China’s trade went global. From 1757 to 1842, the 13th Canton was the only "special zone" for the Qing government to trade with Europe and the United States, which made the city retain its memory and make people remember its homesickness. Guangzhou is a famous cultural city with a history of more than 2,000 years. Every street and lane has a long story, and every brick and tile has a meaningful memory. Today, Xiaobian will appreciate the heavy memory of this city with you, appreciate the spirit tradition of tolerance and openness for more than 2,000 years, and appreciate the endless literary context; Together with you, under the illumination of history, we can understand today and Guangzhou, thus strengthening our cultural self-confidence. In 1757, with the promulgation of the imperial edict on foreign trade in which Qianlong only left Guangdong Customs, the foreign trade of the Qing Dynasty was locked in the thirteenth line of Guangzhou. As the only exchange center between Chinese and Western civilizations for 85 years, it is a Chinese and foreign trading place located on the edge of the Pearl River, where foreign ships gather at the thirteen ports, and almost all major countries and regions in Asia, Europe and America have had direct trade relations with the thirteen banks. It has global trade routes to Europe, Latin America, South Asia, East Asia and Oceania. It was the only surviving node of the Maritime Silk Road under the closed-door policy of the Qing government at that time, bearing the gestation and development of modern China’s commercial economy. Although the thirteen lines have disappeared in the long river of history, their historical influence has been continuing. Two hundred years later, history once again chose Guangzhou to undertake the historical mission of "gathering customers from all over the world and selling goods from all over the world". Thirteen lines and the Canton Fair jointly compose the colorful movement of the Maritime Silk Road.It became the epitome of China’s opening to the outside world and economic development in modern times. A long scroll showing the style of the thirteen-line business hall in Qing Dynasty. Where did the thirteenth line come from? Kangxi’s sea trade gave birth to the "Thirteen Lines" and made Guangzhou "trade in one mouth". This was a scene in the 18th century-the Swedish merchant ship King Frederick was sailing off the South China Sea in China. This is a large sailboat of that era. It started from Europe and will arrive in Canton after more than a year’s voyage. In the eyes of westerners, China is a country of silk, porcelain and tea, and there are countless exquisite handicrafts, showing a profound culture. They were pleasantly surprised to find China. Fortunately, the Swedish ship escaped the stormy waves of the Cape of Good Hope, the piracy in Malacca and the threat of epidemic diseases on board, and completed the voyage with 20% staff reduction. Only half of the sailboats that set out with them can reach Guangzhou. Paying such a high price is for the maiden voyage of trade between China and Sweden. After leaving Gothenburg, Sweden, King Frederick went to Spain for the silver that was commonly used in China, and arrived at Lingding Island in Guangzhou on September 6, 1732. During the four months of berthing in Guangzhou, King Frederick ordered 151 large boxes and 1801 bundles of porcelain from more than 10 foreign firms in China, totaling 49,906 pieces. And 2183 boxes of red and green tea. After sailing from Guangzhou, King Frederick returned to Sweden after eight months. Porcelain exported in the Qing Dynasty is bright in color. At that time,Every year, hundreds of such merchant ships come from afar, enter the South China Sea of China through a long waterway, and then go north along the Pearl River to reach Guangzhou, then known as the southern gate of the Eastern Empire. In fact, during the Ming Dynasty, overseas trade was not always smooth, and the imperial court often declared a "sea ban", which lasted until the early Qing Dynasty. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the sea was closed for 300 years. However, Guangzhou’s ship management organization, Shiboshi, was preserved and continued to play a role in promoting cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. The model of the Swedish merchant ship Gothenburg, which sailed to Guangzhou three times in Qing Dynasty. After Kangxi unified Taiwan Province and put down the San Francisco Rebellion, he began to consider the economic and tax balance of the whole country. He sent Shi Zhu, a cabinet university student, to Guangdong and Fujian for inspection to prepare for the sea trade. Because smuggling is popular, there is opposition in the court. Kangxi asked Shizhu, "How many houses have you been to in Guangdong?" Shizhu replied: "Zhaoqing, Gaozhou, Lianzhou, Leizhou, Qiongzhou, Guangzhou, Chaozhou, etc., where the people said that they had left their homeland for more than 20 years, and now the emperor has leveled the bandits and can go back to their homeland." Kangxi asked again, "So, people are happy to live by the sea, why don’t you allow it?" Shizhu replied, "The sea was sealed in the Ming Dynasty, so we can only do as usual." Kangxi was very dissatisfied and said: "The frontier ministers should take the national economy and people’s livelihood as their thoughts. Although the sea is forbidden today, people who trade privately also go to sea to make a living; To be honest, if you are not allowed, it is just for your own convenience. " Shizhu was speechless for a while. In the 24th year of Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty (1685), the imperial court opened four ports for trade: Guangzhou, Ningbo, Zhoushan and Xiamen.However, at that time, there was no distinction between Chinese and foreign trade, and there was no specialized foreign trade firm. In the early days of the switch, when western ships arrived, officials were in a hurry, and foreign ships were often blocked outside the port and could not trade for a long time. In the spring of 1686, the second year of Guangdong Customs switch, the Guangdong government finally found a solution-Wu Xingzuo, Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Li Shizhen, Governor of Guangdong, and Yi Ergtu, the supervisor of Guangdong Customs, jointly discussed and divided the national tax into two categories: "residence tax" and "line tax". The "residence tax" is a tax levied on all goods landed in the inland trade of this province, which is collected by the tax department and called "Golden Line"; "Travel tax" is a tax on goods sold by foreign countries and goods traded at sea, which is collected by Guangdong Customs. "Foreign goods line" means "thirteen lines". When it comes to the meaning of "line", it means "line and column", which is "the place where goods live". From then on, foreign goods company 13 became a professional firm engaged in foreign trade, which was managed by the state to prevent free exchanges between Chinese and foreign people. In the twenty-second year of Qianlong (1757), Qianlong made a decree in the Forbidden City: "The port is set in Guangdong, and foreign ships are allowed to dock in Guangdong." The other three ports were closed, and Guangzhou became the foreign trade center of Qing Dynasty. This export painting in Qing Dynasty depicts the scene of local businessmen talking with foreign businessmen. How prosperous is the thirteenth line? The 85-year-old "one-stop trade" has made Guangzhou’s routes to the world increasingly developed. In addition to the routes to the Indian Ocean, Nanyang, Japan and Europe that have been in use in the Ming Dynasty, it has also increased the routes to North America, Oceania and Russia through the Cape of Good Hope.In many places overseas, there are scenes of merchants from various countries shuttling around the "canton" thirteen-line commercial pavilion area and tens of thousands of races on the river, which makes people marvel at the prosperity of Guangzhou at that time. Although according to the regulations of the government, foreign businessmen could not live in Guangzhou at that time, but only in the suburbs or Huangpu Port, every rest day, businessmen or sailors could walk into the city gate and visit the flower pagoda and longevity temple of Haikuang Temple, and they could also visit scenic places such as Baiyun Mountain and Fangcun Flower Land. Guangzhou, a trading port, became the preferred "golden port" for western merchant ships after the opening and closing of the Qing Dynasty. Of course, silk porcelain, tea and homespun were exported, while wool, cotton, metals and spices were imported from abroad. In 1984, British divers found the Dutch merchant ship "Helder Malsen" which sank on the rocks in 1751. When it returned from China, it brought 147 pieces of gold, 239,000 pieces of porcelain in 203 boxes, 687,000 pounds of tea, textiles, lacquerware, sappan wood and thymelaeaceae. By 1986, when part of the sunken ship was salvaged for auction, the guests were dumbfounded by the dazzling array of goods. Qing dynasty export porcelain painted with ocean-going sailboats. In those days, foreign businessmen came to Guangzhou with great enthusiasm. Apart from Russian caravans crossing Siberia to the northern border of China and Portuguese merchant ships trading in Macau, neighboring countries and European and American countries, including the Netherlands, Spain, Britain, France, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Prussia, Italy, the United States and Peru, participated in the tribute trade with China.All of them are trading in the 13th Commercial Hall in Guangzhou. In Berlin Coin Museum, Germany, there is a silver coin with the head of Prussian king on the front and a Guangzhou businessman in Qing Dynasty costume on the back. There is a box of tea behind the businessman. This is a commemorative coin made for Prussian merchant ships who sailed to Guangzhou for the first time in the seventeenth year of Qianlong (1753), and it is the only commemorative coin in Europe with the image of Qing Dynasty. Among the foreign ships coming to China, there are also names with Chinese flavor, such as "Guangzhou", "Merchant of China" and "empress of china". This painting for export in Qing Dynasty reflects thirteen lines of street customs. It is worth mentioning that there are canton in many overseas places. For example, Canton in Massachusetts and Canton in Georgia are towns named after Guangzhou, while Canton in northeast Ohio is the largest Guangzhou city in the United States. Since the second half of the 18th century, there have been dozens of foreign merchant ships coming to Guangzhou every year, with more than 80 at the most. By the early 19th century, it had increased to one or two hundred. In 1784, the American merchant ship "empress of china" made its maiden voyage to Guangzhou with leather goods and American ginseng worth 120,000 US dollars. "empress of china" also kept all the naval equipment to prevent pirates from looting. On May 11th, 1785, "empress of china" returned to the United States, causing a sensation all over the country. All the goods on board were snapped up, and Washington, the founding president of the United States, also bought a teapot with a dragon pattern. Line 13 has "Tianzi Nanku"There is also a domineering name for the thirteen lines: "Tianzi Nanku". In the process of accumulating wealth, the court also got huge benefits from Guangzhou. From the first year of Daoguang (1821) to the seventeenth year of Daoguang (1837), more than 1.5 million taels of silver tax were received in Guangzhou every year, all of which were dominated by the royal family. The foreign firm also transported foreign goods such as ivory, enamel, snuff, clocks, glassware, gold and silver for the emperor. In the list of 1738, 88 of the 102 tributes were exotic foreign goods. In 1754, hall of mental cultivation was built in the Forbidden City in Beijing, which needed valuable timber from Nanyang, and Guangdong imported 56,400 Jin for it. In 1708, Kangxi suddenly became seriously ill and drank the red wine prepared by the foreign imperial doctor Rod, and his heartbeat quickly returned to normal. In the future, whenever foreign ships entered Hong Kong, Kangxi asked if there was any wine, and if there was, he asked for it to be transported to Beijing as soon as possible. Soon, the world wines gathered in Guangzhou, and a wine "hotline" was formed between Beijing and Guangzhou. In 1758, in an imperial edict, Qianlong instructed that "foreign clocks and watches, western gold beads, exotic furnishings or fresh utensils should be bought", and that "there is no need to cherish fees". It can be seen that Guangdong Customs, Guangzhou Foreign Firm and the court are inextricably linked, and the thirteenth line has become the only foreign goods supply place that the royal family can rely on, so it is called "Tianzi Nanku". The richest group in China relied on the monopoly privilege of foreign trade, and a number of China tycoons appeared in the 13th line, such as Pan Zhencheng, Wu Bingjian and Lu Guanheng, all of whom were rich, among which Wu Bingjian was the most prominent and became the richest man in the world at that time. Wu Bingjian has 26 million taels of silver,It is equivalent to more than 5 billion yuan today, and its income is half that of the Qing government. His son invests in railways in the United States, and the annual interest alone is more than 200,000 taels of silver. In addition, Shisanhang has also become a bridgehead for cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. Chinese porcelain, export paintings and folk handicrafts are exported from here, and foreign scientific knowledge, culture and art are also introduced into China from here. Exquisite export products in Qing Dynasty. The picture shows the export porcelain candlestick in Qing Dynasty. The relationship between Shisanhang and the world far exceeds trade. In the history of Shisanhang, there were three big fires, and the last fire completely burned Shisanhang. The first fire was in 1822. A cake shop near Shisanhang caught fire, which affected Shisanhang. The fire burned for two days, and many foreign business halls and foreign firms were burned down. In 1842, the thirteenth line suffered a second fire. In 1856, when the Second Opium War broke out, the British army shelled Guangzhou and burned thirteen lines. All the buildings and goods in the thirteen lines were destroyed in the fire. "The connection between the thirteen lines and the world lies not only in trade. It is the first place where the eastern and western hemispheres blend in all directions in the fields of politics, economy, culture, religion, science and technology, language, art and law. " Lily li, curator of Thirteen Lines Museum, said. Tan Yuanheng, a professor and doctoral supervisor of South China University of Technology, believes that Guangzhou has its own urban pattern, which is the economic pattern naturally formed by commercial trade. From the "Fanfang" in the Middle Ages, the Haizhu Stone Commercial Port in the near ancient times, until the appearance of Guangzhou Thirteen Lines, Guangzhou was well-deserved as the "Millennium Commercial Capital". The formation of the city of Guangzhou,It is similar to Florence, Milan, Venice, Rome and other commercial cities with rich wealth in the west. It is the commercial prosperity since ancient times that created Guangzhou and gave birth to Guangzhou-from the beginning, Guangzhou has the characteristics of a marine and commercial city. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that Shisanxing appeared in Guangzhou, and it was integrated into the world, becoming the earliest commercial leader with modern colors of China. The 13th Guangzhou Tour also has a positive impact on the development of the world economic system. Wang Yuanlin, director and professor of 13th Line Research Center of Guangzhou University, said that 13th Line has a merchant guarantee system, that is, the merchant guarantees many affairs of foreign merchant ships coming to China, bears many responsibilities such as guarantee, and may not owe foreign debts. Once the hong merchants go bankrupt due to debts owed to foreign merchants, other hong merchants will be responsible for sharing the compensation. "This’ sitting together’ guarantee system later became an important reference for the US banking deposit insurance system." Wang Yuanlin said. According to the Secret Files of Foreign Merchants in Qing Dynasty, an American businessman owed Jardine Matheson Wu Bingjian 72,000 silver dollars, which he was unable to repay. When Wu Bingjian tore up the IOUs, he used "Guangzhou English" in his dialogue with American businessmen. New Mission and New Action: Undertaking the historical mission of making friends with the world. Although the back of Guangzhou’s leap into a trillion-dollar city of foreign trade has disappeared in the long river of history, the legacy left by the thirteenth line-the business spirit of facing the world, being the first, being open and innovative, and striving for perfection-has been engraved in Guangzhou’s genes, and Guangzhou has always been at the forefront of China’s foreign trade exchanges. Two hundred years apart, history once again chose Guangzhou in 1951, in order to strengthen the circulation of urban and rural materials,Guangzhou decided to hold an unprecedented material exchange conference called South China Native Products Exhibition and Exchange Conference. Twelve permanent and semi-permanent exhibition halls have been built in the original site of Thirteen Lines. This modernist architectural complex also laid the foundation for the development of cultural parks in the future. In 1952, "Lingnan Cultural Relics Palace" was established at the site of the South China Native Products Exhibition and Exchange Conference, and became a famous exhibition place for cultural activities at that time. In January 1956, Lingnan Cultural Relics Palace was renamed Guangzhou Cultural Park. From "South China Native Products Exhibition and Exchange Conference" to "Lingnan Cultural Relics Palace" and then to "Guangzhou Cultural Park", the names were inscribed by Ye Jianying. Two hundred years after Thirteen Lines were born, history once again chose Guangzhou as the window for China’s foreign trade exchange. On April 25th, 1957, the first floor of Sino-Soviet Friendship Building in Liuhua Road, Guangzhou was filled with gongs and drums, and the first China Export Commodities Fair (hereinafter referred to as the Canton Fair) opened here! "’Poop-poop’ went through the tunnel and the clothes were blackened." At that time, Li Huan, a 31-year-old Hong Kong buyer, arrived at the meeting on a coal-burning train. Without much care, he excitedly squeezed into the cheering crowd. "I have confidence in the sales of domestic products," he recalled fondly. The original intention of the Canton Fair was to meet the needs of economic construction and develop international trade in exchange for foreign exchange. At that time, New China urgently needed to open a channel to connect with the international market, and use the commodity exhibition as a window to display and trade export commodities. The host city of this exhibition should have a foreign trade foundation and a unique geographical advantage.Looking at China at that time, Guangzhou was the best choice: Guangzhou had a long history of foreign trade and was the only trading port in China under the closed door policy of the feudal dynasty for a long time. In terms of location, Guangdong is close to Hong Kong and Macao, which is the most convenient for Hong Kong businessmen. Only Guangzhou in Guangdong can undertake the historical mission of "making friends with the world". The turnover of the first Canton Fair accounted for 20% of the country’s total foreign exchange income in that year, which opened a channel for new China to communicate with the world in the high-pressure international political environment and suffered from "economic blockade" and "goods embargo", and the abbreviation of "Canton Fair" soon became familiar to the world. Since then, the Canton Fair has been held regularly in spring and autumn every year without interruption. Thousands of China enterprises have successfully entered the international market through the Canton Fair, and their export commodities have also changed from primary products to "made in China" and "made in China", and from offline to online and offline integration … On October 15, 2021, the 130th Canton Fair kicked off. During the 65 years from 1957 to 2021, the Canton Fair moved four times in Guangzhou, and the construction area of the exhibition hall expanded from the initial 18,000 square meters to 1.1 million square meters today. The cumulative export turnover of the Canton Fair exceeded US$ 1.4 trillion, accounting for more than 50% of the national export proportion. It has established trade relations with more than 210 countries and regions around the world, and accumulated about 8.8 million overseas buyers flew across the ocean to participate in the conference. The turnover is far from comparable to that of the thirteen banks in that year. In 2021, the total import and export value of Guangzhou’s foreign trade reached 1,082.59 billion yuan.Become a "trillion city of foreign trade". Through the Canton Fair, "gathering customers from all over the world, selling goods from all over the world and selling goods from all over the world" became a reality. In the export painting of Qing Dynasty, a grocery store on the street of Guangzhou. Canton Fair promotes the safe and smooth operation of the global industrial chain and supply chain. On July 19th, 2021, the State Council announced the list of the first batch of cities to cultivate and build an international consumption center. There are five major cities in China, and Guangzhou is the only non-municipality directly under the Central Government. Guangzhou has tasted the "first soup" of cultivating and building an international consumption center city. It is reported that Guangzhou has started the cultivation and construction of an international consumption center city in an all-round way, and it is planned to basically build an intelligent, fashionable and modern international consumption center city facing the world in about five years, so as to realize the transformation from "selling the world" to "selling and buying the world". In 2016, Guangzhou established the 13th Line Museum in Guangzhou on the site of 13th Line Foreign Commercial Pavilion in Qing Dynasty (in Guangzhou Cultural Park). According to Wang Zhen, deputy director of Guangzhou Thirteen Lines Museum, there are more than 4,800 pieces (sets) of cultural relics in the collection, which show the history of Thirteen Lines by means of "cultural relics+historical documents", sand table and electronic animation. "To some extent, Line 13 has a wonderful connection with the Canton Fair." Ye Nong, a professor at China Institute of Cultural History of Jinan University, said this. Cantonese English is very popular. In the process of "one-stop trade" for a long time, Guangzhou people invented a special language-"Guangzhou English". At that time, the inventor of "Guangzhou English" marked the pronunciation of English words in Cantonese, and gradually formed a distinctive one."Local English". After the opening of Shanghai, "Guangzhou English" spread to Shanghai and became the originator of "Pidgin English". Can you understand "Guangzhou English" Chinese: chin-chin, how do you do, long time my no hab see you. (Please, hello! I haven’t seen you for a long time) Foreigner: l can secure hab long time before time my no have come this shop. (It’s really been a long time, I didn’t come to your shop last time) Chinese: Hi-ya, so, eh! What thing wantchee? Oh, really, what do you want? ) foreigner: oh, some little chow-chow thing. you have got some ginger sweet? Oh, I want something small. Do you have any ginger preserves? ) Chinese: Just Now No Got, L Think Canton Habgot Velly Few That Sutemeet. (Not now, I think there are few such candied fruits in Guangzhou) (Excerpted from Wu Yixiong’s "Guangzhou English" and Chinese-Western Communication before the mid-19th century).The deep contact between the first group of people who opened their eyes to the world and foreigners in China made Thirteen Hong Merchants become the first group of people who opened their eyes to the world in China. During the Opium War, thirteen merchants took the lead in donating money to introduce advanced western technology and upgrade the equipment of Guangdong Navy. Pan Shirong devoted himself to imitating the most advanced steamship in the world at that time; Pan Shicheng hired a US naval officer with a high salary to copy the earliest modern mine in China-"Ship Attack Mine"; Zheng Chongqian was the first Chinese to spread the vaccinia law. The Wu family contributed a lot to the introduction of western medicine into China. The Vaccinium Vaccination Bureau, the first hospital in China, and the Ophthalmology Medical Bureau of Peter Peter Parker also received strong support from the Wu family. It can be said that the thirteen-line merchants were the earliest practitioners of "learning from foreigners to control foreigners", which was 20 years earlier than the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty. After the end of the "one-stop trade" era, a large number of Guangzhou foreign trade businessmen moved to Shanghai and Hong Kong, forming the first wave of immigration in Shanghai. In the 1950s, Shanghai replaced Guangzhou as the largest trading port in China. What attracted the most attention from Guangdong was no longer goods, but a group of people called "comprador". The original Shanghai foreign firm was "comprador" and "half of it was made by Cantonese people". After arriving in Shanghai, Guangdong Hong merchants bought a large number of properties and real estate, and planned to build a Shanghai version of the "Thirteen Hong Merchants Pavilion" and rent it to foreign businessmen. However, because local officials accepted bribes from British businessmen, Guangdong merchants are nominally property owners of real estate and real estate.However, he was deprived of the right to dispose of real estate and real estate, and was forced to rent it to the British permanently without receiving the rent. Relying on this concession, British businessmen expanded step by step in Shanghai, and finally the Bund was formed in this area. The annotation "line, column also" in "thirteen lines" is "the place where goods live", which is the definition of "line" in ancient books. Guangzhou Shisanhang was a firm specializing in foreign trade in the Qing Dynasty, and it was a monopoly institution designated by the Qing government to specialize in foreign trade. In 1813 and 1837, there happened to be thirteen firms, such as Jardine Matheson of Wu Bingjian, Kwong Lee of Lu Jiguang, Tong Fu of Pan Shaoguang, etc., but the number of the firms varied, ranging from four to more than twenty, and the "thirteen firms" were just the established appellation. The names of banks often change, including Xinglong, Lianxing, Dexing, Zhengxing, Tongxing, Yuanchang, Jinyuan, Yihe and Baoshun. Among them, Pan, Wu, Lu and Ye, the four major merchants, had more property than the national treasury income at that time, and they were truly "extremely rich". According to Wang Zhen, deputy director of the Thirteen Lines Museum in Guangzhou, according to historical records, the Thirteen Lines Site is located in today’s Guangzhou Cultural Park and its surrounding areas, including the China line number and the foreign commercial museum. The China line number is scattered, and some line numbers are outside the Thirteen Lines Street; However, foreign commercial pavilions are relatively concentrated, and the houses are all built facing the Pearl River, like a floating city on the water.
