With the rapid popularity of "That Year the Flowers Bloomed and the Moon Was Round", the heroine of the play, Zhou Ying, was widely known to everyone. The famous actor Sun Li vividly interpreted the legendary life of this wealthy businessman at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
So, zhou ying in history, what is her life like? She was widowed all her life and childless, and after her death, where did the huge amount of property go?
The historical Zhou Ying was unfortunate, and she became a widow at a young age. But she was also fortunate to rely on her own strength to build the shrinking Wu family industry into a huge business empire, becoming a rich merchant who was rich enough to rival the country, and was recognized by Cixi as a righteous daughter and named "Lady of yipin".
(Zhou Ying stills)
First, when he was in his prime, he married into the Wu family.
Zhou Ying was born in 1869 in Sanyuan County, Shaanxi Province, after Zhou Meicun, a member of the Qing Dynasty's Punishment Department and a wealthy merchant. She has been smart and intelligent since childhood, and her temperament is gentle. The Zhou family has always attached great importance to education, and when she was young, Under the guidance of her loving father and Strict Teacher, Zhou Ying not only read poetry and books, but also had a strong talent for memory. The information about the numbers can be remembered. This laid a solid foundation for her to achieve the miracle of the mall in the future.
At the age of 17, Zhou Ying obeyed her parents' words and married Wu Ping, the only son of Wu Weiwen, a salt merchant in An WuBao, Jingyang County. Wu Weiwen was also an official and a businessman, and served in the posts of Hubei Houdaotai and Shanxi Ningwu Prefect. At the same time, Wu Weiwen is also a big salt merchant, not only opened the salt business number "Yulong Quan" in Yangzhou, but also opened more than a dozen salt branch numbers in various places, with millions of silver and two incomes every year.
At that time, the salt merchants were the most powerful official merchants, and it was difficult for other merchants to look up to them. As an adult, Wu Ping not only assisted his father in doing some business, but also was a senior doctor in the official Residence Erpin. The Wu family can be described as a family of well-off eunuchs.
However, Wu Ping was frail and sickly, and soon after Zhou Ying married him, he died.
A year later, his father-in-law Wu Weiwen was also on his way out on business and died unexpectedly. The great Wu family, there is not a single male Ding, only 18-year-old Zhou Ying is left to support independently.
After Wu Weiwen's death, the Wu family's business was left unattended, and it plummeted. Although there are still a few businesses struggling to support, they have long been unable to make ends meet and are on the verge of bankruptcy.
(Revitalization of the family business)
Second, take over the Wu family industry and turn the tide.
In the face of the Increasingly withered predicament of the Wu family, Zhou Ying was not discouraged, and she secretly resolved from the bottom of her heart that she must revitalize the Wu family's industry.
First of all, she made a thorough inspection of all the wu family's businesses. Wherever there is a Wu family shop, she will personally go for a walk and take a look. Over the past few months, she knew the scope of the Wu family's business operations, the operating conditions of each semicolon, and the measures to be taken in the next step. She will even go to understand the situation of competitors and know herself and know each other.
Second, she knows people well. After the death of his father-in-law Wu Weiwen, he not only left Some business names and capital for Zhou Ying, but more importantly, he also left a group of loyal and capable talents for Zhou Ying. Zhou Ying knew that she was short-term and inexperienced in the mall, so she relied heavily on the old people of the Wu family. Not only did they raise their salaries by 20%, but they were much higher than the local salaries. At the same time, while protecting the basic salary of employees, Zhou Ying also linked the operating conditions of the business name with the year-end dividends of employees, which greatly mobilized the enthusiasm of employees.
In the decision of the big things and small things of the business name, Zhou Ying never engages in a word, and always solicits the opinions of employees extensively. When everyone was unable to unify, she came forward to make a decision and finally made a decision.
It is also strange to say that all the businesses that have been decided by Zhou Ying are often full of money at the time of the year-end final accounts, and there are very few losses. This established Zhou Ying's prestige and status in the Wu family.
Third, Zhou Ying was influenced by Confucianism from an early age, and she was not deceived in her business and operated in good faith. Once, a salt merchant mistakenly sold sea salt as Jinda Green Salt, and was discovered by a trader, so he came to the door to theorize. After Zhou Ying learned the news, she not only personally compensated the vendor, but also made compensation at 3 times the price.
After this incident, Zhou Ying hung a wooden plaque of "honesty, no fraud, self-discipline and self-discipline" on the front of the door of each business, which was both a wake-up call to each business and a commitment to the people.
(Cixi stills)
Third, success and fame, rich can be the enemy of the country.
After Zhou Ying's careful management, the Wu family's industry is thriving. Not only are salt businesses distributed throughout the country, but also set up cloth villages, oil mills, wineries, grain stores, rice numbers, etc., at most, the Wu family has 108 branches, which can really be described as "the source of wealth is rolling, and the daily jin doujin". At that time, the folk spread such a proverb: "The guys of the Wu family, go through the prefecture and county, do not eat other people's meals, and do not live in other shops." This shows the strong strength of the Wu family at that time.
In the process of rapid capital accumulation, Zhou Ying invested funds in the purchase of land. He purchased hundreds of acres of land around Anwu Fort and the county seat of Jingyang and built more than 20 magnificent manors. These manors are connected end to end and occupy almost half of the city of Jingyang County.
In particular, the Wu Manor, located in the city of Anwu Fort, is even more magnificent and magnificent. In order to build this manor, Zhou Ying specially sent people to inspect the Forbidden City, and then imitated the construction style and layout of the Forbidden City, which took several years to complete. Its extravagant grandeur and grand scale are comparable to the Qiao family compound. The number of servants in the house reached more than 2,000 people, and more than 100,000 silver taels were spent throughout the year.
Fourth, be charitable and give back to the neighbors.
In 1900, when the Eight-Nation Alliance army approached the city of Beijing, Cixi fled in a hurry under the name of touring the west. When Cixi and her party arrived in Xi'an, Zhou Ying not only immediately bought 10 cows in Jingyang, but also presented Cixi with steaming fresh milk. He also generously donated 100,000 taels of silver, which made Cixi in distress very moved, and immediately crowned Zhou Ying as "Lady Yipin" and made an exception to accept her as a righteous daughter, and Zhou Ying became cixi's only Han righteous daughter.
Zhou Ying is also kind to her neighbors. Whenever she encounters natural and man-made disasters, Zhou Ying will open a warehouse to release grain and help the victims. At the same time, in order to solve the drinking water difficulties of the people of Jingyang, Zhou Ying herself funded more than a dozen deep wells to let the villagers drink assured water.
At the same time, Zhou Ying also donated funds to run schools, build the Temple of Literature, and did a lot of good deeds for her neighbors.
In 1910, Zhou Ying died of illness at the age of 42. Because Zhou Ying was widowed in her early years and kept the festival all her life, she was unable to give birth to a son and a half daughter for the Wu family, so she was unable to enter the wu family ancestral tomb after her death and was buried in a wasteland outside the village of Wujiapu.
As for Zhou Ying's huge wealth after her death, part of it was squandered by her adopted son Wu Huaixian, and some of it was donated to the government.
(References; "The Legend of Zhou Ying, a Rich Merchant in Shaanxi")