Chapter 21 Section 2 Wealthy businessmen and small and medium businessmen

After Fan Li and Bai Gui, there were still free businessmen Zhongcheng Jia, but more and more people fought for opportunities and became profiteers.Many people are "long-sleeved and good at dancing, rich in money and good at businessmen". They made a lot of money and rose to become wealthy businessmen and businessmen. They belonged to two classes with small and medium businessmen.Especially the profiteers among the wealthy businessmen and big businessmen get rich faster and get rich more easily.The objective function and positive role of commerce are reflected in the honest merchants, small and medium-sized merchants, and commercial laborers among the wealthy merchants.As for the wealthy businessmen who broke out from profiteers, they are playing a negative role by defrauding farmers and harming the people, and the proper role of business is completely distorted.This process of differentiation and transformation of free merchants has been evident since the mid-Warring States period.

In the early Western Han Dynasty, the power of wealthy merchants and great Jia was very expanded.The richest are the great salt and iron merchants.For example, the Zhuo family and Cheng Zheng family in Linqiong (Sichuan), the Kong family in Wan (Nanyang), and the Bing family in Cao (Cao County, Shandong) all started their businesses with drum casting; Diao Jian, a native of Qi, became rich by selling salt.The Zhuo family is "rich to the child (slave) thousand people", Cheng Zheng is "rich to the Zhuo family", the Kong family is "rich to thousands of gold" (one gold and ten thousand dollars), and the Bing family is "rich to the gigantic ten thousand" (ten million dollars).The big traffickers who transfer native products from all over the world are also in the forefront among the wealthy businessmen.The Kong family, Bing family, and Diao Jian all engaged in trafficking, and the more famous Luoyang Shishi, "there are hundreds of Zhuanzhu, Jia Junguo, everywhere", and his family wealth has reached 70 million.Power comes with wealth.Both Kong and Diao Jian "connected cars and rode, traveled among the princes", "followed each other and guarded each other", and had deep collusion with the princes and officials ("Historical Records·Biography of Huozhi").They enjoy life to the fullest: "clothes must be colorful, food must be meat", "the crown and the cover look at each other, take advantage of the firm plan to fertilize, and walk on the silk" ("Hanshu Shihuozhi").Some rich merchants and great merchants, such as the Zhuo family of Linqiong, "the joy of shooting and hunting in the fields and ponds is imitated by the king".It's really "a family of thousands of gold is better than a king of a capital, and those who are huge are enjoying the same joy with the king" ("Historical Records Biography").

The wealthy businessmen who are "overwhelmed with wealth and wealth" pour their inexhaustible money into the land.In this regard Xuanqu Ren is a typical example.The Ren family made a fortune by hoarding grain during the struggle between Chu and Han. Later, he used the windfall he made to manage livestock and buy land. As long as it was good land, he would buy it no matter how expensive it was.Land property is passed down from generation to generation, and "the rich live for generations".The Zhuo family and the Kong family are also committed to "regulating the pool" and setting up fields.There was a businessman named Qin Yang who "made a state rich with farmland".When merchants bought land, it was called "to make money with the last, and to keep it with the original".Renting out the land and waiting to receive it (land rent) is not as profitable as business, but it is comfortable and less risky, but it is a stable and convenient business. Compared with the business with fast turnover and high risk, it can be beneficial to the end ("the rich The top, the last richest").Therefore, merchants have always been very interested in merging land.Usury plays a closely coordinated role in land mergers.Whenever farmers encounter various difficulties and are eager to spend money, merchants will take the opportunity to buy their products at half price. If there are no products to sell, they will give them money and charge double interest.Farmers couldn't pay off their debts when they were due, so they had no choice but to "sell their fields and houses for their children and grandchildren", and pieces of land fell into the hands of merchants.Merchants bought land and lent money at the same time. The trinity of landlords, merchants, and usurers became a feature of the landlord economy in Chinese feudal society.Since then, the combination of landlords, businessmen, and usurers has been intensified and developed, and there have been many "land addictions" that devour land.

After the Western Han Dynasty, rich merchants and great Jia accumulated more capital.In the Eastern Han Dynasty, wealthy merchants had as much as 200 million yuan in property, which was double the maximum amount of capital (tens of millions) in the Western Han Dynasty.The wealthy merchants of the Tang Dynasty were even more arrogant.Wang Yuanbao, a great businessman in Chang'an, boasted to Xuanzong: "Please use silk [jianjian, fine silk] to tie your majesty's Nanshan (Zhongnanshan) tree. The Nanshan tree is exhausted, and the ministers are not exhausted." Xuanzong also admitted: "I am the most expensive in the world. , Yuanbao is the richest in the world." ("Kaiyuan Tianbao Legacy") At the end of Tang Dynasty, there was a Wang Jiuhu in Chang'an. Those who can give up 1,000 pennies hit the new bell once, and Wang Jiuhu walked up the bell tower half drunk, knocked it 100 times in a row, and transported 100,000 pennies to the temple in Xishi.These two donations alone amounted to 400 million.Merchants in the Song Dynasty "have the most assets of one million (guan)" (Xingmo has always only 770 texts, which is 770 million yuan in Zumo, Volume 85 of "Continued Zizhi Tongjian Changbian").This surpassed Tang shi's level again.In the Ming Dynasty, Xin'an Dajia (Huizhou merchants) "had a million [qiang] of silver, and the other 200,000 to 300,000 were in the Jiaer" (Volume 4 of "Wuzazu").One tael of silver in the Song Dynasty was worth 1,250 Wen coins, and 770 million taels of silver (zumo) was equivalent to 616,000 taels of silver. The million taels in the Ming Dynasty increased by more than 62%.But in the Qing Dynasty, the capital of Lianghuai salt merchants was enriched in tens of millions, followed by millions.Compared with it, the Ming Dynasty was a little witch's view of a big witch.The rapid accumulation of commercial capital shows the expansion of commodity circulation on the one hand, and the result of serious intermediate exploitation of producers and consumers on the other hand.

Aren't feudal rulers jealous when businessmen get rich?There are endless books about the sharing of profits between officials and businessmen, and the competition between officials and businessmen for profits.However, wealthy businessmen and great Jia have his agents in the court, and some even combine officials and businessmen, and they vent their anger from one nostril. "Businessmen and officials cooperate with each other, but they hold the right to profit" ("Song History Shihuo Zhi"), in the end they are always taken advantage of by businessmen.In order to protect their own rights and interests, some rich businessmen even relied on the most decadent political forces of the feudal dynasty as their backing, and participated in the struggles of political factions manipulated by these forces, which became their dirty social foundation.For example, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wealthy businessmen such as Meng Tuo and Zhang Fan bribed eunuchs generously to "obtain prominent positions".Many of the official positions that eunuchs won after they engaged in the "disaster of party imprisonment" were filled by these wealthy businessmen.In the late Tang Dynasty, the wealthy merchants in Chang’an competed to join the Shence Army led by the eunuchs in order to obtain protection, and they relied on the eunuchs to get promoted; This side of the cow party.Huai salt merchants in the late Ming Dynasty gained a lot of benefits from selling salt due to the relationship of eunuchs, so they also supported Wei Zhongxian's eunuch party.The poor political behavior of the wealthy businessmen (referring to the sycophants among them) has repeatedly appeared in history, indicating that they have completely lost the progressiveness of the early free businessmen. They are not only "rich and unkind", but also multiple economic exploiters of the people. That's it, and become a conservative wing of the ruling class.

Small and medium-sized merchants are in the status of the ruled class, and their status is low. At the earliest, they were the remnants of the previous generation of commercial slaves. Within the scope, "Jia people, so they have city registration, and their parents and elder parents have city registration" are regarded as "criminal officials in the world, fugitives, and son-in-law".The "cheap business orders" of successive dynasties all pointed their finger at them.For example, in the early Western Han Dynasty, "Jia people are not allowed to ride in chariots with silk clothes", they are not allowed to hold weapons, and they and their descendants are not allowed to "be officials as officials".In the early Tang Dynasty, as usual, small and medium-sized businessmen were suppressed, and it was stipulated that "business and miscellaneous categories should not be pre-empted by the soldiers." As usual, only white clothes were allowed, and horses were not allowed. Treated as a pariah.In the Western Jin Dynasty, it was also stipulated that merchants must wear headscarves, on which their names and the names of the items they sold were written, and that they wore white shoes on one foot and black shoes on the other, to vilify merchants wantonly from the image.Although they are short-changed, adulterated, and deceived customers, the objective economic functions of commerce and heavy and trivial commercial labor are mainly undertaken by small and medium-sized businessmen, and they are treated unfairly.

Small and medium-sized businessmen are often bullied by wealthy businessmen who are not listed in the market and are not listed in the market.The city system collapsed in the Song Dynasty, and there was no such thing as city registration. Although the status of small and medium-sized merchants had improved, in the group organization, the distribution of goods sources and the evaluation of prices were all controlled by a few rich merchants in the industry; "Private households should only respond", because of the evasion of large households, the burden mainly falls on small and medium businessmen.

The economic oppression and restrictions imposed by the feudal government have been the shackles that small and medium businessmen have been unable to break free from generation to generation.Excluding non-recurring plunder (such as the palace market in the Tang Dynasty, borrowing money from merchants, etc.), the long-term existence mainly includes the strengthening of commodity monopoly and the aggravation of business tax collection. Under the condition of monopolizing major commodities (such as salt and tea), only big merchants who paid heavy taxes and heavy taxes to obtain the authorization and protection of the feudal government were qualified to operate. Small and medium-sized merchants with meager resources were excluded.In order to survive, they had to "avoid classes" to smuggle. This kind of smuggling was forced by the government, and it was a form of protest against the government's unreasonable commodity management system. For private purposes, using smuggling as an extrajudicial shortcut to make huge profits has a different nature.However, in order to protect the tax revenue of the feudal country and the sales of "regular tax" commodities, the government formulated severe punishment laws to hunt down and punish them (often death).Small and medium-sized businessmen gathered in groups and armed themselves to fight against the officials and patrolmen.Tea and salt sellers often participated in peasant uprisings, and even became leaders.For example, Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi in the late Tang Dynasty, Fang Guozhen and Zhang Shicheng in the late Yuan Dynasty were all salt dealers.Sometimes the uprising was unsuccessful, but it also dealt a great blow to the feudal government.For example, in the Southern Song Dynasty, the tea merchant army led by Lai Wenzheng led an uprising of more than 10,000 people, moved to four provinces, and ran wild for thousands of miles. The panicked Zhao Song Dynasty had to come to a fake recruit.From then on, the "tea and salt bandits" "often wanted to attack the enemy", and the struggle never stopped.

Excessive business taxes caused opposition from small and medium-sized businessmen. This kind of thing happened all the time, and the most prominent one was the city's "civil uprising" caused by the proliferation of tax supervisors in the late Ming Dynasty and the unbearable burden of businessmen.Civil upheavals came and went continuously, and the most famous one was the Linqing incident that caused the "Three Qis to shake".The incident was initiated by three or four thousand peddlers and poor people. More than ten thousand people gathered to break through the tax office, set fire to it, and killed more than 30 minions of the tax office.Afterwards, the rulers of the Ming Dynasty hunted down the "chief culprit", and the initiator "trading as a dealer" and Wang Chaozuo, who was also a basket weaver, was killed, and local businessmen built a shrine to commemorate him.The anti-tax supervision struggle shows that the strength of urban businessmen—"citizens" is growing. Small and medium-sized businessmen are an important part of "citizens". They are the most oppressed, so they are the strongest wing in the struggle.