On the morning of December 20, the 2023 Huizhou Entrepreneurs Help Anhui High-quality Development Conference and the Inaugural Meeting of the General Association of Huizhou Entrepreneurs were held in Hefei.
Han Jun, Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, congratulated the establishment of the General Association of Huizhou Merchants, mentioning that the historical Huizhou merchants not only created a business miracle of "no Hui is not a town" and "no Hui is not a business", but also gave birth to a unique Huizhou business spirit with the image of "Hui Camel".
What exactly is the spirit of Huishang?
Perhaps, we have to understand the group of Huizhou merchants first.
Huizhou merchants originated in Huizhou and flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
In fact, there are records of Huizhou merchants in the history books very early, and in the Tang Dynasty poem "Pipa Xing", "the merchant values profit and light parting, and the previous month Fuliang buys tea", which describes the Huizhou merchant who left home and went to sell tea in another country.
Many people don't know why Huizhou businessmen "light parting", thinking that it is simply businessmen who value profits.
In fact, this has a great deal to do with the geographical location of Huizhou.
Ancient Huizhou is located in "Wutou Chuwei", the mountains are high and dense, the terrain is changeable, although the scenery is beautiful, but because it is located in the barren mountainous area, it is commonly known as "seven mountains, one water, one field, one road and manor", Huizhou people can be said to grow crops in the cracks of the stones.
Therefore, there is a lament in the local area that "I didn't cultivate in my previous life, I was born in Huizhou, I was thirteen or fourteen years old, and I threw it away".
The scenery of villages in Huizhou.
There is little arable land, but there are many people who want to eat.
In order to make a living, Huizhou people had to exchange locally produced tea and timber for food, and were forced to embark on the road of business.
Although Huizhou is not suitable for planting crops, it is located in the first belt, with heavy mountains and green, foggy and empty, fertile mountains and mild climate, which is not only suitable for the growth of wood, but also suitable for the planting of tea trees.
Among them, Huizhou's Huangshan Maofeng and Qimen black tea occupy the second, and Lu'an, which is close to Huizhou, also contributes a unique flavor of "Lu'an melon slices".
In addition, Huizhou is blessed with the four treasures of the study.
Since the Song Dynasty, the "Four Treasures of Study" mainly refers to Xuanbi (Xuancheng, Anhui), Huimo (Shexian County, Huizhou, Anhui), Xuanpaper (Xuanchengjing County, Anhui), and Sheyan (She County, Huizhou, Anhui) from Huizhou.
The Four Treasures of the Study. As the political and economic center of the Southern Song Dynasty moved southward, the Huizhou area, which was adjacent to Lin'an Prefecture (now Hangzhou), transported timber, tea, and the four treasures of the study to Lin'an and other places through the Xin'an River, and the six counties of Huizhou Prefecture (Jixi, Shexian, Xiuning, Yixian, Qimen, and Wuyuan) gradually came out of the world-famous Huizhou merchants.
Different from other merchants, Hui merchants are known as "good Confucian".
It is not surprising that Huizhou has the title of "Southeast Zoulu" and "State of Science" since ancient times, and Zhuzi's science has taken root here, and Yangming Mind has flourished, "the village of ten households, not abandoning recitation".
Traditional culture has taught Huizhou businessmen to be good at taking, calculating, and knowing how to advance and retreat, so that their business methods are always superior.
Huizhou people also know that although Confucianism is the main industry, it is only the end of the great benefits of doing business"Karma can support its "foundation", and the solid foundation must first be grouped.
The clan concept of Huizhou merchants is strong, and the patriarchal law has become the link to maintain family relations, and through the relationship network linked by the relatives of the villagers, it not only enhances the cohesion within the Huizhou merchants, but also enhances the market competitiveness.
Hui merchants became a gang in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and it was recorded in the late Ming Dynasty notes "Five Miscellaneous Warriors" that the wealthy families at that time were headed by Hui merchants in the south, and Jin merchants were the main ones in the north.
Statues of people in the Huishang Museum.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, with the salt industry as the center, the Huizhou merchants operated in various consumer industries, from tea and wood to rice, grain, cotton, silk, paper, ink, porcelain, etc., which penetrated into the daily life of ordinary people.
Later, Hu Xueyan took charge of the government-run pawn industry, and he not only made huge profits, but also wore the "red top wear" that Huizhou people coveted, and the reputation of Huizhou merchants reached its peak.
Nearly 600 years of business time before and after, so that Huizhou people "thirteen in Yi, seventeen in the world", almost every family in business, Huizhou business footprints are all over the country and overseas.
In modern times, Hu Shi praised the indomitable entrepreneurial spirit of Huizhou businessmen as the "Hui camel spirit", and later generations summarized it as the "keen entrepreneurial vision, enterprising attitude towards life, honest style of life, cooperative interpersonal relations, and advanced contract consciousness", which made the entrepreneurial spirit of Huizhou businessmen endure humiliation and perseverance deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Since ancient times, there have been many business gangs that have been in good business, but there are not many who can be called "Huizhou business spirit" like Hui merchants.
Hui businessmen value culture, advocate treating people with sincerity, receiving things with faith, taking righteousness as profit, and keeping quiet in the years, and hiding their own heritage.
Among them, "righteousness for profit" is its foundation.
The "righteousness" of Huizhou merchants is actually a kind of altruistic spirit, which not only has the "righteousness" between businessmen, but also the good deeds of getting rich and not forgetting to give back to the society.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Xu Chengyao recorded in his "Idle Tales of History": "Wuhui people are devoted to the friendship of the countryside, and they are heavy on business, and the footprints of businessmen are everywhere, and the guild halls and Yizhuang are all over the provinces. ”
There are still many Huizhou townspeople or Yizhuang throughout the country, and the main role of those years was to unite the Huizhou businessmen outside, and at the same time compete with other business forces to protect their own interests.
When Hui businessmen are outside, they work together in particular, especially when they encounter disputes and lawsuits, they often "fight for one person, and one family fights for them", helping the people with the crowd.
These associations also often lend a helping hand and generously to relatives or fellow villagers who encounter difficulties in traveling.
At the same time, Huizhou businessmen found profitable business opportunities in a certain place, and they were also willing to provide information to the villagers, so that everyone could conspire to operate and make a fortune together.
In particular, the Hui merchants generally have a sense of hometown, no matter where they live, they are always willing to build roads and bridges, repair ancestral halls, build archways and pavilions, run academies and schools, build guild halls and villages, moat embankments and dams, and widely place clan fields to relieve the tribesmen.
Huipai buildings and streets in Xidi Ancient Village, Huizhou, Anhui Province.
Because the Hui merchants attached great importance to the concept of clan, in order to make themselves and future generations glorify their ancestors, the Hui merchants spared no effort to build all kinds of righteous schools and schools in their hometowns to provide a place for the poor children of their families and townships to study.
Although the main purpose of this is to "pay gold" to himself and his family, it has objectively led to the local awareness of revitalizing education and re-education, as well as the folk customs that everyone is proud of establishing education.
In addition, Huizhou is located in the mountainous area, the mountains are high and the water is urgent, Huizhou businessmen will also build bridges and roads as a righteous act to accumulate virtue and do good, for the benefit of the people in their hometown, and do not hesitate to spend huge sums of money to generously subsidize, even if they are doing small business, they all take pleasure in building bridges and roads.
Not only that, Hui merchants also often donated money for the country to help the disaster, which was anxious for the imperial court.
For example, Bao Shufang, a Hui merchant in the Jiaqing period, was appointed as a salt transport envoy because of his meritorious service in organizing wealthy merchants to donate military salaries in the three provinces of Sichuan, Chu and Shaanxi, and became a prominent figure holding the power of the salt industry in the two Huai.
Throughout the Jiaqing Dynasty, Bao Shufang donated many times to help the poor for the imperial court, won the appreciation of the Jiaqing Emperor, and won the Qing court's preferential discussion and official commendation of ten levels, and was specially given to build a "good and charitable" archway in his hometown Tangyue.
Tangyue's "philanthropy" archway.
Huizhou merchants also brought these acts of kindness to every city where they operated, which was not only a continuation of good deeds, but also became their own intangible word-of-mouth publicity.
Many small towns in the south of the Yangtze River are due to the Hui merchants who came from afar to build bridges and roads here, and open schools, rice shops, pharmacies and other stores, thus bringing the prosperity of the towns, and only then have the praise of "no Hui can not be a town".
The simple "righteousness for profit" of the Hui merchants coincided with a self-interest principle proposed by Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations.
Adam Smith pointed out that in a market economy, when each rational homo economicus acts according to the rules of self-interest, the "invisible hand" (the existence of the market) will simultaneously maximize the interests of society.
In 2007, Nobel laureate economist Hurwitz proposed that if there is an institutional arrangement that enables the self-interested behavior of actors to pursue personal interests, which happens to coincide with the goal of the mechanism designer to maximize social value, then this arrangement is called "incentive compatibility principle".
To put it simply, the "righteousness for profit" of Huizhou businessmen has truly realized a high degree of integration of personal value and social value, and it seems to be a loss-making transaction, but the market will eventually return its investment with greater returns.
Many times, looking back at history is to better create the future.
Si business, not to see the profit for the profit, to the sincerity for the profit;Si Ye is not precious, but ...... is precious”
Hui merchants traveled all over the country, did the trading to the whole country, and through the inheritance of generations, wrote the continuation of the times.
The new Hui businessmen who came out of Anhui are indeed a kind of "phenomenal" existence
Yang Yuanqing, Shi Yuzhu, Wang Chuanfu, Yin Tongyue, Lv Xiangyang, Liu Qingfeng, Gui Sihai, Li Xiting, Yu Chengdong, Fang Hongbo, Li Bin, Shu Congxuan, ......The companies founded by these Anhui entrepreneurs are in China's fastest-growing emerging industries, and have also become the "main force" of their respective industries.
The Yangtze River and the Huai River murmur into a dream, and the Anhui Mountains and Anhui waters linger in the heart.
Hui businessmen in the new era, no matter what industry they are engaged in and what hardships they experience, the "Hui camel" gene and the spirit of "righteousness for profit" engraved in their bones support them to continue to break the waves.
The Hui businessmen who left and returned, the local pronunciation has not changed, and the sincere feelings of returning to Sangzi have always remained the same.
In 2007, Gui Sihai, known as the "new ship king of Hong Kong", invested 2 billion yuan to build a port and wharf in Anqing, and on July 10, 2018, the Yuanhang Port composed of four Chizhou enterprises was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
In 2011, Yang Yuanqing laid out the world's largest intelligent equipment R&D and manufacturing base in Hefei, Lianbao Technology, which led to the employment of nearly 100,000 people.
At the same time, the upstream and downstream enterprises of the industrial chain have also formed a "4-hour industrial circle" around Hefei to accelerate the continuous upgrading of Anhui's intelligent technology.
Subsequently, Wang Chuanfu moved almost the entire new energy automobile industry chain to Anhui, forming a new energy vehicle base centered on Hefei, and supporting key components such as power batteries, battery materials, high-voltage electrical appliances, and wiring harnesses supported by Wuwei, Bengbu, Chuzhou, and Fuyang.
Hefei Changfeng BYD Industrial Park.
In the short term, a production capacity of more than one million vehicles can be formed here, and the layout of the whole industrial chain can be quickly realized.
In the Dangshan County Economic Development Zone, the Mindray Medical Technology Industrial Park invested by Li Xiting has been officially put into production and R&D, and will become the fourth largest manufacturing base of Mindray Medical in the world, striving to build a world-class modern precision machining production base for medical parts.
Li Bin moved the headquarters of NIO to Hefei and joined hands with JAC Motors to achieve 300,000 mass-produced vehicles off the assembly line in Hefei in the past five years, and through the construction of a R&D center, he has built a whole industry chain gathering area including chips, power semiconductors, motors, batteries, conventional auto parts, vehicle manufacturing, user services, etc., adding a "fire" to Anhui's new energy vehicle industry.
NIO headquarters located in Hefei Economic and Technological Development Zone.
Several generations of manufacturing precipitation, 40 years of open pattern, the new Huizhou business has its own ecology, and there is vitality everywhere.
As of the first 10 months of 2023, there are 469 projects of Huizhou businessmen returning to Anhui with more than 100 million yuan under construction, and the investment amount of Huizhou businessmen has reached 1299700 million yuan, an increase of 13 over the same period in 20226%。Among them, more than 80% of the funds in place in the field of strategic emerging industries are in place.
Behind the upsurge of the return of Huizhou businessmen is a strong sense of nostalgia, and it is also a "two-way rush" with Anhui's economic improvement and business environment in recent years.
In 2022, Anhui's GDP will reach 45 trillion yuan, ranking tenth in the country, to achieve Shanghai's overtaking;Hefei, the provincial capital, has been promoted to a trillion-dollar city and a national megacity, and has repeatedly been on the financial hot list as the "most bullish venture capital city".
The long-awaited "Anhui Provincial Regulations on Optimizing the Business Environment" will also come into force on January 1 next year to optimize the first-class business environment, and Anhui has laws to follow since then.
News coverage. From the former "peacock flying southeast" to today's "swallow homecoming", the returning Huizhou businessmen said frankly that investing in Anhui has become the "best choice".
In the long river of time, countless Huizhou businessmen have written business legends at the same time, but also left a good story of "Hui travels the world and loves his hometown".
Those who are like-minded, not far from mountains and seas, today, the story of Huizhou merchants and their hometown is still being written.