Wang Guangmei's second brother, Wang Guangqi, graduated from Tsinghua University in his early years, and later went to the United States to study for further studies.
Wang Guangqi's wife is named Hu Min, and his father is a famous "ship king" in Sichuan, who runs the Yangtze River shipping, and it is said that his power is so great that even Lu Zuofu, who is known as the "Chinese ship king", wants to give him three points.
After liberation, Hu Min's father lived overseas and handed over all the domestic family property to the housekeeper to manage. Unexpectedly, just a few years later, the housekeeper handed over all his property to the state free of charge.
What is even more unexpected is that after 1978, this housekeeper also became the vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and a standard deputy state-level leading cadre.
And this "housekeeper" is none other than Mr. Hu Ziang, a well-known patriotic democrat, industrialist, and social activist.
So, what is his story?
Hu Ziang, a native of Ba County, Sichuan, was born in March 1897. His father was born in the late Qing Dynasty, and his family education was profound, so that Hu Ziang received a good education from an early age, and later entered the new school to study, and his thinking was more and more progressive.
When the Xinhai Revolution broke out in 1911, Hu Ziang was so excited about it that he cut off his braids and began to actively participate in various revolutionary activities. Later, he was successfully admitted to the Beijing Agricultural College, where he participated in and led many student patriotic movements during the four years of the school, and was successfully elected as the president of the first student union of the Agricultural College.
After graduating, he returned to his hometown and has been engaged in education, starting from an ordinary teacher and working his way up to the director of the Chongqing Municipal Education Bureau.
In 1926, Hu Ziang, who was nearly 30 years old, officially transferred to the military and served as the director of the construction unit under Liu Wenhui, then the commander of the 24th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, and then concurrently served as the director of the border affairs department of the Sichuan-Kang Border Supervision Office, in charge of the government affairs of more than 20 counties at the junction of Sichuan-Kang.
Unlike some warlord officials who were mercenary and mercenary at that time, Hu Ziang served the people wholeheartedly during his work in the locality, banned opium, lightly taxed, opened copper mines, built farms, and ran banks.
And it turns out that Hu Ziang is indeed very suitable for politics, if he can continue to work, he may be able to become a feudal official on the ruling side in the future, and continue to benefit the people. However, unexpectedly, in 1932, Hu Ziang returned to the education sector as a technician and chief of general affairs at Jiangxi Agricultural College.
However, soon after returning to the education sector, Hu Ziang couldn't help but re-examine his life path, he believed that the current poverty and backwardness of the country, coupled with the invasion of foreign enemies, the warlord scuffle, and the people's lack of livelihood, is not a good time to engage in education to save the country, or to take the road of "industry to save the country".
At the same time, his brothers Hu Zhongshi and Hu Shuqian opened the "Huaxi Xingye Company" and invited him to start a business together.
So, after 1933, Hu Ziang returned to Chongqing and served as the manager of the water company, and then the construction of the Sichuan Cement Factory.
During the construction of the cement plant, Hu Ziang often visited the construction site to direct the operation, and after less than two years of hard work, the cement plant was finally officially put into operation, with an annual output of up to 45 tons. It is worth mentioning that this was also the first cement plant in southwest China to reach this output at that time.
Of course, although this kind of production is not much today, it is already very impressive that more than 80 years ago, it was able to achieve such a production volume just after the establishment of the factory.
Not only that, their Huaxi Xingye Company has also undertaken a series of projects such as power plants, banks, schools, and railways in the Sichuan-Chongqing region, becoming a rising star in southwest industry and commerce.
Although Hu Ziang had already made good achievements in his career at this time, and could even be said to be full of honors, he was still not satisfied, believing that Huaxi Xingye Company should have a higher development and even become a leader among Chinese enterprises.
In order to expand his business, Hu Ziang gradually established a machine factory, a steel factory, a wood factory, a gunpowder factory, etc., and the name of his enterprise basically has the word "Hua", which has the deep meaning of "revitalizing China", and the business is very prosperous.
But even so, Hu Ziang is still not satisfied, which is still a long way from his ideal business. As a result, Hu Ziang began to lay out again, preparing to expand the iron and steel enterprise. Of course, there is another very important reason why he wants to expand the iron and steel enterprises, that is, to serve the whole nation in the war of resistance.
When he went to Hankou to apply for a commercial loan from the Nationalist Government, he was secretly operated by Kong Xiangxi, turning his Huaxi Xingye Company into a "government-business-run" China Xingye Company, in which the official accounted for more than 80% of the shares, and was actually controlled by bureaucratic capital.
In this regard, Hu Ziang was reluctant at first, but thought that this would provide better services for the anti-Japanese war, so he agreed.
During this period, Hu Ziang personally presided over the construction of the iron and steel plant, making it the largest private iron and steel plant in the rear of the Anti-Japanese War, providing a large number of products for military and civilian use, and making important contributions to the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.
However, Hu Ziang finally "miscalculated" and became a bureaucratic capital control of Huaxi Xingye Company, whose nature has undergone serious changes, and it is no longer an excellent private enterprise that is "taken from the people and used by the people", but has become a channel for bureaucratic capitalists to "suck blood".
In 1942, Hu Ziang was forced to leave the industrial company and was sent to Chengdu as the director of the Sichuan Construction Department.
Unexpectedly, soon after Hu Ziang left, the shortcomings of the Xingye Company were exposed, the losses were very serious, and the bureaucratic capitalists had to reassign Hu Ziang to take charge of the work.
But at this time, the industrial company was already difficult to return, even though the beard was exhausted and exhausted, but after all, it was still powerless. Soon after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the company went out of business.
It is precisely because of this incident that Hu Ziang soberly realized that it is impossible to develop national industry and commerce by relying on bureaucratic capital, and it is impossible to talk about "industrial salvation" when bureaucratic capital is rampant.
So, after that, Hu Ziang returned to politics again, but his mind was no longer on the side of the Kuomintang, he was more yearning for the new democratic revolution led by the Communist Party, and he intended to move closer to our party.
In fact, as early as during the Anti-Japanese War, Hu Ziang had contacts and contacts with Zhou Enlai, Guo Moruo and other CCP leaders, and was deeply influenced by them, which gave him a deeper understanding of our party, and finally prompted him to embark on a bright road without hesitation.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Hu Ziang donated all the stocks of various enterprises under his name, many real estate properties in Chongqing, as well as his treasured calligraphy, paintings, antiques, etc., to the motherland free of charge, and the three generations of his family all lived in public housing and lived on wages for decades. At that time, some people felt "unworthy" for him, but Mr. said:
"In the past, I had many dreams of saving the country, education, agriculture, and industry, but I found that nothing could be saved, but today, following the Communist Party on the socialist road is a brand-new road, and the desire to serve the country can be realized."
After that, Mr. Hu Ziang actively guided the industrial and commercial circles to study the principles and policies of our party, strive to restore production, and strive to build a brand-new new China.
In March 1978, at the first meeting of the Fifth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Hu Ziang, then 81 years old, was elected vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and officially entered the ranks of national leaders. After that, he served two more terms, a position he held until 1991.
On November 19, 1991, Mr. Wu Zi Ang completed his wonderful and legendary life at the age of 94.
Mr. Hu Ziang is an outstanding representative of the mainland's ethnic businessmen, and over the past decades, he has been in the same boat with our party through thick and thin, sharing weal and woe, and has made indelible contributions to the construction and development of New China. Although the gentleman is gone, the heroic spirit lives on.