I believe that everyone has watched the TV series "Shanghai Beach", was impressed by Zhou Runfa's acting skills in the TV series, and was also attracted by the confusing situation in Shanghai in that era. As the earliest opened treaty port in modern times, Shanghai was an important place in China's integration with the West in that era, and it is most consistent to describe it as a mixture of fish and dragons.
In Shanghai, in addition to the merchants and rich people who will come here to settle here, there are also some poor people who come here to look for opportunities. In 1918, inside a teahouse, three middle-aged men decided to cooperate in a conversation and set up a company called Sanxin. No one thought that this company would bring great wealth to the three people, and they were known as the three tycoons of Shanghai, so who were these three people? What happened to their descendants?
Golden Rong
The eldest of the three tycoons in Shanghai is Jin Rong. Jin Rong was the oldest of the three, and he was also the one who had been out for the longest time. Born in Suzhou in 1868, Jin Jinrong lived near Caohejing in Shanghai when he was very young due to family reasons. Here, Jin Rong had very close contact with the local Cao Gang, and this Cao Gang was the famous Qing Gang in Shanghai in the future.
In 1892, Jin Jinrong successfully entered the French Concession in Shanghai by virtue of his connections, and became an agent of the concession patrol house. Jin Jinrong is very good at detective solving cases, other agents have no way to detect cases, he is always able to catch it, made a lot of merit, and soon became a chief inspector of the French Concession.
At this time, Jin Rong also had some connections with the underworld, and with his accumulated prestige and connections, he sat firmly in the position of the leader of the Shanghai Youth Gang, and it can be said that the Shanghai area was a moment of power, and even the local government had to let him have three points.
As the number one person in Shanghai, Jin Jinrong lived a very elegant life, and in his later years, something happened that changed his personality a lot, and he rarely asked about the gangs from then on, and even later handed over the gang's affairs to Du Yuesheng.
It turned out that in his later years, Jin Rong was infatuated with the famous Lu Lanchun at that time. In order to please her, Jin Rong specially built a Shanghai gong stage for her to provide Lu Lanchun with the opportunity to perform. However, it is not only Jin Rong who is infatuated with Lu Lanchun, but also a prince, Lu Xiaojia.
Who is this Lu Xiaojia? He was the son of the warlord Lu Yongxiang at that time, and was known as the Fourth Duke of the Republic of China along with Sun Ke, the son of Sun Wen of the Republic of China, Duan Hongye, the son of Duan Qirui, and Zhang Xueliang, the son of Zhang Zuolin. It can be seen from this that Lu Xiaojia's reputation is still very large.
Once Lu Xiaojia came to the Shanghai Gong Stage to watch Lu Lanchun's performance. Coincidentally, when Lu Lanchun performed on stage that day, she just made a mistake and was seen by Lu Xiaojia. Probably out of spoof psychology, Lu Xiaojia drank a pouring lottery offstage, which made Jin Rong, who was watching the play offstage, very unhappy, and immediately gave Lu Xiaojia a big slap.
Lu Xiaojia has never suffered such a grievance since he was a child, although he can't swallow this breath, but he also knows that Shanghai is the territory of Golden Rong, and at this time he does not have the capital to fight with Golden Rong. So Lu Xiaojia swallowed his anger and returned to Hangzhou, and told his father Lu Yongxiang about the black form.
At this time, Lu Yongxiang, the leader of the Anhui warlords, learned that his son had been slapped, and soon sent someone to arrest Jin Rong and imprison him in He Fenglin's dungeon. After Du Yuesheng learned that Jin Rong had been arrested, he immediately found a relationship and spent money to save Jin Rong from the big prison. After all, for these gangs, warlords are still objects they can't afford to mess with. It is also because of this incident that after Jin Rong was released from prison, his personality changed greatly, and he no longer had the same enthusiasm as before, and he was unwilling to participate in anything anymore.
After the fall of Shanghai, the Japanese wanted to take advantage of Jin Rong's reputation in the Shanghai area and invited him to cooperate with the Japanese and participate in the management of the Shanghai area. Although He was a gangster, he was definitely not a traitor, and he politely declined the invitation, and for a while he pretended to have cerebral palsy in order to avoid harassment by the Japanese.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the people's government did not investigate and hold Him accountable in view of Jin Jinrong's performance in the War of Resistance Against Japan. In 1951, Jin Rong published his self-surrender book in some newspapers in Shanghai, saying that he had done many wrong things and now confessed to the people, hoping to be a new person and continue to serve the people. Since then, the 81-year-old Jin Jinrong has appeared on the streets of Shanghai and started sweeping the road.
In fact, because of his perennial exposure to opium, Jin Rong lost his fertility very early. In order not to have no successor, he adopted a son and raised him as a successor, hoping that he would inherit his position in the Green Gang. But the son was ill at a young age and died of illness at the age of 17.
After that, Jin Rong rarely mentioned adoption again, until he felt childless in his later years, and then adopted another child. For this child, Jin Rong did not have any expectations, only hoped that he could live a peaceful life, and he would have a grave sweeper in the future.
This second son of Jin Rong later left China to develop in Los Angeles, USA. Although it is not very rich and expensive, but the life is not bad, and now in the Chinatown of Los Angeles, there are Huang's descendants. In 1953, Jin Rong died, and his second son Huang Yuantao returned to Shanghai to complete the funeral for him and then returned to the United States again, and there was no news of the Huang family's descendants.
Du Yuesheng
Du Yuesheng is the second oldest among the three tycoons in Shanghai, but he is the most famous of the three. At the age of 23, Du Yuesheng joined the Shanghai gangster Eight Shares Party at that time, engaged in some opium drug trafficking activities, and later under the introduction of friends, he broke away from the Eight Shares Party and joined the Green Gang, becoming Jin Rong's subordinate. Du Yuesheng, with his efficient handling ability and clever mind, as well as some personal charm in the Qinggang, quickly gained the recognition and appreciation of Jin Rong and was promoted to the top level of the Qinggang.
Later, after experiencing the Golden Rong Lu Xiaojia incident, Du Yuesheng's ideology and concept were greatly affected, and he realized that in front of the army, what he had was nothing, so in the days that followed, he was very eager for power, and he always hoped that he could participate in the political situation.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a wave of resistance against Japan was set off in China, and Du Yuesheng at this time also actively responded to the Anti-Japanese Resistance, and during the Battle of Songhu, he also specially organized a special action team to help our army fight.
Later, in the face of the gradual defeat of the Kuomintang army on the battlefield, Chiang Kai-shek decided to lead his men to flee to Taiwan, and at this time he specifically expressed the hope that Du Yuesheng would go to Taiwan with him. However, Du Yuesheng did not accept Chiang Kai-shek's invitation, nor did he stay on the mainland, taking his family to Hong Kong with him, and retired from the jianghu.
On August 16, 1951, as his condition deteriorated, Du Yuesheng died at his residence in Hong Kong. Du Yuesheng's eldest son, Du Weifan, came to Taiwan alone after his father's death, and with the connections his father had accumulated before, Du Weifan obtained a good position in Taiwan. The younger son of Du Yuesheng is Du Weishan, a famous geologist in China, who has been studying abroad for a long time, returned to the motherland after completing his studies, and made great contributions to the geological research of the motherland.
As for Du Yuesheng's third son, Du Weiping, he was not so lucky. After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, Du Weiping was arrested by Chiang Ching-kuo for speculation and finally died in prison at the age of 35. Du Yuesheng's eldest daughter, Du Meixia, has great achievements in art and is also committed to cultivating some Peking Opera talents. His other daughter, Du Meiru, runs a Chinese restaurant in Jordan and lives a happy life.
Zhang Xiaolin
Among the three tycoons in Shanghai, Zhang Xiaolin's birth is the most ordinary, and his status is also the lowest among the three. Zhang Xiaolin had studied in the Martial Arts Academy, so he had a certain intersection with the warlords, which was also the reason why Du Yuesheng came to see him later, because Du Yuesheng needed to rely on him to have a relationship with those warlords.
In the 1927 counter-revolutionary coup d'état, Zhang Xiaolin helped Chiang Kai-shek arrest many members of our party, and later worked for Chiang Kai-shek, although he became an official of Chiang Kai-shek's government, but he did not have real power in his hands. Zhang Xiaolin went all the way to the black, and since he had already made enemies with our party, he spared no effort to target our party.
After the fall of Shanghai, Jin Jinrong said that he would not do anything for the Japanese, Du Yuesheng went to Hong Kong, Zhang Xiaolin was the leader of the Shanghai gang at this time, but he chose to submit to the Japanese and became a traitor. When he was a traitor, Zhang Xiaolin wantonly suppressed some patriotic movements and often killed anti-Japanese people, which can be said to have cut off the back road for his descendants.
Later, Zhang Xiaolin was assassinated by the Kuomintang government, leaving only one son, named Zhang Farao. Like his father, Zhang Farao often committed evil deeds, and although Du Yuesheng had warned him, he never relented in his behavior and indulged in opium. After Zhang Xiaolin was assassinated, Zhang Farao had no financial resources and could only rely on the sale of property to survive, and later because of excessive opium consumption, Zhang Farao died violently, and Zhang Xiaolin had no successor.
epilogue
Family education is very important for a child, these people who once had a prominent position in Shanghai Beach do not necessarily have good tutors for their children and grandchildren, they can have such great achievements, may be heroes of the times, but their children and grandchildren do not necessarily have such a fate, purely dependent on their own fathers, more injustice, and finally inevitably there will be a day of self-inflicted evil.
References: "Du Yuesheng's Biography", "The Fall of the Shanghai Youth Gang", "Figures of the Republic of China"