Research On Human Relations Of Shanxi Merchants In Ming And Qing Dynasty

Shanxi Merchants flourished in early Ming Dynasty, developed rapidly after mid-Ming, reached its peak in mid-Qing, and declined sharply in late-Qing. It affected Ming and Qing and existed for over five centuries. Its rise and fall, success and failure, experience and lessons are precious, which left us with a wealth of resources, and worthy of being learned from by modern merchants. China attaches great importance to traditional human relations. This paper used new institutional economic historical method, historical research approach, comparative research and documentary research method to study Shanxi merchants of Ming and Qing from the perspective of human relations, which could be divided into five chapters :The first chapter is the background of Ming and Qing Shanxi merchants. More than five centuries from early Ming to late Qing, the international and domestic situation was complicated. There have been lots of experts and scholars studying comprehensively and deeply on aspect of politics, economy and culture, etc. of Ming and Qing dynasty. This chapter will be based on others research results, focusing on three categories which are closely related to the development of Shanxi merchants. The first section describes the administrative division, natural disasters, population geography, etc. of Shanxi in Ming and Qing. Knowing the administrative division will be useful for analyzing Shanxi merchants in the following chapters, and frequent natural disasters and intense population all contribute to commercial activities of Shanxi merchants. The second and third sections focus on the impact of domestic and international environment on Shanxi merchants’ development. The rise of Shanxi merchants is related to the domestic implementation of economic development promotion. Every large-scale business transformation of Shanxi merchants was guided by Ming and Qing government policy. The rise and fall of Shanxi merchants is not only linked with the economic development needs of internal Ming and Qing system, and the success and failure of Shanxi business operation, but also inextricably linked to global economic development.The second chapter is the political and commercial ethics of Shanxi merchants. In this chapter, the political and commercial ethics is to explore the relationship between ruler and subject from a broad perspective, namely the relationship between Shanxi merchants and the monarch, the administrative staff representative of monarchical institution. From ancient times, the relationship between government and merchants has always been the focus, the expression of which could sometimes be different. It is referred to the relationship between government and market in modern times. The institutional structure of ancient Chinese society gave birth to this economic development tradition of government and business combination. Centralized system has far-reaching influence on government-business relations, but the centralization could be strong and weak from time to time. In a certain period of time, the cooperation of government and merchants could promote the development of economy. The prosperity of Shanxi merchants is developed in cooperation with the Ming and Qing government. The tycoons of Shanxi merchants are mostly involved in government-related industries, while the decline of Shanxi merchants also has a close relationship with the government. It can be said that the government plays a decisive role in the rise and fall of Shanxi merchants in Ming and Qing dynasty, The status of business groups have been improved to a certain extent because of economic and social development, which not only provided convenient condition for the government’s development, but also affect the orientation of policies. The two groups influence each other with a relationship of good or bad from time to time. This chapter examines the relationship between government and merchants, especially the understanding of ‘loyalty’ through the changes of the relationship between Shanxi merchants and government. We should not have high expectation of businessman’s moral values. They pursue profit, so the loyalty or treachery largely depends on the government performs their duties responsibly or not.The third chapter is the family ethics of Shanxi merchants. In Confucian tradition, the ‘five relations’ of ‘monarch and subject, father and son, husband and wife, brotherhood, friends,’ ‘three relations" of which are all about family ethics, which would be discussed together in this chapter. The first section is couple. The official families in Shanxi are very particular about marriage between families of equal social ranks. So the merchant families became the primary target for women from ordinary families. The marriage between merchants family is very complex. In order to clarify the relationship between them, this chapter uses the Zhang, Wang and Shen’s marriage as a main line. Because of various reasons, married women in Shanxi business families were prone to die young and were infertile, but a flourishing population for Shanxi merchants’ business development is very important, therefore, many merchants would marry again after the death of their wives. In Ming and Qing dynasties, though the ethical code was more and more stringent, the wealthy class gets more freedom and less moral restraint because of the wealth. Women could used money to get away from the obstacles in divorce. There were also many remarried women to wealthy merchants. The Chastity idea for women was different from mainstream advocacy, and because the commercial characteristics of Shanxi business far from home, merchant couples were apart from each other most of the time. Because merchants’ wives were pampered and the long separation with husbands, it would easily lead to extramarital affairs. Section two mainly describes father-son, mother-child relationship, with particular reference to the common phenomenon of adoptive children in merchant families. This is also the result of sparse population of Shanxi merchant families. Section three mainly deals with the relationship between siblings. In general, they are friendly with each other and help mutually. But because of family wealth, there would be competition between huge amount of property. The most special feature is the property is non-primogeniture.The fourth chapter is the business ethics of Shanxi merchants. In the traditional Confucian ‘five relations’ of ‘monarch and subject, father and son, husband and wife, brotherhood, friends,’ ‘monarch and subject’ is a political relationship, ‘father and son, husband and wife, brotherhood,’ are relationship of blood, while ‘friend’ is a moral relationship, mainly referring to like-minded people. However, in reality, because of large individual differences, deep conflicting interests, and few like-minded people, friend relationship can be extended to human relationships in addition to political and kinship from a broad perspective. In Shanxi merchant groups, friends mainly refer to their business relations including labor relations, relationship between merchants and customers, and peer relations. In these relationships, the interpersonal tie is moral values. The labor relations in late Ming and Qing of Shanxi merchants mainly included the relation between owner and shopkeeper, shopkeeper and clerk and owner and clerk. The complex relationship between customers and merchants included shrewdness attracting customers, honesty keeping customers and duplicity drving customers away. The relationship between peers researches the competition between commercial group and official group, fellow group and groups from different places.The fifth chapter is the public ethics of Shanxi merchants. The second, third and fourth chapters evolved from Confucian ’five relationships’, while the fifth chapter is to study the relationship between Merchants and society, namely, the merchant of social responsibility or social role from the perspective of public service ethics. In Ming and Qing dynasties, Shanxi merchants group is one of the powerful social croup in Shanxi, which plays crucial role in local public affairs. Although Shanxi merchants take business as career and famous for thrifty, they are also generous sometimes. Most of them do not take the pursuit of wealth as the ultimate goal. The engagement of public welfare of Shanxi merchants generally happens more frequently in its commercial heyday. After being wealthy, some Merchants would prefer benefiting the People and understand the gathering and spreading of wealth. Overall, public service ethics of Shanxi merchants can be divided into three categories: merchants’ donation used for government affairs, money used for clan, and rural needy friends. From various kinds of charitable activities that Shanxi merchants engaged in, it could be seen that those merchants who have learned Confucian ethics was more warmhearted towards charity, taking special care upon the dignity of recipients, focusing on sustainability and influenced by the idea of good and evil retribution. These characteristics is beneficial of the cultivation of modern commercial public service ethics.