Eighty years ago today, on June 15, 1945 (May 6, 1945 in the lunar calendar), Huang Yizhu, a patriotic overseas Chinese entrepreneur, passed away. Huang Yizhu's legendary and difficult childhood Huang Yizhu, a native of Jin Tao, Nan'an, was born on December 7, 1868, in Tongzhi, Qing Dynasty. Due to the extremely high infant mortality rate in remote mountain villages, his father Huang Zehua hoped to keep his son who had just been born to inherit his lineage, so he named it "Zhu" and the common name "A Zhu" was a small name. According to the order of Huang Zhaomu, A Zhu belongs to the "Yi" generation, so the big name is "Yi Zhu". A Zhu has three younger brothers and two younger sisters. The family is supported by the meager income of his father's farming and his mother's Pu's spinning, and often runs out of food. The strong Pu family was afraid that her neighbors would find out that her house was out of food, so they started a fire to boil water and created a scene of cooking smoke to show off. In fact, they were drinking water to get by. Therefore, they had to give their second son to distant relatives, and their two daughters to the farmers surnamed Ke and Pu to be child brides. A Zhu attended a private school for a few years when she was a child, and was "too smart to be a child", but the difficult life of drinking water to satisfy her hunger could only drop out of school and take on the burden of "going to the mountain to pick in the morning, and money to supply pepper water" to help his father with agricultural work. But Huang Zehua did not want A Zhu to follow the footsteps of his ancestors and not see the sun, so he sent 12-year-old A Zhu to learn the shaving craft with his uncle. After three years of apprenticeship, Azhu took on the burden of shaving his head alone and became a shaver who traveled from village to village. One day in 1884, Azhu shaved the head of a rich gentleman. When he was shaving his face, the gentleman suddenly coughed and was caught off guard. The razor slightly injured the forehead of the rich gentleman. Although Azhu apologized again and again, the rich gentleman still scolded him loudly and threatened to settle accounts in the future. Azhu was deeply afraid and couldn't afford to provoke him, so he hid in the outer village to avoid trouble. Under all kinds of helplessness, he proposed to his parents: simply leave Jintao and make a living in Nanyang. The parents "liked it". So he sold a mound of ancestral land and got 36 yuan of silver as his entanglement in Nanyang. In the spring of 1885, Huang Yizhu was pregnant with 36 silver dollars, carrying a few clothes and a shaving tool, and walked more than 100 miles to Xiamen, ready to take a boat to the South China Sea. Wandering in Xiamen with hardship, Ah Zhu stayed in the "Shanmin Inn (inn), waiting for the boat schedule. Soon, he took a wooden sailboat with An Overseas Chinese Huang Zhonghan to Singapore, and the boat fee will be repaid after finding a job in Singapore. After a lame sea voyage, he finally arrived in Singapore smoothly." Help "in a small shop of a villager, and go to a crowded place on the dock to shave his head when he has time. Because Ah Zhu is friendly and more people know him, people will affectionately call him" Shaved Head ". After a year of hard work, he paid off the boat fee. In the spring of 1886, he went to Lan, still shaving the heads of the overseas Chinese workers in the plantation. However, after more than a year of haircutting, he still couldn't make money, and he couldn't get rich. He was quite sad and helpless. In 1887, he went to Medan, Sumatra, and his living conditions did not improve much. So in 1888, he moved to Semarang, Java, where Zheng He, a Ming Dynasty navigator and three voyages to the West, landed. In Semarang, he first helped in the village's grocery store, but soon found himself a redundant person, so he resumed his old business, started shaving his head, traveled the streets, came to cut the hair of the overseas Chinese, and sometimes stayed in the Mazu Temple at night. One day, when he was cutting the hair of the old overseas Chinese Wei Jiashou, he confided in Wei his distress and thoughts. Azu said: Shaving your head can make a living, but you will not be able to make a fortune in your life. You want to give up the haircut business and change to a merchant to do small business. It happened that the old overseas Chinese started a small business. He supported Azu's idea and lent him five shields as the principal. So, Azu used a grinding stone to file the razor, together with other haircutting tools, wrapped it in cloth, tied the stone and sank it into the Pacific Ocean, swearing that he would never shave his head again! In the footsteps of the sugar king, Azu used the 5 guilders lent by Wei Jiashou and his small savings as basic gold to buy some small groceries and food, and picked them up to sell in the aboriginal villages in the suburbs of Semarang. At the same time, he bought local specialties and sold them back to the urban area of Semarang, making money on both sides. In addition, he was enthusiastic, had a good service attitude, and abided by his credit, and soon had some funds. He wanted to open the way as a tradesman and embark on the road of business and wealth. Azu carried the tradesman's burden, carefully observed the market dynamics, and planned a new livelihood. He found that the coffee business was good, so he replaced the tradesman's burden with a coffee burden, and the business was booming, and soon he had a surplus. So he further rented a fixed location in front of Citibank, set up coffee and tea stalls, and It's true that time has come and gone, from carrying responsibilities to setting up stalls, from swimming to fixed points, that is, from businesspeople to sitting on the table, the role change brings abundant income, and gradually enriches it. Azhu and Ai are friendly, honest and trustworthy, industrious and thrifty, plus his business experience, customers are busy, and business is booming. One person has to buy goods, make coffee, wash cups and plates, and deliver pastries to customers, which is really busy. At this time, Cai Zongniang, an indigenous girl who also has a coffee stall next to his coffee stall, proposed to operate a partnership. She was in charge outside and inside, and she took care of the brewing and washing tube stall. Since then, their business has been more prosperous and their income has been more prosperous. In 1891, the two of them opened the "Nikko Grocery Store" in the most prosperous Zohar market in Semarang City, and from then on, the traders and hawkers really became a fixed seat and took root. Immediately after, the "Nikko Grocery Store" started wholesale and changed to "Nikko Trading Company"; later, it started international trade and engaged in import and export business. And in the period of Indonesia's economic development, it seized the fastest growing and most profitable cane sugar trade in the import and export trade and ventured into the sugar market. Nikko Trading Company also directly went to sugar mills around the country to buy cane sugar and changed hands, thus quickly becoming rich, like a rolling jade ball. By 1897, it had amassed millions of guilders. Azumi took the opportunity to expand his business scope to the whole of Indonesia, expanding to Eastern India, and reorganized Nikko Commercial Bank into "Nikko Co., Ltd.", and built his own commercial building in the busy commercial street of Semarang City, which is now Semarang International Commercial Bank. By 1913, Huang Yizhu's assets had reached 300-5 million guilders, ranking among the four major sugar kings in Java (the remaining three were Huang Zhonghan (Jianyuan Company), Guo Chunyang (Jinmao Company), Zhang Benfu (Shulong Company)). In 1917, before the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the end of the war, he took advantage of the policies of the Dutch and Indian colonial authorities to reverse the operation and implemented large-scale purchases of futures and spot futures, especially forward futures, which were very profitable. The rise in sugar prices was more beneficial to the sun, and he earned as much as he rose. By early 1917, his capital had tripled to 1,000-15 million guilders, making him a multimillionaire. In 1918, after the "First World War" ended, the Dutch and Indian governments ordered industrial and commercial enterprises to pay more than 15 million guilders, equivalent to 42% of his total assets. In fact, the taxes during this period had already been paid, and the tax payment was tantamount to extortion. At this time, the Dutch and Indian governments sent staff to persuade him to join the Dutch loan to avoid paying supplementary taxes. The Japanese consul also came forward to lobby for Huang to join the Japanese loan, which could also be exempted. Huang Yizhu was "deeply ashamed" and strictly refused. After weighing and changing the amount, Huang Yizhu returned to the motherland on April 5, 1919 with a huge sum of 28 million US dollars, and chose to live in Gulangyu Island and seek other development. Legendary marriage In the old Nan'an, there was the custom of keeping a child bride, and the Huang family was no exception. When Azhu was a child, his parents married him to the child bride Wang, and he grew up at home with him. At the age of 16, Azu went to Nanyang alone to break into the world. After all the hardships, he had been focusing on his career and had no time for him. When he set up a stall selling coffee at Citibank in Semarang, his neighbor, Cai Zongniang, a local indigenous girl, was very warm and generous. First, he proposed a partnership. Huang Zhuwai, she was in charge, and she took care of each other, and then offered to marry him. This sudden love made me feel at a loss and very contradictory. I felt that I was in Nanyang, and I really needed a woman as my company, and Zongniang was a local aboriginal, so she had many discounts for her career, which was quite beneficial. But what about Wang Shi, who was from his hometown? He told Cai the truth, but Cai was very open-minded and expressed his willingness to follow the rules of the Huang family, regardless of his status as wife and concubine. When the end of Semarang was settled, he immediately wrote a letter to his mother to ask for Wang Shi's opinion. Wang Shi was also a reasonable person. He believed that there was someone in Nanyang who could take care of Ah Zhu on his behalf, and he could rest assured with Cai, so he approved of Cai's marriage. After four years of marriage with Cai, Wang Shi was already 19 years old, and Ah Zhu returned to his hometown to marry Wang Shi, which was the official family. In this way, Ah Zhu had a "two-headed family", and both ends had to be taken care of. The Nanyang side was a career, and he would live longer. On the side of his hometown, Wang Shi, who had been playing together since he was a child, had deep feelings, and it was difficult to give up, so he could only take time to come back more. When he went to Nanyang, Wang Shi hung his changed clothes on the head of the bed without washing them. Every time he thought of him, he hugged his clothes and smelled the smell left on his clothes to relieve his longing. After she told Ah Zhu about this, Ah Zhu was quite touched and remembered her infatuation for a long time. Until his death in June 1945, Wang Shi had been serving in front of his bed. Ah Zhu took Wang Shi's hand and said affectionately, "It's still good!" After Huang Yizhu completed the construction of three high-end villas in the "Huang Family Garden", the development direction of his career was strategically shifted, and his focus was shifted to the financial industry and real estate industry. He also got involved in the urban construction of Xiamen, and many achievements were made. But the first thing he thought of was education, because he kept in mind the pain of dropping out of school and must make up for it. He donated money to build many primary schools, middle schools, libraries, and hospitals in his hometown of Nan'an, Gulangyu Island, Xiamen, Singapore, and Semarang, and then donated to Shanghai Fudan University, Shanghai Jinan University, Peking University, Nankai University, Lingnan University, and Xiamen University, etc., making great contributions to China's education cause! In 1920, he founded "Nikko Bank" and invested in Xiamen Commercial Bank; in 1921, he founded Zhongnan Bank in Shanghai, with branches in Tianjin, Wuhan, Chongqing and Xiamen, branches in Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and offices in Suzhou, Wuxi and Gulangyu. He obtained the right to issue banknotes. By the time the right to issue banknotes from private banks was cancelled in 1935, the issuance amount of Zhongnan Bank had reached 103 million yuan, second only to Bank of China. It was the most powerful private bank in China at that time. In 1931, he served as the chairperson of Pacific Insurance Company, including the formation of Lishengfu Trust Company, which invested in the Bank of East Asia in Hong Kong. In 1932, he invested in OCBC Bank in Singapore and carefully built a financial network centered on him. He died in Shanghai on June 15, 1945 at the age of 76. From 1919 to 1935, he built 160 houses in Gulangyu, covering 41,500 square meters, the first in Xiamen, and also built a Rixing Street exclusively. It can be said that every corner of Gulangyu has his real estate. At the same time, Huang Yizhu also invested in Fujian-Guangdong Railway, Chaoshan Railway, Zhangxia Railway, mined Minnan minerals, and put into production textile, woolen, chemical, cement, and mining companies in Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou. He established Xiahe Automobile Company, built Xiamen Water Supply, Xiamen and Zhangzhou Telephone Company, and was the founder of Xiamen Water Supply and Xiamen Zhangzhou Telephone. He also led the urban construction of Xiamen with outstanding achievements. He also donated huge sums of money to relieve floods and droughts in the northern and southern provinces of China and benefit the people! Overall, Huang Yizhu grew from a mountain village shaver to an Indonesian sugar king, a leader in China's financial sector, leaving behind an unforgettable career that is worthy of future generations' respect and remembrance!