Houcheng Township Gouzi Village, Taigu District, Jinzhong City, is located in the south of the urban area of Taigu District, Jinzhong City, less than two kilometers from the urban area, where the ticket number - "Zhicheng Xin" was born.
Integrity
The founder, Zhen Chengwang (贠成望), was born in Gouzi Village, Taigu County in the twelfth year of Qing Shunzhi (1655). Originally from Pengcheng County (present-day Xuzhou, Jiangsu), his ancestors moved to Taigu City during the Ming Dynasty and later to Gouzi Village. Gouzi Village is the main gathering place of the founder of Taigu's "Zhi Chengxin" ticket number, the Zhen family, who started by selling tofu and bean sprouts. The mallet of the Gouzi Village was once enshrined with a full set of tools for making tofu and bean sprouts, in order to show that it was difficult to forget the ancestors' entrepreneurship. When he was young, he was brilliant, studied hard, and had a strong memory. When he was young, he worked as a young man in a business and was active between Beijing and Guangzhou, trading ginseng herbs and groceries. Buy medicinal herbs from Guangzhou and ship them to Beijing for sale, and then buy various miscellaneous goods from Beijing to sell in Guangzhou. Because he was shrewd and capable, good at calculation, and good popularity, he was later appointed by the firm as the treasurer in Beijing, stationed in Beijing, providing an opportunity and place for Zhen Chengwang to show his skills. Later, Zhen Chengwang had more savings, and in the eighteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1680), he developed the idea of running his own business. He consulted his plans with Fu Shan and Gu Yanwu, who were close friends with him, and the two were very supportive and actively offered advice. Gu Yanwu admired The Gan of Zhen Chengwang and called him the "Dragon of the Yan Family". Since then, Zhen Chengwang founded the "Zhicheng Xin Silk Satin Village" and established the "Zhi Yi Tang Dart Bureau" (also known as the Longsheng Dart Bureau) in the Beijing Grinding Yard. Zhen Chengwang took advantage of various opportunities to make friends with officials of the Qing court and obtain information through them, and his business grew. In the process, he became acquainted with Yue Le, the Prince of An. Prince An was deeply trusted by Kangxi and held important positions. Prince An and Zhen Chengwang were very close, so the two became allies. Prince An had a lot of private storage, which was inconvenient to store, so he stored a large amount of silver on the Mengdi cabinet. Zhen Chengwang set up a special account for Prince An in the store. Thanks to Prince An's support and abundant funds, Zhen Chengwang's business became bigger and bigger. In addition to the silk satin business, he also operated tea and miscellaneous goods, and attached the "Yanghexuan" ginseng shop, specializing in precious medicinal materials, and also made turtle age collections according to the secret recipes of the court and sent them to the whole country for marketing, making great profits. After a period of practice, the strategic Zhen Chengwang pushed the commercial layout of the Zhenjia to the whole country: with Xi'an as the center, it developed west along the Silk Road; with Guangzhou as the center, it developed to the southeast coastal area; with Changsha as the center, occupying Zhongzhou; taking Zhangjiakou as the center, developing toward Mongolia and Russia; and taking Shenyang as the center and developing to the northeast. Taigu is the base camp. Because he was good at capturing business opportunities, good at doing official business, and giving special preferential treatment accordingly, the business of the Yi family developed rapidly, and his wealth gathered sharply, and he soon became a prominent Jin merchant.
The business is getting bigger and bigger, and the problem of inconvenient capital flow is becoming more and more prominent. In the past, cash circulation and cash had to be escorted by armed forces, which was time-consuming, expensive, and insecure. Following the example of the "meeting ticket" method implemented by the government, He Chengwang implemented the method of settling by bills in his own shop. At first, it was mainly carried out between Beijing, Guangzhou and Taigu. Later, the scope of exchange was gradually expanded, and wherever there were shops, they could use the method of exchange and settle by ticket. This method pioneered by Zhen Chengwang is simple and easy, and many local Jinshang treasurers have learned to emulate it. Therefore, Zhen Chengwang carried out the exchange business in his Zhicheng Xin Silk Silk Village, not only using this method to handle the settlement of funds in his own number, but also exchanging silver for other brands and rich people and officials. After the death of Zhen Chengwang, his son inherited his father's zhi and changed zhichengxin silk satin village into a business name that engaged in both silk business and exchange deposit business. Later, with more and more foreign exchange business, the proportion of foreign exchange business became larger and larger, and Zhichengxin was completely reorganized, from a special venture to a joint venture operation, with twenty shareholders, a total of seventeen shares. At this point, Zhichengxin is a ticket number specializing in foreign exchange and deposit business. Its business mainly includes four types: exchange, deposit, lending and issuance. Zhichengxin ticket number was one of the most famous ticket numbers in the country at that time, and occupied an important position in the history of Chinese ticket numbers. Among them, the special contribution of Zhen Chengwang is self-evident
The surname was also once the big surname in Gouzi Village, but with the decline of the Zhen family, the Zhen family fled to other places, the village has fewer and fewer Surnames, more and more Zhang surnames, and the surnames left behind are mostly "Xiao Zhen", when the Zhen family was at its peak, the surnames of the employees and subordinates in the family were changed to the Surname of Xiao, and people called this part of the people who changed the surname to the surname of Xiao Zhen.
In the "History of Shanxi Ticket Number", it is recorded that the leader of Taigu's ticket number is "Zhichengxin" and "Xiechengqian". "Zhichengxin" is the oldest, "Xiechengqian" is a "Zhichengxin" friend of the founder, Taigu County "Xiechengqian" ticket number shareholder Sun Peijiyun: "The ticket number was invented by Taigu first, around the Qianlong period." If these legends are true, then the "Zhicheng Xin" ticket number opened by the Gouzi Village Family during the Qianlong period, as China's first private financial institution specializing in deposits, lending, and exchange business, is nearly half a century earlier than the "Rishengchang" ticket number opened during the Pingyao Daoguang years.
In the heyday of the Family, there were more than 30 semicolons of "Zhichengxin" in Tianjin, Zhangjiakou, Shenyang, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Hankou, Guangzhou, Kaifeng, Jinan, etc. Now the former site of the headquarters of "Zhichengxin" can be seen in taigu West Street next to the Drum Tower.
However, its prosperity was also bold, and its death was also abrupt, but the Prosperous Family, which had flourished for more than a hundred years, caused disaster to Xiao Wall, and the great family property was destroyed by the self-murder of the same door, leaving only a long sigh, which was the sensational "Pig Blood Case" of the Three Jins.
During the Qing Xianfeng period, the nine monks of the Yan family gave birth to a young master named "Four Monks", and although the family was great but suffering from no heirs, they let the "Four Monks" pass on to the Ten Doors to set up a household, so that the "Four Monks" would be dressed in two doors, and when the "Four Monks" grew up, the Nine Doors married Du for him, and the Ten Doors married the Yang Family for him, and he had two wives, and the mothers-in-law of these two daughters-in-law were very rich and powerful families. I did not think that the "four monks" favored the Du clan and gave birth to a son, and later the "four monks" died, and the daughter-in-law of the tenth Yang family paid attention to chastity and did not remarry, and the daughter-in-law of the ninth door, Du Shi, wanted to murder the Yang clan and swallow the family property alone. Du Shi set up a poison plan, when the Shimen Yang Clan adopted a Yang nephew, but did not want to be bought by the Shimen Du Clan. One night, Yang's nephew gave Yang a fat cake with peacock blood, Yang was poisoned, in order to cover up the truth, Du bought a midwife, bought pig blood, and used pig blood to fake the scene, making blood dripping, saying that Yang's adultery with people, had an illegitimate child, and died in childbirth. At that time, there was a parent named "ErmaoYou" who decided to seek justice for the Yang clan, and the lawsuit was fought from Taigu to the imperial court according to the Inspection Department and the Punishment Department, because the du family paid money to buy the palace, and the case was broken several times without being fair. In the end, "ErmaoYou" became the righteous son of the monk Greenqin, and the case finally had an eyebrow, and he did not want to, but the monk Greenqin was killed by the Twist army during the conquest of the Twist army, and the case was shelved again. As a result of this lawsuit, the two families have continuously invested huge sums of money, and it is said that the yuanbao used in the lawsuit can be lined up from Gouzi Village to Beijing City, and the "Pig Blood Case" has caused the Family to collapse and go into decline.
Monk Greenqin
Although the Yan family has declined, it has left a deep memory in the hearts of the Taigu people. When it comes to Taigu specialties, it will definitely talk about Taigu cakes, and when it comes to Taigu cakes, it will mention the Zhen family, and the Taigu cake has a great relationship with the Zhen family. There are wild history records that the Cao family in Beihuan Village once set up a banquet to entertain the Yao family in Gouzi Village, which is naturally indispensable to the taste of mountains and treasures and seas, but the most amazing thing is the "scalded donkey meat" made by the chef of Xiaochang Village, which is delicious and still has an endless aftertaste after dinner.
Back to the rich man of the Zhao family in Gouzi Village, he recalled the Cao family's feast, and his heart was really not a taste. If he couldn't come up with better food for the Cao family to taste, this face was really a big loss, so he gave an order and called all the chefs of the Yan family to the front of their eyes and let them make their best dishes, but none of the dishes made could surpass the "hot donkey meat" of Xiaochang Village launched by the Cao family.
The rich man of the Yan family sighed helplessly and said, This time he really asked the Cao family to give it to him. The housekeeper who had been standing by and had not spoken said that our dishes were no better than it, and we could surpass him on the pastry.
The rich man of the Family suddenly understood and said to the housekeeper, "Didn't you just invite a pastry chef from Jinnan?" The housekeeper said, yes, this master is a Xiangyuan man, and he has a good hand in making pastries, maybe he can really make the pastries we want."
Sure enough, the Xiangyuan people thought hard for three days behind closed doors, and finally made a kind of cake called "sweet cake". According to later information, this kind of food called "sweet cake", its ingredients are special, the proportion is strict, it is made of fine flour, snowflake sugar, North Road oil, soda, alkali noodles, sesame seeds, honey refined, its process has been passed down by word of mouth by the teacher, leaving no words, so it adds a bit of mystery.
Too valley cake
Later, when the Yan family returned to the Cao family, the Cao family praised the "sweet cake" of the Yan family. Subsequently, the Cao family also hired Xiangyuan people to teach their skills to Sanduotang and set up a workshop to make "sweet cakes". "Sweet cake" has also become the best product for the Zhen family and the Cao family to receive VIPs and gift the powerful, and other rich people in Taigu have also rushed to follow suit after hearing about it, and for a while " sweet cake" and "Luoyang paper expensive". The special value of "sweet cake" spread throughout China with the footprints of Taigu merchants, and even radiated to Russia and Mongolia. Because this "sweet cake" comes from Taigu, people call it Taigu cake. Taigu cake is actually a oven-baked solid cake made of white noodles, sugar, sesame oil and egg white, about 12 cm in diameter and about 3 cm thick in the middle, its skin is brownish yellow, and there are peeled white sesame seeds on it. Taigu cake has the characteristics of crisp but not hard, soft but not cotton, sweet and not greasy, and even after one month of storage, its color, aroma and taste will not change. As a specialty of Taigu, Taigu cake often evokes the nostalgia of Taigu people who are far away from home.
Empress Dowager Cixi
In 1900, when Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor fled west to Shaanxi and passed through Taigu, the Cao family invited Empress Dowager Cixi to taste the Taigu cake, and Empress Dowager Cixi praised it and gave it as a tribute to the court.
In 2006, the traditional production process of Taigu cake was included in the first batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage list in Shanxi Province. In 2007, Taigu cake was included in China's National Geographical Indication Product Protection Catalogue.
Taigu West Avenue
In addition to the intangible cultural heritage of Taigu cake, the Yi family also has a tangible heritage, such as the former site of "Zhicheng Xin" next to the Drum Tower and the cottages scattered in nanshan villages such as Yanni Village, Sileng Village, and Tianjiaqu Village.