Hu Xueyan, real name Hu Guangyong, character Xueyan, Anhui Huizhou Jixi people. He is a famous red-top merchant in modern times, a famous wealthy merchant at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and a representative figure of huishang.
Daoguang was born in a small village in Anhui Province for three years. When he was a child, his family was very poor, and he had to go to herd cattle for a living. At the age of 12, his dependent father also left him. The following year, he left his hometown and began to wander out alone.
He came to Hangzhou and worked as a coolie in a grain store and a buddy in a commercial house. Soon, he went to Yiqianzhuang as an apprentice, starting from a miscellaneous servant, sweeping the floor and pouring a urinal pot was his daily work. Three years later, because of his hard work, he was left by the money bank as a formal buddy.
In the twenty-second year of Daoguang, Hu Xueyan was accepted as an apprentice by the treasurer of another money house. The treasurer had no heirs, so he treated the clever and clever Hu Xueyan as his own son. When the treasurer died, he gave him the money worth 500 taels of silver.
When running Qianzhuang, I met Wang Youling, the "alternate Ambassador of Zhejiang Salt". In the first year of Xianfeng, Wang Youling was appointed as the prefect of Hangzhou, and Hu Xueyan began to act as an agent for the Huzhou public treasury, where he opened a silk shop, using the silver from the public treasury to help farmers raise silkworms, and then purchasing local silk to be shipped to Shanghai and Hangzhou for sale. During this period, he also persuaded The Inspector of Zhejiang to join the stock to run a pharmacy, and the pharmacy grew rapidly.
With the escort of officials, his business is doing more and more smoothly, and the industries involved have expanded. He became the richest man in the late Qing Dynasty at the time of the "Gengshen Revolution", and he established relations with the military circles, and a large amount of recruitment fees were deposited into the money bank. At the same time, Wang Youling sent him to buy military food and manage caoyun, and at that time he controlled almost half of Zhejiang's economy.
In November 1861, the Taiping Army attacked Hangzhou, and Hu Xueyan purchased arms and grain from Shanghai and Ningbo to transport to Hangzhou to help the Qing army. At the end of the year, the Taiping army broke through the city gate, Wang Youling hanged himself and died, and Hu Xueyan was affected to a certain extent. The Qing government appointed Zuo Zongtang as the new governor of Zhejiang, and Zuo Zongtang appointed him as the governor because he took the initiative to help the Qing army during the war and had a good impression of him.
Hu Xueyan knew that only by taking the road of official business could there be a future, so he did his best to do things for Zuo Zongtang, help Zuo Zongtang organize the "Chang Jie Army" and establish the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau. He used his status as an official and a businessman to travel to and from treaty ports such as Shanghai where foreigners gathered, and to do business with foreigners.
In the third year of Tongzhi, after the Qing army captured Zhejiang, all the soldiers stored the looted property in Hu Xueyan's money house. He used the two silver coins to organize private money houses in Shanghai and set up semicolons in various places. At the same time, it also deals in tea, silk, medicinal herbs and so on. In just a few years, he has a net worth of more than 10 million and controls the business in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
In 1882, he spent 20 million taels of silver in Shanghai to open a silk factory, and the price of raw silk plummeted, trying to monopolize this trade, which was boycotted by foreign investors. Under various factors, Hu Xueyan was forced to sell a large amount of silk he had purchased earlier, and he lost 10 million taels of silver, and half of the family property was lost.
Hu Xueyan's poor capital turnover leaked out, and officials and gentlemen in various places demanded deposits one after another and took advantage of the opportunity to extort money. In 1883, the imperial court ordered Hu Xueyan to be removed from his post and asked Zuo Zongtang to track down his debts. A month later, all of Hu Xueyan's family property was seized.
In November 1885, the destitute Hu Xueyan died, and before his death, he warned his descendants not to approach the White Tiger. Of course, the "white tiger" here does not refer to the real tiger, but to the official. His wealth is also in the official, and his defeat is also in the official, so he will leave this warning.