Originally, Hongrentang Drugstore was a branch of Tongrentang Drugstore, an old shop belonging to the Le family. In 1931, it separated from Tongrentang Drugstore and managed its own business independently at the Dazhalan of the Qianmen Avenue. In 1934, its first branch was set up at the England settlement in Tianjin, and then another branch was set up at the Dongsi in Beijing. The business of Hongrentang was growing rapidly, subsequently a number of branches were set up in succession in Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Qingdao and so on, and gradually the big Hongrentang, with the drugstore in Beijing as the headquarters, was formed. At that time, Hongrentang had a pharmaceutical factory of its own, with its specialty in pharmacy and its large scale, it could be compared with the Tongrentang, and this advantage was kept till the early stage of liberation. In 1956, its branches in other cities digressed successively from the main store in Beijing, and the pharmaceutical factory was also separated from Hongrentang.
Hongrentang had so rapid development mainly due to its four characteristics, namely famous medical prescription, high quality material, masterly art and effective drugs. By its high quality, Hongrentang obtained the clients' trust and was praised as "the drug from Hongrentang is pure" in a number of cities, such as Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai.
Stressing the quality of the drugs was the first characteristic in the management of Hongrentang. The "horn of ariel" and "horn of rhinoceros" sold by it were all cut by "Lingyang Guo", the famous expert in Beijing. The ariel pieces cut by him was thin as a sheet of paper and had high quality. Why Hongrentang invited him to cut the horn? Because "Lingyang Guo" was reputed as the expert who only cut true horn and rejected fakes absolutely. In order to ensure the quality of the hairy antler, Hongrentang had built its own deer garden with more than 100 deer and made the hairy antler by itself. At that time there were only four drugstores in Beijing with their own deer gardens, they were Hongrentang, Yongrentang, Lerentang and Tongjitang.
The second characteristic is that the drugs were daintily made. In the course of cutting medical herb in pieces, the roundness and arc granules like lotus seeds in size, such as "Yuanhu" and "Banxia", should be cut into several dozens, which was easily scattered by a slight blow. In the past, the medical herb in pieces was cut all by hand, and one drug maker could only cut four tael of herb at best in one day.
Hongrentang was also daintily about the technology of drug processing. Keeping to ancient medical prescription of roasting and scorching the raw material, it paid attention not to lose the nature of the drug. For example, the manufacture of "Zhixuesan" should go through eight technical steps, which would last for one year.
Hongrentang takes "clemency and honesty" as its concept of management, in other words, "clemency and honesty" highly generalizes the corporate culture of Hongrentang.
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