| dc.description.abstract | The Mongols had always been a serious threat since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. To obtain enough warhorses, the Ming government began to trade tea for horse, the tea and horse trade, with the Tibetan tribes. Another main political purpose of the trade was attempting to control the Tibetan tribes and avert allying with the Mongols to invade borders. Thus the border-tea became a strategic material under political purpose.
The Ming government enforced the tea and horse trade with high- priced tea and low-priced horse policy, which led to a huge profit and smuggled tea overran badly. To control the trade, the Ming government imposed strict laws against smuggling and sent officials to supervise. The most representative figure was the tea-inspecting supervisor.
In the beginning, the Ming state established the tea-inspecting supervisor system to solve abuses in the tea and horse trade. During the early years, tea-inspecting supervisor took charge of smuggled tea and tea and horse trade affairs. However, commanding the politics of the horse management became tea-inspecting supervisor’s mission later. Tea-inspecting supervisor took full responsibility for everything regarded the horse policy and governed only three districts, Shanxi, Sichuan, and Huguang, then ambits altered during different periods.
As most tea-inspecting supervisors did their best and practiced the law well, the tea and horse trade had been operated till the end of the Ming Dynasty, and supplied adequate warhorses for the Ming state. Overall, tea-inspecting supervisors had a great contribution on Ming’s history.
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