introduction
In July 1917, after Song Ziwen and Song Meiling returned from the United States, the Song family reunited and took a group photo at the home of No. 491 Xiafei Road (now Huai Zhong Road) in Shanghai, which is the only family photo of the Song family seen so far. The front row is Song Zi'an, and the second row is from the left of Song Ailing, Song Ziwen, and Song Qingling; From the third row, from left, are Song Ziliang, Song Yaoru, Ni Guizhen, and Song Meiling (Shanghai Sun Yat-sen Former Residence Memorial Collection) (Stanford Hoover Institution/Photo)
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"The Song family has always lived in the shadow of 'big corrupt officials'." Song Cao Lixuan sighed softly. In the fall of 2011, as a representative of the Jiang and Song families, she was invited to attend a seminar on modern history held by Fudan University.
Song Cao Lixuan is the wife of Song Zhonghu, son of Song Zi'an, and is capable and full of vitality. She is also an influential Chinese social activist in the Bay Area. In recent years, she has been working hard to promote the declassification, publication and research of the historical archives of Jiang and Song in the two sides of the strait and three places.
"I feel like that's God's mission and calling for me — to bring the truth of that history to light." We have nothing to hide, and we hope that this will bring some meaningful historical lessons to Chinese society today. ”
In 1985, American writer Sterling Seagrave published the book "The Song Family Dynasty". This is one of the most well-known and controversial books about the Song family. The best-selling author wrote the history of the rise and fall of the Song family in the form of breaking news. The front page of its Chinese translation reads: "The Song dynasty gathered a part of the greatest wealth of the era, and the Encyclopedia Britannica states, 'He is said to be the richest man on earth.'" ”
As soon as the book was published, William Yeoman, the executor of Soong Ziwen's estate, sent a letter to Sigreve to protest, Soong Meiling wrote a special article to refute it, and a number of Taiwanese scholars jointly published advertisements in major American newspapers to counter it. This was the best publicity for Sigreve. Stimulated by skepticism, sales of the book "The Song Family Dynasty" soared and continued for several months.
Song Ziwen leaves the residence to go out in a car (Stanford University Hoover Institution/Photo)
The legendary "richest man on earth"
The search for historical truth begins with rumors and legends.
After Chiang Kai-shek's defeat on the mainland, Song Ziwen's family settled in the United States. At that time, there was a rumor in Taiwan and the United States -- Kong and Song transferred large sums of assets to the United States. In 1950, Brown, a columnist for the Washington Evening Star, cited "accurate and reliable US statistics" in an article opposing US aid to Taiwan, saying that Kong and Song had deposited as much as $500 million in US banks.
As a result, the news media in Taiwan and Hong Kong had a lively discussion on how much assets these two companies have, whether they should "donate property" to the Taiwan Government, and how much they should donate. He even asked the government to immediately recall the two from overseas and explain them.
On March 12, 2008, on behalf of his mother, Feng Yingxiang, grandson of Song Ziwen, preserved the third batch of Soong Ziwen's archives at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, totaling more than 2,000 documents, including Soong Ziwen's diary during the Xi'an Incident, correspondence with high-ranking British and American governments, and Chinese and English telegrams with Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Meiling, as well as financial records and correspondence with lawyers written by him from the 1940s to his death in 1971.
Among the documents left by Song Ziwen, there are three personal asset statistics that he wrote in steel notes, dated 26 May 1940, 19 July 1943, and 30 March 1968, of which the total assets under Song's name on 30 March 1968 were $1,349,299 and those under his wife Zhang Leyi were $1,125,986.
△Personal asset statistics recorded by Song Ziwen (Stanford University Hoover Institution/Photo)
When Soong died in 1971, the New York state government organized an investigation into his financial situation. The results of the investigation showed that with the sale of real estate, his total assets reached 8 million US dollars, and after deducting more than 2 million US dollars in taxes, Song Ziwen left Zhang Leyi's inheritance of more than 5 million US dollars.
Measured by this amount of property, Song Ziwen was not a huge fortune in his time, not to mention the global scale, even in China. These will of Song Ziwen, which has been made public, are legal documents and should not be falsified. Of course, these documents were provided by the Song family, and there may be trade-offs.
In addition, the archives also show that Song Ziwen is very sensitive to fluctuations in the market price of his stocks, and often records the specific figures of ups and downs. Feng Yinghan was Song Ziwen's most beloved grandson, and in his childhood memories, his grandfather used to carefully study the stock market information published in the newspapers, and every night he had to wait until his grandfather finished reading the news before the whole family had dinner together.
Song Ziwen's concern for subtle changes in property can show from the side that he is not extremely wealthy.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the US dollar public bond fraud case and the gold markup case exposed by the National Government spread to the United States, causing dissatisfaction among US public opinion. At that time, there was a saying that Soong Ziwen participated in lobbying and negotiating a large amount of US financial and economic aid to China during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and that he might convert such financial assistance into personal and family interests. Professor Wu Jingping, an authoritative on Song Ziwen's research, believes that this path of corruption is very unlikely. An American is supervising, as is Kong Xiangxi, the finance minister and governor of the central bank, who is at odds with Song. Second, Song Ziwen is only responsible for borrowing money, and does not handle specific money, and it is basically impossible for Song to embezzle from it.
One proof of this is Chiang Kai-shek's diary, which has been made public in recent years. In his diary, Chiang Kai-shek often named and cursed high-level corrupt personnel, such as Kong Xiangxi. Although he often scolded Song Ziwen in his diary, saying that he was arbitrary, dictatorial, and ambitious, he never accused Song of corruption.
Dai Hongchao, a scholar of the Department of Political Science at the University of Detroit in the United States, has done research on Song's suspicions of corruption. He talked about the legends about the wealth of the Song family and concluded: First, one person first states his own opinion, the other person passes it on, and the three people follow and pass it on. This is most evident in the American text: First, a columnist said that he had heard, but the use of books seemed to be the foregone conclusion, such as the so-called Song Ziwen was the richest man in the 1940s; Second, there are no first-person testimonies in the texts that can be checked, and most Chinese characters lack exact data and use only inferences.
In fact, regarding the mention in "The Song Dynasty" that Song Ziwen was the richest man in the 1940s, the author Sigreve also explained in a note that this was a rumor created by Japan during the war.
However, the eye-catching, sensational effect has been achieved.
Song Yaoru's signature photo of Song Ziwen studying in the United States (Shanghai Sun Yat-sen Former Residence Memorial Collection) (Stanford University Hoover Institution/Photo)
So far, there is no evidence of "wealthy capital"
So, how much private property did Song Ziwen leave on the mainland?
Both "Jinling Spring Dream" and "Song Family Dynasty" quoted a sentence by Hu Hanmin, a veteran figure of the Kuomintang. It is rumored that during the Liangguang Uprising in 1931, Hu Hanmin was detained by Chiang Kai-shek in Tangshan in Nanjing, and he accused Song Ziwen, saying that he was "a poor man, and since he became the minister of finance, he has been rich (liè, the same as "埒"; (Equal). Prince".
This is at odds with the facts. Long before their children were involved in politics, the Song family was already a rich family. Song Yaoru, the father of Song Ziwen, known as the "Charlie Song who printed the Bible," traveled to the United States at an early age and received a church education in the United States. In 1886, the North Carolina Church sent him back to China as a missionary, and a few years later he resigned from the priesthood to run the business and industry, where he took a stake in the famous Huamei Library and published Chinese Bible and religious books in China. He also co-founded the Shanghai Flour Company, invested in cigarettes, cotton spinning and other industries, and also imported machinery and equipment.
Later, Song Yaoru got acquainted with Sun Yat-sen, joined the Xingzhong Society, and became the main patron of Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary cause. When the children of the Song family enter the political arena one after another, the resources and connections that can be used to get rich are far greater than those of their father Song Yaoru's generation. An important part of the Song family's wealth was the enterprises run and controlled by the family members, the so-called "bureaucratic capital."
△In late 1947 and early 1948, Song Ziwen visited Hong Kong as chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Government to review the British honor guard (Stanford Hoover Institution/Photo)
In 1933, Song Ziwen resigned as vice president of the Executive Yuan and minister of finance because of a conflict with Chiang Kai-shek over military expenditures, and "went to the sea to do business." He once told Zhang Jiaying in person that he wanted to be "China's Morgan". He has personal shares in Bank of China, China Construction Bank Corporation, and Bank of Guangdong.
The Construction Bank Company is a company with a very special background and founding purpose; most of its shares are owned by 13 banks, including the Bank of China, and Song Ziwen and some high-ranking Kuomintang officials are its shareholders, and indeed they have enjoyed high profits from the "government-run commercial bank."
In September 1947, after the ruling and opposition parties launched a great tide of "toppling the Song Dynasty," in order to save his personal influence, Song Ziwen donated at an inner-party meeting in September 1947 all the shares he owned in the China Construction Bank Company, about 500 billion yuan of legal yuan, to the Kuomintang Central Party Department -- to be precise, this should be the common property of the three brothers to help solve the economic crisis facing the government.
After 1949, the Bank of Guangdong continued to operate overseas. Scholar Wu Jingping has looked up information about the Bank of Guangdong, and he believes that there has never been conclusive evidence to confirm the loss of state assets to the Bank of Guangdong, and there is no evidence that Song Ziwen transferred state assets. The Song family's original stake in Nanyang Brothers Tobacco was held by the Bank of Guangdong and the Bank of China, not by individuals.
Dr. Daijun Guo of the Hoover Institution, a scholar of Song Ziwen, spoke of an international conference she attended in 2006. An American scholar at the meeting said that he was very serious about looking for evidence of Song Ziwen's corruption, but could not find it. He said he wanted academics to present evidence, but no one has done so far.
The "legitimate" beneficiaries of the official and business system
No matter how absurd and exaggerated, every rumor carries a projection of reality.
In the historical materials of the enterprises involved in the reporter's search, we can still clearly see the privileges and benefits enjoyed by their special "status."
In 1947, under the pressure of public opinion, Song Ziwen donated all his shares in the China Construction Bank Company (hereinafter referred to as the "Yin Company") to the Party Department of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang. The company, founded by Song Ziwen in 1934, has always been regarded as a model of official and commercial enterprises under the control of the Song family.
Although declared to be a "purely private commercial company", the Yinjian Company was a very "special" financial company, and its establishment was approved by Chiang Kai-shek and supported by the Ministry of Finance. Its major shareholders are 13 domestic banks, including Bank of China, and its minority shareholders are a large number of political dignitaries and financial leaders, including Song Ziwen and Kong Xiangxi.
Song Ziwen adopted such a form of "government-business" joint operation, first, in order to circumvent the various obstructions from Japan, and to introduce investment from European and American countries in the face of non-governmental organizations; On the other hand, it has the credibility and function of a certain national enterprise, which can increase the confidence of foreign investors.
Before the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Bank Company brought in foreign capital and investment to complete the construction of various railways and created a brand-new model for attracting foreign investment. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the banking company also cooperated with the government's needs, acted as an intermediary between the government and state-owned banks, and invested in coal, electricity, mining, and other resource enterprises. Due to its special status and relationship with the government, the company has been prosperous since its inception, and its assets have expanded rapidly from 12.6 million yuan in 1934 to 115 million yuan in June 1936. In 1936, the company had a net profit of 1.9 million yuan, a profit equivalent to 20% of the capital. This, of course, also makes a lot of profit for shareholders.
During the economic crisis around 1935, a large number of private banks, money banks, and industrial and commercial enterprises went bankrupt and collapsed. Song Ziwen took a stake in a number of high-quality private enterprises such as the Bank of Guangdong and Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company, and his family members became actual controllers. The "resurrection" of these enterprises after the acquisition is quite intriguing.
Originally a privately invested overseas Chinese bank, the Bank of Guangdong ran into trouble in 1935. In 1936, Song Ziwen reorganized and cleaned up the failed Guangdong Bank, and resumed business, with his younger brother Song Zi'an as the chairman of the board, controlling personnel and business power.
Song Ziwen's special status and connections have become valuable resources of the Bank of Guangdong. On the day of resumption of business, there was a deposit of 3 million yuan from the Bank of China. The Bank of China allowed Guangdong banks to use the deposit for overdraft, capped at 1.5 million yuan, with interest of only 2%, only half the interest of other banks. With this huge deposit at low interest rates, the Bank of Guangdong was able to boldly and proactively carry out various businesses, and it was not until a few years later that the foundation was solidified and the Shanghai Bank paid it off.
At the time, Song Ziwen was the chairman of the Bank of China. Song himself said that before becoming chairman of the Bank of Guangdong, he had contacts with banking institutions such as the central government, China, and the China Construction Bank Corporation, and that the three major financial institutions "tried to help as much as possible." This will greatly facilitate the bank's "subsequent business promotion and fund allocation".
Nanyang Brothers Tobacco's "turnaround" has another typical significance.
Because of competition from British American Tobacco, China's largest tobacco company was in trouble in the 1930s. Since 1932, the Nanjing National Government has implemented a secondary tax system for tobacco taxes, and the tax rate on low-grade cigarettes mainly produced by Chinese companies is higher than that of British American Tobacco's high-grade cigarettes. In 1934, the Chinese Commercial Tobacco Factory petitioned the government to restore the previous seven-tier tax system, but it was rejected.
In March 1937, the Jian family, which was in business trouble, and Song Ziwen reached an agreement to sell half of the company's shares at a price of 5 yuan per share, and to hand over "all the remaining shares, together with the shares," to Song "at his discretion and use." The 700,000 yuan of the purchased shares were financed by the Bank of Guangdong, which is controlled by Song Zi'an.
The month after the Song family entered Nanyang Tobacco, the Ministry of Finance announced a new four-level tobacco tax system, in which high-grade cigarettes increased by a greater percentage than low-grade cigarettes, and thus were more beneficial to Chinese tobacco factories. In June of that year, the Nanjing government suddenly "cared" about the tax rate of its imported paper cigarettes and announced that all imported paper cigarettes at all levels would increase taxes by 80 percent. While there is no direct and strong evidence that Soong Ziwen's purchase of Nanyang Brothers Tobacco led the Nanjing government to adopt policies conducive to protecting Chinese industry, the fact is that requests from the Chinese business community for a change in taxation have gone unheeded.
In his oral recollections, Wu Guozhen, an official of the Republic of China, talked about the interaction between the Kong-Song model and the system. He said: According to the relevant laws and decrees of the government, there is indeed no problem with everything that Kong Song Capital has done, and everything is legal, because the laws and policies themselves are formulated by themselves.
"His long-term combination of public and private duties, without carefully and clearly demarcating the boundary between public and private, naturally aroused questions in society." Wu Jingping said pertinently. For example, if the Secretary of the Treasury or the Chairman of the Bank of China in the United States today were in charge of finance while running and investing in commercial enterprises themselves or their families, how would people clarify the public and private interests?
Song Ziwen himself also paid the price for this official and commercial system since the late Qing Dynasty. Having lived for a long time in various rumors, legends and public opinion accusing him of "great greed", his state of mind is very bitter, and he lives in seclusion in the United States, but he only enjoys his children and grandchildren around his knees.
Ecclesiastes: There is nothing new under the sun. In the context of China's 200-year history, this statement has a special meaning.
Source:
"Song Family: Wind and Rain Republic of China"