Lai Hui-min, 2014, Emperor Qianlong’s Purse: Imperial Household Finance in Eighteenth Century China, 526 pages, Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica.

This book elaborates on the financial aspects if Emperor Qianlong’s reign in the 18th century, while also exploring how religion and commerce were employed to solve China’s long-term frontier troubles and govern new territories. The first part examines sources of royal revenue, while the second reviews the construction of Tibetan monasteries in Beijing as well as the integration and stabilization of Mongolian and Tibetan areas to maintain Qianlong’s governance with the help of the Tibetan Buddhism and Yellow Sect leaders. Its detailed treatment of the relationship between the Imperial Household Department and merchants convincingly supports Lai Hui-min’s assertion that Qianlong had been more avid in tapping commerce for royal revenue than going after land-based yields. The Imperial Household Department showed its keen business sense by discontinuing the pawn business when it was no longer profitable and transferring the money to loans to salt merchants. In so doing, it competed with the Ministry of Revenue in exacting money from these merchants, causing stagnation in the increase of state revenue from the salt monopoly as well as the decline of salt merchants, one of the richest groups during the Qing dynasty.