Shanxi piaohao is not entirely the receiver of the Revolution of 1911, and its response to the revolution is the key to seeing its rise and fall. As the birthplace of the revolution, many branches in Hankou faced serious market risks and operational challenges before the Wuchang Uprising. In terms of the market environment, the financial panic in Hankou was still ongoing, and the focus of the piaohao’s business has shifted from exchange to deposit and loan. This means that if there is a slight carelessness, the piaohao involved in the bank’s business chain will face the dilemma that the loan cannot be recovered. In terms of operating conditions, due to the impact of the external environment, the number of branches has generally shown a decreasing trend, and the operating performance has plummeted. After the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, Hankou was deeply in turmoil. Through the interaction with Shanxi piaohao headquarter, Hankou branches focused on solving the problems of preserving bills and books, contracting and adjusting business, and liquidating creditor’s rights and debts. However, due to the suddenness of the revolution and the information lag caused by long-distance communication, the headquarter has always been unable to come up with effective response plans. At that time, branch managers actually had the authority to independently handle local affairs. In this process, businessmen are more inclined to maintain the existing economic and social order in the face of serious social anomie. This appeal was rooted in its disadvantageous position in response to the political revolution, that is, the piaohao branch was forced to withdraw or relocate, and the financial operation was forcibly interrupted, resulting in a large number of bad debts, especially when the measures taken by the piaohao merchants to prevent the run and the crisis of bad debts through various forces had little effect, the trust gap between them and the new government also widened. The coping mechanism of merchants fully proves that the Revolution of 1911 did not lead to the fundamental decline of the piaohao. The operating pressure and turbulent political situation exacerbated by the regime change reshaped the development path of Shanxi piaohao, which was embodied in the attitude of refusing financial transformation and the management strategy of downsizing in the early Republic of China. Between transformation and contraction, businessmen chose the latter rationally and prudently. The so-called missed historical opportunity to transform into a bank is just an ideal presupposition of historical development scenarios by later generations.