I believe that many people have heard of the great name of "Meng Taste Jun" in the Warring States period, Meng Taste Jun relied on the rich assets left by his father, recruited a wide range of customers in the fiefdom, and cultivated a large number of talents. Many monarchs listened to his name and asked him to serve as Xiangguo. In the process of Meng Yijun's escape from the Qin State, his protégés also made great efforts. Therefore, later generations compared people with a bold personality and liked hospitable people to "Meng Taste Jun", or "Little Meng Taste". And there is a rich man in the Republic of China, who also gave generously to his friends, leaving behind the good name of "Meng Yujun", but he lost his family business, and he was imprisoned in his later years.
This rich man was Shao Xunmei. Shao Xunmei was born in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, in 1906 in Shanghai. His grandfather was Shao Youlian, a major minister of the late Qing Dynasty, and his wife was the granddaughter of Sheng Xuanhuai. Shao Xunmei's biological father, Shao Heng, was an out-and-out gentleman, so he passed on to his uncle Shao Yi after he was born. Shao Yi's ex-wife is Li Hongzhang's heir, so on the one hand, he can also be regarded as Li Hongzhang's grandson.
Because he was born into a rich family and inherited the wealth of the Wanguan family, Shao Xunmei was very generous. Shao Xunmei famously said: "The banknotes are used up, but the friendship is not used up", when he first went to Cambridge to study, the old grandmother made the accounting office pay on time every month. At that time, he did not smoke, drink, or dance, so he had a lot of money. As soon as everyone talks to him, he immediately gives generously, and never needs to be returned. At that time, Xu Beihong and his wife shared a study abroad fund, often causing economic crises, and Shao Xunmei often helped them.
Sometimes, early in the morning, young people knock on Shao Xunmei's door and express that they want to borrow money. Shao Xunmei didn't say a word and gave him 200 francs. Therefore, he has the title of "living bank" among international students. After returning to China, Shao Xunmei spared no effort to devote herself to the publishing career, and paid a lot of money and energy for it. Lu Xun once ridiculed Shao Xunmei in "Take Doctrine" as a "rich and rich son-in-law" and a formalist poet who relied on "donation classes" to engage in literature, but it has to be said that the bookstores and publishing houses opened by Shao Xunmei did feed many poor and destitute literati, so that they would not bend their waists for five buckets of rice. According to Shao Xunmei's wife, Sheng Peiyu, these undertakings that Shao Xunmei did were completely at a loss.
After the founding of New China, Shao Xunmei also ran out of family wealth in order to help his old friends who had fallen down. According to Shao Xunmei's daughter Shao Xiuhong, once Lu Xiaoman wanted to come to the Shao family as a guest. In order to wish Lu Xiaoman a happy birthday, Shao Xunmei, who was shy in his pocket, asked a friend to sell an ancestral Seal of Wu Changshuo. Before many people paid a high price to buy, Shao Xunmei refused to sell. This time, in order to wish Lu Xiaoman a happy birthday, this precious seal was only sold for 10 yuan.
In 1958, Shao Xunmei was in financial trouble. At that time, his younger brother Shao Yunhua was seriously ill and was hospitalized in urgent need of funds. Originally, the money lent by Shao Xunmei was not returned, but for the sake of his brother, he had to be a "villain". He remembered that when he went to New York in 1946, his American friend Xiang Meili had borrowed $1,000 from him, so he wrote a letter hoping that Xiang Meili would transfer the $1,000 to Hong Kong to save his brother's life. As a result, the letter was intercepted, and he was implicated and arrested and imprisoned.
In April 1962, Shao was released from prison, and by this time he no longer had his own home. Two of his family's original 3 rooms were taken away, and his wife, her young son and old nanny, were crammed into the only room. Shao Xunmei had no choice but to send the old nanny and take her son Xiao Luo to Nanjing to join her daughter Shao Xiuhong. According to Shao Xiuhong's recollection: "The last father I saw was a hungry, weak, gray-haired, purple-faced, out-of-breath, thin enough to have only a handful of bones left, and I could hardly recognize him." Only his blinking and throbbing right eye caught my memories and made me sad. "In 1968, Shao Xunmei died of illness in Shanghai, leaving not only his wife sad, but also a bunch of troubles and debts...