SHE-HSIEN

formerly (until 1912) Hui-chou, Pinyin Shexian, also called Hui-ch'eng, Pinyin Huicheng town, southeastern Anhwei sheng (province), China. It is a communications centre in the Hsin-an River valley, at a point where the natural route from Hang-chou on the coast of Chekiang province and Shanghai into northern Kiangsi province joins two routes across the Huang Mountains into the Yangtze River valley. Hui-chou played a particularly notable role in Chinese commerce until the 19th century. Local merchants, most of their fortunes founded from participation in the salt monopoly, began to play a national role in trade from the 16th century onward. Often using joint capital raised from within their group, they exerted their influence in every branch of commerce. From the 16th to the 18th century they dominated the rice and tea trade, the lumber business, and the silk and cotton textile trade. They also engaged in ceramics and iron manufacturing and were pawnbrokers and moneylenders. Colonies of merchants were to be found from Hopeh province in the north to Kwangtung province in the south. In the great canal port of Lin-ch'ing, situated on the Grand Canal in Shantung province, 90 percent of the merchants in the early 17th century were from Hui-chou. They were also engaged in overseas trade with Siam (modern Thailand) and Japan. Toward the end of the 18th century, they began to transfer their capital from the salt monopoly into pawnbroking and banking. During the 19th century, however, their place was gradually taken by the Shanghai banks run by merchants from Ning-po and Shao-hsing, both in Chekiang. Modern She-hsien has retained little importance, but the many ancient mansions surviving in its vicinity are a reminder of its former style of life. Pop. (1989 est.) 139,900.