Abstract: Businessmen from Anhai occupied an important position in the history of private maritime trade in Quanzhou during the Ming Dynasty. In the Qing, with the decline and fall of the Zheng family, Anhai businessmen also deteriorated. Meanwhile, relying on their geographical advantages that facilitated convenient maritime traffic, businessmen from the coastal area of Jingjiang County, Quanzhou prefecture, rapidly developed and became the most influential local business group in Fujian during the Qing. Particularly, after the upgrading of ?aiwan’s economic status in the mid-Qing and the expansion of Taiwan’s economic exchanges with the mainland, the Jinjiang businessmen focused on the cross-strait trade and the coastal shipping in Southeast China. The managerial success of Jinjiang coastal businessmen were closely linked to their full use of family and lineage’s mutual aid capacity. However, the links of family and lineage also placed businessmen in a relatively complex situation with regard to business and economic relations. Depengding on certain circumstances, these complex relationships meant that family and lineage ties could both promote or obstruct the development of commercial capital. Thus, the traditional argument that the family and lineage system hindered socio-economic development should be re-ex-amined.