Author: Lan Yong (Professor, School of History and Culture, Southwest University)

In ancient China, there were two kinds of history, one as science and the other as culture. The former is carried out under the basic norms of traditional history for the purpose of restoring objective history. As a culture, history mainly comes from cultural demands. Under the background of the principle of "big things are not empty, small things are not limited", we should enrich and reconstruct some historical details according to our own subjective imagination. In the history of China, the reconstruction of local history played a great role in the historical gestation of culture.

The concept of "reconstruction of local history"

The recording of historical documents is often a process of "historical reconstruction", and the author records history according to his own identification of historical facts and evaluation of its nature, which is itself a reconstruction of history. In the traditional period, historical research mainly focused on grand historical narrative, and the reconstruction content of the main narrative of traditional historical research was mostly the merits and demerits of emperors and generals far away from the bottom of society and the right and wrong of upper-level institutional policies, which appeared through the face of official history and official history books. Official history and official history books often only provide a grand historical narrative or historical space construction, without paying attention to the historical details of local China. Therefore, the study of local China needs to supplement and enrich the grand historical narrative and historical space construction in the local history. In this process, the local China not only supplements and enriches the main narrative with objective historical facts, but also often realizes this reconstruction by fiction and speculation. In other words, the "reconstruction" here is also a kind of "fiction" and "fabrication". This is the connotation of "reconstruction of local history" discussed in this paper.

The author finds that "reconstruction of local history" is the most important in the historical manufacturing process as a culture, and it often becomes a cultural event in local China. In 2019, the author first put forward the discourse of "reconstruction of local history" in the article "Elegance of place names or Miscall of place names —— Reflections on the evolution of the names of two pieces of river stones in Chongqing in history", and later, through the two articles "Reconstruction of China’s traditional local history from the perspective of Jinniu Road", "The phenomenon of sages everywhere in China history" and the reconstruction of traditional local history, Here, we can further analyze the types, paths, reasons and influences of China’s "reconstruction of local history" in history, which is not only the need of historical research cognition, but also the need of cognitive reality of "reconstruction of local history".

Types of "Reconstruction of Local History"

"Reconstruction of local history" can be divided into four types: reconstruction of deeds of former sages, refinement of historical events and systems, attachment of historical place names and repositioning of mountains and rivers.

The reconstruction of the deeds of former sages is often to refine the deeds of former sages in their native land or in their native land, especially through the evolution of "landscape manufacturing" and "regional generalization", so that details become an important part of local history. For example, there are many dishes named "Dongpo" and "Zhuge" and a lot of food stories about the stories and relics of the sages such as Dayu, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu and Su Dongpo, which are not credible, but they exist as cultural history. Similarly, the story of Zhuge Liang preparing a post is a typical case of "landscape making" in the belief of the sages in the Tang and Song Dynasties. In the fourth year of Song Jiayou (1059), Su Dongpo and Huang Tingjian met in Sibo Township, Yibin, which is a typical case of "Guan Gong fighting Qin Qiong". There are similar cases in Guizhou. In history, there are many relics of Yelang Wang in Guizhou, but most of them are attached by later generations. For example, the Yelang King Town in Changshun County is actually a wasteland site in the Ming Dynasty, which is not directly related to Yelang King.

The refinement of historical events and systems is often reconstructed under the principle of "big things are not empty, small things are not limited". "No matter what the big events are, no matter what the small ones are" is the principle of historical novel creation, but it often becomes the principle of "reconstruction of local history". For example, regarding Zhuge Liang’s expedition to the south of China, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms reconstructs Meng Huo, the most famous Han Chinese in the south of China, and not only reshapes Meng Huo into a leader of ethnic minorities, but also makes the story of Meng Huo’s seven escapes and seven runs widely circulated among the people. Up to now, there are many Menghuo City and Menghuo Temple in Southwest China. During the Xianfeng period of Qing Dynasty, the uprisings of Li Yonghe and Lan Chaoding had a great influence on Sichuan, with many records in historical documents and vivid folk stories, but most of them lacked historical science. For example, it is said that after Li Yonghe arrived in Niuzhai from Tunshang, he immediately made an alliance by burning incense in Niuzhai and chose 10 concubines. This may not be true history, but many local people believe in it.

The attachment of historical place names is also an important part of the reconstruction of local history. In the history of China, place names not only have the basic function of orientation, but also have powerful cultural functions. Speculation in the textual research of place names often reflects traditional cultural demands. Looking at the naming hypothesis of Chongqing for 500 years, we can see that the process of "reconstruction of local history" continued until modern times. Imagination and speculation are often mixed with scientific history. Fictional local history not only appears in some traditional "rustic Confucianism", but also some literary and historical experts have become practitioners of speculation on the meaning of place names in "reconstruction of local history". For example, the elegant evolution of geographical names from Wugui Stone, Tortoise Stone to Fugui Stone, Marble Stone to Birthday Stone in history is also the result of the reconstruction of many local literati in past dynasties.

In the reconstruction of local history, the repositioning of mountains and rivers is also an important type. In ancient China, the cognition of geographical space was mostly a kind of "virtual space cognition", such as the positioning expression "How many miles is a certain mountain (river) in the north (east, west, north and south)" in the traditional geographical cognition of China. If the mountains and rivers do not have obvious and special humanistic and natural signs, it is often difficult for future generations and outsiders to re-use this positioning expression to accurately recognize specific geographical points. In the period of social unrest, there is often a "geographical name inheritance fault", which leads to more cognitive errors if there is no guidance from predecessors who can locate it, and many passes, mountains and post stations in the previous generation are relocated, but their previous positions are forgotten by history and cannot be found. The author calls this phenomenon of collective displacement of place names "geographical cognitive translocation", which can also be called "overall drift of place names" From the methodological point of view, it can also be called "the reconstruction of mountains and rivers". For example, through the study of some important place names in southwest China in recent years, the author found that Shimen, Wupanguan, Tandu Mountain (Guan), Big and Small Mantianling, Chubiyi, Chijiashan, Baiyanshan, Twelve Peaks of Wushan, Guyunshan and Liangjiao Mountain all lost their location in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and the reconstructed location was completely different from that in the Tang and Song Dynasties.

The Path of "Reconstruction of Local History"

In the "reconstruction of local history" in China’s ancient history, the general principle is "big things are not empty, small things are not limited", and the reconstructed history is often supported by a grand real historical background, but the specific path can be divided into three levels: oral legend manufacturing, oral legend text, oral legend and text legend landscape.

The first level is oral legend making, which is the lowest level of historical reconstruction. Historically, almost all the historical narratives of the early subjects were passed down orally. For example, the descriptions of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors in the early days were mostly passed down from generation to generation orally. In rural areas, there are many oral histories, and there are still a lot of oral historical legends. For example, in history, there was an oral legend of Zhuge Liang who captured Meng Huo seven times, but later in Yunnan, there was an oral legend of Zhuge Liang who captured Meng Huo seven times, and none of them were recorded in the text. In the research on the acquisition of imperial wood in Ming and Qing Dynasties, the author found that the history of the Ye family’s wood acquisition was only spread among the local people, and it was not recorded in the text.

The second level is the textual legend, which is more common in the later period of traditional society. Many local histories that have been passed down for a long time are often recorded in local chronicles, genealogy, documents and inscriptions. In people’s general cognition, records in black and white are often more likely to convince people of their authenticity. For example, since the Qing Dynasty, the folk song "Shi Niu vs. Shigu", which is related to the legend of Zhang Xianzhong Jiangkou’s sinking silver, has been circulated in the oral records of Chengdu, Zigong, Jianyang, Pengshan, Nanchong, Hejiang, Dianjiang, Zhongjiang and Yibin, and has entered various texts. The phenomenon of "Xiaogan in Macheng" everywhere in the migration movement of "Huguang filling Sichuan" was originally a phenomenon of "impersonation", and many of them were recorded in genealogical texts.

The third level is the landscape of oral legends and text legends. The landscape of historical memory is the most important path in the reconstruction of local history, but it is also the most deceptive path. In people’s cognition, landscape testimony is often more convincing than written records, especially after historical precipitation of landscape manufacturing, people are more convinced of its authenticity. Therefore, all kinds of landscape relics such as Zhuge Tai, Dongpo Well and Valley Slope, as well as the names of places and things containing historical allusions (such as Zhuge Cai and Dongpo Meat) in the reconstruction of local history have an empirical effect like historical evidence for the general public.

Discrimination of "Reconstruction of Local History"

In the ancient history of China, the reasons that influenced the "reconstruction of local history" were quite complicated, which made the authenticity and scientificity of "reconstruction of local history" different. Generally speaking, fiction in "reconstruction of local history" can be divided into two categories: objective speculation reconstruction and subjective fiction reconstruction. In terms of subdivision, the objective speculative reconstruction in the "reconstruction of local history" mainly means that the reconstructor is subjectively unaware of his own cognitive deviation or error due to the limitation of knowledge background and technical conditions, such as the location reconstruction of many historical place names. However, the reconstruction of subjective fiction in "reconstruction of local history" is often subjectively made up for the political demands of ancient countries, the Chinese identity of local society and the utilitarian achievements of the people.

From the perspective of political demands of ancient countries, for the purpose of maintaining the order of the country, the rulers abolished many local "obscenities" and conferred a large number of officially recognized idols of worship, such as Guan Gong, Zhuge Liang, Jiang Shui, Minshan Mountain and Mount Tai, which were conferred by the government in history. The most important cultural orientation of native China is to integrate into China. Therefore, the fictional reconstruction of many native sages’ deeds in history is an important way to bring Chinese historical celebrities into their hometown to seek Chinese identity. Therefore, the ancient local literati in China often enjoyed the reconstruction of local history.

However, in the history of China, many legends and stories handed down from generation to generation are often true historical scenes. Due to the lack of historical documents, they can only be circulated in the form of legends and stories, which are often mixed with many fictions and speculations of "reconstruction of local history", making it difficult for people to distinguish them. For example, the legend of sinking silver in the mouth of Zhang Xianzhong River, the legend of logging by the Ye family in Hanyuan, etc., although no documentary records have been found, they have been proved to be true scenes in history through on-the-spot excavation.

Then, how to distinguish the fictional scene in the "reconstruction of local history" from the real scene spread in the form of legends and stories because of the lack of historical documents has become a great responsibility of historians. In China’s "reconstruction of local history", once the oral fictional legend has the process of "landscape manufacturing", especially after two stages of "regional generalization" and "time precipitation", the fictional legend will often gradually become "faithful history", that is to say, after hundreds of years of precipitation, the fictional historical scene will make the history as a culture and the history as a science intertwined and difficult to distinguish between true and false, thus affecting the current social and historical cognition and misleading people. In today’s rural society, many fictional legends, especially those supported by historical landscapes, are often not marked by "legend" or "legend" in language expression, but are already convinced from the subconscious mind.

As a historian, we first shoulder the responsibility of distinguishing the nature of history as a science and historical remains as a culture in the reconstruction of local history, and then improve the reliability of historical research as a science. Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to strip those parts of the reconstruction of local history from the chaotic historical phenomena and find the original and true historical scenes as much as possible. Secondly, in the real society, historians can’t completely ignore the historical remains that have been precipitated by history as culture, because such remains are often historical witnesses of various cultural backgrounds in historical periods and important historical and cultural resources, which need to be respected. Finally, historians also need to guide and standardize all kinds of practitioners who are carrying out "reconstruction of local history" and mark many fictions and fabrications, so that history as a culture and history as a science are naturally different.

Source: China Social Sciences Network-China Social Sciences News

This article Source: Time Finance Author: Zhou Jiabao

"If you want to succeed in China, you have to find a general trend. Find the wind and you can take off with one wing. When the general trend is no longer, even Kun Peng can’t fly. " In April 2023, Ma Xiaoyu, vice president of L ‘Oré al China and general manager of high-end cosmetics department, spoke frankly to Time Finance and other media.

In the past five years, influenced by many factors, such as the awakening of consumer awareness, Internet traffic bonus and the upgrading of economic structure, the beauty industry in China has experienced an unprecedented highlight moment.

Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics show that from 2018 to 2022, the total retail sales of cosmetics in China increased from 261.9 billion yuan to 393.56 billion yuan. In the first half of 2023, the total retail sales of cosmetics in China increased by 8.6% year-on-year to 207.1 billion yuan, which was more than the total retail sales of cosmetics in 2015.

The rapid expansion of the market has made China the largest overseas market for international beauty groups, and also allowed many local beauty companies to taste the fruits of victory. In 2022, more than 30 domestic beauty companies entered the echelon with annual revenue of 1 billion yuan, and the single-brand revenue scale of head enterprises exceeded 5 billion yuan.

However, it is impossible for any industry to stay in a high-speed growth environment. "This wind in China is in the troposphere." Ma Xiaoyu added that the troposphere, with frequent air movements, indicates the complicated and changeable beauty market environment in China.

When the impact of the epidemic "black swan" has not completely dissipated and the Internet traffic dividend has peaked, this uncertainty has become more and more prominent. Although the development of the industry has matured, the consumer demand has always been difficult to meet expectations. After experiencing a rush from 0 to 1, local beauty began to slow down and enter a cyclical adjustment.

We have seen that domestic beauty companies that have gained market share in the past few years have begun to scramble to get out of the comfort zone. Huaxi Bio, Polaiya, shanghai jahwa and other track head players make new decisions at this crossroads. In the short-term interests and long-term benefits, the latter is chosen to seek a more stable chassis to confront possible opportunities and shocks.

Make up lessons for high growth:Beauty industry long slope seeking snow

Entering the adjustment period does not mean that the fast-moving train suddenly loses its kinetic energy.

In the first half of this year, the achievements of domestic beauty companies were still bright. According to industry media statistics, the total revenue of ten local listed beauty companies, such as Huaxi Bio, Polaiya, Betani, shanghai jahwa and Aimeike, exceeded 22.3 billion yuan in half a year, achieving double-digit growth compared with the same period last year. Among them, the revenue scale of Huaxi Bio and Polaiya exceeded 3 billion yuan, setting a record high.

It is worth noting that the latest performance data reflects two new changes in the domestic beauty industry.

On the one hand, domestic beauty companies began to stage a ranking chase, and the scale of head enterprises continued to grow, but the gap was narrowing. In terms of revenue scale, shanghai jahwa, which owns many skin care brands such as Yuze and herborist, still ranks first with 3.629 billion yuan. At the same time, the latest revenue of Polaiya, a latecomer, reached 3.627 billion yuan, only 2 million yuan behind shanghai jahwa. Huaxi Bio, on the other hand, bit behind with a scale of 3.076 billion yuan. Betani’s 2.368 billion yuan is not far from Shuiyang’s 2.29 billion yuan.

On the other hand, the slowdown in growth has become a fact that most enterprises must face. Although some enterprises achieved double-digit growth in the first half of this year, it is still impossible to rule out the influence of low base under the domestic epidemic control factors in the first half of 2022, and the slowdown trend is more obvious than that in 2021.

First look at the revenue growth rate. From the first half of 2021 to the first half of 2023, the year-on-year growth rate of shanghai jahwa’s revenue decreased from 14.26% to 2.3%. The year-on-year growth rate of Huaxi Bio’s revenue decreased from 104.44% to 4.77%; The year-on-year growth rate of Shuiyang’s revenue dropped from 49.94% to 4%; The year-on-year growth rate of Aimeike’s revenue dropped from 161.87% to 64.93%. Looking at the growth rate of net profit, the year-on-year growth rate of Shuiyang shares in the first half of 2021 was 164.48%, while the growth rate in the first half of this year was 72.02%; Betaine’s net profit growth rate dropped from 65.28% in the first half of 2021 to 13.91% in the same period this year.

The change is the result of many factors. The research department of CITIC Securities divides the industrial life cycle of China’s beauty industry into four stages: at present, China’s beauty industry has gone through a period of rapid growth and is in a platform period. After that, there will be the next round of rapid growth and maturity. In the platform period, the uncertainty of the environment faced by domestic beauty cosmetics is prominent. This includes the bottleneck of demand-side consumption upgrading and insufficient consumption willingness; The supply-side traffic dividend is coming to an end, and model innovation is stagnant; Policy-side supply supervision is strict.

In addition, Xu Xiaofang, chief analyst of the agency’s beauty and business, also pointed out that after the "618" in 2021, the return on investment in the primary market declined, the investment momentum declined, and the funds in the primary market began to ebb. It is also at this stage that domestic beauty companies have begun to make up lessons for the high growth in the previous stage and gain momentum for the next stage of development.

Huaxi Bio clearly stated in the financial report that the slowdown in growth rate is the result of the company’s initiative to get rid of the past success path dependence and carry out comprehensive reforms.

Huaxi Bio said, "The external traffic dividend is slowing down, the traffic cost is getting higher, and the superimposed internal organizational structure and operation management need to be further upgraded. In the first half of the year, the company thoroughly examined the business health and took the initiative to make strategic adjustments to slow down the development speed."

Xu Li Squat:Endogenous growth sumLongevism

American financial tycoon Soros once said: "I am not afraid of anything, but I am afraid of uncertainty." Uncertainty will aggravate the vulnerability of enterprises and shorten their life.

How do domestic beauty companies cross the cycle in an uncertain environment?

Dongxing Securities Research Report pointed out that the development process of international beauty products has gone through the development stage of "classic products-classic brands-brand matrix", that is, the brand positioning is established with classic products, and the brand establishes enterprise tonality, while the perfect brand matrix becomes the shield for the beauty products to grow continuously through the cycle.

The constant core and underlying logic of these three development stages is still the product. For example, Estee Lauder’s small brown bottle, L ‘Oré al’s Bose water emulsion, Lancome’s small black bottle and other products have firmly occupied consumers’ minds for decades and are still iterating to support the constantly updated brand story.

In the past few years, the remarkable effect of the big single product strategy of domestic beauty companies such as Huaxi Bio and Polaiya has also confirmed this point. Among them, Runbaiyan, the core brand of Huaxi Bio, has achieved a 20-fold growth in the four years since it entered the C-end market. In 2022, Runbaiyan’s single brand revenue will reach 1.385 billion yuan. In addition, its Quadi’s 5D essence, Mibel’s pink water and blue bandage mask, and muscular brown rice water are active in the platform promotion list.

Huaxi Bio-Runbaiyan’s Large Single Product Series

In this context, increasing investment in R&D system construction and consolidating product strength have become the only way for enterprises to cross the cycle.

The R&D investment of domestic beauty companies in the head is constantly increasing. From 2020 to 2022, Huaxi Bio’s R&D expenditure increased from 94 million yuan to 388 million yuan per year, maintaining its leading position in the industry. Bettini’s R&D investment increased from 63 million yuan to 255 million yuan. While Polaiya increased from 72 million yuan to 128 million yuan. In terms of the number of R&D personnel, Huaxi Bio also has an absolute advantage with 827 R&D personnel, with 391 R&D personnel in Betani and 229 in Polaiya respectively.

Compared with the low R&D expense rate of domestic beauty products, the data in the first half of this year gave the industry enough confidence. The data shows that the R&D expense rates of Huaxi Bio and Betani are as high as 6.07% and 4.6% respectively. And Polaiya, shanghai jahwa, giant creature also exceeded 2%. According to the research report of CITIC Jiantou Securities, the R&D expense ratio of international head beauty enterprises is mainly between 1.5% and 3.5%. According to Dongxing Securities, the highest R&D expense ratio of L ‘Oreal is 3.2%.

Behind betting on R&D is the determination of head enterprises to change from "growth to external environment" to "promoting endogenous growth". Xu Xiaofang pointed out, "In the past, local brands were grabbing traffic, doing marketing, and upgrading new products. Now they have begun to strengthen various solid actions such as personnel training and upgrading, and organizational restructuring."

The operation and management of head enterprises are moving towards the era of refinement. Time Finance learned that since 2020, Huaxi’s biological organization structure has been continuously optimized to promote the refined operation of skin care and other businesses. The front desk has clearly defined career lines and business divisions, and established seven major Chinese-Taiwanese empowerment business departments, including R&D, supply chain and brand building. In 2023, the adjustment is still going on, involving business operation management system, organizational function management system and talent ability model. In addition, Polaiya is also implementing a more refined operation management system, supplemented by the self-driven organization construction of "culture-strategy-mechanism-talent". Pan Qiusheng, Chairman and CEO of shanghai jahwa, also revealed in the previous semi-annual performance meeting that the organization is undergoing internal adjustment to improve its operational efficiency.

When long-term doctrine becomes the consensus of the whole industry, the logic of the capital market to look at domestic beauty is also changing.

Pan Jie, director of consumer investment of Lianjie Qichen Capital, pointed out to Time Finance, "In the upward stage of economy, whoever can tell the story of C-end brand well, grasp consumers’ hearts, implant brand minds and establish a moat of values will be able to seize consumers’ purchasing power. At that time, we will pay more attention to the brands that run out of the C-end, and most of them lack supply chain capabilities. However, in the economic downturn, the consumption power of C-end is weak. At this time, the upstream supply chain facing B-end shows its advantages, and we will go upstream to find enterprises with R&D capabilities and production capacity. Many times, these companies are the foundries of former big brands. "

In Pan Jie’s view, enterprises with product R&D and supply chain capabilities are more resilient to growth, which is linked to long-termism. They can not only meet the changing needs of consumers continuously and quickly, but also have stronger resistance to pressure in an uncertain environment.

Domestic beauty "revival":Return of discourse right in local market

At present, the right to speak of domestic beauty cosmetics in China market is gradually returning.

According to Wanlian Securities, as early as 2021, domestic brands showed the ability to compete with international brands in the market. In 2021, the retail sales of domestic brands in China cosmetics market was 447 billion yuan, while the retail sales of international brands was 500 billion yuan.

In the more specific C-end skin care market, in the past few years, the bioactive components on the fermentation platform such as hyaluronic acid, γ-aminobutyric acid and ergothionine of Huaxi Bio, ergothionine, peptide, alcohol A of Polaiya, and plant active components of Betanie with Yunnan characteristics have made consumers aware of the advanced technology of domestic cosmetics.

Domestic enterprises headed by Huaxi Bio, Betani and Polaiya are also breaking through the monopoly of foreign giants, especially in the field of functional skin care. According to the data of Jost Sullivan in 2021, the concentration of head enterprises in the market structure of functional skin care products in China reached 67.5%. Among them, Huaxi Bio-market accounted for 11.6%; The market share of the two major beauty groups from Japan and France is 10.06% and 12.4% respectively.

Although the growth of cosmetics market in China is slowing down, the scale of cosmetics market in China still ranks second in the world, and its growth rate is ahead of the world, which provides an opportunity for China beauty enterprises to "overtake in corners".

According to Jost Sullivan’s data, the compound annual growth rate of cosmetics market in China is 12.0% from 2015 to 2021, while the compound annual growth rate of global cosmetics market is only 2.2% in the same period. According to the research, the cosmetic market in China will reach 1.48 trillion yuan in 2026.

Pan Jie believes that for domestic beauty companies, the next opportunity is still in functional skin care and high-end beauty track. According to Jost Sullivan, from 2022 to 2027, the compound annual growth rate of functional skin care products market in China may be as high as 38.8%. "Most of the international brands that supply the domestic market are produced in China. Domestic beauty companies, especially those that come from raw materials, have greater advantages in the production, efficiency and cost of core components. Research and development of this piece must adhere to long-term. " Pan Jie said.

According to the analysis of Dongxing Securities, China has been in the international leading position in the fields of synthetic biological preparation of recombinant collagen, rare ginseng and saponin. Domestic brands began mass production of recombinant collagen skin care products in 2009 before international brands. It has a strong leading edge in the research and development, production and application of recombinant collagen.

Judging from the concrete results of the enterprise, Huaxi Bio entered the synthetic bio-track in 2018 on the basis of absolute leadership of hyaluronic acid. As of June 30th, Huaxi Bio, which has 121 R&D projects on raw materials and synthetic biology, has achieved rapid iteration of synthetic biological production strains in the first half of the year, and the trial production of recombinant collagen, lipopeptide, enzymatic sialic acid and other products has been completed, and more than 10 products have entered the pilot stage. In the first half of the year, Huaxi Bio listed BioyouthTM-EGTPure ultra-pure ergothionine and HybloomTM micro-truth, which greatly improved the production efficiency.

Huaxi Bio revealed that in the second half of this year, the company’s sterile HA (hyaluronic acid) production line is expected to be officially put into use, further consolidating its leading position in the top-end market of hyaluronic acid. At the same time, Hainan Huaxi Biotechnology Industrial Park (Phase I) will also be officially opened, which will help promote the layout of Huaxi Bio in medical devices, regenerative medicine and international business.

China’s domestic beauty cosmetics have obviously begun to tear off the parity label, and started a war about "leading the future" with international beauty cosmetics.