Only a hundred years ago, merchants could not squeeze into the official history of China.Jin merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties did not even have a trace of unofficial history.Therefore, what attracts me to Shanxi merchants is not that he was once rich and powerful, but that he has never put it into words. In the early years of Xianfeng, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was growing, the Qing court couldn't do anything about it.Just raising huge military salaries puts the imperial court in extreme embarrassment.At that time, the central finance did not have much room to maneuver, and it was normal for the national treasury to be stretched.When something goes wrong and you need to use troops, why don't you die?Even the new exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes will not save the urgent situation.

Facing the crisis, under the planning of a group of ministers, the imperial court first introduced a "best salary-raising policy", which was to "play orders to the provinces, persuade gentry, merchants, scholars and people, and donate military salaries." It's just that the word "donation" is not the "donation" of "donation" and "donation", but the "donation" of "donation".To put it bluntly, it means paying money to buy an official.In fact, this special policy is to call on the wealthy people in the world to actively buy officials;From an official point of view, responding to the call and actively "reporting donations" is a noble act of patriotism and loyalty to the court; the central official department will issue you a comparable official license based on the amount of your "donations". Your reward from the emperor.

This was originally an emergency move, but the edict was issued, but the response was not enthusiastic.In troubled times, no matter how rich people are, they should be cautious when spending money.What's more, everyone knows that most of the official positions that the imperial court openly sells are in name only.In times of peace, one has a false title in the officialdom, and still has the mind to show off, but in troubled times, what do you want it to do! But the military situation is critical, the treasury is empty, and the court is waiting to spend money, so if you are not active, you have to be active.Where there is no enthusiasm, it is because the imperial officials there are not effective in "persuading donations".Under the pressure of the imperial court, the first to bear the brunt are naturally those wealthy provinces.

At that time, among the rich and prosperous provinces in the country, who was at the top of the list? It is hard to believe that it is actually Guangdong and Shanxi. "Huguang is cooked, the world is full."Guangdong is also the first place to open the sea ban, and it is not surprising that it is listed as the richest man.It is unimaginable now that Shanyou in Jin Province is tied with Guangdong for the top place. Fu Si The world is vast, and there are many wealthy people, and the most prosperous provinces are Guangdong and Shanxi.It is rumored that in the past few months, Shanxi merchants who were trading in Beijing, and those who reported to the government and quit their jobs to return home, have left Beijing with tens of millions of capital, which shows the prosperity of Shanxi Province.And Guangdong is a famous and rich area.If we can persuade donations in these two provinces, it will be useless.

This is a memorial presented to the emperor by Prince Hui and others on April 11th in the third year of Xianfeng.At that time, from the central government to the local government, such memorials were continuously presented, all of which were to ask the emperor to take the lead, ordering the provinces of Guangdong and Shanxi to take the lead and "donate and lose".There was a supervisory censor named Song Yanchun of Fujian Province who actually made a list of the names of the Jin people who did money business in the capital, and used it as an appendix to the above memorial, "respectfully presenting it to the imperial audience".According to the memorial, these names "have about one million taels of silver in each bank", and should be ordered by the Ministry of Households to "communicate and persuade them to lose".

The emperor, who was in a hurry, continued to send "edicts" urging donations to the governor's yamen in Guangdong and Shanxi provinces, and strictly ordered "to order the subordinates and persuade them to donate widely", without any excuses to shirk their responsibilities. In the third year of Xianfeng, the "gentry, merchants, scholars and people" in Shanxi bought officials and donated more than 1,599,300 taels of silver, ranking first among all provinces in the country.This year, the non-governmental donations across the country were only 4.27916 taels, and Shanxi accounted for 38%, which really carried the bulk.

However, this did not seem to satisfy the imperial court, and they continued to send officials down to investigate and urge donations.The following "shangyu" was issued by the emperor in August of the fourth year of Xianfeng, the governor of Shanxi Hengchun, and the dissatisfaction overflowed between the words: From the beginning of "persuading donations" in the early years of Xianfeng to the last years of Guangxu, most of the senior governors in Shanxi had a headache about how to complete the donation tasks assigned by the court.The imperial court always opened its mouth like a bottomless pit, sucking on Shanxi, because Shanxi was so rich at that time.

"Shanxi Province is rich and full of merchants." During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were Huizhou merchants in the south and Shanxi merchants in the north.Ming Xie Zhaozhe said in "Wuzazu": For those who rule the roost of the rich, Jiangnan promotes Xin'an, and Jiangbei promotes Shanyou... Shanyou is richer than Xin'an, whether it is salt, or silk, or reselling, or cellaring millet.Xin'an is extravagant and Shanyou is frugal. After entering the Qing Dynasty, Shanxi merchants were still richer than Huizhou merchants, not only because of a word of frugality, but also because of two original innovations in business.One is to create and have been monopolizing the border trade with Mongolia and foreign trade with Russia, opening a tea road to Europe by land.One is to create the bank account industry of financial remittance, "holding the national financial leader".These were all great commercial endeavors of that era, but they were not revealed by the official history.

Let’s just talk about the ticket number, which is actually the later bank.Paper money was banned in the Qing Dynasty, and the circulation of silver ingots and copper coins as currency was very inconvenient.China is so big and the transportation is inconvenient. When going out to do business, the carrying and delivery of business capital has become a big problem.Escort bureaus flourished in the Qing Dynasty because there were too many long-distance escorts of money.Shanxi merchants have unique insights in this point, and created the bank account industry for the exchange of money in different places.The voter, the certificate, and the contract.It is very common today for you to write a bill at the Bank of Communications in A, and then draw the silver with the bill in B, but in that era, it was almost a revolution in currency circulation.As soon as the ticket number was issued, it was greatly welcomed by the business community, and the business became more and more popular and bigger and bigger.Later, even the government handed over money and food, dispatched military pay, that is, the transfer of official funds between the provincial treasury and the national treasury, and also handed over to Shanxi Bank to undertake.The ticket number has also been expanded from financial remittance to deposit and loan, which is no different from that of a bank.

Such a hot financial business as the ticket office has been monopolized by Shanxi businessmen from its birth to its demise, and it was commonly known as Xibang at that time.The ticket dealers in the west were also concentrated in the three counties of Qixian, Taigu, and Pingyao in the middle of Shanxi, and were subdivided into three small gangs: Qi, Tai, and Ping.Only the West Bank can open the ticket number, and no other bank can open it. In addition to the irreplaceable financial resources and reputation of the West Bank, it is also because of its unique philosophy and precise rules.Hu Xueyan in the south of the Yangtze River is probably the only businessman who dared to follow the example of Shanxi bank, but his southern Fukang bank flourished and fell quickly.Xibang Piaohao seems to just watch it rise and fall quietly.After Fukang, even the Qing Dynasty went on a journey of decline, but the merchants of the Western Gang went to their own glory.

But, in this brilliance, what is bred?