Preface to the Database on Prices and Wages of Zhili Province

This is a revised version of the database of prices, wages, and transport costs in public construction of Zhili province in the Qianlong reign.
The Zhili edition of "Regulations and precedents on prices of materials" used for this database is in the holdings of the Tsinghua University Library, Beijing. It is an official printing in 24 chapters. It includes prices, wages, and transport prices for 15 prefectures with a total of 139 districts / subprefectures (xian / zhou). It has the same introductory memorial, dated 1769, and other prefatory materials as the provincial editions of Henan, Gansu, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Yunnan. A punctuated version of the prefatory material was edited by Chen Chaoyong.

Some input errors concerning transport prices were corrected at the Section for History of China of the Faculty of East Asian Studies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. The corrections were made by Huang Gufeng and Wu Kuan-Wei.

The original database has been set up in a cooperation of the Seminar für Sinologie und Koreanistik, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany, and the Institute for History of Natural Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. The participants of the original project group were Juliane Kiefner, Christine Moll-Murata, and Hans Ulrich Vogel from Tübingen, and Chen Chaoyong and Su Rongyu from Beijing.

Data input and web presentation in Tübingen were done by Juliane Kiefner. Chen Chaoyong and Christine Moll-Murata helped with translations, and Su Rongyu and Christine Moll-Murata proof-read all data. In case English terms for building materials remain to be clarified, Hanyu pinyin transcription is given.

The Zhili edition of "Regulations and precedents on prices of materials" is the most voluminous of all Wuliao jiazhi zeli editions. The database contains more than 10,000 single entries. The prices and wages in these statistics were used for settling the accounts for the building projects of the provincial government with the Ministry for Public Works. They give the rates which the Zhili provincial government could request to be reimbursed by the central government. According to the prefatory edicts, they reflect market prices at medium market activity, but some are also indicated as being extrapolated from earlier prices.

直隸省《物料價值則例》數據庫前言

本數據庫收入乾隆年間直隸省公共建設之物價、工價及運價，並經修訂後公布。

本數據庫之直隸篇，乃據清華大學圖書館所藏的官刊本製作。全文共24卷，涵括直隸省15個府、直隸州所屬139個縣。本篇前列之奏摺、總略、凡例，與其它省分如湖南、甘肅、山西、陝西、山東、江蘇、浙江、廣東及雲南等一致。奏摺、總略、凡例加注的全文標點由陳朝勇編撰。

部分資料誤植已經由波鴻魯爾大學東亞學系中國歷史研究所修訂，由黃谷風與吳冠緯完成。

本《物料價值則例》數據庫是在德國學術基金會 (DFG) 和馬普基金的支助下，由 德國圖賓根大學漢學系 和 中國科學院自然科學史研究所合作製作。參加人員有德國圖賓根大學漢學系朱麗安、莫克莉、傅漢思，和中國科學院自然科學史研究所陳朝勇、蘇榮譽等。

直隸省《物料價值則例》數據庫內容繁多，它包括一萬多條。輸入和網路發布由朱麗安負責。陳朝勇和莫克莉協助術語翻譯，並由蘇榮譽和莫克莉校對全文。其中部分術語英語名稱因翻譯不易，暫以用漢語拼音表示，以待後續完善。就此特別指出，本數據庫之物價、工價和運價，乃根據《總略》反映出一定時價，然其用處在於提供工部報銷各省建築費用之依據。

Database of prices, wages, and transport costs in public construction of Zhili province in the Qianlong reign 直隸省《物料價值則例》數據庫