In the tourist resort of Zhouzhuang, there has been a legend of Shen Wansan, it is said that Shen Wansan was a rich man in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties, in the chaotic world at that time, he was able to attract a huge wealth to inject capital, through various means, but also became the richest man in the early years of Hongwu, and the number of industries is so large that the current rich people cannot imagine.
However, such a rich man, at the peak of his life, was suddenly asked by Zhu Yuanzhang to hand over the "Jubao Disk", in order to belong to the "Jubao Disk", he was then charged with the army in Southern Yunnan, after spending the rest of his life in Yunnan, mysteriously arranged for his descendants to bury themselves under the water, and his experiences and stories once became the subject of folk storytellers.
And what was his real experience, and why was he buried underwater?
Today we discuss the ups and downs of the life of Shen Wansan, the richest man in the Ming Dynasty, with the ups and downs of his life, in addition to being able to understand why he was finally buried under the water, we should also summarize some useful life summaries in his life experience
Let's briefly talk about the history of Shen Wansan's fortune, Shen Wansan, Wansan is not his name, "Wansan" means an honorific title at that time, everyone knows that it is the meaning of a rich person. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, he followed his father "Shen You" from his hometown of Nanxun Town, Huzhou, to the present-day Zhouzhuang, and built the Dongtulou here, which was used to cultivate land for a living. Because of the management method, and know how to operate, he soon accumulated some wealth, and then he arrived in the Yinzibin area of Zhouzhuang, and later luckily entered Lu Daoyuan's family, learned some business things, and because of his strong ability, he would make money and get a huge amount of money.
Shen Wansan began the journey of opening and hanging, he to Zhouzhuang and the North Clam River (ancient Dongjiang) west of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, northeast through the Liu River to the sea water conservancy conditions, (at that time there were no highways and trains, waterways are the fastest}, opened a variety of "competition for wealth for business" trade, involving a very wide range, and also participated in many overseas trade at that time, in just a few years, history records that he "tens of millions of dollars, land and production more than Wuxia" became the richest man in Jiangnan.
At that time, Shen Wansan and Zhang Shicheng at the end of the Yuan Dynasty cooperated with each other and obtained many local business conveniences, and these conditions also made Shen Wansan one of the reasons for getting rich quickly.
There is another rumor in the folk: that is, Shen Wansan has a "cornucopia" in his home, this cornucopia, a bit like the one in the "Legend of the Book of Heaven", as long as you put something into the pot, the plate will be copied out. And the People of the Ming Dynasty recorded a book called "Near Peak Wenluo" and said that Shen Wansan at that time learned to turn stones into gold from Zhang Sanfeng and so on
In fact, Shen Wansan's real rich experience is still related to himself, to be precise, he still through his own efforts, on the basis of the original family, after a period of cultivation, was appreciated by large households, let him learn the way of business, and later got the injection of huge wealth, multi-channel development, and then cooperated with Zhang Shicheng, became a huge rich at that time.
But why did Shen Wansan, who paid and contributed during the Hongwu period, still offend Zhu Yuanzhang?
This is related to Shen Wansan's repeated testing of Zhu Yuanzhang's bottom line, we know that several stories of Shen Wansan are actually Shen Wansan testing Zhu Yuanzhang's bottom line, because Shen Wansan, who once cooperated with Zhang Shicheng, knows that if he does not cooperate with Zhu Yuanzhang, then his wealth development will be supervised and restricted, but Shen Wansan in his own success, feels that he can already be unregulated, so he needs to cooperate with Zhu Yuanzhang, as long as the two sides can cooperate, then Shen Wansan's financial resources are rolling as always.
And Shen Wansan's most famous story is to bet with Zhu Yuanzhang on the construction of the Nanjing city wall, because the Ming Dynasty at that time had just been built, many places were in ruins, and there were many places that needed to spend money, but the walls of the capital city could not be too shabby, so in the early years of Hongwu, the city wall was still transformed, and Shen Wansan proposed that he pay for the construction of two sections of the city wall alone, and also spent money to build some blocks and pavilions, and the construction period was completed three days earlier than Zhu Yuanzhang.
In the end, he successfully won Zhu Yuanzhang, but in Zhu Yuanzhang's place, he was very unhappy about Shen Wansan's move to take money to smash him, because although Shen Wansan was a businessman, he knew how to communicate and people's hearts, and sent a big gift to Zhu Yuanzhang, but he forgot one thing, that is, Zhu Yuanzhang was a poor child, and in the whole life experience, the most disgusting thing was these landlords and rich merchants, and Shen Wansan's big gift, in his opinion, was undoubtedly a bottom line to explore, to see Zhu Yuanzhang's reaction.
And this time Zhu Yuanzhang did not blame Shen Wansan too much, and also rewarded Shen Wansan with some field houses and let his son become a petty official, Shen Wansan was a successful exploration this time.
However, Shen Wansan's second attempt to test the bottom line, he overexerted, suddenly went up, directly offended Zhu Yuanzhang, and finally let Zhu Yuanzhang, who was very suspicious, doubt what was the ulterior motive behind his behavior.
This is the story of Shen Wansan paying money to the labor army, in the Ming Dynasty there is a book called "Liu Qing Rizha", which says that during the Hongwu years, Zhu Yuanzhang planned to reward the generals of the three armies, Shen Wansan saw the opportunity to come, he decisively played and said that he could give out silver on behalf of Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang originally did not want to see this practice, so he deliberately said difficulty: I have a million xiong army, can your money be distributed to each person?
However, this Shen Wansan replied without hesitation that each army could get one or two pieces of gold. After Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he was greatly surprised, and after Shen Wansan turned around and retreated, Zhu Yuanzhang summoned his men and said: Try to take all his wealth.
Another reason is that it is rumored that Shen Wansan's behavior angered Zhu Yuanzhang, because these soldiers are good brothers who follow Zhu Yuanzhang, where can Shen Wansan come to steal the limelight and reward him? Moreover, Shen Wansan or Zhang Shicheng had cooperated, was there any trick behind this, Zhu Yuanzhang was later angry and wanted to take Shen Wansan. However, he was lucky, and Empress Ma was still there at the time, and persuaded Zhu Yuanzhang to open a side, and Shen Wansan was spared death and sent to Yunnan.
The real reason for the decline of the Shen Wansan family
In fact, the chongjun is not the reason for the real decline of the Shen Wansan family, because later Zhu Yuanzhang learned that Shen Wansan did not have any other crooked thoughts, just constantly testing the border and overdoing it, so although it was charged with the army, the family also lost some money, but the accumulation of the Shen family, or the skinny camel is bigger than Ma, the son and son-in-law still help him operate and maintain, the real Decline of the Shen family is because it involves the blue jade case, because Shen Wansan's son-in-law is involved in the blue jade case, the Shen family can not be avoided, Directly copied to the bottom, a large family and industry, and finally can not be spared, become the dust of history
Why is it said that he wants his descendants to bury themselves under the water?
We know that Shen Wansan died of illness in Yunnan at that time, and it is said that there is his tomb in a mountain in present-day Guizhou. According to the theory, his tomb should be in the Yunnan generation, and now we know that there is the tomb of Shen Wansan on the top hill of Dali, Yunnan.
But why is it said that he was buried in the water again?
Legend has it that others were old and wanted to return to their roots, so they used the method of hiding the sky and crossing the sea, left Yunnan and returned to their hometown, and soon after died of illness in their hometown, so we now know Zhou Zhuang in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, and there is a very special tomb of Shen Wansan, who is one of the few underwater tombs in China.
Legend has it that Shen Wansan later reflected on himself, thinking that he was too proud and arrogant to have such an end, but because he came back quietly, Ye fell back to his roots, but he could not be buried in his hometown, so he thought of building a cemetery under the water.
There are two considerations here, on the one hand, water tombs are not easy to find. Secondly, the compensation placed inside is not easy to be stolen, and third, Shen Wansan felt faceless to face his father and elder; but he felt that he was innocent, so he used the water tomb to imply that the world was innocent. Therefore, Shen Wansan's descendants built a cemetery under the water of Yinyinbang, which is the origin of Shen Wansan's underwater tomb.
Deep analysis, what caused Shen Wansan to be exiled by Zhu Yuanzhang
First: too speculative, Shen Wansan is like a speculator, all kinds of drill camps, for their own wealth, he has turned to Zhang Shicheng, and Zi'an insisted on holding on to Zhu Yuanzhang once let Zhu Yuanzhang suffer heavy losses, and later went to Zhu Yuanzhang, all kinds of dedication, and it was his ill-intentioned speculation that led to the final evil consequences
Second: Money is not low-key, but also likes to be aloft, all kinds of pointing out the country, whether it is to expand the city of Nanjing, to bet with Ming Taizu to build a city wall, but also in order to show their financial resources, reward the army, are arrogant and proud realization, it is this attitude, let Zhu Yuanzhang a sentence "The army of the heavenly son, the people of chaos, it is advisable to curse." "He's doomed. Low-key and honest talk is not OK, you have to come out to be unreasonable, and the result will be like this.
Third, the family style was not well managed, and the "Blue Jade Case" refers to the reason that really made the Shen family decline, but what is very ridiculous here is that Shen Wansan's son-in-law actually dragged down the Shen family because he had money, and he had a private affair with one of the ladies in the Blue House. I have to say that the Shen family style is still not managed in place.
Write in the last words
Guan Zhong, the famous minister of the Spring and Autumn Period, once said that if the economic power is great, it must be controlled by the state, and it is necessary to put an end to the people's interests in order to seek benefits and harm the interests of the people, and if the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very small number of rich people, it will be extremely harmful to the country and the people.
For in this way, in the long run, the people will not be deterred by the king's orders, the laws of the state will be useless, and the majesty of the monarch will eventually disappear. More importantly, when the rich have money, the favor of the monarch cannot enter their eyes, and if the monarch is embarrassed by something, they are likely to use their financial resources to support another monarch again. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were countless such cases.
Although Shen Wansan in the Ming Dynasty was rich in the world, because of his wealth and self-righteousness, he could not imagine that he was already on the edge of the cliff, constantly testing the bottom line for commercial interests, and finally falling into the fate of exile on the frontier, which may be worth thinking about and warning for our current people.
History has passed, looking back at the past, just to look forward to the future, China after many years of efforts, the people's life is getting better and better, our ideal, not the prosperity of one person, the prosperity of some people, is the realization of common prosperity of the whole country, and the achievements we have made now are the ancestors of the motherland, through hard work and hard work, with the results of sweat, under the guidance of the country, and strive to move forward, is the main reason why the Chinese nation can once again stand on the top of the world, and there are certainly twists and turns in the progress. But we can't give up when there are difficulties, and we should cross the past in the face of difficulties, and what is needed is the efforts and selfless dedication of everyone.