Shanxi Merchants: The Wealth Story Of Kong Xiangxi'S Hometown

One day in the early 20s of last century, a young couple living in Shanghai, China, was preparing for a long journey. The destination of the trip was the hometown of husband, Shanxi.

This is the first time they have returned to their hometown after marriage, so their preparations have been made more carefully and fully.

The names of the young couple are Kong Xiangxi and Song Ailing.

In the future, they will become one of the most influential families in Chinese history.

Song Ailing was full of anxiety about the trip.

In 1973, American Biography writer Robbie Eunson described the feelings of song Ai Ling in such a language: "as far as she knows, life there is hard and primitive."

But what happened later proved that song AI was totally wrong.

When she was sitting on a chair that was carried by sixteen peasants and entered Kong Xiangxi's hometown, Taigu County, Shanxi Province, she was surprised to find a life that she never heard of before.

Robbie Eunson wrote in Song Ailing's biography that only more than 70 servants were served in the courtyard.

Such a thing happened not only in a family of Kong Xiangxi, but many businessmen in this county lived the same days.

Because at that time some important bankers lived in Taigu, which is often called the Wall Street of China.

In the three year of Qing Xianfeng, in the 1863 ad, a Zhang Siheng called Yu Shi had a memorial to Xianfeng emperor.

In this memo, he wrote, "the country of Chen Fu Si has been held for more than two hundred years.

There are countless ten rich families.

The ministers' eyes are shallow, but the witnesses...

Like the sun in Taigu County, there are more than two million, surnamed Cao, Jia Xing Fu four million, Pingyao county's surname, Jiexiu county's surname, rich three to four million...

Jiexiu County millions of homes to ten, Qixian millions of homes to dozens of.

The total number of wealthy families in these counties in Shanxi increased by more than one hundred and twenty million silver.

This amount is even more than that of the Treasury at that time.

So many rich people have been concentrated in a place for a period of time. This phenomenon is rare in China's history for thousands of years.

Can accumulate millions of household products, probably not because of "selling" or "peddler" such a small business, but to do a big business in a way across the world.

The number of successful business people is so large that everyone lives next door, which makes it easy for people to draw a conclusion that there must be a strong businessman group formed by Shanxi businessmen in history.

So, what kind of people are they?

Fang Hang, a researcher at the Institute of economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Shanxi Merchants is a very important business group in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the Ming government implemented the Sino French law.

By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Shanxi Merchants formally formed a business group and a large merchant group.

We talk about business groups, that is, a group of businessmen formed by ties of neighborhood.

It is mainly composed of traffickers who have certain trade freedom.

In the Qing Dynasty, Shanxi Merchants entered the heyday.

In 1912, this year was the first year of the Republic of China. Mr. Liang Qichao ended his life in exile for more than ten years and returned to Beijing.

In early years, Liang Qichao participated in the reform movement of 1898. After the failure of the reform, he fled to Japan in order to avoid the arrest of the court, and later traveled to Britain, the United States and other countries.

Not only did he see the prosperity and strength of the western countries, he also realized that one of the conditions for such prosperity and prosperity was the prosperity of the whole society.

After returning home, he hoped that those experiences that were clearly ahead of China could be promoted in China.

To revitalize the economy, we can not do without the support of businessmen. So we specially attended a welcome meeting held by businessmen in Shanxi.

On this occasion, he said such a phrase: "I have been abroad for more than ten years, and I have never been able to criticize my country's business ability for outsiders. This is the only thing that has a history and foundation. It can continue to develop Shanxi business."

These words are not polite.

Liang Qichao's evaluation of Shanxi businessmen is not limited to the level of wealth.

He values the unique business culture created by Shanxi businessmen.

All these facts illustrate the same problem.

In the history of China, there were a number of successful businessmen in Shanxi.

Because of their unique characteristics, their achievements even broke through the scope of business, and had a certain impact in the political and cultural fields. Since then, businessmen in Shanxi have had a loud and unified title -- Shanxi merchants.

Although it is known as the courtyard of Qiao family, there is not only one courtyard.

It is actually composed of 6 courtyards and 19 small courtyards, occupying 8700 square meters and 313 houses.

Those who have been here will be shocked by the size of the building, and naturally they will think of the huge wealth represented by this scale.

Many people may not know that such a building was not built by one generation. It was the result of the unremitting efforts of the six generations of Qiao family.

Its architectural age began from the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, and was interrupted until the outbreak of the war of resistance against Japan, which lasted for nearly two hundred years.

Almost all the Shanxi Merchants' courtyards have gone through such a long time.

The size of the area is small to large, and the architectural style is from simple to complex.

The history of some buildings can even be traced back to Ming Wanli.

Ming Wanli was from 1547 to 1577 ad, and it has been more than 400 years since today.

The inspection of ancient architecture is not only for the sake of thinking about the past, but for the history of these old houses, which directly confirms the development of the Shanxi merchants.

Many of the Ming Dynasty's historical documents and scholars' notes also involve more or less the wealth situation of Jin merchants at that time.

During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Yan Shipan, the son of the cabinet's great Bachelor Yan Song, told people: "rich families in the world, more than five hundred thousand of the accumulated capital, and the number of people living in the first place". At that time, there were seventeen families in the country. Among them, "Shanxi three surnames and Huizhou two surnames".

Shen Sixiao, the Ming Dynasty, said in this "Jin Lu": "Pingyang and zhe Lu Hao SHANG Jia Jia world, not hundreds of thousands of people do not call rich."

Historical documents and physical evidence prove that at least when the Jiajing and Wanli periods were in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Shanxi merchants had begun to emerge in the process of business scope and accumulation of wealth.

Dean of Shanxi University Graduate School: he must understand why there are so many people in Shanxi in the Ming Dynasty. I think we should have a basic understanding of the social status of Shanxi in the early Ming Dynasty.

The most important one is the huge population pressure that Shanxi faced.

A peasant war in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasty was mainly fought in the Central Plains.

After more than a decade of war, the population of Central Plains has lost a lot.

Comparatively speaking, Shanxi is a social environment with favorable weather conditions. In the early Ming Dynasty, during the Hongwu years of Shanxi, the total population of Shanxi reached four million.

This four million is equivalent to the total sum of the total population of two provinces and autonomous regions in Hebei and Henan at that time.