Tongzhou's Commerce in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

During the Ming and Qing dynasty, Tongzhou was not only a riverside port city for transporting grain to the capital, a key site for goods storage, but also witnessed the means of transportation of commercial goods from southern China changed from water to land, where commercial goods imported to Beijing together with those to be sold in northern China splits. Both the Ministry of Revenue (Gongbu) and Ministry of Works (Hubu) set up their customs in Tongzhou, respectively, and Zhangjiawan was the subsection of the customs; the major commercial goods including grain, liquor, distiller’s yeast, textiles, and groceries, were transferred through the customs of Ministry of Works. Judging from the establishment of broker house and broker tax, the volume of commodities being transported via Zhangjiawan might be bigger than Tongzhou. Shanxi merchants established guild halls (huiguan) in both Tongzhou and Zhangjiawan. They transported bulk commodities such as textiles and tea to the north of China, while Zhangjiakou and Guihuacheng were their main resale destinations. In other words, both Tongzhou and Zhangjiawan were important transportation ports for the businesses of Shanxi merchants regarding their trades within the northern territory as well as the trade at Khyagt between late imperial China and tsarist Russia.