Previously, Forbes released the US Rich List in 2022, Musk ranked first with a net worth of US$251 billion, which made people see what "wealth disparity" is.
Many people lament that there seems to be few such "top rich people" in China, but they don't know that as early as , the richest man in the world had already appeared in our country.
The last richest man in the world in the Qing Dynasty was named Wu Bingjian. His personal wealth exceeded , the Qing , and even foreigners asked him to borrow money . Therefore, Western scholars at that time called him "the world's most popular man."
So, how rich is Wu Bingjian? How did he become the richest man in the world?
The world's richest man in the Qing Dynasty "Wu Bingjian"
As the last feudal dynasty of China, the Qing Dynasty was the representative dynasty of the country beginning to go on a "downhill road".
, and the Qing Dynasty's policy of closing the country also seriously restricted China's development. This restriction is multifaceted. In addition to the technology that everyone is concerned about, the economy is also very important.
Therefore, how could the world's rich people appear in this "declined dynasty"?
Wu Bingjian was born in 1769 , alias Wu Dunyuan, and his ancestral home is Quanzhou, Fujian.
This richest man in the world is not an inspirationalist who starts from scratch. is very rich because of his ancestors.
Everyone knows that the Qing Dynasty was closed to the country at that time, but did not know that the Qing government also organized some private businesses to form "foreign goods stores" to let them do business with foreign investors and collect tariffs .
These businesses were the famous Guangzhou Thirteen Streets at that time. Among them, popular businesses include Wenxing, Guanglixing, Jardinea, etc. Among them, Jardinea is the founded by Wu Bingjian's father, so he is regarded as the "rich second generation" who inherited his father's business.
However, Wu Bingjian is not a idle rich second generation. He is a rare business genius. His business philosophy is very advanced. not only makes his business as high as the top, but also makes every effort among all foreign businessmen.
In this case, Wu Bingjian's wealth accumulated very quickly, and could reach up to 26 million taels of Mexican Eagle Ocean silver dollar , while the annual fiscal revenue of the Qing government was only about 46 million silver dollars .
No surprise, Wu Bingjian's personal wealth directly exceeded half of the annual tax revenue of the Qing Dynasty , and he is the richest man in China.
Looking at the world, at that time, John Jacob Abduls, the richest fur tycoon in the United States, had only $20 million , so his net worth of $5 billion could easily win the title of the world's richest man.
So, how did Wu Bingjian make his wealth snowball grow bigger and bigger?
How did he become the richest man in the world?
First of all, Wu Bingjian has a rich family background. When he took over Jardine Mathematics, the business had already accumulated a lot of wealth .
For Wu Bingjian, as long as he doesn’t make trouble and keeps his ancestral property safely, he will never have to worry about food and clothing for the rest of his life.
But obviously, as a businessman, he has great ambitions and wants to make more money .
So in the process of doing business, he not only maintained good trade relations with other foreign investors, but also learned to "lend" .
You may not know that Wu Bingjian was already the largest creditor of the British East India Company at that time. . When the East India Company's capital turnover was not open, it would borrow money from him.
From this point of view, even foreigners are not fabricated by the claim that they ask him to borrow money. The richest man’s business territory is much larger than we imagined.
In addition, Wu Bingjian pays great attention to integrity in business, and his emotional intelligence is very high, so those foreign businesses like to deal with him very much.
Of course, Wu Bingjian, who has a sensitive sense of businessmen, also discovered more opportunities in the international market in the process of dealing with foreign businessmen.
So he also invested in the United States and other places. For example, in the 49th year of Qianlong's reign, , that is, in 1784, he invested heavily in the insurance industry of the United States.
Later, he even asked his son Wu Chongyao to do the construction of the American Railway with his adopted son John Forbes and began to make money abroad.
In short, Wu Bingjian's various investments in the United States at that time attracted people's attention. even had an American merchant ship named directly after the "Wu Hao Official" which shows how famous the world's richest man was at that time.
However, "I saw him rise and he saw him fall." In 1840, China encountered the Opium War, which completely cut off Wu Bingjian's "continuous dream of getting rich" .
The country is in danger of protection, so how can we talk about keeping wealth?
Wu Bingjian made his fortune with foreign trade , and , and the important factor in his fortune was the support of domestic manufacturing .
Therefore, when foreign countries used cannons to open China's national gates and directly "openly rob", Wu Bingjian's wealth could not be saved.
Furthermore, according to the information, Wu Bingjian has a close relationship with the British opium merchant, and he has indeed made ill-gotten fortunes through opium .
In this case, although the last richest man in the world in the Qing Dynasty consciously assumed a silver debt of 1 million taels, he still could not escape the "sanctions" .
Perhaps it was because he understood the disaster facing the country and the prospects of his own business. Wu Bingjian was depressed after that, and finally passed away suddenly in 1843.
