Sheng Xuanhuai was a famous industrialist at the end of the Qing Dynasty, from Li Hongzhang's copywriting to Empress Dowager Cixi's "Postal Shang Shu", for more than forty years, Sheng Xuanhuai became the richest man in China at that time by opening a post office, running a bank, and founding a steamship company. Sheng Xuanhuai has been concerned about education all his life, and once opened a large number of new-style schools in China, advocating that "middle school is the body, and Western learning is used." It has made great contributions to the cause of national education. But he planted a big fight on the issue of his children's education.
After Sheng Xuanhuai's death, the fourth son, Sheng Enyi, inherited the family property. Initially, Sheng Enyi was the most powerful of Sheng Xuanhuai's eight sons. His name was Cixi Yuzhi, his father-in-law was the prime minister of the Republic of China, and his wife was a translator of Cixi. He also studied in the United Kingdom and the United States, and when he returned, he served as the general manager of Hanyeping Company. However, he finally fell into the vice of gambling and lost 100 buildings in Shanghai overnight. By the end of the War of Resistance, he was penniless.
After liberation, Sheng Enyi did not have a skill, was poor, and finally suffered a stroke, hungry to the doorstep, and never got up again.
Sheng Enyi, who "does not learn and has no skills"
Sheng Xuanhuai had eight sons and eight daughters in his lifetime, and Sheng Enyi was the fourth eldest in his family. When Sheng Enyi was born, just as Sheng Xuanhuai entered the palace to see Cixi, he received this good news, and Cixi gave him the word "Enyi" as his name. He had three older brothers in front and four younger brothers in the back, but the older brothers all died relatively early.
By the time his father Sheng Xuanhuai died in 1916, Sheng Enyi had become the "eldest" in the family.
At the same time, he also became the general manager of Hanyeping Company.
Hanyeping Company is the earliest steel plant in China. It is composed of "Hanyang Iron Works", "Daye Iron Mine" and Jiangxi "Pingjiang Coal Mine".
This steel joint venture is not only the lifeblood of heavy industry in the late Qing Dynasty,
It is also the predecessor of today's Heavy Steel Group. To run such an enterprise, it is indispensable to deal with the officialdom. However, Sheng Enyi is a somewhat introverted and not good at socializing.
Therefore, the business is all left to the people under his command.
At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japan, most of HanYeping's equipment was moved to Chongqing, but Sheng Enyi remained in Shanghai Beach. Later, when Shanghai fell, he went to Anhui to do salt business with the Japanese and opened a Yuhua Anhui Salt Company. Two Japanese advisers were hired, both of whom were actually sent by the Japanese military. His salt company made a lot of money by exploiting and suppressing and dividing accounts.
He also invested the profits he obtained in northern Anhui to buy "tobacco soil", and then transferred it to Shanghai to make a fortune.
Sheng Enyi's salt industry company was not closed until 1943.
After making enough money, go back to Shanghai to enjoy Qingfu. Because the money came too easily, Sheng Enyi began to splurge wildly. Often asked the grandson of the salt merchant Zhou Fujiu to go to horse racing and gambling,
It's not uncommon to lose ten thousand a night. And then later,
I don't know if he fell into someone else's trap or how, overnight, he exported more than a hundred suites of the Sheng family in Shanghai.
The decline of the Sheng family
In fact, among the eight sons of the Sheng family, the original most promising may be the eldest son, Sheng Changyi. In his twenties, he once "went to the Korean battlefield to appease the Wokou", and he was also elected during the Guangxu years. Later, he followed Sheng Xuanhuai to found China Merchants Bank. Unfortunately, he died at the age of forty-six, a few years before his father.
Sheng Enyi's second and third brothers died early, and the sixth brother was passed on to others. The remaining five brothers and seven brothers, like him, began to do business. The old Five Heavy Yi concentrated on running a bank, did not like to deal with the officialdom, after liberation first went to Taiwan to do business, broke the production, and later went to Hong Kong, but the family's income was not as good as a year.
According to his daughter Yanyu, she went out in a car when she was in elementary school and took a bus when she went to college. Later, through her own efforts, Sheng Yanyu once became the director of the Information Department of the Shanghai Government, but after all, she did not touch the light of the Sheng family business. The elder Qishengyi was in charge of the shipping company. At the same time, he is also the owner of "Huafu Brand Cigarettes". During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, it was used to transport the front line. In the end, because of the stock speculation lost. After liberation, he also went to Hong Kong and became an ordinary person.
Back to Sheng Enyi.
By the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, he had become a squatter, but he could still live on the remaining properties to collect rent and support his wife and eleven sons. After liberation, the Sheng family property was nationalized, leaving only four ancestral halls.
In order to survive, the capable eldest son and the second son had to travel east to Japan to make a living, and finally made a fortune in The catering business in Japan. But in the process of their prosperity, their father Sheng Enyi,
He was destroyed by the smoke, and then in 1958 he suffered another stroke, fell hungry in front of his house, and never got up again.
Iii. Sheng Laosi's "Death Pit"
The Sheng family brothers originally had a good hand in their hands, and modern China is a turbulent and chaotic world, and their father Sheng Xuanhuai can take advantage of the chaos to make a fortune. At first, Sheng Xuanhuai gave Li Hongzhang a copywriter. Later, during the Foreign Affairs Movement, he was responsible for procuring Western-style weapons for the state. When the Qing Dynasty built the railway, he became the minister of transportation, and every time he caught up with the great tide of history.
When the "Road Preservation Movement" arose, he became Cixi's scapegoat, was fined all his family property, and fled overseas. However, after the "Xinhai Revolution", he asked Sun Yat-sen to return home to produce and make a comeback. What did he rely on? It is because he had dealt with foreigners at the beginning and was "familiar" in diplomacy. But let's look at his three sons who lived after his death. The fourth, fifth, and sixth elders are not good at "dealing with people."
Sheng Enyi, in fact, in terms of learning, is not very stupid. However, he is not very good at real socializing. Mahjong rubbed two circles before looking for his men to top. Later, he made a fortune, but he made friends and dog friends, and the money was lost. Coincidentally, The seventh is also a "stock speculation", gambling in disguise and losing his fortune, and the old seventh also does not like to make friends with officials! The specific circumstances of the fifth elder are unknown, but it seems that the three brothers have not exchanged much information. So
The Sheng family is afraid that there is a little problem in family education.
Before watching "Thick Black Studies", Li Zongwu said that Sima Yi, a person has used up all the luck and wisdom of the descendants of the Sima family. Looking back now, the Sheng family is also like this.
Sheng Xuanhuai is "good at socializing" and "good at dancing with long sleeves", but his sons seem to be "lame on one foot".
epilogue
People who don't like to socialize are not very suitable for business. If you make friends by mistake, the end will be very miserable. Therefore, Sheng Enyi made a fox friend and lost 100 buildings in one night.
If Sheng Enyi had inherited even a little bit of his father's "social talent", he might have been overseas long ago, and there would never have been poverty later.
However, he gambled wildly all his life, gave birth to more than a dozen children, and lived to the age of 66, which was already a long life in that era.