In later generations, whenever the Thirteen Elements were mentioned, those who knew could always report Wu Bingjian, but they didn't know that the Pan family in the Thirteen Elements was far deeper than the Wu family. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Wu Bingjian is more famous because an American magazine rated him as the richest man in the world at that time, but he didn't know that the Wu family's wealth could not be compared with the Pan family at all.

The Wu family is mainly three generations, the first generation is Wu Bingjian's father Wu Guoying, the second generation is Wu Bingjian's brother Wu Bingjun, and when the fourth generation head Wu Chongyao, the Wu family began to decline.

However, the Pan family is much more calm than the Wu family, and they took the initiative to withdraw after accumulating huge wealth.

The Pan family has to say that Pan Zhencheng, the general merchant of the thirteen banks before the Wu family, Pan Zhencheng's father is an ordinary farmer, and he has a unique hard-working spirit of Chinese farmers.

Pan Zhencheng inherited this fine tradition, but was forced by his family's poverty, and at the age of 13, he ventured to the sea as a shipwright, selling goods to the Philippines and selling them to foreigners, and in the long-term business dealings with foreigners, Pan Zhencheng learned Spanish, Portuguese and English.

Taking advantage of these advantages, when Pan Zhencheng was 24 years old, that is, in the third year of Qianlong, he joined a foreign firm in Guangzhou, a fellow villager in Fujian, and after earning enough money, his fellow villagers returned to their hometown with the money to buy land for the local owner. Pan Zhencheng also accumulated a sum of money at this time and applied to the Qing government to set up his own foreign bank, which is the famous Tongwen Bank.

Pan Zhencheng did not plan to make a quick buck and leave, so he has always been honest and credible in business, and has won the trust of foreigners, calling him "the most trustworthy businessman" and "the only person with the most credit in the business", and in the end, he will often advance him as much as 100,000 taels of advances, which makes Pan Zhencheng's business like a tiger.

Ten years later, Tongwen Bank had become the largest trading house in GD, and soon Qianlong ordered the closure of treaty ports in other places such as Fujian and Zheqi, and Guangzhou entered the era of trade that lasted for more than 80 years, and also entered the era of Pan Zhencheng.

In the eighteenth year of the establishment of Tongwen Bank, in the twenty-fifth year of Qianlong (1760), Pan Zhencheng was elected by the government as the general manager of the thirteen merchants in Guangzhou, and has been holding this position for the next 39 years, not only accumulating huge wealth, but also maintaining a prominent position in front of foreigners, according to a French businessman who had done business with Pan Qi at that time described in the "French Magazine", the Pan family consumed as many as 3 million francs a year, and the property was more than the estate of any king in Western Europe.

Just like Wu Bingjian intends to support the Americans, Pan Zhencheng also has his own trade partners, that is, the Swedish East India Company, which was still very weak at that time, the reason is very simple, this is a diplomatic strategy at the level of wealthy businessmen, Pan Zhencheng cannot see that the British are dominant, he needs to cultivate competitors for the British East India Company, just like the American Apple and other large companies in later generations, always cultivate different suppliers, let them compete and then make their own profits, the market will also discuss diplomatic strategies, It is quite possible that this is how the Western approach to diplomacy developed.

Because of this relationship, Pan Zhencheng built a strong trust with the Swedes, and even participated in the business of the Swedish East India Company, in which he invested heavily in it.

Sweden's famous Gothenburg cargo ship, the largest commodity supplier is Pan Zhencheng, you must know that this ship is built by Sweden with the strength of the whole country, and the Swedish king has high hopes for it. Later, Pan Zhencheng gave a glass portrait of himself to a Swedish merchant. The portrait has since been preserved in the Museum of the City of Gothenburg, Sweden. Pan Zhencheng was also the first Chinese merchant to use bills of exchange to do business with foreigners.

is the famous Wu family, at the beginning of his career, Wu Bingjian's father Wu Guoying was a partner in the Pan family's business house and learned how to do business with foreigners.

Therefore, it can be said that the Wu family grew up with the help of the Pan family, but Pan Zhencheng has a Chinese businessman's cultural inferiority complex, after he made a fortune, he did not train his children and grandchildren to continue to do business, but to cultivate talented children and grandchildren to study and become officials. Pan Zhencheng is proud of this, and at the same time ashamed of his status as a businessman.

Before his death, Pan Zhencheng also left a testament, so that the descendants of the Pan family would never be allowed to serve as the chief merchant. Even in his family's genealogy, there is no record of his deeds as a general merchant, and his two generations of successors, Pan Youdu and Pan Zhengwei, are not even recorded in the genealogy that they have ever been in business, in order to clear the businessman genes of the Pan family and completely transform into a poet and book family. Pan Youdu was even worse than his father, and issued the last words that he would rather be a dog than a merchant head.

With the efforts of several generations, Pan Zhencheng withdrew from the business world after the fourth generation, and the Pan family's Tongfu Bank was also sold to the Wu family.

As for Pan Shicheng, he is not the same as Pan Zhencheng, Pan Shicheng's grandfather is Pan Zhenlian, and Pan Zhencheng is a brother, and he also made a fortune in business in Guangzhou, but he is a salt merchant. But Pan Shicheng's branch has always wanted to join the business, Pan Shicheng's father Pan Zhengwei once applied to the Qing government to become a foreign businessman, but was not approved. But they secretly used their cousin's Uncle Pan Changyao's Liquan Line to trade with the British East India Company and made a lot of money. And it can also save 50,000 taels of commercial tax silver to the government every year, and when the business is handed over to Pan Shicheng, he will inherit 20 million taels of family business.

You must know that Pan Shicheng's branch is just a branch of the Pan family, and the family property can be compared with the Wu family. There is also Pan Changyao, who should not be underestimated, Pan Changyao's Liquan Line is also famous among the thirteen lines, although it finally went out of business, but it has also left a mark in Chinese history.

The most famous is that in 1814, Pan Changyao sued a merchant in New York and Philadelphia in the U.S. Supreme Court for defaulting on 1 million taels of goods. Because the Manchu court would not speak out in commercial disputes between Chinese merchants and foreign merchants at all, but always felt that once there was a conflict, it would be a loss of face for the kingdom, and Pan Changyao had no choice but to sue in the United States.

In 1815, Pan sent a letter to U.S. President Madison, asking the U.S. to pay attention to regulating its merchants. The letter was written in Portuguese, English and Chinese, and the three letters remain in the American Museum and the National Archives of the United States. It's a pity that Pan Changyao finally won the lawsuit, but he didn't get the money back, and it wasn't until 10 years later that Liquan Bank closed down and the payment was still not paid.

Pan Changyao, Pan Zhencheng and Pan Shicheng, it can be said that none of them is half a point worse than the Wu family, but because of the traditional concept of valuing agriculture and suppressing business, the Pan Zhencheng family, the core family of the Pan family, chose to retire and transform into a traditional gentry identity of cultivating and reading heirlooms, which gave the Wu family a chance to rise, and even had to make people suspect that the Pan family intended to support the Wu family to replace their own status, otherwise they were worried that they would not be able to get out.

It can be said that compared with the more famous Wu family, the Pan family is a business giant with deeper hiding, more heritage, and more depth.

Different from the Pan Zhencheng family, the Pan Shicheng family has always insisted on doing business, and his father tried his best to participate in the business business, not to mention, Pan Shicheng went to the next level, donated the top of the second grade through donations, and at the same time found a big backer Qiying, who was able to continue the trade of the Pan family, and even after the Raven War, he still did a good job.

Pan Shicheng obviously walked out of Hu Xueyan's previous official and business path, regarded having a backer in the imperial court as the biggest capital, and tried his best to manage it with his heart. For this reason, whenever the court is in trouble, he will not hesitate to make political investment, such as in the 21st year of Daoguang, Pan Shicheng successively donated 5,000 catties, 3,000 catties, and 2,000 catties of cannons. In the First Raven War, it donated to military and coastal defense, donated warships and mines, undertook arms production, assisted in foreign affairs, and built shipyards and gunpowder factories. In the second Raven War that was fought in the past two years, he was not idle, and was once ordered to supervise the warships of the seven coastal provinces, and automatically donated funds to build warships.

However, the large amount of political investment did not bring good results, and his big backer Qiying was ordered to negotiate when the Anglo-French alliance had just captured Tianjue, and the British thought that Qiying had repeatedly concealed the situation in Guangzhou from the emperor, and did not believe Qiying, so he drove Qiying back to the capital, and after Qiying returned, he was given death by Emperor Xianfeng, and Guiliang and Huashana were replaced to negotiate.

As soon as Qiying died, Pan Shicheng was very worried that he would be implicated and worried all day long. You must know that in the past, he and Qiying were allies, he gave money to the imperial court, and Qiying helped him to ask the emperor to be rewarded. Their relationship is unusually close, and even the mansion of Pan Shicheng's family, the hanging plaque "Haishan Immortal Pavilion" in front of the gate of Haishan Xianguan, and the four-character plaque are all written by the Governor of Liangguang at the time.

Just when Pan Shicheng was worried that his family would be affected by Qiying's conviction, Bai Gui found him, and Bai Gui's purpose in looking for him was to hope that the merchants of Guangzhou could go to Xin'an to do trade, so as to block the excuse that foreigners had to go to Guangzhou.

But Bai Gui was not looking for Pan Shicheng, but the Pan Zhencheng family, it was Pan Shicheng who received the news, took the initiative to come to the door, asked the same clan to help introduce, and reached an agreement with the same clan, and the Pan Zhencheng family, who had withdrawn, transferred all the family business to Pan Shicheng.

Therefore, it was actually Pan Shicheng who came to Xin'an to establish a commercial bank in the name of the Pan family, the four major merchants, not the authentic Pan Zhencheng family, the general merchant of the Thirteen Banks.

However, it is nothing for Pan Shicheng to take over the business of the Pan family, after all, although Pan Shicheng is a salt merchant, but his main business is tea in addition to salt, and he himself is a famous tea taster, and even a famous tea tasting vessel widely circulated in Guangzhou City is called Pan Pot, which is specially made by Pan Shicheng in Yixing.

Therefore, he is no worse than his own family in making tea, so whether it is Bai Gui or Zhu Jinglun, it can be regarded as approving Pan Shicheng's replacement of Pan Zhencheng's family under the banner of Tongwen Bank in the past.

As for the relationship between the Swedish businessman and Pan Shicheng, it is another story.