Republic Of China Huizhou Merchants And Social Change

The monopolization status of the Hui salt merchants had lost due to the innovation of salt industry which happened in the period of Emperor Daoguang in Qing Dynasty. At the same time, the Hui merchants were also in the shape of declining tendency because the Hui salt merchant's power gradually declined. During the Republic of China period, the status of Hui merchants could not compare with their status in Ming and Qing Dynasties. But Hui merchants were still active in those parts of zone. During Ming and Qing dynasties, Chiang-Nan was a key zone where Hui merchants lived in. There is a proverb that no Hui merchants,no market or no Hui merchants,no town.With shanghai port-opening in modern times, Shanghai had become a radiation place and attracted many groups of merchants which wanted to seek the benefit. The Hui merchants group was one of the most important groups in shanghai in that time.This dissertation takes Hui merchants who lived in shanghai as the research object in order to study their development venation, explore their difficulties and chances under the background of the variation of society and economy in the modern times, further analyze their developmental reason during the Republic of China period and use them as medium to probe into the cultural interaction between Shanghai and Hui zhou. This dissertation thinks that shanghai tea market was gradually ripe and the potential of the market drove the Hui tea merchants to come there. The high grade tea, the habit of doing business of Hui zhou local people and the management experience of selling tea drove the groups of Hui merchants to go on doing tea business in shanghai. The society's transformation in modern times gave a huge impact on the traditional commercial groups. But this impact could not make the traditional commercial groups exit from the historical stage. Facing the challenge, the traditional commercial groups owned the adjustment ability which made them adapt to the changeable society by themselves. Meanwhile, the developments of Hui tea merchants who lived in shanghai were the outcome of symbiosis between traditional society and modern society in the process of social changes.