Ye Chunji

Ye Chunji (; 1532–1595), courtesy name Huafu (化甫), art name Jiongzhai (絅齋), was a Chinese county official and scholar during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) of China.

Life and career He was a native of Guangdong province and served as a county official of Huian County in Fujian province. Although topographic features were part of maps in China for centuries, Ye was the first to base county maps on on-site topographical surveying and observations. His career was sidelined for seventeen years after he became a victim of political vengeance. However, the elites of Huian county and others did not care much for fiscally conservative warnings such as this, and flaunted their wealth in silver. At the top of this pyramid was the "greatest" (zui) product, which was grain; this vital item of subsistence was not traded out of the county as a commercial item. the 1581 Single whip reform of Zhang Juzheng finally assessed land taxes entirely in silver and not in grain. The middle level of importance in Ye's pyramid of county-level consumptionary goods were so-called "great" (zhong) products, which were mulberry, cotton, hemp, and ramie, the essential raw materials for local textile production. He did note, however, that linen produced from the county's production of hemp did generate profit that entered the county from outside. Historian Timothy Brook writes that Ye's description of his county gives the impression that most counties in the Ming dynasty relied on self-sufficient agriculture and textile production while they were largely unaffected by and disengaged with regional commodity networks between large urban markets.