Anzhi Hall

Biodata

Locations and Holdings

By Zhu Huaizhang’s inspection, Anzhi Hall owns six mountains in total. Four of its five Qingzhou mountains were purchased as barren, inferior land the previous year, at prices only ten percent below those of ordinary mountain land 281.

Services and Products

Quality Control and Formula Protection

• Counterfeit detection: Meng Anzhi inspects incoming herbs and rejects a convincing batch of fake gastrodia. Counterfeiters come to regard successfully selling fakes to Anzhi Hall as proof of mastery in their trade 102.
• Purchasing precautions: Qin Baitang advises against buying herbs that cannot be confidently identified, accepting urgent orders, or purchasing herbs out of season 247.
• Restricted formula access: Meng Anci keeps Zhou Xiaosi at the shop partly to assess his character before allowing him near the estate’s confidential ointment formulas 149.
• Theft response: After Fan Er catches Miao Dou taking ingredients to obtain the medicinal formula for Yu Manzi, Meng Anzhi orders her delivered to the authorities 224.

Management and Personnel

• Meng Anzhi — Owner, physician, and decision-maker for business partnerships. Receives full control of Anzhi Hall’s property upon coming of age and holds its main seal 107 351 414 430.
• Jin Shanyao — Founder and early shopkeeper. Oversees treatment, cultivation, staffing, and expansion before handing the assets to Meng Anzhi 134 135 149 185 414.
• Meng Anci — Helps recruit workers, assess staff, and devise business policies. Holds Anzhi Hall’s secondary seal 104 149 430.
• Qin Baitang — Manages Lush Mountain’s accounts before leaving to establish the capital operation. Works to attract customers in the capital’s competitive market 246 247 355.
• Shen Huaiyu — Former chief shopkeeper of Abundant Celebration Hall in Jiangnan. Hired to manage Anzhi Hall and later entrusted with the Qingzhou shop during the family’s absence 345 351 352.
• Zhou Xiaosi — Retained for his exceptional memory and ability to recognize customers. Memorizes medicine prices, assists Shen Huaiyu, and later prepares to treat patients through Meng Anzhi’s free clinics 149 346 423.
• Qing Yang — Handles accounts quickly and remains in Qingzhou with Zhou Xiaosi to support Shen Huaiyu 346 352.
• Qing He — Provides household and shop support, helps settle new servants, and accompanies the family to the capital 149 352.
• Wu Yong — Appointed estate steward after demonstrating composure and prior household-management experience 149.
• Tao Yunshan — Approved to care for Lush Mountain after Jin Shanyao tests his herb knowledge 246.
• Fan Er — Estate worker who catches the attempted formula theft. Jin Shanyao later frees him from servile status and returns his saved redemption money as a wedding gift 224 339.

History

County Business and Imperial Procurement

By the time Meng Anzhi begins charging for consultations, Anzhi Hall already has longtime customers whose medicines she has personally gathered. Their resistance to paying exposes the difficulty of turning previously free care into a sustainable business 72.

The county shop subsequently becomes known for fair herb purchasing and its ability to identify counterfeits. Through Lu Chi, newly appointed Capital Pharmaceutical Official, Jin Shanyao also enters discussions over supplying the empress, establishing Anzhi Hall’s imperial-merchant connection 102 103.

That connection brings retaliation. During autumn-harvest recruitment, kidnappers seize Shiyan after mistaking him for someone indispensable to Anzhi Hall. Their grievance concerns the Wei Household’s lost palace-procurement rights. Jin Shanyao later insists that Lu Chi resolve the threat rather than allow his political disputes to endanger the hall and the children 104 106.

Establishment in Qingzhou

At the prefectural-city shop, attracting patients initially proves difficult. Jin Shanyao offers free consultations to the prefectural yamen, but Su Wenqian’s constables obstruct the entrance and turn a patient away. Their presence also fuels rumors that someone has died at the hall and that Jin Shanyao has been jailed 118.

Jin Shanyao and Meng Anzhi respond to poor attendance with street advertising. Business improves sharply after Wang Xiaohua’s facial sores disappear under Meng Anzhi’s care; Wang Xiaohua promotes the treatment throughout the city, including at competing medical halls 125 134.

The growing reputation is soon challenged when a man treated for cold symptoms dies. His wife and accompanying men accuse the clinic of killing him, although Jin Shanyao finds no fault in Meng Anzhi’s notes or prescription. Constable Wang takes the corpse, accusers, and both women to the prefectural office for investigation 135 136.

Expansion and Rivalry

Jin Shanyao purchases twenty servants to expand the herb operation, with Meng Anzhi and Meng Anci assigning them between the shop and estate. The business also supplies medicinal herbs throughout Qingzhou during a plague, provoking resentment among rival medicine dealers over their losses 149 169.

Seven competing halls pool money to have bandits detain Meng Anzhi: Benevolent Heart Hall, Hundred Herbs Hall, Spring Restoration Hall, Vast Virtue Hall, Longevity Preservation Hall, Spring Harmony Hall, and Distant Apricot Hall 168.

After Meng Anzhi identifies the organizers, Jin Shanyao summons the apothecary shopkeepers to a banquet and exposes their illegal dealings. Their hands subsequently turn black before gradually recovering. The warning, together with Jin Shanyao’s leverage over them, ends the immediate harassment and spreads Meng Anzhi’s reputation for poison through the trade 170 172.

Official Scrutiny and the Jing’an Case

New prefect Zhu Huaizhang investigates Anzhi Hall’s rapid growth and relationship with Su Wenqian. Its registers reveal annual tax payments exceeding one thousand taels; his initial review finds no clear evidence of improper purchasing or preferential land treatment 281.

Its wealth later makes it a target for Zhou Yan, whose pressure on Zhu Huaizhang includes a plan for three prefectures to seize the business’s resources. In Jing’an, Zhou Yan uses Jiang Wancheng’s coerced testimony to accuse Anzhi Hall of killing Bai Yunjin. Jin Shanyao challenges the evidence, identifying the purported sour jujube seeds as moldy fakes 297 313 314.

The hall’s party is detained during the case. Jin Shanyao demands eighty taels for each day of losses, and Zhu Huaizhang eventually awards Anzhi Hall three hundred and twenty taels for four days 322 327.

Capital Branch and Succession

After more than two years of searching for a suitable shopkeeper, Jin Shanyao hires Shen Huaiyu. She later leaves the Qingzhou operation in Shen’s care while the family travels to the capital, where Qin Baitang welcomes them to the established branch 345 352.

Anzhi Hall continues supporting Shen when men from Abundant Celebration Hall attempt to intimidate her. Meng Anci produces his first-place scholar scroll, forcing them to retreat 372.

On Meng Anzhi’s coming-of-age day, Jin Shanyao hands over the box containing the household’s property deeds, land deeds, and indentures, placing all of Anzhi Hall’s assets under her control. She explains that independent wealth should help protect Meng Anzhi in a world harsh toward women 414.

Employment and Business Practices

• Seasonal recruitment: An autumn herb harvest initially offers eighty copper coins per day, training in herb recognition, and payment each evening without withheld wages 104.
• Harvest incentives: Revised rules introduce payment of three wen per jin and cumulative performance rewards. Workers unwilling to continue under the new system may leave with half a day’s wages as compensation 108.
• Accountability: Jin Shanyao supports Meng Anzhi’s demand that a worker pay for herbs he has damaged 107.
• Ability-based hiring: Applicants for shopkeeper are assessed by competence rather than gender 345.
• Worker benefits: A later recruitment drive advertises Cooling Talisman Paper and unlimited cold drinks, attracting a large crowd 299.
• Dismissal compensation: Qing He states that dismissed Anzhi Hall workers receive an extra month’s wages 352.
• Escort arrangements: The Shi Household Escort Agency transports the herbs under a five-year agreement that is subsequently continued. Meng Anzhi later decides not to renew the current contract when it expires 110 345 351.
• Supplier development: Jin Shanyao promises to purchase hemp sacks from Niu Dadan, encouraging him to establish the business that later supplies Anzhi Hall with high-quality sacks 250.

Community Role

Refuge and Education

• Shelter outside the shop: Chairs outside Anzhi Hall are available to people seeking protection from bullying, regardless of gender 247 292.
• Housing for vulnerable people: Its estate takes in homeless people and children abandoned by their families or found by the roadside 292.
• Practical education: Children housed at the estate learn literacy, medicinal-herb identification, and skills needed to support themselves 292.
• Public support: Residents and people sheltered by Anzhi Hall gather at the yamen to defend Jin Shanyao’s character when she faces accusations 292.

Medical Outreach

• Free clinics: Meng Anzhi provides free consultations for the hall’s customers, while rejecting the claim that this obliges her to visit every household on demand 255.
• Training new practitioners: She invites Zhou Xiaosi to join her free clinics so that he can begin treating patients himself 423.
• Seasonal support for guards: Meng Anzhi arranges winter clothing, medicine, and other supplies for the city guards, then instructs Zhou Xiaosi to prepare supplies each season 423.