5 - Huizhou Merchants and Commercial Partnerships

Summary

Since the profits from pawnbrokers’ loans fell into relatively few hands, many Huizhou merchants came to rely on commercial partnerships, the formal and informal, to expand their pool of investment capital and the operation of their businesses. Chapter 5 investigates in detail the development of three distinct varieties of these partnerships for both Ming and Qing merchants in general and for Huizhou merchants in particular. Attention is paid to the distinctive principles of each of these types of commercial partnership, which seem to have grown out of specific regional conditions in China and the commercial needs of its itinerant merchants both before and during the Ming. In addition, this chapter explains the Huizhou merchants’ solutions to such common problems of business governance as bankruptcy and a merchant’s access to his committed investments during the contracted period of investment