How much wealth did this powerful warlord, who once owned the three eastern provinces, accumulate during his lifetime? Where does his huge inheritance end up? Let's find out these curious questions.
Ah, if you want to talk about Zhang Zuolin's huge family wealth, you really have to start with his family background. The Zhang family has long been a prominent family on the Huai'an side, and their ancestors have been scholars for generations, and they attach great importance to the education of their children and grandchildren. Xiao Zhang Zuolin has been influenced by a good family education since he was a child, is humble and polite, and has learned to be rich and rich.
But no one could have imagined that this well-mannered son of a scholarly family would step by step on the road of no return to the northeast in the future. Fate is such a trick on people, so that a gentle Confucian student will eventually become a brutal and unscrupulous warlord!
At the end of the year, Zhang Zuolin left his hometown to study in Beijing, and he was determined to take power and get ahead. But what he never expected was that in the Wuxu Reform a hundred years later, his cloth shirt actually saved the life of the Empress Dowager Cixi. In this way, Zhang Zuolin was suddenly valued by the late Qing government, and he was gradually promoted from a transfer student to a military position.
At this time, Zhang Zuolin was the only son in the family, his father died early, and he fully assisted his mother in running the family business. At this moment, a fierce and cunning horse thief was rampant in the northeast grassland, and no one could help them. This bandit was unable to be quelled for a long time due to its many evils, and it became a major problem for the late Qing court.
In the autumn of critical survival, Zhang Zuolin finally saw the big stage to display his talents. He tried his best and used all kinds of tricks to finally find out where the den of this gang of bandits was. In this way, after a difficult ambush battle, Zhang Zuolin eradicated this bandit and completely swept away the scourge in the northeast corner.
In this battle, Zhang Zuolin made great achievements, and instantly became the focus of attention of the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military affairs. The courtiers of the late Qing Dynasty saw that he was captured and his talent was outstanding, so they made an exception and reused, not only adding officials to the knighthood, but also rewarding him with a large amount of military merit silver and land deeds. Since then, Zhang Zuolin has become a wealthy man, with a group of wives and concubines, which started his crazy years of calling himself a warlord.
In his early years, he was rewarded by the late Qing government with silver coins and land deeds, which laid a solid economic foundation for Zhang Zuolin. From then on, he began to seek to further expand his wealth. With the unique advantages of warlords, Zhang Zuolin has his hands and eyes in the northeast and is omnipresent.
First, he set his sights on the seized arms and weapons. As the saying goes, a soldier is like an arrow, and these weapons and ammunition are not idle things. Zhang Zuolin saw the right time and started the investment business of arms trading. He seized large quantities of weapons and ammunition from the defeated bandits, and then sold them to bandits and warlords everywhere at a low price, earning a high profit from the difference.
In addition, Zhang Zuolin also invested in Daxing real estate in various parts of Northeast China. As the overlord of one side, he used violent means to occupy a large number of treasured lands and fertile fields. He rents out these properties to the common people, and he can get high rental income every year. Sometimes, when some tenants are in arrears and do not pay their rent, Zhang Zuolin will send his cronies and his subordinates to collect the rent, which is quite brutal and shameless.
In addition to collecting rents, Zhang Zuolin also developed some of the mineral resources in these properties to make huge profits. Northeast China has been a rich land of minerals since ancient times, with rich resources such as coal, iron ore and non-ferrous metals. Seeing this, Zhang Zuolin spared no effort to mine and monopolize these mineral resources in various parts of the three eastern provinces, and sold them to foreign merchants such as the Japanese at high prices, earning considerable foreign exchange earnings.
At that time, Japan was in the early stages of industrialization, and the demand for mineral resources was huge. Zhang Zuolin took the opportunity to extort bamboo and made a lot of profits. One year, he received about 10 million yuan in foreign exchange income from Japanese businessmen, which shows how considerable the profits were.
Although Zhang Zuolin has made military achievements, he is famous in the northeast territory. But another important source of his wealth has to be mentioned, one has to mention his wives and concubines. The Zhang family has been a noble family since ancient times, and the wives and concubines are all from famous families. They not only have a family background, but also Zhang Zuolin's children and their wealth.
Let's talk about Zhang Zuolin's main room Lu Jun first, she was born in the late Qing Dynasty. The Lu family has served the imperial court for generations, from Zaifu to scholars, which can be described as prominent. Lu Jun has read poetry and books since he was a child, and he is gentle and generous, which can be called a beauty in the prosperous era. In this way, a lady from a very high background married Zhang Zuolin, a reckless hero.
Soon after marriage, Lu Jun's parents died, leaving behind a large family inheritance. Lu Jun knows that husband and wife are of the same heart, and they should selflessly contribute this asset to open up branches for her husband's Zhang family. In this way, a considerable amount of money became Zhang Zuolin's private dowry in an instant.
And Zhang Zuolin's side rooms are all children of excellent families. For example, his fourth aunt Taiji has an industry and has been surrounded by wealth since she was a child. Although they are concubines, they are all experts in financial management and investment. The fourth aunt is a capable leader in Zhang's industry, good at taking care of real estate deeds, and the income and expenditure must be compared in the slightest.
In addition, Zhang Zuolin's old sixth house, her mother's family left a large amount of savings funds on her ancestors. When she first married the Zhang family, she brought Zhang Zuolin a considerable dowry and huge sums of money. She loves to speculate on stocks and manage her finances, and she is meticulous in her methods, and she has also added considerable family resources to Zhang Zuolin.
As a rampant warlord overlord, Zhang Zuolin can be said to be doing all kinds of evil and taking risks. He not only accumulated a considerable fortune through investment, management and dowry, but also extorted and plundered wealth in every possible way.
In this small world in the Northeast, Zhang Zuolin relied on the barrel of a gun to run rampant, bullying men and women, harassing and looting without mercy. He first imposed heavy taxes on the territory under his control and extorted the common people. Those peasants who could not afford to pay would be brutally beaten by Zhang's army, and even plundered their homes.
One year, Zhang Zuolin's men ravaged the women of the people in a small village, sparking an angry revolt from the local peasants. The poor peasants had just raised the banner of struggle when they were brutally suppressed by Zhang Zuolin's army, and countless innocent villagers were killed. Such incidents of slaughtering villages and extortion are not uncommon in Zhang Zuolin's ruling territory.
In addition to blackmailing farmers, Zhang Zuolin also plundered the wealth of the rich. At that time, there were many wealthy landlord families in the Northeast, and the family property accumulated by their ancestors for generations can be described as the number of Ganges sand. Zhang Zuolin looked at their gold, silver, jewelry, and mansions, and was really greedy.
He will simply send an army to surround the rich man's house and arrest the master's family. Then there is the endless torture, ill-treatment and extortion of money. Some wealthy families who refused to hand over their property were killed, and all their property was looted.
In order to please Zhang Zuolin, some people took the initiative to hand over a large amount of wealth. For example, the Liu family in the Northeast took the initiative to give Zhang Zuolin a large sum of gold and banknotes in order to survive. These shameless blackmail and brutal looting have seized an incalculable amount of wealth for Zhang Zuolin.
In this way, Zhang Zuolin has accumulated a considerable amount of private money by various means. It can be described as a family fortune and the number of sands in the Ganges. However, the good times did not last long, and in the summer of 1928, Zhang Zuolin was tragically bombed by Japan agents and died. When he was dying, he specially instructed Wu Peifu of the old ministry to keep all his huge inheritance.
At that time, Zhang Zuolin had many descendants, and he was determined to leave this amazing family wealth to his children and grandchildren. What people never expected was that Wu Peifu, a ruthless old treacherous giant, actually took all of Zhang's inheritance for himself. He ruthlessly drove out Zhang Zuolin's descendants and grandchildren, and even ignored the baby.
What's even more distressing is that Zhang Zuolin's wife Lu and several concubines were also poisoned alive by Wu Peifu's henchmen after learning of this shocking news, and died unjustly. In this way, dozens of people from three generations of the Zhang family were tragically wiped out, and the earth-shattering family wealth was taken into his own pocket by Wu Peifu.
It is said that the huge wealth accumulated by Zhang Zuolin's family back then was enough to millions of taels of silver. After Wu Peifu took possession of it, he hid all this huge amount of money in the secret cellar cave mansion in the northeast. And he himself drove at full speed and died with money. Since then, he has lived a life of exile.
However, some people say that the Zhang family's inheritance was not fully appropriated by Wu Peifu. Some of Zhang Zuolin's distant relatives also received a small inheritance after he was killed. As for the exact number and whereabouts of the legacy, this has become a mystery that has so far been difficult to solve. In short, the final fate of Zhang Zuolin's huge family fortune after his death is still a matter of opinion, and all kinds of speculations are possible.