Author: Liu Jinxiang (Adjunct Professor of Harbin Institute of Technology, Distinguished Researcher of Heilongjiang Provincial Research Center for the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics)
Huishang is a famous group of merchants in ancient China, most of which come from Huizhou including six counties such as She, Xiuning, Wuyuan, Qimen, Yi, Jixi, etc., mainly engaged in salt, pawn, tea rice, grain, cotton, silk, paper, ink, porcelain and other daily necessities, always adhering to the business philosophy of "integrity-based, righteousness for profit", and together with Jinshang, Zhejiang and Cantonese merchants, they constitute the four major merchant gangs in ancient China.
Huishang reached its peak in its heyday at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, whether it was the number of employees, the scope of activities, or the business field, the amount of capital, at that time it ranked first among the merchant gangs in the country, and Huishang once dominated the Chinese business community for hundreds of years. As a strong force in the Chinese business community, Huishang has been tirelessly working hard since ancient times, walking the world, and the traces of activities are almost all over China, the so-called "mountains and seas are omnipotent", especially in Zhejiang, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian and Jiangxi, there has always been a saying that "no emblem is not a town", and their whereabouts are even as far as Japan, Siam and Southeast Asian countries. Since 1947, when Mr. Fu Yiling, a famous social and economic historian in China, published the article "Examination of Huishang in the Ming Dynasty", the research on Huishang in the historical circles has been heating up and gradually becoming a prominent science, and many research results so far show that "Jia and Good Confucianism" is an important feature and value pursuit of Huishang. Hui merchants are either "first Confucianism and then Jia", or "first Jia and then Confucianism", or "Yi Jia YiRu", and the organic unity and high integration of "Jia" and "Confucianism" are important symbols of many Huishang becoming "Confucian merchants".
In the course of China's historical development, there have been three large-scale movements of the northern population to the south, making the originally sparsely populated southern Anhui become densely populated and narrow. Huizhou is located in the midst of a cluster of mountains with peaks, mountains and mountains, and in this natural environment, the northern immigrants from the south built livable villages between the peaks and peaks, and once they encountered a gentle area, they gathered the entire family to live. Just as Zhao Jishi of the Qing Dynasty said in his book "Sending Letters to the Garden": "Xin'an has its own surnames, and lives in a group of ethnic groups, and there is absolutely no one with a miscellaneous surname who has been involved, and its style is the most recent and ancient." Under normal circumstances, most of the northern immigrants and their descendants who live in the mountains use the surname as the principle of living in the group, and the group and the long-term residence form a clan, and many clans of different sizes constitute the clan society of Huizhou. The clan of the Huizhou people is based on blood relations as a bond, with the respect of an ancestor as the core, and gradually formed through the continuous superposition of family members. This kind of rural community constructed by the superposition of family members corresponds to the differential order pattern of the traditional Chinese rural social structure proposed by the famous sociologist Mr. Fei Xiaotong.
Because "there is no land to work in Huizhou", so Huizhou people go out to do business in order to make a living, these Huizhou people (Huizhou merchants) who are doing business abroad pay attention to the emotional maintenance of the clan, and advocate the pursuit of Confucian ethics and morality with the "three principles and five constants" as an important content, and confucian ethical and moral thought has become the emotional starting point and value destination of Huishang merchants, and it is also the psychological basis that supports their "good" Confucian stance.
In the long years, when the behavior of thousands of Hui merchants was deeply rooted in the cognitive system of Confucian ethics and morality, and engaged in business activities with a "good" Confucian attitude, they became the advocates and practitioners of Confucian thought in the field of commerce, and their commercial behavior naturally showed the trend and representation of "Jia and Good Confucianism". Some well-off Hui merchants recited the scriptures and read history in private schools since childhood, systematically received Confucian education and edification, and became Confucian students who read poetry and books before they went out to do business. Because of "one of the ten successful scholars", some Huizhou students who have repeatedly failed in the scientific expedition can only choose to "abandon Confucianism from Jia", "first Confucianism and then Jia", "serve Jia with Confucianism", plan carefully and carefully in business, be good at insight into the "number of surpluses and falsehoods", and diligently consider the "way of survival and survival", and make a lot of profits. Although huishang merchants changed their "Jia" clothes and changed their identities, they still remember Confucianism, and on the surface they seem to focus on business matters, but their essence is another form of "Confucianism", religiously using "Confucian" ideas to guide their business activities, and using Confucian morality and ethics to regulate their own business behavior.
Since Huishang is a "Confucian businessman", he shows Confucian demeanor and Confucian morale in his business activities, that is, he is praised by posterity as "inquiring about elegant ornaments, Jia and Confucians also". For example, although the emblem merchant Wang Tan is entrusted to swim in the field of goods and profits, he does not take righteousness, "his encounters are also salty and straight, and he is gentle and elegant", Wang Tan not only does not make huge profits, but also is upright, easy-going, and a humble gentleman who is infiltrated with Confucian atmosphere. Another example is That Zhang Jingwen was born in the "Family of Literature", scrupulously abided by the "Confucian Way" to do business, was gentle and elegant, did not design and be clever, did not seek small profits, believed in and fulfilled promises, was willing to be charitable, and was like a Confucian student in the mall. Wang Tan, Zhang Jingwen and other emblem merchants "yili double line", "family business uplift", "fengheng yuda", and even "collapse su seal". Confucianism has always advocated the combination of righteousness and profit, with righteousness as the first and righteousness as the most important, "unrighteous and rich and expensive, like a floating cloud to me", this sentence in the Confucian classic "Analects" can be described as having a profound and far-reaching influence on Huishang. The Confucian theory of joining the WTO, which originally guided the literati to "cultivate oneself and rule the country and the world", was used by Huizhou merchants for business and financial management, and it was also prosperous in business and prosperous in wealth, which was quite "spiritual".
For thousands of years, the reason why Huishang merchants have been "Jia and Good Confucian" is mainly due to two aspects: First, the inherent needs of commercial development. In the face of increasingly fierce market competition, in order to clarify the logical relationship between commodities and money and grasp the laws and characteristics of commodity supply and demand, Huishang must learn and master commercial knowledge, analyze and grasp the laws of the market, and make overall plans to take into account the connection between commerce and other industries.
The second is an important means for Huishang merchants to improve their own character. Ancient Huizhou is known as the "country of courtesy", especially under the influence of the famous theoretician Zhu Xi's thought in the Southern Song Dynasty, the humanistic atmosphere of respecting Confucianism and reverence is becoming increasingly strong, at that time, many Huishang merchants have undergone the subtleization of Zhu Xi's theoretical thought, coupled with the fact that many people have received relatively good Confucian enlightenment since childhood, Confucian values and ethics and morality, naturally become the ideological guide for Huishang to stand up and act from business. Therefore, in the business process of Huishang, there are often some interesting phenomena: some Huishang must bring a few books and classics when they go out to do business, and when they encounter leisure time, they will read and recite; some Huishang immediately visit local scholars and scholars every time they go to a new place, and get acquainted with them, sing and respond, which is undoubtedly the unique spiritual outlook of Huishang that is different from other merchants - Confucian temperament.
Confucianism is broad and profound, but the idea of unifying profits with righteousness and seeking profits with righteousness has always been upheld and adhered to by Huishang merchants. Huishang's concept of righteousness and profit of "seeing the righteousness of the people and taking the righteousness as the benefit" not only originated from Confucianism, but also injected new connotations into Confucianism.
Source: Guangming Network - Academic Channel