Humanistic perspective
Edited the I Nine Song
In ancient China, successive dynasties adhered to the policy of "emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce", which was determined by the scattered small peasant economy in China's feudal society. Therefore, the status of ancient merchants was not very high, and there was no custom of merchants to be officials.
However, in the late Qing Dynasty, due to the aggression of Western powers, foreign products were constantly dumped into China, gradually breaking the state of China's small-scale peasant economy for thousands of years. Chinese merchants in this period were more active, producing many well-known merchants, and Hu Xueyan and Sheng Xuanhuai were typical representatives.
Hu Xueyan is a red-top businessman, politician, and representative figure of Emblem merchants in modern China. In Hu Xueyan's body, we can see the shadow of both officials and businessmen. When studying the history of Hu Xueyan's origins, his success was inseparable from the help of the late Qing dynasty politician Zuo Zongtang, and eventually Hu Xueyan's business empire collapsed overnight.
Why did the red-top businessman Hu Xueyan fail, when studying history, many people will think that Hu Xueyan, who was full of sheng Xuanhuai, led to Hu Xueyan's failure. So how did the commercial empire that Hu Xueyan single-handedly established collapse all of a sudden?
Hu Xueyan was born in Huli Village, Jixi County, Huizhou, Anhui Province, and when he was young, his family was very poor and he made a living by helping people herd cattle. At the age of 12, Hu Xueyan's father died of illness, and Hu Xueyan, who was only 13 years old, broke into the rivers and lakes alone, successively working as a young man in the Hangzhou Miscellaneous Grains Store and the Jinhua Ham Trading Company, and then as an apprentice in the Hangzhou "Xinhe Qianzhuang".
Although Hu Xueyan was at the bottom of society, he studied diligently and soon became a formal partner of Qianzhuang. In the late Qing Dynasty, Qianzhuang was a relatively easy and decent errand. In addition to being diligent and down-to-earth, Hu Xueyan also has a keen business acumen, which is also one of the prerequisites for his success.
The 26-year-old Hu Xueyan had the privilege of getting to know Wang Youling, who wanted to be an official, but had no money to donate to the official. At this time, Hu Xueyan took out 5,000 taels of silver from Qianzhuang to give to Wang Youling, which made him an alternate ambassador of Zhejiang Yan. Hu Xueyan was also expelled from Qianzhuang because of this incident.
But who knows that Wang Youling is so capable, in 1851, Wang Youling was commissioned to act as the prefect of Huzhou, and soon after transferred to the prefect of Hangzhou. Wang Youling was also a person who knew the grace map newspaper, and at this time he arranged for Hu Xueyan to act as an agent for the Huzhou public treasury and run a silk shop in Huzhou. Through the silk line, Hu Xueyan earned the first bucket of gold in his life.
After that, Hu Xueyan's life was like a hanging, and the assets accumulated very quickly. In particular, he was appreciated by Zuo Zongtang, assisted Zuo Zongtang in opening the "Fuzhou Shipping Bureau", and participated in a series of national events.
When Zuo Zongtang recovered Xinjiang, Hu Xueyan even contributed money to help Zuo Zongtang complete this major event that has entered the annals of history. At that time, Hu Xueyan was a dazzling star in both the business world and the political circles of the late Qing Dynasty.
However, in 1882, Hu Xueyan opened a silk factory in Shanghai, spending 20 million taels, and the price of raw silk at that time was getting cheaper and cheaper every day. Hu Xueyan saw this situation and tried to monopolize the silk cocoon trade.
This wave of hu xueyan's operations has caused a boycott by foreign investors. In the history of a century-old enterprise, the first Sino-foreign business war began. At that time, in order to seize the raw silk market, Hu Xueyan did not hesitate to buy at a high price, and Hu Xueyan acquired millions of cartons. In this business war with foreign capital, Hu Xueyan had the upper hand.
When Hu Xueyan and foreign capital were fighting for the limit, Hu Xueyan was on the verge of victory at that time. However, the news of a bumper harvest in European Italian silk and the outbreak of the Sino-French War led to a sudden change in the market environment, and soon the vane of victory turned to foreign capital.
After Hu Xueyan learned of these news, he knew that he was powerless to return to heaven, and Hu's industry collapsed. In this way, under the joint strangulation of Huayang Capital, Hu Xueyan was devastated from then on, and finally fell into the fate of a dismissal and family raider.
The reason why Hu Xueyan failed, in addition to his great ambitions, was also related to his relationship between officials and businessmen. At that time, the political situation in the late Qing Dynasty was already relatively complicated, and Hu Xueyan, to a certain extent, became a victim of the market and politics.
Therefore, from Hu Xueyan's business experience, we should understand that blind expansion, the consequences are often fatal.