Study On Pu Town Business During The Qing Dynasty

Town business studies have been the important areas of regional social historyresearch. In this paper, the author studies a small town named Pu city which is locatedin the middle reaches of the Yuanjiang River. The formation of Pu city’s business hasexperienced a long and gradual process. Since the Qing dynasty, with the needs of theconstruction of the coastal towns, after the central government dethroned thechieftains and began to appoint local officials on their own in the Qing dynasty inXiangxi area, Pu city, by its superior regional environment, became the economic hubconnection of big southwest and eastern China, and gradually became a vibrant townin Yuanjiang valley.Firstly, Pu city’s commercial development was prosperous in the shippingindustry in Qing dynasty. Because of its convenient traffic, it attracted a large numberof foreign merchants to the migration, and became a distribution of salt, porcelain andother goods. Each big merchant had built a large number of loading and unloadingcargo wharf through wholly owned or joint way, such as Pu city grand pier, theZeng’s wharf, Longevity palace wharf, and then, promoted the development of thetransportation trade. With the opening of the Xiangxi’s portal after the appointment oflocal officials by the central government, more to promoted rapid economicdevelopment in the Yuanjiang River basin. Pu city, as a town in the middle reaches ofthe Yuanjiang River, in addition to the exchange of wood and agricultural productsand other traditional goods, started the exploitation of natural resources and mineralresources, and iron ore industry, oil industry, firecrackers and other industries rapidlyrose, so that Pu’s commodity economy had been an unprecedented development, andthe Pu had become an important material distribution center and trading market in theYuanjiang River Basin and Xiangxi region. With the increasing development ofindustry and business population, in order to business convenience, then,Pu city hadestablished various types of "hall", with the emergence of the so-called "Thirteenprovince hall buildings" situation, and it showed the following two characteristics: thefirst was by fellow co-founder, such as Jiangxi Hall (also known as Longevity Palace);the second was created by types of industry.They were closely linked with theadministrative, military bureaucratic. These Halls regulated the market through thedevelopment of the statutes, exchanged business information by gathering friendship,and increased the prestige of the resort via the charity and the founded schools etc..These had expanded the influences of businessmen and promoted commercialdevelopment.Pu city’s business development in the Qing dynasty, had promoted Pu’surbanization, diversification of the public cultural life and the development andchange of the cultural concepts etc.. Those not only directly and mainly reflect thecharacteristics of the development of the town along the Yuanjiang River, at the sametime,to a certain extent can be a perspective view of the Xiangxi town’s commercialdevelopment in the Qing Dynasty. This article, from the perspective of the regionalsocial history, explores the reasons and performances for Pu’s urban commercial inQing dynasty, which is the starting point of this study.