Cixi only accepted zhou ying as a righteous daughter because she took Zhou Ying's money, but in fact, there was no practical benefit. The real Zhou Ying in history is more miserable, her husband died shortly after marriage, tired and tired to strengthen the family, the result was that she died at a young age, and her husband's family did not let her be buried in the ancestral grave!
A tragic marriage.
Zhou Ying was born in 1869 in Mengdian Village, Luqiao Town, Sanyuan County, Shaanxi Province, and her father, Zhou Haichao, was a wealthy businessman.
Zhou Ying has been a student since she was a child, and her grades are not bad, especially in mathematics, showing some potential for business.
However, Zhou Ying was married at the age of seventeen, and her husband's name was Wu Ping, a native of AnWubao Village, Jiang Lu Township, Jingyang County. Wu Ping's family was also a wealthy merchant family, and his father, Wu Wei, was a civil official to Tongfeng Dafu, and he himself was an official to a senior political doctor (most likely an official who received donations).
The Wu family and the Zhou family are family friends, so marriage is also normal. However, what Zhou Ying didn't know was that Wu Ping was already sick in bed at that time, and the reason why Wu Weiwen found a daughter-in-law for her son was actually for Chong Xi!
After Zhou Ying married into the Wu family, she found out the truth on the night of the cave flower candle, but she was very sensible and knew that the wood had become a boat, so she did not cry or make trouble, but chose to accept all this.
From the day she married into the Wu family, Zhou Ying had to be both a wife and a nurse, and she did not blame her cruel in-laws and in-laws, but was very filial to them.
Zhou Ying's so considerate and sensible has also been highly recognized by Wu Weiwen.
Wu Weiwen knew that his son's time was short, plus he knew that Zhou Ying was a good daughter-in-law, and he felt guilty about her, so he decided to slowly hand over the business to her.
Although Zhou Ying is young, her mind is flexible, so she quickly got started.
However, when Zhou Ying married into the Wu family for nearly a year, Wu Weiwen died unexpectedly. Her husband, Wu Ping, suffered a great blow and died less than two years later.
In this way, Zhou Ying became a widow and had no children (she had given birth to a daughter, but died prematurely). And because Wu Ping was an only son, Zhou Ying became the head of the family and began to manage the family business at the age of about twenty.
Shortly after Wu Ping's death, Zhou Ying inherited a son named Wu Huaixian, who was still very young at that time.
In fact, Zhou Ying did not want to take over the family business at the beginning, and there was no tradition of daughter-in-law accepting the family property at that time. But the Wu family really has no one, seeing that the family property will be inherited by no one, so Zhou Ying has to come forward.
Therefore, Zhou Ying is very tragic, less than three years after marriage, her father-in-law, husband, and daughter have all died, leaving only her as a woman in her early twenties, and her only son has supported such a large family business.
Second, Zhou Ying is a business wizard and creates an equity incentive mechanism.
When Zhou Ying first took over the family business, it was actually not smooth, because the Wu family's father and son died one after another, and some treasurers took advantage of the opportunity to cause chaos and try to annex the Wu family's shops in various places.
For example, the Wu family was in charge of the Sichuan Flower General Store in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, and the two managers of the Longyu Salt General Office in Yangzhou, who were in charge of more than half of the Wu family's assets, but took advantage of the death of the Wu family's father and son, bullied the young Zhou Ying, and tried to steal the two stores through fraudulent means.
Zhou Ying's mind was delicate and very calm, she did not fight grass to scare the snake, but secretly sent someone to investigate the evidence of the two treasurers, and then took the evidence to talk about the showdown.
Zhou Ying started with Renyi to the two treasurers, saying that they were dumbfounded, and finally they took the initiative to withdraw from the management of the store, and Zhou Ying did not give them a severance pay and let them go home.
Immediately afterward, Zhou Ying promoted new people in the store to be responsible for management, and also increased the salaries of all employees by 20%, and also promised that as long as the turnover reached a certain amount, there was a year-end bonus to be taken, so that almost all people's salaries were increased by 30% to 40%.
In this way, the enthusiasm of employees has also been greatly improved, and in just over a year, the turnover task of these two stores in Chengdu and Yangzhou has been completed ahead of schedule.
Later, Zhou Ying implemented an equity incentive system in all industries of the Wu family. Zhou Ying proposed that employees voluntarily enter the shares, and a part of the salary can choose not to be paid first, but directly as a shareholding fund, and then pay dividends proportionally at the end of the year.
For those old employees who have worked in the Wu family for a long time, Zhou Ying also implements the "Yang Feng Yin Feng" system. That is to say, if the children and grandchildren of an old employee are all working in the Wu family, then the old employee can retire and receive a monthly pension, even if he dies, his children and grandchildren can continue to receive pensions, plus their own wages, that is, yang and yin.
After Some rectification by Zhou Ying, the Wu family's industry in the country has also begun to develop steadily, and the Wu family has shown a better development momentum than when the Wu family father and son were alive, and the Wu family's fame has become more and more large.
The reason why Zhou Ying has been so successful in a very short period of time is because she is well versed in the principle of doing business, that is, to follow the way of benevolence and integrity, which is a business standard formed in China for thousands of years, even if there is no contract document, as long as it is verbally promised, it must be implemented accordingly.
After stabilizing shops across the country, Zhou Ying decided to carry out a second round of reform, that is, "land reform".
At that time, the Wu family had a total of more than 1,600 mu of land, of which Zhou Ying handed over 600 mu to the hired people to plant, and the grain obtained to meet the supply of her own family; the remaining 1,000 mu of land was directly handed over to the tenants, and only a small amount of rent was charged every year, which was almost equivalent to a free gift, and the contract period was twenty years.
The reason why Zhou Ying did this was because before these tenants had difficulty even filling their stomachs every year, Zhou Ying felt that this was unreasonable, so she wanted to give grace to them, and when the tenants were rich, they would talk about making money in the fields. Later, Zhou Ying also exempted some tenants from rent, and also repaired some dilapidated houses.
It can be said that Zhou Ying is a person who attaches great importance to the welfare of employees, and she has brought her a good reputation by doing so, and many businessmen are willing to do business with her after hearing about her deeds. And Zhou Ying promised a thousand gold, as long as it was promised to come down, even if it was a loss later, she would not regret it.
Third, Zhou Ying planned to expand the Wu family industry.
Within a few years, Zhou Ying upgraded all the existing industries of the Wu family, and then she began to expand the scope of business chain journey.
For example, in the cotton industry, the original Wu family only had a small scale of 3,000 quintals per year, but one year, Zhou Ying did not learn the black heart means of other merchants to see the cotton harvest and bargain, but collected cotton from farmers according to the price of her later years, and as a result, 110,000 quintals of cotton were collected in that year alone, basically harvesting all the cotton in the hands of farmers.
As a result, in the second year, the cotton harvest failed, Zhou Ying still collected cotton at the normal price, the cotton farmers were grateful to him, and they were willing to sell the flowers to her, and she sold the flowers to those black-hearted merchants at a high price, and made them a lot of money. Since then, the Wu family's cotton industry has achieved the largest in the local area and has become the most trusted merchant of farmers.
The reason why Zhou Ying has been successful in the cotton industry is because she deeply understands the market law of "expensive and anti-low, lowly and repetitively expensive", and she knows the business principles of benevolence and integrity, she put her successful experience in the cotton business to the tea and medicinal materials business, and also achieved great success, and also made the Wu family the largest tea commercial medicinal materials merchant in Shaanxi, and the semicolon was opened more and more.
However, the most profitable business is salt. After some operation by Zhou Ying, the Wu family got 4 million salt introductions from the imperial court, and each salt introduction can transport 120 catties of salt a year and earn 1 or 2 silver, so that the light salt can earn 4 million taels a year!
Because of the salt sales to make money, Zhou Ying began to actively layout in the cloth, wine, oil, grain and other civilian production industries, after several years of development, the Wu family's name in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang and other places bloomed everywhere, and even Yungui and Xinjiang, Tibet and other remote areas have Wu family semicolon!
By the end of the nineteenth century, the Wu family was already famous throughout the country. The Wu family's guys travel on business, and they also have special hotels and restaurants to live and eat, and the grade is not low, which can be seen.
According to the Records of Jingyang County, the Wu family's real estate in Jingyang County occupies half a street, and if all the Wu family's real estate in Shaanxi is added together, it may be that "horses run thousands of miles without eating other people's grass", which shows how rich the Wu family is.
4. Zhou Ying's "mother-daughter relationship" with Empress Dowager Cixi and her philanthropy.
In 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance entered Beijing, and Empress Dowager Cixi fled south to Xi'an, Shaanxi. Because Empress Dowager Cixi lived in luxury, but suffered from insufficient funds, she changed her ways to ask the rich people in Shaanxi for money. Zhou Ying, as the richest man in Shaanxi, also took 100,000 taels of silver to honor Empress Dowager Cixi.
Originally, Zhou Ying's son Wu Huaixian did not agree to her doing so, because he supported the change of law and the revolution, and was unwilling to donate the silver to Empress Dowager Cixi. However, Zhou Ying said that if the imperial court is not there, then the country is gone; if the country is not there, how can our family be long-lasting?
In fact, zhou Ying, as a traditional woman, really did not understand the change of law and revolution, the country in her heart was the Qing government, and Empress Dowager Cixi, as the supreme ruler, Zhou Ying felt that it was necessary to go to the country together, so she took out money.
Of course, we are beyond reproach for her approach, because at that time, most people still had the same consciousness as her, and her strong patriotism was worthy of recognition.
After learning that Zhou Ying had donated 100,000 taels of silver, Empress Dowager Cixi, Long Yan Dayue, wrote down the four characters of "Lady Protector" for people to give to her, and also accepted her as a righteous daughter.
After the signing of the Treaty of Xinugi, Zhou Ying took out a large amount of money and handed it to the imperial court to pay off the debt, and Empress Dowager Cixi therefore gave her the honorary title of "Lady of yipin".
In addition to these honors, Zhou Ying did not get any practical benefits from Empress Dowager Cixi, and of course, she did not want any benefits at all.
Zhou Ying's patriotism is also reflected in other aspects, such as her frequent charity. At that time, there were many wealthy merchants in Shaanxi who liked to do charity, in addition to the Wu family, there were also the Yao family, the Chen family and the Wang family.
At that time, there were no charitable organizations, often where there was a need to build water conservancy, build roads and bridges, everyone would get together to discuss what to do, and how much they would pay. And Zhou Ying is often how much others contribute, she is at least no less than others, and the Wu family has thus turned "rich to help the world" into a family style, and future generations of people have also followed it.
Zhou Ying also did charity alone, for example, she drilled dozens of deep wells in Jingyang County, solving the drinking water problem of more than 20,000 people and the water problem of livestock in front of trees; Zhou Ying also funded the construction of ditches for Jingyang County, which introduced the drainage of Jingyang County into Weishui and solved the problem of drainage difficulties in Jingyang County.
In addition, Zhou Ying also actively runs volunteer schools, allows ordinary people to go to school for free, manages food and housing, and also distributes scholarships, making great contributions to the education cause of Jingyang County.
From about the end of the nineteenth century, Zhou Ying contacted local wealthy merchants to build a large righteous warehouse, usually saving grain and waiting until the disaster year to help the people. Her tenants, because of her favor, volunteered to donate food to her, and she paid for a lot of food.
One year, when the drought was severe, coupled with the impact of the war, many refugees came to Jingyang County, so Zhou Ying resolutely opened a warehouse to release grain, and also took out five acres of land to open a porridge factory to provide free food to the refugees. Refugees from several nearby counties heard that Zhou Ying had opened a porridge factory in Jingyang County, and they also ran to Jingyang County. Zhou Ying did not refuse to come, and also increased efforts to purchase food to relieve refugees.
Because Zhou Ying did so many good things, the people were very grateful to her, saying that she was a very good person, and after her death, some people even called her "Water Lady", and spontaneously built a temple to worship her.
5. Zhou Ying died at the age of forty, and was not allowed to be buried in her ancestral grave after death.
In 1908, Zhou Ying died of an illness caused by overwork, and died at the age of forty. Zhou Ying's contribution to the Wu family was great, but the Wu family was very conservative and even did not agree to bury Zhou Ying in the Wu family's ancestral tomb "Cypress Tomb", and Wu Huaixian was helpless against this.
However, the irony is that the "Cypress Tomb" was built by Zhou Ying before she died, but she was not allowed to be buried after death! In order to commemorate her forever, the local people built a temple for her.
After Zhou Ying's death, her son Wu Huaixian inherited the family business. Wu Huaixian has been taught by Zhou Ying since he was a child to be honest and benefit the township, and Wu Huaixian has also done the same, and he is very respectful of people, without a little shelf, and also very patriotic.
Although Wu Huaixian supported the revolution, he did not participate in any organization, and he had a very close relationship with Yu Youren, the elder of the Republic of China Party, and also paid huge sums of money to fund his revolution.
Wu Huai later lived in Shanghai and was originally very rich, but after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, he sold most of his family property to fund the Kuomintang anti-Japanese resistance.
Later, Wu Huaixian returned to his hometown in Shaanxi with his family, and he learned that the CCP was also actively resisting Japan, so he vacated an old house to the Youth Department of the CPC Central Committee for opening a school, and now the old site of the school is already a memorial.
In order to support the CCP's youth school, Wu Huaixian began to sell his property again, and many porcelain from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties handed down from his ancestors were sold by him.
Among Wu Huaixian's fellow people, there was a very famous person, his name was Wu Mi, who later became a master of traditional Chinese studies and made great contributions to the cause of education in our country. The person who funded Wu Mi to study abroad was Wu Huaixian.
Wu Huaixian's wife is named Liu Yongpei, her origin is not simple, her grandfather is the governor of Liangjiang, her aunt is Li Hongzhang's wife, and her aunt is Zhang Zhidong's daughter, so she has been dressed in fine clothes since she was a child, and marrying Wu Huaixian is also the right door.
However, later, in order to support the revolution and the anti-Japanese resistance, Wu Huaixian sold his family property almost completely, and the quality of life of the family began to decline, and even the servants resigned a lot. But Liu Yongpei also understood Wu Huaixian's approach, and also began to lower his living standards and help Wu Huaixian deal with some things.
However, according to the recollection of Wu Huaixian's children, he was actually a very far-sighted person, and he knew that with the advancement of the revolution, it was bound to have an impact on the rich merchants and landlords, so he began to make friends with two parties and began to scatter wealth and take refuge.
In the period between Zhou Ying's death and the founding of the Country, there were various movements, and the Wu family was safe. Until 1951, the Wu family still had more than a dozen servants, and the family's life was much better than ordinary people.
However, after 1966, several children of the Wu family were put on big hats, they were criticized, and finally several people died in vain. Wu Huaixian himself died of illness in 1972, and the Wu family was really in decline.
And Wu Huaixian may have learned from Zhou Ying in the matter of protecting the family, money comes from the people, and finally it must be used for the people.