Brew king Zhang Zhenxun

In 1840, Zhang Zhenxun was born in the home of a rural private school teacher in Dabu County, Guangdong. Although his father also practiced medicine and treated diseases in addition to teaching, the life at home was still very poor. Xiao Zhenxun studied with his father in a private school for several years. When he was thirteen or fourteen, he had to drop out and go to his brother-in-law's house to herd cattle. But he loved reading so much that one time he forgot to take care of the cow because he was reading. The cow ate the seedlings in someone else's field. The owner sued his brother-in-law's house and demanded compensation. The brother-in-law was so angry that he slapped Xiao Zhenxun hard in the face and scolded him: "A dead man can still hold four coffin boards. You can't even hold a cow. You are really worse than a dead man!"

Xiao Zhenxun said angrily: "Don't look down on others too much. In the future, I will get rich..."

My brother-in-law didn't wait for him to finish speaking, and sneered and said, "You also want to get rich? Unless The sun rises from the west!"

Little Zhenxun turned blue with anger, turned around and ran home.

My father did not blame him, but said awkwardly: "My son, what are you going to do in the future?" There are many examples of people who got rich by doing business in "Biography", so he said to his father: "I want to learn how to do business!"

Because there was no suitable opportunity to learn business, his father sent him to Become an apprentice in a bamboo workshop.

Little Zhenxun is not afraid of hardship and learns his craft very well. But when he was 16 years old, a severe drought that had never happened in a century occurred in his hometown. People were starving to death everywhere. No one needed bamboo utensils anymore, and no one came to study. Both Xiao Zhenxun and his father lost their jobs. Xiao Zhenxun had to go up the mountain with his elder brother and younger brother every day to dig grass roots and peel tree bark to satisfy the family's hunger. At this time, a Nanyang overseas Chinese named Huang in the village returned to his hometown to visit relatives. Seeing that the famine was serious, he generously took out money and gave each family in the village a bushel of white rice. The folks are very grateful to him. Zhang Zhenxun was very envious, so he went to the overseas Chinese to ask if he could go to Nanyang to work and earn money. An overseas Chinese named Huang saw that he was strong and diligent, so he expressed his willingness to take him to Nanyang to make a living.

Zhang Zhenxun returned home excitedly, convinced his parents, and boarded a sailing ship to Bacheng, Indonesia (today's Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia) with an overseas Chinese named Huang.

After more than ten days of sea voyage, Zhang Zhenxun set foot on Indonesian land with full hope. Clear and bright blue sea water, towering coconut trees, lush rubber forests, fragrant betel nut flowers, meat-scented sand tea...

The rich exotic customs made Xiao Zhenxun feel novel. And interesting. But what he is more concerned about is where he can make money. He will never forget for a moment that his parents and relatives in his hometown are in dire straits and are looking forward to him earning more money to support his family!

However, at that time, Bacheng was under the rule of the Dutch colonialists, and its beautiful scenery was only a paradise for the rich. It is still difficult for poor people to make a living here. Although Zhang Zhenxun, who had no relatives, found a place to live with the help of an overseas Chinese named Huang, he could not find a job for two consecutive months, and finally had to work as a very difficult and dangerous miner.

It was not until three years later that Zhang Zhenxun became a servant in a paper shop opened by an overseas Chinese in Fujian. He knows that this job is hard-won, so as long as it is something the boss orders, he will do it seriously and down-to-earth. Sometimes, he does the work of two people by himself and never complains. When he had free time at night, he was always eager to learn the local language and business knowledge. Boss Chen of the paper shop valued him very much. He first made him a salesman, and later promoted him to the position of accountant, entrusting him with all the money in and out and accounting management of the whole store. Zhang Zhenxun also lived up to his boss's trust and worked hard to run the business well. That year, the bank earned a profit of 50,000 Dutch guilders. At this time, someone secretly encouraged him to find an opportunity to take the money in the store and flee back to his hometown to live a happy life. Zhang Zhenxun believed that doing so was immoral and the behavior of a person with no future, so he firmly refused. After Boss Chen found out, he valued this young man even more and felt that he was a reliable person, so he married his only daughter Chen Lanxiang to Zhang Zhenxun.

At the end of this year, Boss Chen passed away due to illness. When he was dying, he entrusted all his posthumous affairs to Zhang Zhenxun.

After burying the old man, Zhang Zhenxun discussed with his wife how to develop his future career. He said that although opening a paper bank could sustain his life, it would not lead to any major development. In the past few years, he had carefully observed and studied Based on the business situation in Bacheng, the liquor store has the best development prospects. Because the Dutch colonialists spent a lot of money and could not do without wine; and among the local residents, there were also many people who liked wine. So he wanted to close the paper shop and open a wine shop instead.

My wife has always admired his shrewdness and ability, and she agreed after hearing what he said made sense.

After the wine shop opened, business was indeed booming. Zhang Zhenxun is a caring person. When receiving customers, he pays attention to understanding the local customs and making friends from all walks of life. Even the local highest official, Dutchman Henry, became his friend. Later, during the bidding competition for the right to handle Bacheng's liquor tax and pawn donations, Zhang Zhenxun received help from Henry and won easily. The profits from handling wine taxes and pawn donations were huge, and Zhang Zhenxun's wealth doubled. At the same time, through Henry's relationship, he gradually expanded this business to other cities and other products. In just a few years, Zhang Zhenxun became a prominent local tycoon.

However, Zhang Zhenxun is not satisfied with this way of making money. He has been looking for a more promising development direction.

In 1866, a new entrepreneurial opportunity arrived. In order to develop nearby islands, the local government called on overseas Chinese to invest in reclamation. Zhang Zhenxun believes that the islands in Southeast Asia have fertile land and a suitable climate, so the development prospects will be good. This is a good opportunity to show off their talents and ambitions! So he personally went to Grobabu, which was also a Dutch colony, and founded the Yuhe Reclamation Company. The company hired a group of overseas Chinese workers, reclaimed a piece of wasteland, planted coconuts, coffee, tea and other cash crops, and interplanted grains in the fields. After several years of hard work, the original jungle swamps turned into fertile fields. His income also continued to increase. Since he always attaches great importance to credibility, the business situation has been very good. At the same time, he also arranged meals for the Dutch garrison and workers, and also carried out building repair projects, and also made a lot of money. His status in the overseas Chinese society is getting higher and higher, and his career is getting bigger and bigger. In order to speed up land reclamation, he recruited local Chinese workers and wrote letters back to his hometown, calling on fellow villagers to come to Nanyang to participate in development. He successively opened three reclamation companies, Yuying, Liwang and Wanyuying. Among them, the Liwang family alone has tens of thousands of employees and assets worth millions of guilders!

1875. Zhang Zhenxun went to Sumatra to engage in reclamation business, opened the Aceh Reclamation Company, and successively set up rubber plantations, tea gardens, fish ponds and banks, becoming a "Sudao millionaire" with abundant wealth. At the same time, he also invested a lot of profits in other industries. In Bacheng, he ran two shipping companies, Guangfu and Yuchang, which were engaged in ocean shipping; in Rili, he ran Rili Bank; in Wendong Port, he ran Dongxing Mine, which mined tin ores. services company; it also owns a large amount of real estate in Medan, Penang and Sumatra. After more than 30 years of entrepreneurial struggle, by the 1890s, the business scope of Zhang's enterprise included agriculture, mining, commerce, and transportation, with branches all over Southeast Asia. It is estimated that during the peak period of Zhang Zhenxun's business, his total overseas assets were approximately 70 million taels of silver. At that time, the Qing government's annual fiscal revenue was only this amount. This is really a "rich country"!

Zhang Zhenxun became a very important figure in the overseas Chinese community in Nanyang, and the local Dutch colonists did not dare to underestimate him. Everywhere he visited, the local administration greeted him with a salute. At the same time, the Dutch government was also prepared to grant him an official position, but Zhang Zhenxun politely declined. He said to his friends: "I am Chinese and should contribute to the motherland. How can I be a foreign official?"

1890 was another turning point in Zhang Zhenxun's life. In this year, Gong Zhaoyuan, the Qing government's minister to the United Kingdom, was ordered to inspect the methods of making countries rich in Europe and the United States. When passing through Singapore, he heard about Zhang Zhenxun's situation, was very interested, and made a special trip to visit him.

During the meeting, Gong Zhaoyuan asked Zhang Zhenxun for advice on how to get rich. Zhang Zhenxun's answer greatly impressed Gong Zhaoyuan, and the two hit it off. Upon Gong Zhaoyuan's recommendation, the Qing government appointed Zhang Zhenxun as China's Consul General in Penang, and was later promoted to Consul General in Singapore. Zhang Zhenxun's reputation also began to spread to the country.

In the summer of the next year, Sheng Xuanhuai, the Minister of Railway Supervision of the Qing government, invited Zhang Zhenxun to Yantai, Shandong Province to discuss the construction of railways and mining of mineral deposits. Zhang Zhenxun went happily. During the conversation, Zhang Zhenxun mentioned an old incident: more than 10 years ago, he had a meal with a French consul. The French consul said that the climate and environment in Tianjin and Yantai, China are suitable for the growth of grapes, and the grapes there can be used to brew Excellent wine. Zhang Zhenxun, who once ran a liquor store, kept these words in mind. Now that he has arrived in Yantai, he would like to have an on-site inspection of the grape growing conditions. Coincidentally, Sheng Xuanhuai also had this idea for a long time. He believed that the Yantai area was rich in grapes and sold at low prices, so it was very suitable for building a winery. The two coincided with each other and discussed the matter in detail. Sheng Xuanhuai said that the most difficult thing is the lack of high-level winemakers. Zhang Zhenxun said that winemakers can be hired, so there is no need to worry. The trouble is that wine bottles are not available.

Sheng Xuanhuai told him that a glass factory had been established in Shanghai to solve the wine bottle problem. Zhang Zhenxun's confidence greatly increased with these words, and he immediately decided to invest and establish a winery in Yantai!

With the support of Sheng Xuanhuai, Zhang Zhenxun began to prepare for the establishment of a winery. While he was buying land in Yantai, customizing machines, building factories, wine cellars, and developing raw material bases, he was writing letters back to his hometown and recruiting Zhang's children and relatives to help him.

In September 1894, the Yantai Changyu Brewing Company organized by Zhang Zhenxun received official government approval and obtained 15-year patents and patents in Zhili (now Hebei), Fengtian (now Liaoning), and Shandong provinces. Tax-free policy for 3 years. This was the first new brewing company in modern my country and also the largest new brewing company in the Far East at that time. Zhang Zhenxun personally wrote the shiny golden signboard and hung it high on the door.

Zhang Zhenxun took the first step on the road to becoming a wine king.

Zhang Zhenxun once ran a wine shop and had a general understanding of famous wines from various countries. He also ran a reclamation company and knew the production and management of raw material base vineyards. These were all advantages for him to start a wine company. condition. However, he had no idea about the technology of making wine. At first, he asked people to search for relevant information from ancient Chinese books and planned to experiment on his own. However, although my country's winemaking industry has a long history, it has always been dominated by grain wine, and there are almost no records about wine. Zhang Zhenxun had to place his hope on foreign winemakers. In the spring of 1892, after being introduced by a friend, Zhang Zhenxun paid a large sum of money to hire the famous British winemaker Ruo Phosphorus to come to Yantai. The two cooperated happily. Unexpectedly, two years later, Erlan died suddenly due to tooth extraction. At the critical moment when planning to build a winery, Zhang Zhenxun had to rush to hire a new winemaker. This time we invited the Dutchman Redfer.

Zhang Zhenxun asked Redford to start testing wine, and he returned to Singapore to handle Nanyang affairs. Soon, Redford came to Singapore to report the good news to Zhang Zhenxun with a sample of the trial wine. He boasted about how good his wine was, and it was comparable to the Queen Mother's fairy wine. However, Zhang Zhenxun took the wine sample to a local brewing company for testing, but the results disappointed him. The chemist said to him: "From the test results, the quality of your country's grapes is very good, but your brewing technology is really not good. Maybe your winemaker doesn't know how to make wine at all!" Only then did Zhang Zhenxun realize that Redford turned out to be a liar. .

Although the liar was driven away, Zhang Zhenxun was so angry that he was bedridden for several days. After an Austrian friend of his learned about it, he helped him hire a winemaker named Wawu from China. Zhang Zhenxun accepted the lesson and personally accompanied the winemaker to Yantai and carefully observed and tested him. He believed that Wawu not only had superb winemaking skills, but was also loyal and honest, so he entrusted the overall situation to him.

Wawu not only guided the winemaking process, but also conducted research on local grape production.

He found that although the quality of Yantai's grapes was good, there were not many varieties and the wine yield was not high. Therefore, he suggested that Zhang Zhenzhu introduce "Riesling", "Dawanxiang" and other fine varieties from the West to improve the original varieties. Zhang Zhenxun felt that what he said made sense. On the one hand, he purchased two barren mountains in Yantai to create farmland and expand the raw material base; on the other hand, he sent his nephew Zhang Zizhang to Europe to purchase 1.2 million grape seedlings of excellent varieties. Unfortunately, the purchased grape seedlings passed through the Indian Ocean during transportation. Due to the scorching sun, almost all of them withered, resulting in a loss of more than 100,000 yuan. Zhang Zizhang came back dejectedly to report. Although Zhang Zhenxun was also very sad, he still encouraged Zhang Zizhang and said: "Victory or defeat is a common thing for soldiers.

I don't blame you. You go to Europe and buy 1.2 million grape seedlings. ! "From this incident, we can see Zhang Zhenxun's courage and ambition to become an industrialist.

However, the Austrian winemaker Wawu only worked for a short period of time because of old age and illness. He felt that he could not take on such a major task and asked to resign.

Zhang Zhenxun had to look for the winemaker again.

It takes no effort to get there even if you wear iron shoes. In 1896, when Zhang Zhenxun was talking to the Austrian consul in Yantai, Sir Bo Baobao, he mentioned that he was very troubled by the fact that he had unsuccessfully invited a winemaker three times. Bao Bao laughed and said:

"There is a talented brewing expert right in front of you, why don't you invite him?"

It turns out that Bao Bao's family has been engaged in the brewing industry for generations, and he His father is a famous Austrian winemaker. Baobao has loved winemaking since he was a child. He has been learning winemaking technology from his father and worked in a winery. Zhang Zhenxun was overjoyed and immediately discussed with Pa Bao and asked him to take charge of the technical work of Changyu Brewing Company. Baobao saw that Zhang Zhenxun was obsessed with developing the wine industry and was eager for talent, and this work was his interest. Therefore, he expressed his willingness to resign from his diplomatic post and return to his old career to help Zhang Zhenxun!

Zhang Zhenxun finally found a satisfactory partner. A Chinese consul stationed abroad returned to his country to run a winery, and a foreign consul stationed in China resigned from his post to become a winemaker. The sincere cooperation between the two consuls has become a good story in the entrepreneurial history of Changyu Brewing Company!

After more than ten years of hard work, by 1908, Yantai Changyu Brewing Company was finally ready.

The company has two vineyards covering an area of ??nearly 1,000 acres with 124 varieties as raw material production bases; a three-story factory building, an underground wine cellar of 1,976 square meters and a glass manufacturing plant; and Presses, fermentation machines, white oak wine storage barrels and other equipment were purchased from abroad. The company's trials of brandy and red wine have also been successful. Everything was ready, Zhang Zhenxun gave the order, and Yantai Changyu Brewing Company officially started production.

Zhang Zhenxun has attached great importance to product quality from the beginning. He started with grapes, the raw material for winemaking, and not only introduced new varieties from abroad, but also introduced new technologies. He had dedicated personnel responsible for soil conditioning, fertilizer application, pest control and other tasks. When the grapes matured, he also tested the quality of the fruits, classified them, cut them, and used them separately, thus greatly improving the quality of the wine. At the same time, he also set up a planting technology file to record the growth, fruiting, harvesting and other conditions of different grape varieties in detail year by year as a basis for improvement.

In the wine-making process, the key to the mellow flavor of wine lies in the cellaring time of the wine. "Old wine becomes more fragrant as it ages", this is what is said. Zhang Zhenxun strictly stipulates that Changyu Company's products must be stored for at least five years before they can be sold out of the factory.

At the same time, he changed the traditional Chinese method of storing wine in jars and urns, using imported white oak wine barrels to store wine; and drawing on foreign experience, he "transformed" the stored wine every year. "Barrel", that is, transferring from one barrel to another. During the process of barrel rotation, the crystallized tartaric acid precipitated at the bottom is removed, making the wine clearer. The longer the wine storage period and the more times the barrel is turned, the more mellow the wine will naturally taste. Although this process was time-consuming and labor-intensive, Zhang Zhenxun persisted and was meticulous. Therefore, the wine produced by Changyu Company surpassed the products of many domestic and foreign manufacturers from the beginning.

Later, they discovered that the Italian was a good drinker and could talk well when drunk, so they tried to invite him to a banquet on the Mid-Autumn Festival, got him half drunk, and then brought the topic to winemaking. As expected, the Italian winemaker fell into the trap. , inadvertently revealed several key techniques of wine making. Zhang Zizhang and the others quickly recorded it and tried it according to this method. They succeeded in one try! Zhang Zhenxun finally has his own Chinese winemaker, and from now on he can technically get rid of the control of foreigners!

According to Zhang Zhenxun’s idea, Zhang Zizhang and Zhu Shoushan used rose aroma as the main raw material to brew red wine as bright as ruby, rich in aroma, mellow taste, sweet and sour; using white grapes as raw materials, Referring to the traditional Chinese medicinal wine process, more than a dozen Chinese medicinal materials such as cinnamon, cardamom, and saffron are added to brew a vermouth that has both wine characteristics and nourishing effects, enriching Changyu's products.

In 1914, under the careful organization of Zhang Zhenxun, the Nanyang Business Encouragement Association and the Shanghai Investment Promotion Association held a Chinese and foreign product display competition in Nanjing. Changyu Wine also participated in this competition and received a gold medal certificate. For this reason, the Republic of China government awarded Zhang Zhenxun the second-class Jiahe Medal and granted Changyu products exemption from registration tax. Since then, Changyu Company's brandy, vermouth and rose fragrance have been listed as China's "Eight Famous Liquors" together with Maotai, Shaojiu, Xifeng Liquor, Fenjiu and Huzhou Daqu.

In April 1915, Zhang Zhenxun was appointed as the leader of the China Industrial Inspection Group and led a strong delegation across the ocean to inspect the United States. When they passed through San Francisco, it happened to be the Panama International Commodity Expo held in San Francisco. Zhang Zhenxun sent someone to take the Changyu wine he carried with him to participate in the competition. The competition was announced. Changyu Brandy won the International Gold Medal, while Vermouth and Rosé also won the Quality Medal. At the awards ceremony, when the host solemnly announced: "The brandy of China Changyu Brewing Company won the gold medal in this competition," the hall burst into applause. The 70-year-old Zhang Zhenxun stepped onto the podium, stretched out his wrinkled hands, and took the shining golden medal from the host. He was so excited that he was shaking with tears. He said with infinite emotion: "I finally got my wish and brewed the best wine in the world!"

After returning to China, Zhang Zhenxun printed the gold medal pattern on the trademark, which is still famous today. The origin of "Gold Medal Brandy".

When summarizing his entrepreneurial experience, Zhang Zhenxun said that the first thing is to take a long-term view and not hesitate to invest in things that are right;

The second thing is to be persevering and never give in to difficulties. ! Indeed, without these two points, it is difficult to achieve great success.

In September 1916, Zhang Zhenxun became ill due to overwork and died in Bacheng.