Mu Rongchu: Mao Zedong called the representative of the "emerging merchant faction"

Mu Rongchu was the first entrepreneur in modern China to achieve great success through knowledge entrepreneurship. After becoming a huge rich man, he adhered to his original intention, self-disciplined, and relieved the difficulties of the country. He strives for revitalization with industry and is an outstanding representative of the new type of entrepreneur.

Outstanding reputation

In August 1923, the Shanghai Commercial Press published "The Victor of Modernity", which listed 16 successful people in the first volume, including Edison and other world-famous people, including Mu Rongchu.

In April 1923, Mao Zedong, in his article "External Forces, Warlords and Revolutions", analyzed the various forces in China at that time, and called Mu Rongchu a representative of the "emerging merchant faction". In July of the same year, in an article entitled "The Beijing Coup and the Merchants," Mao Zedong affirmed Mu Rongchu's performance in the struggle against imperialism and warlords, saying that he was "the first voice of a businessman to intervene in politics" and "bravely took the first step in the revolution." On August 14, 1936, Mao Zedong wrote a special letter to Feng Xuefeng, head of the Shanghai underground party of the Communist Party of China, asking " Is there any hope for Mu Rongchu to contact?" In 1940, Mao Zedong wrote a letter to Zhou Enlai and others on the issue of the construction of the base area, mentioning again that he wanted to get in touch with Mu Rongchu.

Get to know Xianda

In 1876, Mu Rong was born in Chuansha County, Jiangsu Province (now Pudong New Area, Shanghai). The Mu family has been planting cotton for generations, and when his father Mu Zhen'an arrived, he opened the Mu Zhengyi Flower Shop in the Sixteen Shops of Shanghai Nanshi. At the age of 14, Mu Rongchu entered a cotton spinning shop in Nanshi as an apprentice, during which he witnessed the pit behavior of cotton merchants such as mixing water and gaining weight, and later learned that this phenomenon was also prevalent in other industries, "not only cotton, such as salt mixed (mixed) chen lime, rice wheat with small stone chips, beans and coarse mud particles, almost no job, no drawbacks, no goods and no counterfeits." His early years gave him the idea of improving society.

In 1894, the Qing government was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War, and Mu Rongchu made up his mind to seek Western studies. After that, he entered night school to study English in addition to work, and taught himself Western humanities knowledge.

In the spring of 1899, Mu Rongchu was admitted to Shanghai Jiang Customs with his own efforts and served as a clerk in the customs office. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Jiang Customs was controlled by the British, the senior positions in the customs were all British, and the Chinese were generally discriminated against in terms of positions and salaries, which Mu Rongchu was deeply dissatisfied with. In 1903, the "Anti-Russian Movement" broke out in Shanghai against the annexation of northeast China by Tsarist Russia, and more than 200 people from all walks of life gathered in Zhangyuan to call on the people to defend sovereignty in the form of rallies and speeches. Mu Rongchu participated in the Zhang Garden rally and became acquainted with Huang Yanpei, Uncle Li and other celebrities, especially with Huang Yanpei, who was the most speculative.

In 1905, the persecution and abuse of Chinese workers in the United States by the US government triggered a huge boycott of American goods. The movement began in Shanghai and quickly spread to large and medium-sized cities across the country. Mu Rongchu called it the most civilized and effective move, and resolutely resigned from Jiang customs after the outbreak of the movement.

After leaving Jiang customs, Mu Rongchu served as an English teacher and school supervisor at Longmen Normal School. Soon, at the invitation of Zhang Xiao, general assistant of Jiangsu Railway Company, he was appointed as the chief of Jiangsu Railway Police. In 1909, Mu Rongchu became acquainted with Zhu Zhiyao, a famous industrialist who had just been elected as a member of the Shanghai County Consultative Council. Zhu Zhiyao was the first-class Western scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, and he was very appreciative of Mu Rongchu's ambition to learn Western studies, encouraged him to study abroad and promised to support him.

Study abroad years

In June 1909, Mu Rongchu embarked on a voyage to the United States. In the fall of that year, Mu Rong first entered the prestigious University of Wisconsin, taking courses related to agriculture, biology, horticulture and other industries. Due to his excellent grades, at the end of the first academic year, Mu Rongchu was able to turn into a regular student. In September 1911, after studying at the University of Wisconsin for two years, He transferred to the College of Agriculture at the University of Illinois. In June 1913, Mulholchu graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Science degree.

After graduating from the University of Illinois, Mu Rong first went to the eastern United States to conduct an industrial expedition. In the autumn of 1913, Mu Rong first entered texas A&M University, specializing in cotton planting and textile knowledge. In June 1914, Mu Rongchu graduated from the school with a master's degree in agronomy, and then dressed up and set off to return to China.

The king of cotton yarn

In July 1914, Mu Rongchu returned to Shanghai after several years of absence. In the same month, at the invitation of Zhang Xiao, Huang Yanpei and others, he went to the Jiangsu Provincial Education Association to give a speech. Based on his experience in staying in the United States, he proposed that we must change the current situation of China as a place of supply of industrial raw materials and dumping of products, and the top priority is to increase agricultural productivity to strengthen national industry. He specially stated that he would not enter the political circles this time when he returned to China, and that he would devote himself to industrial construction with the expertise he had learned. Mu Rongchu's speech was very contagious, and the participants were deeply moved by his enthusiasm and ambition. Zhang Xiao also praised him, saying that he "did not seek an official with a master's degree, and had knowledge without thinking about thick value."

In 1914, shortly after Muro's initial return to China, World War I broke out. Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other powers temporarily relaxed their raw material plundering and commodity dumping activities in China. By 1918, French imports were reduced by a third from before the war, British goods were cut in half, German goods were completely stopped, and China's economic aggression was suspended. The enthusiasm of the national bourgeoisie for investing in factories has the opportunity to be released.

The first factory Mu Ranchu operated was a resale mill on Yangshupu Road. Due to financial constraints, he raised 200,000 silver dollars to buy the factory in the form of a public offering to the public, named it Deda Spinning Factory, and personally served as the manager and engineer of Deda Spinning Mill.

On June 17, 1915, after more than 8 months of construction and transformation, Deda Spinning Factory was officially completed, and about 500 or 600 Chinese and Western people came to visit. The spinning mill covers an area of more than 14 acres, with more than 120 factories and nearly 600 employees. At the beginning of the completion and operation of the spinning mill, there were 10,400 spindles, and 30 large bags of 16 rovings could be produced every day, and 32 fine yarns were produced later. In terms of scale, Deda Spinning Mill was not very large in the cotton textile industry in Shanghai at that time, and it was only about one-eighth compared with British and Japanese factories.

Unlike other cotton mills in Shanghai at that time, Deda Spinning Mill took the road of winning by quality. Mu Rongchu studied the most acclaimed various imported yarns on the market one by one, and then drew on the strengths of each family and applied its advantages to the products of Deda. After a series of technical, management and institutional reforms, Deda Spinning Mill has been in operation for only a month, and the products have successfully entered the market. Deda's "pagoda brand" cotton yarn, the quality is far better than similar products, by all walks of life praise.

Under the initial operation of Mu Rong, Deda Spinning Mill "operated in a good way" and made a sharp profit. In April and May 1916, the cotton yarn fine yarn in the domestic market was sold out of stock, the roving was not sold back, and the goods produced by the shanghai spinning mills were mostly rovings, "but the Deda Spinning Factory was founded last year and also made fine yarns, and the goods now are quite popular with the business community, so that the sales are very smooth." Just when the cotton yarn market was in a depression, Deda Spinning Mill relied on good market awareness, did not decrease but increased, and even did not stop working on Sundays and nights. In June 1916, in the product quality competition held by the Beijing Commodity Exhibition Center, the "Baota Brand" cotton yarn of Shanghai Deda Textile Factory won the first prize. The excellent production of Deda Spinning Mill not only surpasses that of general Chinese textile mills, but also better than foreign products, and has won the reputation of "the crown of Shanghai spinning mills", and its reputation has risen.

The success of Deutsche University inspired Mu Rong's determination to expand his business, and he was ready to create another spinning mill. On June 27, 1918, the newly established Welfare Spinning Factory started construction, with 16,000 spindles and nearly 1,000 employees, and the scale expanded a lot. The brands such as "Shuangxi" and "Airship" produced by the new factory sell well throughout the country. In the five years since its completion, the number of yarn spindles has increased sharply to 40,340, the total number of employees has reached more than 2,400, and the cumulative profit has reached 1.07 million taels, and the yarn spindles continue to increase.

In just a few years, the Deda and Welfare Spinning Mills operated by Mu Rongchu have become a demonstration in the same industry, and many Chinese businessmen have come here to visit and learn.

The success of the two factories, Deok University and Welfare, made Mu Rongchu full of confidence, and he planned to build a new factory in the mainland. In April 1919, Yufeng Spinning Factory broke ground in Zhengzhou, covering a total area of 200 acres, designed and built by Shanghai Nanyang Construction Company. In May of the following year, when some parts were put into production, Mu Rongchu personally went to Zhengzhou to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for the spinning mill. On June 13th, Yufeng Spinning Mill held an opening ceremony, and more than 800 local people from all walks of life in Henan and dozens of European and American people came to congratulate them.

In addition to the three spinning mills of Deda, Housheng and Yufeng, Mu Rongchu also participated in the establishment of Evergrande Spinning Factory and Weida Textile Co., Ltd. in Shanghai in 1919. In both spinning mills, Mu Rongchu had capital investment and was entrusted with the position of director. Among them, the "aircraft brand" cotton yarn produced by Evergrande is exported to Nanyang; the shareholders of Victoria's University include Nie Yuntai, Chen Guangfu and other famous industrialists.

Fight with all your might

After the September 18 incident, Mu Rongchu called on the government and the Chinese people to "make active resistance." During the "128" incident, Mu Rongchu, Huang Yanpei and others organized the Shanghai Local Association and actively raised donations for the Nineteenth Route Army to support the War of Resistance in the front. After that, he wrote articles such as "The Crisis in China's Economy", "Who Belongs to the Final Victory", and "How to Bring the Violent Sun to Its Knees", refuting the defeatist arguments and strengthening the people's confidence in the victory of the War of Resistance.

In February 1933, when the Japanese army invaded Rehe, Mu Rongchu personally went to the Chengde front to boost morale, which was called the "anti-Japanese vanguard army" by public opinion at that time. After the Lugou Bridge Incident, Mu Rongchu attended a talking meeting held in Lushan for people from all walks of life, at which he vigorously advocated the War of Resistance and suggested that the government should strengthen wartime production. During the Battle of Songhu in August 13, Mu Rongchu served as the director of the sermon group of the Shanghai Municipal Relief Commission to raise supplies for refugees. When the Japanese army occupied Shanghai, he decided to follow the government's inward migration and appealed to the industrial and commercial circles to invest in the mainland and not to be an enemy.

After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a large part of the territory of North China, East China, and Central China fell, and the national industries suffered unprecedented losses; except for a few cotton mills that were demolished and relocated to the southwest and northwest inland, a large number of factories were destroyed by soldiers or occupied by the Japanese army. In order to avoid cotton from becoming a material of the enemy, Mu Rongchu proposed to vigorously develop handmade cotton textiles in the rear area to make up for the lack of cotton production. He led his colleagues to improve the earthen spinning machine, equipped with a set of convenient textile machines, and named it "Qiqi Cotton Spinning Machine". This cotton spinning machine is economical and practical, easy to operate and easy to imitate. From the second half of 1938 to 1940, the number of Seven-Seven Cotton Spinning Machines has been promoted nationwide at least more than 50,000, which has made a significant contribution to ensuring the supply of logistics materials in the wartime rear.

In March 1943, Mu Rongchu was hospitalized for intestinal disease, and on his sickbed, he was still concerned about the development of the cotton textile industry, full of hope that after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he would "make his decades of research and experience and strive to build". At the beginning of September, his illness worsened, and he knew that he could not afford it, so he instructed his family: "I have been engaged in the cotton textile business all my life, and the cotton yarn business is the home of my heart, and after I die, I only need to wear earth cotton weaving for me, no silk things, and it is not suitable for thick burial." On September 19, 1943, Mu Rong died of illness in Chongqing, the capital of Chongqing.

On September 21, xinhua daily reported on the life of Mu Rongchu and published a short commentary, saying that his death was "a loss to the national industrial circles" and "Mu Rongchu's lifelong struggle experience is exactly a living history of China's national industry", and highly affirmed his emphasis on the welfare of employees, cultivating talents, loving young people, and exhausting his economic construction in the War of Resistance at an advanced age, calling on "domestic national industrialists to inherit his legacy and be in the blue wisps of the Yanlu Road." to build the foundations of an industrial nation for our country".

In a condolence note to commemorate Mu Rongchu, Dong Biwu, the CPC representative in Chongqing, wrote the following: He is a man of ten thousand heroes, who in the difficulties of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, invented many things, and came out of the machine; meritorious for hundreds of generations, left alone in innocence on the muddy day of the whole world, and can be a model.