Status Changes of Shaanxi & Shanxi Merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

In the Ming Dynasty,the Shaanxi and Shanxi merchants rose at the same time and maintained the top of China's ten major commercial groups for a long time.In the Qing Dynasty,the Shanxi and Huizhou merchants held the first,while the Shaanxi merchants followed them in the third or even later reduced to a more inferior role.The change of status of Shaanxi and Shanxi merchants represents the rise-and-down of their strength.Based on the development course of the two great commercial groups in Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces,the results of analysis show that the change of their status results from four aspects.The first is that the Shanxi merchants' management model of partnership is superior to Shaanxi merchants' family business mode.Second,the Shanxi merchants' do better job in selecting and cultivating business talents than Shaanxi merchants',as the Shaanxi merchants prefer Confucianism to business but the Shanxi merchants devote to business,and different social customs causes the gap in business talents.Third,Shaanxi merchants are not as good as Shanxi merchants at keeping proper relation with government officials or taking advantages to protect and expand their business.Fourth,the merchants in two provinces suffered different degree of damage of war.