Where did the cornucopia come from?
The giant merchant Shen Wansan was the "living god of wealth" during the Ming Dynasty.
The property in his family is said to be more than enough to be rich and enemy of the country, and even Ma Yun can't compare with him, so someone asked, how did Shen Wansan's money come from? What exactly is he in business?
The property of Shen Wansan's family is enough to have 2 billion taels of silver, and a person has to count 600 years just to count money, perhaps this number is too exaggerated, so people give a good explanation for the source of his property.
Shen Wansan was born during the Yuan Dynasty and was the richest man in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. It is said that he can have so much money because he has a cornucopia.
Although Shen Wansan was also born in a merchant family, but his family did not have much money, Shen Wansan was originally a poor fisherman, living with his wife every day by playing two pounds of fish.
But one day, they had an adventure.
On this day, just after the full moon, Shen Wansan and his wife rowed to the lake to drink and admire the moon, only to see the moonlight in the sky reflected in the cup, and in an instant the wine glass was reflected in the golden yellow, and the wine in the glass was sparkling.
Shen Wansan's wife drank a glass of wine, only to feel warm all over her body, but after that, strange things happened, and her wife's stomach grew bigger and bigger every day, until ten months later, she was about to go to the basin.
Originally thought that his wife gave birth to a big fat boy, but after the child was born, Shen Wansan fixed his eyes on it, where is a big fat boy, obviously a blood ball.
He cut open the blood ball, and inside was a white jade beast, he went around inquiring, and finally found out that this white jade beast was made of moonlight essence and could fish for worldly treasures.
Shen Wansan took the white jade beast to the river to fish, caught a broken mud basin, and after taking it home, his wife planned to take it to fill the rice, but who admitted that something strange happened!
When a handful of rice was thrown down, it turned into a whole pot of golden rice grains, and his wife was so frightened that she hurriedly threw the plutonium on her head into the mud basin, only to see that the plutonium also became a golden nobile, and it was full of pots.
It turned out that this clay pot turned out to be a cornucopia!
No matter what kind of cornucopia is thrown down, it can become a whole pot of gold, and it is inexhaustible, and from now on, Shen Wansan is rich in the world.
It should be said that there has been no shortage of rich people in all dynasties, but why can Shen Wansan be famous in history? That's because when Zhu Yuanzhang made the capital Nanjing, one-third of Daming's city walls were built at Shen Wansan's expense.
Shen Wansan was originally named Shen Fu, because he was the third oldest in the family and was a rich man, so people called him Shen Wansan.
As early as the end of the Yuan Dynasty, when the world was in chaos and there were uprisings across the country, Shen Wansan had funded Zhang Shicheng's army, so Zhang Shicheng also erected a stone monument for his merits.
Later, Zhu Yuanzhang established a political power, and after setting the capital at Nanjing, he also funded the construction of the city wall with Zhu Yuanzhang, so Zhu Yuanzhang also made both of his sons officials.
According to historical records, Shen Wansan built "1,654 galleries and 4 restaurants" in Nanjing, in addition to the countless residences and shops he built.
Shen Wansan's industry has left footprints all over the country, and he is obviously rich in the world, but strangely, he has always guarded Zhou Zhuang and refused to leave.
Why?
The road to making money for the richest man in Gangnam
Shen Wansan was originally born in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, and later migrated to Zhouzhuang with his father, after which Shen Wansan regarded this place as his own business.
He not only guarded Zhouzhuang himself and refused to leave, but also strictly demanded that his descendants also live here for generations, and now the ancient town of Zhouzhuang can become a scenic place, which is because of Shen Wansan.
Shen Wansan actually made his fortune through farming, and his grandfather and father were both from business backgrounds and once contracted some farmers to leave the land abandoned.
They contracted the land for reclamation, then rented it out, or hired farmers to help them grow their fields.
At that time, heavy agriculture suppressed business, so the Shen family did not make less money, just a few years, the field has developed thousands of times, but we all know that the ancient farmers were dependent on God to eat, no matter how much land, can not resist a natural disaster.
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, natural disasters continued, and the peasants could not survive, even the Shen family, who had a lot of wealth, did not have a good life, so after he inherited the Landlord's family business of the Shen family, he began to go out to engage in business.
Shen Wansan was very business-minded, he took his own original funds and began to invest in overseas trade, at that time the imperial court did not attach importance to business, Shen Wansan turned his attention to overseas.
While continuing to run his ancestral business, he used zhouzhuang, which was well developed by water, as a springboard, and the silk, porcelain, handicrafts and other industries in the interior were not in a slump, so he shipped all these things overseas for sale.
Then when he returned, he shipped overseas jewelry, spices, rare medicinal materials, etc. back to China, and it was by relying on these trade activities that he gradually earned huge funds and became the richest man in Jiangnan.
He made money overseas and later set his sights on the city of Suzhou, where he found that the environment was elegant, the people were relatively rich, and pilgrims and tourists flocked every day.
Many small vendors move here, and people love to gather here, but the disadvantage here is that because the roads are narrow, pedestrians and carriages are often blocked, which can easily cause chaos.
So Shen Wansan began to repair the street, widen the road, and then built a large number of shops here to lease to the merchants who came here to do business.
As the area became prosperous, the flow of passengers began to increase greatly, attracting many guests from all directions, so he built a music hall around him, and the whole Suzhou Street became unprecedentedly prosperous, and people praised him.
However, Shen Wansan did not enjoy his old age in Jiangnan, but spent his last years in Yunnan, because Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to kill him.
Then, since Shen Wansan had funded the construction of the city wall, it was reasonable to say that he was indispensable, so why did Zhu Yuanzhang kill him?
It turned out that Shen Wansan was a very eager person, and the city wall funded by Shen Wansan was actually completed faster than the city wall built by Zhu Yuanzhang, which made Zhu Yuanzhang very unhappy.
Later, the city wall had not yet been built, and Shen Wansan actually took the initiative to ask for money to reward the soldiers, which completely made Zhu Yuanzhang kill, the ancient military power was not to be touched, Shen Wansan's behavior, but to rob the people's hearts with tianzi.
Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang was about to order the murder of Shen Wansan, and at this time Empress Ma advised: "Our laws are used to curse sinners, not to kill ominous people, he is an ominous person, naturally there is Heaven to punish him, why should Your Majesty kill him again?" ”
Zhu Yuanzhang felt a little relieved when he heard this, so he did not kill Shen Wansan, but exiled him to Yunnan.
How many Ma Yun can Shen Wansan withstand?
People always say that "gold shines everywhere it goes", so do you think that Shen Wansan was sent to Yunnan and turned off the fire? It's not enough.
After Shen Wansan was sent to Yunnan, many friends came to visit him, and when they arrived here, they found that it was very close to the border, and if the silk, porcelain, and handmade products from Jiangnan were transported into Tibet through Yunnan, it would be a new way out.
Although the road here is bumpy and the weather is cold, Shen Wansan is not afraid of difficulties, and he uses the Tea Horse Ancient Road to transport the silk from Jiangnan to Yunnan, and then to Tibet, Myanmar and even India.
Shen Wansan spent the rest of his life in Yunnan, and in 1393 Shen Wansan died and was buried under the Fuquan Mountain, until more than 100 years later, when his descendants moved his remains back to Zhouzhuang.
In fact, the secret of Shen Wansan's life is not as mysterious as the myths and legends, he can become the richest man in Jiangnan, in addition to the original accumulation of funds, more importantly, he has enough business acumen.
The legend of the cornucopia is naturally false, nothing more than to describe Shen Wansan's property as amazing, and the speed at which he makes money is like having a cornucopia at home.
Shen Wansan has been doing business all his life, can become the richest man, his family property is enough to have 2 billion taels of silver, so what is the concept of 2 billion taels?
Some scholars have calculated that according to today's purchasing power conversion, one or two pieces of silver in the Ming Dynasty period are about equal to 300 yuan, so 2 billion two pieces of silver is 600 billion yuan.
You know, Ma Yun's market value is only 230 billion, Shen Wansan is almost 3 times that of Ma Yun, what is more amazing is that market value and property are not the same concept, if Ma Yun only compares with property, there is no comparison with Shen Wansan.
According to historical records, the total financial income of the Ming Dynasty was only 20 million taels per year, so the fiscal income of 10 years was only 200 million taels.
To this day, there are many different versions of the legend of the cornucopia, and the places where Shen Wansan once lived, such as Zhouzhuang, or guizhou, where he was buried, are all prosperous because of Shen Wansan.
The city of Suzhou has also made a lot of money because of Shen Wansan's vigorous development of tourism, and so far, many regions are still arguing for the name of Shen Wansan's descendants.
With the development of the times, many scholars have found that Shen Wansan and Zhu Yuanzhang are not the same era at all, and even some scholars believe that Shen Wansan has already died at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.
The reason why there is a saying that "Zhu Yuanzhang exiled Shen Wansan to Yunnan" was made up by later generations in order to smear Zhu Yuanzhang.
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang fixed the capital in Nanjing, and when building the city wall, he forced many rich merchants to contribute funds, and these rich merchants dared to be angry and did not dare to speak, so they specially made up the story of Shen Wansan to vent their anger.
After all, Shen Wansan is the representative of rich businessmen, and even some people have questioned whether there is a Shen Wansan in history.
Of course, in history, Shen Wansan did have his own people, and many of his descendants still live in Guizhou, Zhouzhuang and other places, and the "Tomb of Shen Wansan" is also genuine.
It's just that the story of the "cornucopia" is indeed made up, and Shen Wansan's money is earned through his own efforts, is this not a model of "hard work and getting rich"?