Overview of Huizhou merchant culture

Huizhou merchants, also known as Huizhou merchants and Xin 'an merchants, commonly known as "Hui Gang", are the floorboards of the old Huizhou merchants.

Huizhou merchants come from Huizhou prefecture in southern Anhui, including Juan, Xiuning, Wuyuan, Qimen, Yi and Jixi counties, namely Guxin 'an County. Among the six counties, the merchants in Ganning and Xiuning are particularly famous. Huizhou merchants became active in the Song Dynasty, and their heyday was in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. Huizhou merchants, a famous business gang in China's history, are all in poor mountainous areas, and they can't survive by farming. In the Ming Dynasty, Anhui Geography said that "it is natural for Hui people to buy more merchants." "Huizhou Fuzhi" contains: "Huizhou Xiebao Valley, the mountain is on the original foothills, the fields are barren, and the production is extremely thin. Most of them enter school at the age of one, and they can't support anything. Little men practice their skills more, or sell and eat in other counties, which is often nineteen. " Gu said: Huizhou "no land can be obtained below the middle household". There are many merchants in Huizhou, which cover nature. "Guangdong merchants, Huizhou merchants, Shanxi merchants, Zhejiang merchants and Jiangsu merchants are collectively known as the' five major business gangs' in history. Chaozhou merchants, Huizhou merchants and Shanxi merchants are the "three big business gangs" in the history of China.

Huizhou merchants, that is, Huizhou merchants, began in the Southern Song Dynasty (1 127-1279) and developed in the late Yuan Dynasty (127/-1368) and early Ming Dynasty (/kloc).

Huizhou merchants are often official businessmen. Once Huizhou merchants made their fortune, they returned to their hometown in splendor, Gai Lou, built ancestral temples, bridges and halls to worship their ancestors and expand their power; He was particularly keen on developing schools, running schools, running examination halls, cultivating feudal talents and consolidating patriarchal clan system. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Huizhou celebrities came forth in large numbers. There are only 20 18 Jinshi in five small counties (the first level of ancient scientific research in China), while 43 people in Shexian County were included in the poetry forest and the literary garden in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and there were "three halls in Lianke, four Hanlins in ten miles", and both father and son were "ministers" (.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the commodity economy was unprecedentedly active, and Huizhou merchants mainly engaged in four major industries: salt, pawn, tea and wood. At that time, there was a saying in the south of the Yangtze River that Huizhou merchants became one of the largest business gangs in China.