晚清徽州茶商变局中的区域经济互动与经营创新
Regional Economic Interaction and Business Innovation in the Transformation of Late Qing Huizhou Tea Merchants

晚清徽州茶业的转型是区域经济互动与经营创新协同作用的结果，其本质是通过内生性动力实现传统手工业的现代化调适。本文以徽州茶商为研究对象，结合地方志、茶商合同、商会档案及近代报刊等原始史料，系统探讨茶商如何通过重构市场网络、推动技术革新及引入金融工具实现徽州茶业从传统分散经营向区域一体化经营的转型。研究发现：其一，交通条件改善与联营机制的建立，促使徽商形成以几个经营中心为枢纽的跨区域市场网络，形成区域经济互动；其二，制茶技术的标准化与创新，显著提升了产品竞争力，推动徽州茶叶在市场的崛起；其三，票据交易与合同制度的规范化降低了交易风险，加速了资本流通，为近代金融体系的萌芽提供了实践基础。这一转型不仅是徽商应对晚清经济变局的适应性策略，更为中国传统手工业的现代化路径提供了重要经验。
The transformation of the Huizhou tea industry in the late Qing period was the result of the synergistic effects of regional economic interaction and business innovation, fundamentally achieved through endogenous forces that modernized traditional handicraft practices. This paper takes Huizhou tea merchants as its research subject and, based on original historical sources such as local chronicles, tea merchant contracts, chamber of commerce archives, and modern newspapers, systematically explores how tea merchants restructured market networks, promoted technological innovation, and introduced financial instruments to transform the Huizhou tea industry from traditional decentralized operations to a regionally integrated management model. The study finds: First, improvements in transportation and the establishment of joint operation mechanisms enabled Huizhou merchants to form a cross-regional market network with several business centers as hubs, fostering regional economic interaction; second, the standardization and innovation in tea-making techniques significantly enhanced product competitiveness, propelling the rise of Huizhou tea in the market; third, the standardization of bill trading and contract systems reduced transaction risks and accelerated capital circulation, providing a practical foundation for the nascent modern financial system. This transformation was not only an adaptive strategy by Huizhou merchants in response to the economic upheavals of the late Qing period but also offered important insights into the modernization pathway of China’s traditional handicrafts.