The two words of the richest man are undoubtedly the hopes and dreams of countless people. In this era of capital supremacy, the peak of wealth also means the supremacy of social status. Who wouldn't want to be the richest man?
And when we mention the richest man today, we will naturally think of Ma Yun, the leader of the Internet era. Riding on the east wind of the times, he firmly grasped the dividends of the times and eventually became the dragon and phoenix among people. However, Ma Yun is powerful, but he is only the richest man in China. On the global Forbes list, the world's richest man will always be the face of a foreigner.
However, in the period of ancient feudal society, because China was the only feudal hegemon in the world, the richest man in ancient China and the richest man in the world were almost the same thing, even in the Qing Dynasty, when the feudal system began to decline, China's richest man still came out on top in the world.
When it comes to the richest man in the Qing Dynasty, the most famous one is the corrupt official and yan during the Qianlong period. According to the records of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at that time, Hezhen's personal wealth reached 800 million taels of silver, which is converted into about 87.5 billion yuan today. This is only the amount of silver, and there are countless real estate and precious calligraphy and paintings under the banner of Hezhen.
According to the description of the wild history, these are all converted into money, and the silver is estimated to reach 200 billion taels. This money in the Qing Dynasty during the closed period of the country, can be worth the 10 years of financial revenue of the Qing government!
Of course, in the late Qing Dynasty, because the door of the Qing government was opened, it was forced into the world trading system. With the advent of tariffs, although the Qing government became more decayed, its fiscal revenue was also more abundant. He yan's wealth in that year was no longer worth mentioning in the face of the fiscal revenue of the late Qing government. At the same time, due to the rapid changes in the domestic and foreign situations in the late Qing Dynasty, under the opportunity, the new richest man began to appear.
When it comes to the candidates for the richest man in the late Qing Dynasty, the first thing that most Chinese people think of is Hu Xueyan. As a famous red-top businessman, Zuo Zongtang recovered Xinjiang that year, and it was Hu Xueyan who secretly provided financial and intelligence support. However, Hu Xueyan's family business is more borrowed from the East Wind of the Qing government, and he does not have much foreign trade industry. Attached to the crumbling tree of the Qing government, it is conceivable how far it can go. Sure enough, in 1883, Hu Xueyan was dismissed from his post and confiscated his family property, and finally he was depressed.
In 2001, the Wall Street Journal of the United States listed the 50 richest people in Asia since 1000 years, of which 6 people in China were on the list, namely Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Liu Jin, He Yan, Wu Bingjian and Song Ziwen.
Among these 6 people, in addition to the Republic of China period where Song Ziwen was located, the major Western consortiums have been formed, and the other 5 earlier people have all become the richest people in the world. And Wu Bingjian, the richest man in the late Qing Dynasty, was the last richest man in the world who appeared in China's feudal era.
Unlike Hu Xueyan, Wu Bingjian relied on the east wind of foreign trade. The Wu family's foreign trade had already begun as early as the closed country. During the Kangxi Dynasty, Li Shizhen, the governor of Guangdong, issued a decree that anyone from a well-off family could pay a certain amount of silver to the national treasury every year to obtain the official and commercial power of foreign trade, and even replace the customs to collect customs duties.
Such a huge profit margin has naturally attracted the attention of many wealthy merchants in coastal areas. However, at that time, the government only gave 13 places in order to grab the quota. Wu Bingjian's ancestors deliberately migrated from their hometown of Fujian to Guangzhou, and successfully became one of them. And these 13 households are also the famous "Guangzhou Thirteen Lines" later.
By the time of the Qianlong Conference, the profit return of the thirteen lines in Guangzhou was already considerable. The tax they paid to the Qing government in 1 year alone was already as high as millions of taels of silver. Also during the Qianlong period, the ancestors of the Wu family prepared to expand new foreign business in foreign trade. However, after everything was built and landed, the head of the Wu family, that is, Wu Bingjian's father, died suddenly, and the family business fell to Wu Bingjian.
At that time, Wu Bingjian was just 32 years old, although he was not very old, he was quite business-minded. Not only is it between the government offices, but it is exquisite in all aspects, and it is also very good at dealing with foreigners. Once, a businessman in Boston, usa, borrowed money from Wu Bingjian's foreign firm to undertake a batch of goods, but he did not expect to be slow to sell in the end. Wu Bingjian not only did not let him pay back the money, but also tore up the IOU in front of him, which made this foreigner extremely grateful for a while.
The incident quickly spread among foreign businessmen, and Wu Bingjian fell into a good reputation for generosity. After that, many foreign businessmen from other foreign firms took the initiative to come to his door to do business with him, and even asked him to borrow money. By the time of Jiaqing's 18th year, Wu Bingjian's foreign firm had become the largest of the thirteen lines in Guangzhou.
At the same time, Wu Bingjian's wealth also began to increase rapidly. By 1834, Wu Bingjian's private property had reached 26 million taels of silver, and the annual tax revenue of the Qing Dynasty was 40 million taels, and Wu Bingjian's net worth had exceeded half of the annual income of the Qing government. In addition, at that time, the personal assets of John Pierpont Morgan, the richest man in the United States, were equivalent to about 7 million taels of silver, and Wu Bingjian's property was already 4 times that of him!
So, what is the final outcome of Such a rich Wu Bingjian? Here we have to mention the later development of Wujia Foreign Firm, due to cooperation with the British, Wu Jia Foreign Firm later sold opium and became the largest opium dealer in China. Subsequently, lin zexu humen smoking ban and the first opium war, so that the loss of Wu Jia Yang reached 3 million silver. It is worth mentioning that some of the reparations in the Treaty of Nanjing that year were borne by Wu Bingjian.
Although the 3 million silver was only a drop in the bucket for Wu Bingjian, it made him chill about the Qing government's approach. He even wrote to an American businessman friend, "If I were young, I would definitely take a boat to the United States." ”
However, Wu Bingjian did not succeed in reaching the United States in the end. In 1843, with endless grudges, Wu Bingjian died in Guangzhou with hatred at the age of 74. After his death, the gates of the Qing Dynasty were officially opened by the British, and the thirteen lines of Guangzhou quickly fell lonely. After that, there were many great powers in various countries, frantically eating china's economy, and the days when the richest Chinese dominated the world were gone forever.