Rishengchang Piaohao

Rishengchang was the first piaohao in China, the remittance houses that Shanxi merchants used to move money without moving it, and it worked from an ordinary shopfront in Pingyao. Its founding is generally placed in the Daoguang years of the Qing dynasty, 1823 being the estimate usually given, though scholars also argue for 1797 and for 1824. By the close of the nineteenth century thirty-two piaohao ran 475 branches across most of China, and central Shanxi had become the de facto financial centre of the Qing state. The premises are now a museum, and in 2006 they were entered on the list of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level.