Page 89 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

75.

took a commercial name which combined his own surname with a new

personal name (ming-tzu). The merchant always included the

character kuan in his commercial name to signify that he was an

officer of trade or merchant. In Pidgin English kuan became�-

The foreign merchants often had perverted a Hong merchant's name

by shortening it, changing its pronounciation, or both. For

example, Liang King(Ching)-kuan was known as Kingqua, P'an
42
Ch'i-kuan as Pwankhequa and Wu Hao-kuan as Houqua. Other Hong

merchants who frequently secured the American trade were Mouqua,

Youqua and Manhop.

During the pre-treaty period of American trade at
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Canton membership of the Co-hong changed frequently. The

Co-hong was often below its maximum of thirteen Hongs. To be

a Hong merchant was as harsh and demanding as it was profitable.

These merchants were constantly subject to demands for money

by local authorities, especially the Hoppo (Superintendent of

Customs). The Imperial government at Peking furthermore

viewed the Co-hong as a source of revenue for public works, etc.

To refuse a "request" from Peking for contributions was pun­

ishable by imprisonment and death. Even to join the Co-hong

a merchant had to buy permission to the amount of two hundred

thousand Taels (over $275,000) from the Emperor. Consequently

only the wealthy Chinese could afford the position of a Hong.

42
For biographical sketches of these three Hong mer­
chants, see Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, ed. by Arthur
Hummel (2 vols.; Washington, 1943-44), pp. 501-02, 605-06, 867,
877.
43
Morse, Relations of the Chinese Empire, pp. 280-81.