Huang Zuoqing was from a well-to-do family in Linghu Town (菱湖), Gui'an County (歸安), Huzhou, Zhejiang, Qing Empire, and received a good early education. Like many adolescents in Huzhou (known in China as the "City of Silk"), he worked as an apprentice in a silk shop as a teenager. In the late 1850s, he moved to Shanghai with his family when Taiping rebels attacked Zhejiang. In Shanghai Huang Zuoqing found a job in a silk store, and showing diligence and competence, he was well trusted by the store owner. He also learned English in his spare time. This skill enabled him to act as a trade agent between Chinese manufacturers of hand-reeled silk and western exporters. Because western demand for silk from China was increasingly high (due to an 1850s silkworm disease epidemic in Europe, coupled with the rise of American and French silk-weaving industries at the time), Huang earned a sizable income from the commissions.