A Research Of Merchants In The Anthologies Of Ming Dynasty

In the Ming Dynasty,the merchants were an important group,which had a very important influence on the politics,economy and culture of the Ming dynasty.The merchant data scattered in the official historical documents,local chronicles,anthologies,notes,genealogy,inscriptions and other literatures.Especially businessmen's biography,posthumous biography,epitaph,tombstone,funeral oration,birthday essays etc,they are very rich historical materials for the study of the merchants in Ming Dynasty.This paper focuses on the The Si Ku Quan Shu,Continuation of Si Ku Quan Shu,and collect and sort out 859 articles of merchants from the 257 anthologies.Based on these materials,this paper makes a study of the merchant groups in the Ming Dynasty to help people have a more comprehensive understanding of the Ming Dynasty businessmen.In this paper,through the study of the merchant groups in the Ming Dynasty.we find that there are a great many people who give up farm production and engage in trading and a great many people who give up reading to do business and a great many merchants who accession to an estate.Besides,we find that there are some businessmen who engaged in agriculture and some businessmen engaged in Confucianism and a small amount of businessmen who give up official career.These businessmen do business on the basis of commercial capital,and the most common way to get their money in business have family money,including agricultural income,marital capital,and inherited assets;Partnership financing,including the funds of the business associates and the funds provided by the consigner;Borrowed funds that comes from family,the rich or the associates.Businessmen with money,began to do business in many industries.Through the investigation of the merchant's native place in Ming Dynasty,we can find most of them come from Huizhou,Shanxi Province,Shaanxi Province,Zhejiang Province,Jiangxi Province and other places.With the development of commodity economy and the rise of merchant status,business is popular in a certain area.In order to cope with the increasingly fierce competition,the merchants use the natural village and clan relations to support each other,forming a certain scale of the regional merchant groups.It includes Huizhou merchants,Shanxi businessmen,businessmen in Shaanxi,Zhejiang businessmen,businessmen in Jiangxi,Fujian businessmen,businessmen inGuangdong,Dongting businessmen,businessmen in Shandong,Henan businessmen,etc.Businessmen as a whole,doing business in all regions,operating a variety of goods.After businessmen get profits through business,the direct investment of profits will be business again.Business people in order to reduce the business risk and profit to invest in land;In order to improve the social status,social reputation and commercial asylum,business people put money into public welfare undertakings andsoldier's pay and provisions;In order to pursue the enjoyment of spiritual life,businessmen invest in luxury consumption;A small number of businessmen invest in the production of goods.The merchant's business is not smooth.Some businessmen can not always do business because of business failure or other reasons.So someone may give up the business to be a farmer,a scholar,a doctor,and some choose to be a monk,a Taoist priest,or a thief.The ancient literatus recorded and praised the merchant's life and virtue,so there are many businessmen in the image.It Including basic morality,such as frugality and filial piety;professional ethics such as credibility and profits by loyalty.But there are limitations in the description of businessmen in the collection,there are a lot of similarities or differences in the image of the businessman in the anthologies and other literatures.Merchants are mostly kind and filial in the anthologies.Because scholars' s heart swelled with complex human relations at the time of writing clip and they are susceptible to beneficial temptation.Merchants are mostly mercenary in the official historical documents,Because businessmen have bad conduct and it is affected by concept of rightness and benefit and traditional thought of emphasizing agriculture but restraining commerce.Merchants are mostly kind and filial in local chronicles.Because businessmen often do good deeds in their hometown and it is affected by principles of local chronicles and temptation of interest.Merchants have positive and negative image in the notes.Because the note is a random piece of material that the author readily records and it is influenced by the style of note.