A train that doesn't know where to go, carrying a group of people who are sleeping and indifferent. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info no one knows when they will arrive at the station, everyone doesn't even know where to go, they can hardly tell which is their own body. But there is hope, the baby is awake! Although he can only express the future he wants with gestures for the time being, as long as he does not give up, or even cry loudly, he will surely wake up more people who are sleeping......

I may not be able to wake up the people around me, I am just struggling not to let myself sleep, I am not capable of tearing down a wall, but I will not add even a single brick to this wall, I am destined not to change the power, I am just fighting not to let the power change me, I may not see the future for the rest of my life, but I will always remember my beliefs and direction. There is a seed in the depths of everyone's soul, some people choose to discard, and some people will create the soil for it to grow.

Shang Ying's five laws for controlling the people: 1. Weaken to strong, control the good with treachery, and implement hooligan politics and villain politics. 2. One Religion: Ideological Domination. 3. Deprivation of personal assets and creation of a society without perseverance. 4. Humiliating the people, the poor, and the weak: conducive to rule. 5. Killing power: start a war, kill strong enemies outside, and kill strong people inside. Therefore, Shang Ying actually died on his own five laws.

Private entrepreneurs, whether they are tied to the powerful and official, are actually a fat goose that is easy to be stripped naked. The only difference is that if the fat goose takes the initiative, it can still avoid jail time. The gun shoots the first bird, as long as it becomes bigger and stronger and makes a brand, it is about the same fate. State-owned enterprises are pro-born, the zombie enterprises in state-owned enterprises are too emperor, foreign companies are cheap next door Wang, and private enterprises are drag oil bottles, and it is best to have them.

On December 23, 1842, a Chinese man wrote to his friend J.P. Cushing in Massachusetts in Yangcheng that he really wanted to move to the United States if he was not too old to withstand the toss of flying across the sea. On the same day, he wrote to another American friend, Robert Forbes, "If I were a young man now, I would seriously consider sailing to America and settling somewhere near you." ”

The man who wrote the letter was extraordinary—he was the richest man in China, even regarded by the Wall Street Journal as the richest man in the world, and he was the most internationally known Chinese in the 19th century. This person was Wu Bingjian (1769-1843). Its assets, estimated in 1834, were 26 million silver dollars, equivalent to 18,720,000 taels of silver. This figure was nearly half of the fiscal revenue of the Chinese government that year. In 2008, Liu Yongxing, the richest man in mainland China, was estimated to have total assets of 20.4 billion yuan, less than 0.4% of the annual national fiscal revenue of more than 6 trillion yuan, which shows the huge wealth of Wu Bingjian that year.

Why did Wu Bingjian, the richest man in the late Qing Dynasty, want to move to the United States? You must know that the United States in 1842 was by no means the hegemon of the world today, and in the concept of the Chinese people at that time, the United States was not at all a paradise worth aspiring to.

Wu Bingjian was a merchant of the Thirteen Trades, and his wealth came mainly from foreign trade. Foreign trade is easy to make a fortune, but the risk of operation is not small. Research shows that the 13 trades are constantly changing, and the average lifespan of a foreign bank is less than 10 years. In the 84 years from 1760 to 1843, a total of 47 foreign firms were opened for business, while between 1771 and 1839, 37 closed down, with an average of one closing in less than two years. Many merchants went out of business because they owed official taxes or debts to foreign merchants, and it was not uncommon for them to go bankrupt, have their homes raided, go to prison, and confiscate their armies. Among the thirteen merchants, there are actually only two companies that are really successful, one is Pan's Tongwen Xing (later changed to Tongfu Xing), and the other is Wu's Jardine House. The founder of Jardine Matheson, Wu Guoying, used to be the bookkeeper of Tongwen Bank, and the early operation was not smooth, but later it finally developed and reached its peak under the management of Wu Bingjian, becoming the first businessman.

Wu Bingjian's success shows that he is a business wizard, far surpassing his contemporaries. Some existing materials, such as the business correspondence between Wu Bingjian and friends in the United States and India collected in the Becker Library of Harvard University and other places, show that Wu Bingjian is not an ordinary businessman of the Thirteen Lines, he has made extensive investments in Europe, the United States, and India, and his investment fields involve railways, securities, insurance, and other industries, and he looks more like a contemporary investor.

Wu Bingjian's overseas investments are all entrusted to foreign friends, and the mutual trust between him and foreign friends is beyond the imagination of ordinary people. In the eyes of foreigners, Wu Bingjian was full of charisma and "had an irreproachable reputation for honesty and fraternity", and was always regarded as a very trustworthy business partner. However, such a business elite can win the respect of foreign friends, but it is difficult to gain the respect he deserves in China.

Merchants, in traditional Chinese society, are at the end of the "four people" of scholars, farmers, industrialists, and merchants, although they can also spend money to donate to officials and wear "red tops" after they get rich, but in fact, their fate is still not under their control. One of the most important reasons for the bankruptcy of the merchants of the Thirteen Lines was that the business profits were drained by the authorities.

In the official view, the merchant is a piece of fat, and he can find a reason or even create a reason to fine. Once a foreign trader is found to have violated the regulations, the merchant with the guarantee liability will be subject to a fine of 50 times or even 100 times the excise tax. For example, in 1800, an East India Company merchant ship "Hugh Inglis" insured by Jardine Matheson, the personal belongings of the bookkeeper on board (two pairs of watches) were brought ashore because they were put in an iron box for safekeeping, and they were not taken out in time, and the customs officials thought that it had evaded taxes, and Jardine Matheson proposed to pay 180 silver dollars, and was fined 50 times the customs tax. Another trader was even worse, his insured "Silicester" was suspected of being involved in the smuggling of 48 seized feather yarns, and was fined 100 times the tax, the original tax of each horse was 14 taels of silver, and the 48 horses had to pay a total of 672 taels of tax, and the fine was as high as 67,200 silver dollars.

Officials also often asked merchants to donate their property, such as wars, floods and droughts, or the emperor's birthday, merchants should take the initiative to donate, which is called "donation" or "retribution". According to statistics, between 1773 and 1835, the merchants recorded in the official archives donated 5,085,000 taels of silver to the imperial court, and the actual donation amount was far more than that. Some materials made an account of Wu's donation, saying: "Ji Wu's has helped more than 10 million, and the donation is the crown in China." Ten million is only an approximate number, and it cannot be confirmed, but there is no doubt that in millions, for example, in 1833 alone, Jardine Matheson donated 500,000 taels.

Merchants were also often blackmailed by officials personally, and the slightest dissatisfaction led to great disaster. Wu was once likened to "a fat goose that can be easily stripped naked" or "fat sheep". Another successful trader, Pan Shi, said: "It is better to be a dog than a businessman." "The qualification of a trader is sometimes not completely voluntary, and once you have entered the trade, you cannot quit. Wu Bingjian asked for retirement but could not, and spent 900,000 silver dollars to change his position to his son, but the official still asked him to bear all the responsibilities of all the merchants, and he also expressed his willingness to donate 80% of the 26 million silver dollars to the official in order to enjoy the remaining 20% of the wealth is still not available.

In addition to the Qing Dynasty officials, foreigners are not good at ballast. The Qing Dynasty officials let the merchants "manage" the foreign merchants on their behalf, but the foreign merchants and the merchants were just trading partners, so where could they be controlled? Because the foreign trade system of the Qing Empire did not meet the requirements of modern international trade, the foreign merchants had always opposed and protested, and the merchants became rats in the bellows, and they were angry at both ends. Before the outbreak of the Opium War, Wu Bingjian wanted to act as a mediator to avoid the occurrence of war. But the angry Lord Lin Zexu would not follow his advice. As the head of the merchants, his heir and son Wu Shaorong was arrested and imprisoned, and he was chained and taken to Baoshun Foreign Company, which was founded by the big opium dealer, and became a bargaining chip to urge him to accept the arraignment, and Lin Zexu threatened that if he refused to go, Wu Bingjian would be executed. For the sake of his own life, he ignored this threat.

The Opium War was also the time when Wu broke his fortune. In May 1841, the Qing army was defeated and was forced to pay 6 million silver dollars to the British army for the ransom of the city (Yangcheng), and Wu paid 1.1 million yuan. The Treaty of Jinling was signed, demanding an indemnity of 21 million silver dollars, of which 3 million was owed by the merchants, and Wu paid 1 million yuan. At a time of national crisis, Wu, as a wealthy man, thinks that it is appropriate to pay no matter how much money he pays, after all, the interests of the country and the nation are higher than personal interests, not to mention that Wu has such financial resources.

However, there is another aspect of the matter, that is, under the rule of the Qing Empire, merchants were only the objects of officials' accumulation of wealth, and the safety of their lives and property was completely unguaranteed, not to mention their personal dignity.

For businessman Wu Bingjian, since he can't change reality, escape has become the only option. Wu Bingjian, who was in his old age, seemed to have seen through the world situation, so he thought of moving to the United States. The mentality revealed in Wu Bingjian's letter is appropriate, and the comment of scholar Chen Guodong is appropriate: "It seems that the famous Wu Haoguan (Haoguan is the business name of Ng's Jardine Matheson) was not only disappointed with the work of the foreign firm, but also with the entire Chinese social system. (To be continued.) )