Family Secrets of the Four Great Families

Author: Chen Feng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: Jiang's world, Chen's party; Song sisters and Kong family wealth. The Four Great Families of Jiang, Song, Kong, and Chen were renowned during the Republican era, exerting significant influence on the history of the Republic and the fate of the Kuomintang.
Jiang Family – A political family skilled in power struggles, tyranny, and adept at protecting and passing on authority;
Song Family – A prominent family relying on the combination of money and power, spanning both politics and finance;
Kong Family – A luxurious family known for manipulating money and being obsessed with acquiring wealth;
Chen Family – A declining family accustomed to manipulating people and forming cliques.
This book reveals the secrets of the Four Great Families. During the Republican era, the "Four Banks" referred to the Central Bank, Bank of China, Bank of Communications, and Bank of China, and the "Two Bureaus" were the Central Trust Bureau and the Postal Savings Bank of China. From the establishment of the Central Bank in 1923 to the completion of the "Four Banks and Two Bureaus" by 1935, the Four Great Families monopolized the financial sector without investing a single penny.
Ma Yinji defined "bureaucratic capital" as "capital acquired by those who get rich through being officials," and the Four Great Families were exactly such capital families that "profited from public power."
Mao Zedong: "The Four Great Families, during their 20 years in power, had accumulated enormous wealth worth tens of millions to hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, monopolizing the economic lifelines of the nation."
Ma Yinji: "A few high officials, taking advantage of the nation's crisis, colluded with one or more major banks to conduct large-scale business or buy vast amounts of foreign exchange. Under the guise of regulating trade, they actually sought to make immense profits. Thus, the so-called regulation was a blur of public and private interests."
Qian Jiaju: "As for the Jiang, Song, Kong, and Chen families, before seizing the counter-revolutionary regime, they were obscure figures. Although Jiang Jieshi came from a salt merchant family, by the time he had gone bankrupt, he was merely a third-class ruffian in Shanghai, speculating in the stock exchange to get by. After the stock exchange failed, he ran to Guangdong to join the revolution. Kong Xiangxi was a local landlord in Shanxi, with modest wealth, not qualifying as a major bourgeoisie. Song Ziyuan and the Chen brothers were said to have engaged in stock exchange dealings, but they did not qualify as capitalists, let alone monopolistic capitalists."