Chapter 46 The business economy trapped in the quagmire of government and businessmen

The industry and commerce of the Ming and Qing dynasties had completely fallen into the trap of the official business economy.The "buying system" and "money introduction system" that originated in the Song Dynasty gradually became a franchise system in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the three major merchant groups in the Ming and Qing Dynasties-Shanxi Merchants, Huizhou Merchants, and Guangdong Thirteenth Bank Merchants all benefited from it , businessmen are completely reduced to a parasitic class. Franchising is also related to salt administration.Since Guan Zhong, Chinese governments of all dynasties have regarded the salt industry as the lifeline of the economy, and its monopoly income has accounted for a large proportion of annual fiscal revenue, and the Ming Dynasty was no exception.Zhu Yuanzhang rebuilt the Great Wall and stationed 800,000 soldiers and 300,000 horses for many years.Among them, the most densely garrisoned area is the Datong area of ​​Shanxi, where "the capital is forced internally and the barbarians are controlled externally".In order to solve the "trouble of military administration", Zhu Yuanzhang came up with the policy of "raising soldiers with salt", and slightly changed the "money introduction system" to "opening the middle system". The specific method is: merchants transport grain and other military supplies to the northern frontier, Grain is exchanged for "induction", and then the salt is introduced to the designated salt farm to collect the salt, and then sold in the designated area.The implementation of this system led to the rapid rise of Shanxi merchants who benefited from geography. They collected grain and sold salt and ran rampant all over the world. They became the most powerful regional merchant group, which was the beginning of Shanxi merchants.By the mid-Ming Dynasty, the most famous Shanxi merchant families were the Wang family and the Zhang family in Puzhou (now Yongji City, Shanxi). They respectively controlled the two largest salt fields in the north: Hedong Salt Field and Changlu Salt Field.Wang Chonggu, a son of the Wang family, is the governor of Xuanda and the supreme commander of the national defense in the north of the empire. Zhang Siwei, a son of the Zhang family, was the secretary of the Ministry of Rites and the chief assistant of the cabinet. The two families are in Puzhou and married each other, forming an extremely prominent family alliance. , monopolized the northern salt industry, and had a strong official-business temperament.

In 1492 (the fifth year of Hongzhi) in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the gradual removal of the northern aggression, officials from the south implemented the Salt Coup and proposed a new "Zhe Se System", thus changing the interest pattern formed by the "Open Central System".According to the new system, merchants no longer need to go to the northern frontier to pay grain in exchange for salt imports, but can pay grain in the interior to the Salt Transport Department in exchange for salt imports. ".At that time, the output of salt farms in the Huaihe River and Jiangsu regions in the south was increasing day by day, and the annual salt imports of Huai Salt accounted for one-half of the total salt imports issued nationwide.Jin and Hui compete for supremacy, which will inevitably lead to a tragic game. In order to divide each other's interests and prevent new competitors from entering, the government "timely" launched the "Gate Salt Policy", which divides salt merchants into 10 categories. According to the outline, the compendium was compiled, the name of the merchant was registered, and distributed to each salt merchant as a "nest book". "Zheshi" plus "Gangyan" constitutes a contract management system that integrates government and business, and combines the characteristics of franchise and access. This is a great invention of the Ming Dynasty and has a profound impact on later generations.

The "business system" implemented by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty was an extension of the franchise system in the field of foreign trade.When foreign businessmen were strictly controlled and "captive", the government issued licenses to allow qualified Chinese businessmen to trade with them, known as the "Thirteen Banks of Merchants" in history.According to the guarantee system at that time, foreign ships must be guaranteed by a thirteen merchants after entering the country, and all import taxes must be handled by the merchants. The responsibilities of the merchants also include: setting commodity prices, paying customs duties for foreign merchants, Responsible for controlling the behavior of foreign businessmen, etc.If a foreign businessman commits any illegal acts during his stay in China, the customs will investigate the businessman.This unique business protection system made Thirteen Bank merchants an intermediary between the government and foreign businessmen, their responsibilities increased, and their relationship with the government and foreign businessmen became closer, while their power and profitability also expanded rapidly.

Shanxi merchants, Huizhou merchants, and Shisanhang merchants obtained monopoly profits due to franchise authorization.Ming people believed that Huizhou merchants were the richest, followed by Shanxi merchants and Shaanxi merchants-"Xin'an was the richest, followed by Guanxi and Shanyou".According to the statistics of Zhang Siheng and Xu Ke of the Qing Dynasty, the total assets of Shanxi merchants were between 50 million and 60 million taels of silver, which was close to the sum of the fiscal revenue of the Qing government in one year.Contemporary Shanxi scholar Liang Xiaomin believes that the total assets of Shanxi merchants should be around 100 million taels of silver.At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the merchants of the thirteen lines enjoyed the benefits of foreign trade exclusively, and their wealth soared, known as the "Nanku of the Son of Heaven", which greatly surpassed Shanxi and Huizhou merchants.During the Daoguang period, Wu Bingjian had assets of about 26 million silver dollars. In the eyes of Westerners, he was the richest man in the world at that time. The only businessman among the 6 selected Chinese.

Although the three major business gangs are all wealthy, they are all parasites being fed up. Their wealth increase has nothing to do with full competition in the market, industry development, technological innovation, and thus progress.Fairbank wrote in the book "America and China" full of confusion: "One of the most urgent questions that a Westerner has to ask about the whole of Chinese history is why the Chinese merchant class cannot get rid of its dependence on officialdom and establish a An independent force that supports industry or runs enterprises?" His research conclusion is: "The Chinese tradition is not to make a better mousetrap, but to obtain the privilege of catching mice from the government." The merchants of Ming and Qing Dynasties vividly explains this assertion.Whether a country's bourgeoisie is independent and important does not depend on its wealth, but on the way it acquires wealth.

Merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties made more and more money, but their sense of security became less and less. They never cultivated a "merchant spirit". The most fundamental reason for this phenomenon is that from the intellectual elite to the They themselves do not agree that businessmen are an independent class. They have never formed their own class consciousness. This is the most tragic point. As Fairbank said, "The greatest success of Chinese businessmen is that their descendants no longer Is a businessman."After the merchants prospered, they devoted their energy to several major events: first, building an intricate network of officials and businessmen;Wang Shixing, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, concluded: "The gentry's family is not Yiye Kedi, and it is difficult to keep wealth for a long time." They passed the imperial examinations and became powerful people in the system. Only in this way can they "defend" their vested glory and wealth.