How to Evaluate the Pawnbroking Industry in Ancient and Modern Times

Banking is an extremely important industry for modern people. Needless to say businesses, but also ordinary people, in life is inseparable from the bank.

Modern banks with the functions of deposits, loans, remittances, savings and credit intermediation were born in Europe and emerged with capitalism. The original meaning of the bank Latin Banca is bench, referring to the early Italian currency money changers. The earliest bank in the world was the Bank of Venice, founded in 1580, and then Western Europe became the birthplace of modern banking. After the Industrial Revolution, banks spread all over the world with Europe's colonial expansion and became the quintessential symbol of modern business culture.

As far as China is concerned, "bank" in ancient times refers to stores dealing with precious metals such as gold and silver and their products, sometimes called "gold bank", belonging to one of the "thirty-six lines". One of the "Thirty-six Banks". For example, the Southern Song Dynasty in Jiankang (now Nanjing) city, not only yarn market, salt market, cattle and horse market, but also flower line, chicken line and bank, and even a "bank" a street, similar to the current professional market.

Banks, as commercial financial institutions for depositing and lending money, were generally called "banker's offices" or "money changers" in ancient China, and their services were mainly provided to large customers and the government. For the general public, banks that provide daily deposit and loan services are actually pawnshops. Compared with the history of banks, the history of pawnbrokers is much longer; in China for a long time, pawnbrokers have been playing the role of "banks", or you can say, pawnbrokers are the banks of the ancient Chinese.

One

Pawnbroking is one of the oldest industries in human society, and it is even said that pawnbroking has been around as long as there has been money. Especially in China, as early as 2,000-3,000 years ago, pawnbrokers already existed. Pawn first called "quality", the Eastern Han Dynasty "Shuowen Jiezi", the "quality" of the explanation is "to the object of cumbersome", the "superfluous In the Shuo Wen Jie Zi (Explanation of Characters) of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the interpretation of "quality" was "to burden one another with objects", and the interpretation of "superfluous" was "to pay with material". Before the Qin and Han dynasties, China used shells as currency, and from the glyphs alone, it is clear that both "quality" and "superfluous" are related to money.

While China has a rich historical tradition, there are very few records of the lives of ancient commoners, especially their daily economies. For today's people, to understand the history of ancient people's lives, they can only seek speculation from some fragments of words. Western Han Liu Xin's "Xijing Miscellany" recorded: "Sima Xiangru first with Zhuo Wenjun still Chengdu, living in poverty and sadness, with the wearing of teal 鹴 fur on the city people Yang Chang buy wine, and Wenjun for drinking." The Shuowen explains, "Renting is also lending." This story of "renting out teal fur" has become an ancient tale, and Yang Chang is undoubtedly the earliest celebrity in the pawnbroking industry. It is recorded in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty - Liu Yu's Biography: "Yu's Ben rewarded Hu Yi when he pawned his fur." This is the earliest time the word "pawn" appeared in history. After entering the North and South Dynasties, the records about the pawnshop industry were very detailed and extensive, so much so that some people believed that pawnshop originated from it.

One thing is for sure, even though there was a pawnshop industry in China at a very early stage, the industry became more developed and prosperous during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and became a mainstream industry in the social economy. The Southern History - Zhen Fa Chong biography" recorded, Zhen Bin "tasted a bunch of ramie on the state of Changsha Temple quality money, after the redemption of ramie back, in the ramie in the five taels of gold, wrapped in a handkerchief. Bin got it and returned it to the temple. In the "Book of Liang" - Biography of Monk Yu, it is recorded that: "A neighbor who was falsely accused of being a thief was impeached, and was paid for his crime, Monk reserved, and was given 20,000 yuan in the form of a book and asked his disciples to fraudulently claim to be his relatives, and paid for them on his behalf." The so-called "temple library", is the temple-run pawnshop. Items pawned ranged from precious rewards and books to a bunch of hemp.

In Chinese history, the Northern and Southern Dynasties were a rare religious era, and from the precious Buddhist statues that remain to this day in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Longmen Grottoes, and Yungang Grottoes, it is possible to imagine that Buddhism was once in full bloom. "Four hundred and eighty temples in the south, how many buildings in the smoke and rain." It is said that there were more than 500 Buddhist monasteries in Jiankang (present-day Nanjing) alone. Both in terms of social and economic status, Buddhist monasteries reached an unprecedented level. These monasteries in addition to having countless properties and a large number of serfs, coupled with the royal rewards and donations from all walks of life, a moment to become the most wealth gathering place. Therefore, there is "ten of the world's wealth, and the Buddha has seven or eight" said.

The temple itself as a religious institution, charity for this, the reason why these riches can be gathered, to a large extent, because the temple has the responsibility to help the poor and needy. Monasteries set up a "pledge bank" to issue loans for the relief of the people. In fact, the pawnbroking industry in Europe is also initiated by the Church, if we go back further, 2000 BC Babylonian temple, 675 BC Rome, Esirian temple, 500 BC Greek temple, also have the operation of the safekeeping of gold and silver, interest collection and payment, loan institutions.

Two

After entering the Sheng Tang Dynasty, commerce and industry developed greatly, and the pawnbroking industry operated by temples became more prosperous. The two Tang New Chronicle records: "After the Zhenguan, money, silk, gold and embroidery, the accumulation of countless. Often make the monks supervise the collection, for the repair of the world gamelan. Yan, Liang, Shu, Zhao, Ham to take to give. The daily output, but also countless. Or have to move then, also do not write about, but to the period to return to send only." In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the campaign to eliminate Buddhism dealt a severe blow to the monastic economy, and the pawnbrokers got rid of the monopoly of the monasteries and gradually socialized, thus becoming the most central financial industry in ancient Chinese society. Of the more than 200 commercial industries at the time, the largest was pawnbroking, and even the government got involved, running pawnshops with public money ("official capital").

The pawning in the Tang Dynasty was also known as "taxing the cabinet," and the Ziji Tongjian explains, "Folks used material money to redeem at different times, and returned the money to the son in addition to the mother's money." Since the rich merchants who operated pawnbrokers not only had strong capital but also reliable credit, they generally accepted deposits, loans, and storage and safekeeping business in addition to pawnbroking business. In terms of service functions, they are basically similar to modern banks. Modern banks generally focus on deposits and loans, while ancient pawnbrokers focus on mortgages; comparatively speaking, the service object of pawnbrokers is more in favor of ordinary families. In modern terms, the main business of pawnbrokers is small mortgages. Generally, farmers' collaterals are mainly agricultural products, and urban residents' collaterals are mainly gold and silver jewelry and household items such as clothes.

Pawnbrokers and banks **** the same place is to deposit and loan interest difference to profit. Zhenguan years, then prime minister Fang Xuan Ling was ordered to write the "Tang law sparse righteousness" stipulates that "where the quality of the case, the collection to not more than five points, out of the interest over the times; if back to the interest to fill the principal (compound interest), the official does not care." That is, the provisions of the deposit interest rate of 5%, loan interest rate of 10%, not allowed to roll interest on interest. Kaiyuan twenty years, Tang Xuanzong edict: "the future of the world's debt collection, private only four points, the official five points."

After the Anshi Rebellion, the treasury was empty and the government had to borrow from the private sector. "Three years after Dezong Jianzhong, he also bracketed taxpayers' cabinet money." From the Tang Dynasty onwards, the development of the pawnshop industry has been involved in all aspects of society. Du Fu wrote a poem, "The spring clothes are pawned every day, and every day I return drunk from the river"; Bai Juyi wrote a poem, "Pawning the mulberry and selling the land to pay the rent of the government, what will happen to the food and clothing next year". How many human tragedies have been staged in the pawnshop?

The Song Dynasty reached the peak of ancient Chinese society, whether it is political, scientific and technological or economic, cultural, are unprecedented. As the biggest innovation in the financial industry, the world's earliest banknote "Jiaodi" appeared in this period. It was in 1023, the first year of Emperor Renzong's reign. The Song Dynasty had already reached a high level of urbanization, so the pawnshop industry was more prosperous and numerous than in the Tang Dynasty. In Qingming Shanghe Tu, a pawnshop with a signboard of a pawnshop is depicted. The government of the Southern Song Dynasty further increased its efforts to promote the economy, and Emperor Gaozong issued a decree that those who opened pawnshops would be awarded the title of Chaofenglang (朝奉郎), and would be exempted from taxes and corvée duties. From then on, "Chaofeng" became the honorific title for pawnbrokers. The status of pawnbroking was so important that even clothes were different from ordinary clothes. The status of pawnbroking was so important that even the clothes were different from those of ordinary merchants. Tokyo Dreaming Records" records: "the scholar-peasant, agricultural, industrial and commercial lines of the hundreds of households, the clothes have their own color ...... quality library in charge of that is with a soapy shirt, corner belt, not the top hat and so on."

Three

Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the rise of Hui merchants, Shaanxi merchants, Jin merchants and other merchant gangs, the pawnshop industry has become the hottest industry, all over the city of Tongdu. Especially Hui merchants and Jin merchants, there is "no when not Hui" and "no West is not when" said. Ming Shilu" records: "now Hui merchants open when, all over the north of the river, the cost of thousands of gold, class no ten two, seen in Henan Province, counting two hundred and thirteen Wangke." On the pawnbroker industry in general, the South to Hui merchants, mainly in the North to Jin merchants.

The Qing dynasty, both large and small cities, or remote townships, there are pawnshops everywhere. Salt and pawnbrokers were recognized as profiteering industries, and pawnbrokers became one of the main sources of national profits and taxes. Qing Shunzhi nine years (1652), the provisions of the pawning of each household tax silver 5 two; Kangxi three years (1664), the pawning of the industry as a whole industry into the annual tax of more than 110,000 two; thus projected, the national pawning store of up to more than 20,000 households. During the Qianlong period, the pawnbroking industry developed even more rapidly, and the size of the pawnbrokers inside and outside Beijing had developed to more than 300.

Though the Qing government explicitly forbade officials to engage in business, but in fact, the nature of the officials are not good at convergence, these huge sums of money will inevitably have to look for investment channels, so how can we let go of the pawn this money tree. Whether it is the dynasty, and even eunuchs in the palace, their own hidden behind the scenes, looking for someone to open the pawnshop. In fact, the emperor himself is also doing so, the Ministry of the Interior will be public money loan to the pawn store to generate profits. The government's many departments have joined in, and even the Ministry of Justice and Prisons are not willing to lag behind, and the pawnshop industry has become a disaster area of collusion between the government and business, and the use of power for personal gain.

"Heshen fell, Jiaqing eat full." In the era of Qianlong, as a university scholar Heshen is rich as a nation; once Qianlong died, Heshen became the biggest corrupt official. One of the major crimes he was cited is "through the artichoke local pawnshops, money store capital more than 100,000, and the people compete for profit". Heshen opened the pawnshop total **** there are 75 places, the capital up to 30 million taels of silver.

Beijing as the political center of the empire, the crown of clouds, the convergence of business travelers, officials hajj, coupled with the scientific and technical examination will be examined, to become the convergence of the pawnbroking industry. At that time, the situation, out of the people once in trouble, exhausted, immediately in trouble. Whether it was a deposit or a loan, it could not be separated from the pawnbroker, so the pawnbroking industry in Beijing has remained prosperous.

After the "Hong Yang Rebellion", Zeng Guofan, in order to restore the post-war economy, opened a pawnshop with public funds; the statute stipulates that the interest rate shall not exceed one point, and the interest rate shall be gradually reduced to two points by two and a half points and two and two-tenths of a cent. The governor of Hunan and Guangdong Zhang Zhidong also supported the recovery of pawnbroking industry with low interest rate, approved by the Qing government, when the interest rate was set at two cents, which became the universal standard later. In fact, the general investment profit of the pawn industry is between three and three, not much higher than other industries. The reason why the pawnbroking industry flourished, or with the general poverty, because it is the business of the poor, inevitably fall into the "exploitation" of the bad name.

Four

In terms of China's history, before the emergence of money changers and banks, pawnbroking has always played the role of a quasi-financial institution for urban and rural civilians to mobilize funds. In a sense, the history of pawnbrokers is also a history of Chinese people's economy and life. For an ancient Chinese, in order to maintain the reproduction of agriculture and handicrafts and to solve the urgent needs of life, pawnbrokers were the only place to borrow money in the form of collateralized goods. For the people in the poverty era, the significance of pawnshop is far from today's bank, because people's wealth at that time basically did not have a lot of surplus, the body has no spare money, the family has no spare food, abound. Therefore, pawnbrokers had the proverbial "poor man's back door". The "poor" referred to here by no means means refers to the modern relative poverty, but refers to the absolute poverty in which subsistence and basic survival are extremely difficult. In the 1930s, the Department of Sociology at Tsinghua University (Li Shuqing) conducted a social survey on the clientele of pawnbrokers, and the results showed that the poor and destitute accounted for 82.8% of the total, with 48.5% pawning less than one yuan, and 56.9% pawning clothes. For these poor people, who have no family and no belongings, they can only pawn their old clothes for life-saving money, which is actually just barely enough to survive for a few days.

While pawnbrokers' scope of business includes accepting savings deposits and other financial trusts, these are hardly mainstream businesses compared with mortgages until the age of industrialization -- or the age of abundance. A society in which the poor are in the majority is quite different from a society in which the rich are in the majority. To put it bluntly, the old Chinese pawnshops were really banks for the poor. In fact, for most Chinese today, going to the bank to make a deposit has only been a thing of the past 30 years. While traditional pawnshops focused on large deposits for the rich and small loans for the poor, modern banks focus on small deposits for the poor and large loans for the rich; or, in other words, the former lends money from the rich to the poor, while the latter lends money from the poor to the rich. The pawnbroking industry focuses on bailing out the poor, and the banking industry favors supporting business and industry. In the end, the pawnbroking industry and the banking industry are two different forms of the financial industry in the agricultural and industrial eras, and are completely isomorphic in nature.

The twenty-third year of Guangxu (1897), the Ministry of the Qing dynasty to pawn for the lucrative industry and tax collection against the light, from that year onwards, each pawnbroker's annual tax amount from 5 two to 50 two. In this year, the Bank of Credit and Commerce of China was established, which was the first modern bank founded by the Chinese. Prior to this, the HSBC Bank, founded by the British in Shanghai, had been in existence for 30 years. In a copy of the Illustrated London News of April 5, 1873, there was this report on pawnbrokers in China:

The special artist of this paper has obtained from Mr. Penfold, Superintendent of the Shanghai Police, statistics of the pawnbroking trade in Shanghai. There are twenty-nine such pawnshops in the British Concession of Shanghai, paying an average of 75,000 silver dollars a month **** borrowed, with monthly interest ranging from one to nine per cent, but most of the pawnshops pay only about two per cent a month. A pawnshop on Nanking Road with six partners pays an average of 9,000 silver dollars per month for loans, and its monthly interest rate is slightly higher than two percent. Many small pawnshops in poorer areas also do other business at the same time. As for the stolen property, if it is worth money, usually in the big pawnshops. Chinese pawnbrokers are not allowed to ask mortgagors where their belongings came from or to whom they belong. If the mortgagor does not redeem the goods within six or eight months (the period of time for which each pawnshop is pledged is printed on the pawnbroker's bill), they belong to the pawnbroker. The latter would sell the unredeemed items to the owner of the thrift store; the pawnshop would not retail the items itself. All proceeds from the sale of these items go to the pawnshop owner.

China's history has always been a grand narrative, but in its unintended details, the country's ancient pawnshop industry can sometimes be seen, and it can even be said that these details have changed history. In 1900, a Qing soldier, En Hai, shot and killed a German minister, Klindt, and then, afterward, En Hai took Klindt's watch and mortgaged it to a pawnshop. Soon after, foreign detectives recovered the watch from the pawnshop. The "Klindt Incident" became the excuse for the Eight-Power Allied Forces to invade China. 1931, the Northeast Army captured and killed the Japanese spy lieutenant Nakamura Zhentarou, and then pledged Nakamura's watch to the pawnshop, and the Japanese soon found the watch from the pawnshop. The "Nakamura incident" became the "September 18th Incident" trigger.