In ancient times, there were many wealthy businessmen on the mainland, who had thousands of family fortunes and were rich enough to rival the country, but most of their endings were very tragic?
Fourth, Lü Buwei
Lü Buwei is a big businessman in Yangzhai, he comes and goes, buys at low prices, sells goods at high prices, and accumulates thousands of family fortunes.
When Lü Buwei was doing business in Handan, Zhao State, he met Yiren, the son of Qin State, who was a hostage. Lü Buwei was very happy, he felt that the alien was a strange commodity, and was ready to hoard him to sell it at a high price.
After returning home, Lü Buwei asked his father how much income he could get from farming, and his father said ten times as much. Selling jewelry and jade can earn several times the profit. Father said 100 times. What about supporting the monarch of a country? This made Lü Buwei determined to support Yiren to be the king of Qin.
In order to curry favor with the Inhuman, Lü Buwei gave the Inhuman a lot of gold and silver treasures. Yiren likes Lu Buwei's concubine Zhao Ji, and Lu Buwei is worried that the bamboo basket will be empty, so he also gives Zhao Ji to Yiren. Soon after, Zhao Ji gave birth to Yingzheng for another person. After pacifying the Yiren, Lü Buwei came to the Qin State, and he bribed Yangquanjun to meet Mrs. Huayang. Mrs. Huayang is An Guojun's favorite concubine, but she has no heirs. Under the persuasion of Lü Buwei, Mrs. Huayang recognized Yiren as her adopted son. Subsequently, Lü Buwei helped Yiren escape back to Qin.
In 251 BC, after the death of King Zhaoxiang of Qin, An Guojun succeeded to the throne, and Mrs. Huayang persuaded An Guojun to set up her own righteous son Yiren as the crown prince.
In 250 BC, after the expiration of the one-year mourning period, An Guojun was crowned the king of Qin, but he died after only 3 days as the king of Qin, and Yiren succeeded to the throne. After Yiren became the monarch of Qin, in order to repay Lü Buwei, he appointed Lü Buwei as prime minister, named Wenxin Marquis, and rewarded Lü Buwei with 100,000 households in Luoyang, Henan, which made Lü Buwei receive countless times the reward and increased his wealth hundredfold.
In 247 BC, An Guojun died, and Yingzheng succeeded to the throne. Ying Zheng was young, and Lü Buwei continued to serve as prime minister and govern for him.
Soon after An Guojun's death, Zhao Ji and Lü Buwei rekindled their old relationship.
After a long time, as Yingzheng gradually grew up, Lü Buwei felt uneasy about his relationship with Zhao Ji. In order to get rid of Zhao Ji, he introduced Chang Yu to Zhao Ji. Chang Yu soon gained Zhao Ji's favor, and he and Zhao Ji gave birth to 2 children, and were named Changxin Hou. Chang Yu's power is getting bigger and bigger, and people are becoming more and more rampant, and he calls himself the "false father" of King Qin, which also makes his contradictions with Ying Zheng more and more acute.
Ying Zheng is about to turn 22 years old, and when he wants to be pro-government, Chang Yu is worried that after Ying Zheng is pro-government, it will be unfavorable to him, and he is ready to kill Ying Zheng and support the son born to himself and Zhao Ji to be the king of Qin. Ying Zheng had already prepared, and after Chang Yu rebelled, he quickly sent troops to quell the rebellion and executed Chang Yu Che Split.
Chang Yu was recommended to Zhao Ji by Lü Buwei, which also made Lü Buwei implicated in Chang Yu's rebellion, and was dismissed from the post of prime minister by Yingzheng and let him return to live in the fief of Henan. Lü Buwei was dismissed, but envoys and guests from various countries still came in an endless stream to visit Lü Buwei. This made Yingzheng dissatisfied, and wrote a letter angrily to reprimand Lü Buwei and asked him to move to Shudi. Lü Buwei had a great contribution to the Qin state, and Yingzheng did not intend to kill him, but only moved him to Shu and asked him to cut off contact with foreign enemies, but Lü Buwei thought that the king of Qin would not let him go and committed suicide.
3. Shen Wansan
Shen Wansan was a Jiangnan merchant in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, and he was extremely wealthy.
Shen Wansan is known as "the richest man in the world". It is said that Shen Wansan has a cornucopia that can make money, allowing him to have thousands of family fortunes.
This claim is not credible.
Shen Wansan, a native of Nanxun Town, Wucheng County, Huzhou Road, followed his father Shen You to Zhouzhuang Town, Suzhou, and accumulated some wealth through hard work. Later, Shen Wansan met Lu Deyuan, a wealthy man in Fenhu, who admired Shen Wansan's business acumen. In his later years, when he had no children to inherit Lu Deyuan's property, he gave his Wanguan family wealth to Shen Wansan. Shen Wansan was very business-minded, and he soon expanded his business territory to Shenzhuang, Zhouzhuang, Suzhou, Nanjing, Yunnan, etc., by opening up farms and foreign trade, etc., so that he had a huge wealth that rivaled the wealth. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, after the chaos in the world, Shen Wansan paid money to fund Zhang Shicheng and wanted to help him seize the world. After Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng, Shen Wansan turned the rudder in time and began to fund Zhu Yuanzhang.
Zhu Yuanzhang seized the world and became the emperor, because he had just won the world and the treasury was empty, Shen Wansan paid for Zhu Yuanzhang to repair the city wall of Nanjing. He also asked for money to reward Zhu Yuanzhang for the army. Shen Wansan's move was to help Zhu Yuanzhang, but Zhu Yuanzhang was born at the bottom and was very sensitive in his heart, he became the king of a country, and asked a businessman to pay for him to repair the city wall and reward the army, which hurt Zhu Yuanzhang's self-esteem, and he was ready to kill Shen Wansan. Under the persuasion of Queen Ma, Zhu Yuanzhang spared Shen Wansan's life, but still confiscated his home and exiled him to Yunnan to fill the army. Shen Wansan spent the last part of his life in the border land of Yunnan. He died in 1934.
Second, and Shen
He Shen, a native of Manchuria's Red Banner. He Shen served as a royal guard, he was shrewd, and won the appreciation of Emperor Qianlong, and then his career ushered in a rocket-like rise stage. In the first month of 1776, Qianlong appointed He Shen as the right attendant of the household department. In March, he was appointed Minister of Military Aircraft. In April, he was appointed Minister of the Interior. In August, he was transferred to the deputy capital of Manchuria with the Yellow Banner. In December, he was appointed in charge of the affairs of the officers and soldiers of the Three Banners of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He Shen rose step by step, and finally served as the chief university scholar and the foreman of the military aircraft, and held more than ten important positions such as the Ministry of Officials, the Ministry of Households, the Ministry of Crime, the Imperial Court of the Imperial Court, and the Three Libraries of the Ministry of Households, and became the hottest and most powerful favorite minister around Qianlong.
After seizing power, He Shen began to engage in corruption and accumulate money. At the same time, Heshen also opened pawnshops, money banks, etc., and its industries spread all over all walks of life. He Shen also had business dealings with the British East India Company and the Thirteen Banks of Guangdong, which allowed He Shen to earn a huge fortune.
He Shen and the prince Jiaqing had a holiday, Qianlong died, after Jiaqing took power, he couldn't wait to list 20 charges for He Shen and put He Shen to death. When the officials investigating the Heshen case were ordered to raid their homes, they seized 800 million taels of silver. During the Jiaqing period, the Qing Dynasty's annual fiscal revenue was only 70 million taels, and the money embezzled by He Shen alone was the financial income of the Qing Dynasty in 12 years, which shows his wealth.
1. Deng Tong
Deng Tong was the favorite of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty.
Deng Tong was very good at stammering, ingratiating, and pleasing Emperor Wen of Han, which made Emperor Wen of Han very happy and rewarded him with a lot of money. This money was enough for Deng Tong to have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of his life, but when Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty asked Xu Cheng, a scholar to show Deng Tong, Xu Cheng said that Deng Tong might starve to death due to poverty in the future. In order to prevent Deng Tong from starving to death due to poverty, Emperor Wen of Han rewarded Deng Tong with the copper mountain of Yan Dao in Shu County and allowed Deng Tong to mint coins.
After that, Deng Tong opened a copper mine and minted money on a large scale. At that time, Deng Tong had almost a monopoly on the coinage industry. In addition, the coins minted by Deng Tong were of excellent quality and were very popular with the market environment, and soon flowed all over the country, which made Deng Tong rich in the world and had endless wealth. After Emperor Wen of Han died and Emperor Jing of Han succeeded to the throne, he did not like Deng Tong and dismissed Deng Tong from his official position. Deng Tong was insatiable and unwilling to give up the endless wealth in his hands, and let people go to the southwest to secretly mint money. When Emperor Jing of Han learned about it, he confiscated all of Deng Tong's family property, leaving him with nothing.
Deng Tong, there is no means to make a living. At first, the princess sent someone to send him food and clothing, and he could barely make ends meet, but then he starved to death.