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Pingyao Historic City and Qiao Family Courtyard
Figure 11. Catholic Church, Pingyao Historic City.
Source: Photo by the author, 2017
Figure 12. Rishengchang piaohao gate, Pingyao
Historic City. Source: Photo by the author, 2017
When Shanxi piaohao was most
prosperous, it transferred 800 million taels of
silver each year, controlled half of China’s
AccScience Publishing
Zhang
circulating funds, dominated its financial
capital, and connected global market through
overseas branches across the world. The end
of the 19th century was the heyday of Shanxi
piaohao; it was also the time when Western
powers turned from commodity expansion to
capital expansion, with Chinese piaohao and
Western banks running head on. The deep
inland Pingyao, and the rising Shanghai from
the sea, have fought a financial battle [1, 10] .
In the early 20th century, foreign banks
entered into China and established a number
of related commercial banks with the weak
Qing government which only lasted until
1911. It took away a large amount of official
currency exchange business from Shanxi
piaohao, at the same time, absorbed a large
number of deposits with a higher deposit
interest rate. Some piaohao managers
strongly demanded change, but because the
owner and the big shopkeepers had lived in
Shanxi piaohao headquarters for a long time,
they could not perceive the trend of social
change and still sticked to their old experience,
which had gradually become a self-styled
institutional restraint. Foreign banks and
capital compradors gradually developed in
the market at the end of the Qing dynasty and
the beginning of the Republic of China
(1912‒1949), eventually controlled China’s
economic lifeline, formed a huge
cannibalization of China’s piaohao, and
caused Shanxi piaohao to irretrievably
decline. In 1932, Rishengchang was deserted
and struggling due to business difficulties,
and the piaohao was changed to a bank.
Finally, the two doors of Rishengchang,
which had opened for over 100 years, shut
down completely, and reluctantly withdrew
from history. It once created a profit of 15
million taels of silver, equivalent to ¥12
billion RMB today. Because of its very
complete set of cryptographic technology,
there had never been an incident in which
silver was “impersonated,” which was a myth
of that era. More than half a century later,
Rishengchang reemerged as a museum.
Pingyao has thus preserved a precious
[1]
cultural heritage for the world .
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