In 2011, members of Ningbo Bang from across China returned to Ningbo for a “hometown tour”

“Members of Ningbo Bang all over the world should be rallied to develop Ningbo,” stated China’s late leader Deng Xiaoping in 1984.

Here, Ningbo Bang, known alternatively as the Ningbo Merchants Group, the Ningbo Commercial Group or simply the Ningbo Group, refers to a loose community of traders, merchants and businessmen (as well as their offspring) operating outside their native place in Ningbo throughout history and in modern times. Emerging during the Ming (1368-1644) dynasty and one of the biggest regional commercial groups in China during the late Qing (1616-1911) period, Ningbo Bangcurrently is numbered at hundreds of thousands.

What’s the secret behind the enduring vitality of Ningbo Bang? It is down to the group’s distinctive traits: integrity, pragmaticism, openness and innovativeness.

Ningbo Bang has been widely known for their integrity, and businessmen of the group have long been aware of the vital importance of good faith in business. Business ethics, as they well know, benefits not only the clients but also for themselves. Therefore, they value good faith over short-term interest. For instance, Ningbo’s qianzhuang (money shops or old-style banks) industry, is lauded as the “bastion of integrity”.

According to A General History of Qianzhuang in China (Zhongguo Qianzhuang Gaiyao) by Pan Zihao, private postal and banking business during the late Qing and the Republican period, “was Ningbo’s exclusive, with large capitals and excellent credit; once insured by these organizations, any loss of deposit or money orders will be fully compensated”; indeed, such businesses were popular both at home and abroad. The hongbang (red band) tailors in Ningbo — so called because many were serving foreigners who were usually referred to as “redhaired people” — would rather decline an order than break a promise, and would rather lose money than allow an inferior product to go to the customers. Bao Yugang (1918-1991), aka Yue-Kong Pao, a shipping magnate, is undoubtedly a paragon of Ningbo Bang in the contemporary era. “In business ethics,” he once made it very clear, “we need to follow the old traditions. You should be trustworthy and credible.”

Leading figures of Ningbo Bang

Pragmatism has been part of makeup of Ningbo people, who advocate doing rather than empty talking. Whether it can bring real benefits and improve their lives has become an important basis for Ningbo businessmen. And Ningbo Bang members are no exception. Ye Chengzhong (1840-1899), Fang Yexian (1893-1940) and Bao Yugang are just a few who worked step by step to their successes.

In fact, it is this pragmatic attitude that helped them make a difference in China’s “Reform and Opening-up”. As long as there are tangible interests, Ningbo businessmen can do anything that others are unwilling to take on: leaving home, living in the cold and staying any place that suits them. Ningbo Bang businessmen attach importance to learning advanced experience from others, while not blindly following any fashion or crowd. State-owned enterprises readily absorb the best practices from private enterprises, and vice versa.

Being pragmatic has also made Ningbo people a humble lot. In the face of achievements, they are never arrogant; one goal after another, they continue to surpass themselves, solid and steadfast.

A perennial pursuit of Ningbo Bang is openness. Over generations, Ningbo traders and merchants have travelled around the world for international trade. The historical Ningbo Bang —  known as Mingzhou Shangbang or Mingzhou (the ancient name of Ningbo) Merchants Group — had long journeyed to Japan and Korea in the north, Southeast Asia and the Arabian Sea in the south, galloping on the international business stage. In modern times, Ningbo Bang engaged in fierce competition, especially with their Western counterparts, at home and abroad. Excelled at mastering advanced management skills from the West, they helped propel many national industries to the top in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin and other cities. The contemporary Ningbo Bang has gone a step further, opening up new fields and creating miracles in China and across the globe.

Visiting Ningbo in 1916, Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) commented, “Ningbo people have rich experience in industrial and commercial management. In every port in our country, and even in Europe, there are businesses run by Ningbo people, whose capabilities and influence are second to none,” before heaping praise on Ningbo people’s pioneering spirit and openness. Answering Deng Xiaoping’s call, Ningbo people are working hard to develop the city, and now they are embracing anyone who is willing to join the cause. 

Ultimately, the pioneering spirit of Ningbo Bang comes from its innovativeness, the driving force for these businessmen. This innovativeness in turn can be discovered in the philosophical thinking of the Zhedong (Eastern Zhejiang) School, when the Neo-Confucian master Wang Yangming (1472-1529) broke away from the dominant School of Principle (Li) during the Ming dynasty and publicly championed the idea of innate moral knowledge and when Huang Zongxi (1610-1695) called openly for radical social reforms and enlightened democracy in the early Qing period. Since China started its “Reform and Opening-up”, Ningbo people have been striving to “surf the waves” in social and economic development. Per capita GDP in Ningbo has surpassed USD 20,000 despite a lack of natural resources.

This innovativeness has translated into the rapid development of Ningbo Bang, as businessmen from Ningbo constantly seek development, and, unfazed by the risks of starting businesses and not content with the status quo, they never sit on what they have achieved or accumulated.

Why is there still the need to pass on the spirit of Ningbo Bang? The answer may be found in the words of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping, “To comprehensively deepen reform, we need to stimulate market vitality. Market vitality comes from the people, especially from business leaders and their entrepreneurship.”

Sanjiangkou, where the Lancang River, Yaojiang River and Fenghua River meet and where the heart of Ningbo lies, will bear witness to the new generations of Ningbo Bang, who, empowered by broader visions and more advanced ideas, will write a new chapter of high-quality development together with the city.  

Editor: Huang Yan