| Zhengzhou included many counties in modern times,which formed a relatively independent region from the perspective of economic geography and belonged to one administrative region for most of the time in the history.Up to now,these counties are still under the current jurisdiction of Zhengzhou.Since ancient times,Zhengzhou had been a region with relatively developed transit economy,but it was an inland city with relatively backward economy in the late Qing Dynasty.Fortunately,in the process of modernization,due to railway construction and other reasons,Zhengzhou’s economy has gradually developed,and its core city has been known as "Little Shanghai","Little Hankou" and even "Oriental Chicago","Lifeblood of North China" and "Head on the Northern Traffic Line".This historical transformation of urban economy can be called a "miracle of industrial and commercial modernization".This paper presents a rational thinking on the overall appearance,historical process,fundamental motivation,overall characteristics and other important issues of Zhengzhou’s historical change from the perspective of industry and commerce.The author has collected various archives,local records,official documents,reports and other documents in modern Zhengzhou,as well as relevant academic papers and works of previous researchers.Contents related to Zhengzhou’s modern industry and commerce are comprehensively and systematically re-refined,logically integrated and systematically considered according to the time context and industry types with historical evolution,management mode,industrial and commercial organizations,etc.as the main contents.On this academic basis,under the vision of "overall historical view",this paper makes a comprehensive study on the industry and commerce within the whole administrative region of Zhengzhou in modern history from 1904 to 1948 by using the methods of history,social history,economic history and statistics.In this study,the discussion on the historical background and stage of industrial and commercial modernization in this region,the discussion on the spatial structure of industrial and commercial blocks and market towns from the perspective of regional economic geography,and the refinement and summarization of the overall characteristics of industrial and commercial modernization evolution are basically macro studies.The discussion on modernization process of representative industries,the types of representative merchant types,the internal organizational structure and management system of new enterprises in the modernization of industry and commerce,the inherited and innovative business models and marketing strategies of industry and commerce,and the industrial and commercial organizations and their social activities in the public domain belong to the medium-micro research.By studying the historical background and five stages of Zhengzhou’s industrial and commercial modernization,this paper expounds the timeline of Zhengzhou’s modern industrial and commercial history,the structural problems of "valuing commerce and neglecting industry" and the major historical reasons for its ups and downs;demonstrates Zhengzhou’s unique economic geographical location advantages,transportation mode,efficiency advantages and institutional advantages of inland commercial port arrangement as the hub of cross-shaped railway economic corridor.Referring to"Central Place Theory","Skinner Model" and "Economic Spatial Order Theory",this paper macroscopically points out that in the modern area of Zhengzhou,even within the scope of the cross-shaped railway economic corridor,there is a "center--edge" model with railway station-commercial port as the center or Zhengzhou economic geographical unit as the center among industrial and commercial blocks,industrial and commercial towns,cities and Zhengxian County industrial and commercial district,as well as the industrial and commercial spatial changes and three-level or multi-level regional central economic structure under this model.Based on trade-offs according to the academic themes and problems as the yardstick,this paper makes a special discussion on the historical development of the basic,important and representative industries for the selection of the modern industry and commerce in Zhengzhou;demonstrates that there are some unbalanced and uncoordinated industrial structures in modern industrial and commercial industries in Zhengzhou,such as weak technical endogeneity,low industrial level,heavy dependence on railway and cotton textile industry,emphasis on commerce and negligence in industry,etc.;expounds that the lack of local geographical and related industrial and commercial forces and the obvious differences in economic development in the region are the major reasons why Zhengzhou’s industrial and commercial economy is more typical in convergence and dispersion,and its "transit" economic form is more obvious.Therefore,compared with other industrial and commercial cities,Zhengzhou is more vulnerable to the influences of various social situations and natural disasters,thus showing prosperity and depression that are more likely to change.The demonstration of special merchant types shows that Zhengzhou industry and commerce at that time showed obvious characteristics of military commerce and military-political-commercial integration.The research on the internal organizational structure and management modes of industry and commerce shows that there are many "dualization"phenomena in the modernization of Zhengzhou’s industry and commerce.Zhengzhou,as a regional central industrial and commercial city in modern times,has diversified and rich marketing modes in economic activities of various industries,especially newspaper advertisements are the new favorite marketing carriers in Zhengzhou’s industry and commerce at that time.In the demonstration of modernization of industrial and commercial organizations,this paper focuses on the new organizations including chambers of commerce and trade associations,performs selective discussion and representative statistics of the establishment and reorganization of Zhengzhou chambers of commerce and trade associations in different historical periods,and expounds the organization and modernization evolution of Zhengzhou’s modern industry and commerce from the perspective of organization and industry.From the perspective of "opposition municipal power network",this paper identifies the elements of civil society embodied in the social activities of modern industrial and commercial organizations and related groups in Zhengzhou in the public domain,especially identifies the unique characteristics that their related activities were related to the early Chinese labor movements and the early Chinese Communist Party,which is different from the social activities organized by ordinary merchants,etc.In summary,through a series of studies and on the basis of the current achievements in academic circles,this paper goes beyond former Zhengxian County,the vision of previous studies on Zhengzhou’s modern economic history,and establishes the overall academic framework of Zhengzhou’s modem regional industrial and commercial research;observes and presents the modem industry and commerce in Zhengzhou from multiple perspectives from multiple perspectives;further enriches and refines the existing academic achievements;puts forward new understanding or interpretation for important issues based on historical materials;demonstrates many characteristics of the modernization evolution of Zhengzhou’s industry and commerce in detail,and identifies four representative capital types,different management modes,organizational forms and their representative firms and enterprises of Zhengzhou’s modern industry and commerce,and their fate and reasons in the modernization process;It also summarizes the "transit" economic form of Zhengzhou’s modern industry and commerce,and refines its essential or representative overall characteristics of super convergence and dispersion functions,which are obviously different from or exceed many industrial and commercial cities,including transportation hub cities. |
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