Reclaiming the Sea: Soil, Capital, and the Gambit of Livelihood in 16th-Century Zhangzhou
Have you ever wondered how a tidal flat, submerged by seawater for millennia, could be turned into fertile farmland that sustains thousands? This is not a myth. This is what the people of 16th-century Zhangzhou actually did. In the late Ming period, the people of Southern Fujian faced a brutal choice: inland lay endless dense mountain forests, every inch of which had already been claimed by clan lineages. Offshore lay the roaring tidal flats, submerged twice daily by the ebb and flow, offering vast stretches of unclaimed mud. ...