Speaking of the "Sugar King", I am afraid that the first impression is Guo Henian, Guo Henian with his business talents, in the 1970s, in his early 40s, every year controlled about 20% of the international sugar market at that time, and won the throne of "Asian Sugar King". Since then, Guo Henian has been at the top of the throne of wealth, and the entire family is constantly thriving.
In the entire history of the sugar industry, there is a fragment that cannot be ignored, that is, in the early 20th century, by the Huang Zhonghan period, who was also known as the "Sugar King" at that time. In the 1920s, The sugar production of Jianyuan Company under the leadership of Huang Zhonghan accounted for 57% of the total output of Huaqiao Sugar Factory and 17.1% of the total sugar pressing industry in Indonesia, becoming a veritable "sugar king".
Huang Zhonghan
In the history from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, Huang Zhonghan's Huang family was one of the richest overseas Chinese families in Indonesia and even the world. Especially in the Huang Zhonghan period, the Huang family and the Jianyuan company reached their peak in both development and influence, and were the most influential Chinese businessmen in the early 20th century.
Juvenile growth
Huang Zhonghan's ancestral home is Tong'an, Fujian, and his father, Huang Zhixin, was a member of the Knife Society and later fled to Indonesia. In 1863, he founded the "Jianyuan Stack" trading house to carry out commodity trade between Java and China, opening a brilliant chapter in the history of the Huang family.
Huang Zhonghan, born in 1866 in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia, was gifted and intelligent since childhood, and was deeply loved by Huang Zhixin, in order to give him a good education, he has always taken him with him and personally taught him.
Indonesia
In this period of history in his youth, Huang Zhonghan relied on his outstanding business talent to assist his father in running the "Jianyuan Stack" business, which made the "Jianyuan Stack" develop and grow rapidly.
Take the helm of the company
In 1890, the 24-year-old Huang Zhonghan succeeded his father in running the "Jianyuan Stack", and reorganized the "Jianyuan Stack" into Jianyuan Trading Co., Ltd., which was later appointed by the Dutch and Indian colonial government to help manage the affairs of overseas Chinese.
In 1893, when the Dutch and Indian colonial government revised and cancelled the commercial policy, Huang Zhonghan timely adjusted the company's development direction and business strategy. Since 1894, it has vigorously developed sugarcane cultivation, increased the planting area, and successively invested in the establishment of 5 sugar factories such as Baques and Rio Argonne, with a total investment of about 10 million Dutch dong.
Sugar cane plantations
Throughout his history at the helm of the company, although Huang Zhonghan did not understand technology, he was well aware of the importance of technology. To this end, he sent talented young staff to various countries to learn advanced technology, and spared no expense in hiring experts and purchasing state-of-the-art equipment.
In less than a decade, Huang Zhonghan's "sugar empire" was just beginning to grow, according to the historical data at that time, the highest annual output of its 9 sugar factories was as high as 150,000 tons, accounting for half of Indonesia's domestic consumer market and also occupying a certain share in the international market.
During this period, although it experienced the twists and turns of the First World War and the difficulties of the Dutch and Indian colonial governments at that time, under the efforts of Huang Zhonghan, Jianyuan Company not only did not fall, but took the opportunity to open the European sugar market and developed unprecedentedly.
World War I
However, Huang Zhonghan was not satisfied with his achievements in the sugar market and began to diversify his business.
In 1918, he founded the largest tapioca flour factory in Southeast Asia, while also dealing in rubber, coffee, kapok citronella oil, etc., and expanded the scope of operations to all over the world.
By 1924, Jianyuan's total assets amounted to about 200 million guilders, and Huang Zhonghan himself was listed as the fourteenth richest man in world history at that time.
Unfortunately, in July 1924, Wong died in Singapore at the age of 58.
There is no successor
After Huang Zhonghan's death, his sons Huang Zongxuan and Huang Zongxiao presided over the company's operations, but the brothers' business talents were far inferior to those of their father.
In the wake of the economic depression of the 1920s, the devastation of World War II, and the suppression of the Indonesian government at the time, Jianyuan's situation became increasingly difficult.
economic depression
With huang Zongxiao's unfortunate death from a heart attack in 1950, the Huang family never had a successor who could provoke the revitalization of the family's cause, and could only watch the decline of Jianyuan Company.
Finally, in 1961, Jianyuan Company, which has a glorious history, finally could not support itself and died in the dust of history.
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