The aborigines in Taiwan boiled seawater to get salt, or traded their fish for it with fishermen from China. After the Dutch took Taiwan in 1624, Chinese merchants still shipped salt to Taiwan, while Dutch government levied a customs duty on it.

After Zhen Cheng Gong expelled the Dutch and took Taiwan in 1661, Ching Dynasty in return blocked Taiwan economically. Salt could not be shipped to Taiwan anymore. Thus, Chen Yong Hua, an officer in Dong Ning Kingdom, started teaching people to use seawater to produce salt in Lai Kou, Tainan. This was the beginning of salt drying in Taiwan, which was called “Lai Kou Saltern.” Afterwards, “Zhou Zi Wei Saltern” and “Da Gou Saltern” was open in Yong Kang, Tainan and Yan Cheng Section, Kaohsiung. Table salt started to be produced and marketed by the people freely, while the government collected salt tax according to the size of the saltern.

In 1683 when Ching Dynasty just took Taiwan, population was sharply reduced, and salt was enough. Zhen’s system was followed, and people still produced and marketed the salt by themselves. Despite the “Three Prohibitions to Immigrants” by Ching, people from the seashore of Fu Jian and Kuan Dong still came to Taiwan. With this growing number of population, salt was not enough and was becoming more unreasonably expensive. Therefore, Ching decided to apply a policy from the mainland to Taiwan, starting to carry out the monopoly of table salt in 1726, which lasted until Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895. For almost 170 years, many salterns had been founded, such as Lai Bei Field (Yan Cheng Saltern in Tainan), Lai Xi Field (Mi Tuo Saltern in Kaohsiung), Lai Dong Field (Da Lin Pu Saltern in Kaohsiung), Wai Du Tou Saltern in Jia Li, Da Cheng Saltern in Chiqu, Jing Zai Jiao Saltern in Bei Men, Jiu Cheng Saltern in Bei Men, and Xin Cuo Saltern in Bu Dai. Salt people worked extremely hard to fight for salt with the sea and the sky.

By the end of the 19th century, Japanese empire, which had just finished their Meiji Restoration, took Taiwan. It stopped the monopoly of salt and let people produce and market salt by themselves. However, Taiwanese society had been used to the monopoly for such a long time that the people were unable to market their salt. Many salterns were stopped. Japanese government had to restore the monopoly of salt, and encouraged people to participate in salt business. Before long, those old saltern left from Ching, like Lai Bei Field, Jing Zai Jiao Saltern in Bei Men, Jiu Cheng Saltern in Bei Men, and Xin Cuo Saltern in Bu Dai, were all restored. In addition, more salterns were built in An Shun and Wan Li in Tainan, Zhong Zhou, Ke Liao and Wang Ye Gang in Bei Men, Wu Shu Lin in Yong An, Yan Cheng in Kaohsiung and Zhang Tan in Dong Shi.

　　As industry and militarism rose in Japan, Office of Taiwan Governor-General planned to bring in capital from Japan in the 1930’s to improve salt industry in Taiwan. More new salterns were founded in Se Cao in Tainan, Xin Wen in Bu Dai, Zhu Hu in Kaohsiung, Tai Qu, Zhong Liao, Ding Shan, and Hou Gang in Cigu. Later on, Salt Company in Taiwan extensively bought into salterns belonging to Taiwanese. Thus, the once multiple management of salt industry in Taiwan was then shared by three major companies: Salt Company in Taiwan, Southern Japan Salt Company and “Zhong Yuan Cao Da” Company. That was the source of the monopoly from the Nationalist government after World War II.

In 1945, Japan was defeated. The Nationalist government took Taiwan according to the Ally’s order, and took over all the salterns from Japanese. Japan signed San Francisco Peace Treaty to render the sovereignty of Taiwan in 1952. Then, the Nationalist government, defeated in a civil war, moved to Taiwan, and founded Head Factory of Taiwan Salt Industry to keep on salt production, transplanting Rules of Salt Industry that they announced on March 12, 1947. Therefore, government in Taiwan got the monopoly of salt. Although industry in Taiwan was not very good at that time, and salt was produced more than needed, yet in order to earn foreign money through taxation, salt had to be exported to nearby countries. The situation lasted until the 1970’s when economy in Taiwan improved, and industrial salt was not able to meet the market’s needs. Head Factory of Taiwan Salt Industry still built a fan-shaped saltern in Cigu, and tried bringing in salt-collecting machines to reduce the cost. However, due to the high cost of labor and the bad weather conditions, it was difficult to compete with the cheap imported salt. In May, 2002, the salt production was stopped and the land was transferred to National Property Bureau. All the employees had to quit or retire according to related laws, which marked the end of salt industry in Taiwan.

Salt industry in Taiwan had lasted through Zhen period, Ching Dynasty, Japanese rule and the ROC, for a total of 338 years, since 1665 to 2002. Monopoly of salt lasted so long as 272 years. We should reflect the socio-economic reasons behind this!