Chapter 536 Coffin House?

  According to the description in travel magazines, Hu Xueyan’s former residence is located in Hefang Street, Hangzhou. It was built in the eleventh year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1872), with a construction area of ​​more than 5,800 square meters.

  Hu Xueyan's former residence, from architecture to interior furnishings, exquisite materials, it can be called the first residence of a great Chinese merchant in the late Qing Dynasty.

  There are Zhiyuan, 13th floor and other pavilions in the ancient house. There is a small building, all built by golden nanmu, but the one who lives in this building is not his wife, but his concubine.

  Polygamy was practiced in ancient China, and Hu Xueyan married more than 30 concubines after her fortune. The house built by the golden nanmu was used by his most favored woman. From the Qin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the golden nanmu was used exclusively by the emperor. During the Qin Dynasty, it was used to build the Afang Palace. Until Daoguang, the harvesting of the golden nanmu has been It was monopolized by the royal family and used it as an imperial material.

  In the feudal era, merchants were always looked down upon. Hu Xueyan could afford a house built with golden nanmu, which shows how prominent he was at that time.

  Hu Xueyan ran small cattle. After his father passed away, at the age of 13, he had to make a living outside.

  Hu Xueyan is smart, hardworking, and practical. Therefore, when he was 19 years old, he was appreciated and trusted by the owner of Hangzhou Fukang Bank. The owner of the Fukang Bank accepted him as an apprentice and gave him many things in the bank to take care of. Hu Xueyan started running street at "Rende Bank" in Hangzhou City

  At this moment, Hu Xueyan met Wang Youling, the “alternate Zhejiang Salt Ambassador”.

  Wang Youling was born in a family of officials, but in his generation, his family has already fallen. As there is no money to manage up and down, he is very unhappy in his official career.

  Hu Xueyan believed that Wang Youling would have a lot to do in the future, so he privately transferred 500 taels of silver from the bank to him so that he could go to a great future. He himself was driven out of the bank for embezzling public funds and went to Huzhou to sell food.

  Have money to open the way, and Wang Youling is indeed very talented, so he was quickly promoted to the governor of Zhejiang. Wang Youling confessed to the peach and used his power to open the door to convenience for Hu Xueyan.

  Hu Xueyan used Wang Youling's power to start from a small bank, and his business grew. Not only opened the bank semicolon, but also set foot in many other industries. There were also more and more companies, and soon became a well-known businessman in Zhejiang.

  However, in 1861, Zeng Guofan was ordered to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. When he finally conquered Anqing, the military center, Zeng Guofan wanted to make a big effort and go straight to the capital of the Taiping Army. But at this time, Zhejiang governor Wang Youling, who guarded Hangzhou, was besieged by the Taiping Army and pleaded for help. Zeng Guofan was in a dilemma, because his vitality had not yet recovered and he was unwilling to miss this great opportunity to attack Tianjing, so he thought of Zuo Zongtang.

Zuo Zongtang, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zhang Zhidong were also known as the four famous ministers of Zhongxing in the late Qing Dynasty. In January 1850, the Humen cigarette was distributed to Lin Zexu of Xinjiang and returned to his hometown. Zuo Zongtang met in Changsha Zhouzhong; Long talks all night, involving ancient and modern situations, personal and belongings reviews, and "Western Regions current affairs."

In 1867, the Qing Dynasty was already precarious. Foreign powers competed for bullying, and there were continuous civil uprisings inside. With the support of Tsarist Russia, Akoub broke into Xinjiang and established a *** Khanate called Zhedeshar. Trying to separate the southern part of Xinjiang from the territory of China's Qing Dynasty, the border situation brooks no delay. What made the situation worse was that Japan was invading Taiwan again at this time, and the issue of coastal defense was revealed, so there was a dispute over the Sea.

The Qing Dynasty suffered from enemies on both sides. Li Hongzhang and others advocated temporarily abandoning the fortification defense and using the silver of the fortification defense for coastal defense, while Hunan governor Wang Wenshao advocated fortification and defense. The last faction was based on Zuo Zongtang’s view that the sea fortresses were equally important. Whether Xinjiang or Taiwan is China's territory, it should not be just given up.

  Once Xinjiang is lost and the northwest gate opens, the Hexi Corridor, the main throat, may not necessarily be able to defend the rebels and Tsarist Russia.

  If Xinjiang is not recovered sooner, the Russians will sooner or later occupy Mongolia, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Shanxi.

Even if the fighting continues, the Shaanxi-Gansu army will be held in there for a long time, not only costing money and food, but also not giving any help to coastal defense. Only proactively attacking and regaining Xinjiang is the best choice. In the end, the court agreed to Zuo Zongtang’s suggestion. Zong Tang carried the coffin to regain Xinjiang.

  Although the court agreed, but in the end the court only allocated 2 million taels, and Zuo Zongtang needed to raise money by himself.

   When Hangzhou was under siege in 1861, Zuo Zongtang did not immediately rescue Wang Youling. As the Taiping Army broke through Hangzhou, Wang Youling, who failed to keep Hangzhou, died in shame. At this time, Zuo Zongtang entered the city.

  Zuo Zongtang has no ability to predict. Knowing that the Hessian controversy a few years later, his main fancy is Hangzhou. If Wang Youling is alive, the new governor of Fujian and Zhejiang will not be Zuo Zongtang.

After Wang Youling's death, Hu Xueyan lost his backing. For this reason, he had to rely on Zuo Zongtang. Because of this, when Zuo Zongtang conquered Xinjiang in 1867, he borrowed 13.75 million taels from foreign merchants and 8.46 million taels from Chinese merchants. Just raised enough military expenses.

  The reason why foreign businessmen lent money to Hu Xueyan was not because they were moved by his “patriotic enthusiasm”, but because they couldn’t sit back and watch Tsarist Russia become stronger after occupying Xinjiang.

  Hu Xueyan's family used 20 tons of copper, and many of the door bolts were made of German copper bolts.

  At that time, the smelting technology of the Qing Dynasty was very backward, with many pores and bubbles, and the casting process was still using clay molds. Germany has entered the age of industrialization.

Two thousand years ago, Qin State, like Germany, used strict laws to produce weapons with extremely high dimensional accuracy. After two thousand years, there will be no such technology. The skills of copper smelting have also been lost. If Japan is in a bubble economy After disappearing for twenty years, China’s basic processing industry ceased or even regressed for two thousand years.

  Because of the experience of pacifying the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom together, Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang are called one faction. In the self-improvement movement, Hu Xueyan relied on Zuo Zongtang to start his business, and Sheng Xuanhuai relied on Li Hongzhang.

  Sheng Xuanhuai is Li Hongzhang’s important helper, not only raising money, such as dealing with foreign banks, domestic railway construction, education and other matters, Sheng Xuanhuai will take the lead in participating.

  During the Sino-French War, Zuo Zongtang went to Vietnam to fight the French army because of war needs. Hu Xueyan lost her political backing in a short period of time.

  Zeng Guofan and Hu Xueyan are in the same period, and they are friends with Zuo Zongtang, but they have not had much exchanges.

  Zeng Guofan is a typical Chinese-style official. His posthumous name is "Wenzheng", and he looks down upon the stinky copper merchants.

  Hu Xueyan is not an ordinary businessman. He opened Hu Qingyutang Traditional Chinese Medicine Shop. Based on the royal pharmacopoeia of the Song Dynasty, he used proven prescriptions from all dynasties and is famous for developing finished medicines.

  "The Book of Changes·Xi Ci" says: "The metaphysics is the Tao, and the metaphysical is the artifact." When the Japanese philosopher Tetsujiro Inoue translated the ancient Greek philosophy classics, he translated "metaphysics" and went to school.

  Marx believes that metaphysics refers to the way of thinking that is opposed to dialectics, observing the world from an isolated, static, and one-sided perspective. It regards things as being isolated from each other, absolutely static, fixed, unable to see the interconnection of things, forgetting its generation, elimination, movement, and relative trends of inching, and it attributes changes only to positional movement and pureness. The increase or decrease in the number is regarded as the result of external forces.

  Metaphysics tends to fall into dogmatism, looking at the world from an isolated, static, and one-sided perspective, thinking that everything is isolated forever.

Zeng Guofan looked at Hu Xueyan with a generalized vision, thinking that he was just like all businessmen who are profiteering, and had no ink in his chest. If he went to Hu Xueyan’s drugstore, he would know that the rich and unique culture accumulated by Hu Qingyutang can be said to be China. The essence of traditional business culture not only inherits ancestral proven recipes and traditional pharmaceutical technology, but also retains a large number of traditional brand-name products. Among them, the "no bullying" culture is most deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

  People are like this, hoping to get the attention of others. In ancient China, the social ethos of admiring literature and boring business made the status of businessmen very low. They worked hard but were looked down upon.

Hu Xueyan’s former residence is not big. Except for the golden nanmu yard, the wood used in other rooms is very low-key compared with the magnificent Palace of Versailles and Buckingham Palace. After the wood is painted, it is no different from ordinary wood, only knowledgeable. People know how expensive it is.

  When Zuo Zongtang left, Hu Xueyan had no backing, and Zeng Guofan did not help remind him that at this time Hu Xueyan was collecting silk in Jiangnan again, forming a monopoly, thinking about making a fortune in the next year.

  So Sheng Xuanhuai ordered his subordinates to control these silk merchants and sold them to Hu Xueyan at a lower price.

   Originally, Hu Xueyan wanted to buy it for seven or eight million taels of silver. Seeing that the price was profitable, he spent 20 million taels of silver for the acquisition. Hu Xueyan didn't know that he had gotten into Sheng Xuanhuai's case.

  When Hu Xueyan was about to sell silk for takeout the next year, Sheng Xuanhuai told those foreign businessmen doing business in China not to accept Hu Xueyan’s silk. He would use other methods to supply the businessmen, otherwise he would be an enemy of the government.

  As a result, none of these foreign businessmen took Hu Xueyan’s silk, and Hu Xueyan lost 10 million silver.

  Hu Xueyan had a problem with his cash, Sheng Xuanhuai saw that the time had come, and he came even harder. Asking those officials and friends who kept the money in Hu Xueyan Bukang Bank to ask for cash, there was a run.

  In addition, Hu Xueyan lost money in Silk, and for a time there was a cash problem. The people came to ask for money, and Hu Xueyan's business completely closed down.

  Many people think that Sheng Xuanhuai’s contribution to modern China far exceeds that of Hu Xueyan. Because Sheng Xuanhuai created the eleven "firsts" of modern Chinese business:

Established and participated in China's first civil shipping company Ship Merchants Bureau; planned to draft the first private enterprise charter "Ship China Merchants Association Charter"; founded China’s first home telecommunication company Tianjin Telegraph; founded China’s first inland river shipping company Shandong Neihe Xiao Steamship shipping company; founded China’s first modern bank, China Bank of Communications; founded China’s first commercial-run iron and steel conglomerate Hanzhiping Coal and Iron Plant and Mining Company; supervised the construction of China’s first north-south trunk railway, Luhan Railway; founded China’s No. An engineering university Beixiyang School and Nanyang College; founded the first normal normal school in China, Nanyang College Teachers Class;

  Proposed the establishment of the Red Cross Society of China; founded the Shanghai Library, China’s first private library.

But these are all obtained after he tripped Hu Xueyan with "fraud" means. The businessman must speak of "integrity." Although his untrustworthy behavior won for a while, it damaged his reputation. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, all over the world The railway was transformed from a government-run joint stock company to a commercial one, and was supervised by the local private sector. However, when Sheng Xuanhuai became the post of Yu Chuan Shangpin, he nationalized the railway, which angered local interests. Then Guangdong, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and other places took the opportunity to launch revolutions, and this incident became the last straw to crush the Qing Dynasty.

  Hu Xueyan is already very rich. Why does he need to engage in a monopoly so that no one else can survive. The family wins, and the businessmen have to give everyone a way to survive, so that the business can go on.

Similarly, Sheng Xuanhuai’s trip to Hu Xueyan is not all a business dispute. Behind him is Li Hongzhang and the Haisai dispute. After Hu Xueyan fell, Li Hongzhang became the main person in charge of the self-improvement movement. Zuo Zongtang believed that he should build his own ship, Li Hongzhang. I think imitation is worse than imitation and buying is worse than imitation.

  I just started to build a thing, it must be a defective product, it needs to be trial-produced and iteratively improved to become better, it is almost impossible to make a perfect thing at once, especially in the industrial and weapons fields.

  This time reflects the importance of talents.

During the self-improvement movement, Li Hongzhang also allocated funds to tea companies. This was not narrow-sighted, bribery and embezzlement of public funds. At that time, the tea industry was a pillar industry in China. Once the tea industry fell, many people would lose their jobs. In 1890, India Established Lipton Black Tea Company. His advertising slogan was "good tea from the tea plantation directly into the teapot".

  The taste of black tea produced in India is very different from the black tea produced in Wuyishan. India is in the tropics, and the black tea produced in India has a strong taste. Chinese people may not be able to drink it directly. It is suitable for adding milk and sugar, which suits the taste of Europeans.

Products are only sold when customers are satisfied, but the cultural value cannot be changed. Lipton black tea sells broken tea, which must be brewed with tea bags. Chinese people don’t know how to drink this kind of tea. Who drinks this kind of tea? Where's the scum?

  The leaves of authentic black tea can be seen clearly after brewing. Who can guarantee that Lipton black tea will not use scraps to entrap consumers?

In a broad sense, Zengwen said that kindness does not control soldiers, righteousness does not conduct business, benevolence does not engage in politics, benevolence does not serve as officials, and affection does not stand up. As a businessman, you can not talk about loyalty, but you must never fail to talk about honesty. Earning is word of mouth, word of mouth is brand , The value of a brand is incalculable.

  On the eve of World War II, there was a very inconspicuous trust company called Babina Trust in Germany, which was dedicated to keeping valuable properties for customers.

  After the war broke out, people took away their belongings and fled in all directions. The boss also managed to escape, and only the employee Xiah was still there to check the accounts.

  Several bombs exploded near the trust bank, as if Xia hadn't heard it, she cleared the accounts and found that a customer named Legge had not taken the things away.

  It was a ruby ​​worth 5 billion marks. Sia put the gem and all the escrow documents in a small box, and then took all the accounts and left the trust bank.

  A few days later, the area of ​​the Babyna Trust was razed to the ground by the war, and West Asia also ran around to escape the chaos of the war. But no matter where he went, West Asia took the trust bank's accounts and the gem with him.

  She feels that she is still an employee of the Barbina Trust Bank, and she will return the accounts and gems to the trust bank when the war is over.

  The war is finally over, and West Asia returned to Berlin with three children. However, the boss of the Babyna Trust Bank has died in the war, and the Trust Bank no longer exists.

  But West Asia still keeps accounts and gems. Because the gems are entrusted by the customer, and the customer does not take the gems away, she has to keep it for the customer and keep the trust bank's credibility.

  How many years have passed, West Asia has never found a job, and she has been living an extremely poor life with her three children.

  In fact, Legge, who entrusted the trust bank to keep the gems, also died in the war. The priceless ruby ​​has long been unclaimed, and West Asia can sell it quietly and live a life of good food and clothing. But she didn't. She felt that it was the customer's property, she could only keep it, and could not have any thoughts about it!

  In 1978, the local government established a war museum to collect relics of World War II from the community, and West Asia took out the trust bank account and the ruby ​​she had kept.

  The government worked hard to help West Asia find Legge’s grandson Doyle.

  Doyle got the gem and promised to sell the second half of the gem to West Asia. West Asia politely declined, saying that he would only charge the storage fees for these years.

  The West Asia issue appeared in the newspapers, and people were moved by her integrity. Some people suggested that she be the general counsel of the Chamber of Commerce, but she turned it down on the grounds of her age. Later, several large trust companies approached her and asked her to be the honorary president, but she also declined.

  Soon, West Asia passed away. Several companies found her son Chris and asked to buy out the trust company named after West Asia.

  Difficult to choose, Chris asked several companies to bid. In the end, Plato Trust Company obtained the naming rights of West Asia at a sky-high price of 8 billion marks.

  Plato’s president said, “West Asia” is no longer just a person’s name, it represents a kind of entrepreneurial spirit, a kind of integrity that is more expensive than gems, and it is worth 8 billion to buy this honor!

  Soon, Plato Trust Company changed its name to West Asia Trust Company, and the transaction volume really rose.

  However, this moving-sounding story is most likely to be false.

  In order to gain profit, capitalists can even sell the ropes they hang themselves. There are no lies.

  The shopping mall is like a battlefield. Hu Xueyan got up from the bottom, he has a "human touch" on him.

  After the establishment of the Beiyang Navy, it bought various ships, guns and ammunition from foreign iron-clad warships, costing hundreds of millions of taels of silver, and developing comprador national defense to the extreme. After spending almost all the money from the national treasury, he was able to equip one of Asia's largest Beiyang navy divisions.

  In 1890, Li Hongzhang bought the Liscia rifle from Austrian Mann and imitation of the British Xinli rifle, and the quick-cut rifle was born. Because the quality of the gun was surprisingly poor and the failure rate was high, the army in each province was reluctant to use it and was quickly eliminated.

   Zhang Zhidong, who was at the same time as Li Hongzhang, also made Hanyang-made rifles. Zhang Zhidong is one of the few military and political officers who adhered to the autonomous national defense line after Zuo Zongtang's death.

  The "Made in Hanyang" drawings are derived from the German 1988 rifle. After the successful manufacture, it was used from Yuan Shikai's new army to the Wuchang Uprising, from the Beiyang warlords to the War of Resistance Against Japan, and it was only discontinued in 1944.

  So the key to the failure of the self-improvement movement lies in Sheng Huaixuan and Hu Xueyan. Why can't the two businessmen separately persuade the people behind them to let go of their prejudices, but listen to the officials behind them to order internal fighting?

  When we should be united, we should unite. The greatest advantage of a unified country is to work together.

  After the war, the Ministry of Finance of Japan and the Bank of Japan also continued infighting. The president of the central bank has always been the airborne of the Ministry of Finance and the direct line of the central bank in rotation.

  The reason why the Japanese bubble burst in the 1990s was because of the struggle between "Prince of Yen" Mie Yasuno and Sumita Chi.

The Americans said that they wanted to adjust the interest rate. That was not good for Japan. In order to please the United States, politicians agreed to it. How did the Meiji Restoration shout so vigorously to "respect the king and fight the barbarian" in the Heisei era. Don’t you feel shameful?

The failure of the   self-improvement movement is more like a cultural failure. The once splendid Eastern civilization was crushed, and the Manchu, which maintained its core of civilization, lost to Japan, which was fully Western-learned. The books of those Zhuzheye were put in the library without any attention, and everyone was reading with Western books.

  Human happiness and happiness are like forests, which are beautiful from a distance, and you can’t feel that beauty when you walk into it.

  I heard that Cixi’s coffin was made of golden nanmu. Is a living woman living in a house made of wood for coffins? Is she comfortable?

   Anyway, Pomona is uncomfortable. She will never share her husband with other women, let alone 30.

  "Do you want to go to China?" Severus couldn't help asking when seeing her staring at the travel magazine.

  Pomona looked at him and smiled.

  "Where do you think Lily would want to go on vacation?"

   "How do I know." He said alertly, then took the water glass and went back to the studio silently to work.

  After he closed the door, Pomona slammed the door with a book.

   "I hate you, Severus!" she whispered through gritted teeth, no longer in the mood to read a magazine.

  (End of this chapter)