Ancient Huizhou is located at the junction of Zhejiang, Gan and Anhui provinces, where mountains are continuous, heavy valleys are rugged, and there are few arable fields.
Before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou people had a long tradition of doing business, but the word "Huishang" was really known to the world after the middle Ming Dynasty. Because after that, Huizhou businessmen gradually formed a "business gang", and all aspects of business operations have changed qualitatively.
From the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Daoguang period, the Hui merchant group has dominated the domestic business community for more than 300 years, and they have been all over the world and rich. However, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, due to policy changes and foreign investment in war, the once prosperous Hui merchants gradually declined.
First, the conditions for the rise of Hui merchants
There is a saying that "one side of the water and soil raises the other people", Huizhou people are not born to love business, but have a great relationship with the natural environment in which they live.
Huizhou, also known as Xin'an, has six counties under its jurisdiction: Xiao County, Jixi, Yi County, Qimen, Xiuning and Wuyuan. There are many mountains and little land, it is difficult to provide for food, and the people have to find another way out in order to survive.
View map of Huizhou
Huizhou area is rich in natural resources and extremely rich in economic value, especially the fir produced by Wuyuan, its quality is excellent, is a good material for building houses and making furniture, as early as the Southern Song Dynasty, there were a large number of Huizhou people to grow fir for a living.
Huizhou is located on the northern edge of the subtropics, where the altitude is moderate, the climate is warm and humid, and the land is fertile, which is very suitable for tea cultivation and tea production. As early as the Tang Dynasty, Xiao County was famous for its tea production, and Lu Yu once recorded in his "Tea Classic" that "Xiaozhou produces tea and has good quality".
Today's Jingdezhen in Jiangxi is the world-famous porcelain capital, but the soil used to burn porcelain is all dependent on the supply of Wuyuan and Qimen, and during the Ming and Qing dynasties, many people in the two counties opened "rice factories" to make porcelain clay for a living.
Pen, ink, paper and ink, known as the "Four Treasures of Wenfang", are indispensable cultural tools in ancient times, and there are specialties in their production, but the four treasures of Wenfang produced in Huizhou are all fine.
As early as the Tang Dynasty, the paper ink inkstone produced in Huizhou was famous all over the world, and it was recorded in the "Xin'an Zhi": "Lord Li paid attention to Han Mo, there was Chengxintang paper, Li Tingjie ink, and the inkstone of the old pit stone". During the Song Dynasty, several pen makers also appeared in Huizhou, and their works were also famous.
In addition to the natural conditions, the geographical location of Huizhou also provides convenience for doing business.
Although Huizhou is located in the mountains, it is close to the economically developed Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In ancient times, Huizhou people went east to Suzhou and Hangzhou, west out of Raozhou, or north to Wuhu, but three or five days away, and most of the routes can rely on waterways by boat, once Huizhou people go out of the mountains, they can use convenient water transportation to do business and accumulate wealth.
Rich in natural resources and close to affluent areas, the Huizhou people have a long tradition of doing business.
The history of business of Huizhou people can be traced back to the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Every time the Eastern Jin general Sima Xi held a banquet, he would have prostitutes pretend to be Xin'an people and play a poignant and moving parting song. It can be seen that at that time, Huizhou people left their hometowns and went out to do business were very common.
During the Tang Dynasty, the tea produced in Wuyuan and Qimen was famous all over the world, attracting a large number of merchants to come to buy, and during the late Tang Dynasty, the ink paper produced in Huizhou was the world's finest products.
At the turn of the Two Song Dynasties, a large number of northerners moved south to the Huizhou area, bringing new production technology and labor here, and the Huizhou area was further developed.
After the stability of the Southern Song regime, the economy of Jiangnan continued to develop, the economic center of gravity gradually shifted south, and the commerce of southern cities became more prosperous, all of which provided favorable conditions for the commercial activities of Huizhou people.
The Southern Song Dynasty built Lin'an as the capital, and a large number of powerful people were able to gather here, forming a huge consumer market. The tung lacquer wood produced in Huizhou is a good building material, which well meets the needs of the new capital.
Paper produced in Huizhou is also a good fast-moving product in Lin'an, and the Southern Song Dynasty once purchased 500,000 sheets of paper from Huizhou in order to issue the currency of the meeting.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, countless merchants relied on prosperous commerce to become rich. Zhu Xi's grandfather Zhu Queguang was a famous businessman at that time, and the area of the liquor inn industry he operated had reached half of the capital city of Huizhou, known as "Zhu Bancheng." “
The Hui merchant group has accumulated a lot of experience and talents in long-term business activities, and the inheritance of these knowledge has provided a favorable basis for them to later carry out large-scale commercial activities nationwide.
Before the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Hui merchants had already emerged in domestic commerce, but their business scope was limited to Huizhou and parts of the surrounding Huizhou, and the form of business was only to transport Huizhou's special products out of Huizhou in exchange for grain and other daily necessities, and their influence was relatively limited.
After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the continuous improvement of handicraft production technology, the commodity economy has developed more significantly, the variety of commodities has become increasingly rich, and the country's commerce has become more prosperous.
The country's tax system has also changed, and after the implementation of a whip law and the land ding system, the proportion of silver in the tax gradually increased, and the people had to sell products and exchange goods for money in order to pay taxes, which made the people more closely connected with the market.
Ancient bazaar
A large number of goods flowed into the market, and the local market was difficult to digest for a while, which provided conditions for the development of long-distance trade. In order to pay taxes as soon as possible, many people had to sell their products at low prices, which attracted a large number of businessmen to join the market for huge profits.
Profits in commerce are obtained in cheap selling and selling high and unequal exchanges, and long-distance transport trade is a favorable way to achieve such unequal exchanges. In different areas far away, due to the difference in nature and production conditions, there is a regional price difference in commodities, and Huizhou people with rich business experience seize this opportunity to quickly accumulate wealth.
Huizhou people went out of the mountains, relying on their excellent commercial skills and the convenience of river water transportation, exported silk, cotton, salt and other commodities from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Hangzhou to all parts of the country, and brought special products from various places to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Hangzhou to seek huge profits. Generations of Huizhou people have devoted themselves to it, starting from sporadic small businesses, and constantly accumulating wealth to become a wealthy party.
Second, the formation of Hui merchant gangs
Before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou people who did business abroad could not be called "Hui merchants", and although their business activities were active, their overall influence was very limited. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou merchants gradually relied on clan geographical relations to form a whole, "Huishang" was well known to the world, and the word "Huishang" also became the business card of all Huizhou merchants walking the world.
The formation of the Huishang merchant gang is not achieved overnight, but a gradual process, but people can still find the specific context of its formation from the clues of history.
The Hui merchant gang was roughly formed in the Ming Dynasty, and the group of Huizhou merchants during this period underwent three changes.
First, the formation of the business atmosphere of the Hui people. According to the "Records of Xiao County" during the Wanli period, before Zhengde, most of the people in Huizhou were still content with farming, living in an agricultural life of "cultivating their fields and living in their houses".
It is recorded that Jiang Cai, a native of Xiao County, born in the tenth year of Chenghua (1474), was determined to engage in business in his early years, but suffered from lack of capital, and his wife sold jewelry to raise capital for him; Huang Bao, a native of Xiao County who was born in the 20th year of Chenghua (1484), was poor when he was young, and once saw a richly dressed man walking on the street, hugging in front of him, so he was not prestigious, so he determined to do business and finally became a rich man.
During the same period, the folk atmosphere of not only Xiao County changed, but so did Xiuning. The "Chronicle of Xiuning County" during the Hongzhi period recorded that "the people are fresh and powerful, and there are many goods to grow". It can be seen that during the period of Chenghua Hongzhi, the people in Xiuningxian and Xiaoxian County had formed a custom of going out to do business.
In the late Ming Dynasty, the population continued to increase, the contradiction of insufficient resources became more acute, and the desire of Huizhou people to go out to make a living became stronger. At that time, among the six counties of Huizhou, except for Jixi and Yixian County, which formed a late business style, the people of the other four counties had long regarded business as the main means of getting rich.
For example, in Xiao County, "the people of Xiuning "take the cultivation of goods as their constant property", and the Qimen "those who serve the fields are thirteen and Jia seventeen".
Although the ancient society was said to be "scholars, farmers, industry and commerce", with "scholars" as the first of the four people, in actual situations, there were very few people who relied on hard study to gain fame. In order to make a living, many Huizhou people have to let their children temporarily give up their career and pursue commercial interests.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou had formed a custom of taking merchants as the first livelihood and Kodi second, and the proverb "If you don't cultivate in your previous life, you were born in Huizhou, you are twelve or thirteen years old, and you are thrown out", which is a reflection of this situation.
Second, the phenomenon of Hui people relying on clan and geographical relations to cooperate in business is widespread. The feudal society was a jungle society under the restrictions of rules, and those who went out to do business had to deal with a very dangerous social environment, such as the exclusion of local merchants, the robbery of bandits on the road, and the exploitation and extortion of officials.
In order to maintain their own security and seek commercial development, Huizhou merchants must rely on the strength of the group, and the best way is to use the natural clan blood relationship as a bond, form an organization, and help each other.
Clan relations have a great positive effect on commercial activities, it can mobilize people within the clan to unite together, use political, financial and commercial resources, form a powerful force into commercial activities, so that Huizhou people doing business abroad can take root and gain an advantageous position in competition.
After people who go out to do business, they often give back to the countryside and drive their clan relatives to do business together and become rich. Such large and small township merchant organizations are the foundation of the formation of the entire Huizhou merchant gang.
During the Hongzhi period, Huizhou people Xu Zhi did business in Zhengyang Pass for more than 20 years, driving relatives and friends around him to start a family together, and also made local commerce prosperous, and after his death, "3,000 people saved and 10,000 spectators", and the scale of his funeral has exceeded that of local dignitaries.
During the Jiajing period, after the prince of Huizhou became rich in business, he cared for the children of the clan, and he gave the children of the clan the capital to do business, helping them analyze the commercial market and guide the way of doing business. Under his many promotions, many children in the clan have become extremely wealthy. After the children of the clan became rich, they all took the prince as the leader, and they all took care of their big and small affairs.
In the late Ming Dynasty, the commodity economy developed prosperously, the scale of the commercial market was further expanded, and commercial competition became more and more intense, and it was difficult to cope with the fierce market by relying on the strength of one clan alone.
The people of Huizhou have similar customs and a tradition of doing business, so the phenomenon of mutual marriage is extremely common. After businessmen are married, they can support each other through the relationship of in-laws and support each other in business.
Wang Daokun, a famous merchant in Xiao County, has been farming for generations, and his grandfather Wang Xuanyi married the daughter of a salt merchant, and Wang Xuanyi later operated the salt industry under the promotion of his father-in-law, and the Wang family has since become a famous family of salt merchants.
There is such a plot in "The First Moment Shooting Surprise", Hui merchant Jin Chaofeng runs a pawnshop on the rooftop of Zhejiang, and one day his brother-in-law brought his son to the door, saying that he wanted to run a pawn business with Jin Chaofeng.
It can be seen that at that time, Huizhou merchants were related to each other, because it was very common for relatives to assist in business. From a certain point of view, the union of in-law relations is the expansion and extension of clan relations. The famous Hui merchant gang has developed and grown step by step by relying on such clan blood and in-law blood geography.
Third, the Hui's monopoly on the two Huai salt industries. The Lianghuai area is rich in salt resources and huge salt production, and a large number of salt merchants are active here all year round, but in the early Ming Dynasty, the salt industry in Lianghuai was monopolized by merchants in Shanxi and Shaanxi.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, in order to resist the Northern Yuan, Zhu Yuanzhang set up nine major military towns in the northern frontier, and in order to solve the problem of soldiers' military needs, he specially set up the "Kaizhong System", which stipulated that merchants could transport grain and grass to the border plugs and obtain salt trafficking vouchers, called "salt leading". Merchants with salt can go to the salt works to get salt and sell it. Shanxi has the geographical advantage of producing and transporting grain, and southern Hui merchants are limited by geographical conditions and are difficult to compete with it.
In the fifth year of Hongzhi (1492), Hube Shangshu Yeqi implemented a change in the law, changing the Chinese system to the "folding color method", stipulating that merchants no longer needed to transport grain and grass to the frontier, and only needed to pay silver taels to the salt transport department in exchange for salt leads, which greatly facilitated the operation of Hui merchants in the two Huai salt industries.
Since then, Hui merchants have been able to rely on geographical conditions to gain market advantages in the salt industry of Lianghuai, and the Jin merchants, who were previously in a monopoly position, gradually transformed and no longer competed with Hui merchants for salt profits.
Huang Chongde, a famous salt merchant at that time, was born during this period, and Huang Chongde first became rich in business in Shandong, and later invested in the operation of the Lianghuai salt industry.
Huang Chongde has read the history of scripture since childhood, and his views on the interests of the imperial court's salt law are quite unique. Every time the government consulted the major salt merchants on salt affairs, Huang Chongde could always talk eloquently and to the point, so many of his suggestions were adopted by the government, and even the salt merchants in Shanxi, Shaanxi, were impressed by his insight and elected him as the leader of the salt merchants.
Under his leadership, Huang Chongde's clan children devoted themselves to the salt industry, and all of them became wealthy merchants, and the Huang clan of Zhutang also became the family of "rich and thousands of marquises, famous and sufeng".
Third, the development of Hui merchants' gangs
In the more than 300 years from the middle to the late Qing Dynasty, the Hui merchant gang experienced three stages of development, setback and prosperity.
From the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty to the late Wanli period, it was the development stage of the Hui merchant gang, and during this period, the Hui merchant group mainly had three manifestations.
First, the increase in operating industries. Hui merchants operate a wide range of industries, in a word, their goods are everywhere, no matter what kind of business, as long as there are interests to follow, they will operate.
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, with the increase of social division of labor, industrial and agricultural products were gradually commercialized, and the profits of salt, tea, grain, cloth, wood and silk needed for people's lives became more and more profitable, so it became the main industry operated by Hui merchants.
During this period, the development of the monetary economy was also rapid, people's demand for funds was increasing, and more and more people engaged in pawn industry and currency business among Hui merchants were also increasing.
Many industries, especially the salt industry, pawn industry, tea industry and timber industry, can be called the four pillar industries of Hui merchants, and their business scale and large number of people are difficult for other merchants to match.
However, it is worth saying that many Hui merchants do not have their fixed operating industries, often operating in a variety of industries, following the market and location changes at any time, avoiding risks in a flexible way, and investing more capital in the most profitable industries.
Second, the expansion of the scope of business activities. There is such a saying among the people: "Drill the sky and the cave court is everywhere emblem". The meaning is to say that the Dongting merchants and Huizhou merchants at that time were widely active, and in order to seek profits, they were almost everywhere and went everywhere, whether it was the prosperous two capitals and provincial capitals, or the small mountain villages in the poor countryside and shelter, you can see the figure of Hui merchants.
Hui merchants who travel everywhere mainly operate long-distance freight trade, so Suzhou and Hangzhou, Zhejiang, which have the most developed commodity economy, and along the canal Jianghuai are all places where major Hui merchants gather.
Hui merchants have thus formed a pattern of taking the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions as the main base and the commercial route radiating to the whole country, which is conducive to them collecting business information in a timely manner, grasping the latest market trends, and investing capital in the most profitable places, thereby completing the accumulation of capital.
Third, the overall financial strength of Hui businessmen is strong. During the Jiajing period, Yan Shifan once conducted an evaluation of the rich households in the country, at that time, there were 17 families with an output of more than 500,000 taels in the country, excluding aristocratic bureaucratic families, leaving 3 in Shanxi and 2 in Huizhou.
During the Wanli period, the wealth of Hui merchants was even more stunning, and the literary scholar Xie Zhaoxuan at that time once said that among the rich merchants in Huizhou, those who held two or three hundred thousand capital could only be called "Zhongjia".
The great scientist Song Yingxing once estimated that at that time, among the major salt merchants in Yangzhou, the capital of the three major merchants of Jin, Qin, and Hui was no less than 30 million taels, and the annual profit was about 9 million taels. At that time, the annual income of the Ming Dynasty court was only 14.61 million taels, which shows the strong financial strength of Hui merchants.
The late Wanli period to the early years of the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty was a period of setbacks in the development of Hui merchants. At this stage, the strength of Hui merchants was greatly weakened due to the exploitation of the ruling class and the influence of war.
During the Wanli period, the imperial court sent the mining tax supervisor to search and exploit everywhere, and the Hui merchants with huge wealth were the targets of their exploitation and blackmail. At that time, the economy in Jiangsu and Zhejiang was the most developed, and Huizhou was the most, and it was also the most serious place for mining tax supervision.
The imperial court's mining tax collectors, eunuchs, and local officials colluded, and many merchants had to break their fortunes to avoid persecution. When Wang Shiming, a salt merchant in Xiao County, sensed that disaster was coming, he said that instead of letting his family property fall into the hands of corrupt officials, it was better to let him replenish the national treasury, so he was called to send grain and grass to the frontier to avoid disaster.
After Wei Zhongxian came to power, the businessman's choice of "breaking wealth and avoiding disasters" no longer worked.
At that time, Hui merchant Wu Shizuo operated the salt industry, and he was a rich party, and he had donated 300,000 yuan to help the imperial court resist the Yan Dynasty and aid the dynasty, but Wei Zhongxian, who had never wanted to be ruthless, still did not let the Wu family go. In the sixth year of the apocalypse, Wei Zhongxian instructed his subordinates to frame Wu Yangchun, the son of Wu Shizuo, for encroaching on 2,400 acres of Huangshan Mountain, taking the opportunity to wantonly plant and blackmail Hui merchants, which then triggered the Huizhou civil revolt.
Although this case was later rehabilitated, many Huishang families have lost all their assets and greatly damaged their vitality.
During the period of regime change at the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to war and other factors, the entire Hui merchant group suffered another blow.
After Li Zicheng's uprising, he promulgated a policy of "fair trade" and "flat buying, flat selling" to protect industry and commerce, but he resolutely cracked down on wealthy merchants who were attached to the imperial power.
After Li Zicheng captured Beijing, he raided the rich merchants and tycoons in the city, and his "plunder is particularly cool, thousands of dead people", with millions of assets, and dozens of pawnshops, Hui merchant Wang Ji, died in it.
The area around Huguang in Henan is an important area for Hui merchants to operate the salt industry, and it is also the main scope of the activities of the peasant army, and countless Hui merchants have lost their assets in this war.
After the power of the peasant army faded, the disasters belonging to Hui merchants still did not stop.
At the beginning of the establishment of the Hongguang regime, the general Gao Jie, coveting the wealth of Yangzhou, besieged Yangzhou with his troops, and plundered the area around Yangzhou City, "slaughtering hundreds of people every day", and Shandong general Liu Zeqing plundered and killed all the way during his retreat to the south, "burning and looting".
After the Qing troops entered the customs, they carried out a bloody policy of plundering and massacring the southern cities. When Doduo besieged Yangzhou, Hui merchant Wang Wende offered 300,000 yuan in silver, begging the Qing soldiers not to kill innocents, but the result was still a tragedy in Yangzhou for ten days.
In the early years of Shunzhi, the Qing court issued an order to shave and change clothes, and the people in many places in Jiangnan strongly opposed it, which led to the bloody massacre of Qing soldiers, and many towns where Hui merchants lived were washed in blood, white bones were everywhere, and the population was cut off.
At the turn of the Ming and Qing dynasties, wars were frequent, the population was sharply reduced, order was seriously disrupted, the business environment ceased to exist, and the once wealthy Hui merchants suffered a major blow, and their strength was less than one-tenth of what they had before.
From the early Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty to the Daoguang period, with the stability of the regime and the development of society, commercial activities gradually resumed, and Hui merchants became active again during this period and reached their heyday, and their development in many aspects even exceeded that of the Ming Dynasty, which mainly had four manifestations.
First, the re-emergence of the power of Huishang salt merchants. In the forty-fifth year of the Wanli Ming Dynasty (1617), Yuan Shizhen of the Two Huai Salt Law Dao was instructed to implement the salt method, and the salt merchants who held the salt citation were recorded in a book, and thereafter a new salt citation was sent every year, which must be based on the register, and those who were not named on the register could not obtain the salt citation.
This law gave salt merchants the right to operate a hereditary monopoly on the salt industry, but soon after the implementation of this law, there was turmoil in the Ming Dynasty. In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, social production gradually recovered, the population increased significantly, and the salt industry market also expanded, coupled with a series of policies implemented by the Qing court to help merchants and merchants, salt merchants gained great benefits from the salt law.
Many Hui merchants took advantage of the situation and relied on the salt industry to become extremely wealthy. Following the rise of salt merchant families such as the Huang family and the Wang family in the Ming Dynasty, the Cheng family, the Jiang family, and the Bao family rose one after another in the Qing Dynasty, forming a pattern of "two Huai and eight general merchants, and the Yi people always accounted for the fourth", of which the Yi people referred to the Hui merchants of Xiao County.
Second, the expansion of Hui merchants' trade in the canal and Jianghuai front. Domestic trafficking in the Ming Dynasty was mainly concentrated on the canal line, and the imperial court set up eight banknote customs throughout the country, seven of which were located along the canal, and only one banknote customs along the Yangtze River in Jiujiang.
During the Wanli period, the tax revenue of Jiujiang Pass was 25,000 taels, less than one-tenth of the seven passes of the canal. During the Qing Dynasty, in addition to canal trade, trade along the river also developed rapidly.
The Qing court set up six banknote customs along the Yangtze River, including Jiujiang Pass, Wuhu Pass, and Ganguan Pass, and by the Qianlong period, the tax revenue of the six banknote customs had reached 1 million taels, equivalent to 85% of the customs revenue along the canal, which shows the prosperity of trade along the Yangtze River.
Most of the operators of the salt tea cloth and pawn industries along the Yangtze River are Hui merchants, and the large and small towns along the Yangtze River Xiang River and the Gan River are all Hui merchants where Hui merchants gather, and the Hui merchant towns that were once destroyed in the war have developed again.
Third, the establishment of the Hui Chamber of Commerce in various places. The guild hall is a higher organizational form of the Hui merchant gang in addition to blood and geography, and plays a vital role in the cohesion of the merchant gang.
The clan was originally not intended for business, but for students to take exams. For example, the Xiaoxian Guild Hall in Beijing, built during the Jiajing period, was jointly funded by scholars, but it was specially used to receive students from Xiaoxian who entered Beijing to rush for the exam, and no one else was allowed to live here, so the guild hall was originally called "trial hall".
In the Ming Dynasty, guild halls used to serve commerce were still rare, but public facilities built by Hui merchants in various places have appeared, such as Yizuka, public offices, Guandi temples and other places, which were originally only used for worship and funeral purposes of Huizhou people, and later gradually became a hub for connecting rural friendship and were expanded into guild halls.
After entering the Qing Dynasty, with the expansion of the commercial scale of Huizhou people and the strengthening of the sense of unity, Huizhou guild halls were generally established in various places. Not only Zhejiang and Huai, but also major prosperous cities in the north and south have guild halls established by Huizhou people.
Huizhou people rely on the guild hall to contact the villagers, hold festivals on regular days, and share business resources together. When fellow businessmen encounter commercial disputes, the clan will come forward to support and help fellow businessmen fight for commercial interests.
There are also facilities such as a righteous tomb and a funeral house in the guild hall to help fellow villagers who die in other places and cannot afford to be buried, and the poor and sick people who are poor and sick can also get help from the guild hall.
Huizhou merchants took blood and geography as the bond, and the guild halls scattered all over the place as the connecting nodes, forming a closely united business gang to seek business development together, which is also an important factor for them to dominate the business world.
Fourth, Hui businessmen are more closely linked to political forces. Since ancient times, it has not been uncommon for businessmen to become rich and cling to the powerful and obtain political asylum.
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Hui merchants used gold and silver to bribe the official government, and there were many people who bought officials and donated knights, and after entering the Qing Dynasty, Hui merchants and the official government were more closely connected, firstly, because the Qing Dynasty greatly promoted the style of donating and selling officials, which provided convenience for Hui merchants to seek political power. Second, because of the increase in the financial strength of Hui merchants, more and more of them have obtained official titles through such means as "urgent public discussion" and "donation".
At that time, not only did the tycoon and wealthy businessmen like to buy official hunters, but even businessmen with medium financial resources had to spend a lot of money to donate a tribute to themselves, and the title of supervisor, the so-called tribute student, refers to the students who were eligible to enter the country at that time.
Most of the officials donated by Hui merchants were fictitious titles and had no actual power, but this already meant that they were sucked into the feudal political forces and had the qualifications to seek benefits with the ruling class.
During the Qianlong period, Jiang Chun, a salt merchant in Xiao County, took over the Qianlong Emperor who patrolled Jiangnan six times, and spent tens of millions of taels of silver to serve the emperor, and Qianlong was also extremely honored and favored by him, and specially gave him the official titles of "political envoy" and "zhengyi pin guanglu doctor".
Fourth, the decline of Hui merchants in the late Qing Dynasty
Bounded by the Thirty Years of Daoguang (1850), the decline of Hui merchants in the late Qing Dynasty can be divided into two stages. During the Jiaqing and Daoguang periods, due to changes in the policies of the imperial court, the salt merchants of Huizhou gradually declined. During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods, due to factors such as war and foreign capital competition, Hui merchants as a whole went into decline and withdrew from the historical stage.
Relying on the protection of the Gang Salt Law, Huizhou salt merchants enjoy the patent right to operate the salt industry and can enjoy huge profits, so the survival of this law is related to the rise and fall of the entire Huizhou salt merchants. In the tenth year of Daoguang (1830), the imperial court appointed Tao Shu as the governor of Liangjiang, and also handled the two Huai salt affairs. After Tao Shu took office, he found that the imperial court's salt law had been seriously corrupted, and the imperial court's salt had been unsold for more than several decades, and the annual deficit in silver taxes had reached 57 million.
At that time, there were many kinds of private salt, including "smuggling", "neighbor private", "cao private", "commercial smuggling" and other salt industry smuggling behaviors.
smuggling, i.e. armed gangs that sell smuggled salt; Neighbor smuggling, that is, in order to avoid taxation, cross-border salt trafficking smuggling, at that time, the two Huai salt industry was the most taxed, so long-distance trafficking can seek huge profits; Caojian refers to the return journey of a shipping ship, carrying private salt in an empty ship; Private, that is, salt merchants carry untaxed salt when they traffic in salt.
All kinds of private salt names gathered together to compete with official salt, and the imperial court's salt law had long existed in name only. In order to solve the crisis, the Qing court abolished the Gang Salt Law in the 12th year of Daoguang (1832) and changed the ticket salt law, that is, the right of salt merchants to sell salt was no longer hereditary, no matter what kind of merchant, as long as they paid the salt class to the imperial court, they could get salt and sell salt with the ticket.
After the salt merchants in Huizhou lost their policy convenience and monopoly position, the former majesty ceased to exist and gradually declined.
During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods, the Tianping Rebellion took place in the country, which lasted for 17 years and affected 18 provinces in the north and south. During the war, countless houses were destroyed, shops were looted, and Hui merchants "lost most of their capital" and "their families were empty".
The war dealt a major blow to the timber and pawn industries in the Hui merchant community, and these two backbone industries of Hui merchants collapsed and declined.
However, during this period, Huizhou tea merchants did not fall behind, relying on foreign trade, and once became the backbone of supporting Hui merchants, mainly due to the five-port trade after the Opium War. Before the Opium War, China exported about 450,000 stone of tea every year, and in 1886, the export volume soared to 2.21 million stone, which is 4.6 times the previous one.
Many Hui merchants who were frustrated in other industries have invested in the tea trade, and the tea trade in Huizhou is extremely prosperous in an instant. However, this prosperity was only temporary, and the tea trade in countries such as India Ceylon soon developed.
At that time, India was a British colony, using the capitalist method of growing tea and selling tea, while Huizhou still continued the production style of the feudal era, which was far inferior in all aspects.
Until the 80s of the 19th century, China's foreign tea sales have been on the rise, peaking at 2.21 million stone in 1886, but since then, sales have been declining, and by the end of the century, tea sales have fallen to 1.5 million stone, while at the same time, the demand for tea in the world market is increasing.
Among the four pillar industries of Hui merchants, the salt industry declined due to the influence of policies, the timber industry and pawn industry were destroyed in the war, and in the late Guangxu period, the remaining tea business of Hui merchants was also exhausted under the competition of foreign capital, although there were still many Huizhou tea merchants specializing in domestic sales, but their operating scale and profits were not as good as before.
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The Hui merchant group is a merchant gang group with strong feudal colors attached to the ruling class, and its rise and fall largely depends on the upper ruling class and social environment. In the late Qing Dynasty, the country was poor and weak, and the entire group of Hui merchants inevitably declined under the oppression of the domestic ruling class and the competition of foreign capital.
Although the legend of Huishang is gone, its victory and defeat have accumulated valuable experience for future generations, and it is still worth learning from today's people. Now that the country is strong and the economy is prosperous, I believe that there will be more wise and hardworking Chinese sons and daughters who will write their own legendary poems in this era!
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