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Introduction: When it comes to the richest man, we must think of Bill Gates, Li Ka-shing, Ma Yun, Wang Sicong, etc., and indeed the assets of these people in contemporary society are simply rich. But do you know the richest man in ancient times? In history, there is a relatively famous richest man, it is said that his assets are rich enough to rival the country, he is - Shen Wansan.
Regarding the name "Shen Wansan", some people say that his name is Shen Wansan, some say that it is actually Shen Wanshan, and some say that his name is Shen Xiu, and Wansan is the nickname that people give him. According to a more reliable version, this person's surname is Shen, the name is rich, the word Zhongrong, Xingsan, and the Wu people call it Wansan. But in any case, this person should be there, a rich family in Jiangnan at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, very rich.
According to historical records, Shen Wansan's wealth was comparable to that of the country
About how "rich" Shen Wansan is? According to the History of the Ming Dynasty, Shen Wansan rewarded his private school teacher: "For every wencheng, the platinum is calculated in a white sum." "Platinum is silver, a "ytterbium" is twenty-two, only one article pays such a high remuneration, Shen Wansan's family foundation can be seen.
How Shen Wansan got rich has always been a mystery. The most legendary and widely circulated saying is the "cornucopia". It is said that when Shen Wansan was poor, he saw a farmer carrying more than a hundred frogs, so he was kind enough to buy them and release them. The next day, he saw the frogs gathered in a basin and did not disperse, so he took the basin home and used it to wash his hands. Once, when his wife washed her hands, she accidentally dropped a silver noodle in the basin, but the silver noodle changed into two, two to four, and soon it was a full basin, Shen Wansan was rich in the world, and the legend that the ancient name of the Nanjing Zhonghua Gate was also derived from this. It is also said that Shen Wansan will "point alchemy", can point things into gold, so gold is continuous. In addition, there is also a fortune that said that in the Yuan Dynasty, Wujiang had a rich family named Lu Deyuan, and Shen Wansan managed the accounts and wealth for him. Later, Lu saw through the red dust, left home, and gave the Wanguan family wealth to Shen Wansan, who became a "rich family in Jiangnan". In addition, there are legends such as Shen Wansan's crow stone or horseshoe gold obtained by a fisherman, which are very magical.
Shen Wansan was already very wealthy in the Yuan Dynasty, and as for the jubao disk, alchemy and other claims, it seems too absurd to believe today. So what was the reason he really got rich? According to relevant historical records, Shen Wansan's ancestral home was in Huzhou, Zhejiang, and his ancestors moved to Dongcai Village in Changzhou, and moved to Nanxun Town, Huzhou when his father Shen You. In the second year of the Yuan Dynasty, there was a large flood in the area of Nanxun, and the poor people fled to other places, and Shen You also moved to Zhouzhuang at this time.
Shen Wansan should have started by working hard and then became rich through business. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Huang Province, a suzhou native, once recorded in the "Record of Wu Feng": "Since Shen Wansanxiu was good at opening up the fields and houses, rich in gold and jade, along with the present, he has even taken it as his duty to seek wealth." After Shen Wansan's (rich) father moved from Nanxun Town, Huzhou to Dongcai Village, Changzhou County, he worked hard and fully developed a large area of fertile land in the local area.
Due to the success of the business and the widespread occupation of the land, the Shen family turned into a large landlord who recruited tenants, leased land, hired long and short-term workers, and issued usurious loans, and by the time the Shen Wansan brothers presided over the family business, they already owned good land across several counties. When it was passed down to Shen Daqing's generation, the Shen family "produced a wide range of benefits and benefits", and some historical records say that their fields produced thousands of hectares. The Ming Dynasty Kong Xuan also recorded that Shen Wansan attached great importance to the construction of water conservancy, "Wansan has a field near the lake, and builds a stone bank along the lake to obstruct the field."
After Shen Wansan accumulated a certain amount of wealth, he engaged in trade and became a huge rich man. During the Yuan Dynasty, shipping was developed, foreign trade was smooth, and many foreigners came to China to trade. On the other hand, Jiangnan's economy was developed, and it was not damaged by the Song and Yuan dynasties, and by the late Yuan Dynasty, it had become the crown of the whole country. Suzhou and Hangjia lake area have always been well-known "granaries" in the country, known as "SuHu lake is ripe, the world is enough". Shen Wansan owns thousands of hectares of land and naturally has a large amount of rice for sale as a commodity. At that time, the northern region, including the Yuan capital (Beijing), mainly relied on the southern supply, and Shen Wansan must also be a "big grain seller". As a result, Shen Wansan accumulated a large amount of capital.
Shen Wansan, who became rich, turned to "Tongfan", exporting local textiles, porcelain, etc. to Asian and African countries, while returning to the ship to import a large number of treasures, spices and medicinal materials, and earning a huge difference from them again and again. With these favorable conditions, coupled with the huge profits of foreign trade, it is not surprising that Shen Wansan quickly became rich. Kong Xuan wrote in the "Yunjiaoguan Chronicle" that Shen Wansan became a maritime merchant, traveling between Huizhou, Chizhou, Taipingfu, and Changzhou, trading back and forth, and obtaining millions of dollars, so he became rich. Mr. Wu Han, a famous historian, also said: "The reason why Suzhou Shen Wansan became rich was because of overseas trade. This can also be corroborated with the "Chronicle of Wujiang County", "Shen Wansan has a residence in Zhouzhuang, the twenty-ninth capital of Wujiang, rich in the world, and it is said that he was obtained by Tongfan." Pan Qun, a professor at Nanjing University, an expert in ming history research, believes that Shen Wansan's wealth accumulation was completed in the Yuan Dynasty, and his wealth began with "farming" and prosperity from "shang", and he was an authentic landlord and businessman.
Folklore shows that the reason why Shen Wansan became rich in the first place was due to his possession of a cornucopia
Of course, shen wansan is famous not only because of his wealth. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, it is estimated that in the Jiangnan area, there were more than one or two rich merchants like him. He became famous because of his relationship with Zhu Yuanzhang. It is recorded that when Zhu Yuanzhang first appeared, Shen Wansan took the lead in sending money and grain to help this grass king. The strategy of the scholar Zhu Sheng to "build a wall high, accumulate grain in a wide area, and slowly become king" would probably not be realized without the support of Shen Wansan. When he became emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang asked Shen Wansan to help repair the palace, repair the palace, and repair the city of Nanjing. One-third of the city wall and the city gate were all Shen Wansan's handwriting. After repairing the city wall, Shen Wansan also rewarded the army. It was about a little louder, which made the emperor unhappy. At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang was no longer the corporal Li Xian, zhu Zhongba who pretended to be a grandson everywhere, and his temper suddenly grew stronger as his position increased. Looks a little moody, killing people at every turn. Therefore, as soon as the emperor was unhappy, Shen Wansan's head would be lost. Fortunately, Zhu Yuanzhang also had a ma empress who suffered a lot, this ma empress, not as neurotic as her husband, and the rationality of a normal person. I think that Shen Wansan is not at fault, why should he kill? Due to Empress Ma's advice, Shen Wansan retained the first rank, but the death penalty was spared, the living sin was unavoidable, and the living was distributed to Yunnan.
According to the "Liuqing Rizha", when Zhu Yuanzhang conquered Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Shen Wansan and his brother Wansi were the first to lose 10,000 quintals of grain among the rich and wealthy in the two Zhejiang Provinces, and offered 5,000 taels of platinum to accompany the degree of use, "Taizu military food, more capital" . However, the insatiable Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to "exhaust all his gold" and find ways to consume his family wealth. According to Dong Gu's "Bili Zacun Shen Wansanxiu", once Zhu Yuanzhang summoned him on the day of the lunar new month and gave him a piece of money to make him profitable, starting from the second day of the first year, taking two texts in one article, taking four texts on the third day of the first year, and taking eight texts on the fourth day of the first month, doubling every day, that is, increasing according to the equal proportion of progression, for a period of one month. Shen Wansan didn't know it and gladly accepted it. After a month, the interest that should be paid to Zhu Yuanzhang was 536,870,912 yuan. According to this, Hongwu Qian weighed one pound for every 160 yuan, for a total of 3,355,432 pounds. Although shen is rich, where can it withstand such exploitation?
Historically, the decline of the Shen family is a gradual process. The first blow was about three to six years in Hongwu. After Zhu Yuanzhang unified the world, the Life of the Shen family was naturally not good. Even though Shen Wansan was no longer alive, and the Shen family had no one to charge the army in Yunnan, after this toss, the wealth of the Shen family had also been eroded by more than half. Coupled with the fact that Zhu Yuanzhang adopted a strict policy towards the rich people of Jiangnan at the beginning of the ming dynasty, forced migration many times, and taught heavy endowments, since then, the Shen family has also collapsed.
The second blow was in the spring of the nineteenth year of Ming Hongwu, and Shen Wansan's two grandsons, Shen Zhi and Shen Zhuang, were imprisoned successively. The Epitaph of the Late Shen Boxi (Zhuang) records: "In the spring of the nineteenth year of Hongwu, when his brother died in household service, he went to QiuGuan, and Shi Boxi was also given the title of Jingshi, and was suitable to be imprisoned with his brother, and when he entered, he hugged his brother and wept bitterly: 'My brother Su Qi, unbearable, now even Yu Siye!' Since Bo Xi came out first, he was very ill, and there was no cure... Died in Kyo. The reason for Shen Zhi's imprisonment was to evade conscription, and Shen Zhuang's imprisonment may be suspected of "Hu Dang" and evading conscription and being detained in Beijing, which is not a small matter, even with supplementary punishment, plus the two brothers can eventually get out of prison, the number of which is also set at more than 10,000. Around the same year, Shen Wansan's son-in-law, Lu Zhonghe, was doomed and was accused of "Hu Dang" and beheaded.
The third blow was in the thirty-first year of Ming Hongwu. In the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, the "Blue Party" case occurred, Blue Jade was executed, and Zhulian spread throughout the country. There was a gentleman named Wang Xing, who had sat in the Shen family twice, had at least thirty years of friendship with the Shen family, and sat in the Blue Jade family twice, and had been sitting in the blue jade family for more than ten years. Through Wang Xing's relationship, the Shen family, who wanted to find a patron in the new dynasty, also had a relationship with the Lan family. After the "Blue Party" case, someone advised Wang Xing to flee, and this pedantic gentleman said: "There is no escape in the face of difficulties." "As a result, he was accused of complicity.
This time, Shen Wan's third son-in-law, Gu Xuewen's family, and the six members of the Shen family, nearly eighty people were all killed and confiscated the fields. The huge family business that Shen Wansan painstakingly managed had declined sharply. The Shen clan of Zhouzhuang, known as the richest man in Jiangnan, went from prosperity to decline.
There is also a saying about Shen Wansan's life, saying that Shen Wansan was actually dead at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and all the stories did not happen to him. However, even so, Zhu Yuanzhang's crackdown on the rich and powerful is not false, and the "giant clans are all killed" in the early Ming Dynasty is recorded in the annals of history. Shen Wansan's story is just a symbol.
Shen Mansanso's House
Huang Wei was a third-year scholar of Ming Hongzhi and had been the head of the Ministry of Works, and in his book "Pengxuan Class Chronicle", there is a record of Shen Wansan: "Shen Fu, the character Zhongrong, Xingsan, so the Wu people called Shen Wansan, the richest family in Jiangnan at the end of the Yuan Dynasty." Rich pawn. Second son Mao, Wang. My grandfather Ding Ding Jinling, summoned the court to see, let him offer platinum thousands of ingots, gold hundreds, Jia Ma Qian Valley, more capital from Mao. Mao was raised by Guangjiku, and his nephew Sun Jiu was made a foreign lang of the household department. Later, mao's sins were dispelled, and there were construction projects that were not revealed, but the emperor was a blue party, and Judah had to come and go by horse. Then send Liaoyang from Rong. Thousands of hectares of land are given nine buckets and three liters per acre. The weight of Wu's grain amount sits here. Shen Zhi obtained gold from Rong Liaoyang, and the cattle and horses also tired of thousands of clouds. According to the records here, Shen Wansan died at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. Of course, he was not sent to Yunnan by raiders. The one who was raided was his son Mao.
Mr. Liu Yizheng, a famous historian in modern China, has examined the origin of the name "Shen Wansan". There are at least three possibilities for the name of "Shen Wanshan": one is because it is as rich as a mountain, so it is called "Shen Wanshan"; the second is because it ranks third, because it is called "Wansan"; third, Shen Wansan is not a name, but a title, which is the honorific title of the rich man and tycoon at that time. It can be seen that the title of "Wansan" is not limited to a specific person, and the "Wansan" with the surname "Shen" can be anyone in the "Shen Wansan" family, or it can refer to the descendants of the "Shen Wansan" family.
Synthesizing these materials, we roughly sort out the history of the Shen Wansan family: the first "Wansan" of the Shen family should be Shen Fu, the word Zhongrong. After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Shen Fu had passed away, but a certain son of Shen Fu or a son of the Shen family continued to be honored as "Shen Wansan" because of his rich family wealth. Later, "Shen Wansan" was implicated in the Blue Jade case and exiled. What is certain is that this exiled "Shen Wansan" is definitely not Shen Fu.
Shen Wansan is also a legendary figure, and to this day many people worship him as a god of wealth. However, at that time, Shen Wansan was really sad, although he had assets that were rich and invincible, he had been surviving under the oppression and threat of Zhu Yuanzhang, and he could imagine how much he should be depressed. But as the saying goes, "the gun hits the first bird", and it is precisely because his assets are too much, which has attracted the covetousness of Zhu Yuanzhang, so it has attracted the disaster of killing.
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