Home › Tourist Attractions › Shaoxing Qianye Guild Hall

Shaoxing Qianye Guild Hall

Category: Tourist Attractions 👁 100 views

The Shaoxing Qianye Guild Hall is located in Jishan Subdistrict, Yuecheng District, Shaoxing City, dating back to the Qing Dynasty. Situated on Bifei Lane in Shuosheng Li (Hometown of the Sage of Calligraphy), next door to the former residence of Cai Yuanpei, the guild hall is said to have been built during the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1780). Facing east with its back to the west, the building consists of two courtyards and is one of the most well-preserved guild halls in Shaoxing...

Overview Transport Tickets Specialties

The Shaoxing Qianye Guild Hall is a cultural relic protection unit of Zhejiang Province.

The Shaoxing Qianye Guild Hall is located in Jishan Subdistrict, Yuecheng District, Shaoxing City, dating back to the Qing Dynasty.

The Shaoxing Qianye Guild Hall is located on Bifei Lane in Shuosheng Li (Hometown of the Sage of Calligraphy), next door to the former residence of Cai Yuanpei. It is said to be a building constructed during the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1780). Facing east with its back to the west, the structure has two courtyards and is one of the best-preserved guild halls in Shaoxing. It is also a cultural relic protection unit of Shaoxing City.

The Qianye Guild Hall served as a gathering and trading place for Shaoxing’s banking and money industry professionals at the time, as well as the highest decision-making center for the city’s finance. It reflected the economic prosperity of Shaoxing during that period. Its predecessor was a guild hall established by seventeen local money shops before the Xinhai Revolution, functioning as a venue for discussions. During the Republican era, it also housed the branch of Bank of China in Shaoxing.

Today, it has been transformed into a Coin Exposition Museum, offering a comprehensive display of the development and layout of Shaoxing’s money shops, featuring various currencies and silver notes from different periods. Inside the guild hall, there are two particularly precious stone steles that are well preserved, with clearly legible inscriptions. The right stele, written in clerical script, records the background and reasons for the establishment of the Qianye Guild Hall, while the left one, in regular script, details the construction costs, participants involved, and includes regulations related to the guild hall.

On January 13, 2017, it was announced by the People’s Government of Zhejiang Province as part of the seventh batch of Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relic Protection Units.