Chapter 2 The first chapter will be Ling Jue Ding

According to the latest Guinness Book of Records, the world's largest bazaar is the fish market in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. We saw it on CCTV's "Around the World" as a five-storey 18th-century brick building.Looking from a distance, the setting sun of the Atlantic Ocean is rippling on the crimson tiles, and it seems to be exuding a strong fishy smell. In the past two hundred years, the "Dutch Pirates", who are diligent in sea farming, have always been the most important supplier of marine fish products in the European market, and its bazaars are also quite famous in Europe.It is said that more than 1.2 million tons of fish products are shipped from the Rotterdam market to various parts of Europe every year, with a transaction value of about US$1 billion.

Those Westerners who are accustomed to eating Dutch fish, when it comes to the world's number one market, naturally go to the Netherlands to look for it. According to Guinness records, the area of ​​this market is: 106,000 square meters. But in fact, this record was easily broken by farmers in Zhejiang, China a few years ago. Shaoxing is a water town in the south of the Yangtze River famous for producing rice wine and literati, and now it is also known for having the largest China Textile City in Asia.A newly built indoor market covers an area of ​​145,000 square meters, nearly one-third larger than the Rotterdam market. However, Shaoxing's market is not the largest either.In Yiwu, the crown of the Chinese market, its well-known small commodity market has changed its location three times and expanded it seven times, with a total area of ​​500,000 square meters at present.

Perhaps people still lack a visual understanding of "how big is 500,000 square meters".To make a relatively close comparison, that is: this area is three times that of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, which is equivalent to one and a half Asian Games villages. In Zhejiang province, Shaoxing and Yiwu markets are not the only two Guinness record challengers. By 1995, there were as many as 30 large-scale bazaars in the province with a market area of ​​more than 100,000 square meters, that is to say, all of them could challenge the existing Guinness record.By 1997, at least eight more markets had been added to the ranks.

In terms of transaction volume, the annual turnover of Yiwu Small Commodity Market reached a record 18.5 billion yuan in 1996, equivalent to more than 2 billion U.S. dollars, equivalent to twice that of the Rotterdam market.And there are more than 10 professional markets in Zhejiang with a turnover of more than 8 billion yuan (equivalent to 1 billion US dollars). In terms of freight tonnage, the Rotterdam market has been left behind by a large margin.Yiwu market currently has more than 90 intermodal lines to all parts of the country, and an average of nearly 1,000 large trucks are driven out every day.

Someone has calculated that if the trucks that have driven out of the Yiwu Small Commodity Market over the years are lined up, it will just circle the earth. It is mighty, day and night, what a wonderful traffic flow.