No Town Without a Hui Merchant

    Hui merchants were one of the ten powerful merchant groups in China during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911), and exerted a strong influence in the country’s business circles for about 300 years. It is said that it was natural in the past for most Huizhou male adults to choose business and trade as their means to make a living because Huizhou was a mountainous area with limited arable land and overabundant manpower. Hui merchants rose to commercial prominence as early as the middle of the Ming Dynasty and maintained this status to the end of Emperor Qianlong’s reign (1736-1796) in the Qing Dynasty. During that period of time over 70 percent of Hui males were engaged in business and Hui merchants topped all the merchant groups across China in terms of their population, economic power and the spectrum of their trading activities. Their traces can be found everywhere around the country, and a saying even went: “there is no town without a Hui merchant.”

    Their business was mainly tied to the trade in salt, tea and wood, but included pawn-broking; the tea business is still flourishing today. Huizhou has been a famous Chinese tea production area since the Tang Dynasty (618-907), with three of the Ten Great Chinese Teas being produced here, namely Huangshan Maofeng, Houkui Tea of Taiping County and Keemun Black Tea. Its thriving tea business was due in part to the fine natural environment which guaranteed the tea quality, and in part to the efforts of Hui merchants. By the end of Emperor Qianlong’s reign of the Qing Dynasty, Huizhou merchants’ tea was the most popular foreign export. The following two figures might demonstrate the relative economic power of Hui merchants at the time: the total assets of the Hui merchants who engaged in salt trading in Yangzhou reached 40 million taels of silver, while the national treasury altogether held around 70 million taels of silver.

    Hui merchants were deeply influenced by Confucianism. Guided by Confucian philosophy, they valued honesty and morality in their business dealings. They made profits based on the Yi rules (Yi in Confucianism means duty or righteous behavior), and paid strict attention to learning new things and accumulating experience. Education, and repayment of one’s hometown were righteous activities by the standards of successful Hui businessmen. After they had made their fortunes and returned home, they were bent on establishing academies and schools and involving themselves with projects in the public good. But no matter how rich they became, the traditions of diligent accounting and thrift prevailed all their lives; most Hui merchants started their business from nothing and they firmly believed that spendthrifts could never build up family wealth.

    In the late Qing Dynasty change came about: due to a series of unfavorable policies adopted by the Qing government, the keen market competition fueled by foreign counterparts, and the impediment of traditional but backward operation methods, the businesses run by Hui merchants were gradually eclipsed. Today only Tunxi Old Street, with its many old and well-preserved shops, vividly evokes images of the prosperity they once knew here. Situated in Tunxi District of Huangshan City and dating back hundreds of years, this is one of the best-preserved pedestrian commercial thoroughfares in China. Its construction was initiated in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and it gradually evolved into Huizhou trading center during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Many beautiful old shops still stud both sides of the street, with their backyards used as workshops or residences.

    Over ten time-honored brands still exist on Tunxi Old Street, including the Tongrende (a traditional Chinese medicine seller that opened in 1863 in the Qing Dynasty), and the Yubutou Tea House (engaged in tea production and sale since 1875 in the Qing Dynasty). Visitors wandering along the street can find various products that bear the imprints of the Hui culture, including teas, ink, ink-stones, bamboo carvings, brick carvings and woodblock prints.

    Neo-Confucianism and the Patriarchal Clan System

    As for philosophy’s stamp on the Hui culture, Neo-Confucianism is an important form of Confucianism. It was first accepted and highly praised by the ruling class at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) and became an officially recognized creed during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Chinese philosophers Cheng Hao (1032-1085) and Cheng Yi (1033-1107) paved the ground for the Neo-Confucianism and Zhu Xi (1130-1200) was one of the most important exponents of the doctrine. Their families all originated in Huizhou. Neo-Confucianism reached its zenith in Huizhou during a period of 600 years from the early Southern Song Dynasty to Emperor Qianlong’s reign of the Qing Dynasty, and during that period it exerted a far-reaching influence on Huizhou’s society, economy and culture. “Following the way of nature and stifling corporal desires” is considered to be the core thinking of the Neo-Confucianism. It also emphasizes the importance of book learning by advocating that one must be literate to know and use rational principles.

    Families in Huizhou were formed based on a sophisticated system of lineage, which essentially meant people sharing the same lineage would live under the same roof as a big family; this basic social institution was dominated by a strict patriarchal clan system.

    In the past every big family in Huizhou would have its own ancestral hall, where family members honored their ancestors, discussed important events and exercised their household disciplines. The ancestral halls can be subdivided to serve smaller groups of closer kinship. A hall was regarded as a sacred place that only the male family members were allowed to enter at will, while females gained passage only on the occasion of marriage into the family or when they were being punished for transgressions. The ancestral hall, together with the family disciplines and the family tree, is the symbol of Huizhou’s patriarchal clan system.

    In Chengkan Village of Huizhou District in Huangshan City there is the Luo Dongshu Ci (Luo Dongshu Ancestral Hall) which was built in 1539 during the Jiajing Reign (1521-1567) of the Ming Dynasty. The hall is positioned to the west and facing the east and the whole complex covers a total area of 3,300 square meters, including a screen wall facing the gate of the hall, a Lingxing Gate, the front patio, two pavilions that each shelter a stone tablet, the front gate, the main court, the hall and the bedchamber. Its majestic scale and exquisite construction has brought it fame as the “No. 1 ancestral hall of the areas south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.”

    Memorial arch (paifang) is a kind of monument built in feudal times mainly to commemorate figures of great virtues, such as a highest graded scholar in the imperial examination, a benevolent administrator, and people of loyalty, filial piety, chastity or charity. It is also an embodiment of the patriarchal clan system. Memorial arches in Huizhou are divided into two categories: the merits and virtues arch and the chastity arch. Today there are 108 well-preserved memorial arches in Huizhou, with 88 located in Shexian County. The most renowned example in Shexian is the Tangyue memorial heptad. Three of the seven arches were constructed in the Ming Dynasty and four were erected in the Qing Dynasty. All of them were dedicated to members of the Bao family of Tangyue Village and they stand in order of “loyalty, filial piety, chastity and charity.”