The wisdom of the Jin merchants

Author: Chen Kaiyuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: What is a Shanxi merchant? My answer is: The brother who went west has returned, coming back on a very strong level of personality. — Yu Qiuyu (Famous Scholar)
The social positioning sequence of Shanxi merchants is different from elsewhere: Business, secondly agriculture, thirdly military service, fourthly studying. — Emperor Yongzheng (Verdict in Zuhui during the second year of Yongzheng)
In a country where everyone values becoming an official, only the Shanxi people value commerce, replacing "study for a good official post" with "study for a good merchant post." In this unique psychological environment, Shanxi merchants have little spiritual burden about their profession, making merchants pure in their essence. — George Croft (President of Ketterly Management Consultants)
Because some important bankers lived in Taiyuan, Shanxi, the place was often called "China's Wall Street." — Robby Youngson (American Biographer)
Shanxi merchants' businesses span the world, their commercial houses are everywhere, managing the wealth of the world, and seizing the profits of the world, all within the word "conceal." Conceal wisdom, conceal skill, conceal wealth, conceal power, conceal grand strategies and grand vision. Yet Shanxi merchants abhor one word: "reveal," abhorring competing with officials for power. — Liu Wei (Financial Journalist)
During the Qing Dynasty, the top 16 largest financial groups in the country were all in Shanxi. The combined wealth of the wealthy families in just a few counties of Shanxi exceeded 100 million taels of silver. This amount was even more than the national treasury's silver reserves at the time.
Shanxi merchants were the first of the top ten modern Chinese merchant groups, having dominated the business world for 500 years and being ranked alongside Jewish merchants and Venetian merchants as the world's three great merchant groups. A moment of sudden wealth might require a little cleverness, but centuries of glory stem from wisdom.