During the period of ancient Chinese feudal society, whenever there was a lot of wealth concentration in the middle and late period of the dynasty, which also gave birth to some top rich people, and some people became the world's richest people at that time. Let's take a look at the four richest people in the world!
Fourth place: Shen Wansan
Shen Wansan was a merchant at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, very rich! How rich is it? Half of the city of Nanjing was built at his expense. Now folk, Shen Wansan is still synonymous with rich people. According to the historical estimates, Shen Wansan's family property is estimated to be about 2 billion taels of silver, and if it is based on today's silver price, it is about 500 billion yuan.
Shen Wanshan, because he was too rich, even moved the idea of paying zhu Yuanzhang's military salary, so that it was considered to threaten the imperial power, and in the end he could only end up with a family raider and exile.
Third place: Liu Jin
Liu Jin was a eunuch during the Ming Dynasty, greedy and authoritarian, and was called "Emperor Li" by the people of the time. And the little emperor sitting on the dragon chair is the "sitting emperor", which shows how powerful he is! Liu Jin's wealth has two main sources: embezzlement and cunning. According to the statistics of later generations, Liu Jin's wealth was 12 million ounces of gold and 260 million ounces of silver! The revenue of the Ming government at that time was about 50 million ounces of silver a year! Liu Jin rejected Zhongliang and framed dissidents, and eventually the wall fell on everyone, and was executed by Ling Chi and raided.
Second place: Wu Bingjian
Wu Bingjian was a man at the end of the Qing Dynasty, who not only did business at home, but also did business abroad. He was the largest creditor of the British East India Company. Wu Bingjian took advantage of the great advantages of Guangzhou's thirteen-line trade port to develop the silk, porcelain and tea trade, and built his own company, Jardine Matheson. According to statistics, at that time, his wealth was 28 million taels of silver, ranking first in the world. The richest talent in the United States is 7 million taels of silver, which shows the huge gap between the two. During the Opium War, Wu Bingjian's family undertook 1 million silver dollars in compensation, but later with the increase of treaty ports, the Wu Bingjun family gradually declined.
Number one: Washu
As everyone knows, he was a famous corrupt official during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. His collection is unique, with gold and silver, silk porcelain, pearl emeralds, agate corals, and everything. After Qianlong's death, the Jiaqing Emperor raided the house of He yan and stunned the officials when he counted the wealth, they did not know that he had corrupted so much wealth! The wealth of Hezhen greatly alleviated the financial crisis of the Jiaqing Emperor, so much so that in the folk there was a saying that "Hezhen fell, and Jiaqing ate enough".
From the above rich people, we can see that wealth is easy to accumulate and easy to disperse. As long as you have the resources such as power and trade monopolies, then you can continue to obtain wealth. But when the scandal is revealed, these riches will easily become a burden in your life.