After the Western Han Dynasty, ** hidden, the currency in circulation is mainly copper money, and there is also a small amount of cloth. Copper coins are minted by the state monopoly, and private minting is also common. In 118 A.D. (the fifth year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty), in view of the fact that the half tael coin was too heavy and inconvenient to circulate, the half tael coin was abolished, and the five baht coin was used in a unified manner, and until 621 A.D. (the fourth year of Tang Gaozu Wude), the Kaiyuan Tongbao was used, and the five baht coin was the main currency of China in 700 years. However, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, various regimes in different periods minted their own currency, and in the Taiyuan area, there were five baht of Cao Wei, Feng goods of Later Zhao Shile, five baht of Taihe and five baht of Yongan of Northern Wei, five baht of Changping of Northern Qi, Buquan and Wuxing Dabu of Northern Zhou, Yongtong Wanguo, five baht of Sui and so on.
In 581 AD, Yang Jian destroyed the Zhou Dynasty and established the Sui Dynasty, and his second son Yang Guang was the king of Jin, guarding Taiyuan County, and later inherited the throne as Emperor Yang of Sui. In 618 A.D., Li Yuan and his son destroyed the Sui, because its birthplace Taiyuan is the ancient Tang Kingdom, and his grandfather Li Hu was named the Duke of Tang by the Northern Zhou Dynasty during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Li Yuan inherited this title, so the founding name is Tang, Taiyuan is the birthplace of the Tang Empire, and then promoted to the Great Governor's Office, leading thirteen counties. In 690 A.D., it was renamed "Northern Capital", and in 742 A.D., it was changed to "Beijing". The Tang Dynasty not only stockpiled military materials in Jinyang, but also overhauled the palace city, and in 637 A.D. (the eleventh year of Zhenguan) Li Shimin sent the general Li Qin to build the east city on the east bank of the Fen River. Later, Empress Wu Zetian sent Shi Cui Shenqing to build Zhongcheng on the Fen River, forming the largest landscape in the north of the capital, the east city, and the middle city. Jinyang has a magnificent scale, a solid treasury, and a prosperous household, becoming the largest city except Chang'an. At that time, Jinyang had convenient transportation, rich economy, handicraft industry and commerce, and was the center of the country's currency minting. The iron ** is becoming more and more perfect, and the state scissors are extremely sharp, and the iron mirror and copper mirror are well-known throughout the country. In addition, Jinyang saltpeter and wine were all tributes at that time. Jinyang in the Tang Dynasty was not only a prosperous city, but also a rich culture and talents. According to the Jingxingji in the "General Dictionary and Frontier Defense", the Tang dynasty Du Huan accompanied the Zhenxi Jiedu to envoy Gao Xianzhi to the west, went to the West Sea (i.e., the Mediterranean) in 751 AD (the tenth year of Tianbao), was captured after the Battle of Tanros, and lived in Dashi (present-day Arabia) for ten years, and then was released and returned to Guangzhou by sea. He went to the capital city of the country, Ajura (i.e., Guande, now part of Iraq), and saw the "shuttle silk machine" and "the weaver Hedong people Le Yi and Lu Li". [20] This indicates that Shanxi's handicraft industry was well developed, and that the skills were already being taught in Arab countries in the 8th century AD. In 742 A.D. (the first year of Tianbao), after changing Jinyang to Beijing, it was called Wujing together with the capital Chang'an, Nanjing (Chengdu), Xijing (Fengxiang), and Tokyo (Henan). According to records, at that time, Taiyuan Prefecture "led thirteen counties, 128,905 households, and 778,278 mouths." Volume 7 of the "General Dictionary" says that during the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty, "Jingxiang in the south, Taiyuan and Fanyang in the north, Shuchuan and Liangfu in the west, there are shops for business travel, which are thousands of miles away and do not hold an inch." ”
The germ of the financial industry
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, lending activities were further developed, and currency lending became a common thing in people's lives. "Book of Northern Qi" volume 22 "Biography of Li Yuanzhong" records that Li Yuanzhong "sexual benevolence,......The family is wealthy, and his family is in the township, and many of them take out loans for profit. Yuan Zhong burned the deed every time, and the villagers respected it very much. ”[21]。At that time, some credit institutions that handled lending activities were called "quality stores". In the Tang Dynasty, credit institutions such as "cabinet shops", "cabinets", and "attached shops" appeared. Most of these institutions that handle credit business are concurrent, and they are not professional financial institutions. Shanxi people participated in the credit institutions at that time, and historical materials also recorded, such as depositing in the temple, "Huichang Jieyilu Niu Sheng" recorded: "Niu Sheng went to the ...... from Hedong."to the Bodhi Temple ,......The monk said that Jinyang often sent money of 3,000 Guan Wen here, and he would never come back to take it. A certain old age, once it comes, there is nothing to pay, and now we will meet. [22] Wen Tingyun (c. 812 870 AD), a native of Qi County in the late Tang and Jin dynasties, recorded in his "Qianyunzi" "Fufeng Bao Yi (yi)": "There is a Hu man Mi Liang, because of hunger and cold, he has seen money and silk, and he does not ask for seven years. On the other day, he saw the light, mourned his hunger and cold, and had 5,000 dollars in money. Liang said because of gratitude: Liang finally has something to repay Dalang. There is nothing to live in the side, bright and to, it is said: There is a small house in Chongxian to sell, straight 200,000 Wen, Dalang quickly buy it. The cabinet of Yixi City, locking the surplus of money, that is, going straight out of the money market. On the day of the book deed, Liang and Yi said: Liang attacked the jade, tasted the black stone in the house, people rarely knew it, it was a smashing anvil, really in Khotanese jade, and Da Lang Dan became rich. [23] The amount of metal currency in the Tang Dynasty was insufficient, and bills appeared, known as "flying money". The Song Dynasty developed into paper money, called "Jiaozi", which was issued by merchants at the beginning, and later changed to ** issuance. In the Jin Yuan era, the Song system was imitated and "banknotes" were issued.
Song, Yuan, Jin and Shang
From 907 to 979 A.D. for more than 70 years, the ancient city of Bingzhou experienced several dynasties such as the Later Tang Dynasty, the Later Jin Dynasty, the Later Han Dynasty, and the Northern Han Dynasty, which were occupied in turn, and the economy withered. In 960 A.D., Zhao Kuangyin established the Song Dynasty, in 969 sent troops to attack the Northern Han Dynasty, in 979 Zhao Guangyi led troops to capture Jinyang, set fire to Jinyang City, and in the second year, Fen water was used to irrigate the ruins of Jinyang City, and the merchants in Jinyang area were forced to move to Henan and other places several times, and many people left their homes, lost their land, and were forced to embark on a business route.
During the Song and Yuan dynasties, Taiyuan increased its exchanges with the northern nomads, and became an important transit station and distribution center for goods from the north and south. Most of the war horses needed by the Song Dynasty relied on Liao in the north, and Liao needed Song handicraft products. In 996 A.D. (the second year of the Dao), in Shanxi, "the border state set up a field, and the feudal people exchanged markets", and "the merchants along the border went deep into the ring realm" **. Later, the Zhao and Song dynasties were afraid of endangering their own regime, and ordered the closure of the market several times, but in fact it was impossible to do so. According to historical documents, during the Qingli of the Song Dynasty (1041-1048 AD), "more than 2,000 cities of silk were out of Tibet. He also ordered the three divisions to send 30,000 silk to the city of Ma in Fuzhou (now Fugu, Shaanxi)". Later, often set up a field and a city in Bingzhou, "the Xia people came to the west, the Liao soldiers went south, gathered on the border of the two states of Linfu, crossed the Hehe River, Baode Fei Chong was attacked by the enemy, and when there was no time for requisition, Liaoxia was beneficial to Heshi." Take this as the way to control. The mutual market is based on silk and silk, easy camels, horses, cattle and sheep, jade, war blankets, licorice, incense, porcelain lacquerware, Gui Yi honey wax, musk navel, hair brown soup, antelope horn, indium sand, Bupleurum, Cistanche, safflower, Lingmao, non-official market, listen to its people's convenience. [24] Merchants from the northwestern part of Shanxi entered the border with foreign merchants in Yanmen Pass, Daizhou, and entered the border with sulfur, tobacco and calamine in the private market", and they were sometimes forbidden and sometimes released, or "did business outside the Saizhou and even in Europe". [25] During the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, Shanxi merchants participated in the import and export of merchant ships in the Sino-foreign market**, and exchanged foreign goods with foreign goods in Banqiao Town, Mizhou, Shandong at that time. During the Yuanyou period, the merchants of Guangzhou, Fujian and Zhejiang in the south transported goods to Hedong Road and traded with Jin merchants. Shanxi merchants also transported Shanxi Jiezhou salt to Sichuan in exchange for silk tea.
During the Song-Liao confrontation period, Datong, Yingxian and Shuozhou in Shanxi were the ruling areas of eastern Liao, with active commerce and frequent exchanges with Xixia, "Xijing (now Datong) was the main distribution center of commodities", and Xijing was "the northwest belt and the upper Shilenpo ,......set up a market for the Western Xia, and also "set up a field in Shuozhou, for the Song Dynasty", and private smuggling is an irrepressible channel. [26]
In the Jin Dynasty, the area north of the Yellow River was active in commerce, and Hongdong in Shanxi Province was "suitable for the main road to Jin", "the place where the horses galloped, the place where the business travelers came and went, and the sound of the wheels and hooves was endless day and night". In the north, due to the Mongolian **, iron money flows into the Mongolian area. **The amount is so large that the Mongols can use the inflow of iron money to mint**. 27]
In the Yuan Dynasty, the empire's territory spanned Asia and Europe, and the trade routes from Saibei to Europe were further expanded. "* With the north of our country has built a complete post station, the traffic is smooth, and the business travel is very convenient. In Helin (present-day Harhelin in Outer Mongolia), an international trading market with considerable scale was formed. The exchange of goods in this market is dominated by grain and ,......The Chinese involved in the ** are undoubtedly Shanxi businessmen. [28] Marco Polo wrote in his "Travels" that Taiyuan Province was very prosperous in industry and commerce, producing wine and silk, and there were also people who went abroad to do business and make profits in India, and there were many merchants living in Pingyang Province, and in addition to Taiyuan and Pingyang, merchants in Ze and Lu were also quite prosperous. [29] It can be seen that at that time, Shanxi merchants were not only active between urban and rural areas, active outside the Saiwai, but also engaged in foreign affairs.
Throughout ancient China, Shanxi merchants and commercial activities have always been very active, not only there are many important commercial cities, but also has a long-term border trade tradition and foreign exchanges. There are not only China's Shang ancestors, but also the Jin State Ji Ran, who taught skills to Tao Zhu Gong Fan Li, and the big businessmen such as Yidun and Bai Gui, who became rich in business. Ji Ran's business philosophy of "Jia people are in drought and boats, and water is in cars", and "there is no shortage of things in the market" has influenced Fan Li, and Fan Li has developed into "the high pole is anti-cheap, and the low pole is anti-expensive". In addition, Bai Gui's business management arts such as "people abandon me and take me, and people take me and" are inexhaustible sources of wisdom for Jin merchants in the past dynasties.
2. The Ming and Qing dynasties in the commercial revolution.
From the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was a commercial revolution in China. The commercial revolution was a period of transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society, which some scholars call commercial capitalism. This commercial revolution in China is often referred to as the germ of capitalism in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The signs of the commercial revolution are, first, the rapid expansion of commodity trading, which makes the change in the ratio of monetary metals to the quantity of commodities cause a revolution; Second, the domestic market is limited, businessmen actively enter the international market, and the domestic and foreign markets begin to be connected; Third, the management system of commercial handicrafts and other enterprises has been innovated, and standardized enterprise management has been implemented; Fourth, commercial development has led to a series of innovations in the financial industry and a financial revolution; Fifth, mercantilist ideas emerged.
In this commercial revolution, the most active merchants in China were Jin merchants, Hui merchants, Chao merchants, Dongting merchants, Ningbo merchants, Longyou merchants, Shaanxi merchants, Shandong merchants, Jiangyou merchants and so on. Among them, the Jin merchant power developed the largest. According to historical records, "the north of the river is Shanxi, the ancient Hebei capital, so Yu Gong does not pay tribute." Since the past, Rao Lin bamboo, Lu Yin, jade, now there are fish, salt, jujube and persimmon benefits. The four counties under its jurisdiction take Taiyuan as the provincial capital and Pingyang as the rich. Datong and Lu'an, leaning on the side of the cold and thin, the land is narrow and dense, the vulgar is still diligent and thrifty, and then play more good things. Dupuban is a state, especially rich, and businessmen are vying. [30] Zhang Siwei, a native of Puzhou, Shanxi Province, Ming Dynasty, said; "I Pujie is in the meanders of the river, the soil is ugly and the people are together, the field can not be given to Ding, and the fate is given to the business, and the person who takes the light capital and leads the cattle to go to the Quartet, then ten rooms and nine empty. [31] In 1617, the "Ming Shilu" volume 558 (Wanli 45th year) June Bingshen recorded: "Datong kills the tiger fort as the first important place in the clouds, since the Xianchen, the Han Yi trade moved, the ants gathered in the city, no less than five or six hundred horses a day, and even a cup of wine lingered, noisy Europeans. [32] In 1644 (the first year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty), the "Records of the Ancestors of the Qing Dynasty" contained: "The Metropolitan Procuratorate participated in the politics of Zu Kefa, Zhang Cunren said ,......Shandong is the road of grain transportation, Shanxi is the road of businessmen, and it is urgent to appease. If the soldiers and civilians of the two provinces return to our territory, then the wealth will be out and the country will not be scarce. [33] Shanxi merchants shipped Shanxi specialties such as Zelu silk, Jiezhou Lu salt, Shanxi coal and iron, and Pingyang paper to the national market, cloth, tea, and sugar from the south to Saibei, cattle and horse skins and furs from Mongolia to the interior, Chinese native products to Japan and Korea, tea and silk to Russia, and so on. They have merchants who specialize in production, transporters who specialize in transportation, and Mongolian merchants who specialize in walking grasslands (also known as Tongshixing). At that time, the capital accumulation of Jin merchants was already considerable, "Pingyang, Ze, and Lu are rich in the world, and they are not rich if they are not hundreds of thousands"[34], "those who are rich and powerful, Jiangnan pushes Xin'an." Jiangbei pushes the mountain to the right. Xin'an Dajia fish and salt industry, Tibetan Qiang has up to one million, and the other two or three hundred thousand are in Jiaer. On the right side of the mountain, or salt, or silk, or resale, or cellar millet, its wealth is greater than that of Xin'an. ” 35]
In this commercial revolution, Jin merchants have always stood at the forefront of the tide, opened up the tea road from China to Europe through the Mongolian desert and the Hanhai, and its activity stage spread throughout the country and Japan, North Korea, Russia and other countries, creating a variety of financial institutions such as account bureaus and ticket numbers, and its wealth accumulation, organizational system, management technology, etc., are in a leading position, enjoying a high reputation at home and abroad, becoming the head of the major business gangs, and making great contributions to the commercial revolution.
The commercialization of agricultural handicrafts has increased considerably
From the perspective of industry and mining, from 1405 (the third year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty) to 1434 (the ninth year of Xuande in the Ming Dynasty), the iron output increased from 1.14 million jin to 8.33 million jin, an increase of nearly 7 times. In 1461 (the fifth year of Tomorrow Shun), the iron production of Yangcheng County in Shanxi Province alone reached 700-9 million catties, which was equal to the iron output of the whole country 17 years ago. [36] From an agricultural point of view, commercial grain accounted for about 10 percent of the country's grain production before the Opium War5%, worth 1633330,000 taels; The domestic market of cotton in the country was 3.16 million quintals, accounting for 306%, minus 60 of imported commodity cotton50,000 quintals, 255 domestic cotton commodities50,000 quintals, accounting for 263%, worth 1277 silver50,000 taels; The national cotton consumption, domestic cotton self-sufficiency accounted for 472%, and the volume of domestic cotton goods accounted for 528%, worth 9455 silver30,000 taels; The national silk output, the commodity volume accounted for 922%, worth 1202 silver30,000 taels; The domestic consumption of tea in the country is 2 million quintals, and the export of tea is 6050,000 quintals, the amount of tea produced is equal to the volume of goods, which is 26050,000 quintals, worth 3186 silver10,000 taels; The national salt production is also the sales volume, which is 32200 million catties, worth 5852 silver90,000 taels. [37]
The rise of a large number of commercial cities
Before the Opium War, the non-agricultural population was 20 million, accounting for 5%. [38] While the non-agricultural population was increasing, cities were growing rapidly. According to historical records, Xuanfu Town in the Ming Dynasty "Jia shop scales, each has its own name, such as Yunnan Nanjing Rosgrain Village, Suzhou Hangzhou Rosgrain Village, Luzhou Silk Village, Zezhou Papu, Linqing cloth and silk shop, velvet cotton shop, grocery store, all lines of trading shops along the length of four or five miles, Jia are all vying for it. [39] As for Beijing, not only did the population increase and the number of shops proliferated, but the organization of commercial guilds also reached a considerable size. "Beijing's industrial and commercial halls were established in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, such as the pigment hall established by Shanxi Pingyao pigment merchants......When before the Ming Wanli. ......There are also Linxiang guild halls established by oil, salt and grain merchants in Linfen and Xiangling counties in Shanxi. Shanxi Linfen paper, dried fruits, pigments, groceries, tobacco and other five elements of merchants established the Linfen East Pavilion (also known as Linfen Township Temple). The Linfen West Pavilion established by Linfen merchants in Shanxi. The Lu'an Hall was established by merchants of copper, iron, tin, carbon and tobacco bags in Lu'an Prefecture, Shanxi. The Siming Hall established by medicinal herb merchants in Ningbo, Zhejiang. Guanzhong Hall established by merchants in Guanzhong, Shaanxi, etc. [40] By the middle of the Qing Dynasty, not only Nanjing, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Guangzhou, and Quanzhou were famous commercial cities, but even Zhangjiakou, Baotou, Yili, Kulun, and Kobdo had become famous commercial cities. Baotou proverb "first there is a compound number, then there is Baotou City", the compound number refers to the business network of Qiaojia in Qi County; Liaoning proverb has "first Caojiadian, then Chaoyang County", referring to Taigu Caojia; There is also Xining's "Jin Yilao first, and then Xining City", and so on.
Expansion of international trade routes
The southeast is the sea**, with Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Xiamen, and Fuzhou as the center, and Cochin, Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, Java, the Philippines, and Japan**. Professor Takeshi Hamashita, a Japanese scholar, believes that "the ** network in Asia is mainly formed by Chinese and Indian businessmen going to various places to carry out **, and thus constitutes the corresponding settlement network." ”[41]
The northern land route**, centered on Kyakhta and Tarbagatai, is carried out with Russia and West Asian countries**. At that time, the Qing Dynasty stipulated that salt tea ruled, and merchants transported tea to the north, and they had to ask for tea quotation at the Suiyuan General's Office, otherwise it would be regarded as private tea according to the law, and it could only be sold in Inner and Outer Mongolia and Xinjiang, and it was strictly forbidden to export. Cheng Huapeng (1824 1892), a merchant from Xinzhou, Shanxi, was smart and studious since childhood, and went to Guihua City with his relatives and friends to learn business in his teens, and in 1851 (the early years of Xianfeng) he trafficked grocers from Chinese mainland to Siberia in Russia through Outer Mongolia, making several times of profit, and understood the demand of the Russian market. Jin merchants could only transport tea to Outer Mongolia in the name of law, and sold Russians privately, but once the border officials and Karen were found out, they either withheld the goods, or imposed severe penalties, or asked for bribes, and made a windfall in the name of anti-smuggling. Thus becoming an obstacle for China against Russia **. Cheng Huapeng personally went to Beijing to go to the Shuli Academy, stating that the ban on tea exports can only "disease commerce and damage the national tax", and suggested that the tariff rules should be clearly defined, allowing direct contact with foreigners, which can not only increase the export of domestic goods to benefit taxes, but also exempt the extortion of officials to reduce business hardships and facilitate public and private relations. [42] In response to the merchants' appeals, the Qing ** issued a "quasi-line" and gave a "four-link letter" to allow the tea merchants to set up tea shops in naturalization, transport tea for export, and trade with the Russians in Kyakhta and Tarbagatai. As a result, Shanxi merchants who operated tea ** came one after another, and Cheng Huapeng helped them obtain letter tickets, and the tea merchants supported each other, opening up a great source of profit for Jin merchants. As a result, the export of Russian tea increased year by year, from 1845 to 1847 before the annual export of Russian tea about 40,000 boxes, after 1852 reached more than 175,000 boxes, Russian merchants will also resell tea to the European market, to obtain huge profits, Russian merchants thus entered the north gate of China in large numbers. As Marx said: Tsarist Russia's "exclusive access to the inland land routes** has become a kind of compensation for their inability to participate in the sea **", "due to this growth ,......."Kyakhta grew from an ordinary fortress and market town to a fairly large city. ”
Corporatization of the organization of commercial handicrafts
Jinshang has created a corporate governance system with Chinese characteristics, including the joint-stock enterprise system (equity financing), as well as the separation system of ownership and management rights, the head office and branch system of the enterprise and the joint number system (chain system), the capital management system, and the bank secret deposit system.
Jincheng, Shanxi Province is one of the national iron production centers, and a production workshop is managed in an orderly manner: eight square furnaces with a large cabinet, four iron furnaces and a casting boiler; Four iron furnaces for sixteen strip furnaces and one slag furnace (for processing secondary iron), each with a large cabinet; Manager, purchasing, accounting, and custody have a meticulous division of labor. From the perspective of the enterprise organization system, from the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the organizational forms of China's handicraft, industry, commerce, and financial industries were corporatized. the second is a partnership; The third is a joint-stock enterprise. The ownership and management rights of Jin Shang firms are separated, professional managers have emerged, the entrustment relationship has become widespread, and there is a standardized enterprise management system.
The financial industry has been revolutionized
The Jin merchants created the early banking industry in China, which included money banks, pawnshops, printing offices, account offices, and ticket numbers. The emergence of financial enterprises is that with the development of commodity trading, the shortage of money has led to the creation of credit instruments and the emergence of financial institutions, and a financial revolution has occurred at the same time. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, pawnshops and money houses have spread all over the north and south of the river, and in the Qing Dynasty, there were printing bureaus, account bureaus and ticket numbers. Ticket semicolons are set all over the country, and also set up in Japan, North Korea, Russia and other countries. In November 1912, Mr. Liang Qichao said in a speech to the banking circles of Shanxi in Beijing that the money merchants of Britain and the furnace houses of China should not be abandoned. If we compare the money merchants of the Free Metropolitan of Italy with our ticket number, there are four similarities: first, they have a lot of dealings with commercial enterprises, but they absorb official funds and deposit them, and most of them have dealings with emperors and nobles; the second is to take advantage of the differences in currency systems and weights in various places to flatten the color and profit from it; the third is to issue tickets prudently and have outstanding credit; Fourth, the background of the era in which it occurred is the same. [43]
Mr. Fairbank, an American scholar, said: "In the 18th century, China already had a real domestic market, if not earlier, and the best products in any region could be used to meet the needs of any other ,......."For example, the beginning of the European Renaissance, or the beginning of the commercial revolution in China. ......The rise of China's domestic market can be measured by the growth of various specialized merchant groups, such as wholesalers, retailers, and merchants who travel from south to north, and there are also layers of brokers and people at the top, who serve the best in different regions. ”[44]
A large number of practical business technologies have been innovated
Jinshang has created a variety of financial instruments, the most widely used being commercial paper and bank notes. It's not terrible to have no money, as long as you have credit, you can still do business. There is no evidence for empty words, and the bill is evidence, just write a bill. Marx said in "Capital" that a single bill in Europe in those years could be endorsed and transferred at most fifty or sixty times. Our current notes can only be endorsed three times. The author saw a Shanxi merchant bill in the first year of Guangxu, which was endorsed thirty-four times, and this bill served the circulation of goods thirty-four times. Jin Shang attaches great importance to calculation technologies such as abacus. There was an Anhui merchant in the Qing Dynasty who was a well-known abacus expert in China. However, Wang Wensu, a merchant in Fenyang in the Ming Dynasty, did business in Hebei, studied abacus while doing business, and wrote thirty volumes of "Arithmetic Baojian", which was eighty years earlier than Anhui merchants, and could do binary multiple equations on the abacus, but unfortunately there was no engraved book, only a manuscript, which is now collected in the Beijing Library. There is also accounting, and China's double-entry bookkeeping is the first of its kind in Shanxi. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Shanxi businessmen with the help of Fu Shan engaged in the Longmen account, which was the earliest double-entry bookkeeping and the earliest financial audit. Before the Cultural Revolution, there was a book that said that China's transfer settlement took place in Shanghai in 1898, but in fact, about 150 years before that, Shanxi currency merchants had been proficient in handling transfer settlements for merchants.
The culture of Jin merchants was developed
What is Jin Shang Culture? It is a summary of all the spiritual and material wealth created by Shanxi merchants, including their wealth accumulation, enterprise system, financial management technology, business art, business ethics, Jin Shang spirit, as well as merchant opera, martial arts, calligraphy, architecture, carving, collection, and so on. The Jin merchant culture has commonalities with the business culture of the entire Chinese merchants, and at the same time, it has its own characteristics. This is the management thought of the Tang and Jin legacy, the business ethics of Guan Gong's worship, the financial management concept of the local axis, the corporate culture of people-oriented thinking, the business development strategy of government and business, and the spirit of Jin businessmen.
Third, the rise of Jin merchants is in the right place and the right people
Although Shanxi's commerce and merchant forces have a long history, the real formation of influential merchant gangs was still a matter of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The rise of the Ming and Qing dynasties can be said to be the result of the joint action of time, place, and people.
When the time came, we seized the historical opportunity
Historically, the flow of population, often promote the circulation of goods, just as the merchants were forced to engage in business when the Zhou Dynasty destroyed the Shang, the Zhao Song Dynasty forced more than 100,000 Jin people to move to Henan three times when solving the Taiyuan Northern Han secession regime, and the Ming Dynasty moved the Jin people several times to enrich Nanjing, Beijing, Anhui and other places, these immigrants have a certain relationship with the Jin merchants. But more importantly:
First, in the Ming Dynasty, salt was opened, and Jin merchants took the lead. In order to solve the problem of more than 800,000 garrisons in the northern frontier, the Ming Dynasty implemented the salt "open the middle method", who can send military materials to the border pass, according to its value to the "salt introduction", businessmen can hold it to the designated salt field to receive salt, in fact, this is a historical opportunity for the privatization of official salt sales. The most active Jin merchants in the Ming Dynasty were Jinnan merchants, Jinnan is located in the main grain-producing area of Shanxi, and is the famous Luyan production area, which is closer to the border than other merchants, and the lowest cost of grain exchange, and the military materials are transported to Suide and Datong border passes nearby, and they get rich quickly. Later, the first to change the grain to the silver to lead, Jin merchants entered the Tianjin Changlu Salt Farm and Yangzhou Lianghuai Salt Field, obtained the right to operate Yangzhou Huai Salt and Tianjin Changlu Salt, and went to the whole country.