At three in the morning, Wanliang Town in Fusong County, Baishan City, at the foot of the Changbai Mountains in Jilin Province, is already awake. Trucks loaded with fresh ginseng, one after another, roll into the Wanliang National-level Changbai Mountain Ginseng Market beneath the starlight. The trading hall buzzes with voices as deals are struck amid a clash of regional dialects, and each "king of a hundred herbs" makes its way from deep in the mountains to every corner of the country.
Fusong County has a history of ginseng harvesting spanning thousands of years and is known as the "Home of Chinese Ginseng," as well as the world's largest ginseng distribution center. Every year from September to November is the peak season for fresh ginseng trading, and the local market operates around the clock, drawing merchants from home and abroad who come to select ginseng. "For every ten ginseng roots sold nationwide, eight come from Fusong." This is a saying locals take great pride in.
Liu Jiali, a manager at the Wanliang National-level Changbai Mountain Ginseng Market, offered a set of figures: currently, the market sees average daily foot traffic exceeding 30,000 visits, with peak periods reaching 70,000 visits, and the maximum single-day trading volume surpassing 3 million jin. On October 15, merchants at the Wanliang National-level Changbai Mountain Ginseng Market were weighing ginseng for customers. Photo by Gao Long'an.
For Fusong, ginseng is more than just a medicinal herb. In this small town, about 45,000 people work in ginseng-related industries, and this ancient trade is welcoming a new generation of inheritors. Guo Yongjia, born after 2000, is a new-generation merchant in the market. He grew up following his grandfather and father up the mountains to plant ginseng, and after graduating from university in 2020, he returned to his hometown to start a business in ginseng wholesale. "In the past, selling ginseng depended on merchants coming to the market to purchase and on large trucks hauling it out; now ginseng can be shipped by air." Guo Yongjia excitedly told reporters that every day at 15:30, trucks full of ginseng depart from Wanliang Town on schedule, heading straight to Changchun Longjia International Airport. The improvement in logistics efficiency is "shortening" the distance between ginseng production areas and customers.
Li Wei, born in the 1990s, is a "third-generation ginseng man." In 2019, he started a business with 20,000 yuan in startup capital, launching ginseng e-commerce, and orders exploded as soon as he opened. Good ginseng needs no worry about sales, but Li Wei was not satisfied with only selling raw ginseng. Using the "first pot of gold" accumulated from his startup, he founded a company locally and developed processed ginseng products. "Our team has more than 40 people, over 90 percent of whom are post-90s and post-2000s." Li Wei said young people are quick-thinking and daring to venture and act, and he plans to set up ginseng processing plants in southern cities while also expanding into overseas markets. On October 15, merchants were selecting ginseng at the Wanliang National-level Changbai Mountain Ginseng Market. Photo by Gao Long'an.
In fact, ginseng going overseas has long been nothing new in Fusong. Relying on technological innovation, local enterprises continue to develop high-value-added deep-processing products, allowing Chinese ginseng to sell at higher prices in the international market. "We separate, purify, and refine rare ginsenoside monomers. In the past, ginseng was priced by the jin; now some products can be priced by the gram or even the milligram." Liu Yong, head of a company in Fusong County, explained that in recent years, the company's new production lines and analytical laboratories have been put into use one after another, and multiple products are exported to Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and other countries.
Zhu Hongliang, director of the Fusong County Ginseng Industry Development Center, introduced that the area already has more than 600 kinds of ginseng products sold to more than 30 countries and regions worldwide. Several large pharmaceutical companies have settled in Fusong, and there are now more than ten ginseng pharmaceutical enterprises above designated size, along with more than 3,200 various ginseng processing households. In 2025, the output value of the county's entire ginseng industry chain reached 21.872 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.33 percent, and the "ginseng hometown's" gold content keeps rising.
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