After the mid-Qing dynasty, Wuzhou became an important commercial port along the Xijiang waterway. Part of the Liubao Tea was transported upstream from Jiangkou and Doucheng docks in Guangdong, converging in Wuzhou before being sent to major ports in the Pearl River Delta region, forming a new form of transportation and trade for Liubao tea.
In the Liubao tea culture exhibition hall of the Wuzhou Tea Factory, there is a cultural wall reflecting the development journey of the Liubao tea industry, displaying many old photos of the factory in its early days.
Recently, Mr. Liu Fusheng revisited the Wuzhou Tea Factory and specifically came to this cultural wall, gently touching one of the photos displayed on it. In this photo, workers at the tea factory are pushing Liubao tea packed in large bamboo baskets to the triangular mouth dock next to the factory using wooden carts.
He gazed for a long time before speaking: “After the Liubao tea produced by the Wuzhou Tea Factory was transported to the dock, it would be loaded onto cargo ships waiting there, which then carried it batch by batch down the Xijiang to Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, and even further abroad…”
Selling Tea at Pingma Wholesalers
In the history of the ancient tea boat route, countless boats carrying Liubao tea entered the Xijiang after passing through the Liubao River and Hejiang, gathering in large numbers at the Jiangkou and Doucheng docks in Guangdong before flowing downstream to reach the Pearl River Delta. However, after the mid-Qing dynasty, Wuzhou developed into an important commercial port along the Xijiang waterway, with exports from southwest China converging in Wuzhou via the Xijiang. Therefore, part of the Liubao tea was again transported upstream from the Jiangkou and Doucheng docks, converging in Wuzhou before being sent to major ports in the Pearl River Delta region, forming a new form of transportation and trade for Liubao tea. In this process, the Pingma wholesalers played a significant role.
The Pingma wholesalers, also known as brokerage firms, which began to form around the late Qing dynasty, were a distinctive industry in the Wuzhou commercial port before liberation. According to the book “Guangxi Merchants,” “To meet the needs of exchanges of goods between provinces and cities within the province and frequent trade by merchants coming and going, the Pingma wholesalers, mainly engaged in intermediary trade and buying and selling commodities on behalf of customers, first formed in Rongxu (today's Longxu). Later, due to the shallowing of the river channel in Rongxu making navigation difficult for larger vessels, the trade center gradually shifted to Wuzhou, and the Pingma wholesalers moved to Wuzhou as well.”
The Wuzhou Dock in the Late Qing Dynasty
A floating dock on the Xijiang in Wuzhou in July 1928
According to records in “Wuzhou Culture,” there were already 17 Pingma wholesalers specializing in buying and selling on behalf of customers in Wuzhou before 1885. After Wuzhou was designated as a treaty port in 1897, foreign capital established foreign firms such as Jardine, Tianhe, and Renhe in Wuzhou, most of which commissioned the Pingma wholesalers to purchase tung oil, tea oil, aniseed oil, and various local products for shipment to Hong Kong and Macau, while importing large quantities of kerosene, matches, and various foreign goods to be sold by the Pingma wholesalers. According to the “Selected Materials on Wuzhou Historical and Cultural Data” (Revised Edition 1-4), at that time, the local products exported by the Pingma wholesalers included beans, raw oils, tea oil, peanuts, tea leaves, raw tea dregs, green hemp, etc. This export and trade were completed by cargo ships, sailing vessels, and Flower-tailed ferries rented by the foreign firms and the Pingma wholesalers. By 1925, the number of Pingma wholesalers had grown to over 30, mostly located in Jiufang Road, Sha Street (today's South Embankment Road), and nearby areas.
Deng Bingjian, a descendant of the Yingji Tea Shop, grew up in the Liubao Town of Cangwu County and later worked in the supply and marketing system and foreign trade system of Cangwu County, dealing with Liubao tea for a long time. In the 1970s and 1980s, a lot of tea from production areas in Cangwu County passed through his hands to be supplied to the Wuzhou Tea Factory for the production of refined Liubao tea.
“When my father operated the Yingji Tea Shop, Wuzhou served as a transshipment station for the acquisition and transportation of tea. The platform for completing the acquisition and transshipment tasks of tea was the Pingma wholesalers.” Deng Bingjian still remembers the names of the Pingma wholesalers in Wuzhou who were close friends with his father.
Chen Bixia, now in her seventies and living in the urban area of Wuzhou, recalls that her father Chen Hua came to Wuzhou from Pingnan County before liberation and, relying on his own wooden cargo vessel, became a middleman for the Pingma wholesalers, often transporting tea from the Pingma wholesalers in Wuzhou to various places in Guangdong.
After World War II, before the Hunan-Guangxi Railway and some major highways could be promptly restored, Wuzhou became a hub for Water transport, and its position as a distribution center for goods became even more prominent. By the end of 1948, the number of Pingma wholesalers in Wuzhou had grown to over 130, marking the peak period since the opening of the port. Influenced by this, the water transport in Wuzhou during this period reached a peak, with countless shipments of tea and other local products being transported to major ports in the Pearl River Delta region after transactions at the Pingma wholesalers, and then exported to various parts of the world.
Due to the dramatic increase in businesses and fierce competition, the Pingma wholesalers entered a period of decline on the eve of the liberation of Wuzhou, with only about fifty to sixty remaining. Starting in 1951, as the state began to adjust its industrial and commercial policies and state-owned commerce developed, the number of Pingma wholesalers decreased year by year. By January 1956, the last five Pingma wholesalers in Wuzhou participated in public-private partnerships across the industry. Thus, the history of the Pingma wholesalers and their consignment sales and agency sales of Liubao tea in Wuzhou came to an end.
Ships Ensure Transportation
The rise and fall of the Pingma wholesalers witnessed the transformation of the Wuzhou commercial port, while an essential factor contributing to the glorious history of the Wuzhou commercial port was the water transport industry that coexisted and grew with it.
Wuzhou controls the confluence of three rivers and has had developed waterway traffic since ancient times. Since the late Qing dynasty, relatively large motorized passenger and cargo ships have been operating between Wuzhou and Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau, with increasing frequency of passenger and cargo transport up and down the river. According to records in the “Cangwu County Annals” and “Transportation” in the “Qing History,” “In the eighteenth and nineteenth years of the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty, Wuzhou started to have paddle ferries of the Ping'an Company operating between Guangzhou and Wuzhou.” As for the routes above Wuzhou, “in the thirtieth year of the Guangxu reign…from then on, small steamship companies gradually expanded…in Guangxi, there were small steamships operating between Wuzhou, Nanning, Guixian, and Liuzhou.”
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