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Although the bulk of the merchants' trading activities were along the Yangtze, especially the Lower Yangtze region, their reach extended nationwide and even overseas to Japan.
Huizhou's treacherous and mountainous geography supplied them with meager arable land but abundant isolation, providing stable villages and effective protection from outside aggression.
The four industries in Huizhou
The heyday of the Hui merchants came in the mid-Ming Dynasty. During the following 300 years or so, Hui merchants topped all the merchant groups across China. Anhui people engaged in business trade outnumbered those of other areas, with 70 percent (or even more at the peak of Hui merchants' development), of male adults choosing business and trade as their means to make a living. No merchant groups around China were even close to challenging Hui merchants in capital accumulation.
Hui merchants' business covered most of the areas in South China and reached such countries like Japan in Asia and Portugal in Europe.
The businesses of salt, tea, wood, and dock shop attracted most Hui merchants. As well, grain, cotton cloth, silk, paper, ink, and porcelain were also popular in Hui-owned shops.
Besides making money by selling those goods, some Hui merchants went outside their hometown and set up factories.
The flexible Hui merchants were apt to adjust their business strategies against the changes in the market. Talents were regarded as an important role in the competition, which unfortunately remained to be neglected by most of the then merchants in other areas in China.
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