Chapter 15 Chapter 14 One of the Cantonese Merchants: The Guangzhou Gang
He was once the richest man in the world in the eyes of Western scholars.
His name is well-known in the United States and has been spread for half a century.
Once united, they could almost rival the British East India Company.
They have a natural business sense and a unique business vision.
Let me give readers an excerpt first. In 2001, the "Asian Wall Street Journal" had a special page "A Millennium", which listed the richest people in the world in the past 1,000 years:
In 2001, the "Asian Wall Street Journal" counted the 50 richest people in the world in the past 1,000 years, including Bill Gates, the former president of Microsoft.In China, a total of 6 people were selected. The top 5 were Mongolian Khan Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan who swallowed the Song Dynasty, Ming Dynasty eunuch Liu Jin, Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong's favorite minister He Shen, and National Government Finance and Foreign Minister Song Ziwen.The sixth place is a thirteen merchant named Wu Bingjian. In 1834, he became the world's richest man in the eyes of foreigners with a family property of 26 million taels of silver equivalent to 5 billion yuan.The first five can be said to be household names in China, but the sixth - Wu Bingjian, is still very unfamiliar to most people.So, who exactly is Wu Bingjian?What kind of organization is Thirteen Bank?
Who is Wu Bingjian?I think he is the representative of Cantonese businessmen.Cantonese merchants can be divided into two gangs, the first is the Guangzhou gang, and the second is the Chaozhou gang. Let’s talk about the Guangzhou Gang first.The city of Guangzhou already existed in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. When Sima Qian wrote "Historical Records", he praised Panyu in Guangzhou as one of the nine largest cities at that time, which was unimaginable.In the second year of Kaiyuan in the Tang Dynasty, that is, in 714 A.D., an official was established for the first time to govern, called Shibosi.From the Tang Dynasty until the Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties, Cantonese merchants gradually began to appear. Especially in the early years of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, that is, in 1573, the Ming government changed the tradition of governing Guangzhou with officials for the first time, and used the thirty-six industries that were relatively popular in Guangzhou at that time—the thirty-six lines, to co-manage.In the end, how to manage the thirty-six lines? According to modern jargon, the work it operates is equivalent to "non-governmental foreign economic and trade committees", which is almost what it means.It is not a simple trading company, but is responsible for attracting investment, managing, manipulating and so on.Doing this is also relatively complicated. It was started by thirty-six merchants at that time, as early as 1573. Thirty-six merchants evolved into the famous Thirteen merchants in the Qing Dynasty, which was the predecessor of Wu Bingjian's era.They hold the Canton Fair regularly in summer and winter every year. In fact, the Canton Fair in Guangzhou today probably started after 1573 if it dates back to the earliest.Now there is the Canton Fair, so the history of Guangzhou can be said to have a long history.Until the twenty-fourth year of Kangxi, that is, around 1685, the whole situation changed, because it was the era of maritime prohibition, and maritime trade was not allowed. What qualifications do foreign barbarians have to communicate with our celestial dynasty?It was not until Emperor Kangxi that the sea ban was opened, so several customs were established at this time, including the four customs of Fujian Customs, Guangdong Customs, Zhejiang Customs, and Jiang Customs. In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, after the situation stabilized, in 1685, Emperor Kangxi announced the abolition of the sea ban, the implementation of "open sea trade", and the establishment of four major customs offices in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi to manage foreign trade and collect tariffs. After that, people who came to China to engage in trade Foreign businessmen are increasing day by day.Therefore, in 1686, the local government of Guangdong recruited 13 relatively powerful merchants and designated them to do business with foreign merchants on foreign ships and collect customs duties on behalf of the customs.Since then, the famous "Guangzhou Thirteen Travels" in modern Chinese history was born. Although Kangxi implemented open sea trade, he actually adopted many policies that restricted foreign trade.At that time, Britain was eager to expand trade. In 1756, Hong Renhui, a British interpreter, suddenly arrived in Ningbo, Dinghai, Tianjin and other ports by armed ship, and made many outrageous and unreasonable demands, which surprised the then Emperor Qianlong. The instigator behind it was the East India Company, the chief merchant of Guangzhou trade at that time.
Around 1756, Britain conquered India, so Britain set up the East India Company with India as a springboard, and began to target China.The East India Company is different from what we think. Chinese enterprises and Western enterprises are two completely different situations.The West's aggression against China was led by the East India Company and backed by gunboats.That is to say, when the East India Company wants to attack Ningbo, Tianjin, or other things, it can call gunboats to fight.That is to lead the army with business and to lead the army with business. This is a very interesting phenomenon.Moreover, the strength of the East India Company is unimaginable.In the past, the UK did business with China directly from London, but after taking India from the UK, it used India as its base.The East India Company did a lot of opium trade. More importantly, the East India Company was the predecessor of the modern financial industry. What did it do?It has engaged in currency manipulation. I remember some data. Around 1808, it issued a total of 1.4 million taels of money orders, such as remittances from London and Bangladesh to China.A bill of exchange is just a bill of exchange, but as a result of manipulating the exchange rate, it earned more than 60,000 taels out of the 1.4 million taels of money, which means its profit margin should be 7%? 8%.The East India Company is also involved in finance, industry, and trade, especially selling opium to China. They are the most active. This is the notorious East India Company.And at that time, Britain won this privilege only after defeating the Netherlands and France. In 1756, the East India Company called on the gunboats to attack Ningbo and Shanghai again. In fact, it did not fight, but forced trade, and then made many unreasonable demands, which made the rulers of the Qing Dynasty very nervous. It is a barbarian country, and I don’t want to do business with it, so from 1756 to 1757, Emperor Qianlong ordered the four customs to be closed, and we only trade in Guangzhou.This moment is the beginning of the rise of the Cantonese business gang. In order to prevent foreign merchant ships from going northward, Qianlong tried to raise tariffs at Ningbo and other ports, but to his surprise, British merchant ships would rather pay more tariffs than go to Zhejiang for trade. merchants trade in one place in Guangzhou.From then on, Guangzhou entered the era of "one-port trade". In order to facilitate management, the Qing government entrusted the "Thirteen Banks" in Guangzhou to assist the Guangdong Customs in operating and managing foreign trade. Thus, the "Thirteen Banks" became a semi-official monopoly group , due to its exclusive power in trade, Thirteen Banks accumulated a lot of wealth in a short period of time. According to the "Guangzhou Thirteen Travels in the Qing Dynasty", a fire occurred in the Thirteen Travels in 1822 and lasted for seven days and seven nights. The melted foreign silver in the fire flowed all over the street, and flowed out for a distance of one or two miles!
This Thirteen Merchant has accumulated a lot of money. Let me take the 6 richest Chinese in the "Asian Wall Street Journal" as an example. How much money does Comrade Wu Bingjian have?By about 1834, his total fortune was close to $56 million.Each of the Thirteen Banks has a name. For example, the bank where Wu Bingjian works is called Yihe Bank. In the tenth year of Xianfeng, there was a businessman named Pan Zhengwei in Tongfu Bank. He has 100 million francs. This kind of financial resources is far inferior to that of Wu Bingjian. Comrade.What was the concept of the 100 million francs at that time?Already richer than the kings of many European countries at that time. But as I said, if the Thirteen Banks work together, they can compete with the East India Company. Simply put, the East India Company is the integration of various industries engaged in British trade in India, called the East India Company, and the East India Company After the company is integrated, it has huge capital, so it can become a pawn of the British military rule. Does the Qing government have such a similar idea?Readers, please think about it, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty were very smart, in fact they must be smarter than me, right? Why not merge the Thirteen Banks and set up an "East India Company" to compete with it?People at my level can think of it, how could the emperor of the Qing Dynasty not think of it? In fact, they all did it. What they did at that time was called "public barracks", which means that the government handles the ships of foreigners. That's what it means. The Thirteen Banks were integrated into China's "East India Company".However, it is very difficult to integrate the Chinese people. The thinking that everyone would rather be a chicken head than a phoenix tail makes integration very difficult, and the Qing Dynasty officials are very corrupt. Each of the thirteen lines has its own interests. The Indian Company was destroyed from it, so after 10 years of existence of the "public barbarian ship", our idea of establishing the East India Company in China failed completely, and the result of the failure was very tragic. In addition to the pain of losing power and humiliating the country, our entire business The empire collapsed completely. In the era of "one-port trade", the emperor had a great demand for Western luxury goods. In order to present gifts to the emperor, the merchants of the thirteen lines often paid out of their own pockets, which was miserable.At that time, the merchants of the Thirteen Banks often received donations of various names, and charitable donations became solicitations and forced donations. If they did not donate, they would be unkind to the rich and unfaithful to the emperor. The most unbearable thing for the merchants of Thirteen Lines is that the court adopts double standards on the debt issue.If the debts owed by foreign businessmen to the merchants, the imperial court would ignore them; if the debts owed by the merchants to foreign merchants, the imperial court would first confiscate the merchants’ homes and enter the government to repay the foreign debts. .
Let me now talk to you about how the Thirteen Banks collapsed. It was actually pretty miserable.Let me give you an example, don’t think it’s very rich. It is true that Wu Bingjian is very rich and has so much property, but other industries are not like this. Why?The debts are high and they have borrowed too much money, because they need to engage in transactions, such as buying tea or paying customs duties, they must use cash and silver.Moreover, the Qing Dynasty has been fighting for years since Emperor Qianlong, who to ask for money?Who to search for?Look for the Thirteen Bank of Cantonese Merchants to search and pay some money.Therefore, from Emperor Qianlong to Emperor Jiaqing, the White Lotus Sect, the Battle of Jinchuan, etc., a total of about 4 million taels of silver was seized from Cantonese businessmen. There was a lot more than that, and by 1780, I believe that was the year that the whole Hong Kong business went wrong. In 1780, there were 8 merchants, how much money did 4 of them owe to foreign merchants?I owed 1.07 million silver dollars, but the usury interest rate became 3.8 million.In fact, it doesn't matter if you owe it, but Emperor Qianlong is not happy. He is a very self-righteous person and a very face-saving person.He said how do you people owe money to foreigners? How can we owe money to foreigners in Tangtang Zhonghua? When the table was tapped, we owed 3.8 million taels. Okay, pay back 7.6 million taels to others, double repayment, because it is wrong to borrow money of.If there is this kind of emperor, he will recognize it, and the table will be sold for 7.6 million taels. Okay, you can pay it back, okay, who will pay it back?Emperor Qianlong thought for a long time, well, the rest of the merchants will pay the 7.6 million taels in 10 years, so the debts owed by the four merchants will be repaid by other merchants. What are the four merchants at the same time? What happens next, does the reader know?All the homes were confiscated and exiled to Yili.This is how the Qing government treated merchants. Let's take a look at how the British government cultivated the East India Company, giving what it wanted, with the East India Company as the forerunner and the gunboat as the backing.As for our merchants, the war will oppress him, and borrowing money will also oppress him. Borrowing 3.8 million taels is not enough, and repaying 7.6 million taels. What does this mean?And what's even more ridiculous?Beginning with Emperor Qianlong, Chinese borrowing from foreign countries has been very strictly controlled, and a so-called Baojia system has been established. The Baojia system means that as long as one merchant borrows money, all merchants bear unlimited repayment responsibilities. If you have a fair and equitable system, no, it is neither fair nor fair, and only sets restrictions on Chinese people.If a foreigner borrows money from the Chinese, it doesn't matter. If they run away, it doesn't matter. If they run away, they will run away.According to the information I collected, in 1814, the first lawsuit in China and the world came out, and it was one of the Thirteen Banks called Liquanhang. What was the name of its businessman?His name is Pan Changyao.In 1814, he went to the U.S. Supreme Court to sue foreign businessmen in New York and Philadelphia. He borrowed money from him and refused to repay it. Our Chinese emperor naturally ignored it.So these buddies went to the United States to file a lawsuit, and not only filed a lawsuit, but also wrote a letter to the then President Madison in 1815, saying that you should govern your businessmen well and not pay back the money owed.He thought that the President of the United States would be as stupid as Emperor Qianlong, who owed 1 million taels, and paid 2 million taels, nothing.If the Americans don't do it, the President of the United States pretends not to know.The letter written by Pan Changyao is still in three languages: Chinese, English, and Portuguese. This businessman's foreign language is still good. Where are these three letters kept?Both are preserved at the American Museum, the National Archives and Archives Bureau in Washington. He started to sue in 1814, and 10 years later, Liquan Bank went bankrupt and still hadn't received the money, although he won the lawsuit.On a certain level, the judicial system in the United States is a little bit fair, and debts are repaid, but what is the problem? There are only laws and lack of enforcement. Ten years later, Li Quan Xing went bankrupt and the money has not been received, although the winner has been judged.This is the pitiful situation of our merchants. In addition to being used for continuing business, most of the capital of the Thirteen Hong merchants was transformed into land capital and usury capital, but not transformed into industrial capital. Instead of serving the new economy, it was consolidating the old mode of production.He is the only one who stands out in foreign trade relying on advanced industrial management concepts.He not only owned real estate, real estate, tea gardens, shops, etc. in China, but also made bold investments in railways, securities transactions, and insurance business in the United States on the other side of the ocean, making Jardine House a veritable multinational consortium.
There are so many businessmen in Shisanhong, and only one person is Wu Bingjian. He is probably the first in the country to set up an investment company, which specializes in investing in American stocks, and also invests in American railways, including investing in Michigan Central Railway, Missouri River Railroad.At the same time, it also invests in minerals, including Albany Mines and Boston Mines.He does railways, mining, and stock trading, and he does it in the United States. Such a businessman with an international mindset is very rare in China, and at that time he knew that it was very smart to go to the United States to trade stocks.He invested in so many companies, but he did not invest by himself. He found an intermediary agent, which is the very famous Qichang Foreign Firm.He told Qichang Yangxing, in the future after I die, or after the end of the Qing Dynasty, you will continue to pay interest and money, who will you pay?Pay my children and grandchildren. But except for Wu Bingjian, everyone else is doing the same thing as Huizhou merchants. What is it?Get the best garden, the most beautiful garden, how beautiful is it?It's so beautiful that I don't even know how to describe it, because it's too complicated.The villas built by these merchants are magnificent, and they all have Western styles. They are not like the wood, stone, and brick carvings of Huizhou merchants, which are purely Chinese-style buildings. Their buildings, like the Old Summer Palace, use a combination of Chinese and Western styles. way constructed. For example, the villa of the Pan Shicheng family is made of Siam (Thailand) teak, the door is made of Siam teak, and the floor is marble.Marble floors have never been used in China, and this buddy is the first.The pillars in the room used to be wooden pillars, or the wooden pillars were decorated with gold, carved with dragons and painted phoenixes, it is not, they are all marble pillars, and what is inlaid on them?Sandalwood columns with mother-of-pearl, gold, silver and precious stones.Expensive furniture, painted with Japanese paint, and velvet and silk carpets imported from France decorate every room.As for this merchant, Comrade Pan Shicheng, he has properties worth hundreds of millions of francs, 50 wives and 80 servants. The annual maintenance cost of his luxury villa reaches 3 million francs.Do readers know the concept of 3 million francs?It's unimaginable, I don't know how to say it, 3 million francs is an ironclad ship, that's all it takes, a warship a year, that's how he spends it.And the whole style of luxury and extravagance they had at that time was beyond your imagination, but it is a pity that these people's money was not used in the right way.In fact, I have told so many stories about business gangs, and you will find that the biggest problem of our businessmen is that they have never had modern investment awareness. In 1792, with funding from the East India Company, the British government sent a Macartney mission to China.In the second year, the Qing government warmly received birthday congratulators from afar.During the audience, Macartney refused to kowtow, which made Qianlong very unhappy.It was only when Macartney put forward six requirements including opening trade, Qianlong suddenly realized, and angrily rejected his request.The East India Company, which could not succeed by relying on diplomatic means, decided to use opium trade to change the position of trade deficit by all means. The Qing government quickly realized the great harm of opium. Since then, the friction between the two countries on the issue of opium has continued to escalate, and finally led to war. .
When it came to the first Opium War, it was the beginning of the decline of Thirteen Lines. What was the situation of the first Opium War?At that time, there were 34 merchants, 20 of which went bankrupt, and 10 ransacked their homes and sent them to the frontier. This is what happened to them.Then, after the first Opium War in 1842, the "Nanjing Treaty" was signed, which caused bad luck for businessmen. Because the five-port trade was opened, the five-port trade was no longer limited to Guangzhou, so its past privileges disappeared from then on.But what was even worse was the compensation of 21 million silver dollars at that time, of which 3 million silver dollars were paid by the merchants.In the Second Opium War in 1856, the office of the Thirteen Banks in Guangzhou was completely destroyed by artillery fire. Since then, the Thirteen Banks disappeared without a trace.But now in Guangzhou, you can still find the street signs for Shisanxing Road. After the decline, the Cantonese were different from Huizhou merchants and Lake merchants. They did not feel sorry for themselves because of the decline.At this moment, the Cantonese of the Thirteen Lines followed the foreigners to explore various places, including Tianjin, Xiamen, Hankou, Hong Kong, Shanghai and other places you are familiar with. As long as there are foreigners, there are Cantonese, but it is a pity that these It's all passing by, and the Thirteen Banks did not become the East India Company after all.As a result, all the merchant gangs were scattered and scattered all over the place.Whether there is a factory or not, yes; whether there is a trading company, there is also.But these are not the overall strength after all. The powerful business gang is gone, which is also the complete disappearance of the Guangzhou Gang. In the century-long open pattern, Guangdong merchants have absorbed advanced ideas, technologies, and cultures from all over the world, making Guangdong since modern times, whether it is holding industries or advocating ideological enlightenment, always ahead of the times and becoming a modern An important source of revolutionary activities.Especially in the past 30 years, waves of entrepreneurs and reformers have emerged in Guangdong, and they are the first to "cross the river by feeling the stones" to create industry myths.In today's Guangzhou city, the Shisanxing Road is still full of traffic, and the Guangzhou Port is still full of boats, creating a bustling scene.After a hundred years of turmoil, I believe that tomorrow's new Cantonese businessmen will still be able to play new movements.
Who is Wu Bingjian?I think he is the representative of Cantonese businessmen.Cantonese merchants can be divided into two gangs, the first is the Guangzhou gang, and the second is the Chaozhou gang. Let’s talk about the Guangzhou Gang first.The city of Guangzhou already existed in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. When Sima Qian wrote "Historical Records", he praised Panyu in Guangzhou as one of the nine largest cities at that time, which was unimaginable.In the second year of Kaiyuan in the Tang Dynasty, that is, in 714 A.D., an official was established for the first time to govern, called Shibosi.From the Tang Dynasty until the Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties, Cantonese merchants gradually began to appear. Especially in the early years of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, that is, in 1573, the Ming government changed the tradition of governing Guangzhou with officials for the first time, and used the thirty-six industries that were relatively popular in Guangzhou at that time—the thirty-six lines, to co-manage.In the end, how to manage the thirty-six lines? According to modern jargon, the work it operates is equivalent to "non-governmental foreign economic and trade committees", which is almost what it means.It is not a simple trading company, but is responsible for attracting investment, managing, manipulating and so on.Doing this is also relatively complicated. It was started by thirty-six merchants at that time, as early as 1573. Thirty-six merchants evolved into the famous Thirteen merchants in the Qing Dynasty, which was the predecessor of Wu Bingjian's era.They hold the Canton Fair regularly in summer and winter every year. In fact, the Canton Fair in Guangzhou today probably started after 1573 if it dates back to the earliest.Now there is the Canton Fair, so the history of Guangzhou can be said to have a long history.Until the twenty-fourth year of Kangxi, that is, around 1685, the whole situation changed, because it was the era of maritime prohibition, and maritime trade was not allowed. What qualifications do foreign barbarians have to communicate with our celestial dynasty?It was not until Emperor Kangxi that the sea ban was opened, so several customs were established at this time, including the four customs of Fujian Customs, Guangdong Customs, Zhejiang Customs, and Jiang Customs. In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, after the situation stabilized, in 1685, Emperor Kangxi announced the abolition of the sea ban, the implementation of "open sea trade", and the establishment of four major customs offices in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi to manage foreign trade and collect tariffs. After that, people who came to China to engage in trade Foreign businessmen are increasing day by day.Therefore, in 1686, the local government of Guangdong recruited 13 relatively powerful merchants and designated them to do business with foreign merchants on foreign ships and collect customs duties on behalf of the customs.Since then, the famous "Guangzhou Thirteen Travels" in modern Chinese history was born. Although Kangxi implemented open sea trade, he actually adopted many policies that restricted foreign trade.At that time, Britain was eager to expand trade. In 1756, Hong Renhui, a British interpreter, suddenly arrived in Ningbo, Dinghai, Tianjin and other ports by armed ship, and made many outrageous and unreasonable demands, which surprised the then Emperor Qianlong. The instigator behind it was the East India Company, the chief merchant of Guangzhou trade at that time.
Around 1756, Britain conquered India, so Britain set up the East India Company with India as a springboard, and began to target China.The East India Company is different from what we think. Chinese enterprises and Western enterprises are two completely different situations.The West's aggression against China was led by the East India Company and backed by gunboats.That is to say, when the East India Company wants to attack Ningbo, Tianjin, or other things, it can call gunboats to fight.That is to lead the army with business and to lead the army with business. This is a very interesting phenomenon.Moreover, the strength of the East India Company is unimaginable.In the past, the UK did business with China directly from London, but after taking India from the UK, it used India as its base.The East India Company did a lot of opium trade. More importantly, the East India Company was the predecessor of the modern financial industry. What did it do?It has engaged in currency manipulation. I remember some data. Around 1808, it issued a total of 1.4 million taels of money orders, such as remittances from London and Bangladesh to China.A bill of exchange is just a bill of exchange, but as a result of manipulating the exchange rate, it earned more than 60,000 taels out of the 1.4 million taels of money, which means its profit margin should be 7%? 8%.The East India Company is also involved in finance, industry, and trade, especially selling opium to China. They are the most active. This is the notorious East India Company.And at that time, Britain won this privilege only after defeating the Netherlands and France. In 1756, the East India Company called on the gunboats to attack Ningbo and Shanghai again. In fact, it did not fight, but forced trade, and then made many unreasonable demands, which made the rulers of the Qing Dynasty very nervous. It is a barbarian country, and I don’t want to do business with it, so from 1756 to 1757, Emperor Qianlong ordered the four customs to be closed, and we only trade in Guangzhou.This moment is the beginning of the rise of the Cantonese business gang. In order to prevent foreign merchant ships from going northward, Qianlong tried to raise tariffs at Ningbo and other ports, but to his surprise, British merchant ships would rather pay more tariffs than go to Zhejiang for trade. merchants trade in one place in Guangzhou.From then on, Guangzhou entered the era of "one-port trade". In order to facilitate management, the Qing government entrusted the "Thirteen Banks" in Guangzhou to assist the Guangdong Customs in operating and managing foreign trade. Thus, the "Thirteen Banks" became a semi-official monopoly group , due to its exclusive power in trade, Thirteen Banks accumulated a lot of wealth in a short period of time. According to the "Guangzhou Thirteen Travels in the Qing Dynasty", a fire occurred in the Thirteen Travels in 1822 and lasted for seven days and seven nights. The melted foreign silver in the fire flowed all over the street, and flowed out for a distance of one or two miles!
This Thirteen Merchant has accumulated a lot of money. Let me take the 6 richest Chinese in the "Asian Wall Street Journal" as an example. How much money does Comrade Wu Bingjian have?By about 1834, his total fortune was close to $56 million.Each of the Thirteen Banks has a name. For example, the bank where Wu Bingjian works is called Yihe Bank. In the tenth year of Xianfeng, there was a businessman named Pan Zhengwei in Tongfu Bank. He has 100 million francs. This kind of financial resources is far inferior to that of Wu Bingjian. Comrade.What was the concept of the 100 million francs at that time?Already richer than the kings of many European countries at that time. But as I said, if the Thirteen Banks work together, they can compete with the East India Company. Simply put, the East India Company is the integration of various industries engaged in British trade in India, called the East India Company, and the East India Company After the company is integrated, it has huge capital, so it can become a pawn of the British military rule. Does the Qing government have such a similar idea?Readers, please think about it, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty were very smart, in fact they must be smarter than me, right? Why not merge the Thirteen Banks and set up an "East India Company" to compete with it?People at my level can think of it, how could the emperor of the Qing Dynasty not think of it? In fact, they all did it. What they did at that time was called "public barracks", which means that the government handles the ships of foreigners. That's what it means. The Thirteen Banks were integrated into China's "East India Company".However, it is very difficult to integrate the Chinese people. The thinking that everyone would rather be a chicken head than a phoenix tail makes integration very difficult, and the Qing Dynasty officials are very corrupt. Each of the thirteen lines has its own interests. The Indian Company was destroyed from it, so after 10 years of existence of the "public barbarian ship", our idea of establishing the East India Company in China failed completely, and the result of the failure was very tragic. In addition to the pain of losing power and humiliating the country, our entire business The empire collapsed completely. In the era of "one-port trade", the emperor had a great demand for Western luxury goods. In order to present gifts to the emperor, the merchants of the thirteen lines often paid out of their own pockets, which was miserable.At that time, the merchants of the Thirteen Banks often received donations of various names, and charitable donations became solicitations and forced donations. If they did not donate, they would be unkind to the rich and unfaithful to the emperor. The most unbearable thing for the merchants of Thirteen Lines is that the court adopts double standards on the debt issue.If the debts owed by foreign businessmen to the merchants, the imperial court would ignore them; if the debts owed by the merchants to foreign merchants, the imperial court would first confiscate the merchants’ homes and enter the government to repay the foreign debts. .
Let me now talk to you about how the Thirteen Banks collapsed. It was actually pretty miserable.Let me give you an example, don’t think it’s very rich. It is true that Wu Bingjian is very rich and has so much property, but other industries are not like this. Why?The debts are high and they have borrowed too much money, because they need to engage in transactions, such as buying tea or paying customs duties, they must use cash and silver.Moreover, the Qing Dynasty has been fighting for years since Emperor Qianlong, who to ask for money?Who to search for?Look for the Thirteen Bank of Cantonese Merchants to search and pay some money.Therefore, from Emperor Qianlong to Emperor Jiaqing, the White Lotus Sect, the Battle of Jinchuan, etc., a total of about 4 million taels of silver was seized from Cantonese businessmen. There was a lot more than that, and by 1780, I believe that was the year that the whole Hong Kong business went wrong. In 1780, there were 8 merchants, how much money did 4 of them owe to foreign merchants?I owed 1.07 million silver dollars, but the usury interest rate became 3.8 million.In fact, it doesn't matter if you owe it, but Emperor Qianlong is not happy. He is a very self-righteous person and a very face-saving person.He said how do you people owe money to foreigners? How can we owe money to foreigners in Tangtang Zhonghua? When the table was tapped, we owed 3.8 million taels. Okay, pay back 7.6 million taels to others, double repayment, because it is wrong to borrow money of.If there is this kind of emperor, he will recognize it, and the table will be sold for 7.6 million taels. Okay, you can pay it back, okay, who will pay it back?Emperor Qianlong thought for a long time, well, the rest of the merchants will pay the 7.6 million taels in 10 years, so the debts owed by the four merchants will be repaid by other merchants. What are the four merchants at the same time? What happens next, does the reader know?All the homes were confiscated and exiled to Yili.This is how the Qing government treated merchants. Let's take a look at how the British government cultivated the East India Company, giving what it wanted, with the East India Company as the forerunner and the gunboat as the backing.As for our merchants, the war will oppress him, and borrowing money will also oppress him. Borrowing 3.8 million taels is not enough, and repaying 7.6 million taels. What does this mean?And what's even more ridiculous?Beginning with Emperor Qianlong, Chinese borrowing from foreign countries has been very strictly controlled, and a so-called Baojia system has been established. The Baojia system means that as long as one merchant borrows money, all merchants bear unlimited repayment responsibilities. If you have a fair and equitable system, no, it is neither fair nor fair, and only sets restrictions on Chinese people.If a foreigner borrows money from the Chinese, it doesn't matter. If they run away, it doesn't matter. If they run away, they will run away.According to the information I collected, in 1814, the first lawsuit in China and the world came out, and it was one of the Thirteen Banks called Liquanhang. What was the name of its businessman?His name is Pan Changyao.In 1814, he went to the U.S. Supreme Court to sue foreign businessmen in New York and Philadelphia. He borrowed money from him and refused to repay it. Our Chinese emperor naturally ignored it.So these buddies went to the United States to file a lawsuit, and not only filed a lawsuit, but also wrote a letter to the then President Madison in 1815, saying that you should govern your businessmen well and not pay back the money owed.He thought that the President of the United States would be as stupid as Emperor Qianlong, who owed 1 million taels, and paid 2 million taels, nothing.If the Americans don't do it, the President of the United States pretends not to know.The letter written by Pan Changyao is still in three languages: Chinese, English, and Portuguese. This businessman's foreign language is still good. Where are these three letters kept?Both are preserved at the American Museum, the National Archives and Archives Bureau in Washington. He started to sue in 1814, and 10 years later, Liquan Bank went bankrupt and still hadn't received the money, although he won the lawsuit.On a certain level, the judicial system in the United States is a little bit fair, and debts are repaid, but what is the problem? There are only laws and lack of enforcement. Ten years later, Li Quan Xing went bankrupt and the money has not been received, although the winner has been judged.This is the pitiful situation of our merchants. In addition to being used for continuing business, most of the capital of the Thirteen Hong merchants was transformed into land capital and usury capital, but not transformed into industrial capital. Instead of serving the new economy, it was consolidating the old mode of production.He is the only one who stands out in foreign trade relying on advanced industrial management concepts.He not only owned real estate, real estate, tea gardens, shops, etc. in China, but also made bold investments in railways, securities transactions, and insurance business in the United States on the other side of the ocean, making Jardine House a veritable multinational consortium.
There are so many businessmen in Shisanhong, and only one person is Wu Bingjian. He is probably the first in the country to set up an investment company, which specializes in investing in American stocks, and also invests in American railways, including investing in Michigan Central Railway, Missouri River Railroad.At the same time, it also invests in minerals, including Albany Mines and Boston Mines.He does railways, mining, and stock trading, and he does it in the United States. Such a businessman with an international mindset is very rare in China, and at that time he knew that it was very smart to go to the United States to trade stocks.He invested in so many companies, but he did not invest by himself. He found an intermediary agent, which is the very famous Qichang Foreign Firm.He told Qichang Yangxing, in the future after I die, or after the end of the Qing Dynasty, you will continue to pay interest and money, who will you pay?Pay my children and grandchildren. But except for Wu Bingjian, everyone else is doing the same thing as Huizhou merchants. What is it?Get the best garden, the most beautiful garden, how beautiful is it?It's so beautiful that I don't even know how to describe it, because it's too complicated.The villas built by these merchants are magnificent, and they all have Western styles. They are not like the wood, stone, and brick carvings of Huizhou merchants, which are purely Chinese-style buildings. Their buildings, like the Old Summer Palace, use a combination of Chinese and Western styles. way constructed. For example, the villa of the Pan Shicheng family is made of Siam (Thailand) teak, the door is made of Siam teak, and the floor is marble.Marble floors have never been used in China, and this buddy is the first.The pillars in the room used to be wooden pillars, or the wooden pillars were decorated with gold, carved with dragons and painted phoenixes, it is not, they are all marble pillars, and what is inlaid on them?Sandalwood columns with mother-of-pearl, gold, silver and precious stones.Expensive furniture, painted with Japanese paint, and velvet and silk carpets imported from France decorate every room.As for this merchant, Comrade Pan Shicheng, he has properties worth hundreds of millions of francs, 50 wives and 80 servants. The annual maintenance cost of his luxury villa reaches 3 million francs.Do readers know the concept of 3 million francs?It's unimaginable, I don't know how to say it, 3 million francs is an ironclad ship, that's all it takes, a warship a year, that's how he spends it.And the whole style of luxury and extravagance they had at that time was beyond your imagination, but it is a pity that these people's money was not used in the right way.In fact, I have told so many stories about business gangs, and you will find that the biggest problem of our businessmen is that they have never had modern investment awareness. In 1792, with funding from the East India Company, the British government sent a Macartney mission to China.In the second year, the Qing government warmly received birthday congratulators from afar.During the audience, Macartney refused to kowtow, which made Qianlong very unhappy.It was only when Macartney put forward six requirements including opening trade, Qianlong suddenly realized, and angrily rejected his request.The East India Company, which could not succeed by relying on diplomatic means, decided to use opium trade to change the position of trade deficit by all means. The Qing government quickly realized the great harm of opium. Since then, the friction between the two countries on the issue of opium has continued to escalate, and finally led to war. .
When it came to the first Opium War, it was the beginning of the decline of Thirteen Lines. What was the situation of the first Opium War?At that time, there were 34 merchants, 20 of which went bankrupt, and 10 ransacked their homes and sent them to the frontier. This is what happened to them.Then, after the first Opium War in 1842, the "Nanjing Treaty" was signed, which caused bad luck for businessmen. Because the five-port trade was opened, the five-port trade was no longer limited to Guangzhou, so its past privileges disappeared from then on.But what was even worse was the compensation of 21 million silver dollars at that time, of which 3 million silver dollars were paid by the merchants.In the Second Opium War in 1856, the office of the Thirteen Banks in Guangzhou was completely destroyed by artillery fire. Since then, the Thirteen Banks disappeared without a trace.But now in Guangzhou, you can still find the street signs for Shisanxing Road. After the decline, the Cantonese were different from Huizhou merchants and Lake merchants. They did not feel sorry for themselves because of the decline.At this moment, the Cantonese of the Thirteen Lines followed the foreigners to explore various places, including Tianjin, Xiamen, Hankou, Hong Kong, Shanghai and other places you are familiar with. As long as there are foreigners, there are Cantonese, but it is a pity that these It's all passing by, and the Thirteen Banks did not become the East India Company after all.As a result, all the merchant gangs were scattered and scattered all over the place.Whether there is a factory or not, yes; whether there is a trading company, there is also.But these are not the overall strength after all. The powerful business gang is gone, which is also the complete disappearance of the Guangzhou Gang. In the century-long open pattern, Guangdong merchants have absorbed advanced ideas, technologies, and cultures from all over the world, making Guangdong since modern times, whether it is holding industries or advocating ideological enlightenment, always ahead of the times and becoming a modern An important source of revolutionary activities.Especially in the past 30 years, waves of entrepreneurs and reformers have emerged in Guangdong, and they are the first to "cross the river by feeling the stones" to create industry myths.In today's Guangzhou city, the Shisanxing Road is still full of traffic, and the Guangzhou Port is still full of boats, creating a bustling scene.After a hundred years of turmoil, I believe that tomorrow's new Cantonese businessmen will still be able to play new movements.