Speaking of the world's richest man, everyone will think of Bill Gates, who has occupied the top spot in the world's rich list for several consecutive years, in fact, China also produced a world's richest man in the 19th century, he has a million family wealth, rich enough to rival the country, help the Qing court pay off a third of the debt, foreigners' IOUs are torn up, it is really rich.
He is Wu Bingjian, born in Guangdong in 1769, Wu Bingjian's ancestors have been engaged in the tea business, because of honesty and reliability, the fame is getting bigger and bigger, there are many repeat customers, to Wu Bingjian's father's generation, has become an old brand. Wu Bingjian's father was also one of the few businessmen who did business with foreigners, so the business of the shop was very prosperous.
Wu Bingjian fully inherited his father's business acumen, allowed to trade silk and porcelain with foreigners, and was generous and arrogant, often lending large amounts of money to foreigners in exchange for some ships shipped. In just a few years, his reputation has been established, so more and more foreigners are looking for him to cooperate, resulting in more and more money he makes.
However, Wu Bingjian is indeed very generous, there is a British businessman, he lost money due to poor management, owed Wu Bingjian 720 million silver dollars, and did not even have the cost of the road back. Wu Bingjian tore up the IOU after he knew it, and told him that you are an honest person, but you are unlucky, I don't want this money, you don't have to pay it back, the British businessman is grateful to Zero.
And because of this, his good reputation spread to the United States and lasted for half a century. I don't know if you have heard of the "Thirteen Lines of Guangdong", all of them are merchants, and they are the only treaty ports of the Qing Dynasty, and they are the most profitable. And the rich people at that time were also produced from them, because the money was earned by them, and Wu Bingjian was one of them.
In 2001, the Wall Street Journal counted 50 of the world's richest people in the past 1,000 years, of which 6 Chinese were selected, and Wu Bingjian was one of them, and his private property reached 26 million. At that time, the richest man in the United States was Astor, and he could make so much money because he followed Wu Bingjian to do business in China, so Wu Bingjian was the richest person, and in the eyes of Americans at that time, he was the richest man in the world.
In addition to doing business, Wu Bingjian is also a big philanthropist, often helping the poor people, so he has a high reputation in the hearts of the people, and when the country is in crisis, he immediately stepped forward. In 1840, the Opium War broke out, and at the beginning of the war, Wu Bingjian and other trading houses began to donate, and he was the most donated.
At that time, the British army was already in the city, so Wu Shaorong began to negotiate with the British army, and finally signed the "Guangzhou Treaty", that is, the Qing army withdrew 60 miles outside the city of Guangzhou, and handed over 6 million yuan in compensation within a week. 6 million yuan is a huge amount of money, the Qing court can not afford to pay, so began to collect donations, Wu Bingjian donated 1.1 million yuan, a third of the total, is really rich and invincible.
It was also this year that Wu Bingjian went into decline, because when he was doing business, he helped foreigners sell opium, although he was forced to be helpless, but he did do something wrong, Lin Zexu rectified him, he wanted to use money to exchange for peace, but he also earned this money, so this black spot has always been there. In 1843, Wu Bingjian ended in depression, and the story of the world's richest man in the 19th century came to an end.