(Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the top ten business gangs in modern China refer to Shanxi Business Gang (also known as Shanxi Businessmen), Huizhou Business Gang (also known as Huizhou Businessmen), Shaanxi Business Gang (also known as Western Businessmen), Ningbo merchant gang, Shandong merchant gang, Guangdong merchant gang, Fujian merchant gang, Dongting merchant gang, Jiangyou (Jiangxi) merchant gang, Longyou merchant gang)

There was a social economic crisis in my country during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. A very eye-catching phenomenon is the rise of local business gangs and large merchant capital. Among them, the ten famous business gangs are Shanxi, Huizhou (now Huangshan area of ??Anhui Province), Shaanxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangyou (Jiangxi), Dongting (Today’s Dongting Dongshan and Xishan in Taihu Lake in the southwest of Suzhou City), Ningbo, Longyou (central Zhejiang), and Shandong Shangbang.

The traditional market system network initially formed during the Ming and Qing Dynasties relied on the connection and formation of various local business gangs as market entities. From the perspective of the history of China's modernization, economic historian Mr. Wu Chengming believes that the rise of big merchant capital was one of the factors in China's modernization in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Among the ten major business gangs during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Jin Gang (Shanxi Business Gang) and the Hui Gang were the most famous. They are an important business group in the national business community and have accumulated a large amount of business capital. The so-called "those who rule the roost among rich families in the south of the Yangtze River push Xin'an, and in the north of the Yangtze River push Shanyou" (Xie Zhaozhe's "Wuzazu") refers to businessmen from Huizhou and Shanxi. Shanxi merchants, in particular, ranked first among all gangs due to their abundant funds and wide scope of activities.

The earliest to emerge among the top ten business gangs were merchants from Shanxi and Shaanxi. In the early years of the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1398), the "Open Central Law" implemented for the purpose of supplying food for northern border defense enabled merchants from Shanxi and Shaanxi to rise rapidly by virtue of their geographical convenience. Shanxi merchants in the Ming Dynasty were mainly active in the Yellow River Basin, major salt fields and the Sichuan area. With the unification of the country and the expansion of territory in the Qing Dynasty, the scope of activities of Shanxi merchants expanded even further, becoming the main merchant force in Northeast China, Mongolia, and Xinjiang. Their scope of activities even reached as far as Tibet. Shanxi merchants also monopolized the control of Russian Kyakhta. trade, and engage in long-distance trafficking from the southeast, the two lakes to the northwest. In addition to the salt industry, Shanxi merchants also dealt in tea, grain, cotton, cloth, silk, and loan sharking. Shanxi merchants were famous for their pawn industry and loan sharking, and were called "Western Debt." Merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties accumulated huge wealth. It is said that the assets of Huizhou merchants in the Ming Dynasty reached one million taels, and the wealth of Shanxi merchants exceeded that of Hui merchants. In the Qing Dynasty, Shanxi not only had "millions of investments, and so on", but also had assets of tens of millions of taels. There is no shortage of them either. During the Daoguang period, Shanxi merchants created a currency exchange business, which became famous all over the world. The bank account was almost unique in the Shanxi merchant industry in the late Qing Dynasty. However, due to the continuous financial defaults in the late Qing Dynasty, the ticket bank lacked the spirit of change to keep pace with the times, and the impact of the war after the Revolution of 1911, it quickly went on the road of decline. The road to decline and decline.

The growth of Chinese businessmen and the expansion of their business team can be described as twists and turns. It is generally believed that the development of China's commodity economy experienced three climaxes: Qin and Han, Tang and Song, and Ming and Qing. Correspondingly, there are three vigorous periods in the growth of businessmen. As early as the Qin and Han dynasties, there were "rich merchants traveling all over the world"; the socio-economic changes that occurred in the Tang and Song dynasties promoted the development of the commodity economy at that time and created a generation of merchants. There are titles of "Southern Business" and "Northern Business" in the literature of the Song Dynasty, but there is no description similar to the merchant groups of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, nor is there a description of the merchant guild hall, the place where the business gangs carried out their activities.

The Huizhou merchant gang was formed during the Chenghua and Hongzhi years of the Ming Dynasty (1465-1505). It mainly engaged in salt, grain, tea, cloth, pawn, timber and other industries. In the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou merchants "traveled all over the world" and claimed to be everywhere in "mountains, seas, soil, isolated villages and remote areas". However, by the Qing Dynasty, the scope of Huizhou merchants' activities had shrunk, and they were concentrated in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and a few large cities such as Beijing. The wealth of Huizhou merchants reached one million or two in the Ming Dynasty, and giant merchants with one or two million yuan appeared in the Qing Dynasty. After the end of Qianlong's reign, Huizhou merchants in the Lianghuai Salt Zone experienced a serious business crisis. In addition, during the reign of Emperor Daoguang, the Qing government implemented salt law reforms, and salt merchants went bankrupt due to the loss of their monopoly rights. The salt industry, as the leading industry of Hui merchants, completely declined. .

In the late Qing Dynasty, tea became the pillar industry of Huizhou merchants. In the late Guangxu period, due to the impact of foreign tea and price reduction by foreign merchants, Huizhou tea merchants quickly turned from prosperity to decline, which marked the complete decline of Huizhou merchant gangs.