Among the merchants of the late Qing Dynasty, Hu Xueyan and Sheng Xuanhuai were the most famous.
Hu Xueyan is the representative of Huishang. He was born in 1823 in Jixi, Huizhou, Anhui. Due to his family's poverty, Hu Xueyan went out to wander at the age of 13 and came to Hangzhou to work and eat a meal. Due to fate, Hu Xueyan became acquainted with Hangzhou Fukang Qianzhuang Yu, and inherited his family property, earning the first bucket of gold in his life.
Hu Xueyan was a businessman, but he was close to the officials. He initially met Wang Youling, the governor of Zhejiang, and later found a generation of famous ministers Zuo Zongtang as his patron. While Hu Xueyan became Zuo Zongtang's "money bag", he developed rapidly. Hu Xueyan's business involved businesses, money houses, pharmacies, rubber factories, silk factories, etc., with assets of more than 20 million taels of silver, equivalent to half of the annual revenue of the Qing Dynasty during the First Opium War.
Sheng Xuanhuai is the representative of Su Shang. He was born in 1844 in Wujin, Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. Sheng Xuanhuai's family conditions were good, his grandfather Sheng Long served as Zhizhou of Haining Prefecture, Zhejiang Province; his father Sheng Kang served as a political envoy and had a good relationship with Li Hongzhang. Sheng Xuanhuai's first wife, Dong Shunqi, was the daughter of the Changzhou clan. The ancients paid attention to "the door is right", which shows that Sheng Xuanhuai is also a large local family.
Sheng Xuanhuai's origins are closely related to Li Hongzhang. In 1870, Sheng Xuanhuai entered the shogunate of Li Hongzhang, the governor directly under him, and assisted him in handling foreign affairs. Li Hongzhang appreciated Sheng Xuanhuai very much and promoted him well. It is precisely under the appreciation of Li Hongzhang that Sheng Xuanhuai is still frequently promoted in the official field while calling the wind and rain in the mall. Over the past few decades, Sheng Xuanhuai has accumulated a huge amount of family property, totaling more than tens of millions of silver.
Hu Xueyan was known as Zuo Zongtang's "money bag" and helped him a lot.
"The soldiers and horses have not moved, and the grain and grass have gone first." Zuo Zongtang was fighting horses and horses, and the southern conquest of the northern war, grain and salary were a big problem. Under Hu Xueyan's running, the grain and wage problem has been well solved.
In the 1870s, Zuo Zongtang was ordered to march west. The Western Expedition required a large amount of military salaries, and the imperial court could not afford it, and the "co-salaries" in various places were also in arrears. Zuo Zongtang intended to follow Shen Baozhen's example and borrow money from foreign banks. However, foreign banks' money is not so easy to borrow. Therefore, Zuo Zongtang found Hu Xueyan.
Hu Xueyan was obliged to take on this task. In the end, under the mediation and strong guarantee of Hu Xueyan, Zuo Zongtang borrowed 15.95 million taels of silver from foreign banks five times to solve the problem of military salaries for the Western Expeditionary Army.
"Don't forget the people who dig wells." Zuo Zongtang did not forget Hu Xueyan's merits after winning the battle, and personally reported to hu Xueyan at the imperial court that he asked for credit. Zuo Zongtang said in the middle of the recital: "The work of Xueyan is really the same for a while. ”
To this end, the imperial court gave Hu Xueyan a special reward: wearing a yellow coat. In the Qing Dynasty, wearing a yellow coat was a very high honor, and it was convenient for officials to see the third rank of the senior. As a businessman with a low social status (a farmer, industrialist, and commercial), Hu Xueyan was extremely difficult to wear a yellow coat, and it was a thing that was enough to honor his ancestors.
Sheng Xuanhuai was known as Li Hongzhang's "left arm and right arm" and played a great role.
Li Hongzhang's main deeds in his life were, first, to participate in the Pacification of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, and second, to establish the Foreign Affairs Movement. In the establishment of the foreign affairs movement, Sheng Xuanhuai, as Li Hongzhang's assistant, made great contributions.
Taking stock, Sheng Xuanhuai created 11 "China's firsts": the first civil joint-stock enterprise steamship Merchants Bureau, the first telegraph bureau China Telegraph General Bureau, the first inland small steamship company, the first bank China Commerce and Commerce Bank, the first railway trunk line Beijing-Han railway, the first steel joint enterprise Hanyeping Company, the first higher normal school Nanyang Public School, the first mining company; the first public library; the first modern university Beiyang University Hall, the first charity organization China Red Cross Society...
Sheng Xuanhuai did so many things and gained the trust of Empress Dowager Cixi. In July 1905, at the age of 61, Sheng Xuanhuai received a special reward: A horse ride in the Forbidden City.
This means that Sheng Xuanhuai will go to the Forbidden City to see Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in the future, and he can ride a horse in the Forbidden City. Isn't it windy?
[References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, etc.]