碩士 / 國立臺灣師範大學 / 歷史研究所 / 93 / Abstract
Tainan city was built and developed quite early in Taiwanese history, and it was also the capital in Ching Dynasty. Therefore it played a significant role in Taiwanese history. In the 49th year of the chen-lung period, Tainan was the only city which had connection with Shia-man in Mainland China, therefore financial business became flourishing then. Five-harbor district was where the export business began during the Ching Dynasty, and it was also where all guilds gathered together. The headquarter of three-guild was located in Shuei-shian temple in the five-harbor district. Thus it is necessary to make a detailed research on this district in order to have a better understanding of the development of financial business in Tainan city during Ching dynasty.
Five-harbor district was located in the western area of Tainan city. It was originally a piece of land formed by the long process of scouring and deposit of Tai-jian sea. During the 200 years in Ching Dynasty, Tai-jian sea had brought about quite remarkable changes to the geographical environment in this district. Consequently a careful study of this district would also help a lot to understand the changes of geographical environment and development of Tainan city.
The financial business in five-harbor district was gradually developed into a local business circle with Mainland China. Hence it exported rice and sugar to Mainland China and then imported groceries to Taiwan. Although it was merely a small area, five-harbor district controlled the bustling and weighty financial business then. The distribution of all kinds of stores and transportation of merchandise could give us a vivid image how financial business was run at that time. Traditional market in Tainan city was first
developed along Tai-jian sea and five-harbor district was one of the most
flourish areas.
The temple was a major sign of a mature Han people’s society; in addition, it was also a crucial characteristic of Taiwanese immigrant culture. In this five-harbor district, temples could be seen everywhere and all those temples were closely connected with immigrants’ original religious believes. Porters in the dock would usually have to unify together because of keen competition in business. Therefore those porters, while having the same background in where they were from, would try to find a symbol of their own union through the same religious belief. The guild itself originally acted more like a religious union. Those early immigrants’ activities were all related to their own religions. Therefore, businessmen in the same area would unite together because of the same religious belief and activities. Besides traditional religions, Christian missionary Dr. James L. Maxwell also preached Christianity in five-harbor district first. Christian missionaries started their preaching from doing medical services; therefore it really made a great contribution to the modernization of medicine and education in Taiwan during that time.
Life and social customs (such as having the 16th birthday party, dragon-boat competition and playlet of avoiding debt) in five-harbor district were also tightly connected with guilds and porters in the dock. As for the social fashions, since five-harbor district began developing itself from financial business, people there would be more eager to pursue money and wealth. In the chian-long and jia-ching period, because of the flourishing financial activities, numerous pubs and brothels were built up in this district. There were not only businessmen but also labors in this district, so gambling and having slaves were quite common. As for social security problems, criminal cases (such as robberies, blackmailing, and fighting) committed by civilian soldiers, beggars and porters in the dock could be seen in the documents. As for public affairs, businessmen in the guilds had played a leading role. They would help to build roads, dredge rivers and do charitable businesses. While getting involved in these businesses, businessmen in the guilds would gain power of leading local affairs and also they would have higher position in the society and politics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TW/093NTNU0493005 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | YANG SHIOU LAN, 楊秀蘭 |
| Contributors | TSAI, YUAN-JIE, 蔡淵洯 |
| Source Sets | National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan |
| Language | zh-TW |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Format | 219 |
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