Chapter 15 "Go to Yiwu"

Today, Yiwu is a very sacred place in the minds of many farmers and traders in China. "Come from Yiwu" and "Go to Yiwu" are almost synonymous with people rushing to get rich. However, before the 1980s, Yiwu had always been an unremarkable small county.It has nothing to be proud of: it is located in the central Zhejiang Basin, surrounded by mountains on three sides, with narrow streets and low wooden houses. In 1980, the county had a labor force of 280,000 and a surplus labor force of 150,000. The per capita annual income was only 88 yuan. Today's Yiwu people are described as a model of contemporary farmers with a strong sense of collaboration, rich imagination and perseverance.And Yiwu people prefer to say that they have always been like this.The first example they gave was the legend about the origin of 9 Yiwu.

Yiwu, also known as "the loyal crow". Legend has it that in ancient times, there was a filial son named Yan Wu who was born in a poor family, but knew etiquette and was filial to his parents.One year, his mother passed away, and he had no money for the funeral, so he had to build a grave in the mountains for burial.He piled mounds of earth during the day and guarded the grave all night at night, his thin body was getting thinner and thinner day by day. A group of crows on the mountain was moved, and they helped each other with their mouths. In seventy-seven forty-nine days, they finally built the grave one mouthful of mud, and the beaks of the crows were all damaged.

This legend has appeared many times in the works of the pre-Qin philosophers, which shows that it has been spread early and widely.In the first year of Qin Shihuang, this place was named Wushang County, and it was changed to Yiwu in the seventh year of Wude in Tang Dynasty. Chewing carefully, it seems that we can really recall a little collaboration, imagination and perseverance from this legend. The legend is very romantic and the county has a long history, but none of this will help to change the fate of Yiwu people. In the past hundred years, Yiwu has been most famous for "cracking sugar for hair change".

Yiwu is a famous sugar-producing area in the south of the Yangtze River. It has been rich in brown sugar for thousands of years. At the same time, Yiwu's land is barren. In order to increase food production, the local people have the habit of fertilizing the fields with chicken feathers, commonly known as "stuffed hair".In order to collect chicken feathers, farmers often carry sugar loads on their shoulders, beat the drums with their hands, and travel from village to village, "beating sugar for feathers". The newly compiled "Yiwu County Chronicle" records like this: As early as the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, farmers in the county used the county's local brown sugar to make sugar cakes or ginger candies during the winter and spring slack seasons every year, and went to other places to visit villages. Alleys, door-to-door exchanges for poultry bones, old clothes and shoes, scrap copper and rotten iron, etc., for small profits.During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi years of the Qing Dynasty, Tangdan increased the sales of small commodities such as needlework, powder, and wooden combs needed by women.On the eve of the Anti-Japanese War, the number of people in this county increased to nearly 10,000, and it developed into a unique industry - knocking sugar gang.

Obviously, the Tangtang Gang is a farm vendor in the traditional sense.These people are familiar with the people, quick-witted, hard-working, and know a little about business, and the shrewdness and tenacity of Yiwu people may be inherited from this. After liberation, the rural supply and marketing cooperatives purchased better quality chicken feathers for export, and the number of sugar dealers increased day by day. Around the 1970s, at least 10,000 farmers made a living on this.At that time, no one would have imagined that the largest small commodity market in China was shaken from the drums in the hands of these sugar lords who were running around all day.

In 1978, spontaneous rural fairs appeared in Ersanli Township and Futian Township in the east of Yiwu.More than a dozen peddlers set up stalls there, selling needles and threads of various colors, homemade feather dusters, and scrubbing brushes, which can be exchanged for cash or chicken feathers.Because the price is cheap and the location is fixed, it greatly facilitates the farmers in the surrounding area. After a day, the operating income can be as much as ten yuan, which is far better than going from village to village to "crack sugar for wool". For a while, it became a new trend to set up stalls for rest.

Soon, such stalls spread to Chou Township, the county seat. Once a burden was placed, two or three appeared nearby, and then more.The small stalls meandered, and the shouts gradually became loud, and it developed to more than 200 stalls in just half a year. Naturally, a small department store bazaar was born. At this time, the uneasy suspense gradually approached: How long will this small department store be open? How does the local government view this matter? Isn't Zhang Deli's fate waiting for these sugar knockers not far away? It was in this atmosphere of walking on thin ice that the future "China's No. 1 Market" hit the road.