Chapter 14 Chapter 13 Zheshang II: Ningbo Gang
Some people say that they are the first merchants in China's history:
The prosperity of Shanghai in the past was inseparable from them, and several firsts in the economic field were created by them.
They are a business gang who know how to use advertising best, and have the business strategy of a business genius.
Some say they are the most adventurous business gang;
Some people say they are the best business gang in modern times;
Some people say that their success comes from the spirit of innovation.
Today, when the contemporary "Jin Gang", "Hui Gang" and "Hu Gang" are gradually declining or even disappearing, why can the "Ningbo Gang" last for a long time and thrive?
A group of statues stands on the square near Sanjiangkou in Ningbo, Zhejiang.If you observe carefully, you will find that everyone in the statue is carrying a bag and preparing to leave home.The name of this group of statues is "Sanjiang Farewell", which commemorates the time when the businessmen of the Ningbo Gang went out to do business in order to survive.
Today, Zhejiang merchants have footprints all over the world, and there is a "Zhejiang Village" in Beijing; as of the end of 2007, there were 50,000 Zhejiang merchants in Shanghai alone, and the total investment in Shanghai ranked first in the country; in Europe and Africa , and even in the war-torn Middle East, there are Zhejiang merchants everywhere.Among the Zhejiang merchants, the Ningbo gang is undoubtedly the most representative one. Although their history is not as brilliant as that of Shanxi merchants and Huizhou merchants, their influence on today is huge.
So, as a representative of Zhejiang merchants, what legends are there in the development of the Ningbo Gang?Is there any secret behind their success?
The background of the Ningbo Gang is similar to that of Huizhou merchants, and the land is extremely barren and the population is extremely large.In the past, we had a saying called "Huguang is ripe, the world is full", which means that the provinces here in Huguang have a good harvest, and the world can be full.But this word is different in Ningbo, what is it called?It is called "Ningbo cooked, a bowl of porridge". The harvest in Ningbo can only be made into a bowl of porridge.Therefore, under this difficult business environment, an atmosphere for Ningbo people to do business has been created.Moreover, there are only two successful business gangs in our history, one is the Ningbo Gang and the other is the Guangdong Gang.Why?All rely on the sea.Moreover, these places are all comprador distribution centers, and the people from Ningbo and Guangdong were the first to come into contact with modern western management knowledge. Because they were too poor, their original capital accumulation was to do business on the extremely dangerous sea at that time, which was very difficult.In the Song Dynasty, people doing business along the coast of Fujian worshiped a god called Mazu, the god of the sea, who protected these fishermen.However, apart from worshiping Avalokitesvara, Zhejiang people have no special gods to protect the people of Zhejiang.After you have heard me talk about Huizhou and Huzhou, you will find that these business gangs came with inexplicable opportunities, such as opportunities for salt and silk, and then succeeded, and finally fell flat.But the Ningbo Gang is different. It mainly came from the turbulent sea trade. By the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the main source was the copper trade with Japan. Ningbo is located on the coast of the East China Sea and is one of the earliest trading ports in China. Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, Ningbo merchants have traded with foreign countries. The commercial civilization brought about by the opening up has given Ningbo people the ambition to enter the world.More than a century ago, when the smoke of the Opium War had not completely dissipated from the beach in Shanghai, the people of Ningbo across the water left their hometowns and came to the new world of Shanghai.They set up a camp in front of Huangpu Beach and established the earliest shantytowns. With their barber knives, kitchen knives and planting scissors, they started their entrepreneurial journey in the world. And people call the merchants in the six counties of Yin County, Fenghua, Cixi, Zhenhai, Dinghai, and Xiangshan, which belonged to the old Ningbo Prefecture, who operated in other cities, the Ningbo Gang. So, how did the Ningbo Gang create an economic myth?
I ask readers to think about it, who was the first to set up a post office in China?Let me tell you again, you all know that the U.S. post office is the only company in the U.S., and almost all post offices in the world are operated by the government, let alone China.So do you know who built the world's first post office?Ningbo people.When did you do it?Let me list this for your reference. In 1403, during the reign of Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty and during the reign of Yongle, the first Minxin Bureau was established, which is the current post office. In 1403, it was still in the era of cold weapons. At that time, the delivery of goods had to find Escorts.At that time, the Civil Information Bureau could deliver letters, newspapers, and bank notes by post, and also delivered goods. Why do people hand over letters and contracts to you?Because the credit of Ningbo merchants is excellent, basically it can be said that it is as good as it is, and this is the fiduciary responsibility I often talk about.Ningbo businessmen put great emphasis on fiduciary responsibility more than 600 years ago. When you deliver things to my Civil Information Bureau, I have unlimited responsibilities to you. Very high evaluation, his original intention is to say that Ningbo people are the best businessmen in the country, that's what he means.What are the characteristics of Ningbo people?I think that what I will talk about below is all related to the creativity of Ningbo Business Group. If you think about it, the post office could be thought of 600 years ago. This kind of creativity is not ordinary, and all the business activities of Ningbo merchants after that basically come from their creativity.And this kind of creativity is not what we call the creativity of being a comprador in the late Qing Dynasty, because the Minxin Bureau in 1403 has fully demonstrated the creativity of Ningbo people, which surprised me very much. In Ningbo, there is a street called "Medicine Street". In the 1920s and 1930s, this street was once full of large and small pharmacies.Because of Ningbo people's business philosophy of "credibility and honesty", this medicinal street once became the center of the Chinese medicinal material industry.Ningbo people pay attention to authenticity when doing business, and we can still see the golden signboards of these century-old shops until today, and they have not faded in the slightest. There is a saying in Ningbo that "the master of the world is not as good as the buyer".This sentence is easy to say, but it is impossible to do it without the wisdom and mind beyond ordinary people. The integrity of the Ningbo Gang is established in the business wars.
Let’s talk about Song Hanzhang first. He is a very typical representative and a person with very, very fiduciary responsibilities.He founded China Insurance Company in 1931 with a capital of 2.5 million silver dollars, and one silver dollar is equal to 0.72 taels of silver.At that time, the Rong Yiren family insured a spinning mill in Hankou for accident insurance in 1931. Unfortunately, a fire broke out. How much was the compensation? 2 million silver dollars, equal to 1.44 million taels of silver, just enough to buy an ironclad ship.But Song Hanzhang only had 2.5 million capital at that time, and he was really unlucky to accept this order. The Rong family was burned down, and he had to pay 2 million yuan at once, which caused an uproar. Will you pay it?The situation at that time was "ten compensation and nine losses". Of course, it is similar now.At that time, many policyholders were very nervous. Will you pay or not?He wanted to pay 2 million out of the 2.5 million capital, but Song Hanzhang was from Ningbo. Since 1403, the fiduciary responsibility formed by Ningbo people told him from the bottom of his heart that he had to pay, so he gritted his teeth and paid for it.After paying the compensation, the Rong family is very grateful. Maybe I expected you to pay half of it. I didn’t expect it to be fully compensated, and the speed is very fast. Therefore, Rong Yiren advertised on the "Shen Bao" to express his gratitude, and at the same time it is equivalent to Song Hanzhang’s Chinese insurance company. Made a positive push to make it a step deeper.It was really rare for the insurance industry at that time to have such boldness and fiduciary responsibility. And when we stroll in Ningbo, we will see many time-honored drugstores. There are 81 existing time-honored drugstores in China. Guess how many of them are from Ningbo? There are 13, accounting for 16% of the total. Of the 81 time-honored drugstores, 13 are from Ningbo. This proportion is not surprising.A TV series broadcast in the past two years is called, have you watched it?Whose story is it telling?Its prototype is Tong Ren Tang founded by the Le family in Ningbo in Beijing. When this family was making medicine, any prescriptions were handed down from ancient times, and none of the medicines was not true.They strictly followed the precepts of their ancestors and were meticulous. Although they bought a lot of ginseng, which was very expensive, he didn't worry about it. This was the level of Ningbo merchants at that time.From the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, I believe that the responsibility of trust drove the survival of the entire Ningbo Gang. Most of the streets in the Shanghai Concession were named after Westerners, and there are also two Chinese names among them. These two people are Yu Qiaqing and Zhu Baosan.They are all figures from Ningbo who were all-powerful back then. In 1898, the French Concession authorities attempted to occupy the real estate of the Siming Office, the residence of the Ningbo Association.At that time, Ningbo people immediately held a township representative meeting and issued a decision to strike.Immediately afterwards, all Ningbo people in Shanghai took action. Ningbo sailors, dock porters, post and telecommunications workers working in foreign shipping companies, and even Ningbo cooks and nannies working in foreign families all voluntarily left the apartments of foreigners.The entire French Concession was paralyzed.In the end, the French Concession had to make a concession, promising never to violate the Siming Mansion. It was the unity of Ningbo people that made this victory possible.And in commercial activities, Ningbo people also use the power of unity to save themselves from crisis time and time again.
In 1909, Mr. Yu Qiaqing did not know what went wrong in his head. At that time, under the pressure of the British Swire Co., Ltd. and the French Oriental Company, he suddenly wanted to build a ferry.At that time, the fare of the ferry from Shanghai to Ningbo was 1 yuan, and he said 50 cents for a ferry ride. He directly established a Ningshao shipping company to compete with foreign firms in Britain and France.Why do you compete?Taikoo Foreign Bank has a big fortune, and if you do it with you, the ticket price will be reduced to 30 cents, and Yu Qiaqing can't do it anymore.So a group of people from the Ningbo Business Gang organized an industry maintenance meeting unique in the history of shipping. They raised 100,000 silver dollars to subsidize Yu Qiaqing, that is, subsidize 20 cents for each ticket, and let him compete with Swire Pacific with 30 cents. Because of this Incidentally, Yu Qiaqing came back to life, and at the same time, the members of the industry maintenance association also handed over the goods to this company for transportation to help him.In the end, Yu Qiaqing finally defeated Taikoo in the competition and won. What year did this happen? It was the end of the Qing Dynasty, 1909, the first year of Xuantong.The foreign-funded enterprises at that time were thousands of times more arrogant than the current foreign-funded enterprises. How dare you break ground on the head of a tiger?That is Comrade Yu Qiaqing.If there is no support from Ningbo Business Gang, how can he continue to do it? By 1910, Ningbo people had set up a Ningbo Travelers Association in Shanghai, which was not what we imagined, such as eating and holding a party.What are they doing?Just take care of each other, they do a few things.First, among banks and banks, mutual holdings, part-time jobs, inter-borrowing, mutual investment, and joint risk-taking, the establishment of a large consortium and a large banking group of the Ningbo Gang is really unimaginable.When did China set up a large banking group?Totally impossible.So this kind of integrated relationship has formed an unprecedented cross-shareholding bank group, and even to what extent are they united?In the period of the Republic of China, in 1916, due to the currency problems of the Bank of Communications, the Bank of China, etc. (I will not talk about the details), there was a wave of runs.In order to cope with the wave of runs, the government in Beijing at the time announced that no exchange or withdrawal was allowed.And the Ningbo merchant gang led by Song Hanzhang united all the banks of the Zhejiang merchant gang to boycott Beijing. Who did they turn to for help?Find HSBC and other foreign-funded banks to provide them with financing, so that ordinary people can withdraw as much as they like.Because he said a word, the credibility of Ningbo people cannot be destroyed because of the policy change of the Beijing government.Therefore, Ningbo businessmen rely on the belief of cross-shareholding, get together and support each other, and finally stabilize the finance of the entire Greater Shanghai area. The achievements of Ningbo natives in the financial world make their fellow industrialists in Shanghai even more powerful.In Shanghai, Ningbo people became the trendsetters of that era.China's first daily-use chemical factory, the first machine dyeing and weaving enterprise, the first light bulb factory, the earliest private instrument factory, and even the earliest insurance company, real estate company, and stock exchange are all located in Ningbo. Hands were born.Different from Shanxi merchants, Huizhou merchants and Lake merchants, Ningbo merchants can be said to be the first group of merchants in China who are good at converting commercial profits into industrial capital. This is a major feature of Ningbo people, so how do Ningbo people invest? Woolen cloth?
Let's see what kind of business level people in Ningbo were at that time.Liu Hongsheng said a word - without industry and commerce, a bank cannot exist for a long time; without banks, industry and commerce will be destroyed.This is what Liu Hongsheng said 100 years ago. What kind of company does he run?Operating Dazhong Match Company, Shanghai Huashang Cement Company, and Shanghua Textile, with more than 10 enterprises.So what financial institution do you rely on?Relying on his own bank, Yu Qiaqing founded the Sanbei Shipping Group, which became the largest shipping group in China in 1927.He said a word, called borrowing money to buy old boats, the poorer you buy the more boats.What does that mean?He founded Siming Bank, and formed a financial consortium with seven or eight other financial institutions to make loans. He spent 50,000-100,000 silver dollars to buy old ships, and used 150,000-200,000 yuan for financing.How much money did Siming Bank lend him in the end? 3 million silver dollars.Relying on this combination of industry and finance made Yu Qiaqing an industry giant and Liu Hongsheng a diversified consortium, all of which were industry-finance integration.Taking Liu Hongsheng as an example, he has both heavy industry, light industry and service industry.He knew the importance of complementarity between finance and industry 100 years ago. There is also a Ningbo native named Fang Yexian. What kind of business has he run?Let me list it for your reference. There are 16 factories, including sulfur, nitrate, magnesium, toys, medicines, cotton fabrics, cosmetics, etc., all of which are manufactured by themselves. The 16 factories are absolutely diversified.He is the founder of the largest daily chemical industry enterprise in China, and it is a diversified operation with decentralized investment and centralized management. In addition, Liu Hongsheng finally expanded the enterprise to include coal mines, coal pellets, matches, cement, plush textiles, docks, and bank insurance. It is also a large group that includes manufacturing, light industry, transportation, and finance. Self-responsible for profit and loss, and there is a possibility of complementarity among enterprises.But what is complementarity? I once asked one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" in Hong Kong a question, how do you invest?He said that when he made an investment, he first thought of which one to make up for if it failed.In other words, his thinking is different from ours. When we invest, we first think about how much money we can make, but he wants to lose how much. If he loses, which part of his original business will he use to make up for it?What does it mean?We can understand it this way: if this new company fails, another company must make money to make up for the losses of the new company. This phenomenon of a bad match with a good is called complementary thinking.The companies he chose are basically complementary, and the same goes for Liu Hongsheng.The business philosophy of Ningbo entrepreneurs at that time is now adopted by the entire Hong Kong business community. Today's Zhejiang merchants have a common characteristic, as long as there is a business to do, they will all set foot in it, and they want to make big money, as well as small money; Zhejiang people are willing to do what others don't bother to do.They believe that there are markets everywhere and opportunities everywhere.Moreover, they often start from small places that others don't pay much attention to. For them, a screw or a button is a business that cannot be underestimated. In addition to hard work and integrity, the success of the Ningbo Gang is also inseparable from their business spirit of daring to be the first. Can you believe that the first advertisement in China was created by a businessman in Ningbo?
Look at the talents used by these people in Ningbo. First, they employ people on their merits and do not engage in personal relationships.For example, Sanyou Industrial Co., Ltd. does not use the third master—young master, son-in-law, uncle, all of them are not used.Fang Ye first had a library and a chemistry laboratory.What era was that? In 1923, after returning to China, he established the first glycerin factory in China. The school founded by "Hardware King" Ye Chengzhong has cultivated famous scholars such as Pao Yugang and Run Run Shaw. Why are they able to obtain leadership positions in Hong Kong?Because they have all experienced the scientific education of these Ningbo entrepreneurs and cultivated them into the most talented people.Don't think that Bao Yugang and Run Run Shaw are just businessmen who build boats and movies. It is not that simple. The entrepreneurial wisdom they have cultivated under the guidance of these predecessors is the main reason. In addition to this kind of head-to-head, the Ningbo Gang also engaged in a very interesting thing called advertising.Advertisements were not invented by them, but in the 30th year of Guangxu, that is, in 1904, the first advertisement similar to melatonin appeared in China.What is Melatonin?It's sleeping pills. Think about it, is it possible for you to give sleeping pills to your friends?No way.But where is the success of Melatonin advertising?It’s not an advertisement saying how good my sleeping pill is, how powerful it is, or how complicated the raw material is. No, they once advertised this kind of advertisement, saying that this is good and that is good, and they can’t sell it at the end. money.Why?Because we usually don't give sleeping pills to friends.They finally changed a concept, what concept?Melatonin is given as a gift, so I can no longer see the advertisement of how effective Melatonin is. I only know that after you give it, your parents will dance like the cartoon grandparents on the advertisement.This is the reason why Melatonin can be successful, transforming the concept of medicine into a non-medicinal gift.This is a new way of thinking in advertising only after 2003 and 2004. In 1904, there was a gentleman named Huang Chujiu. He was very humorous. What does Huang mean?Yellow yellow is called Yellow.He had memorized this word before, and our ancestors' English level was still good at that time.What did he do? Yellow, which he translated into Ai Luo, is called Ai Luo Bu Brain.It is the same concept as Melatonin.So how does he create concepts?He will never say how powerful my medicine is. He said a word, he said that 1 cent of the cost is matched with 9 cents of advertising, isn't that an advertisement for melatonin?He advertised in the "Shenzhen" and "News".How does he advertise?Think about it, do you want to be smart?Of course I did.Who is the smartest?Of course, the Jews are the smartest, and I deeply agree with this truth, because when I was teaching in the United States, the students with the best scores must be Jews. So what is Huang Chujiu doing?He used pictures of Jews, a little boy who feels like Melatonin, Melatonin is grandparents dancing, Huang Chujiu’s advertisement is a Jewish child, this child is called "Yellow".How creative!He used the current concept of melatonin, cut it off from the medicine, and then treated it as a gift.Why?Because in terms of melatonin, this sleeping pill can be given to grandparents as a gift.But in that era, this gift was to nourish the brain, and it could also be given to others.Why?Because quasi want their kids to be as smart as Jewish kids, it created a fictional concept.Melatonin Advertisement Whether you like it or not, it is a success.And Arrow's Brain Brain had this concept 100 years ago. When we go shopping, we will see a lot of franchise stores. Do you think it is our original creation?Do you think there was no such thing in the period of the Republic of China?Let me tell you that it is Ningbo people who really invented franchise stores.People in Ningbo invented the consignment system. Just like us now, a certain deposit is paid to establish this so-called franchise system. Please see, as we mentioned earlier, Ningbo people have contributed unprecedented cross-shareholding, unprecedented integration of industry and finance, unprecedented diversified operations, unprecedented virtual concept advertising, and unprecedented franchisee system.These ideas are novel in our China today, not to mention that it was 100 years ago! Different from other business gangs, the Ningbo Gang has always stood at the peak of Chinese business and has not been eliminated so far.These people who have been accustomed to smelling the fishy smell of the sea since childhood have both business savvy and scholarly morality. It is they who have made China complete the transformation from traditional commerce to modern commerce, and promoted the development of modern Chinese national industry. develop.According to statistics, there are currently more than 73,000 Ningbo businessmen distributed in 64 countries and regions around the world. Including their descendants, the total number of Ningbo gang exceeds 300,000. What kind of miracles will the Ningbo Gang create?Perhaps the biggest guesses are conservative...
The background of the Ningbo Gang is similar to that of Huizhou merchants, and the land is extremely barren and the population is extremely large.In the past, we had a saying called "Huguang is ripe, the world is full", which means that the provinces here in Huguang have a good harvest, and the world can be full.But this word is different in Ningbo, what is it called?It is called "Ningbo cooked, a bowl of porridge". The harvest in Ningbo can only be made into a bowl of porridge.Therefore, under this difficult business environment, an atmosphere for Ningbo people to do business has been created.Moreover, there are only two successful business gangs in our history, one is the Ningbo Gang and the other is the Guangdong Gang.Why?All rely on the sea.Moreover, these places are all comprador distribution centers, and the people from Ningbo and Guangdong were the first to come into contact with modern western management knowledge. Because they were too poor, their original capital accumulation was to do business on the extremely dangerous sea at that time, which was very difficult.In the Song Dynasty, people doing business along the coast of Fujian worshiped a god called Mazu, the god of the sea, who protected these fishermen.However, apart from worshiping Avalokitesvara, Zhejiang people have no special gods to protect the people of Zhejiang.After you have heard me talk about Huizhou and Huzhou, you will find that these business gangs came with inexplicable opportunities, such as opportunities for salt and silk, and then succeeded, and finally fell flat.But the Ningbo Gang is different. It mainly came from the turbulent sea trade. By the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the main source was the copper trade with Japan. Ningbo is located on the coast of the East China Sea and is one of the earliest trading ports in China. Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, Ningbo merchants have traded with foreign countries. The commercial civilization brought about by the opening up has given Ningbo people the ambition to enter the world.More than a century ago, when the smoke of the Opium War had not completely dissipated from the beach in Shanghai, the people of Ningbo across the water left their hometowns and came to the new world of Shanghai.They set up a camp in front of Huangpu Beach and established the earliest shantytowns. With their barber knives, kitchen knives and planting scissors, they started their entrepreneurial journey in the world. And people call the merchants in the six counties of Yin County, Fenghua, Cixi, Zhenhai, Dinghai, and Xiangshan, which belonged to the old Ningbo Prefecture, who operated in other cities, the Ningbo Gang. So, how did the Ningbo Gang create an economic myth?
I ask readers to think about it, who was the first to set up a post office in China?Let me tell you again, you all know that the U.S. post office is the only company in the U.S., and almost all post offices in the world are operated by the government, let alone China.So do you know who built the world's first post office?Ningbo people.When did you do it?Let me list this for your reference. In 1403, during the reign of Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty and during the reign of Yongle, the first Minxin Bureau was established, which is the current post office. In 1403, it was still in the era of cold weapons. At that time, the delivery of goods had to find Escorts.At that time, the Civil Information Bureau could deliver letters, newspapers, and bank notes by post, and also delivered goods. Why do people hand over letters and contracts to you?Because the credit of Ningbo merchants is excellent, basically it can be said that it is as good as it is, and this is the fiduciary responsibility I often talk about.Ningbo businessmen put great emphasis on fiduciary responsibility more than 600 years ago. When you deliver things to my Civil Information Bureau, I have unlimited responsibilities to you. Very high evaluation, his original intention is to say that Ningbo people are the best businessmen in the country, that's what he means.What are the characteristics of Ningbo people?I think that what I will talk about below is all related to the creativity of Ningbo Business Group. If you think about it, the post office could be thought of 600 years ago. This kind of creativity is not ordinary, and all the business activities of Ningbo merchants after that basically come from their creativity.And this kind of creativity is not what we call the creativity of being a comprador in the late Qing Dynasty, because the Minxin Bureau in 1403 has fully demonstrated the creativity of Ningbo people, which surprised me very much. In Ningbo, there is a street called "Medicine Street". In the 1920s and 1930s, this street was once full of large and small pharmacies.Because of Ningbo people's business philosophy of "credibility and honesty", this medicinal street once became the center of the Chinese medicinal material industry.Ningbo people pay attention to authenticity when doing business, and we can still see the golden signboards of these century-old shops until today, and they have not faded in the slightest. There is a saying in Ningbo that "the master of the world is not as good as the buyer".This sentence is easy to say, but it is impossible to do it without the wisdom and mind beyond ordinary people. The integrity of the Ningbo Gang is established in the business wars.
Let’s talk about Song Hanzhang first. He is a very typical representative and a person with very, very fiduciary responsibilities.He founded China Insurance Company in 1931 with a capital of 2.5 million silver dollars, and one silver dollar is equal to 0.72 taels of silver.At that time, the Rong Yiren family insured a spinning mill in Hankou for accident insurance in 1931. Unfortunately, a fire broke out. How much was the compensation? 2 million silver dollars, equal to 1.44 million taels of silver, just enough to buy an ironclad ship.But Song Hanzhang only had 2.5 million capital at that time, and he was really unlucky to accept this order. The Rong family was burned down, and he had to pay 2 million yuan at once, which caused an uproar. Will you pay it?The situation at that time was "ten compensation and nine losses". Of course, it is similar now.At that time, many policyholders were very nervous. Will you pay or not?He wanted to pay 2 million out of the 2.5 million capital, but Song Hanzhang was from Ningbo. Since 1403, the fiduciary responsibility formed by Ningbo people told him from the bottom of his heart that he had to pay, so he gritted his teeth and paid for it.After paying the compensation, the Rong family is very grateful. Maybe I expected you to pay half of it. I didn’t expect it to be fully compensated, and the speed is very fast. Therefore, Rong Yiren advertised on the "Shen Bao" to express his gratitude, and at the same time it is equivalent to Song Hanzhang’s Chinese insurance company. Made a positive push to make it a step deeper.It was really rare for the insurance industry at that time to have such boldness and fiduciary responsibility. And when we stroll in Ningbo, we will see many time-honored drugstores. There are 81 existing time-honored drugstores in China. Guess how many of them are from Ningbo? There are 13, accounting for 16% of the total. Of the 81 time-honored drugstores, 13 are from Ningbo. This proportion is not surprising.A TV series broadcast in the past two years is called, have you watched it?Whose story is it telling?Its prototype is Tong Ren Tang founded by the Le family in Ningbo in Beijing. When this family was making medicine, any prescriptions were handed down from ancient times, and none of the medicines was not true.They strictly followed the precepts of their ancestors and were meticulous. Although they bought a lot of ginseng, which was very expensive, he didn't worry about it. This was the level of Ningbo merchants at that time.From the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, I believe that the responsibility of trust drove the survival of the entire Ningbo Gang. Most of the streets in the Shanghai Concession were named after Westerners, and there are also two Chinese names among them. These two people are Yu Qiaqing and Zhu Baosan.They are all figures from Ningbo who were all-powerful back then. In 1898, the French Concession authorities attempted to occupy the real estate of the Siming Office, the residence of the Ningbo Association.At that time, Ningbo people immediately held a township representative meeting and issued a decision to strike.Immediately afterwards, all Ningbo people in Shanghai took action. Ningbo sailors, dock porters, post and telecommunications workers working in foreign shipping companies, and even Ningbo cooks and nannies working in foreign families all voluntarily left the apartments of foreigners.The entire French Concession was paralyzed.In the end, the French Concession had to make a concession, promising never to violate the Siming Mansion. It was the unity of Ningbo people that made this victory possible.And in commercial activities, Ningbo people also use the power of unity to save themselves from crisis time and time again.
In 1909, Mr. Yu Qiaqing did not know what went wrong in his head. At that time, under the pressure of the British Swire Co., Ltd. and the French Oriental Company, he suddenly wanted to build a ferry.At that time, the fare of the ferry from Shanghai to Ningbo was 1 yuan, and he said 50 cents for a ferry ride. He directly established a Ningshao shipping company to compete with foreign firms in Britain and France.Why do you compete?Taikoo Foreign Bank has a big fortune, and if you do it with you, the ticket price will be reduced to 30 cents, and Yu Qiaqing can't do it anymore.So a group of people from the Ningbo Business Gang organized an industry maintenance meeting unique in the history of shipping. They raised 100,000 silver dollars to subsidize Yu Qiaqing, that is, subsidize 20 cents for each ticket, and let him compete with Swire Pacific with 30 cents. Because of this Incidentally, Yu Qiaqing came back to life, and at the same time, the members of the industry maintenance association also handed over the goods to this company for transportation to help him.In the end, Yu Qiaqing finally defeated Taikoo in the competition and won. What year did this happen? It was the end of the Qing Dynasty, 1909, the first year of Xuantong.The foreign-funded enterprises at that time were thousands of times more arrogant than the current foreign-funded enterprises. How dare you break ground on the head of a tiger?That is Comrade Yu Qiaqing.If there is no support from Ningbo Business Gang, how can he continue to do it? By 1910, Ningbo people had set up a Ningbo Travelers Association in Shanghai, which was not what we imagined, such as eating and holding a party.What are they doing?Just take care of each other, they do a few things.First, among banks and banks, mutual holdings, part-time jobs, inter-borrowing, mutual investment, and joint risk-taking, the establishment of a large consortium and a large banking group of the Ningbo Gang is really unimaginable.When did China set up a large banking group?Totally impossible.So this kind of integrated relationship has formed an unprecedented cross-shareholding bank group, and even to what extent are they united?In the period of the Republic of China, in 1916, due to the currency problems of the Bank of Communications, the Bank of China, etc. (I will not talk about the details), there was a wave of runs.In order to cope with the wave of runs, the government in Beijing at the time announced that no exchange or withdrawal was allowed.And the Ningbo merchant gang led by Song Hanzhang united all the banks of the Zhejiang merchant gang to boycott Beijing. Who did they turn to for help?Find HSBC and other foreign-funded banks to provide them with financing, so that ordinary people can withdraw as much as they like.Because he said a word, the credibility of Ningbo people cannot be destroyed because of the policy change of the Beijing government.Therefore, Ningbo businessmen rely on the belief of cross-shareholding, get together and support each other, and finally stabilize the finance of the entire Greater Shanghai area. The achievements of Ningbo natives in the financial world make their fellow industrialists in Shanghai even more powerful.In Shanghai, Ningbo people became the trendsetters of that era.China's first daily-use chemical factory, the first machine dyeing and weaving enterprise, the first light bulb factory, the earliest private instrument factory, and even the earliest insurance company, real estate company, and stock exchange are all located in Ningbo. Hands were born.Different from Shanxi merchants, Huizhou merchants and Lake merchants, Ningbo merchants can be said to be the first group of merchants in China who are good at converting commercial profits into industrial capital. This is a major feature of Ningbo people, so how do Ningbo people invest? Woolen cloth?
Let's see what kind of business level people in Ningbo were at that time.Liu Hongsheng said a word - without industry and commerce, a bank cannot exist for a long time; without banks, industry and commerce will be destroyed.This is what Liu Hongsheng said 100 years ago. What kind of company does he run?Operating Dazhong Match Company, Shanghai Huashang Cement Company, and Shanghua Textile, with more than 10 enterprises.So what financial institution do you rely on?Relying on his own bank, Yu Qiaqing founded the Sanbei Shipping Group, which became the largest shipping group in China in 1927.He said a word, called borrowing money to buy old boats, the poorer you buy the more boats.What does that mean?He founded Siming Bank, and formed a financial consortium with seven or eight other financial institutions to make loans. He spent 50,000-100,000 silver dollars to buy old ships, and used 150,000-200,000 yuan for financing.How much money did Siming Bank lend him in the end? 3 million silver dollars.Relying on this combination of industry and finance made Yu Qiaqing an industry giant and Liu Hongsheng a diversified consortium, all of which were industry-finance integration.Taking Liu Hongsheng as an example, he has both heavy industry, light industry and service industry.He knew the importance of complementarity between finance and industry 100 years ago. There is also a Ningbo native named Fang Yexian. What kind of business has he run?Let me list it for your reference. There are 16 factories, including sulfur, nitrate, magnesium, toys, medicines, cotton fabrics, cosmetics, etc., all of which are manufactured by themselves. The 16 factories are absolutely diversified.He is the founder of the largest daily chemical industry enterprise in China, and it is a diversified operation with decentralized investment and centralized management. In addition, Liu Hongsheng finally expanded the enterprise to include coal mines, coal pellets, matches, cement, plush textiles, docks, and bank insurance. It is also a large group that includes manufacturing, light industry, transportation, and finance. Self-responsible for profit and loss, and there is a possibility of complementarity among enterprises.But what is complementarity? I once asked one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" in Hong Kong a question, how do you invest?He said that when he made an investment, he first thought of which one to make up for if it failed.In other words, his thinking is different from ours. When we invest, we first think about how much money we can make, but he wants to lose how much. If he loses, which part of his original business will he use to make up for it?What does it mean?We can understand it this way: if this new company fails, another company must make money to make up for the losses of the new company. This phenomenon of a bad match with a good is called complementary thinking.The companies he chose are basically complementary, and the same goes for Liu Hongsheng.The business philosophy of Ningbo entrepreneurs at that time is now adopted by the entire Hong Kong business community. Today's Zhejiang merchants have a common characteristic, as long as there is a business to do, they will all set foot in it, and they want to make big money, as well as small money; Zhejiang people are willing to do what others don't bother to do.They believe that there are markets everywhere and opportunities everywhere.Moreover, they often start from small places that others don't pay much attention to. For them, a screw or a button is a business that cannot be underestimated. In addition to hard work and integrity, the success of the Ningbo Gang is also inseparable from their business spirit of daring to be the first. Can you believe that the first advertisement in China was created by a businessman in Ningbo?
Look at the talents used by these people in Ningbo. First, they employ people on their merits and do not engage in personal relationships.For example, Sanyou Industrial Co., Ltd. does not use the third master—young master, son-in-law, uncle, all of them are not used.Fang Ye first had a library and a chemistry laboratory.What era was that? In 1923, after returning to China, he established the first glycerin factory in China. The school founded by "Hardware King" Ye Chengzhong has cultivated famous scholars such as Pao Yugang and Run Run Shaw. Why are they able to obtain leadership positions in Hong Kong?Because they have all experienced the scientific education of these Ningbo entrepreneurs and cultivated them into the most talented people.Don't think that Bao Yugang and Run Run Shaw are just businessmen who build boats and movies. It is not that simple. The entrepreneurial wisdom they have cultivated under the guidance of these predecessors is the main reason. In addition to this kind of head-to-head, the Ningbo Gang also engaged in a very interesting thing called advertising.Advertisements were not invented by them, but in the 30th year of Guangxu, that is, in 1904, the first advertisement similar to melatonin appeared in China.What is Melatonin?It's sleeping pills. Think about it, is it possible for you to give sleeping pills to your friends?No way.But where is the success of Melatonin advertising?It’s not an advertisement saying how good my sleeping pill is, how powerful it is, or how complicated the raw material is. No, they once advertised this kind of advertisement, saying that this is good and that is good, and they can’t sell it at the end. money.Why?Because we usually don't give sleeping pills to friends.They finally changed a concept, what concept?Melatonin is given as a gift, so I can no longer see the advertisement of how effective Melatonin is. I only know that after you give it, your parents will dance like the cartoon grandparents on the advertisement.This is the reason why Melatonin can be successful, transforming the concept of medicine into a non-medicinal gift.This is a new way of thinking in advertising only after 2003 and 2004. In 1904, there was a gentleman named Huang Chujiu. He was very humorous. What does Huang mean?Yellow yellow is called Yellow.He had memorized this word before, and our ancestors' English level was still good at that time.What did he do? Yellow, which he translated into Ai Luo, is called Ai Luo Bu Brain.It is the same concept as Melatonin.So how does he create concepts?He will never say how powerful my medicine is. He said a word, he said that 1 cent of the cost is matched with 9 cents of advertising, isn't that an advertisement for melatonin?He advertised in the "Shenzhen" and "News".How does he advertise?Think about it, do you want to be smart?Of course I did.Who is the smartest?Of course, the Jews are the smartest, and I deeply agree with this truth, because when I was teaching in the United States, the students with the best scores must be Jews. So what is Huang Chujiu doing?He used pictures of Jews, a little boy who feels like Melatonin, Melatonin is grandparents dancing, Huang Chujiu’s advertisement is a Jewish child, this child is called "Yellow".How creative!He used the current concept of melatonin, cut it off from the medicine, and then treated it as a gift.Why?Because in terms of melatonin, this sleeping pill can be given to grandparents as a gift.But in that era, this gift was to nourish the brain, and it could also be given to others.Why?Because quasi want their kids to be as smart as Jewish kids, it created a fictional concept.Melatonin Advertisement Whether you like it or not, it is a success.And Arrow's Brain Brain had this concept 100 years ago. When we go shopping, we will see a lot of franchise stores. Do you think it is our original creation?Do you think there was no such thing in the period of the Republic of China?Let me tell you that it is Ningbo people who really invented franchise stores.People in Ningbo invented the consignment system. Just like us now, a certain deposit is paid to establish this so-called franchise system. Please see, as we mentioned earlier, Ningbo people have contributed unprecedented cross-shareholding, unprecedented integration of industry and finance, unprecedented diversified operations, unprecedented virtual concept advertising, and unprecedented franchisee system.These ideas are novel in our China today, not to mention that it was 100 years ago! Different from other business gangs, the Ningbo Gang has always stood at the peak of Chinese business and has not been eliminated so far.These people who have been accustomed to smelling the fishy smell of the sea since childhood have both business savvy and scholarly morality. It is they who have made China complete the transformation from traditional commerce to modern commerce, and promoted the development of modern Chinese national industry. develop.According to statistics, there are currently more than 73,000 Ningbo businessmen distributed in 64 countries and regions around the world. Including their descendants, the total number of Ningbo gang exceeds 300,000. What kind of miracles will the Ningbo Gang create?Perhaps the biggest guesses are conservative...