in Egypt the demotic script developed because the middle class people needed a simpler way to write. Likewise, the Japanese developed the kana scripts as a simplification for the less formally educated folks.
So how about the Chinese commercial middle class let’s say under the Ming? Did they learn enough characters to keep accounts and write business letters? Did any of them try to make simplified writing systems, let’s say inspired by the exposure to alphabet form of writing if not from the West then from the Mongols/Manchus?
The Chinese characters used gradually simplified over time, and merchants can read/write - Chinese characters are used in keeping track of accounts. (cite).
As for simplyfing the script; Chinese is a different beast from Japanese. The most you can do is to simplfy the number of strokes to write a character, and that happens gradually. The simplified chinese/traditional chinese’s split, AFAIK, is made by the government of the PRC.
I am aware of high literacy rates in modern Chinese-speaking nations. The question refers to the medieval merchants in China, in centuries past. Obviously folks like landowners, who also were often scholar-officials, would be literate then, but what about the traders?
I was not talking about the literacy rate of modern China; I was talking about the Chinese numerical characters used by them throughout their history and it employs Chinese character.