Based on 136 samples of merchants and their activities, this article analyzes the Shanxi merchants’ business activities in Beijing during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). The discussion focuses on the merchants’ native places, the type and scope of their business, how they managed their stores, successful and failed examples, and the governmental intervention to the merchants’ business. The Shanxi merchants in these samples include business owners, store managers, accountants, shop clerks, servants, and apprentices. Most stores discussed in this article are shops of medium and small sizes with limited amount of capital and few employees. In contrast to the studies of commerce and merchants that often focuses on famous merchants and large enterprises, this article attempts to provide supplemental information on stores of medium and small sizes.
There were three kinds of financial transactions involving rights of land during the Qing Dynasty: debt financing through rights of land, the direct transferring of the rights of land, and the transaction of shares. This article attempts to clarify the confusion between several types of debt financing through rights of land. Ya 押was loan through land as guaranty and repaying the interest and capital by the rent of land or harvest. Dian 典was loan through temporary transferring of usage rights and harvest in a certain period of time. Dang 当 referred to various types of loans which involved the rights of land. Di 抵 meant using a certain portion of land right as repayment of debt. Similar with modern financial methods, these financial transactions in the Qing Dynasty allowed peasants to preserve their possessive rights over the land and also satisfied their financial needs. The direct transactions of rights of land and repayment of debt by harvest included juemai 绝卖 (finalized sale of land), huomai 活卖 (not finalized sale of land), dianquan dingtui 佃权顶退 (sell or purchase tenancy), zhaojia 找价 (price add-on after transaction), and huishu 回赎 (redemption). The main purpose of these transactions was to protect the land proprietors as far as possible. Share transaction and co-tenancy of land also appeared in the Qing Dynasty. Such diverse financial transactions not only were substitutes of modern financing tools which allowed peasants to weather financial hardship, but also promoted the changing ownership of land which further encouraged the combination of different production elements and reallocation of resources in the land market.
The eighteenth century was the heyday of Chinese traditional economic development, that the monetization and sharp increase in the supply of silver stimulated long-distance trade and the rise of regional merchants groups, and increased industrial and agricultural production all reflecting the overall economic development of this period. Along with commoditization and monetization of the economy, monetary supplies and government financial behavior had increasing influence on the economy. The shortage of monetary supplies gave rise to three economic depressions: the early years of the Qing Dynasty, Jiaqing’s reign, and Daoguang’s reign. This study clearly indicates that the scholarly debate over the “stagnation” or “growth” of the Qing economy perhaps merely depends on the period of time and aspect of the economy one examines. The two viewpoints can be somewhat reconciled.
Qiliu hospice in the Qing Dynasty were a sort of charitable organizations established for housing vagrants. According to the distinct functions they served, Qiliu hospice can be divided into different types. Those appeared in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces during the periods of Jiaqing and Daoguang were just a countermeasure to prevent the extortion of petty officials, which had very limited relief targets and measures. But in the modern times, with the quick development of society and great impact from the West, not only the sphere of Qiliu hospice’s relief targets expanded but also relief measures they adopted became more active, which show that Qiliu hospice have already started their course of modern transformation.
After the abolishment of China’s Imperial Examination System and the founding of the Republic of China, the exterior mode of the Chinese scholars’ life, such as their academic research and ways of making a living, changed dramatically, but their real life style, including their habits, hobbies and tastes, did not show fundamental change. From the unpublished diary of an important but non-famous scholar Li Sichun of Sichuan University, with a close reference of Wu Mi’s and Hu Shi’s diary at approximately the same time, one can see that Chinese scholars kept their traditional literate life style and tastes until the 1940s. Therefore, we can make a conclusion that the social transition did not affect many scholars’ real life as profound as many present studies have claimed.