Zhou Ying, courtesy name Zhujun, was born in Sanyuan County, Shaanxi Province in 1868, the seventh year of Tongzhi. The Zhou family was originally a wealthy businessman in Shaanxi, but gradually declined. Zhou Ying's parents died when she was young, leaving her helpless.
In the eleventh year of Guangxu, that is, 1885 AD, under the arrangement of her brother and sister-in-law, Zhou Ying, who was only 17 years old, married Wu Pin from Anwu Fort, Anwu Town, Jingyang County, to provide for this seriously ill man. Men are "happy". At this time, the Wu family was at its peak. Wu Pin's father, Wu Weiwen, was appointed as a general official in the imperial court, rising to the second rank. He served as Hubei Houbu Daotai and Shanxi Ningwu magistrate. At the same time, he also undertook the salt industry monopoly in Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi. He was a "red-top businessman" contemporary with Hu Xueyan. At that time, he mastered the convenience of hundreds of salt quotations by handling Huaiyan salt affairs. He established the salt affairs general account "Yulongquan" in Yangzhou and set up branch offices in various places. He earned millions of taels of silver a year and was well-known far and wide. The big salt merchant.
Three years after Zhou Ying married into the Wu family, Wu Pin unfortunately died of illness and passed away. In the past three years, Zhou Ying and Wu Pin had a daughter, but unfortunately she died when she was less than one year old. When Wu Pin was still alive, Zhou Ying adopted Zhongyuan's two-year-old nephew Wu Yucheng as his son, and changed his name to Huaixian, which means to miss his ancestors. Because she missed her daughter so much, when Wu Huaixian was 10 years old, Zhou Ying adopted a daughter and named her Xiuqiao.
Unfortunately, her husband passed away, and Zhou Ying became a widow at a young age. Although she felt sad and helpless, she did not hesitate or shrink back. Since there are no other adult men in Wujiadongyuan, the burden of developing the family business falls entirely on Zhou Ying, a 20-year-old woman. Zhou Ying was appointed at the critical moment. She first handled her husband's funeral very calmly, and then with her enthusiasm and firm belief in revitalizing the East Courtyard industry, she won the support of the housekeeper, accountant, martial artist and others of the Wu family's East Courtyard, and took over the Wu family's businesses, stores, All properties including land and real estate, officially became the head of Wu Family East Courtyard, known as "Widow An Wu".
Integrity management builds an empire
Zhou Ying was ordered to take over the entire Wu family's industry. In the process of doing business, she began to realize that managing land and developing the agricultural economy could only support her family. Only by developing the commercial economy could the decline of the family industry be reversed and the Qin merchants once again create glory.
Knowing people, making good use of them, and managing well
Zhou Ying’s success in business mainly lies in her wisdom of knowing people, making good use of them, and her ability to manage well. After Zhou Ying became the head of Wujiadongyuan, she discovered that the shopkeepers, accountants and clerks of many of her shops were all capable businessmen, especially the four general managers Luo Tianzeng, Yang Maoting, Wang Zixu, and Wang Younong. square. Therefore, she tried every means to mobilize the enthusiasm of these business experts. Relying on these business experts, she went out of Jingyang and successively set up Huaiyan branches in Shanghai, Sichuan, Shaanxi and other places. She also set up businesses and stores in Gansu mainly dealing in medicinal materials and in Hubei mainly dealing in cloth. She soon became The declining Wujiadongyuan business became prosperous again.
Zhou Ying also fully trusted the housekeepers and clerks around her, and she was also forward-thinking, courageous and knowledgeable. She "restructured" the Wujiadongyuan industry and let the housekeepers and clerks at home participate in the operation and share the dividends. . For example, if a boy's salary is 20 taels a year, he can withdraw 10 taels from the counter for living expenses, and the remaining 10 taels can be invested in shares as dividends. This can be regarded as the earliest joint-stock family business in history. At the same time, Zhou Ying also established a pension system and gradually improved the business management system of the Wu family industry to increase the enthusiasm of all subordinates for business operations.
Zhou Ying regards the people who follow her as brothers and sisters, and the stewards as brothers and sisters. She takes great care of the maids and servants who have been following her for a long time. She not only helps them get married and start a business, but also helps them. They educate their children. Over the past few years, the Wu family's business has been established in major commercial ports and docks in the north and south of the Yangtze River. There are pawnshops and drug stores of the Wu family in Jingyang, Sanyuan, and Gaoling, and there are oil shops, wineries, grain stores, and rice shops of the Wu family in Chunhua, Kouzhen, and other places. At that time, there was a popular saying among the people: "The Wu family's clerks traveled across the state and county, and did not eat other people's food or stay in other people's stores." The Wu family's business and workshops were spread widely, and the capital and financial resources were accumulated quickly, which is amazing. !
Integrity-based and painstaking management
Zhou Ying believes that only by adhering to Qin Shang’s business tradition and reputation of “genuine goods at fair prices, and no deception” can the Wu family’s business be improved. Prosperity. Therefore, Zhou Ying insists on doing every business personally.
When selling grain, she had to personally check the quality, pick up the grains, and pick up the sand and soil; when selling cloth, she had to repeat the measurements herself, lest there be any missing pieces; when selling tea, she had to taste it in person to distinguish whether it was new or old.
It can be said that Zhou Ying regarded Qin Shang's reputation as her life from the day she started doing business. It was in the late Qing Dynasty, with social turmoil, banditry, and people's livelihood. In such a turbulent situation, the number of merchants who stick to their goodwill is gradually decreasing, and some merchants have even resorted to cheating and driving up prices. However, Zhou Ying disagreed with this. She sells grain thousands of miles without raising prices, and has won unanimous praise from the people. But this move aroused the hatred of some grain merchants, accusing her of ruining their jobs. After hearing this, Zhou Ying laughed and said: "Food is the most important thing for the people. If you have no scruples for making huge profits, you will be the one who really breaks the bowl."
In the 29th year of Guangxu, 1903 AD In 1998, an art dealer came to Anwu Fort with several paintings of flowers and birds said to be by Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty. He sold them to Zhou Ying for a high price, but after appraisal by a well-known painter, he thought they were fakes. Zhou Ying came to the art dealer and said, "You shouldn't rely on deception to make money. Who will dare to do business with you in the future? Remember, smashing the signboard is the most shameful and stupid behavior of the merchant!" However, after this incident, Soon, the Wu family's salt store in Gaoling Nantang mistakenly sold sea salt as Jinda green salt. After an old man discovered it, he went to the shop owner to question it. After Zhou Ying found out, she immediately ordered the salt store to post a notice admitting her mistake and compensate the old man three times the price. This was well received by the people of Gaoling County. In this way, the sales of Wu's salt shop quadrupled almost overnight, accounting for more than 70% of the county's salt sales. Later, Zhou Ying ordered someone to hang a wooden plaque at the door of the store with the words "honest and no fraud, self-discipline and self-discipline" as a warning. It is said that this is one of the only two plaques "forbidding bullying" in the history of ancient Chinese business, which is very precious. The other plaque comes from the "red-top businessman" Hu Xueyan.
Grasp the rules and adapt to changes
After years of hard work in the ever-changing business world, Zhou Ying is well versed in the ways of doing business, has a good grasp of market rules, and can adapt to market changes. And made scientific predictions about the market. In her many years of business operation, she has always focused on local specialties that are popular and popular, such as homespun cloth woven from Guanzhong cotton, brick fu tea from Jingyang, and polygonum flower sugar from Sanyuan. These have become Zhou Ying's weapon to conquer the world. Not only It revitalized Wu's family industry and made outstanding contributions to promoting local economic prosperity and increasing people's income.
One autumn, there was a bumper harvest of cotton. Some unscrupulous merchants banded together to take advantage of the situation and lowered the price of cotton, which temporarily aroused strong dissatisfaction among cotton farmers. But Zhou Ying was not affected by this and insisted on purchasing cotton according to the market price in previous years. In this way, all the cotton farmers' cotton was sold to her. As a result, she monopolized the cotton industry. As a result, the leading cotton industry leader in Xi'an had to turn to Zhou Ying for help because he was unable to supply customers. He had to buy cotton from Zhou Ying at a high price. The next year, the cotton harvest failed. Because there was still inventory of cotton from the previous year, Zhou Ying became the biggest winner in the cotton buying and selling market. In 7 years, she went from importing and exporting more than 3,000 tons of cotton a year to purchasing more than 110,000 tons of cotton a year. She went from a small business to a major cotton marketer in the Guanzhong area.
Similarly, the unpredictable market conditions in the tea market also test Zhou Ying's courage and wisdom. One year, the tea market plummeted and the tea was unsaleable. After analyzing the market situation, Zhou Ying invited Deng Jantang, who had once dominated the western tea market, to come in to guide the marketing business. Under the guidance of Deng Jiantang, Zhou Ying grasped the price rebound law of "the extremely expensive turns against the cheap, and the extremely cheap turns against the expensive", withstood the pressure of the market decline, and insisted on stocking up and waiting for sale. Just like that, after a few months, the price of tea suddenly rose, and tea suddenly changed from a slow-moving product to a best-selling product. Zhou Ying quickly sold the tea she had hoarded, earning tens of thousands of taels of silver at a time, making the Wu family's "Yuxingzhong" the largest tea brand in Jingyang.
Because of her good business skills and efficient management, Zhou Ying is known as the "Female Business Saint" of Shaanxi.
Great justice comes first to write legends
During her life, Zhou Ying was often praised for her good management and honest management, but the most talked about was her relationship with Cixi. . In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing, and Empress Dowager Cixi took refuge in Xi'an. Zhou Ying, who was at the forefront of the business world, generously donated 100,000 taels of silver to the Empress Dowager Cixi. The empress dowager, who held the highest power, was deeply moved. She immediately recognized Zhou Ying as her goddaughter and wrote a letter to protect her. "The Lady of the Country" was given a golden plaque.
Zhou Ying also became the only Han adopted daughter of Empress Dowager Cixi. Soon after, Zhou Ying paid tribute of silver to the Empress Dowager Cixi and expressed her willingness to fight for the national calamity. She was named "Mrs. Yipingaoming" by the Empress Dowager Cixi.
Zhou Ying was even more charitable to the villagers and became a well-known "living Bodhisattva". At that time, due to war and natural disasters, a large number of victims emerged in the Guanzhong area. While Zhou Ying was setting up porridge shops, she also opened warehouses to release grain to help the victims who were coming from all directions. She successively opened porridge shops in Gaoling, Sanyuan, Jingyang, Chunhua, Doujitai, and Kou Town where Wu's shops were located, and let Wu's grain stores in Jingyang, Chunhua, Sanyuan, Pucheng, and Fuping open warehouses. At the same time, 5 acres of land were opened outside Anwu Fort to set up a day and night porridge market, and the stored grains were distributed to the surrounding poor families who could not afford to eat. When Jingyang County was compiling the county annals, it was noted that Zhou Ying's good deeds were recorded in the annals of history.
While relieving the victims, Zhou Ying also donated money to drill dozens of deep wells in Jingyang County, which solved the water problem for more than 20,000 people and thousands of livestock. Later, The original Zhengbai Canal was introduced into the area bordering Gaoling County and Jingyang, and a drainage canal was dug at Zebo to divert underground saline-alkali water into the Wei River, lowering the groundwater level and reducing saline-alkali erosion. Zhou Ying not only provided relief to the victims and carried out water conservancy projects, but also founded education, built Confucian temples, donated military pay, and numerous other philanthropic deeds. This made the people around her respect her and be grateful for her kindness. Therefore, good stories about Zhou Ying are spread to this day.
As the saying goes, there are unforeseen circumstances. In the second year of Xuantong, that is, 1910 AD, after more than 20 years of hard work and ups and downs in the business world, Zhou Ying, who devoted her life to revitalizing Wu's industry and benefiting her family, came to He came to the end of his life at the age of 42. She distributed her huge fortune to all the maids and servants, and the land also belonged to the villagers. Local people said that on the day of her funeral, as many as 80,000 people from neighboring countries spontaneously came to pay their respects.
Zhou Ying spent her family wealth to benefit the countryside and won the respect and admiration of countless people. However, her death was as unfortunate as her marriage. Even though the Wu Cemetery, which covered an area of ??50 acres at that time, showed the aura of a wealthy family, it could not accommodate a childless widow like Zhou Ying. It is said that she was finally buried underground 200 meters northeast of the Wu family's ancestral grave. Now there is no trace of her grave. What is left to future generations is only a record in the "Jingyang County Chronicle" and the legends of the neighbors. (Wang Zhongya)