Bingjian, the world's first richest man in Chinese history

Bingjian was one of the 1000 richest 50 people in the world, with 6 Chinese selected, in the 2001, the Wall Street Journal.

Bingjian (1769―1843 years), also known as Woodon, the ancestral home of Fujian. Its ancestors in the early years of Kangxi settled in Guangdong, began to do business. When Bingjian's father Guoying, Feng began to participate in foreign trade. 1783, Guoying took an important step, set up Jardine's bank, and for himself a business called "Hao official." The business name has been used by its descendants, and became a resounding name for the international business community in the early 19th century. In 1801, the 32-Year-old Bingjian took over the Jardine's business, and Feng's career began to rise rapidly.

In business, Bingjian rely on advanced business philosophy, in the foreign trade quickly rich. He has established close ties with key customers in Europe and the United States. Before 1834, Feng and the British and American business volume amounted to millions of silver dollars each year. Bingjian was also the largest creditor of the British East India Company, which sometimes borrowed money from the Feng. Because of this, bingjian at that time the Western business community enjoyed the very high popularity, some western scholars even called him "the world's richest man."

Europe at that time was very picky about the quality of tea, and the tea supplied by Bingjian had been identified by British companies as the best tea and sold at the highest price. After that, all the tea that has been boxed and Feng stamped will be able to sell at a high price in the international market.

In the field of industrial operation, Bingjian not only owns real estate, real estate, tea plantation and shops in China, but also boldly invests in railway investment, securities trading and insurance business in the United States across the ocean, so that Jardine's bank becomes a veritable transnational consortium.

Bingjian also has a reputation for being generous abroad. It is said that there was a U.S. Boston businessman and Bingjian in a business, due to poor management, owed Bingjian 72,000 U.S. dollars of debt, but he has not been able to repay the arrears, so he can not return to the United States. Bingjian heard, immediately asked to take out the IOU, in front of the Boston businessman's face to tear up the IOU, announced the accounts cleared. Since then, Wu Hao's name has been known in the United States, was preached for half a century, so that when the United States had a merchant ship in the water when the "Wu Hao officer" named.

After Bingjian efforts, Jardine line from behind, instead of the same Wen line to become the leader of 13 lines in Guangzhou. Feng's accumulated wealth is even more startling, according to 1834 Feng own estimate, their property has 26 million silver dollars (equivalent to today's 5 billion yuan), become the world's richest man in the eyes of foreigners. Built in the Pearl River bank of the Feng Mansion, is said to be comparable with "a dream of Red mansions" in the Grand View Garden.

The British opium merchant was punished by Lin Zexu and the indemnity went down

As a wealthy businessman in the declining period of the feudal dynasty, the wealth accumulated by Bingjian is doomed to not be long. Just as his multinational consortium reached its peak, an undercurrent was creeping in. June 1840, the Opium War broke out. Although Bingjian had donated money to the court for three products Ding Dai, but this can not save his career.

Because of the countless ties with British opium merchants, he had been repeatedly reprimanded and disciplined by Lin Zexu, and he had to devote his huge fortune to the Qing government for a short period of peace. After the signing of the Nanjing Treaty, the Qing government ordered the merchant to repay the 3 million silver dollar foreign debt in 1843, and Bingjian a person to bear 1 million silver dollars. In this year, Bingjian died in Guangzhou.

After the death of Bingjian, the Guangdong 13 line, once rich in the world, began to decline gradually. Many of the merchants went bankrupt under the Qing government. Even more lethal, with the implementation of five of ports, Guangdong has lost its advantage in foreign trade, and the privileges enjoyed by Guangdong's 13 lines have also ended. After the outbreak of the Second Opium War, another sudden fire fell to the 13-line street, and finally made these more than 100-year-old factory completely ashes.