Abstract:
In the rule of the Northern Warlords, some new changes happened to Henan economy. In agriculture, owing to the change in plantation structure, the level of commercialization rose accordingly. In industry, 70% of Henan industrial and mining enterprises in the 1920’s were set up in times of the Northern Warlords. These enterprises involved a relatively complete classification of industry in the time, including corporate groups, stock companies, and joint ventures, which already shaped the initial layout of modern industry in Henan. As for handicraft industry, some of traditional handicraft trades declined but most of them continued. Because of demand of exporting trade, a few traditional handicraft trades, such as strawhat knitting, silk textile and whatever, gained considerable growth. Meanwhile, some handicraft industries turned to semimechanized production, which indicated a change in operating procedure of handicraft industry. Of all such changes, the greatest took place in marketplace. Water transport as the link to traditional marketplace collapsed rapidly, in whose place a new system of marketplace linked by railway transport took shape.
