China News Service Taiyuan, October 24th. Title: What inspiration does Shanxi merchants have for modern economic development ?
——Exclusive interview with Fan Haoli, chief researcher of Shanxi Wanli Tea Ceremony Culture and Tourism Development Research Institute
China News Service reporter Hu Jian
As a Shanxi merchant in the "three major business groups" in China's history, he entered the mainstream position in China's industry, trade and finance centered on trade and finance during the Ming and Qing dynasties of China, creating the five hundred years of commercial glory of "Wanli Tea Ceremony" and "100-year 号 ".
How did Shanxi merchants develop? What role does it play in the former world economic map? What inspiration does the spiritual connotation nurtured by Shanxi merchants have on the development of modern economy? Recently, China News Service’s “East and West Questions” column exclusively interviewed Fan Haoli, chief researcher of Shanxi Wanli Tea Ceremony Cultural Tourism Development Institute, to interpret this.
The interview transcript is summarized as follows:
China News Service reporter: What is the history of the rise of Shanxi merchants and what are the development contexts? What role did Shanxi merchants play in the world economic territory at that time?
Fan Haoli: Shanxi is an important birthplace of Chinese commercial civilization. From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Tang and Song Dynasties, due to the abundant mineral resources and the initial scale of handicraft processing and manufacturing, it provided a material foundation for commercial circulation and development. Entering the early Ming Dynasty, Shanxi merchants took advantage of the special market demands of establishing the Nine Borders, lifting the ban on salt, border farming, and border city trade, and opened up a domestic long-distance business model, and quickly obtained the Hedong salt induction, and then entered the Lianghuai and Changlu salt markets, enjoying salt benefits for more than a hundred years.
Until the fifth year of Hongzhi (1492), the Ming Dynasty changed the "grain payment" of Kaizhong to Kaizhong "silver payment", directly challenging the geographical advantages of Shanxi merchants' "Ji Linbian Town". Shanxi merchants were clustered with business models such as "friendship and cooperation system" and "east partnership system", gradually moving from the border town market in Kaizhong area to the whole country, completing the mechanism transformation from "border business" to "domestic business". Through cross-border marketing of salt transportation, grain and oil fabrics, tea ceramics, liquor, tobacco, medicinal pigments, iron smelting products and other products, Shanxi merchants extend the tentacles of various operations such as commercial trade, logistics and transportation, money pawning, etc. from the Yellow River basin to the Yangtze River basin, the southeast coast, the northwest and the southwest areas, becoming the pioneers of the early germination and development of China's market economy. After entering the Qing Dynasty, as the war quelled, China had a unified territory and relatively stable politics, creating a better business environment for the development of economic and trade in the border areas.
In the development of tea roads in 200, Shanxi tea merchants have created an industrial structure of "swallowing" and "dou" in the south and "dou" in the north and the competitive advantage of mutual dependence between domestic and foreign trade. Made significant contributions in promoting economic cooperation and cultural exchanges between China-Mongolia and Russia tea road cities.
Inner Mongolia Hohhot City, staged a performance of Shanxi tea merchants entering the city in the Qing Dynasty, recreating the grand occasion of the tea road. Photo by Liu Wenhua
China News Service reporter: What important historical stages have the development process of Shanxi merchants gone through? What brilliant achievements did Shanxi merchants achieve in this process?
Fan Haoli: In the development of Shanxi merchants, it has gone through three important historical stages: 300 years of Yan Road, 200 years of Tea Road and 100 years of Piao Road. With the business model of "cluster, group operation and integration governance", it has gradually moved from domestic business operations to the international trade market. The gradual change in the Ming and Qing governments' "focus on agriculture and suppress commerce" policy accelerated the rapid rise of Shanxi's regional private business groups and capital groups. In particular, the foreign trade of important commercial ports along the coast and rivers after the Opium War has promoted the structural adjustment of domestic commercial trade. The traditional services such as money pawns, account offices, silver and escorts and escorts and escorts and other escorts and escorts and other escorts and escorts and other emerging markets such as modern transportation and advancement of telecommunications technology.
So, a large number of wealthy and powerful businessmen began to divest financial capital from commercial capital, creating a professional financial institution specializing in bank deposit and loans and foreign exchange in commodity trading activities - bills.In the Qing Dynasty, more than 50 financial capital groups of Shanxi merchants opened more than 560 banknote sub-households in 127 towns and wharves at home and abroad, and carried out large-span operations of private capital through more than a thousand merchant halls distributed in various provinces, forming a business network coverage that is dependent on thousands of commercial overload stores and wholesalers.
Tourists visit the "Risen Changji" ticket number in the ancient city of Pingyao, Shanxi. Rishengchang Piaohao is China's first private financial institution specializing in deposits, loans and exchanges, and is known for its "Huitong Tianxia". Photo by Wei Liang
China News Service reporter: Why is the financial cluster created by the three major ticket sponsors of Tai, Qi and Ping known as "China's Wall Street"?
Fan Haoli: Taigu, Qixian , Pingyao was the birthplace of the northern Piaohao in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Therefore, it became a financial headquarters agglomeration area with Piaohao as the core, gathering and spreading Jinshang's financial capital, industrial capital and commercial capital, creating a private business empire and capitalized living environment in modern China, thus creating a founder of the Shanxihang's position as the founder of China's modern and modern financial exchange industry. Through opening up financial hubs to the outside world, we will further expand international economic and trade exchanges, and even expand bills and trade names to Japan, North Korea, Russia, Mongolia and India.
In 1927, the third lesson "Taigu" set in the first volume of "Gaojiao Business Textbook" issued by the education department of Shanxi Province described this prosperity: "Taigu is the first business district in Shanxi Province. In the business world, it can influence the finances of the province. There are many business names in the city, and most of them are wholesale houses. Its branch houses are spread all over the country." American Robbie Eunson's book "Three Sisters of the Song Family" also records this: "Because some important bankers live in Taigu, it is often called "China's Wall Street."
The streets and alleys of Taigu Old Town, Shanxi. Photo by Liu Yong
China News Service reporter: What business models and governance methods do Shanxi merchants gain a foothold in the world economy? What are the inspiration for the development of the modern economy?
Fan Haoli: The rise and fall of Shanxi merchants over the years have written a unique history of business culture for the Chinese nation. They have created a unique development model and humanistic spiritual spectrum of Shanxi merchants in their moral beliefs, property rights system, business strategy, management wisdom, organizational system, humanistic incentives and market credit.
First, it is the cultural heritage of "both business and scholars attach equal importance to both business and scholars". In hundreds of years of business practice, Shanxi merchants used the harmony between business and Confucianism to break the traditional habit of politeness in Chinese feudal society, and perfectly combined the production, circulation, consumption forms and social value creation process of business culture with the moral personality demands of Confucian culture, creating a social atmosphere that emphasizes both business and Confucianism and the value orientation of scholars and talents, accurately interpreting the internal laws and dialectical relationship between "Business" and "Confucianism".
The second is the business idea of "harmony between righteousness and profit". A huge regional business group cluster can engage in trade and finance activities for hundreds of years in the evolution of history. Its core lies in the unity of "righteousness" and "profit", and applies the logical power of "using righteousness to control profit and promoting righteousness to benefit the world" to the business practice of business to benefit the world, creating a moral paradigm for Shanxi merchants to cultivate themselves and establish a career.
Outside the ancient city of Pingyao, Shanxi, an actor dressed in ancient costume plays a businessman in the late Qing Dynasty. Photo by Wei Liang
The third is the development mechanism of "work and capital co-creation". The "top business" system created by Shanxi merchants with "body stocks" and "bank stocks" as the core is a capital organization form and community of interests created and shared by "Luxing" and "capital cooperation". This property rights system arrangement has successfully created the cultural characteristics and development mechanism of Shanxi merchants' "work-management co-creation".
Fourth, the responsibility of "helping both the country and the country". The origin and development of Shanxi merchants was in the late stage of Chinese feudal society. As the grassroots force of national capital, the biggest difference between it and Western capitalism is that it values benevolence and righteousness, practices the great way, accumulates relics and virtues, and practices business to help the world. For example, the "Anti-British Mine Protection" movement in Shanxi during the late Qing Dynasty was launched by a large number of business elite organizations such as Shanxi merchants, including Liu Dujing, , Cui Tingxian, and Chang Xuchun, and the anti-imperial and mine protection struggle, which was fully participated by gentry, business, scholars and the people.They have been working hard for more than ten years with the vision of big business and the feelings of family and country. They not only raised millions of taels of silver to regain their mining rights, but also invested in and founded the first batch of mining enterprises, iron smelting enterprises and thermal power generation enterprises in Shanxi in the late Qing Dynasty.
"Shenzhen merchant spirit" is one of the excellent cultural resources of the Chinese nation. Various market entities in the critical period of deep reform and transformation should learn from the "righteousness and profit concept" of Shanxi merchants and break the traditional cycle law of "wealth is not only rich for three generations"; we should learn from the "labor-management concept" of Shanxi merchants and create incentive methods and compatibility models for joint progress and creation of labor and capital in the transition period; we should learn from the "wealth concept" of Shanxi merchants and reveal and deepen the business ethics and market logic of competition in the industrial chain; we should learn from the "family and country concept" of Shanxi merchants and stimulate enterprises' mission awareness and responsibility to create social value.
drone aerial photography of Pingyao Ancient City. Photo by Wei Liang
China News Service reporter: How can Shanxi merchants open up the international market? How do you view the contribution of Shanxi merchants to cultural exchanges between the East and the West?
Fan Haoli: The development environment and policy orientation of the country, the resource allocation and conversion efficiency of the industry, and the strategic vision and business talents of merchants were the three major motivations for Shanxi merchants to open up the international market in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Modern scholar Yan Shenxiu wrote in "The Rise and Decline of Shanxi Merchants": "In the south, there are river basins between the Jianghan River and Han River, and even Guangxi; in the north, there are Manchuria, Inner and Outer Mongolia, and even Moscow, Russia; in the east, there are Beijing-Tianjin, Jinan, and Xuzhou. In the west, there are almost all Shanxi merchants." At the thousands of miles of tea ceremony, known as the "artery of the century", Shanxi merchants and Shaanxi merchants, Beijing merchants, mouth merchants, Mongolian merchants, Russian merchants, European and American merchants, jointly launched a great collision, exchange and integration of Eastern and Western civilizations.
The Shanxi merchant cluster represented by the Changjia of Yuci has been expanding its market to the central hinterland of Russia. The business names have been opened to Kulun (now Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar ), Irkutsk , Chita and other places, extending ,000 miles of tea route for more than 1,300 kilometers. The volume of China-Russia tea trade transactions also increased from 830,000 rubles in the Qianlong year to 12.4 million rubles in the Daoguang year. As Shanxi merchants' car gang, boat gang and camel gang went abroad and to the world, Shanxi merchants also made great contributions to East-West economic exchanges and cultural exchanges. (End)
Respondent profile:
Fan Haoli, born in 1944, from Yuci, Jinzhong, Shanxi Province, has been engaged in Shanxi business culture research since the early 1990s. He is currently a researcher at the China Future Research Association , chief researcher at the Shanxi Wanli Tea Ceremony Culture and Tourism Research Institute, and visiting professor at the Shanxi Economic Management Cadre College , long-term research on the history of the development of Shanxi businessmen and their conceptual culture, system culture , and material culture. He has published papers such as "The Era Value and Inheritance Application of Shanxi Merchant System Culture" and "The Historical Existence of Shanxi Merchants and Commercial Capital Forged "Thousand Miles of Tea Ceremony" and "Shenzhen Merchant Spirit".
