Twelve years after the adoption of the new agreement, it has reached the end of the year. In this year, the production of major countries in the world has generally declined, but the decline is not too great, but the signs of economic crisis have emerged.
Large-scale production has also been affected, mainly the export of tea and raw silk, and the price has also dropped sharply. The average price of tea has dropped by 17 liang.
The price of raw silk has fluctuated greatly. In 177, it was 45 taels a pack, which fell by 3 taels a pack last year. The price of raw silk dropped by 7 taels, but it rebounded to 4 taels at the beginning of this year.
The main reason is that China, the largest raw silk export area, has also been attacked by silkworm plague. Raw silk production in Jiangnan has just resumed, and the output of raw silk in Jiangnan is still declining. According to the survey of the Ministry of Industry, it is likely to reach 40,000 packages of raw silk in Jiangnan this year, of which half will be produced in Dazhi Zhejiang.
In recent years, the output of raw silk in Jiangnan has been declining from 10,000 bales to 55,000 bales the year before last, and 50,000 bales last year are more likely to fall to 40,000 bales this year, which has caused a large group of raw silk speculators to invest heavily in hoarding raw silk and greatly raised the price.
If this kind of speculation is based on the understanding of the market, it is also a rational business, but if this kind of speculation is attacked by the economic crisis and the control of market information is wrong, it will bring disaster
This disaster touched Hu Xueyan []
Section six hundred and seventy-seven Don’t learn Hu Xueyan in business.
There is a popular saying in later generations that officials should learn from Zeng Guofan and Hu Xueyan in business.
I don’t know how many people have been misled by this sentence. In fact, Hu Xueyan’s way of doing business is not something that everyone can learn. It is true that every successful person must have some qualities that make him successful, but people have shortcomings. Hu Xueyan’s strengths and weaknesses are equally obvious. Hu Xueyan will make several people lose their money.
First of all, Hu Xueyan is an official and businessman, which most ordinary people can’t learn
Hu Xueyan hoarded raw silk. Zhu Jinglun read in the newspaper that Hu Xueyan was doing raw silk.
The so-called hegemony means that the market makers can make the market, and the powerful big businessmen can do it.
Hu Xueyan is such a big businessman. He entered the bank as an apprentice since childhood, and the shopkeeper gave it to Hu Xueyan. This is the starting point for Hu Xueyan’s prosperity.
After Hu Xueyan continued to run the money house, the name was changed to Fukang, and the money house also operated a silk tea firm. Even if the Taiping rebels captured Hu Xueyan in the south of the Yangtze River, the business did not delay, but it grew bigger and bigger. In the past 30 years, it accumulated tens of millions of wealth and was called the richest man in Qing Dynasty.
But in that troubled times, it can be done step by step. Obviously, Hu Xueyan has money and war. Anyone who has money with war usually has blood.
Hu Xueyan’s capital accumulation is also so bloody because his main business target is grass-roots officers.
When it comes to the history of Hu Xueyan’s rise, anyone can get to know these two people in Wang Youling. All kinds of news are widely circulated, which is the most dramatic statement. That is, when Wang Youling was down and out, Hu Xueyan, an apprentice, took the risk to give the bank money to Hu Xueyan for 520 yuan to make Wang Youling successfully buy Hu Xueyan, but because of this, he was given a job by the bank. After chamber pot was born, he returned to Hangzhou to be an official and vigorously pulled Hu Xueyan to help him run the Fukang bank.
But this is a drama. Wang Youling was an official, and his younger brother followed his father when he was seventeen. Later, he relied on his home road to buy an official and came to Hangzhou to be an official. As a result, he met Taiping rebels and besieged Wang Youling, calling for wealthy businessmen in Hangzhou to raise money. The owner of the money bank dared not let Hu Xueyan go to the meeting instead of him. So Hu Xueyan met Wang Youling and volunteered to help Wang Youling buy food and ordnance. After Hu Xueyan bought food, Hangzhou was surrounded. At this time, he showed Hu Xueyan’s courage. He boldly attacked the encirclement of Taiping rebels many times and was very angry that he failed to rush into Hangzhou.
This is the real Hu Xueyan, who dares to put all his eggs in one basket, instead of an apprentice who steals the owner’s funds without authorization. If he really has that kind of background, his business can’t be big. Later generations of Hu Xueyan said that Hu Xueyan made a fortune mainly by directly inheriting a bank and then developing.
And why should the shopkeeper give the bank to Hu Xueyan? The main thing is to value Hu Xueyan people and talents. When Hu Xueyan was an apprentice, he was very capable and helped the shopkeeper to get back a lot of bad debts, and he was very capable of counting the books at a glance.
Young and bold, the shopkeeper regarded the confidant as having difficulties and asked Hu Xueyan to do it. Even going to negotiate with the government made Hu Xueyan go away for a long time, which made Hu Xueyan know quite a lot of contacts, such as Wang Youling.
But to be honest, Wang Youling didn’t help Hu Xueyan much, because Wang Youling died in Hangzhou soon. However, Zuo Zongtang appreciated the story of Hu Xueyan risking his life to rescue Wang Youling. He thought it was a kind of chivalry, which was valuable for businessmen. It happened that Zuo Zongtang also needed a capable businessman, and he did things in Hu Xueyan.
Zuo Zongtang’s appreciation is the real turning point of Hu Xueyan’s prosperity, while Wang Youling gave Hu Xueyan a background, a background to show his virtue.
With Zuo Zongtang’s support, Hu Xueyan, who was occupied in Hangzhou, had to come to the sea to develop the Shili foreign exchange, which gave him another stage. He managed silk tea and money houses here and developed slowly, but this development should be able to accumulate tens of millions of wealth unless it was accumulated for generations like Shanxi merchants or monopolized by the state like Thirteen Banks.
Hu Xueyan didn’t occupy a head. Why should he occupy a floor in the merchant sea of clouds?
Mainly relying on Zuo Zongtang’s help, Zuo Zongtang was ordered to attack the Taiping rebels and occupy Zhejiang, but the Qing court’s pay was always from time to time. The channel for Zuo Zongtang to raise funds was Hu Xueyan Hu Xueyan’s long-term action as Zuo Zongtang’s agent in the sea. Zuo Zongtang gave strong support behind him, while Hu Xueyan kept sending him pay.
In his letter, Zuo Zongtang praised that he had no fear of lack of pay since Hu Xueyan helped him pay.
Why can Hu Xueyan get Zuo Zongtang’s salary by gloves and white wolves? One of the most important ways is to resell arms. Taiping rebels can finally get a large number of rifles and artillery in the war. Besides foreigners smuggling, another source is through some China businessmen’s procurement, while Zuo Zongtang is an official arms trading base. Hu Xueyan relies on this identity to get arms from formal channels and sell them to Taiping rebels at high prices, from which the money will be used to subsidize Zuo Zongtang’s army.
How much commission did Zuo Zongtang draw from Hu Xueyan? No one would ask if he didn’t ask.
Later, Zuo Zongtang invaded Hu Xueyan, Zhejiang Province, and his business grew even bigger. At this time, he changed from selling arms to pawnshops and banks.
Most of the Hu Xueyan visitors are Xiang and Chu officers. With the support of Zuo Zongtang and Wang Youling, many officers put their salaries in the Hu Xueyan bank. During the war, it was a good time for officers to get rich. From Zeng Guofan to Zuo Zongtang, the military discipline was always a problem. Therefore, looting was very common, and the proceeds from looting went into the Hu Xueyan bank to make him rich. Not to mention that once those officers died, the money became dormant account.
Pawning business is even bloodier. Zuo Zongtang’s army plundered Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, not only robbing the people, but also robbing thieves. As the saying goes, farmers’ armed forces generally like to plunder large officers and soldiers, regardless of size, and also rob Hu Xueyan pawnshops. It is often said that ordinary women are wearing fine silk and various jewelry. It is said that Chu soldiers will even pick up ordinary personal clothes and send them to Hu Xueyan pawnshops for cash.
This is the second bloody business in Hu Xueyan, which is equivalent to helping Chu soldiers to sell stolen goods. According to statistics, millions of people were looted by the army during the war, but this kind of old clothes in the war was more acceptable to the poor, although the price was not high. I am afraid that the so-called small profits but quick turnover will still be profitable in the bank.
Hu Xueyan grabbed the first bucket of gold by reselling arms and selling stolen goods.
When Zuo Zongtang wiped out the Taiping rebels’ forces in Zhejiang, Hu Xueyan resumed all kinds of business in Hangzhou and continued to help Zuo Zongtang with his pay.
Later, the military occupation of Zhejiang did not affect Hu Xueyan’s business, because he relied on the huge profits in the war to complete the original accumulated business form, which has risen to the top commercial field, hoarding real estate in the sea, operating silk tea trade and running Qianzhuang Pharmaceutical Factory.
The military has brought order and further stabilized the business in Hu Xueyan. The scale of silk tea business has continued to expand and it has become the top group of silk tea merchants.
Hu Xueyan has no rules and regulations to do business. Unlike Shanxi businessmen, he is conservative and will run his own familiar business. What can Hu Xueyan do to make money?
It’s obviously a good business to run the machine silk reeling industry in Shanghai. Hu Xueyan invested heavily in this field last year to run a silk factory in Shanghai. It is reported that Hu Xueyan invested 22 million yuan in the future. This is obviously nonsense. The whole raw silk reeling factory in Jiangnan can’t stand the consumption of this scale. What’s more, where did the skilled workers who invested in such a huge silk factory come from? Root is not a performance office to stand up.
However, the scale of Hu Xueyan Silk Factory is indeed quite large, and he is very ambitious in doing business. This silk factory has invested millions of taels to purchase sets of French equipment. The raw material is raw silk instead of cocoon. This is a re-reeling factory. The so-called re-reeling is to reeling raw silk by agricultural hand or factory machinery, and to re-reel four-corner and six-corner silk to adapt to the latest large-scale weaving and thickening machine in the West.
Hu Xueyan found that this kind of silk wrapping is not only more symmetrical, but also reduces the price of disorderly silk and waste silk by more than 30% to 40%, while the profit can be doubled.
At present, there are foreigners doing this industry in Shanghai, and the profits are huge. He took a fancy to this opportunity and boldly invested heavily in hiring French technicians, intending to enter this industry at one fell swoop.
While preparing for the silk factory, we set out to monopolize raw silk, which means hoarding raw materials for our own silk factory and trying to make huge profits in the market.
Unfortunately, Hu Xueyan’s bad luck in history just caught up with the outbreak of the world economic crisis, and the collapse of the financial market made his capital chain tense and crushed him. The last straw was not Sheng Xuanhuai’s mischief, but the outbreak of the Sino-French war led to the loss of the largest raw silk market in China and the collapse of the raw silk market.
History has entered the sea, and French warships have sounded the last bell of Hu Xueyan. Now, the Qing Dynasty has been dying for a long time. Where is the courage to fight with France, but the Qing Dynasty dare not fight with France?
Will the congress not be involved in the war because of the Vietnamese issue, which will cause the China raw silk market to collapse like history?
Section six hundred and seventy The French-Vietnamese War
The tragic history of the Vietnamese people has not changed because of major changes. If there is any change, it is more tense than history.
Why does France want to move against the Vietnam War? The Vietnamese are the first to blame, and the western powers are the second to blame.
After the second France-Vietnam War in 173, France seized a lot of special features in Vietnam, mainly including building a railway running through Vietnam to free trade in the Red River.
However, the Vietnamese have no will or ability to ensure that the French will make slow progress in building a railway in Vietnam. The local government deliberately encourages the people to obstruct the railway construction, forcing France to finally give up the plan to build a road from Saigon and build a railway on the north side of the Red River, where France is weak, from the river port to the Shanxi iron ore area and finally into the big territory.
However, the security of the Red River is always a big problem. The Vietnamese are unwilling to watch the French ships haunt the Red River, and they are unable to stop the bandits scattered in this area from harassing the king’s business trip.