Hui Zhou and Yue Hai Essays

Author: Ye Xuen (Editor)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: Since delving into Huizhou studies, it has been nearly 40 years. Huizhou studies have been an inseparable companion in my life, undoubtedly forming my most important academic homeland. In the 1980s and 1990s, although I shifted my focus to the socio-economic history of the Pearl River Delta, I never forgot my passion for Huizhou studies. Since the late 1990s, with the flourishing of Huizhou studies, while continuing my research on the Pearl River Delta, I became even more enthusiastic about comparative studies between Huizhou and the Pearl River Delta. The majority of the essays in this book were written during that period. A few articles, such as On the Servant Tenancy System in Huizhou, were published earlier, but they were included here due to their significant historical value and difficulty in accessing. Issues such as the impact of Western commercial colonizers' arrival in China in the 16th century and the consequences of the suppression of the Wang Zhi maritime merchant group are closely tied to the evolution of Huizhou merchants and the progress and transformation of the Jiangnan socio-economic landscape, yet they have not received the attention they deserve from academia. These crucial and controversial topics are raised in the relevant chapters of my manuscript without hesitation, offering my modest opinions in the hope of sparking further discussion.