This paper explores the role of the merchants in various commercial ventures on the South China Coast in late imperial China. The paper focuses on a set of materials from the area between Huizhou in what is now Anhui Province and the coastal region, including Canton (now Guangzhou). This area saw active trade out of tea and ceramics, but also an influx of yang goods, ‘ocean’ goods, such as trepang and raffa. Broadly speaking, the paper asks if it is fruitful to think of these activities as an early modern form of capitalism. What do we gain, as historians, and what do we lose, as East Asianists?