Zhou Ying is a brilliant flower that blooms in the world of sorrow. However, this splendid flower withered away early, and what is even more tragic and lamentable is that it was buried in the wasteland and turned into a lone ghost.
Zhou Ying was born into a famous family, suffered from the fall of the world, married into the rich Wu family, and unfortunately her husband died early. However, Zhou Ying was not trapped in a bad fate, but did not want to show weakness, and single-handedly revived the Wu family's business, becoming the peak of Qin merchants, rich enough to rival the country.
Zhou Ying, born in a troubled world, cared about society, twice donated money to the Qing government, Cixi was grateful for her great righteousness, and accepted her as a dry daughter.
The business sea game
Father-in-law Wu Weiwen's husband Wu Ping passed away one after another, and Zhou Ying stood up in grief and took up the burden of the family. In the business game, Zhou Ying is honest with customers and strictly controls product quality; to employees, she sells shares, so that employees not only have dividends every year, but also solve the problem of employees' pension;
For the tenants, she let the tenants bear their own profits and losses, and mobilized their enthusiasm for production. Zhou Ying's efforts to turn the tide and forge ahead, restored and strengthened the Wu family's salt business, and even more boldly expanded the business to cotton, cloth, medicinal materials, tea, grain and oil and other industries, and established a huge business empire.
She became the leader of Qin merchants, the richest woman in the late Qing Dynasty, and now some people call her "Ma Yun, the female yun of the late Qing Dynasty".
Fame and fortune
Zhou Yingsheng was born in a chaotic world, and the Qing government at that time was also terminally ill, but she said that this imperial court was gone, the country was gone, and the family was gone. So she tried to donate silver to the Qing government twice.
The first time was in 1900, when Cixi fled to Xi'an, Zhou Ying donated 100,000 taels of silver to protect Empress Dowager Cixi. Empress Dowager Cixi was so grateful that she made her "Lady of the Protectorate" and adopted her as her daughter.
The second time was in 1901, after the Qing government was forced to sign the Xinugu Treaty, Zhou Ying donated another 300,000 taels of silver to support the Qing government. Empress Dowager Cixi posthumously named Zhou Ying "Lady of a Pint of Commandments", and Zhou Ying received the title and happily sang a play for three days and three nights.
It is conceivable that these practices contradict the ideas of Wu Huaixian, the stepson who supports the change. This is limited by her simple family and country feelings, on the other hand, she actually wants to shape her political image by drawing power, after all, her father-in-law and her father have spent money to donate to the government, which is also the same practice.
At the same time, in the township, Zhou Ying is also willing to be charitable. He once opened a warehouse for the hungry to release grain; funded the drilling of wells for the people of Jingyang; ran a women's school for women; and built a temple of literature for the locality. These acts of kindness have made Zhou Ying a well-known "female merchant saint" in the Guanzhong area.
Undoubtedly, Zhou Ying, with her own efforts and talents, won a double harvest of politics and reputation, and left a strong mark in history.
Live in luxury
Although she was born in the era of change, Zhou Ying's innovation in business did not make her jump out of the thinking of traditional business gangs in luxury consumption.
In order to show her grandeur, Zhou Ying ordered people to imitate the Forbidden City and build a Wu manor with three entrances and four courtyards. It is said that the number of servants in this manor is more than 200, and the daily life is also extremely luxurious. A meal costs a hundred taels of silver, a thousand taels of silver to make clothes, and more than one hundred thousand taels of silver a year.
Mother and child centrifugation
Zhou Ying can be described as full of spirit and brilliant achievements in business; she has been awarded twice in power relations and achieved fame; in terms of social prestige, she is willing to be charitable and has a good reputation. But in the family that Chinese pays the most attention to, there are constant disappointments and bleak evenings.
Their husbands died young, and their only daughter died when she was one year old. There are many branches of the Wu family, divided into east, south, west, north, and central five courtyards, Zhou Yingshe is close to the far, and wu Yucheng, a distant nephew of the middle court, has inherited, for which Zhou Ying also took out 10,000 taels of silver to the middle court. At that time, Wu Yucheng was only two years old, and after his succession, he changed his name to Wu Huaixian, and the characters were pronounced in the past. It should be said that Wu Huaixian has been around Zhou Ying since he was a child, and it was Zhou Ying who raised him to grow up, and he has the grace of nurturing, which should be the love of mother and child, but the fact is lamentable.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the government was in turmoil, and in terms of attitude toward the government, Zhou Ying and her stepson Wu Huaixian had different views, perhaps because of these differences, the adult Wu Huaixian hoped that he could grasp the initiative, so contradictions were inevitable.
The contradiction intensified to the point that Zhou Ying handed a complaint to inspector Yamen, accusing Wu Huaixian of filial piety. For the reconciliation of Inspector Fan Zengxiang and the thin mud style, she did not spare it until Wu Huaixian softened and knelt down to beg for forgiveness.
Later, although Zhou Ying forgave Wu Huaixian and withdrew the complaint, she also cleared Wu Huaixian's power and reclaimed his power.
The strength and persistence in Zhou Ying's personality can be seen from it, Wu Huaixian is her only heir, some opinions are different, it is completely possible to take a step back, but also to slowly delegate power and cultivate future generations, but Zhou Ying is still dissatisfied with him, firmly controlling the business power in her own hands and refusing to give in.
At the same time, although Wu Huaixian gave in, he did not let go of the resentment and dissatisfaction with his adoptive mother in his heart, and he was waiting for the opportunity.
Helpless after the fact
Perhaps because of overwork, Zhou Ying died in 1910 at the age of forty-two. Before she died, she divided up her property and the land was shared by the villagers. It is said that on the day of her funeral, 80,000 people came to the funeral, a huge scale, which shows the number of people who have received her favor.
The funeral procession was huge, but it failed to send her to the Wu cemetery and be buried with her husband. Why? One widely circulated theory is that she did not have children. This statement should be wrong. Whether she can be buried with her husband depends on whether it is the main room, Zhou Ying is the right wife that Wu Pingming is marrying, so she should be buried with her husband.
At the same time, regarding the heirs, after the stepsons succeed them, they are their own heirs, inheriting Wu Ping and her incense. Therefore, normally, Zhou Ying should be buried in the Wu Cemetery in a fair and upright manner.
But in fact, the solemn wu cemetery that Zhou Ying built herself did not give her a place to stay. Now it is impossible to find where she is buried.
Not being able to enter the Wu Cemetery without heirs is just a reason for the descendants of the Wu family to find! The contradiction between the stepson and the adoptive mother could not be resolved in the end.
We have reason to believe that When Zhou Ying built the Wu Cemetery, she wanted to be buried here, but she had no way to grasp the things behind her, and no matter how strong her life, she could not control her own affairs.
In feudal society, a widow like Zhou Ying, who has been observing festivals all her life, should have had a chastity archway that belonged to her, but she did not. Of course, she was not even given the opportunity to be buried with her husband, let alone the Chastity Arch.
epilogue
Helpless to fall, Zhou Ying's life is full of sorrow, but it is so dazzling, Zhou Ying did everything she thought was right in her historical era, she did not waste this life.
I don't know, at the last moment of his life, whether he was sad about the relationship with his stepson, the lonely soul floating in the wasteland, I don't know if he would sigh the life she lived with all her strength.