UNRlVALED WEALTH OF CANTON FACTORlES

Text edited from Lecture Room, by China Central Television Translation by Leo

UNRlVALED WEALTH OF CANTON FACTORlES

Text edited from Lecture Room, by China Central Television Translation by Leo

圖片由文仕文化博物檔案館提供

Around 200 years ago, Guangzhou (then Canton) was a city with a group of merchants whose wealth was beaten by none in the Western world and was coveted, even by the Qing government. The merchants were so rich that the government ordered them to pay war reparations on its behalf. These merchants were famously known as the imperial “Thirteen Factories” or “Canton Factories”.

Just how wealthy were they? It was recorded that a fire burning for seven days and nights at the Thirteen Factories site in 1822 claimed an asset of 200 kg of silver, equivalent to one year's income of the Qing government.

When the Qing court first opened the seas to trade, its foreign trade system was far from being well-established and the offi cial management of incoming foreign merchant vessels was in a state of chaos. Large merchant vessels were often mishandled and thus were kept off theharbour. Over time, on the banks of the Pearl River appeared many trading houses, which collected goods and distributed them to foreign merchants.

These trading houses (factories or Hongs) were, in fact, brokers or middlemen whose chief role was to arrange deals between sellers and buyers in return for a commission. Originally, middlemen were individuals whose principal place of business was marketplaces in rural and urban areas. As the commercial economy developed in the Ming and Qing dynasties, middlemen emerged in large numbers and came in the form of trading houses.

In the spring of 1686, thirteen trade houses were offi cially appointed by the local government to form a guild with exclusive rights to do business with foreign traders and collect, on behalf of the Customs, customs duties on import and export goods.

Almost all major countries and regions in Asia, Europe and America had some sort of direct trade relationship with the Middle Kingdom through Thirteen Factories as maritime trade routes extended from Canton to all major ports around the world. As a result of the Single Port Commerce System adopted by the Qing court, Canton became the only port in China open to foreign trade for a time. The system gave rise to the most glorious moments of all time in the history of Canton, both economically and culturally, making it one of the most renowned and richest trade ports all over the world.

富可敵國的廣州十三行

在170多年前的廣州，有這樣一個商人群體：他們被西方認為是18—19世紀世界上最富有的商人，手中掌握的財富連政府都要眼紅，以至要勒令他們代繳戰爭賠款——這就是被稱為帝國商行的“廣州十三行”。

這群人究竟掌握了多少財富？據史料記載，1822年發生在十三行的一場大火持續七晝夜，大火中熔化的洋銀滿街流淌，竟流出一二里地，僅此一場大火就燒毀了價值4000萬兩白銀的財物。

清政府并沒有成型的外貿體制。在清政府開關初期，接待西方商船的制度極其混亂，遇到大量船只到來，官員經常招架無方，洋船常被堵在港外遲遲不得貿易。于是，廣州珠江岸邊有著大量的商戶牙行便應運而生，它們用正常的經濟手段集散貨物，深受外商歡迎。1686年春，廣東官府招募了十三家較有實力的牙行經紀人，指定他們與洋船上的外商做生意并代海關征繳關稅。這被普遍認為是十三行外貿組織建立的標志。從此，一個全新的商人團體開始慢慢登上歷史舞臺。

Canton1840 is an initiator of mobile museums. Mr. Wen Shi, owner of the Canton1840 mobile museum, has been collecting forty thousand items representing Lingnan region culture and European culture in over forty years.

(WeChat∶ canton1840)

文仕文化博物檔案館是“近代海絲文化流動博物館”概念的創導者。館長文仕先生歷經40多年對珠江嶺南地域文化及歐洲百年文化的搜集，收藏了近40000件博物館級珍貴史料文物。（官微canton1840）