(i)
In traditional times, guangdong, the southernmost part of the empire's land map from the Central Plains, has always meant wealth and adventure for a long time.
Speaking of wealth, Among the more than ten metropolises of the Western Han Dynasty listed by Sima Qian in the Chronicle of The Chronicle of Cargo Breeding, Panyu (present-day Guangzhou) was one of them, which was the "pearl, rhinoceros, tortoiseshell, fruit, and cloth of the future". In other words, Guangzhou is a distribution center for all kinds of treasures, fruits (such as longan, lychee, etc.) and cloth. Later, the "Geographical Records of the Book of Han" compiled by Bangu also contained roughly the same contents, except for three more items: ivory, silver and copper. The above-mentioned pearls, rhinoceros, hawksbill turtles, ivory, etc. are all tropical specialties, most of which are imported from overseas. These overseas luxury goods are some strange and obscene in the eyes of ordinary people, but they can bring huge wealth to businessmen. Therefore, in this sense, going in and out of Lingnan also means seizing wealth.
On the other hand, Lingnan has long been a very underdeveloped and undeveloped area, often referred to as the "land of wild smoke and egg rain". Not only is overseas trade extremely risky, but the miasma is so pervasive that people are often sick and even scream for their lives. Therefore, living in Lingnan also means a kind of adventure, for a long time, Lingnan has been Chinese called "Miasma Township", this miasma-filled place, has always been the place where sinners were exiled by the Central Plains Dynasty, and it belonged to the land outside the country.
In this regard, Ye Quan (1522-1578), a Native of Huizhou in the Ming Dynasty, compared the situation around the sixteenth century: Lingnan was formerly known as Miasma Township, and no one would go except those who were exiled. In fact, looking at the mountains there, it is not as good as the low mountains in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, under the mountains, surrounded by green pines, there are spacious roads. From Nan'an Province (present-day Dayu County, Jiangxi Province) to Nanxiong Prefecture (present-day Nanxiong, Guangdong), although it is said to be one hundred and twenty miles, if pedestrians get up early in the morning, they can pass in half a day. Therefore, whether they are officials or businessmen, they are now willing to go to Lingnan. Ye Quan's hometown of Xiuning County, a place where Hui merchants came from, said that his villagers go to Lingnan once or twice a year, but no one has ever died of miasma, and those who are officials have better conditions than businessmen, let alone...
From this, Ye Quan asked- why was it so difficult to cross dayuling to Guangzhou, but now it has become so easy?
He went on to analyze: Because most of the previous Taiping era was only a hundred years, less than a hundred years, the north and south were often blocked by turmoil, therefore, from Nanxiong to Guangzhou, the city of Guangdong Province, about eight or nine hundred miles of road, there are many ethnic minorities in the middle, only this one overland, boating is quite difficult, so there are very few people coming and going, the flow of people is small, the lanqi on the mountain is also very strong, this is like a house that has not been inhabited for a long time, the air has been closed for a long time, the air is heavy, and the mountains and rivers naturally have no aura. Occasionally, people who pass by are afraid and frightened along the way, their psychological quality is not good, their resistance declines, and they are prone to die of illness when they encounter miasma. By the Ming Dynasty, however, the situation was very different. The Ming Dynasty pacified Guangdong, and during the Longqing and Wanli years when Ye Quan lived, the days of Taiping had been two hundred years old, and the sea had become a family, and the cars and horses between the mountains of Jiangxi and Guangdong were endless, and the boats on the water were also full of fish, and the popularity was so great that mountain poisons such as miasma naturally disappeared.
From Ye Quan's analysis, we can see that Lingnan in the Ming Dynasty has changed from the former "miasma township" to a happy land. What he said about "merchants are willing to go out of their way" is obviously because in the eyes of businessmen, Lingnan is a good place to get rich. In other words, between the traditional impression of Lingnan, wealth and adventure, this place has become synonymous with wealth. In this context, many people have traveled to Lingnan to do business. According to the "Outline of Foreign Defense", in the thirty-fifth year of Jiajing (1556), "Wang Bai, the deputy envoy of Haidao, established the 'Ke Gang' and 'Ke Ji', and took the Guang people and hui, Quan and other merchants as the people. On this point, Mr. Liang Jiabin once pointed out that in the middle of the sixteenth century, among the thirteen trading houses that came into contact with the Portuguese, there were five elements each for the Cantonese and Quanren, and three elements for the Huiren. It can be seen that as early as the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Hui merchants went to Guangdong in an endless stream to trade and do business. At that time, in order to standardize the management of Trade in Guangzhou, the government set up official merchants such as "merchants" and "merchants", of which Huishang played an important role.
(ii)
In the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou folk had the idiom of "going wide". The so-called going to Guangdong, that is, going to Guangdong. In the Qing Dynasty, there were also sayings of "drifting Guangdong" and "making foreign wealth".
List of tea leaves from Wuyuan Tea Merchant Yi Zhenbao "Drifting Guangdong", collected by the Huizhou Culture Museum of China
The so-called drifting Guangdong, probably a unique saying of Huizhou people, refers to the operation of export tea, the tea is shipped from Huizhou to Guangdong, sold to foreign merchants, and then resold to Europe and the United States.
Why is it called Drift Guangdong? According to Professor Wang Shihua: Because transporting tea from Huizhou to Guangdong, wading through mountains and rivers along the way, thousands of miles, very hard. Tea merchants generally send tea to Tunxi, hire a boat to transport it to Yixian Fishing Pavilion, then hire porters to travel through dozens of miles of mountain trails to transport tea to Qimen, then hire boats to reach Raozhou via Changjiang and Fuliang, cross Poyang Lake to Nanchang, go down the Ganjiang River, and then travel through Fengcheng County, Zhangshu Town, Ji'an Province, Ganzhou Prefecture and Nankang County to Nan'an Province (present-day Dayu County, Jiangxi), which has to pass through the famous Eighteen Beaches of the Ganjiang River, and then drought breaks out in Nan'an Province, hire a porter to travel dozens of miles to cross the Dayu Ridge, reach Nanxiong Prefecture (present-day Nanxiong County, Guangdong), and then hire a boat along the Beijiang River. The East River descends through Shaozhou Prefecture (present-day Shaoguan City), Yingde County, and Qingyuan County to Guangzhou. From Huizhou to Guangdong, the whole journey takes more than two months. Probably because most of the journey was on the water, people called transporting tea to Guangdong "Drifting Guangdong".
Huizhou from Changjiang and Poyang Lake via Ganjiang -Dayuling to Guangzhou trade route map, Dr. Li Tian assisted in the Qing painting
In addition to "drifting Guangdong", there was also a saying at that time called "foreign wealth". In this regard, Lin Sumen, a Yangzhou man in the Qianjia era, explained:
Guangdong foreign goods are sold, and the interest rate is thick, but the storm on the ocean surface is the most dangerous, that is, the so-called "drifting ocean" of the proverbial cloud. If you are a vulgar person who seeks wealth, there are often those who have not yet made money and have died in misfortune, and they do not know the reason for taking risks, and once they lose their feet, they regret for life, and their thoughts can be vain. The scoffer said: 'I want to make a fortune in Guangdong'. ”
In the Shengqing Dynasty, the rich merchants and giants in Yangzhou gathered together, and the commercial atmosphere of the whole society was extremely strong, in this situation, the old adults warned the new entrants to act cautiously with "wanting to make Guangdong rich". However, it can also be seen from this proverb that Guangdong foreign goods are profitable because of their relationship with overseas trade, but they also have certain risks. According to the previous revelation, tea is sold to foreign merchants, and the natural money is issued. The profits of such transactions are usually higher, so there is a saying among ordinary people: "It is as easy to make a fortune as it is to go to the river beach to collect pebbles." On this point, Xia Xiezhi's "Chronicle of China and the West", published in the fourth year of Tongzhi (1865), has a very good corroboration for this:
Since the sea ban has been greatly opened, the export of tea has increased year by year,...... Huishang to eastern Guangdong, there are many people who have become rich with tea merchants. And since the five mouths have been opened, the people of the six counties, all of them have wormwood in their homes, and the households are in charge, and the winners are three times the Jia, and the ones who are also gathered are the armpits, compared with before nongyin, He Wing Double Zhenye!
Xia Xie was a Painter of Anhui Province, a person in the Light Years of the Qing Dynasty, who had entered the shogunate of Zeng Guofan and Shen Baozhen, was proficient in phonology, and was also good at historiography, and had written a book "Chronicle of China and the West" for more than ten years according to official documents, song shu letters, treaty charters, etc., and had a rather meticulous insight and keen analysis of current affairs and government affairs in the middle of the nineteenth century. The "壬寅" in the text, also known as the twenty-second year of Daoguang (1842). In August of that year, the Sino-British Treaty of Nanjing was signed, opening Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai as treaty ports. Because the tea business is becoming more and more profitable, those who operate tea for export in Huizhou are more predecessors and successors than before. In this regard, the Qing Dynasty Wuyuan ren Jiang Zhiji wrote a poem "Xi Chun Xing", the preface of which reads:
Hui tea used to be called Song Luo, near XiChun as the most, the color and taste of double Qing, the price exceeds the Fujian production, the merchants carry the South China Sea, the foreigners, the years of the silver millions.
Jiang Zhiji Zi Xiufu (江之紀字修甫), shi sheng (石生), Wuyuan Xiaoqiren (婺源晓起人人), was a jinshi in the sixth year of Daoguang (1826), successively served as JinKui and Changshu County, and was the grandfather of Jiang Renjing, a governor of The Two Huai Salt Transporters during the late Qing Dynasty. The poem "Xi Chun Xing" points out that the change of Huizhou tea products in the Ming and Qing dynasties has changed from the main "songluo" of the Ming Dynasty to the "Xi Chun" of the Qing Dynasty. According to Jiang's observation, the price of Xichun tea far exceeded that of Tea in Fujian, and these teas were shipped to Guangzhou for resale to foreign countries, making great profits. It was in this context that he saw the lively scenes of female workers working hard during tea picking in the wuyuan countryside, so he gave several poems to "Xi Chun Xing", one of which wrote:
Western idiots have clear green eyes, and love new flowers like jade.
The Wanli Lou ship was carried home, and Qing Fenqin was full of customs.
The first verse of the above revealed verse reads: "The world calls Yangyi a devil, and he does not drink tea, but eats it with his hands." The "Yangyi", "Devil", or "Western Idiot" mentioned in "Xi Chun Xing" refers to the Westerners that tea merchants came into contact with in Guangzhou. When these foreigners try tea, they often pick it up with their hands and directly put the tea leaves into their mouths to chew.
Nineteenth century tea in Guangzhou boxing for export, gouache paintings, Hong Kong Art Museum collection
(iii)
In the Qing Dynasty, as far as the sales market is concerned, Huizhou tea industry can be divided into two kinds of domestic sales and export sales, domestic sales are mainly sold in Beijing and various parts of the country, export sales are commonly known as Yangzhuang, first shipped to Guangzhou, and later shipped to Shanghai.
In the Qing Dynasty, Guangzhou was an important window for overseas trade. Before the Opium War, the merchants of the Thirteen Lines in Guangzhou enjoyed the privilege of foreign trade, specializing in tea, silk and other bulk trade. Since then, although the situation has been very different from before, overseas trade activities have not declined. In the paintings that reflect the customs of Guangzhou in the 19th century, there are many pictures about the production and sales of tea. Such as sifting tea, poor [stepping] tea, rubbing tea, drying tea, monkey tea picking, chopping tea, crossing tea, loading tea, scooping tea, picking tea, tasting tea, tea distribution, whole tea cake, tea box, boxing, stir-frying tea and sprinkling, etc. One of the "monkeys picking tea", there is a monkey on the cliff in the upper right corner of the picture, pulling a tea tree in his left hand, and throwing tea leaves downwards with his right hand. Below him stood a monk-like man, sprinkling tea leaves in a cloth bag. There are tea names such as "Taiping Monkey Kui" in the tea leaves of southern Anhui, and tea farmers often say that monkeys climb to the cliffs to pick precious rock tea. The so-called legend of monkey picking tea is obviously a kind of argument that mainland tea merchants have raised the value of tea.
Monkeys picking tea
No. 1 tea box
In Guangzhou's foreign tea trade, Huizhou tea obviously occupies an important position. At the end of the five periods of the fourteenth year of Daoguang (1834) to May, compiled by the German missionary Aihan (i.e., Guo Shila) and others, there is a column "Market Price" that details "The Current Market Price of Foreign Merchants in the Provincial City (i.e., Guangzhou) Intersect with Distant Merchants from Various Countries to Buy and Sell the Current Market Price of Each Commodity", of which the name "Tunxi Tea" can often be seen.
"East and West Western Examination Monthly Chronicles" "Market Price Chapter"
As we all know, Huizhou tea is produced in one of the six counties of Huizhou, except for Qimen, which later mainly produced black tea, the other five counties all produced green tea, all of which are called Huizhou tea. Because tea is distributed in Tunxi, Huizhou tea is also called "Tunxi tea". The British came to China to buy famous products from all over the world, and the words "Twankay" (Tunxi) and "Keemun" (Keemun) also joined the English vocabulary with the input of tea (Qi Hong and Tun Green).
In the era of the flourishing tea trade, the tea merchants in Guangzhou were rich and generous. In this regard, the Qing dynasty He Wanhong has a poem "Yangcheng Bamboo Branch Words" described:
Tea merchants salt merchants and foreign merchants, other households are divided into one line.
There is also a double-door night market, which is lit up like Suzhou and Hangzhou all night.
Many of these tea merchants live in the Xiguan area of Guangzhou, and some of them are rich in Huizhou tea. The author has a volume of the Road Journey Manuscript, "Ten Thousand Miles of Clouds", compiled by the tea merchants of Shexian County. The book records in detail the place names, scenic spots, and public security conditions passed from Shexian to Guangzhou, and there are "famous people with famous colors in the morning". The so-called shoulder is derived from the English "merchant", which is also the meaning of businessman. There are nine records in the book: "Chang Ji", "Jade Ji", "Li Zhen", "Hefa", "Jinghe", "Xin Ji", "Shen Xiang", "Long Ji" and "Yi Zhang". Among them, the "Long Ji" may be one of the thirteen elements of Guangdong, "Long Ji Xing". It is said that the original Huizhou green tea is often light for merchants, and zhang Dianquan, the founder of Longji Xing, was very close to tea merchants from Anhui and Zhejiang when he was young, and he created two kinds of Hui tea, Zhengpi Zhu and Yu Songluo, thus becoming famous. Later, in the west of Guangzhou, he set up his own Longji tea shop, and the Hui tea he handled has always been a best-selling and profitable.
Huizhou Shang compiled the road copy "Wanli Yuncheng", collected by Wang Zhenzhong
(iv)
Tea is one of the important products of southern Anhui, as early as the Tang Dynasty, Shezhou (that is, the predecessor of Huizhou after the Song Dynasty) Wuyuan, Qimen and the neighboring four counties of Raozhou Fuliang and Dexing are rich in tea, the square tea in this area has been sold in large quantities to all parts of the north, Bai Juyi's Xunyang Jiangtou merchant woman said "before the moon floating liang to buy tea" The background is here. In the Qing Dynasty, Huizhou's "Qi Hong Tun Green" was the most famous, "Qi Hong" refers to the black tea produced in Qi men, and "Tun Green" is a green tea processed and exported by Tunxi.
In the process of shipping tea to Guangdong in the Ming and Qing dynasties, many Huizhou people were engaged in commercial trade related to this. For example, Jiang Youke, a native of Fangkeng, Nanxiang, Shexian County, and his son Jiang Wenxuan, both father and son, were engaged in tea sales. Their business activities are mainly to open a business name in Shexian County, purchase tea on the spot, process and produce it, and then transport it to Guangzhou to sell to foreign merchants and resell it to foreign countries. The most prosperous period of the business of Youke father and son was around the Daoguang period of 1843-1850, that is, after the signing of the Treaty of Nanking between China and Britain. They compiled a volume of notes on the journey from Huizhou to Guangdong, which recorded in detail more than 550 towns and villages along the way, and made specific records of the distance between towns and villages, as well as the starting point of the boat or drought, the location of the checkpoint and the public security situation.
"Guangdong Tea Selling Rules" (see Shangbian Road Manuscript "Huizhou to Guangdong Road")
In addition to Shexian County, Wuyuan also had many merchants who went to Guangdong to trade. According to the author's opinion, a volume of "Water Journey from Wuyuan to Guangdong" from Wuyuan to Guangzhou, also a manuscript of the Shang Compilation Route, has a chapter on the "Shi He Shun", and it is speculated that the "囗囗" in the title of the book may be Wuyuan's "Shi Chun". In other words, its content is the waterway from Shichun (Village) to Guangdong. This waterway is also a detailed record of the place names, villages, temples, beach gorges and yamen along the way from Huizhou to Guangdong, and also details many social rewards such as paying taxes on teeth and writing boats and pulling fibers, reflecting the merchant experience of Wuyuan merchants in the Qing Dynasty.
At that time, Huishang merchants engaged in the tea industry in Guangzhou built a Huizhou Guild Hall in the local area and set up a charitable organization in Huizhou's hometown, Guiyuantang. These, as an important measure for the integration of townships and ethnic groups, also reflect the large number of people in Guangdong to a certain extent. In the untitled manuscript of the anonymous manuscript of wuyuan in the late Qing Dynasty, the family file of the tea merchant Sun Hetong, there is "There is a self-narrated history of the Ben clan", which involves the situation of the Sun family's tea industry during the Daoguang years. It can be seen from this that from 1840 onwards, Sun Hetong's father invited people or personally went to Guangdong to sell tea for many years. It was not until 1847, because of the "empty wounds of foreign firms", that the Sun family, who was originally engaged in the Tea Trade in Guangdong, transferred to Shanghai. Similar examples have been seen in the fangzhi and documents of Huizhou counties.
"There is a self-narrated chronicle of the Ben clan" (late Qing Dynasty tea merchant Sun Hetong, collection by Wang Zhenzhong)
More than ten years ago, the author read the "Compilation of archives of the Chinese of Macao in the Qing Dynasty" and found several historical materials of Huishang merchants operating in Macao. The first is the 1336th file "Superintendent Wang Bangda for the Dutch Consul Kou Fan Kou Hua Kou Chen Trade Silver Money Entanglement Ge Shi Shi Shi Yu", the main content is that Wang Bangda, a native of Wuyuan, Huizhou, is seventy years old and has been trading in Macao for forty-six years, due to bad luck and a miserable life, he has to make a living by trading with valets in Macao. At that time, the Waijiang Tea Merchant Yuanquan sent 1360 pieces of tea to him to find foreigners to sell, or borrow tea for silver, or consign tea. Wang Bangda immediately "found a way to dissipate" for this, he found the "Atlantic population intersection column", this person "now lives in Macao, and there are splint boats to take advantage of", the intersection column knows the Dutch Dabankou Fankou Huakou Chen, the latter has a Dutch ship here, not to return to China in a day. So the middle of the intersection of the mouth was introduced, and the tea sample was taken from the tea guest. Soon, Kou Fan Kou hua Kouchen replied, saying that there was a ship back to the Dutch ancestral home, and the tea sent by the Yuanquan could be sold on behalf of the owner. After that, the three people of the Tea Guest Source, the Koulukou Column and Wang Bangda went to meet with the Taipan, negotiated the price and payment method, and signed by the Koulukou Column and the Koulan Quarrel as evidence, "The Daban and the Tea Guest each took a picture." On December 27, 2004, after the tea merchant delivered the tea, he only received three thousand yuan in silver, and still owed three thousand yuan, and the foreign merchant pushed no cash silver, "only the existing Kou Sikou hit more than 800 cartons of Sarteng, and the tea merchants loaded the province on behalf of the province and sold it at the market price", offsetting the payment. The tea merchant had to hire a boat on behalf of Daoguang in the beginning of the first half of the twenty-fifth year, and collected and transported Sateng to Guangzhou for sale, and in the end, the foreign merchant still owed 4,000 yuan, and repeatedly pushed no cash, which led to a series of disputes between the two sides. Therefore, Wang Yunzhong (i.e., Wang Bangda) first hummed the Mouth of the Central Mouth furnace mouth to Joao Rodrigue and requested mediation and adjudication of this dispute...
"Sateng" is also known as rattan (rattan), that is, rattan and rattan staff, which is also recorded in the column "Market Price" listed in the "Monthly Chronicle of the Eastern and Western Examinations". The "Waijiang Tea Guest Source" mentioned here refers to the mainland tea merchants who come to the Pearl River Delta by water. From a reasonable point of view, the most likely one is Wang Bangda's fellow countryman, a Tea Merchant in Huizhou. It can be seen from this that Huizhou tea merchants have close trade exchanges with European countries such as the Netherlands through Guangzhou and Macao.
The activities of Huizhou tea merchants in Lingnan have also left a lot of physical objects. In June 2006, the Macao Museum held the "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cultural Relics Exhibition", which brought together more than 100 pieces (sets) of precious cultural relics from the museums of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao that integrate the cultural heritage and artistic styles of the East and the West, and the content of the exhibition was collected into the book "East-West Convergence - Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cultural Relics Exhibition". The "inlaid shell (screw) folded branch pattern tea box", "gold-drawn tea pattern lacquer box and tin tea pot" in the book are all related to the business activities of tea merchants. Taking the "inlaid shell (screw) folded branch pattern tea box" as an example, the explanatory text of the figure is as follows:
This tea box is decorated with flakes of shells to make flowers and plants, and then set on the lacquered box surface. The word "Tong'an" on the front may refer to Tong'an County in Fujian Province; in the minds of the people of southern Fujian, tea is heavy on wine, so Tong'an has the saying that "cold night guests come to tea as wine". Fujian was the center of tea production in the Qing Dynasty, and before the Opium War, Fujian tea had to be transported to Guangzhou, then sold to foreign merchants in Guangzhou, and then resold to the European market.
Spiral folded branch pattern tea box, Collection of Macao Museum
In fact, in my opinion, the word "Tong'an" on the tea box does not necessarily mean the place name, but may only be two words with auspicious meanings (because Tong'an tea at that time was not very famous). What is really noteworthy is the six characters of "Top Tiandu Meixi" at the top of this tea box, of which "Tiandu" is another name for Huizhou, and "Meixi" is a variety of Tun green flowers (the long shape is called the eyebrow, and the block shape is called Xi. During the Daoguang years, twenty-four flowers were popular, namely "Ten Rains, Eight Pearls and Six Xi", and one of the "Six Hees" was "Mei Xi"). Therefore, the tea box is not only under the banner of "Tiandu Meixi", if not directly related to Huizhou tea, it is at least importantly affected by the Huizhou tea industry.
In addition to tea merchants, in the Trade of Guangzhou, there are also some Emblem merchants engaged in porcelain distribution, emblem ink trafficking and other industries. At that time, the Huizhou people transported the whiteware fired in Jingdezhen to Guangzhou, hired craftsmen to paint them according to the Western painting method, and opened a furnace to dye them in Henan, on the south bank of the Pearl River, to make colored porcelain. The surviving "Water and Land Peace" is a manuscript of the road compiled by the Huizhou porcelain merchants in the Qing Dynasty.
Guangcai Kaiguang landscape pattern teapot and warm stove, collection of the Hong Kong Museum of Art
In addition, the 1929 edition of the "Records of The Letter Report of Wuyuan County yituotang" mentioned several ink merchants who were active in Guangdong at that time, namely: Guangdong Zhan Tong Wen Mo Zhuang, Guangdong Zhan Yan Wen Mo Zhuang, Guangdong Zhan ChengGui Yao Ji, Guangdong Zhan Cheng Gui Pu Ji, Guangdong Zhan You Qian Mo Zhuang, Guangdong Yu You Yuan Mo Zhuang and Foshan Zhan Cheng Gui Ting. The above-mentioned mozhuang mainly comes from the "Huimo Famous Township" in the northeast township of Wuyuan, Hongguan and Lingjiao. Among them, "Guangdong" refers to Guangzhou. For example, Zhan Tongwen Mozhuang was located on Yonghan North Road (present-day Beijing Road) in Guangzhou. These are also reflected in the existing old photographs.
The "Qianji Emblem Ink Pen Material" shop in Guangzhou in the 1860s, photographed by John Thomson (1837-1921) in the United Kingdom
(5)
The trade of Huishang merchants in Guangzhou had a profound impact on Huizhou society. In this regard, Xia Zhao, a teaching scholar of Wuyuan County, pointed out in the "Jingzitang Anthology":
Wuyuan lives in the middle of the Wanshan Mountains, takes the mountains as the field, takes the tea as the crops, buys and sells the fish, travels to and from Jiangyou and eastern Guangdong for cultivation, and harvests by competing with the sea vessels for the sake of jinghui, quanzimu, and haijia, and its disadvantages are often to seek profits and forget righteousness.
Xia Zhuo was the brother of Xia Xie, the author of the "Chronicle of China and the West" quoted earlier, and his person was also cited in the Daoguang years, and he read all the works of Confucian celebrities from the Han and Song dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties, especially admiring Zhu Xi, and later entering the Wuyuan Famous Eunuch Temple. This duke was a traditional literati, and in his description, there was a rather obvious tendency to emphasize agriculture and suppress business. From a Confucian standpoint, Xia Zhong seems to view Wuyuan's tea trade with Guangzhou more from the perspective of negative influences. In two other places in the book, he states:
Wuyi recently industries tea people, how far to Guangdong, trade with foreigners, luxurious and beautiful, all lost the sages and simple folk customs, in fact, there are fewer starters, more family breakers...
Opium is poisonous, the seashore is even worse, Wuyi lives in the middle of ten thousand mountains, and there are many people who are infected with this, and the reason for this is caused by karmic tea. However, as far as Yu saw, there were merchants who did not smoke in Guangdong all year round, and there were occasional tea guests who hired workers, and those who became infected with bad habits as soon as they arrived in Guangdong City, it can be seen that although opium harms people, the real people are harmed by themselves.
As a county scholar, Xia Zhong was more concerned with the transmutation of Wuyuan customs due to the prosperity of the Yangzhuang trade. He paid special attention to the relationship between the popularity of opium and the tea industry for export, and pointed out that the tea trade of the Hui people to Guangzhou brought a series of changes to the Wuyuan society, mainly in terms of customs and customs. Indeed, with the import of a large number of Guangdong goods, the Huizhou fashion in the remote mountain countryside has also been affected to a certain extent. Ni Weiren, a man of the Daoguang Dynasty, described in the "Xin'an Bamboo Branch Words":
Wrap your arms around your arms and wrap your arms around your ears and adorn your ears with roses.
The sisters fought for mercy and good looks, and Ah Langxin came to Guangzhou.
Like Wuyuan, some merchants in Qimen also went to Guangzhou to do business. The bamboo branch words reflect the flow of high-end consumer goods from Guangzhou into the Qimen area – the vain heroine in the poem can't wait to show off to the little sisters the new luxury goods that her boyfriend brought back from Guangzhou, which is of course closely related to the trade between Huizhou and Guangdong.
In addition to the above-mentioned influences, we should also see that the Trade in Guangzhou of Huishang expanded the horizons of people at that time, and also had a positive effect on opening up the wisdom of the people and better understanding the outside world.
Because the tea trade is a bridge between Huizhou people and the outside world, the trade activities of Huizhou merchants have prompted Huizhou people to pay attention to the changes at home and abroad earlier, so they have left many unique documents. In 1841, Yixian scholar Wang Wentai wrote "Hongmao Fan English Examination Strategy", although the book still belongs to the category of the palm of the past, only copied the fang zhi, notes and folds of the previous generation, but the writing of this book, as early as the first version of Wei Yuan's "Chart of the Sea Kingdom" came out, which obviously reflects the strong concern of Huizhou people for the external world.
[Qing] Wei Yuan: Atlas of the Sea Kingdom
In the second year after the publication of the Red Haired Fan English Kouluo, the 50-volume Chronicle of the Sea Kingdom was published. In this epoch-making tome, Wei Yuan included Ye Zhongjin's "Notes on the Yi Sentiments of the English Kingdom", which was later compiled into the "Continuation of the Small Fang Ju Zhai Youdi Cong Banknotes". This article has been touched upon in previous scholarly discussions, but its relationship with huishang has not been mentioned.
The first part of the "English National YiYi Narrative" introduces the Belief in Jesus, the ceremonial marriage customs, the property and monetary system, the peasants, farmers, industry, commerce and taxation, craftsmanship, food, clothing, housing, weights and measures, the military system, the official language, and the penal decrees in Europe. The next part is devoted to the British companies in the Sino-foreign trade in Guangzhou (including the formation of the company's capital, the organization of the company, the composition of the crew, etc.), the British navigation technology and the formalities for ships to enter Guangzhou and Huangpu, the cultural etiquette of Landun (London), the war between Britain and the Citi State (that is, the War of Independence of the United States), the British colonial rule in Southeast asia and South Asia, and the conflicts and negotiations between China and Britain. The English Chronicle pays special attention to the western ship guns, and there are vivid depictions of Western steamships and guns. Looking at the first and second articles, Ye Zhongjin did not copy the old news of his predecessors, but had a personal experience of the situation of Britain and Sino-British trade. In this regard, Ma Lianpo, in the book "Britain in the Vision of the Late Qing Empire : Centered on the Jiaqing Daoguang And Guang Dynasties", believes that Ye Zhongjin's work "reflects the level of understanding of Britain Chinese before the Opium War".
From the content point of view, the main purpose of the "English National YiQing Sketch" is "reading Yiqing", and its information sources are mainly from two aspects: one is from the "newsprint" in Macao at that time, and the other should be Ye Zhongjin's personal observations and hearings.
In the twenty-fifth year of Daoguang (1845), Liang Tingnan, the head of the Guangdong Xuehai Hall, wrote at the end of his "English Chronicle":
Ye Zhong's "Miscellaneous Notes on sending flavors to the mountain house" on the dispersion of the company is easy to control, but in twenty years, the disturbance is out of the consul's mouth law alone, thinking that it is not a general theory.
The "leaf bell" here is immediately the "leaf bell into" blackmail. Although Liang Shi did not agree with Ye Zhongjinzhi's statement, in fact, there were many large paragraphs in his works that copied Ye Zhongjin's "Notes on the Yi Situation of the English Kingdom".
According to historical records, Ye Zhongjin, the author of the "English National YiQing Sketch", was a native of Shexian County, Huizhou, who had been active in Guangdong for a long time and paid strong attention to Sino-foreign trade activities. For the Guangzhou port, he described it this way:
Each of them tasted the grandeur of China, which was incomparably remarkable. He traded goods, both for sale and for lack of sale. As for the purchase of goods, it cannot be collected without years and months. However, no matter what goods are in Guangdong and Hong Kong, that is, the stones that press the ship, the iron that has been broken, and the feathers that have been cut, they will be sold as soon as they arrive. The value of the goods purchased is millions, and it will be ready to sail in one or two months. Although this circumnavigates the earth, there is no such port also.
From Henan, I look at the Thirteen Lines Of Commerce, circa 1852, with a gouache painting
The title of the paragraph is titled "Convenience of Trade between Guangdong and Hong Kong" ("Guangdong-Hong Kong" refers to the Port of Guangzhou). In Ye Zhongjin's eyes, the trade at the Guangzhou port was extremely prosperous, attracting many merchants to come to Jia. Judging from the history of tea trade between Huizhou and Guangzhou, Ye Zhongjin should be a Huizhou merchant, and it is likely to be a Huizhou tea merchant. The second volume of Ye Zhongjin's "Chronicle of the YiQing of the English Kingdom" reflects the Huizhou people's understanding of the Western world more systematically. In other words, for the purpose of commercial development, Huishang has inadvertently become the Chinese of "opening up the eyes and looking at the world" earlier in modern times.