At the beginning of Wanli, there was a famine in Suzhou, and merchant ships to buy grain gathered in Jiangxi, among which Huizhou merchants were the most.
In the forty-eight years of Wanli, that is, 1620, the grain price in Suzhou rose sharply, and the hungry people forcibly borrowed rice from Huizhou merchants, which was suppressed by the government, arousing tens of thousands of people to make trouble and almost causing chaos.
These two cases show that it was mainly Huizhou merchants who transported grain from Shangjiang to the east, and it was mainly Huizhou merchants who hoarded grain and sold it to Suzhou. It can be seen that Huizhou merchants are a group of businessmen who are best at hoarding goods and making huge profits from natural and man-made disasters.
Jin Sheng said: "In the two cities, the people have no land, but their businesses are all over the world." Gu also said that the Hui people "come from a middle-class family, and they all have no land. There are many businessmen among the Hui people, which masks their potential. " According to records, in the mid-Ming Dynasty, Xiuning, Shexian and Qimen counties in Huizhou were already "thirteen rural and seventeen households" and "thirteen merchants and seventeen households". Although these records are inevitably exaggerated, it is a fact that Huizhou merchants have accounted for a large part of the local population. Most of such a large business population come from poor families without farmland, and all of them are businessmen who started from small businesses.
Hu Shi has a deep understanding of this. In his memoirs, there is such a description:
My family was a small tea merchant before 150. One of my ancestors used to run a small tea shop in a small town called Chuansha near Shanghai. According to family records, the fund of this small shop is only 100 yuan, which is about100000 yuan. This kind of capital is really too little. But the ancestor and his eldest brother developed our store together, and at the same time, in order to prevent others from competing in this port, they actually opened another branch in Chuansha Town.
According to the estimation in the 6th year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (65438-0880), the total value of the two tea shops is roughly equivalent to 2.98 million yuan, or about 3,000 yuan. The income of these two stores is the source of food and clothing for more than 20 people in our family of four rooms, old and young.
As a descendant of Huizhou tea merchants, Hu Shi certainly knows the business activities of his hometown people like the back of his hand. Therefore, Hu Shi said that most Huizhou merchants started from small businesses, worked hard, accumulated some funds, and gradually worked hard to develop, and some of them became wealthy businessmen.
Tea is one of the four pillars in the business of Huizhou merchants. The reason is that Huizhou is a famous tea-producing area with unique natural conditions, which provides a large number of high-quality tea energy for Huizhou tea merchants. Today we are familiar with "Qi Hong Tun Green", which refers to the black tea in Qimen, Huizhou and the green tea at the foot of Huangshan Mountain.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the sales of tea in Huizhou gradually increased, and tea trade became a "giant industry" operated by Huizhou merchants. There are also many professional tea merchants among Huizhou people. Xu Chengyao, a native of Shexian County, Huizhou, went to Juyongguan to sell tea as early as the Ming Dynasty. Since then, Huizhou tea merchants have become increasingly active in the north. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the Hui people opened seven tea shops in Beijing, with a shop name of 166 and thousands of small tea shops. In Hankou, Jiujiang, Suzhou, Shanghai and other cities in the Yangtze River valley, there are activities of Huizhou tea merchants almost everywhere.
[Interview Content] Hu Runyuan, a resident of Shantang Street, Suzhou
This "Yang Anbang" is a tea factory run by Anhui people. At that time, there were no fewer than ten or twenty tea factories opened by Anhui people. According to my father-in-law, he came to Suzhou to open a tea factory from Huangshan, Shexian County, Anhui Province.
[Interview Content] Wang Jianming is a descendant of Wang Zishu, the founder of Beijing Tai Sen Tea House.
Our home is now Beijing Teahouse, and there will be Wang Teahouse, Wang Futai and Yitai in the future. Before liberation, there were three gangs. As far as I know, there is also a quadrangle. The quadrangle is now No.2 Peizhi Hutong, Meishi Street, and it is still there.
[Interview Content] The Fourth Metabolic Zhengan, Mao Feng, Huang Shanren
The prosperity of our family is probably related to the hard work of my great-grandfather. He is very proficient in this kind of tea. He is very good at collecting and marketing ... when he negotiated with foreign businessmen, my great-grandfather didn't know foreign languages, but he had the habit of washing his face. When he washed his face, the towel was soaked in water and his head hung down. His towel didn't move, only shook his head. Foreign businessmen saw the big boss shake his head.
The route from the upper reaches of Ganjiang River to Yuling South to Guangdong was the main commercial route from the mainland to Lingnan at that time, and it was also the only way for Huizhou tea merchants to enter Guangdong. Due to the increase of tea sales, this transportation route is time-consuming and laborious, so many Huizhou merchants turn to sea to transport tea. In order to prevent businessmen from "selling goods privately", the Qing government banned "selling foreign goods" in the twenty-second year of Jiaqing.
In fact, as early as the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou merchants had already trafficked goods by sea.
[Interview Content] Professor Tang of Shanghai Normal University
According to historical records, there are three Huizhou merchants who trade overseas, one is Wang Zhi, the largest, the other is the overseas trading group of Xu Shi brothers, Xu Er, Xu San and Xu Si, and the other is Xu Hai, who is a monk. He ran out of his home in Hangzhou, and he turned to do business overseas.
One of their routes is to go to the northeast, that is, to Japan. This is a very important route for them, such as Wang Zhi, mainly to Japan ... The second route is mainly to Southeast Asia, such as the Xu brothers I mentioned just now. They are in Malacca today. Malacca is a very important place, because the Straits of Malacca is such a sea passage that eastern China must pass through if it wants to go to Africa and Europe.
Wang Zhi, Xu Shi and Xu Haidu are from Shexian County, Huizhou. Under the maritime ban policy of the Ming Dynasty, they smuggled China's prohibited materials such as sulfur, weapons and copper, as well as raw silk, tea and Jingdezhen porcelain to Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and other countries through armed smuggling trade at sea.
[Interview Content] Tsinghua University EMBA distinguished professor Liang
In fact, the maritime trade is mainly Wang Zhi, a Huizhou merchant, which is a representative. There is also a businessman from Fujian. The characteristics of these businessmen are summarized as stealing and trading, the so-called stealing and trading. He is a pirate and businessman, or a businessman and pirate. How do you say this? At that time, the government banned maritime trade, so it was necessary to have the government's armed forces, water and maritime forces to carry out inspections. In order to do business, they clashed during the inspection and had to fight with force, so they had their own armed forces. At this time, they had the characteristics of stealing and doing business. Of course, we know that this feature is determined by the times.
Huizhou people often say: "My hometown is a good place, where fish and salt are the first and cloth is the second". Explain that Huizhou merchants attach importance to salt industry management. Huaibei is the center of salt industry in China, which produces the most salt and has the largest profit, so it has become a place where Huizhou merchants compete for profits.
During Jiajing and Wanli years, there were many people of Huang, Wang, Wu and other nationalities in Huizhou, who became rich by salt from Huaihe River. They have hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars and are famous for "offering wine to the world with salt administration". The so-called "offering wine" is a kind of address for the person with the highest age and moral character at the ancient banquet in China, named after the person who first offered wine for sacrifice. Since then, offering wine has become an official name, but it is still a respectful name for people who are highly respected. Among salt merchants, "offering wine by salt policy" refers to a person with outstanding personality and talent, and is recommended by many salt merchants as a manager and mediator. Of course, this person should also be recognized by the government.
He Xia Town is located on the bank of the ancient canal three miles northwest of Huai 'an. It was the place where a large number of Huizhou salt merchants lived in those years, and it still maintains the charm of a small town in Ming and Qing Dynasties. At that time, most of Huaibei salt was transported from Yunyan River to the Yangtze River and Huaihe River after being concentrated in Totti, and then distributed and transported to Anhui, Henan, Hubei and southern Jiangsu for sale. There were dozens of salt stacks under the river at that time. After Huai 'an's annual transportation and marketing, the standard salt reached10.4 million yuan, which is known as "salt benefits Huai 'an in the world".
The biggest salt merchant in He Xia Town is Chengbentang in Huizhou. The amount of salt transported by Chengbentang from the river today cannot be verified. However, he paved nine streets and two lanes in He Xia town with slates brought back by ships from Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and also built two stone bridges. The huge profits of Huizhou merchants' salt industry can be imagined.
"One is poor, two is rich, and three is pawnbroker ..."
This is an old folk song "Looking at Tam" which spread in Huizhou. In the eyes of Huizhou people, "pawnbroker" obviously occupies a very important position.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, pawnshops, salt merchants and timber merchants were also called "three customs merchants". Pawnshop is another big business of Huizhou people. In the words of Mr. Hu Shi, the early pawnshop was also a kind of bank. Hui merchants run pawn shops, and Xiuning people are the most famous. The business areas of Xiuning merchants are mainly concentrated in Jiangnan, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou, and even many counties and towns in Jiangnan. It can be said that in the old society in the south of the Yangtze River, the pawnbroking industry was monopolized by Huizhou merchants. Therefore, Jiangnan people worship the head cabinet of the pawn industry and call it "the emblem boss". That is, these "emblem bosses" are in charge of the lifeline of realizing people-oriented in Jiangnan.
Suzhou Pingtan artists arranged a song "Description of golden phoenix" for this purpose, telling the story of Huizhou pawn merchants.
[Interview Content] Pingtan Actor Jiang
The Narration of golden phoenix is a very important and well-known novel in Suzhou traditional tanci, which mainly tells a marriage dispute between Qian Dugui, a Suzhou charlatan, and Wang Xuan, a pawnbroker in Huizhou. Therefore, it should be said that these two words are basically household names in Suzhou, and everyone knows them. When it comes to Qian Dugui and Wang Xuan, you also know them. Wang Xuan is going to give a gift because he likes Qian's daughter. As soon as the gift money is given, it is 520 yuan. Was Wang Xuan's money stolen or robbed? Neither stealing nor robbing, it was handed down by his father. In the words of his father, it took a lot of thought to create this property. Wang Xuan's father is Wang. His father died when he was a child and his mother remarried. Wang Yu lived up to his expectations. /kloc-when he was 0/4 years old, he was taken to Suzhou by fellow Huizhou people and became an apprentice in a pawnshop. ...
In the past, the clerks in pawn shops were all called "Mr. Chao Feng". Like "Shaoxing Master", "Huizhou Chaofeng" is a well-known exclusive occupation in China. As soon as fame rang, everyone saw Huizhou merchants and even Huizhou gentry, and together they called it "Huizhou Tide".
Huizhou worships and takes care of itself.
In the past, Huizhou people went out for a long trip, and people who saw him off in the morning invited him to dinner. After dinner, everyone sent him out of the village. On the bridge, the travelers bowed to the farewell guests and got on the sedan chair. Everyone said, "Take care in Huizhou."
This is a passage from Mr. Hu Shi. At that time, Huizhou merchants traveled all over the country, often carrying a bag containing Huizhou cakes and ropes. Hui cake fills the hunger all the way, but "Dont Ask For Help can do anything with three ropes". If your luggage is broken, the rope is broken, or the sedan chair bar and shoulder pole are broken, you need a rope, and you can hang yourself with it if necessary. Obviously, Huizhou people not only bear hardships and stand hard work, but also devote themselves to shopping malls with the mentality of burning their bridges.
Hu Shi called these hometown people who trudged in the commercial sea "Huimin camels"
Mr. Hu Shi said: I am from Huizhou, Anhui. Mr. Wang described his hometown in "Memoirs of Forty Reading": Huizhou was a "mansion" in the old system era; There are six counties under the rule. Jixi county, where my home is located, is the northernmost county in Huizhou. From our county to the south are Shexian County and Xiuning County; To the west are Yixian and Qimen counties; To the south of Qimen is Wuyuan County. Wuyuan is Zhu's hometown. Zhu Zu was born in Fujian; But Wuyuan is his ancestral home.
Shangzhuang in Jixi is the hometown of Mr. Hu Shi. The antique remains the same, with gurgling streams and swaying trees.
"Wanshan is not allowed to run the stream, and the sound of the stream is noisy day and night; At the foot of the mountain, the stream flowed out of the former village. "
Yang Wanli, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, praised the beautiful scenery of Shangzhuang, which is also a poem that Mr. Hu Shi often likes to quote.
It is such a simple villa that Mr. Hu Shi is haunted. Hu Shi, who lived in seclusion in Taiwan Province Province in his later years, missed his hometown Huizhou. "If I have time to write my own biography in the future, I will use a big chapter to write the social background of Huizhou in my time." When Mr. Hu Shi said these words, he used Jixi hometown dialect. He also pointed out that the life in his hometown in Huizhou is his "personal cultural background". Then, what was the social background of Huizhou in the era when Mr. Hu Shi lived? What is Mr. Hu Shi's "personal cultural background"?
1895, at the age of four, Hu Shi left his birthplace in Shanghai and returned to his hometown Shangzhuang with his mother, where he lived for nine years. Shangzhuang in this period was called "little shanghai". Shili Yanglin Town and Wuli Houan Street are crowded with shops. Moreover, more people in the village go out to operate, and some have become famous. When Wang Lizheng arrived in Shanghai, he founded "Wang Yutai Tea House", became a famous tea king in Shanghai, and built a villa beside the West Lake in Hangzhou. Hu Kaiwen ink industry, which belongs to Hu Shi, is heading for the national market.
Nine years' hometown life has a profound influence on Hu Shi. June 5438+0933165438+10/5 When talking about the compilation of Jixi county annals, Hu Shi put forward his own views: the county annals should not only look at Xiaojixi, but also the more important "Dajixi". If there were no "Dajixi", Xiaojixi would have starved to death, and it would no longer be a situation. The new record should be listed as "Dajixi", and the route should be drawn according to each capital, depending on the direction of migration and the types of operations of each capital.
I was born in Huizhou, thirteen or fourteen years old, and I lost it abroad. Huizhou people have made helpless choices about their living environment. Mr. Hu Shi once said:
Huizhou area is all mountainous and is famous for its beauty. Rivers in this area all flow from northwest to southeast and finally into Qiantang River. Because the mountainous area is barren, there is little cultivated land in Huizhou. Agricultural products can only provide food for local residents for about three months every year. The shortage of food can only be supplemented by buying from other places. Therefore, in order to survive, we Huizhou mountain residents have to leave the countryside and go to the city to do business. Therefore, for thousands of years, we Huizhou people are destined to become businessmen.
In the history of China, there are two famous business gangs: Huizhou merchants and Shanxi merchants. Both of them are in poor mountainous areas and cannot survive by farming. The disadvantage of this living condition leaves them with only one way out: doing business.
[Interview] Chen Xuewen, a researcher at Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences.
Huizhou merchants are Huizhou merchants and regional merchants. They should start earlier. Since the Five Dynasties, there have been individual businessmen, not groups. By the time of the Song Dynasty, it was relatively developed, but it did not form such a merchant group running around the country. It should be said that after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, after the Jiajing Wanli period, and after the beginning of this period in Qin Long, a huge commercial group has been formed throughout the country. ...
In the Southern Song Dynasty, the imperial court moved its capital to Lin 'an, which is today's Hangzhou, and the political and economic center moved southward, which promoted the corresponding development of regional economy near Lin 'an. Due to Huizhou's special geographical environment and the needs of its own economic development, Huizhou people began to "buy" tea, pen and ink, rice paper and wood everywhere.
As a group of businessmen, Huizhou commercial gangs were formed in Chenghua and Hongzhi years of Ming Dynasty. From this period on, "Hui" and "Shang" or "Hui" and "Jia" were combined into one word, which became a noun with a specific meaning and was widely used by people at that time.
[Interview] Wang Zhenzhong, a professor at Fudan University.
One prominent official is a very prominent bureaucrat. After retirement, he returned to Songjiang, not far from Shanghai. There is an old man, that is to say, an elderly man, who is famous in the local area. When he runs into his house, he always bows to him to show his respect. Then the bureaucrats were very surprised. Why do you respect me so much? What did the old man mean by saying something? Because all the wealth in Songjiang has been moved away by Huizhou people, and now your old man has kindly brought it back, why shouldn't I show my respect and gratitude to you? Then of course this bureaucrat is ashamed. What does this fable actually mean? The bureaucrat collects people's fat and paste.
All the money in Songjiang is earned by Huizhou merchants. The records in Miscellaneous Knowledge in the Clouds show that Songjiang was the most active place for Huizhou merchants in the early years of Chenghua, and it is reasonable that the word Huizhou merchants first became popular here.
Huizhou customs are thirteen in the city and seventeen in the world. After Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, the number of Huizhou merchants increased greatly, and Huizhou merchants gradually developed into a powerful commercial force in China, active in the north and south of the great river, on both sides of the Yellow River, and even in Japan, Siam, Southeast Asian countries, Portugal and other places. The so-called "eight merchants in Huai River and Huai River, foreigners always rank fourth" means that Huizhou merchants have created a monopoly in the field of salt industry. In addition, Huizhou merchants have also made remarkable achievements in tea, wood, pawn and other trade. During the reign of Kanggan, there was a proverb that "no emblem can make a town". During this period, Huizhou merchants' commercial capital was huge, their followers were numerous, their activity areas were wide, their business sectors were numerous, and their business ability was strong, which was unmatched by other merchants. Huizhou merchants entered a peak period.
[Interview Content] Luan Chengxian, a researcher at China Academy of Social Sciences.
At that time, Huizhou merchants group had an evaluation that Shanxi merchants in the north and Huizhou merchants in the south were among the best. There are many reasons why Huizhou merchants group has such a position, but the fundamental reason is the characteristics of Huizhou merchants themselves. Economics believes that, generally speaking, the conditions of business activities need the market, the second is capital, and the third is capital. This capital refers to human capital, that is, the quality of businessmen themselves. What do people usually value? The market attaches importance to capital, that is, the capital of money, but often ignores human capital. In fact, in business activities, human capital is crucial in some sense and in some aspects. Huizhou merchants, that is, Huizhou merchants, have their own characteristics in human capital.
A crucial reason for the rapid rise of Huizhou merchants is their deep-seated cultural genes.
Huizhou is an immigrant society, and avoiding chaos is the first reason for immigration. Geographically, Huizhou, isolated by mountains, has become a place to avoid chaos &; ldq