At the age of 33, after his father died, Yuan Ming resigned from his official post, bought an abandoned garden in Jiangning, and after renovation, named it "Sui Garden", drank all day, washed his feet, sang K, chanted poetry and painting and sauna, and lived a leisurely life.
Yuan Ming is a person who likes to be lively, and has held parties many times, and sometimes as many as five hundred celebrities have attended. Hosting such a luxurious party and inviting celebrities to dance and sing songs is no different from burning money. Moreover, inviting people to play at home is all free, and when you leave, you have to send a souvenir, which costs amazingly. Yuan Ming only served as a county magistrate for a short time, and his official reputation was good, even if he had a gray income, it was impossible to have too much. If you want to burn a lot of money, there is only one possibility, yuan ming resigned in the garden is not to sit in the garden to eat mountains and empty, but to get rich has a way.
Earning money with literature is the first channel for Yuan To make a fortune. In any era, articles by well-known writers can sell for money, and the price is not cheap. Yuan Ming himself is very powerful, coupled with his propaganda, his value has soared, and those upstarts who are vassals and elegant will hold the silver and beg Yuan Da writers to put gold on their faces. Yuan Ming once wrote an epitaph to the father of a rich man, and the polishing fee was 1,000 taels of silver. In Yuan Ming's "Xiaocang Shanfang Anthology", there are more than 150 articles such as epitaphs, epitaphs, deeds, and books, accounting for more than 10% of the anthology, and more than 50 involving officials at or above the ministerial level, which is a very impressive number. Yuan Ming's inscription is also very valuable. Salt merchant An Lu Village carved a score, asked Yuan Ming to inscription, a total of 22 words, and actually gave Yuan Ming 2,000 silver taels. With such a high income, it is difficult for Yuan Ming not to get rich.
Secondly, Yuan Is still a very successful bookseller. In order to further expand his popularity and at the same time make his articles circulate to future generations, Yuan Ming engraved and published various works of his own. Yuan Mei once mentioned that in the process of publishing "Suiyuan Poetry", many friends and rich people "sponsored" him, hoping to compile the poems he wrote. In this alone, Yuan Mei made a lot of money. Another copy, The Complete Works of Yuan, also sold so well that even Japanese and Korean publishers came to buy the rights. The book became a bestseller at the time, so much so that it was later in short supply and piracy.
Yuan's third income is the cost of teaching. Yuan Ming is famous and a senior professor in the literary world, and there are countless people who want to worship him as a teacher. Yuan Mei also responded to the request of the vast number of literary lovers, opened classes in the garden, and set up a literary cram class. Most of the students he accepts are famous bridesmaids and rich children, and the tuition fees are not low. It is said that a female student had to pawn jewelry in order to pay an expensive tuition fee.
In addition, real estate can also make money for him. Yuan Mei bought a lot of land and collected a certain rent every year. In the sixteenth year of Qianlong, Yuan Mei bought a lot of land in Chuzhou, Anhui Province, and after these fields were leased, the rent was also a fixed income.
Yuan Ming became rich and prosperous, and in his later years, his assets reached "more than 10,000 gold and 20,000 silver", and he sat on the top spot in the list of rich people in the Literary Circle of the Qing Dynasty.
Interesting, informative, with depth
The author | Hao Jinhong
Source| Hundred Tribunes magazine