Sixth Century BCE to Seventeenth Century

by Ying-shih Yü

the carpenter and the carriage- maker” (3B.4). As we have seen earlier, he was

  strongly against “custom and market duties.” Taking these two points to-

  gether, we may justifi ably say that it was his basic view that the interference in

  the market by the state ought to be kept to a minimum. It is in ter est ing to note

  that on these two points, Xunzi’s views are essentially identical with those of

  Mencius.41

  236 busine s s c ul t ur e a nd c h ine s e t r adi t ions

  By contrast, it was the Legalists who viewed both the market and the mer-

  chant class with extreme hostility. The Legalist statesman Shang Yang

  (Lord Shang, ca. 390–338 b.c.e.), not only proposed heavy taxation on the mar-

  ket but also advocated a policy by which, he hoped, the growth of the merchant

  class could be eff ectively checked.42 Han Fei’s hostility toward the merchants

  was even more pronounced: he took them to be one of the fi ve groups who con-

  stituted what he called “the vermin of the state.” 43 It was also he who for the

  fi rst time proposed to call agriculture “the fundamental occupation” ( benwu

  ) while at the same time reducing commerce and trade to a place called “non-

  essential work” ( mozuo

  ), thereby giving rise to the idea of “emphasizing

  the importance of agriculture at the expense of commerce.” 44 In short, the Le-

  galist advocacy of state control over the market was complete.

  In the second century b.c.e., Daoist- oriented scholars such as the Grand

  Historian developed a very favorable view of the business world that may have

  been rooted in the Daoist notions of “nonaction” ( wuwei

  ) and “spontane-

  ity” ( ziran

  ). However, in preunifi cation times, Daoists, as represented by

  authors of the Laozi and Zhuangzi, were equally negative about both state and

  market. Suffi

  ce it to say that under the Former Han dynasty, Daoists became

  Confucians’ natu ral ally in their common opposition to the Legalist policy of

  government mono poly of salt and iron, which marked the beginning of a full-

  scale state intervention of the market in Chinese history.

  2 2 1 b. c . e . T O T H E S I X T E E N T H C E N T U R Y

  If we follow the wise counsel of Fernand Braudel to separate, conceptually, mar-

  ket economy and capitalism, then we can say that with ups and downs, market

  economy was ever- pres ent throughout the imperial age.45 From the late eighth

  century on, it was clearly on its way to steady growth and expansion. In what

  follows, however, I shall discuss, not market economy itself, but business cul-

  ture, which arose from its base in the market. To begin with, a word of clarifi ca-

  tion seems in order with regard to the relationship between the market and the

  state after the unifi cation in 221 b.c.e.

  In this regard, two broad generalizations have been generally accepted al-

  most as self- evident truths. First, the all- power ful state was the main obstacle

  to the free development of the market. Second, the merchant, being placed at

  the bottom of the social order, was always held in contempt by the ruling class,

  including, of course, the educated elite. The fi rst generalization may be con-

  sidered valid but requires all sorts of modifi cation. As for the second one, the

  situation was even more complicated. It not only varied from period to period

  but also often vacillated between idealized fi ction and social real ity. To be sure,

  social biases against the merchant in the entire imperial age were both deep-

  seated and widespread. But the Chinese merchant was not necessarily held in

  busine s s c ul t ur e a nd c h ine s e t r adi t ions 237

  lower esteem than his counterpart in medieval Eu rope, say, up to the twelfth

  century. In the Eu ro pean feudal system, merchants also occupied an inferior

  place. Moreover, the Canon Law was even more severe in its condemnation of

  commercial gain than Confucian ideology. The Church viewed it, honest or

  other wise, as sinful.46

  In imperial China, the primary source of anticommercialism was the state,

  not religion. Han Fei said it all when he proposed, “An enlightened ruler will

  administer his state in such a way as to decrease the number of merchants, arti-

  sans, and other men who make their living by wandering from place to place, and

  will see to it that such men are looked down upon.” 47 As we know, the central

  purpose of Legalist philosophy was to make the state stable and all- power ful. Ac-

  cording to this philosophy, wealth as a source of power must also remain in the

  state trea sury, not fall into the hands of private individuals. When the founding

  emperor of the Han dynasty unifi ed China, one of the fi rst things he did was to

  transform Han Fei’s proposal into law even though he may not have heard the

  name of the phi los o pher. Thus, he prohibited the merchants from wearing gar-

  ments of silk and riding in carts on the one hand and increased their taxes on

  the other with the explicit purpose of “hampering and humiliating them.” 48 It

  is very signifi cant that as late as 1381, the same attitude was still shared by the

  founding emperor of the Ming dynasty. To turn people away from commercial

  pursuits to the “fundamental occupation” of agriculture, he made it a law that

  the use of silk would be allowed to the farmer’s family but denied to the mer-

  chant’s. The law was so strict that even if only one member of a farmer’s family

  should become a merchant, the whole family would be deprived of the right to

  silk.49

  However, law is one thing and its enforcement quite another. Evidence is over-

  whelming that throughout the imperial age, merchants could always use their

  wealth to get what ever they most wanted. The Han founding emperor’s law was

  no sooner promulgated than ignored. In 178 b.c.e., a high- ranking court offi

  cial

  already bitterly complained that rich merchants daily wandered about in large cit-

  ies and market towns. They wore “embroidered” clothes and ate “fi ne” food. In his

  own words, “At the pres ent time the laws and regulations disesteem the mer-

  chant, but the merchant is already rich and honored.”50 This description can ac-

  tually apply to all the later dynasties.

  It was not true to say that the ruling elite from the emperor to the scholar

  generally held the merchant and the market in contempt. Numerous examples

  show that envy was also a feeling characteristic of many among them, especially

  in an age when commercialism reigned supreme. Let me cite two extraordinary

  cases to illustrate my point. At the end of Han Period, Emperor Ling (r. 168–188)

  was fond of playing the merchant game with his court ladies in the inner pal-

  ace. He would have the ladies playing the role of “hostess” of private inns while

  he himself impersonated a traveling merchant checking into each and every

  inn to enjoy the entertainment of the “hostess.” It was one of his most favorable

  238 busine s s c ul t ur e a nd c h ine s e t r adi t ions

  games, which he is reported to have played repeatedly.51 Thirteen centuries

  later, another emperor, in this case, the Zhengde Emperor of the Ming dynasty

  (r. 1506–1521),
again played the same game, perhaps without knowledge of his

  Han pre de ces sor. He transformed the storage houses in the palace into six dif-

  fer ent “shops” and he pretended to be a merchant doing business with them

  one by one. Wherever he went, he made a great deal of noise haggling with

  “shop keep ers” over prices.52 Both emperors played the game for more than

  mere fun; they were really envious of the merchant’s lifestyle and of their

  wealth as well. The former was known for selling top government posts at fi xed

  prices as well as for appointing a large number of traders in marketplaces to the

  secretariat of the Heir- Apparent.53 The latter turned himself into an enterpris-

  ing businessman by sending, in 1513, his trusted eunuchs to open up and man-

  age “imperial business establishments” of vari ous kinds in the capital and

  other big cities. Backed by the state, needless to say, he pushed many a private

  merchant out of business.54 It was by no means accidental that Emperor Ling of

  Han and the Zhengde Emperor of Ming behaved in the same way, for both hap-

  pened to live in the centuries in which commerce and trade were highly fl our-

  ishing. But how doubly ironical it was that none other than both emperors’

  founding ancestors specifi cally laid down the law to “humiliate and hamper” the

  merchants. Forces generated by the market could prove to be, at times, irresist-

  ible indeed.

  Among high- ranking offi

  cials and high- minded scholars, we also fi nd in-

  ter est ing cases of the infl uence of commercialism. Wang Rong

  (234–305),

  one of the “Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove,” possessed all the worst

  features of the vulgar market man. He was fond of making money and accu-

  mulated enormous wealth. His bonds of indebtedness were so numerous that

  every night he and his wife spent hours calculating the sums. The plums in his

  garden were of the best kind, which he frequently sold, but fearing that other

  people might get possession of the pits, he always bored holes through their ker-

  nels. Once his daughter who had borrowed money from him came home for a

  visit without immediately paying the debt; he showed a long face until the

  money was repaid.55 Even if these “tales” may not be wholly reliable, there must

  have been some individuals among the intellectual elite who more or less behaved

  this way.

  However, there is another case whose historical authenticity is defi nitely be-

  yond doubt. In a letter of instruction to his son, Xu Mian

  (466–535) said:

  I have been po liti cally prominent for almost thirty years. My former dis-

  ciples and friends made all kinds of suggestions to me as to what I ought

  to do. Some proposed acquisition of estates, some urged establishment of

  ware houses and wholesale stores, again others advised obtaining boats

  for water transportation, and still others said I should engage in trade and

  moneylending. I refused to take up any of these engagements.56

  busine s s c ul t ur e a nd c h ine s e t r adi t ions 239

  Xu was a leading scholar of Confucian rites and rose to the position of prime

  minister ( zhongshu ling

  ) in the southern court of Liang (502–557).

  Clearly, it must have been a common practice among high court offi

  cials of the

  time to engage in commercial pursuits. From this letter, we also know precisely

  what sorts of business possibilities were open to men wielding great power in

  the government.

  The cases of Wang Rong and Xu Mian thus provide us with a historical con-

  text to appreciate the famous piece of social satire entitled “Qianshen lun”

  (On the Divine Power of Money) by a certain Lu Bao at the end of the third

  century. What it says, in essence, may be summed up in one simple sentence,

  “with money, one can do anything.” The writer made an emphatic point of tell-

  ing us that men of power and honor in the capital (Luoyang) all loved that little

  bronze thing with a “square hole” in it called “money” (i.e., the standard coin).57

  Thus, money was a medium of exchange not only in the business world but

  also between the business world and the rest of the world, including, especially,

  the po liti cal.

  Down to the Tang- Song Period, business culture grew considerably in depth

  and scope as commerce and, especially, foreign trade expanded to a new height.58

  In a seminal study on the Tang market system, Denis Twitchett describes its

  breakdown in the late eighth and ninth centuries as follows:

  The abandonment by the government of their attempts to preserve a rigid

  and direct control over prices and markets coincides with the relaxation,

  in the late eighth and ninth centuries, of the extreme physiocratic theo-

  ries which had led all administrations to adopt a generally repressive and

  hostile attitude toward trade and industry. During the late Tang and early

  Song periods, for instance, many of the laws and policies designed to under-

  line the inferior status of the merchant in society— the strict sumptuary

  laws regarding dress, ceremonial, houses, carriages, the sorts of animals

  upon which the merchant might ride, the denial of participation in of-

  fi cial examinations for sons of merchants— were gradually relaxed and

  abandoned.

  Moreover, a similar change of attitude toward commerce also took place in the

  fi eld of taxation: “Where before commerce had been considered something

  fundamentally undesirable which, since it was, after all, a necessary evil, had to

  be strictly controlled and kept within limits, it was now accepted that since trade

  could neither be suppressed nor adequately controlled, the best solution was to

  exploit it as a source of revenue.”59 These observations based on solid historical

  scholarship are extremely impor tant for our discussion here. In the fi rst place,

  they provide us with an excellent historical background of changes in Tang-

  Song business culture. In the second place and more impor tant, they serve to

  caution against any simplistic overgeneralizations regarding the relationship

  240 busine s s c ul t ur e a nd c h ine s e t r adi t ions

  between the state and the market in imperial China. Contrary to the popu lar

  view that the state control of the market was at all times nearly total,60 we now

  see that long- term growth of market forces could also force the state to make

  compromises at both policy and institutional levels.

  Although we cannot be certain about the power of the merchants under the

  Tang dynasty due to insuffi

  ciency of evidence, I am nevertheless inclined to be-

  lieve that they were po liti cally more infl uential than under any of the preceding

  dynasties. It is truly astonishing that in the beginning of the eighth century,

  several merchants from Shu (modern Sichuan) got themselves invited to a formal

  banquet in the inner palace hosted personally by Empress Wu Zetian. Among

  the guests were Prime Minister Wei Anshi and other high- ranking offi

  cials. The

  prime minister strongly protested, saying, “Merchants belong to a mean class,

  and should not be seated here.” Our source is not clear, however, as to whether />
  the empress actually expelled them from the banquet.61 Thus, while traditional

  prejudice persisted, it did not appear to be always eff ective against the aggres-

  siveness of the merchant class.

  Central Asian merchants ( shanghu

  ; literally, “barbarian merchants”),

  especially of Sogdian origin, were particularly active in Tang China not only in

  trade but in politics as well.62 One Sogdian merchant named Kang Qian rose to

  the position of Protector of Annan and, later, was even promoted to chief mini-

  ster in charge of the reception of foreign envoys on account of his large contri-

  butions to state fi nance after the outbreak of the An Lushan Rebellion.63 As the

  great medievalist Chen Yinke has conclusively shown, the Central Asian and

  other non- Han ethnic composition of the population in northern and north-

  eastern China in the Tang Period was the power base of this rebellion. He spe-

  cifi cally called our attention to two impor tant facts. First, prior to the rebellion

  of 755, there had existed settlements of large numbers of Central Asian mer-

  chants ( shanghu) in the city of Yingzhou, the birthplace of An Lushan (in mod-

  ern Rehe). Second, both rebel leaders, An Lushan and Shi Siming, were of

  mixed central Asian (Sogdian) and Turkish origins, and spoke many languages,

  a fact that explains why both men had been appointed “brokers in border

  markets” in their early careers.64 The following sentence cited by Chen Yinke in

  support of his thesis strikes me as particularly noteworthy: “[Prior to the rebel-

  lion, An Lushan] secretly sent barbarian merchants to vari ous regions [to en-

  gage in trade] and contributed millions of cash and goods each year.” 65 A check

  of the original text has led me to realize that the “merchants” part is as signifi -

  cant as, if not more than, the “barbarian” part. The narrative immediately fol-

  lowing this sentence says:

  During a mass meeting, Lushan was seated on a raised chair, with in-

  cense burning, rare valuables displayed, and hundreds of barbarians at-

  tending to the left and right. Merchants were ushered in to have audience

  with him while he was deifying himself by having sacrifi cial off erings

  busine s s c ul t ur e a nd c h ine s e t r adi t ions 241

  placed before him and shamanic priestesses drum and dance in front of