Three hundred and sixty lines, lines out of the yuan. That being said, when people choose their own careers, they still have career preferences because of personal experience, interests, and other reasons. Hu Xueyan is a representative figure of Huishang in the late Qing Dynasty, as a businessman, his experience is quite legendary, but he left 3 instructions on his deathbed, so that although the descendants are talented, they are all far away from these 2 professions.
Everyone knows that Hu Xueyan and Zuo Zongtang have a close relationship, and Hu Xueyan raised armaments, grain, and grass for Zuo Zongtang and supported him in running an industry; Zuo Zongtang also supported Hu Xueyan in running a money bank and advising the officials and gentry to donate something. But the ending of the two is completely different - Zuo Zongtang died of illness in Fuzhou in 1885, although he regretted it and had a good ending; while Hu Xueyan suffered a devastating blow before he died.
This blow directly reversed Hu Xueyan's values. At first, he was full of ambition, wanting to be a hugely rich businessman who had never come before or since, with fame and interests, but once the storm suddenly changed, and his wealth was in vain, Hu Xueyan finally understood Cao Xueqin's feeling of "falling into a white expanse of land is really clean", so he lay on the hospital bed and told his sons that in the future, "do not go near the white tiger".
White tiger, is silver, Hu Xueyan intends to convey a message to his sons: fame and fortune are like floating clouds, businessmen seek profits, and they are happy to see silver, but the high risk of returns is also high, in order not to repeat the same mistakes, you should not learn from me in the future. In addition, Hu Xueyan also left other instructions: in addition to not doing business, you cannot enter the army, let alone let the descendants of the Hu family marry the Li family.
The son agreed one by one, and Hu Xueyan closed his eyes with confidence. After Hu Xueyan's death, the situation of the Hu family was indeed as he said. He had 3 sons before his death, the eldest son Hu Chusan died early before he was 20 years old, the second son Hu Xuan had 2 sons under his three knees, and the third son Hu Pin had 4 sons under his three knees. They jointly assumed the responsibility of passing on the Hu family and strictly abided by the rules set by Hu Xueyan.
Some people have tracked the occupational distribution of Hu's descendants and found that Hu Xueyan's direct descendants are numerous, there are more than 200 people, but among these people, whether men or women, none of them are engaged in business and politics, they generally from literature and art, engaged in education, engaged in natural science research, etc. Overall, the Hu family has changed from "merchants" to "cultural and educational people".
In this regard, Hu Xueyan's descendants said that it was not easy for his ancestors to rank among the rich merchants of the late Qing Dynasty, but in that era, his fate was not at all decided by himself, and after suffering a great loss, he painstakingly pondered the lessons summed up, and future generations should abide by themselves. In the two professions of business and politics, the descendants of the Hu clan are not willing to choose again, and now the Hu clan can become the elite of the cultural and educational industry, which is already very good.
When Hu Xueyan went bankrupt, his son Hu Xuansan once sold some of his shares. After receiving the money, he did not squander it, but painstakingly sent his children overseas for further study, and these Hu descendants who stayed overseas were generally highly educated; and the Hu descendants who stayed in China were equally outstanding, such as Hu Xueyan's great-grandson Hu Yaguang, who became a supervisor of the China Industrial and Commercial Art Writers Association.
In addition, Hu Xueyan's five generations of grandchildren have been teachers and studied literature a lot, and they have a small reputation. Many people feel sorry, after all, Hu Xueyan is also a business figure, and his deathbed instructions have made no one in the Hu family inherit the ancestral business philosophy. But Xiaobian privately thinks that this kind of thing is like people drinking water, cold and warm self-knowledge, Hu Xueyan's choice naturally has his reason, outsiders may be difficult to ignore the beak.