Yangzhou is a provincial city in Jiangsu Province, located in the middle and west of Jiangsu Province, bordering Huai 'an, Yancheng, Taizhou and Anhui Tianchang, and facing Nanjing and Zhenjiang across the river. Yangzhou is quiet now, but Yangzhou is a famous first-tier city in history. As far as economy is concerned, Yangzhou's position in ancient times is comparable to that of Shanghai now.
During the reign of Emperor Jing of the Western Han Dynasty, the famous Seven-State Rebellion broke out, among which the most influential was Wu Wang Liu Bi, who controlled the Jianghuai and Zhejiang areas, where there were many rivers and lakes and enjoyed the benefits of fish and salt. The capital of the State of Wu is located in present-day Yangzhou, which was called Guangling in ancient times.
In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, someone once said such a famous saying, which was mistaken for a poem of the Tang Dynasty. This is "100 yuan riding a crane up (down) Yangzhou." After the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Yangzhou was a first-tier city, one of the economic centers, or one of the salt capitals.
People can't help eating salt. Guan Zhong said, "Without salt, it is swollen." In ancient times, salt was monopolized by the imperial court or by some merchants appointed by the imperial court. Ancient salt merchants were basically rich, and these people had countless amounts of money.
There is a plot at the beginning of the classic brain-burning TV series Yongzheng Dynasty: there is a flood in the south of the Yangtze River, and the court has no money to save it. On May 13th, Yin Zhen sent Huang Hongfa to Yangzhou in May 4th, and with the support of May 8th and September 9th, he fought against the leaders of salt gangs headed by Ren Boan, a salt patrol in the south of the Yangtze River. Finally, millions of taels of silver were pried out from these salt merchants for disaster relief.
Ren Boan and others paid1000000 taels of silver at a time in order to honor their nine elder brothers, which shows the fat of salt merchants. Ren Boan was later sold in May because the white duck was slaughtered by the punishments, so he was exempted from the task of patrolling the salt road in the south of the Yangtze River. One of the conditions for Ren Boan to take refuge in the Prince is to restore the position of Jiangnan Salt Officer, because he knows that this is one of the fattest jobs in the world.
The plot of the TV series is fictional, but the important position of Yangzhou in the salt industry in the Qing Dynasty is real.
Among the salt gangs in Yangzhou, salt merchants from Huizhou, Anhui account for the majority. Where is Huizhou prefecture? Now it is Huangshan City, the southernmost part of Anhui Province. Huizhou was renamed Huangshan City on 1987.
Huizhou merchants are very famous in history. In fact, there are more Huizhou merchants operating in Yangzhou. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, it was said that Yangzhou, though prosperous, was only an economic colony of Huizhou merchants. Huizhou merchants blossomed everywhere in Yangzhou, dating back to Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang originated in the southeast, and Yangzhou, which has a prosperous economy, has long been Zhu Yuanzhang's territory. If Zhu Yuanzhang wants to unify the world, he must raise a lot of money and food. No money, no food, why fight? where is the money to come from? Zhu Yuanzhang lifted the ban on salt, and the people could trade salt independently.
In the salt market at that time, the introduction of Huai salt was the most valuable one. It is stipulated that anyone who transports grain from the south of the Yangtze River to the border of the Northern Yuan Dynasty can get a Huai salt guide (30 kg of grain convertible 1 Huai salt guide) issued by the imperial court, and get a lot of salt benefits. Because Shaanxi is close to the border area, Shaanxi businessmen can transport grain nearby, so it is very convenient to obtain a large number of Huai salt introduction. Merchants in the south of the Yangtze River suffered as a result. After all, Jiangnan is too far from the frontier fortress and the cost of transporting grain is too high.
Ye Qi, the head of the household department in the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty, thought that this rule was unfair to Jiangnan merchants, and stipulated that Jiangnan merchants could exchange Huai salt for silver instead of transporting grain north. Ye Qi did this because he was a native of Huai 'an (now Huai 'an City, Jiangsu Province) in South Zhili, and he was a representative of the interests of businessmen in the south of the Yangtze River in the imperial court.
Shaanxi businessmen have great opinions on this regulation, but at that time, Shaanxi businessmen were strong and said they would go to Yangzhou to sell salt. Anyway, we are not short of money. As a result, hundreds of Shaanxi businessmen gathered in Yangzhou, one of the southeast economic centers. How many businessmen are there in Shaanxi? There are at least 500.
At that time, the salt market in Yangzhou had three pillars. In addition to the strongest Shaanxi merchants, there are Shanxi merchants and Huizhou merchants. Because the regional cultural customs are similar, Shaanxi merchants and Shanxi merchants come together, and one plus one is greater than two. Huizhou merchants were at a disadvantage in the triangle war, but slowly but surely. Huizhou and Yangzhou are geographically closer to Yangzhou than Shanxi and Shanxi, and all kinds of materials can be transported to Yangzhou nearby.
Huizhou merchants constantly suppressed Shaanxi merchants in Yangzhou's commercial competition. How did they suppress it? Simply put, it is a lawsuit. Huizhou merchants were generally born in feudal scholar-bureaucrat families and received strict education. At that time, Huizhou people said that they were either Confucian scholars or businessmen, or left Confucianism and right Jia (businessmen).
Huizhou merchants often find loopholes in Shaanxi merchants' business and fight all kinds of lawsuits, which can basically win. Over time, the commercial control scope of Shaanxi merchants in Yangzhou has been eroded by Huizhou merchants. This competition continued until Ming Shenzong Wanli, and Huizhou merchants took the lead in Yangzhou. After the great turmoil in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Yangzhou gradually recovered its vitality.
Figure-Yangzhou Slender West Lake
The capital of the Qing Dynasty is in the capital (now Beijing), and it needs a lot of money and food from the south of the Yangtze River to go north. In this case, the advantages of Huizhou merchants are more obvious. They won the trust of the court by paying all kinds of money and food to the court. Because of the frustration in Yangzhou business circle, Shaanxi businessmen shifted their targets and focused on operating Sichuan. Many big salt merchants in Yangzhou in Qing Dynasty were Huizhou merchants.