Chapter 32 postscript

After writing the last chapter, I feel relieved and a little bit disappointed.Writing this long volume was more tiring than expected, but also more "charming" than expected.For more than two years, I was immersed in this "Silver Valley" with all my heart, and I didn't know that the outside world was "crossing the century".Unless it is unavoidable, I have to write two to three thousand words every day. I feel tired from time to time, but I often have the pleasure of writing freely.Writing for such a long period of time, the tiredness is always accompanied by pleasure. This kind of experience has not been many before, and I am afraid that there will not be many in the future.

Today is the off-season for novels, and the reason for writing such a long scroll for a long time is actually very simple: I want to work hard to write a good-looking novel. The Xibang merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties are unrevealed business legends.In particular, their original ticket number was a financial legend in the Qing Dynasty.Hu Xueyan achieved his personal legendary life by imitating the ticket number, and the ticket number was successful, and the ticket number was also lost.In Qi Taiping, the stronghold of the Western Gang, wealthy businessmen and rich men like Hu Xueyan are a group.But this novel of mine is not about a wealthy businessman group, nor about a regional legend, but takes a wide-angle perspective: I write about the bank account as a legendary financial system and commercial system.

The bank is a native financial business in China, and it regards the Eastern and Western Banks of the same period as different.But it is heterogeneous in the society in which it lives.The orthodoxy of the imperial court has always been light on merchants, and the order of respect for scholars, farmers, workers, and merchants has never been easy through the ages.As for Xibang himself, because his business has expanded and his influence has reached, he actually changed the sacred Confucian values ​​of "study and excellence will lead to officialdom" into "study and excellence will lead to business": first-class handsome children are all competing for votes; The younger generation, only to study and seek official positions.This is a terrible disintegration of feudal orthodoxy.But it hides its front, and in the feudal and centralized society like the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it actually achieved a national cause.

Xibang was born with "knowledge, shame, and long legs" and is famous for "affordable compensation". It turns wisdom and virtue into its largest business capital. In the financial industry that needs credit most, it has been the leader of the country for more than a hundred years. .It disintegrates the orthodoxy and ethics of that society, but promotes the economic development of that society.This should be a legend. However, what I am doing is a novel, and I am not trying to explain the above reasons.Novels must be good-looking first.Historical novels are good-looking, mainly rely on the charm of history, the charm of historical facts, and not just rely on the "joking" of today's people.This is the rule of historical fiction.In fact, without sufficient historical facts as a basis, it is difficult for people today to "joke" the legend of the West Gang.

When I was collecting relevant materials, I found a copy of "Shanxi Ticket Shops", which was first published in the 26th year of the Republic of China.The author, Mr. Chen Qitian, was a professor of sociology at Yenching University at that time.In order to write this "Kaolue", he visited the surviving ticket offices in Beiping, and also went to "Qi Taiping" to conduct field investigations.I also used my visit to Japan to collect relevant documents from various economic research institutes in that country.But at the end of "Kaolue", he wrote the following sentences: "The poverty of Shanxi ticket shop materials has reached the extreme. The strangest thing is "Shanxi Provincial Chronicles", the local chronicles of Taiyuan, Qixian, Pingyao and Taigu, there is no One word mentioned the ticket shop." The materials he obtained from interviewing the old ticket shop were only "some fragmented rumors and fragments of memory".I don't earn much in Japan.

The official history of the official revision does not accept the word "piaozhuang", which shows that the official's neglect of business has also reached the extreme.And the bank itself is not easy to keep writings for the sake of "hiding wealth", "hiding power" and keeping business secrets.Therefore, the history of ticket numbers has really become a secret history.Regarding the origin of the ticket number, there is a widely circulated legend, which is full of secret history.According to this legend, when Li Zicheng fled from Beijing at the end of the Ming Dynasty, he fled through Shanxi with a huge amount of gold and silver looted, and lost it all the way. "Shanxi people get their capital to set up ticket numbers."The ticket number rules are extremely strict, and it was established by two famous people, Gu Yanwu and Fu Shan, so it can last forever.It is even said that the ticket office also has the secret mission of gathering wealth for the anti-Qing and Ming Dynasty.According to the discrimination and falsification of Mr. Chen Qitian and other scholars, this kind of legends are just folk legends and romances.

However, the legendary and secret history of Xibang Bank is very suitable for novels.It is too tempting for novel writers to unearth the hidden secret history and reproduce its once legendary truth.But this is also a bit like an archaeological excavation, which requires care, patience, and a long period of time.Unlike "Joking" and Romance, which are made of antique products, you don't have to follow too many rules. Before I was 20 years old, I lived in Taigu County in "Qi Taiping". Both my grandfather and my father did business there, and of course they were only small businessmen. In 1986, I decided to "abandon agriculture and go to business". After writing from rural subjects to Shanxi merchants, I first went to Qixian County in "Qi Taiping" for three years.Since then, he began to pay attention to all historical materials and documents related to Xibang merchants and ticket numbers.During this period, Shanxi's academic circles, financial circles, historians and other cultural and historical workers also conducted in-depth research on Shanxi merchants and bank accounts, with fruitful results.This has benefited me a lot, greatly enriched the creative materials, and broadened my thinking.

After 15 years of careful and patient excavation and accumulation, we finally stripped away some of the obscurations that obscured the Xibang merchants and their bank accounts, and touched some of their bones.That seems to be enough for fiction.Giving flesh and blood, and even soul, to these muscles and bones is the work of novels.What I want to say is that the material for this novel is not easy to come by, so I dare not be sloppy when I enter the writing. Fiction is supposed to be engaging.The legend of the ticket number also provided a lot of scenic spots and places. I had to pay attention to how to "lead" well.Neither can it be like riding an electric cableway to make the scenic spot come too easily; nor can the journey be too boring because of the scenic spot ahead.There must be a story with a hard-to-see ending, and characters who make people worry about it to the end.The language has also been "purified" as much as possible, borrowing from the old vernacular, adding modern spoken language, and filtering out the traces of "Europeanization".In short, try to make the novel easy to read.

From today's perspective, the Xibang Bank a hundred years ago is of course a very backward and decadent financial system.But its understanding of "business" and awe of "business"; it uses our own cultural resources in China to nourish "business"; in such a social environment that is discriminated against by mainstream culture, it pushes "business" to The degree of maturity seems to be worth looking back at today. In 1986, when I started to pay attention to the businessmen in the West, "business" seemed to be at the bottom of all trades; today, no one talks about business.When I was writing this novel, I often fancied: If our commodity economy today is at the height reached by the Western merchants a hundred years ago, if we move forward, how can we strive to become one of the "Top 500" in the world's commerce, or sweep away the market? It may not be as difficult as it is now to counterfeit and shoddy.

In short, I hope that this novel will firstly be good-looking, and secondly, it will be beneficial after reading it.that is it. It is for remembering.