6 - Huizhou House Firms

Summary

Chapter 6 provides three case studies of how Huizhou merchant organizations used their lineage and commercial resources to explain how Huizhou merchant lineages might succeed and fall in the world of Ming business. It explores the development of different types and sizes of commercial organization in response to the organizational needs and business opportunities these “house firms,” while also examining the impact of kinship organizations and relationships on their operation as “house firms.” With a greater emphasis on lineage branches and even segments rather than just lineages per se, it shows how a small lineage could launch itself successfully into the commercial world with the aid of kinship organizations larger than the simple nuclear household. Descent-line ties mattered greatly but manipulation of these ties for commercial goals was not at all unusual, even leading to attempts to create extensive non-lineage alliances with purported kinsmen bearing just same surname and fictive descent lies.