Who were the five world-famous business gangs during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and which one died out first?

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties in my country, the development of commerce gave rise to the rise of many business gangs, the most famous of which were Hui merchants, Shanxi merchants, and Suzhou merchants. Businessmen from southern Fujian and businessmen from Lu. Among them, it can be said that these major business gangs have their own moments of prosperity, but they also have their own moments of decline. Among them, the Shanxi merchants were the earliest to perish.

Maybe the name Shanxi Merchants sounds a bit strange to people. In layman’s terms, Shanxi Merchants here refers to the merchants who mainly existed in Shanxi during the 500 years of Ming and Qing Dynasties. As for the Shanxi businessmen in this area, the main industries they operate include the salt industry, which is very important to the country. The most famous of their businesses is their ticket industry. And we are now familiar with many of them, such as the Qiao Family Courtyard and the Chang Family Manor. The Wang Family Courtyard and others were created during the Shanxi and Shang Dynasties.

However, although Shanxi merchants were the earliest to perish among the five major business gangs, the evaluation of Shanxi merchants in history can be said to be very high. In the history of world economics, some people even compared Shanxi merchants at that time with By comparing Italian businessmen, we can see how highly people give Shanxi businessmen a high evaluation in world economics. At the same time, it also shows from this aspect. During the Shanxi Shang Dynasty, they said what a grand event they created!

During the Shanxi merchant period, they were not only engaged in commercial activities related to the salt industry and banknotes, but even some of the more emerging commercial activities today were also obtained by Shanxi merchants. For example, Shanxi merchants will choose to purchase land, and at the same time they will choose to carry out some of our current borrowing methods, such as bank loans, but their lending methods are somewhat similar to our current loan sharking methods.