Study On Non-governmental Lending In Luoyang Area In Qing Dynasty

In the Qing Dynasty,Luoyang city was the jurisdiction area of Henanfu province.Except Lingbao,Wanxiang and Shanxian counties,the jurisdiction of Henan government remained basically unchanged in other periods after 1724.Overall,the local non-governmental lending activities were very active.in addition to private lending,there were many Non-governmental organizations joining in lending activities.These non-governmental organizations include pawnshops,shops,Duihui organization,Yunhui organization and Danghui organization.Some of them were dedicated to lending for profit,and some were developed from public welfare organizations.In the Qing Dynasty,both the lender and the borrower in Luoyang appeared the situation that someone lent many times or someone borrowed many times.This showed the frequency of private lending and the situation that small farmers depended on borrowing to maintain their normal livelihood.In the Qing Dynasty,private lending in Luoyang could be divided into life lending and productive lending according to the use of funds.Secured lending and credit lending were distinguished on the basis of whether or not there is a guarantee.On the whole,most of them were living loans.In secured lending,the insurer seldom assumed joint and several liability.There were also lending activities without middlemen,but they mainly focus on the special situations in which the borrowers and lenders are very familiar and trusted.In the Qing Dynasty,the interest rate characteristics of money lending and physical loan in Luoyang area were different.The interest rate of money lending mainly concentrated on the monthly interest rate between one point and three points,and there was usury.There were many cases of zero interest in physical lending,but if interest was collected,the upper limit was to increase the monthly interest rate by 5.In the Qing Dynasty,there were many appellations for middlemen in the folk lending in Luoyang area,but they could be divided into three categories: middle-class people,the witness and the guarantee.Middle-class people played the functions of introducing transactions,witnessing transactions,handing over repayments and mediating disputes;the witness bore the responsibility of witnessing transactions;the ordinary guarantor only bore the responsibility of witnessing transactions and demanding debts,while the special guarantor bore the joint and several liability.In the Qing Dynasty,the violent conflicts of private lending in Luoyang area were mainly caused by the rejection of loans,the demand for profits and so on.Its solution was biased towards the borrower.In the case that both the legal provisions and the moral norms are biased towards the borrower,the lender's Inferior position was created.The participation of middlemen in private lending can avoid some violent conflicts.The structure of loan contract in Luoyang area mainly includes the following parts: a beginning sentence,a sentence indicating a guarantor,reasons,the subject matter,a sentence indicating the disposal of an intermediary,repayment time and interest rate,responsibility for breach of contract,and end of sentence.And the loan contract will highlight the dignity of the lender by omitting the lender's name and some special formats.However,from the reign of Emperor Daoguang,the format characteristics reflecting the special status of lenders were gradually abolished and continued to the Republic of China.Such a change in format reflected the trend of equalization of the status of both borrowers and lenders.From the content of the loan contract in Luoyang,the concept of "interest-oriented" dominated people's lending behavior,and the economic law also made the lenders have to achieve the maximum of profit and capital within a reasonable range of interest rates.