If you walk into a bookstore, you can find books about Hu Xueyan's business legend. Many works try to summarize the success of this red-top businessman, declaring that "hu xueyan learned from businessmen." ''So, is Hu Xueyan a successful businessman?'' Is his so-called business approach worth emulating?
Hu Xueyan (1823-1885), real name Hu Guangyong, was a native of Jixi, Anhui. Because of his family's poverty, he used to herd cattle for the landlord in his early years. Later, after the recommendation of his fellow villagers, he was able to enter a money house in Hangzhou as an apprentice. One day, he was Hu Xueyan's first nobleman, Wang Youling. Hu Xueyan asked him: 'Mr. Face is extraordinary, why did he fall to such a point?' Wang Youling said that he had donated a small official, but he had no money to enter Beijing as an alternate. Hu Xueyan was convinced that the person in front of him had a promising future, and after listening to his story, he decided to gamble a ---- embezzled five hundred taels of silver from the cabinet and sent it to Wang Youling.
With this silver, Wang Youling was able to move north. I happened to meet my friend He Guiqing in Tianjin. After he asked the reason, he wrote a letter of recommendation for him to the Inspector of Zhejiang, and through this relationship, Wang Youling became the general office of the grain station. Wang Youling did not forget Hu Xueyan, and after becoming an official, he repaid The Peach and funded Hu Xueyan to open the Fukang Qianzhuang.
In just a few years, Wang Youling was sent to Zhejiang to inspect. With this patron, Hu Xueyan's business is getting better and better. Wang Youling once ordered the counties under him that the grain and taxes paid must be exchanged through Fukang Qianzhuang. In addition, he also gave Hu Xueyan an official hat and ordered him to take charge of grain.
In 1861, the Taiping Army captured the city of Hangzhou, Wang Youling committed suicide, and his patron fell. Succeeding Wang as governor of Zhejiang was Zuo Zongtang, a native of Hunan. At this time, some people took the opportunity to accuse him of using his power for personal gain. When Zuo Zongtang first came to Zhejiang, he did not know Hu Xueyan, and Hu Xueyan, who knew that things were not good, immediately sent more than a dozen boats of rice to Inspector Yamen, and told Zuo Zongtang that when the city of Hangzhou was besieged that day, Lord Wang ordered him to go to Shanghai with official funds to buy military food, but when the rice was about to be transported to Hangzhou, Lord Wang was killed in the line of duty. I had no choice but to transport the rice back to Shanghai to sell. Now that the imperial court has recovered Hangzhou, Hu has bought back the grain and rice and handed it over to the adults.
At that time, Zuo Zongtang was worried about grain, and the grain sent by Hu Xueyan was undoubtedly sent charcoal in the snow. I can't help but 'overjoyed, but devoted myself to treating Hu well, and entrusting all things to the aftermath'". Hu Xueyan found another patron in the official field.
With Zuo Zongtang as a patron, Hu Xueyan's business empire reached an unprecedented scale. His Fukang Qianzhuang, with semicolons throughout the country, became the preferred depository for many high-ranking officials and nobles; his "Huqing Yutang" became a well-known pharmaceutical brand; and his accumulated assets once amounted to 40 million taels, reaching the point where he was rich and invincible.
The hugely wealthy Hu Xueyan was not satisfied, and he used the red top on his head to borrow money from a bank run by foreigners by borrowing money from a bank run by foreigners by borrowing money for Zuo Zongtang, and Hu Xueyan took the opportunity to falsely quote interest and obtain huge profits from it. Zeng Jize, who heard that he had embezzled official funds, said, "Hu Xueyan borrowed foreign funds on behalf of him, and foreigners received eight percent of interest, while Hu reported one cent and five percent." ''
Hu Xueyan's wealth is not so clean. However, with Zuo Zongtang as a backer, he was not worried. He did not expect that Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang's political enemy, had already set his sights on him. He used Hu Xueyan to compete with foreigners for the raw silk trade, and when the capital turnover was not good, he ordered his subordinate Sheng Xuanhuai to kill the killer. In 1883, because of the failure of the raw silk trade, depositors were panicked and ran on their deposits. Just at this moment, a bank loan of 800,000 taels expired, which was originally a loan from the bank to Zuo Zongtang for military expenses, but Shao Youlian, a Shanghai Daotai who belonged to Li Hongzhang's faction, said that the government now had no money and wanted Hu Xueyan to pay it back. Helplessly, Hu Xueyan only had to take out another 800,000 taels and pay it to the bank in advance. In this way, the funds were even more strained, so the Fukang Qianzhuang in various places collapsed one by one.
After Zuo Zongtang lost power, his old account of "embezzling the loans of the Western Expedition" was shaken out, and Empress Dowager Cixi ordered that Hu Xueyan's top wear be removed and ordered him to pay it off. Hu Xueyan sold his property, dismissed his wife and concubines, and mortgaged Hu Qingyutang, but it was still not enough to repay. Once a huge rich man, before dying, he sighed: "The white tiger (silver) is terrible! ''
Throughout Hu Xueyan's life of ups and downs, there is only one so-called way to success: collusion between officials and businessmen. First he funded Wang Youling, and then attached himself to Zuo Zongtang, doing things for important officials in the official field, and using power to make business profits. His success comes from individual patrons in the officialdom. Failure is also due to the official place. This is truly the king who rises up in this way, and who will die in this way.
More than a hundred years after Hu Xueyan's death, there are still many people who talk about this red-top businessman, which has to be lamented.