In the history of China, there are many loyal subjects who have left their names in the history of Qing, and there are relatively many people who have been insulted, speaking of wealth, the Qing Dynasty and Yan are the number one figures, and in the "Qing Dynasty Wild History Grand View and The Fortune of the Yan Family", it is recorded that the two billion and two Odd governments earned seventy million, and the hezhen was a cabinet minister for twenty years, and the tax revenue of a country for twenty years was strong.
The general meaning is that He yan's savings are comparable to a country's twenty years of taxes, and he yan is only so rich, mainly because of greed, but in the Qing Dynasty, there is a person who comes to the top, his wealth can be comparable to he yan, but he is much smarter than he is, this person is Li Hongzhang.
Li Hongzhang was a heavy minister of the late Qing Dynasty, no matter how much influence he caused in the history of diplomacy, but Li Hongzhang is definitely one of the few figures in Chinese history in the past thousand years, according to Liang Qichao's accounting, After Li Hongzhang's death, the property left behind was about 10 million, but he still had brothers and sisters, even if not 40 million, the family property was 20 million.
Twenty million silver in the late Qing Dynasty can be said to be the rich side, and compared to Hezhen, Li Hongzhang was neither corrupt nor bribed, so where did his large amount of property come from?
According to Liang Qichao, most of Li Hongzhang's property came from some of the civilian workers and military industries he started, and in the "Li's Jishantang Real Estate Contract Collection", Li Hongzhang had a lot of shares in the China Merchants Bureau, the Telegraph Bureau, the Kaiping Coal Mine, and the China Commerce and Commerce Bank.
In 1865, Li Hongzhang, with the support of Zeng Guofan, acquired two factories and opened Jiangnan manufacturing machines, among the four major enterprises in the modern military industry, Li Hongzhang founded three by himself, at first Li Hongzhang was mainly self-reliant, and in the 1870s, the Foreign Affairs Movement was mainly based on "seeking wealth".
He concluded that "the cause of prosperity and strength must be rich first and then be strong", so Li Hongzhang founded the steamship investment industry, which was the first private steamship company in China, and it was also opened with the approval of the imperial court, when he was half of the transportation volume of the imperial court's "official goods".
With the development of the steamship industry, Li Hongzhang cooperated with british and American joint companies, and after that, Li Hongzhang founded various civilian enterprises, involving mining, textile industry, telecommunications industry, railway, it can be said that most of Li Hongzhang's property comes from his shares.
In the Li family, it is also the use of Li Hongzhang's influence to get a lot of benefits, at that time there was a folk saying that "half of the anwei are the Li family", even if Li Hongzhang has such a large property, he has not been able to enjoy the glory and wealth, in 1901, he suddenly died of a serious illness at the age of 79.
After Li Hongzhang's death, his hundreds of billions of inheritance were also left to his descendants, and it is recorded in the "Biography of Modern Celebrities" that Li Hongzhang had a family wealth of tens of millions, and his brothers and sons had more than tens of millions of silver and private wealth. Although Li Hongzhang died, his descendants did not let the Li family decline, the most famous of which were Li Jiachang, Li Jiajing and Li Jiashu, all three of whom were billionaires.