Patent transfer

More than 300 years from the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty was the golden period for the development of Huizhou merchants, ranking first among all the merchants in the country in terms of business quantity, scope of activities, business sectors and capital scale. At that time, commerce became the "first-class cause" of Huizhou people. Among adult men, business accounts for 70%, even higher at the peak. The activities of Huizhou merchants spread all over urban and rural areas, from Huainan in the east to Yunnan, Guizhou and Guanlong in the west, Youxian and Liaodong in the north and Fujian and Guangdong in the south. Huizhou merchants traveled as far as Japan, Siam, Southeast Asian countries and Portugal. In the late Qing Dynasty, the feudal rule declined, the tax payment became more and more serious, and the situation of Huizhou merchants became more and more difficult. 183 1 year, the governor of liangjiang was in charge of the salt affairs of the two provinces, and Tao Shu got rid of the accumulated disadvantages of Huai salt and changed it to the "ticket method". Huizhou merchants, who made their fortune with salt patents, began to decline, and the pawnshop industry was also reduced due to the left monopoly and the invasion of foreign banks. Due to the influence of the Opium War and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, tea and wood merchants suffered losses year after year. Especially with the invasion of imperialism, the infiltration of foreign capital and the dumping of foreign goods, most of the industries operated by Huizhou merchants were replaced by them. At the same time, the chaebol in Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces, which are closely related to imperialism and warlord bureaucrats, began to rise. Huizhou merchants who only mastered traditional business knowledge and skills gradually lost their manipulation, monopoly and monopoly position in the business field and began to decline. During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, although some Huizhou merchants emerged, such as yi county salt merchant Li Zongmei and Shexian real estate developer Cheng, they could not save the decline of Huizhou merchants as a whole.