When the Imperial Court of the Southern Song moved its capital from the north to the eastern city ofHangzhouin 1132, Huizhou merchants were on hand to supply bamboo, wood, lacquer, and craftsmen for the construction of palaces,pavilions, villas, andtemples.
This construction boom provided Huizhou traders with capital to branch out into new industries and provinces. It transpired that with the strengthening of the southern economy, Huizhou's location between Zhejiang andJiangsu provinces could be made to turn a profit. Soon Huizhou became a key communications and trade route, and local traders diversified into selling tea, grain, silk, cloth, paint, pottery, ink, andpaper.
However, it was when Huizhou's merchants turned to the high margin salt and pawnbroking businesses that they were able to accelerate their expansion. They thus spread to all corners of China and even expanded into some Southeast Asian countries. Indeed, it was said that by the reign of EmperorGuangxi(1875-1909) all pawnbrokers in China were from Huizhou.
Guangdong businesspeople
As the testing ground for China's Reform and Opening-up Policy,Guangdong Province, with its favorable proximity to theHong Kong, virtually monopolized the nation's foreign trade business from 1978 to 1993.
Statistics indicate that during those 15 years, more than 70 percent of the mainland's overseas investment came from Hong Kong (now the Hong Kong Special Adminstrative region, or Hong Kong SAR). Meanwhile, Guangdong became China's main passageway to the rest of the world.
The mainland's opening up energized Hong Kong's economy, while the SAR simultaneously boosted the development of its ancestral home of Guangdong.
That lengthy monopoly helped Guangdong finish the original accumulation of capital and economic powers to nurture the flourishingPearl RiverDelta and foster the growth of the increasingly proactive Guangdong merchant group.
Zhejiang merchants
Whereas Guangdong's merchants were able to expand their enterprises based on geographic advantages, Zhejiang businesspeople started from nothing.
Roving the nation as itinerant craftsmen making furniture, building houses, and cobbling shoes, the entrepreneurs of Zhejiang had only their persistence and reputations to speak for them. The tribulations they faced over the years seem to have instilled in them the spirit of hard work and a will to succeed.
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