Chapter 86 Chapter 2 Business Vision Wins Merchants Are Corrupt Officials and Smart Businessmen

Good investment is willing to be the background In the vast sea of ​​people, the possibility of one person meeting another is very small, the possibility of becoming friends is even smaller, and the possibility of becoming husband and wife is almost slim. The union of husband and wife is a fate that waits for a thousand years.He Shen is a very emotional person, greedy and stingy, he actually has a gentle harbor.He Shen didn't enjoy the warmth of his family since he was a child, so he tried his best to manage his family more perfectly. In order to make his family no longer underestimated, He Shen frantically amasses wealth and climbs upwards. These are the shadows left by him when he was young. Even though he has become a prominent figure later, he still lingers.

He Shen transformed his love for his family into concrete donations of money.He has many ways to make money and a wide range of ways, which are rare among officials in the entire Qing Dynasty.Due to his identity and status, he often does not necessarily go out to do activities in person, but manipulates behind the scenes and becomes the backstage boss. It is often his butlers and followers, such as Liu Quan and Hushitu, who come out to do things.Heshen's methods of collecting money mainly include the following aspects. The first is to merge land and collect high land taxes.Heshen owned a large amount of land. According to relevant records of the Qing Dynasty, the Heshen family owned a total of 1,266 hectares of leased land.But what is recorded in the archives is only the rented land. If Heshen's manor and his family's non-leased land are added, the number will be even more astonishing.

How did Heshen get so much land?The first is the emperor's reward.Qianlong favored Heshen very much, and rewarded him with a lot of land from time to time. The second is to buy.At that time, many landlords lost interest in land management, and He Shen saw that land was cheap and easy to collect rent, so he bought some land from time to time.In this regard, his methods are insidious and vicious, and even the land of his father-in-law Yinglian was annexed by him.Moreover, once these lands are owned by him, others rarely have the ability to redeem the land. Again, He Shen helped and cared for others, and took the opportunity to ask for land from others.Not only that, Heshen sent his family members to various places to collect rent and press for debts on the land he plundered.At the same time, he relied on his power to carry out economic exploitation.Heshen used various methods to unscrupulously carry out land annexation.Whenever the land is in hand, the land rent will be raised immediately, and the land rent will be more than doubled regardless of the life and death of the tenant farmers.This kind of exploitation by killing chickens and extracting eggs made the tenants of his family, even the head of the village and the head of the garden, complain.The heavy exploitation has caused many people to go bankrupt and their families to be destroyed.

Collecting land rent is one of the important annual incomes of the Heshen family, except for corruption, and every year a large amount of grain, chicken, duck, fish, meat and various dried and fresh fruits in the manor are continuously transported to his family for their family to enjoy.Therefore, He Shen paid great attention to this income. The second is that owning a large number of properties for rent is another major source of income for the Heshen family.The real estate of the Heshen family is mainly divided into residential houses, shop houses, factory buildings for handicraft workshops, and private houses full of manors.As far as the city of Beijing is concerned, Heshen’s real estate is almost all over the five cities, such as the mansion by the Shichahai, the old house in the Xisi Donkey Meat Hutong, the housing in the Accounting Department Hutong on Beichang Street, the Changqiao area in Ping’anli, and the Dashilan in Qianmen, etc. The pavement room, craftsman room, etc.

There are many sources of these houses. Some were rewarded by Emperor Qianlong, some were purchased with money, and some were rewarded for helping others.Even the prince Yongxi had to go through Heshen's back door in order to inherit the title of Prince Su, and gave him his two shophouses outside the front door. The third is to lend usury, engage in pawn business, and obtain huge profits.Lending money to collect interest and opening pawnshops, banks, and money shops all belong to the category of usury.Usury was originally accompanied by the emergence of human private ownership, especially due to the development of money economy.Based on the principle of doing what can make money, Heshen vigorously engaged in usury industries such as money lending, pawnshops, bank accounts, and money shops.

He Shen's lending range is very wide, including not only officials, businessmen and citizens, but also his family members, entourage and other subordinates. Even his family's close relatives and friends, he also exploited through usury.For example, Mingbao, Heshen's uncle, once borrowed 15,000 taels of silver from him, and the interest on the borrowed silver was one cent per month, and he owed 6,450 taels of silver. Four hundred and fifty taels.Heshen's grandfather, Wu Mitai, was an official in the same dynasty as Heshen, and both were bachelors.Wu Mitai once borrowed two thousand taels of silver from Heshen, but Heshen was worried, and forced Wu Mitai to take land deeds worth the same amount of bonds as repayment.Yinglian is Heshen's father-in-law, and Yinglian's grandson Yuquan once borrowed silver from Heshen, but he also took the land deed as collateral.

The pawnbroking industry was very developed in the Qing Dynasty.According to the identity of the owner and the source of funds, they can be roughly divided into three categories, namely the so-called Huangdang, Guandang and Mindang.Huangdang is operated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the emperor as the backstage; Guandang is presided over and operated by the officials of the feudal borders and officials of Taoist prefectures and counties;Beijing was the place where the emperor, princes, nobles, and high-ranking officials lived together. It was the political center of the country at that time, and it was also one of the most concentrated and active areas of commercial and financial capital.

The pawnshops of Heshen's family are not only all over the capital, but also all over the Baoding, Tongzhou and Jizhou areas of Zhili.It is said that there are seventy-five pawnshops in his family. According to reports by Mian En, Chun Ying and others: Twelve pawnshops opened by Heshen who lent the principal money, and eight pawnshops opened by servants Liu Quan, Liu Yin, Liu Kai, Hu Liuzi and Hu Kai , also recorded on the record.The names that can still be found now include: Yongqingdang, Qingyudang, Hengxingdang, Hengjudang, Hexingdang, Hengshengdang and Hengqingdang in Beijing.Outside Beijing, there are Hexingdang in Sanhe County, Hengxingdang in Xincheng County, and Hengyidang in Changping Prefecture.

Heshen opened the pawn shop for another purpose besides making huge profits, which is to transfer and digest the ill-gotten gains obtained from corruption and bribery.Furthermore, pawn shop is the most effective and safest business among all kinds of businesses. It can guarantee the harvest in drought and flood, and is not afraid of pawnbrokers escaping, and there is no need to be distracted to pursue and press debts.Therefore, the pawn shop occupies a very important position in the industry and commerce he operates. The fourth is to operate a variety of industries and commerce.In addition to operating traditional feudal loan sharks, banks and pawnshops, Heshen also opened many various industrial and commercial enterprises.In addition to various commercial shops, it also operates a small number of manufacturing workshops and coal kilns.According to the admiral's yamen's report to Emperor Jiaqing, it was ordered to seize the properties of Heshen and the Yi family.Today, two copies of the cabinet and saddle felt shop were copied in Liu's family, and the owner of the shop claimed that it was the property of Heshen.Because Liu Quan is now at the Ministry of Punishments, after he went to the Ministry of Criminal Investigation and Inquiries, the Ministry of Penalties today replied that, according to Liu Quan's confession: the cabinet store, the bow and arrow store, and the saddle felt store, these three houses, I remember, belonged to my master's uncle Wu Da. My father pointed out that the deposit was for the house, but I can't remember how much it was. The deed paper was originally stored in the inner house and handed over to the woman in charge of the account. I just need to check my master's box and ask the women in charge of the account to understand.It can be seen from this that the shops run by Heshen are often opened by sending cronies and family members with capital, and then using the houses mortgaged by others.In addition to the above-mentioned shops, Heshen also operates grain shops, hotels, antique shops, bar houses, hotels, porcelain shops and gray tile shops.

The shops run by Heshen are often related to people's lives, and some are related to the production of military supplies, such as bows and arrows, saddle felt and other shops.He Shen took advantage of his prestige and status to run whatever business he saw making money, and no one dared to compete with him. In the fifty-second year of Qianlong (1787), the price of rice in Beijing rose sharply, making it very expensive, and every grain store hoarded it.Heshen's grain store is catching up with the shortage of stocks, and he is afraid that the price of rice will rise and cause social unrest.So he said in a memorial that each grain store should not store more than fifty shi of grain.The merchants refused to accept it and still hoarded it and did not sell it.So Heshen ordered the soldiers to inspect each household, and found out that the shopkeepers were hoarding more than 60,000 stones of rice and wheat, and asked Qianlong to approve the delivery to the factory and sell them at a reduced price. This is actually Heshen using the authority of the government and the emperor to achieve what he cannot The purpose of accusing others is actually to control Beijing's grain industry.

The fifth is taking advantage of power and status to arbitrarily collect gifts and gifts from others.For example, when Heshen's wife, Feng Shi, passed away, the silver taels from his subordinates He Jing'e, Yin Zhuo, and Yi Jiang'a ranged from several hundred taels to a thousand taels.In addition, most of his family's pearl bracelets and gems were donated by officials from the court or from other places.