Problem description:

general situation

Analysis:

The most famous form of financial capital in Shanxi merchants' capital is the draft number. Draft bank, also known as draft bank or exchange bank, is a financial institution specializing in exchange business.

The first bank: It is said that "Xiyucheng Pigment Village" in Pingyao County has branches in Beijing, Tianjin and Sichuan, and its general manager is Lei Lvtai. "West and Honesty" Beijing Branch often handles cash exchange between Beijing and Pingyao, Sichuan or Tianjin for Shanxi villagers in Beijing. For example, Pingyao merchants give cash to Beijing's "Xiyucheng", then "Xiyucheng" will write to the general number of "Xiyucheng" in Pingyao in the north, asking the remitter to collect cash in Pingyao. At first, this kind of remote communication was limited to friends and relatives, and there was no charge. Later, more and more people asked for the exchange. Under the principle of mutual consent, they can charge a certain handling fee to handle it. Manager Lei is very clever. He found that this was a way to make money, so he changed it to Rishengchang, also engaged in foreign exchange business. Sure enough, business is booming. Then, he gave up the pigment business and specialized in foreign exchange business, which was the first bank in the history of China.

With the increase of capital, the position of foreign exchange is getting bigger and bigger, and the profits are getting more and more. Then it absorbs cash and issues loans, and Rishengchang's business is booming. Seeing this scene, Shanxi merchants learned from the experience of "Rishengchang" and invested in banks, thus forming the famous Shanxi Bank. By the eve of the Opium War, there were about eight banks in Shanxi.

After the Taiping Rebellion, it was more difficult to clean up the finances of * * *, and the Shanxi draft bank changed from serving feudal businessmen at first to cleaning up * * *. In order to undertake international business such as foreign remittance in Qing Dynasty, bankers set up branches abroad. He Hongru, general manager of Qixian Heshengyuan Bank, opened branches in Kobe, Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka on 1907, and Pingyao Yongtaiyu Bank opened a semicolon in Kolkata, India. At this time, the Shanxi draft bank can really be said to be "prosperous business and abundant financial resources."