Study Of The Merchants Of Jiangnan From The Jiangnan Of Family Trees In Ming And Qing Dynasty

Tang and Song dynasties,with the prosperous development of the commodity economy,the center of gravity of the economy gradually moved south,Jiangnan region has been strongly developed,and thus developed rapidly.During the Ming and Qing dynasties,Jiangnan was already the regional market center in the south.As important participants in the market of Jiangnan,Jiangnan’s merchants seized the opportunity of the times to take advantage of their own strengths,combined with local favorable factors,and seized the opportunity of the development of the Jiangnan market,and gradually rose in the commercial market of Ming and Qing dynasties.This paper focuses on the emergence and development of the Jiangnan’s merchant community in the Ming and Qing dynasties from the perspective of genealogy,as well as the interaction between the Jiangnan’s merchants and society in the process of doing business and after their success.The introductory section firstly points out the reason for the selection of this paper,its significance,the definition of concepts,and the research methods,etc.By combing the current research results on Jiangnan’s merchants and the regional economy of Jiangnan during the Ming and Qing dynasties,the necessity of the research on this topic is pointed out,and the research purpose and significance of the paper are clarified.The objective conditions for the emergence and development of the merchant community in Jiangnan during the Ming and Qing dynasties are discussed from the perspectives of the relaxation of the government’s policy of business suppression,the rise of the concept of industry and commerce in society,the agricultural structure of the market-oriented Jiangnan region,the open and leading humanistic concept and the strong business-oriented culture,and the favorable conditions provided by the Ming and Qing dynasties for the business activities of Jiangnan’s merchants.Through the statistical analysis of the biographies of merchants in Jiangnan genealogy,we examine the business areas and business methods of Jiangnan’s merchants in the Ming and Qing dynasties and the ways they were able to achieve success,and explore the external factors for the emergence and development of the Jiangnan’s merchant community.In order to further explore the important influence of Jiangnan’s merchants themselves and their families in their business activities,the specific contents of the genealogies of Jiangnan’s merchants are studied to find the important links between the success of Jiangnan’s merchants and their families from the accounts of family rules,family mottoes,and biographies,and to summarize the internal reasons for the rapid rise of Jiangnan’s merchants among the Ming and Qing merchant groups.In the process of business and its success,Jiangnan’s merchants,as an important social group in the Ming and Qing dynasties,actively participated in various affairs of the local society and made a lot of efforts for the development and stability of the local society by virtue of their economic strength and rising social influence,thus exploring the good interaction formed between Jiangnan’s merchants and the local society.The concluding section summarizes and sublimates the whole text,analyzing the achievements and historical limitations of Jiangnan’s merchants in the Ming and Qing dynasties,with a view to looking at the group of Jiangnan’s merchants and their footprints in the history of Chinese commerce in a more objective and rational way.At the same time,it points out the relevance of this study,as the merchants of Jiangnan had a significant impact on the local and national level in China’s commercial history,and their commercial spirit and fine traditions should be reasonably explored and inherited in the process of building the market order and the development of commerce in China today.