Abstract: Under the policy of“restricting production and expanding sales,” the administration of saltworks was centralized in a“depot”in the Qing Dynasty. The task of saltworks was to provide enough salt to the salesman, while the institution of the depot was meant to put all the salt produced in the saltworks under official supervision to control production. This policy was challenged by the flooding of the market with private salt in the late Kangxi period. In Yongzheng reign, in order to maintain official centralization of salt output, the government implemented a new institution“huofu”to control the output of saltworks. The implementation of this institution also reserved institutional space for merchants to control the saltworks. Under the policy of“relying on merchants to manage salt revenue,” the Qing government gradually transferred the production of salt and the collection of taxes to merchants. The model of“salt merchants providing funds and taking charge of salt production” reached its peak in the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods. The change of the management system in Qing Dynasty was the inevitable result of the salt policy of“relying on merchants to collect taxes” and“restricting production and expanding sales.” But the close combination of the two also restricted the further development, and the reform of“taxation at the place of production” in the late Qing Dynasty failed accordingly.