According to legend, Fan Li was born in the 12th year of King Chu Ping (5 17 BC). The word Shao Bo, also known as Yan Yizi Pi or Tao Zhugong, was called KATTO when he lived in Chu in his early years. It is well known that people get rich by doing business. Many merchants in later generations worshipped his statue and called it the God of Wealth.
After Fan Li helped the King of Yue to defeat the State of Wu, he thought that Gou Jian was a "bird's beak with a long neck". He could share weal and woe with * * *, but it was difficult to share happiness with Shi. So he went boating with him, changed his name to Yi Zipi, and led his son and disciples to live in a house built by the sea. In a few years, we have accumulated tens of millions of properties by reclaiming wasteland, doing sideline business and doing business. He is generous in helping others save money, and he is friendly to his hometown. Fan Li's wisdom and ability were appreciated by the people of Qi, and the King of Qi invited him to Linzi, the capital of Qi, and worshipped him as the prime minister in charge of government affairs. He sighed with shame: "Being an official is for your prime minister, and running a family can give birth to a daughter;" For a homemade cloth, it has reached the extreme. Being admired for a long time is probably not a good omen. So, after only three years, he retired again, returned the national seal to the King of Qi, and gave all his wealth to his bosom friend and fellow villagers. Wearing cloth, I moved to Tao for the third time.
Ding Tao, called Tao in the Warring States Period, was renamed "Ding Tao" to commemorate his residence, and it has been in use ever since.
"Shang clan" goes down in history.
In the private business world, Fan Li is recognized as the "father of business" and businessmen often visit him. In history, many people became famous in business, and there were many businessmen earlier than Fan Li, but there was only one "ancestor of business", that is, Tao Zhugong, that is, Fan Li.
Fan Li became the first person in China's business circles, first of all thanks to Sima Qian. Sima Qian is the earliest biography of merchants. Fan Li was the first person to spread his works in Historical Records and Biography of Huo Zhi. Although there were later businessmen such as Zigong and Yidun, their commercial achievements were not as good as those of Fan Li, and they did not reach his goal of "tripling in nineteen years" and "reaching a huge sum of money"
According to historical records, there was also a big businessman who went to pottery to do business. His last name is Duanmu and his first name is Zigong. He is Confucius' favorite student, but he is keen on doing business. Zigong did business between Cao and Lu, becoming the richest man among Confucius disciples, and "home is a daughter." Later, Tao Zhugong succeeded in doing business in Jutao, and Zhu Gong's management mode and wealth far exceeded Zigong's. He was ashamed that he was inferior to himself and went to Qi to make a living. The facades of old shops in China are usually engraved with couplets of "Tao Zhu's career, the end of his career", that is, they are recognized as ancestors.
Tao Zhugong made a balance.
According to local folklore, Tao Zhugong also invented the scale when Jutao was doing business. In commercial times, Tao Zhugong, there is no weighing instrument, and many commodities on the market are estimated, so it is difficult to achieve fair trade. Therefore, he envisions making a tool that can measure the weight of goods.
One day, Tao Zhugong was inspired when he was drawing water from a well with orange juice. Orange pomfret is a commonly used local pumping tool, which is designed and manufactured by using the lever principle. Tao Zhugong hurried home to imitate orange juice and started an experiment: he used a thin straight wooden pole, one end of which was tied to a hanging tray to hold goods, the other end was tied to a mound with an axe, and then the wooden pole was supported by a stake. The experiment found that the more goods on the hanging plate, the farther the axe will move from the fulcrum to keep the balance of the wooden pole. He recorded the quantity of goods and the distance the axe moved, and engraved a mark on the wooden pole. For the convenience of use, he set the weight of the axe as a unit-Jin. But how do you weigh something lighter than an axe? Fan Li thought hard for a long time, and one night, the arrangement of stars in the sky inspired him again. So he divided the distance of one kilogram on the scale into thirteen parts, and marked it with six stars on Nandou and Beidou, with one star representing one or two and thirteen stars representing one kilogram. To show its fairness, Tao Zhugong named it "Scale". Since then, a tool for measuring the weight of goods-scale has appeared in the market. This scale must be fixed on the ground with wooden stakes, which is ok for businessmen, but it is not convenient for businessmen to use. So Tao Zhugong reformed the scale, drilled a small hole on the fulcrum of the scale, put on hemp rope and lifted it by hand. In this way, the scale is much more convenient to use and carry.
However, after a long time, Fan Li found that some unscrupulous businessmen were short of weight when selling things. He decided to raise the bar and warned profiteers to be aboveboard. He changed the white wood carved black star on the balance beam into a mahogany inlaid metal star, and added three stars, Fu, Lu and Shou, to the six stars in Nandou and the Big Dipper, weighing 16 taels a catty. In this way, the scale has been handed down from generation to generation for more than two thousand years until today. According to historical records, the scale invented by Tao Zhugong was more than 200 years earlier than that of Rome.
The god of wealth in people's minds
Tao Zhugong is good at amassing wealth, willing to disperse it, and also willing to help others get rich. Gathering wealth and dispersing it, he does whatever he wants. For him, wealth is almost at his fingertips, and it is almost superb. People pay homage to this "wealth hero" who is handy in controlling wealth. The more widely he spread, the more famous he became. Tao Zhugong has always been regarded as the ancestor of businessmen-the sage of businessmen and the god of wealth.
Some people have also made a comparative study of the God of Wealth in Chinese folk beliefs. because
Due to the differences of regional culture, there are many gods of wealth worshipped in different places, and there are also differences between civil and military, such as Zhao Gongming in Wu Caishen, Guan Yu, Bigan, Tao Zhugong and so on. Of all the gods, only Tao Zhugong is related to wealth, and Tao Zhugong is a well-deserved "God of Wealth".
Tao Zhugong accumulated a lot of wealth in business, but he got together again and again, giving alms and helping the poor. Sima Qian praised him as "a rich and virtuous man". Tao Zhugong thought that "it is better to teach people to fish than to teach them to fish". In order to help people get rich, he taught the ways to make money without reservation. Pottery land is low and watery, so Tao Zhugong taught people to dig pond culture. There is also a big pond in Dingtao County, which is said to be the place where Tao Zhugong teaches people to raise fish. Later, Tao Zhugong summed up the experience of folk fish farming and wrote a book "Fish Farming Classic" to spread fish farming techniques and help people get rich.