"Chamber of Commerce" closely revolves around the ups and downs of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce. The story originated from the Qing government's establishment of the General Chamber of Commerce based on the integration of various merchant guilds in Shanghai in response to pressure from the British to amend the Treaty of Xinchou according to its terms. From the beginning, this association became a platform for various business gangs in Shanghai to compete with each other. The two increasingly powerful business gangs, Guangdong merchants and Ningbo merchants, fought against each other for dominance in the chamber of commerce. In the end, they both became pawns of the Taiji merchant gang led by Lord Shang Ding, a senior official of the Qing government, and Taiji merchants. Remember that after the fall of the Qing government, we finally lost control of the Chamber of Commerce, which allowed our protagonist to integrate the Chamber of Commerce according to an ideal model that conforms to the development of the times. Eventually, the Chamber of Commerce gradually transitioned from an autocratic platform with exclusive authority to a democratic platform where various merchant guilds coexist harmoniously. This line explains the core of the drama from beginning to end, that is, the dignity of a group does not come from the authoritarian or dictatorial power of any gang or government or individual, but from the legitimacy of the system or procedure that ties the group together.
"Chamber of Commerce" focuses on shaping the four male protagonists, Wu Jingju, Fu Shun'an, Chen Jiong and Zhang Hu. The four male protagonists respectively represent the four realms of dignity: the first male represents complete dignity, symbolized by complete independence of personality; the second male represents the lack of dignity, symbolized by complete dependence of personality; the third and fourth males represent , represents the incompleteness of dignity from two extremes, one from the perspective of the revolutionary party and the other from the perspective of the underworld. What they have in common is that both have independent personalities and lack of personality, because both of them seek benefits for some people, rather than standing on a higher dimension and seeking benefits for everyone in the world like Male One.
