01
In February of the eighth year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1882), Li Hongzhang gave an excerpt to the Empress Dowager Cixi.
He said that since the telegraph line from Tianjin to Shanghai was opened in the sixth year of Guangxu (1880), it has been extremely convenient for both military information transmission and trade and postal transmission, and the Tianjin Telegraph Office has made huge profits, and has now become a "listed enterprise," and the people are vying to subscribe for the shares of the telegraph office.
Therefore, it was suggested that the imperial court immediately begin to erect a telegraph line from Shanghai to Hankow, and with the economic prosperity of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, it would definitely be more profitable.
Cixi thought about it for a few days and issued an order asking Zuo Zongtang, the new governor of Liangjiang, to make an assessment of the construction of this telegraph line, "as it is feasible as scheduled, that is, it will be handled at its discretion."
Unexpectedly, Zuo Zongtang had an excuse on the left and a reason on the right, and he never agreed to the start of this telegraph line.
Lord Zuo, who has always attached great importance to national affairs, why is it abnormal this time?
There are thousands of reasons, but there are three main ones:
1, Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang have already formed a bond when they fought the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and in the past 20 years, they have fought openly and secretly, and they are on the same page.
2, Zuo Zongtang has fallen into a great famine in order to recover Xinjiang in recent years, and he is trying his best to get money to return the famine.
3. Once the Shanghai-Han telegraph line is erected, Li Hongzhang can know every move on the ground of the two rivers for the first time, isn't he under the surveillance of Lao Li?
So this telegraph line must not be built by Lao Li!
Even if you want to build it, you have to let your own people build it!
Who?
Of course, it is the "money bag" he has trusted the most over the years - Hu Guangyong (that is, Hu Xueyan).
02
In order to raise military expenses for the recovery of Xinjiang, Lord Zuo borrowed 18.7 million taels of silver from foreigners through Lao Hu as an intermediary.
The annual interest rate of these bonds reported by Lao Hu was as high as 12.5%-15%, while the annual interest rate of commercial bank loans of ordinary foreigners at that time was only about 5%, and the higher ones would not exceed 8%.
Although some people in the court have long questioned that Lao Hu is eating the interest difference, there is no way, this kind of loan used for war foreigners refuse to borrow at all, and Lao Hu has a way to borrow, so the court has to turn a blind eye.
In this way, in the past three or four years, Lao Hu has earned millions of taels of silver by lying down and eating the interest difference.
Out of trust in Lao Hu, many court bigwigs kept their spare money and even the public funds of the government in Lao Hu's Fukang Money Village to eat interest, and Lao Hu took the money to lend, and the interest difference between inside and outside was millions of taels.
In addition, Lao Hu's medicinal materials, raw silk, tea and other businesses are also thriving, so by the eighth year of Guangxu, Lao Hu was already the "richest man in the Qing Dynasty".
It is said that with Lao Hu's strength, it is not difficult to invest three or four hundred thousand taels of silver to build this telegraph line, and he is also happy to help Lord Zuo with this.
In particular, the Tianjin-Shanghai telegraph line was built under the auspices of Sheng Xuanhuai, Li Hongzhang's aide.
Lao Hu has always looked down on Sheng Xuanhuai in the past, thinking that he is a "second generation official" with great ambitions and talents - relying on the connections of his father, who was a political envoy in Zhejiang, to raise a lot of money, he showed his face in front of Li Hongzhang and won the title of five-rank alternate prefect......
But even such a son-in-law who can't do anything can set up the Tianjin-Shanghai telegraph line and make a lot of profits.
Can't my old Hu do the Shanghai-Han line?
03
But if you are not convinced, you really want to build this telegraph line, although money is not a problem, but there are more other problems -
Lao Hu has been doing traditional businesses such as money villages, tea, and medicinal materials for decades, and he doesn't understand telegraph at all.
And with his circle of friends, he couldn't find a professional to help.
He thought about following the path of borrowing money from the west, and directly contracting this business to foreign telegraph companies, but the will of the imperial court was very clear, only allowed to run it himself, and not to hand it over to foreigners.
As a result, the matter froze and made no progress.
Sheng Xuanhuai saw this situation, and knew in his heart that Lao Zuo and Lao Hu actually did not have the ability to run a telegraph.
Therefore, on the one hand, he constantly gave excerpts to the imperial court, emphasizing the importance of this telegraph line, and on the other hand, he adopted the tactic of "saving the country by curve", bypassing Zuo Zongtang's Liangjiang territory, first erecting telegraph lines in Zhejiang, Fujian, Liangguang and other places controlled by the Huai system, and soon connecting the telegraph lines of the coastal provinces.
In this way, in the summer of the ninth year of Guangxu (1883), the imperial court saw that all the telegraph lines in the coastal provinces were opened, but the Shanghai-Han telegraph lines were slow to make progress, and finally lost patience with Zuo Zongtang and Hu Guangyong, and demanded that "follow the order and do it quickly, no longer patrolling".
There is no way, Zuo Zongtang, who has been strong all his life, finally bowed his head in front of Li Hongzhang - asked Sheng Xuanhuai and Zheng Guanying to preside over the construction of the Shanghai-Han telegraph line.
This incident not only shows that Lord Zuo's ability to handle foreign affairs is indeed slightly inferior to Li Zhongtang.
It also shows that Hu Guangyong, who has been developing in the traditional business field, is obviously lagging behind in the emerging modern business field.
With the growing status and influence of Li Hongzhang in the DPRK, the Huai system has irretrievably overwhelmed the Hunan system, and the once glorious Hu Guangyong and his business empire are about to decline.
04
In the late autumn of the ninth year of Guangxu (1883), a piece of news reached Shanghai's industrial and commercial circles through the telegraph line connecting Guangzhou and Shanghai: this year, Italy, the main producer of silk in Europe, had a bumper harvest.
This is something that seems to have little to do with distant China, but it has dropped a bombshell in Shanghai's industrial and commercial circles!
Because in the past two years or so, Hu Guangyong, as the "richest man in the Qing Dynasty", was buying a large number of silk, almost forming a monopoly on the silk market in the south of the Yangtze River.
Because of his monopoly, foreign merchants could not buy silk, so they had to buy it from him at a higher price.
For this reason, Lao Hu decided to continue to "increase leverage", and invested most of the cash flow in the Fukang Money Village he operated in the acquisition of silk, vowing to burst the "gold coins" of the ghosts.
However, what exceeded his understanding was that due to the rapid development of the telegraph industry in recent years, even the commodity information of Europe, which was thousands of miles away, could reach China in a very short time.
The speed was so fast that he didn't even have time to hurry up and cash out!
Just two days after the news of the Italian silk harvest came, the price of silk in Shanghai plummeted by half.
Lao Hu panicked, and hurriedly shipped at a low price, thinking that he would return some blood to stop the loss, at least he couldn't let the capital chain of Fukang Qianzhuang be completely broken.
Within a few days, Lao Hu urgently produced more than 15,000 bags of raw silk, and the loss was said to be as high as several million taels.
However, for Lao Hu, who has a strong net worth, although these losses are heavy, they are not yet finished, as long as his Fukang money is still there, he will not lack cash flow in his hands.
However, the roof leak happened to rain overnight......
05
At this time, a telegram came from Guangzhou, saying that the Sino-French negotiations on the Vietnamese question had broken down, that war between the Qing Dynasty and France was about to break out, and that the French fleet was very likely to go north to Shanghai.
When the news spread, people from all walks of life in Shanghai suddenly panicked and went to major banks to withdraw their deposits, in case the money could not be taken out after the war.
As a result, since the end of October, there has been a long queue in front of Shanghai Fukang Money Village every day to withdraw money.
The Fukang Money Village here was reopened by some of the original Fukang employees who went to Yiyang, Hunan Province after Hu Guangyong went bankrupt
Things have come to this point, although Lao Hu is a little panicked, he still feels that the situation can be controlled.
Because Fukang has a semicolon in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui, Hubei and Hunan provinces, it is really not possible to transfer silver from various branches, as long as it can survive a few days of run, let people believe that Fukang is still fully funded, and the situation will gradually ease.
Hurriedly asked people to send telegrams to Fukang branches in various places, and urgently transferred the silver to Shanghai.
But what he didn't expect was that the Shanghai-Han telegraph line was built under Sheng Xuanhuai's auspices, and the business of the telegraph office along the way was also in Sheng Xuanhuai's hands.
Therefore, the telegrams sent by Lao Hu to Fukang branches to various places to transfer funds were all sent to Sheng Xuanhuai's desk.
As soon as Sheng Xuanhuai studied and judged, he understood: now is the best time to bring down Lao Hu!
06
Why do you want to bring down Lao Hu?
First, when Li Hongzhang asked Lao Hu to join China Merchants Steamship, Lao Hu refused, which made Li Zhongtang hold a grudge against him;
Second, when he was preparing to build the Shanghai-Han telegraph line last year, Lao Hu used the relationship of Lord Zuo to intervene again, and almost messed up the matter;
Third, Lord Zuo relied on Lao Hu very much economically, and if he brought down Lao Hu, he could not only cut off Lord Zuo's money bag, but also hit Lao Zuo politically;
Finally, and for a longer reason -
Lao Hu's "Fukang Department" is the largest financial group in the country, and it holds the leading position in the country's financial industry.
Therefore, bringing down Lao Hu is a must-do for Xiao Sheng himself and for his boss Li Zhongtang.
07
So, how do you get him down?
Of course, the best way is to take advantage of the current special period to artificially exacerbate Lao Hu's financial tension, and it is best to create news of "Fukang's tight position" in various places, so that people can believe that Fukang is running out of money and accelerate the collapse of Fukang's system.
Sheng Xuanhuai designed a set of step-by-step "inverted" schemes for this purpose:
First of all, he found Shao Youlian of Shanghai Dao and asked him to try to delay the "co-payment" of 800,000 taels of silver that should be allocated to Hu Guangyong at this time for a few days.
Where did the money come from?
When Lao Hu helped Zuo Zongtang find foreigners to borrow debts for military expenses, the imperial court ordered the provinces to share the "Western Expedition Assistance" and hand it over to Lao Hu in installments to repay the debts of foreigners.
Six years ago, Lao Hu managed a debt borrowed by the British, and agreed to repay the principal and interest once every six months, and it was time to repay the loan again, and the "co-payment" collected by the imperial court from the provinces had been sent to Shao Youlian, waiting for Shao Youlian to deliver it to Lao Hu.
Shao Youlian is not from the Huai Army, but he and Li Zhongtang are sons and daughters, and this relationship can be said to be quite iron.
What is beneficial to Li Zhongtang, of course, he agrees.
Within his purview, it was not difficult to delay the payment for a few days.
So, Lao Shao excused himself by not being in Shanghai, and prevaricated Lao Hu who went to ask for money.
Lao Hu was so anxious that he couldn't do it, but the debt was borrowed by himself, and if he didn't pay it back, the foreigners would definitely come to him instead of Lao Shao.
In desperation, Lao Hu had no choice but to order 800,000 taels of cash from the Fukang Money Village in Shanghai to advance the foreign debts.
Originally, 800,000 taels was nothing for Lao Hu, but at this juncture, Shanghai Fukang and 800,000 taels went out at once, and the cash flow was even tighter.
Soon, Fukang's customers knew the news, and everyone's mentality collapsed, and the number of people who went to Shanghai Fukang Money Bank to run on it continued unabated.
The news that "Shanghai Fukang Qianzhuang suffered a run and its position was not working" was transmitted along the telegraph line to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hunan, Hunan, and Beijing.
Soon, all over the country went to the local Fukang branch to run.
As a result, it is difficult for the local branches to protect themselves, where is the spare strength to help Shanghai?
After Shanghai Fukang gritted his teeth and held on for two days, the bank treasury was finally completely empty!
Lao Hu had no choice but to order on the sixth day of November: Shanghai Fukang closed its doors and suspended cashing.
The news of the closure of Fukang in Shanghai soon spread to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hunan, and Beijing along the telegraph line.
The depositors all decided that it was a foregone conclusion that the "Fukang Department" would hit the streets this time, so they went to run even more frantically.
So, soon, the Fukang branches in various places also ran out of cash flow and closed their doors one after another.
08
In fact, at that time, there were a lot of money banks that fell due to a run, and it was not bad for Fukang.
But the key is that because of believing in Lao Hu's strength, many dignitaries and dignitaries put their own money; Even the public funds of the government exist in Fukang to eat interest.
Now that Fukang is down, can these bigwigs not be in a hurry? Can the imperial court not be in a hurry?
Soon, on November 27, the imperial court issued an edict to remove the official title and yellow coat that had been awarded to Lao Hu, demanding that the collapse of Fukang be strictly investigated, and all the deficit public funds must be made up.
At this time, Lao Hu hated and regretted.
What he hated was Sheng Xuanhuai who took advantage of people's danger and fell into the well;
Unfortunately, on September 22, when his silk business had not exploded, Lord Zuo went to Shanghai to inspect, and he also met and chatted with Lord Zuo for a while.
But at that time, he didn't realize the danger at all, not only did he not tell Lord Zuo his true situation, but continued to donate money to the government to build a seawall to show that he had sufficient cash flow.
As a result, when Lord Zuo was in urgent need of help now, Lord Zuo had already gone home to rest because of an eye disease!
Lord Zuo returned to his hometown, and the imperial court handed over the task of tracking down the collapse of Fukang to Liu Bingzhang, the governor of Zhejiang.
Liu Bingzhang is Li Hongzhang's confidant, Huai is a hardcore, and if it falls into his hands, how can it be inexhaustible?
If at that time, he and Lord Zuo had explained the matter, perhaps......
But it's late!
Soon, Liu Bingzhang's people turned the accounts of Lao Hu's money bank upside down, and found out that the "Fukang Department" had lost a total of more than 2.4 million taels of public funds.
According to the will of the imperial court, Lao Hu had to sell all the family property and make up for the public funds.
As for the money of those big guys, Lao Hu can only be powerless, and he can pay back a penny.
In this way, the former "richest man in the Qing Dynasty" went bankrupt.
However, the court did not intend to let him go......
09
Soon after, the imperial court issued another decree to track down the public funds that Lao Hu had "embezzled" in the process of borrowing for Zuo Zongtang, on the grounds that the actual loan amount was 106,000 taels different from the loan amount in the contract.
In fact, this money did not fall into Hu Guangyong's pocket, but the intermediary fee that Lao Hu gave to the ghost middleman in the process of borrowing foreign debts, which was also the "unspoken rule" prevailing in the international financial community at that time.
But the imperial court has long hated Lao Hu because of the interest difference between Lao Hu and foreign debts.
Now that Xinjiang has been recovered, Lao Hu has also thrown himself into the streets, of course, he has to beat the water dogs, and find all kinds of reasons to squeeze out the last bit of oil and water from Lao Hu.
Poor Lao Hu was forced to hand over even the last bit of pension money to the imperial court.
After struggling in poverty and illness for two years, in the winter of the eleventh year of Guangxu (1885), Lao Hu went.
At the time of his death, he still owed more than 60,000 taels to the imperial court.
And his old leader, Lord Zuo, had died four months before him.
An era has come to an end.
This year, Sheng Xuanhuai took over the position of the general office of the China Merchants Steamship Bureau, which he had in mind, and became the most important person in Li Hongzhang's foreign affairs territory.
In the following 20 years, he ran banks, built railways, built universities, engaged in iron and steel, and opened coal mines, becoming the new "richest man in the Qing Dynasty", and eventually his wealth far exceeded that of Hu Guangyong, whom he could only look up to......
PS：
In 2001, the Wall Street Journal published an album called "A Thousand Years Around", which counted the 50 richest people in the world over the past 1,000 years.
Among them, six Chinese were selected, and there was no Hu Xueyan or Sheng Xuanhuai here.
They were Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Liu Jin, He Shen, Song Ziwen and Wu Bingjian.
Among these six people, the first five must be very familiar to everyone, they are either emperors, or ministers, in short, they are all related households, only the last Wu Bingjian is on the list as a pure businessman.
And he lost his dignity in his later years...
Pay attention to Lao Wang, and continue in the next issue.
Bibliography:
"Qing Historical Manuscript", "Qing Shilu", "Sheng Xuanhuai's Description", "Different Dictionaries", "Westernization and Relief Affairs: Sheng Xuanhuai and the Forty Years of the Late Qing Dynasty", "The Exploration and Practice of Hubei Coal and Iron Mining by the Modern Westernists", "The Biography of Zheng Guanying", "The Relationship between Hu Xueyan and Zuo Zongtang: From the Perspective of the Financial Trend of the Late Qing Dynasty", "Hu Xueyan and the Foreign Debt of the Late Qing Dynasty"