Sai-Fu to
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and Kueichou, is the centre of considerable trade in salt and native cotton goods passing from the Yangtze to western Kueichou and east Yunnan. while Yunnan copper for Pekin comes by this route. Between Pichieh-hsien and Weiningchow (7,330 feet) the country is very mountainous. It has been proposed to construct a railway by this route, but practically this is im- possible, as there are three great depressions to cross between the Yangtze and Yunnan-Fu. On one side of the Hsuch-shan range the track runs down in zigzags nearly three miles to the bank of a river, and an enormous chasm would have to be bridged.
(d.) Sui-Fu (Hsüchou-Fu) to Yunnan-Fu.-This is the main trade route Yunnan-Fu. between the Yangtze and Yunnan (25 to 26 stages). General Mesny speaks of
the route as the most important and least costly of trade routes from central China to Yunnan. Mr. Bourne calls it the only great commercial route between north Yunnan on the one hand and Ssuchuan and the Eastern Provinces on the other, and states that it has a large transit trade. From Sui- Fu the route goes to An pien-chang and ascends the Keng River, which con- tains many rapids and rocks, and the navigation of which ends at Hengchiang. Goods come up the river by boat and are then carried by coolies to Laowatan (77 miles in four days through a difficult mountain district by a bad road), at about 5d. to 6d. per ton per mile. In Ssuchuan a large part of the transport is always done by coolies, who can live very cheaply. Laowatan, 137 miles from Sui-Fu, is the great likin station on this route, the chief import through it into Yunnan being native cotton cloth, with some foreign cottons, tobacco, salt, and drugs, while the chief export is opium, with tin, lead, copper, tea, and drugs. Likin is rigidly enforced, and the officials are especially extortionate and unreasonable with small traders. At Laowatan the goods brought by coolies are re-packed and sent on by mules and ponies. There isan as cent of 2,500 feet in nine miles to Li-shan-ting, and a descent of 2,000 feet to Tou-sha-kuan in the next nine miles. Here begins a district of great poverty, with scanty vegetation and few houses. Beyond Takuan-ting the path ascends 2,800 feet in 45 miles. The country traversed is poor and difficult, the houses miserable and ruined. According to Soltau the ranges between the Takuan valley and Chaotung are extremely difficult, with dangerous precipices and deep ravines. Near Chaotung (6,580 feet) carts are found. The town lies midway between the two chief sources of cotton supply, Hankow and Burma, so cotton is dear and the people ill-clad. Chaotung has 40,000 people, but it is not noted for any special product. It depends on agriculture and through traffic. The foreign goods are few, and are sold by itinerant vendors. Its plain produces opium and large quantities of indigo. Chaotung serves as a distributing centre for goods (especially medicines) from the Yangtze to north-west Ssuchuan vid Huilichou and even up to Tali, and east through Weining. Beyond Chaotung the country is a dry, bare, almost rainless plateau with no rivers. The descent to the Nuilan valley is by a road indescribably bad and steep through a wretched district. Except the small town of Chiang-ti there is hardly a house for 46 miles. The winds are specially injurious in this region. The rebellion has left deep and frequent traces in ruined villages and uncultivated valleys. Tungchuan-Fu (7,150 feet), five stages from Chaotung, has long been famous as a mining centre, and in the district there are said to be still rich mineral deposits of iron, coal, lead, zinc, and copper, though only copper is worked. Its population is small, poor, and hard worked. There is little demand for foreign goods, though a few come from the West River, the Red River, and the Yangtze. (A route runs through very moun- tainous country from Tungchuan to Tali vid Huilichou. This route crosses the Chinshakiang at two stages from Tungchuan). From Tungchuan to Yunnan-Fu there are seven stages. Mr. Bourne says that in one day he travelled 25 miles without passing a single village, and that during 20 days be traversed a miserable country of alternating bare and wind-swept downs and precipitous cañons. At three points the path ascends to 7,830, 8,426, and 9,993 feet. Transport animals frequently die of the hardships they experience on this route. The Lyons Mission spoke of wandering through a wilderness of mountains and rough valleys. The roads often run along the mountain sides, and are strewn with boulders.
From
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Laowatan to Kungshan (305 miles) the country is at present of no possible value for commerce, according to Mr. Bourne. The people are very poor, and, if clad, clad in Shashi cloth. After Kungshan the country improves, and fertile plains are traversed to Yangkai, beyond which poppy fills the whole cultivated area. A vast plain stretches from Yangkai to the prosperous market town of Yanglin, said to be one of the richest in Yunnan, and con- taining numerous, villages with an active population and a great number of cattle.
In spite of the many obstacles to traffic, this is the principal trade route The chief from the Yangtze valley to Yuman-Fu, though a member of the Lyons trade route, Mission states that since the opening of the Kueichou and Tonkin route, the present route is little frequented, being used only by few and small caravans with tobacco and indigo from Ssuchuan, medicines for Ssuchuan, and cotton for Huilichon. But no confirmation of this statement can be found. In any case, a route along which the main path is too narrow for bulky goods and is generally broken and uncared for, a route which traverses sterile, thinly peopled, and even in parts uninhabitable tracks, crosses high ridges and deep ravines, and goes along the beds of streams, hardly offers much scope for an extensive trade in foreign goods. Trade is further hampered by taxation, amounting to 12 per cent. on the Shanghai value of cotton goods.
Kreitner proposed a railway from Yunnan-Fu vid Hsuntien, Tungchuan, and Railway Chaotung to Sui-Fu. But M. Brenier, Secretary General of the Lyons mission, projects. says that a railway is held by experts to be impossible on account of the nature of the country and of the forests. He says that it is impossible from a practical standpoint, for it would cost enormous sums which the present and prospective traffic would not repay. It would, moreover, cost more for freight by such a line from Tonkin than the existing freight by the Yangtze route. The commercial members of the Blackburn Mission thought that the rates charged on a line through a country presenting such great engineering difficulties would be as high as the present charges for pack animals. Although a railway might be possible from Yunnan-Fu as far as Kungchai, the tremendous ascents and descents for the rest of the way would be insuperable barriers. Similarly a project for a railway from Yunnan-Fu vid Tungchuan up to the bend of the Chinshakiang to the S. of Huilichou is impracticable, for any line must cross the watershed between the West River and the Yangtze basins, while even if the river were reached by railway it would, owing to innumerable rapids, be found unnavigable, except for small boats, down to Pingshan.
Fu.
(e.) Chungking viâ Chengtu-Fu to Tali-Fu-The route to Chengtu-Fu Chungking proceeds overland or by boat. The overland road passes the important towns to Tali-Fu of Jungchang-Hsien and Lungchang (centre of the grass cloth trade), and the via Chengtu- salt wells of Tzulinching. A busy and populous district with many large villages lies between Yuting-pu and Tzu-chou, noted for salt, sugar, and grass cloth, and Chien-Chou, famous for opium. Beyond Chengtu-Fu the first town to be noted is Yachou, in the midst of a great tea-growing district. Consul Litton speaks highly of the strategic importance of Yachou, the possession of which would give an enemy from the West a clear run down the valley of the Ya River to Chiating, which is in the Min Valley, and in the heart of Ssuchuan. Yachou is a place of importance as the starting point of commerce to Tibet, in tea and cotton, which are exchanged for musk, wool, furs, gold, goat-skins, medicines, &c. At Yachou is prepared all the brick tea sent to Tibet. The tea trade with Tibet, valued at a million taels, goes by pack coolies along a difficult route with huge forests and mountains (one pass of 13,000 feet, and two of over 9,000 feet) to Tatsien-lu (Tachien-lu), a town of great commercial and strategical importance on the Tibetan frontier, a journey of 15 days. (There is another route which Mr. Litton considers is easier and more direct, only one obstacle, the Ma Ngai Pass of 9,700 feet, having to be surmounted. It is coming into favour with the tea carriers.) Drugs are produced and coal and iron are worked at Yachou. Over a high pass, and also within the tea region, is Jungching-Hsien, where coal and iron are mined and agricultural implements, &c. manufactured.
6531.
L
565-
576
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