Zheng Guanying, Merchant Reformer of Late Qing China and his Infl ...

Chapter 1

From “Fragrant Hills”
to Shanghai

At a young age, Zheng Guanying changed his identity from a failed civil service exam taker in his Cantonese hometown to an employee of a British trading company and then a merchant in Shanghai. This process was both a personal success and an embodiment of an era that brought changing social status for merchants in late imperial China and their reconciliation with Confucian values. Zheng provides a case study for illuminating the early urbanization of Shanghai and its history of domestic immigration. Shanghai in the 1850s through 1870s, when Zheng Guanying started to work there, also demonstrated a distinct cultural environment of “Western Learning” that guided Zheng toward a deep concern with the national as well as international affairs and a critical perspective. At the same time, Shanghai also witnessed the internal transition of traditional Chinese thought and scholarship as a part of traditional China and a catalyst for new changes.