Beaujard, 2005, p. 459; also see 2013). Merchants also benefited from the fact that rulers put
taxes to use not only in palace-building but also in state-building, ship-building, and infrastruc-
ture-building projects that enabled trade (Kennedy, 2002), partly also supported by core-periph-
ery structures.16
