When mentioning Tao Zhugong, Shen Wansan and others, I believe that we will definitely think of the word "rich and enemy country". And Huishang and Jinshang are the two major merchant gangs in China, and it is precisely because they are good at business that the rich people in the two major merchant gangs can be said to be everywhere. Today we will talk about the representative figure in the emblem merchants - Hu Xueyan.
Hu Xueyan, whose real name is Hu Guangyong, was born in Jixi, Huizhou, Anhui Province, and moved to Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, at the age of 13. A famous red-top businessman, politician, and representative figure of emblem merchants in modern China.
Hu Xueyan
When Hu Xueyan was very poor in his childhood, his family was very poor, so he made a living by helping people herd cattle. However, Hu Xueyan was poor and did not die, and when he was a teenager, he showed the virtue of honesty and not greed. When I was a child, I once herded cattle for my owner, picked up a bag on the road, opened it, and it was full of silver with white flowers. He tied the cattle to the side of the road to graze, hid the baggage, and then sat on the side of the road waiting for the owner. After a few hours, the owner panicked and came to him, and after Hu Xueyan inquired about the situation, he took the bag out of the grass on the side of the road and returned it to the owner. The owner was originally a big merchant in Hangzhou, and soon after, he came to Jixi and brought Hu Xueyan to Hangzhou to study.
Hu Xueyan is a very intelligent person, and he is serious about things, diligent and studious, and never seeks personal interests for himself. And with his courage and care, self-confidence and honesty, in a short period of time, he became the boss of Fukang Qianzhuang. In the eleventh year of Xianfeng (1861), when the Taiping Army attacked Hangzhou, Hu Xueyan purchased arms and grain from Shanghai and Ningbo to help the Qing army, won the trust of Zuo Zongtang, was appointed as the general manager, and presided over the money and grain and military salaries of Zhejiang Province, which greatly benefited Fukang Qianzhuang and thus took the road of official businessmen.
After gaining the trust of Zuo Zongtang, Hu Xueyan used his identity to often shuttle between Ningbo, Shanghai and other treaty ports. In addition to handling the transfer of grain and receiving military supplies, he also seized the opportunity of contacts with foreigners, colluded with foreign officers, and trained zuo Zongtang for about a thousand people, all equipped with foreign guns and cannons. This army once jointly attacked Ningbo, Fenghua, Shaoxing and other places with the Qing army.
In 1864, the third year of Tongzhi, the Qing army had already captured Zhejiang. The loot obtained was innumerable, and officials large and small stored their own loot in Hu Xueyan's money house. Hu Xueyan also seized this opportunity, he used these assets as his capital, actively engaged in trade activities, and also set up his own business in various towns. This is to seize the business opportunity, after several years of development, so that Hu Xueyan's family property has exceeded 10 million.
During Zuo Zongtang's tenure, Hu Xueyan managed the affairs of the Relief Bureau. He set up porridge factories, good halls, and righteous mats, repaired the ancient temples of famous temples, and buried hundreds of thousands of violent skeletons; restored the ox carts that were once terminated due to the war to facilitate the people; and persuaded the officials and gentry to donate money to solve the post-war financial crisis. As a result, Hu Xueyan's reputation has been greatly enhanced, and his credibility has also been greatly improved.
The accumulation of wealth is not an easy task, but Hu Xueyan does have a talent for business, and the speed of his wealth accumulation has almost doubled. After the Taiping Army was wiped out at that time, Hu Xueyan's business name also entered Hangzhou, with the simple purpose of organizing military salaries and arms for Zuo Zongtang. With the power of Zuo Zongtang and the Xiang Army, Hu Xueyan also set up more than twenty Fukang Silver In various provinces.
At the same time, Hu Xueyan also engaged in medicinal materials, silk tea and other businesses, opened the Huqing Yutang Chinese Medicine Store, which is still in business, and manipulated Jiangsu and Zhejiang commerce, with a maximum capital of more than 20 million, and was the "richest man in China" at that time. At that time, Fukang Qianzhuang already had more than 20 branches of the store, although Zuo Zongtang helped him a lot, but Hu Xueyan was indeed a big help for Zuo Zongtang. It was precisely because zuo Zongtang had great merit in assisting him that he was awarded the Jiangxi Alternate Dao and given him a yellow coat. It can be said that Hu Xueyan has achieved fame, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he has embarked on the peak of his life.
But nothing is eternal, and it is time for glory to come to an end. In the eighth year of Guangxu, Hu Xueyan invested 20 million taels of silver to open a silk factory. This made the price of raw silk continue to fall, and at this time, Hu Xueyan already had signs of monopolizing the silk silkworm trade, and he naturally disagreed with this. Various foreign businessmen began to unite to boycott Hu Xueyan.
Officials of the late Qing Dynasty
This also represents the beginning of the first Sino-foreign commercial war. At the beginning, Hu's high price collected millions of quintals of domestic new silk and gained the upper hand. Both sides of Huayang have reached the limit of patience, and seeing that victory and defeat should be judged, who knows that the "celestial phenomenon" has suddenly changed dramatically. The European Italian silk suddenly harvested and then the Sino-French war broke out, the market changed drastically, and the financial crisis suddenly broke out. As it happened, Hu Xueyan had no power to return to heaven.
The next year, because he was outnumbered, the factory was also forced to sell, and Hu Xueyan lost ten million taels of silver, which was a thunderbolt for him. The loss of the equivalent of half of his family property has caused problems in the turnover of funds in his various industries. Hu Xueyan had already entered a low period at this time, but the misfortune was not alone, and the various officials who had previously deposited money in him wanted to be greedy and cheap, so they began to extort money in groups.
Stills of Hu Xueyan
In the same year, the Qing court saw that Hu Xueyan had begun to decline, and they thought about his property. First of all, He Jing, who was then the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and Liu Bingzhang, the governor of Zhejiang, secretly checked Hu Xueyan's assets in preparation for debt. He was also dismissed from his official post, and Zuo Zongtang was also ordered to pursue the arrears. Under these multiple pressures and blows, Hu Xueyan was bankrupt after all.
In November of the eleventh year of Qing Guangxu, Hu Xueyan was depressed in the midst of poverty and hatred. Ben was the richest man in the country, but he was raided under the bag of many forces, and his life's efforts were in vain, sadly and regrettably!