Be a person who loves to learn and is willing to grow with me
It takes about 8 minutes to read this article
The big guy and his loser son
Text/Yan Lingyang
01
Cao Kun, the president of the Beiyang government, who was elected to power by bribery, made me think: If a person wants to succeed, he still has to rely on relationships, but if he wants to have good fortune all the time, he still can't rely on relationships alone.
He was born in an extremely poor family in Tianjin during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, and his father was a shipping worker, and a little Weibo salary had to support the whole family.
Cao Kun had a very hard life when he was a child, and his personality was honest, and he was the third oldest in the family, and everyone called him "Cao San Fool".
He didn't want to do hard labor like his father, and he always wanted to start a small business, so he became a street vendor selling cloth.
Be a peddler, he doesn't care about people, he sells when people give money, and buys wine and drinks when he earns a little money.
Who would have thought that such a person would become the president of the Beiyang government in the future.
Once, when he entered the city, he was stopped by soldiers and insulted, and this humiliating experience made him feel that there was no way out of small business, and he still had to go to the army.
Since then, Cao Kun vowed to get ahead, and the ambition in his heart has also awakened.
So, 20-year-old Cao Kun enlisted in the army, and after several rounds, he finally joined Yuan Shikai's new army.
When he arrived in the army, his character was very popular with the soldiers, and as soon as he entered the army, he worshiped his son and recognized his godfather.
Because he could read and write and the other soldiers were illiterate, he was very favored by his little boss, who later recommended him to go to the Beiyang Armed Forces Academy founded by Li Hongzhang for further study.
After entering the Beiyang Martial Arts Academy, Cao Kun accumulated some relatively good network resources, such as Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang, Wang Shizhen, Lu Jianzhang, etc., all of whom were his classmates.
When the First Sino-Japanese War broke out, Cao Kun also went to participate in the war, and later after returning to China, he wanted to be motivated, so he continued to follow the relationship.
He heard that a fellow had something to do with Yuan Shikai's uncle and grandfather, so he went over to visit and volunteered to be someone's grandson (hahaha, this is called a grandson).
This fellow was also willing to recommend Cao Kun, and then Cao Kun became the division commander.
At this time, he discovered the talent of Wu Peifu, and sent Wu Peifu to fight many tough battles.
Yuan Shikai wants to be the emperor, Wu Peifu persuaded Cao Kun, Yuan Shikai is turning back the wheel of history, if you help Yuan Shikai now, you will be against the people of the whole country, but Yuan Shikai is an old leader, and if you don't help, you can't do it, so it's good to fool at both ends.
In 1916, after Yuan Shikai failed to claim the emperor, he fell ill and died. The Beiyang warlords were also divided into two factions, the direct line and the Anhui line, the leaders were Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang, and Cao Kun belonged to the direct line.
Later, Feng Guozhang stepped down and died, and Cao Kun also grew up, became the direct leader, and made a lot of money.
The direct line and the Anhui family fought and fought, and the direct line introduced the power of the Feng family and won; Zhang Zuolin saw that I helped you fight, but in the end, it was you who enjoyed the power in Beijing, so you came to fight the direct line, and as a result, the first time the direct line also won.
Cao Kun was in a high position of power, and began to breed the idea of wanting to win the presidential throne.
The president at that time was Li Yuanhong (puppet), and in order to ascend to the throne, he gambled on the wealth of the entire family and spent 5,000 oceans to buy votes (probably equivalent to hundreds of thousands of yuan now, it is difficult to calculate the specifics).
But not everyone is willing to do this, there is a Zhejiang celebrity who is particularly unaccustomed to it, but poked out his behavior, for a while, public opinion was in an uproar, but at that time he had become president.
Cao Kun, who became the president, began to float, and he began to reward meritorious deeds according to the degree to which others bribed him, and for a while, the Beiyang government was in a miasma.
The second Zhifeng War broke out, and Zhang Zuolin, who was unwilling to lose the first Zhifeng War, fought again, Feng Yuxiang saw that Cao Kun was not pleasing to the eye, and immediately rebelled, and attacked Cao Kun and Wu Peifu together with Zhang Zuolin.
Feng Yuxiang staged a coup d'état in Beijing and imprisoned Cao Kun.
As soon as the troops on the front heard that Beijing had staged a coup d'état, the direct army collapsed, and Cao Kun, who had gone into the wilderness, went to the British Concession in Tianjin, and began to live a retired life of walking birds and writing calligraphy and painting.
After retirement, Cao Kun's happiness depends on his married life and family relationships.
Cao Kun married a total of four wives, and the first wife was married when he was 17 years old, which was an arranged marriage, and helped him in the cloth business.
The second wife was that after he entered the barracks, his boss married his own sister to him, but later died of illness.
The third wife was the daughter of a merchant whom he married when he was in a high position. At this time, Cao Kun was in his fifties, and the person he married was only 19 years old. In order to make this concubine willing to follow him, Cao Kun spent a lot of money to build a mansion for her.
Soon, he fell in love with a famous actor in Peking Opera, and the reason why he fell in love with others was that he heard that this person's eight characters could be prosperous.
This famous Peking Opera actor is only 19 years old and has rejected him many times. Then, Cao Kun kidnapped her parents and forced her to agree. As a result, it was the fourth aunt who finally became the one who gave him a pension.
After Cao Kun retired, many bad things broke out in the family.
Cao Kun had an adopted son, who was adopted by his younger brother's only son (at that time, his original partner only gave birth to a daughter), and after Cao Kun's younger brother committed suicide by swallowing opium, he felt very guilty about his younger brother, so he also doted on this adopted son, and as a result, he raised him to be a gentleman.
This adopted son holds the power of the family's finances, and he is very deductive to everyone else, and he is only generous to himself, which causes great family conflicts.
Moreover, his third aunt and fourth aunt have always been at odds, which caused him a headache, and later he simply asked the fourth aunt to provide for his old age, and the third aunt was too depressed to die.
Cao Kun's other son married Yuan Shikai's daughter, the two fought after marriage, Cao Kun's son injured the daughter of the Yuan family, although Yuan Shikai was dead at that time, but the Yuan family's power is still there, and he must help the Yuan family's daughter get justice.
Although the vast majority of the people brought out by Yuan Shikai have a great desire for power, they have the same hatred for the Japanese, and of course the same is true for Cao Kun.
After the 918 Incident, the Japanese wanted Cao Kun to come out as a puppet president, and sent people to lobby many times, but he sent his fourth aunt to block the door and resolutely refused.
In 1938, when he heard the news of Taierzhuang's victory, he was very excited, saying that he had to beat the Japanese to death, and he was 75 years old at that time.
Not long after, he caught a cold, which turned into pneumonia.
His funeral was very grand, and Wu Peifu also sent his wife to mourn. The Kuomintang government highly praised Cao Kun's national integrity in not cooperating with the Japanese, and commended and posthumously honored him.
02
During the Beiyang period, almost all powerful warlords were polywives and children. After all, if you want to consolidate your family's interests, your son can inherit power, and your daughter can use it as a bridge to link power.
Zhang Zuolin is like this, Yuan Shikai is like this.
Yuan Shikai is known for his "polygamy and many children", with a total of one wife and nine concubines, and a total of 17 sons and 15 daughters.
His family is linked to more power, so even if Yuan Shikai's big tree falls, the Yuan family will not be able to reach it for a while, and the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse.
Yuan Shikai's daughter Yuan Huzhen is like this, she is married to Cao Kun's old son Cao Shiyue. This is also a gentleman, proficient in eating, drinking, prostituting and gambling, and once met a hostess in the cinema, which made people's stomachs bigger.
Cao Kun forced people to have an abortion, gave a large sum of money to settle the matter, and later found a "good match" Yuan Huzhen for his son.
After marriage, Cao Shiyue spent all day drinking, which made Yuan Huzhen very dissatisfied, the two quarreled, Cao Shiyue was violent, and Yuan Huzhen was beaten to the hospital.
But Yuan Huzhen has an elder brother, the two elder brothers came forward and went to the Cao family to make a fuss, and they must sue Cao Shiyue in court and put him in prison, Cao Kun came forward and took out thousands of oceans to beg his father to sue his grandmother, and finally signed a divorce agreement with the Yuan family: the Cao family paid Yuan Huzhen a huge amount of money for staying in the ocean of 120,000 oceans.
Yuan Huzhen got rid of the shackles of marriage, stayed overseas, met diplomats, lived a happy life in the United States, and lived to be 90 years old.
After the divorce, Cao Shiyue did not change his life, and later almost squandered his family property.
It is said that on the wedding night of the two, there was such a conversation:
Man: You're not a virgin? You are ruined and shameless!
Woman: You've had an abortion in your family, what kind of B face do you have to say about me.
Cao Kun has two sons, one is adopted, and the other is an old man, but he didn't teach his two sons well.
is not born by the same father and mother, and the two sons both eat, drink, prostitute and gamble, both of which mean a bit of "competition money".
The money that Cao Kun got was also lost by these two gentlemen.
How to say it, the second generation, second wife, etc., who can't earn money, often have to "spend money" to show their value.
Compared with showing off skills, why is it easy to be disgusted by showing off wealth? It is because the skills are grown in oneself, they are learned and mastered by oneself, others can imitate and follow, and money ...... The routes are too diverse.
For example, if one person shows off a luxury car (which may or may not be under Ta's name), it will always be more annoying than another driver to show off his driving skills. If the luxury car of this show is given by someone else, it will be even more annoying.
Although making money is also a skill, people who really have the ability to make money also show off this ability to make money. For example, Wang Jianlin and Dong Mingzhu, have you ever seen them show off luxury houses and luxury cars, but their ability to make money is obvious to all.
Therefore, on the contrary, those who do not have much earning power especially like to show off their wealth. This is true of the rich second generation, and the same is true of the mistress.
On the one hand, it doesn't work, and on the other hand, it's crazy to make up for it
And if they live in complex family relationships (for example, they don't have too much assets in the distribution of family property, and they uphold the philosophy of "only what is spent is their own"), then they do it even more.
This is also the fate that the big guy should bear if he is only busy making money and neglecting to discipline his children.
End of full text
Feel free to share or retweet
This is the best encouragement
--END--
Author: Yan Lingyang, born in the 80s, emotional columnist, author of new feminism, member of the Chinese Writers Association. He is the author of the best-selling books "Those That Make You Miserable, One Day You Will Say It with a Smile", "May You Let Go of the Past and Be Worthy of the Future", "May You Have a Journey and a Way Out", "I'm Divorced", "With Your Rivers and Lakes Are Not Lonely - An Alternative Interpretation of Jin Yong's Martial Arts Novels" and the children's picture book "Mom's House, Dad's House". With 13 years of experience in financial industry (management), he is currently the founder of a cultural information consulting company in Guangzhou and the co-founder of a cultural media company. Born in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, he now lives in Guangzhou.
Welcome to pay attention to the WeChat public account: Yan Ling Yang Weibo: Yan Ling Yang