Toronto Dec. 2014

“Credibility is the second life of a man,” businessman Hu
Xueyan said, and he demonstrated it as the owner of
China’s Fukang Bank.
15,000 taels without hesitation. The news spread
like wildfire, and the Fookang Bank became the
most sought-after bank in the country, because
many other financiers would have simply kept the
money after the customer died. Fookang Bank
branches sprang up across China.
Hand over the reigns
Banker Qiao Zhiyong built a commercial empire of
tens of millions of taels of silver, controlling ports,
banks, and docks around China. The Qiao Family
Mansion has been preserved to this day — a classic
example of northern Chinese architecture.
One day, Qiao met Yan Weifan, a bank branch
manager who had been misunderstood and dismissed
by a former employer. Qiao saw Yan’s hidden
talent, and dispatched eight men to carry an invitation
and a sedan chair to his front door and wait.
When Yan didn’t come out, Qiao’s son respectfully
approached the house and explained how his father
looked near and far for talented men. Yan, moved,
agreed to an interview, but he refused to sit in the
sedan chair out of modesty. Instead, they agreed to
put his clothes and hat in the chair while the two
men rode horses.
Yan was accorded the best hospitality in Qiao’s
home, and Qiao saw that Yan was a well-mannered,
sharp, and grounded young man. The fact that he
was only 36 years old further heightened Qiao’s appreciation
of his talent. Yan was brought on as the
manager of Dadeheng Bank, and went on to run it
for 26 years. Business boomed, and it became one
of the most competitive banks in China.
Vanquishing adversity
In 1883, Shanghai was rocked by turmoil: torrential
rains, a plague, chaos in the markets, and a crisis
due to a collapse in the price of silk. Even that
great Confucian entrepreneur, Hu Xueyan, closed
the Shanghai branch of his bank.
But Ye Chengzhong was just coming into his element.
Ye was a pioneer in transportation and shipping.
At the height of his success, his assets were valued
at between six and eight million taels of silver,
equal to a tenth of the Qing government’s annual
income.
When disaster struck, Ye avoided the worst of it
by withdrawing all his bank deposits in early 1883
and waiting for an opportunity. He saw it in the
kerosene business, locking down exclusive distribution
rights for Standard Oil’s kerosene in China.
That year, Standard Oil shipped a large amount
of kerosene to Shanghai, hoping to increase sales
to compensate for its loss in London. Ye took care
of those shipments, and shifted his attention from
the eventful Shanghai to the overlooked Yangtze
River and coastal areas, establishing 18 distribution
branches in Ningbo, Wenzhou, Zhenjiang, Tianjin,
Guangdong, and other towns and trading ports.
Next, he built a transportation infrastructure
by buying up idle cotton boats, available because
of the collapse of that industry. He accumulated
over 100 ships, and used them to haul kerosene,
coal, iron, and other materials up and down the
Yangtze River.
Thus, in 1883, what was supposed to be a hopeless
year, Ye’s profit was 100,000 taels of silver — an
extraordinary sum.
Keeping one’s word, always dealing fairly and
squarely, putting complete trust in trustworthy
people, and being flexible in the face of adversity
are the most treasured tenets of the Confucian entrepreneurs.