How rich is Shen Wansan? It is said that his wealth is several times that of Bill Gates, how did he make so much money? How did the Shen family, which is so rich and rival the country, turn from prosperity to decline step by step?
Shen Wansan lived in the Yuan Dynasty for most of his life, and throughout his life, you will find that every accumulation he has is inseparable from the environment of the times.
When he was young, Shen Wansan followed his father Shen You and moved to Zhouzhuang in the south of the Yangtze River, because he had suffered from the plague before, there were few people in Zhouzhuang at that time, and the court encouraged reclamation, Shen You was a good farmer, and he was very good at improving the soil, so he continued to reclaim wasteland, and finally became a well-known landlord.
With the passage of time, while the population of Jiangnan gradually increased, the land was gradually concentrated in the hands of the wealthy households, and the common people had no land in their hands, so they could only rent from the wealthy households. It was at this time that Shen Wansan newly built water conservancy and took the opportunity to annex a large amount of land, so he soon had thousands of hectares of fertile land.
At that time, usury was popular in the Yuan Dynasty, and it was supported by the emperor, and even local officials could legally operate loans, which was an extremely important commercial activity at that time. And Shen Wansan, who is very business-minded, naturally will not let go of this opportunity to accumulate wealth, and begins to lend a large amount, thus obtaining a large amount of wealth and completing the accumulation of original funds.
The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty focused on commerce and introduced a series of measures conducive to commercial development, and in this relaxed environment, Shen Wansan saw the opportunity to open shops in various places, and his restaurants and pawnshops, silver horns and other industries were all over the place.
Coupled with the special geographical environment of Zhouzhuang, located on the bank of the rapid water river, not only the land transportation is convenient, the waterway is extended in all directions, the west leads to the Baisa River, you can go to Suzhou, the east of the Wusong River directly to Taicang, the Shen fleet can pass through Zhouzhuang, in Chizhou, Huizhou, Zhenjiang, Nanjing and other places between the trade, in addition to selling grain, but also a large number of silk, ceramics and other goods from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, sold to other regions, in exchange for huge profits.
With his keen observation and accurate judgment, Shen Wansan continued to buy and sell, coupled with his hard-working nature, the Shen family's caravan grew larger and larger, and the daily income was not enough to describe the speed at which he made money.
Shen Wansan's career continued to develop, and Zhouzhuang, where he was located, gradually became an important town in the south of the Yangtze River. At this point, Shen Wansan is already a figure on the rich side.
However, what really made him rich was overseas trade.
As early as the Song Dynasty, the South China Sea trade system was gradually formed. In the Yuan Dynasty, due to the spanning of Asia and Europe, the external traffic was unprecedentedly developed, and the overseas traffic developed rapidly. The seafaring technology, scale and scope of navigation of this period greatly exceeded those of previous periods.
In addition, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty attached great importance to overseas trade, and as many as eight ports for foreign trade were set up, and a series of systems conducive to overseas trade were formulated and promulgated by the government, such as the city ship system and the tributary system, which greatly promoted the development of overseas trade.
However, in the later part of the Yuan Dynasty, the imperial court imposed a sea ban, so smuggling became the backbone of overseas trade. These fleets often sail to India, the Arabian Peninsula and other regions, and trade with more than 100 countries.
Even in the last years of the Yuan Dynasty, when Chen Youliang, Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhang Shicheng were in chaos and divided among themselves, these maritime merchants were still actively engaged in overseas trade.
Shen Wansan, who has always been good at business, is one of the most active members. Shen Wansan began to trade at sea in 1331, decades before Zheng He's voyage to the West, which lasted in 1405, and the routes he sailed almost overlapped with Shen Wansan's.
Shen Wansan exported silk, tea, ceramics, medicinal materials, handicrafts and other specialties that were popular overseas to foreign countries by sea to earn a huge price difference.
They also trafficked precious items such as pearls, ivory, and horses from overseas to China to obtain extremely high profits. As a result, he quickly became rich and became a huge rich man in Jiangnan with huge assets and land all over the world.
It's a pity that although Shen Wansan is a genius in business, he doesn't have a sober political mind.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, in order to stabilize the new regime, Zhu Yuanzhang began to take measures to restrict the wealthy people in various places, forcing the wealthy families of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to migrate to Haozhou, Nanjing and other places; And a large amount of wealth brought to Nanjing by these wealthy families was used to build the city of Nanjing.
The story of Shen Wansan helping Zhu Yuanzhang build Nanjing City happened during this period.
In fact, as early as a few years ago, Shen Wansan's younger brother wrote the poem "Brocade clothes and jade food are not for blessings, and sandalwood and gold bottles can also be rested", persuading him to retreat bravely and be a low-key person. But Shen Wansan didn't take it to heart. When he heard Zhu Yuanzhang say that he wanted to reward the three armies, his mind was hot, and he actually stepped forward to ask that he pay for the labor army, but he didn't expect that the army who wanted to curry favor with Zhu Yuanzhang made the founding emperor furious.
According to the "History of the Ming Dynasty: The Biography of Empress Xiaoci Gao", Zhu Yuanzhang believes that the army of the world should be punished if the army is punished. Queen Ma persuaded him that he was rich in the enemy country, and the people were ominous: the ominous people, the sky will be calamitous, and what will be punished. It means that now that the Ming Dynasty was built at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, if it is ominous to kill people at will, Shen Wansan is an ominous person, and God will punish him, so it is better to exempt him from the death penalty and change it to other punishments.
Only then did Zhu Yuanzhang change his mind and exile Shen Wansan to Yunnan.
Zhu Yuanzhang was born a poor peasant, and was oppressed by rich landlords since he was a child, so he hated a rich businessman like Shen Wansan, and before Zhu Yuanzhang was proclaimed emperor, Shen Wansan and Zhang Shicheng had close contacts, relying on the power given to him by Zhang Shicheng to make a lot of money, and also helped Zhang Shicheng transport materials many times.
After Shen Wansan was exiled, the Shen family ushered in two major blows one after another, one was in the nineteenth year of Hongwu, when Shen Wansan's two grandsons, Shen Zhi and Shen Xu, served as grain chiefs, because Tian Fu was imprisoned, and died in prison soon after, which was a big blow to the Shen family.
Another time was the outbreak of the Lanyu case in the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, and the Shen family was involved in it, because Shen Wansan's son-in-law Gu Xuewen used the power of the grain chief to fornicate with others and thus had a grudge, and was finally falsely accused by the enemy of conspiring against Lanyu, who is familiar with the history of the Ming Dynasty, everyone who is familiar with the history of the Ming Dynasty knows that the Lanyu case is very implicated, and more than 10,000 people died before and after.
And Shen Wansan's family, together with his son-in-law Gu family, a total of more than 80 people, were all implicated and killed.
This incident was recorded in the "Record of Rebel Ministers", and there is a great suspicion that Gu Xuewentong's confession of rebellion comes from Jin Yiwei's fabrication and torture, which is full of flaws and unbelievable.
Why did Zhu Yuanzhang do this? In fact, it is not difficult to find through the historical context that at the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, in order to stabilize the situation in the south of the Yangtze River, Lao Zhu had to follow some of the systems of the previous dynasty and give certain rights to the wealthy households in the south of the Yangtze River headed by Shen Wansan.
And with the passage of time, Lao Zhu keenly discovered that the economic lifeline of Jiangnan was controlled by these rich families, which was very dangerous for a dynasty.
Jiangnan Shishen Group in the last years of the Ming Dynasty is a good example, so Lao Zhu used the Lanyu case to severely attack the wealthy households in Jiangnan represented by the Shen Wansan family, in order to weaken these rich households and control the economy of Jiangnan.
When Lan Yu had just been discovered, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that people in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Susong were not allowed to hold official positions in the household department, which meant that the economic control power of the Shen family granted by the imperial power was legally withdrawn.
By February of the 31st year of Hongwu, the Gu and Shen families, as well as other local clans who had been implicated, were sentenced to death, confiscated their land and property, and destroyed the power base of the local tycoons. Also in May of this year, Zhu Yuanzhang died, and the vigorous blow to the big households in the south of the Yangtze River finally came to an end.