Baiyun Mountain is a famous attraction in Guangzhou, since ancient times, Baiyun Mountain is known as "the first show in Yangcheng", and, for a long time in the past, Baiyun Mountain was considered to be the place where the "Dragon Vein" of Guangzhou is located, so in the past, many people have chosen to die and buried in Baiyun Mountain, a "feng shui treasure".

But with the passage of time, many graves have been unmaintained and become "barren graves", and it is difficult to know the identity of the tomb owner, but previously, experts have proven to Baiyun Mountain a "barren grave" tomb owner information, the results are very surprising.

The "barren grave" in Baiyun Mountain, who is the owner of the tomb?

Baiyun Mountain has long been considered the "Dragon's Vein" of Guangzhou, and because of this, many people have chosen Baiyun Mountain as the place where they will be buried.

To this day, there are still many famous people's graves on Baiyun Mountain, and the scale of the burials is not small. For example, the founder of the Six Banyan Temple, Monk Tuan Yu, the founder of the Hualin Temple, Monk Zong Fu, and Song Defense Ambassador Zhong Shi are buried here.

In order to determine the boundaries of the burial and to avoid others from damaging the feng shui of the burial, the people of Guangfu usually set up "grave boundary monuments" around the burial.

"Grave boundary monuments" are generally erected around the tombs, engraved with words such as "a certain place and a certain government to dragon" and "a certain side of the dragon boundary". These boundary markers were used in the past to determine the boundaries of tombs, but now they have "another purpose", that is, for us to "discover" the tombs.

With the passage of time, now many tombs have long been untouched and completely "submerged" in the grass and trees of Baiyun Mountain, leaving only some heritage enthusiasts still tracing the remains of their ancestors.

In October 2015, after Kang Teng, a member of the Guangzhou Folk Cultural Relics Protection Association, heard that there might be a number of undiscovered tombs on Baiyun Mountain, he mobilized other volunteers from the Nan Yue Tomb Rhyme Group to come together to search for ancient tombs on Baiyun Mountain.

According to them, in a hillside of the big cattle bar post, someone found a stone in the grass written "put the coffin in the line, the head of life in this", they realized that this may be a record of the location of the tomb stone, so they continued to search in the vicinity.

It didn't take long for them to find a tomb nearby with a tombstone in front of it. Unfortunately, there was also a large pit on the side of this large tomb with some pieces of wooden boards, and they felt that the tomb had most likely been robbed at one time.

But no matter what, Kang Teng and others decided to clean up the tombstone and around the tomb first to see who the owner of this tomb really is and whether it has historical value for archaeological protection.

The tomb had been covered with weeds and mud due to years of neglect. After Kang Teng and several volunteers carefully cleared the weeds and mud off the tombstone, the inscription on the tombstone gradually became clear.

According to the inscription, this tomb is a joint tomb of a couple in the Qing Dynasty, the tomb owner number "Yi Tang", was a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, and the inscription also shows that the tomb owner was once a second-ranking "Zizheng Dafu".

This indicates that the tomb owner is at least a person of status, so Kang Teng continued to carry out multiple examinations, and finally confirmed that the tomb was built in the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, the tomb owner named Pan Youwei.

Who is this Pan Youwei? Do not check not know, a check, we know that this Pan Youwei actually or a "rich second generation".

Two hundred years ago, the "second generation of the rich" reached the rank of the Cabinet Secretary

Pan Youwei, character Zhuochen and number Yi Tang, was a true "second generation rich man", his father was a merchant in the thirteen houses of the Qing Dynasty and the richest man in the Qing Dynasty, Pan Zhencheng. Although Pan Youwei grew up in a privileged environment, his father was very strict with their education and did not raise him to be a fop.

Public information shows that Pan Zhencheng attached great importance to education, not only did he often donate money to schools and encourage his sons to study hard and achieve success, but his own sons were also enrolled in the family's private school once they reached the age of 5 to study hard "sage books".

Pan Youwei was obviously one of the most gifted readers, and he left the poem "At the age of five, Fu taught me books, hoping that I would strive to be a thousand-mile horse" when he was a child, showing his talent in reading.

After growing up, Pan Youwei did not disappoint his family's painstaking training. He won the imperial examination in the thirty-fifth year of the Qianlong reign, and in the thirty-seventh year of the Qianlong reign, he won the scholarship.

According to the testimony of later generations, Pan Youwei may be the earliest person to obtain a scholarship after the Pan family settled in Guangzhou, which is not unrelated to the importance Pan Zhencheng attaches to the construction of family customs and the education of his children.

However, probably because of his father's good family culture and the arrogance of the literati, Pan Youwei was reluctant to climb the ranks of the powerful and disdainful to please other dignitaries when he became an official, so he was not promoted for more than a decade, and if you want to look at it from this perspective, Pan Youwei was not a suitable person to be an official - at least he was not suitable for the officialdom at that time.

But Pan Youwei does not seem to be very concerned about this matter, he participated in the compilation of the "Four Books" during his tenure, and in his spare time he wrote, painted, composed poems, collected some paintings and calligraphy, very "comfortable".

Therefore, Pan Youwei is also a famous calligrapher, poet and collector in our modern era.

After more than ten years as an official, Pan Youwei's father, Pan Zhencheng, passed away, and Pan Youwei went home to resign from his post to go home to mourn, and never set foot on the career after that.

In Guangdong, Pan Youwei named his residence "South Snow Nest" and continued to write and paint poems and paintings in the "South Snow Nest", leaving behind a poem "South Snow Nest Poems".

Under the influence of Pan Zhen Cheng, driven by Pan Youwei, the Pan family after the literary talent, including four people through the imperial examinations awarded Hanlin, and six people won the imperial examinations, the entire family has a good culture of literacy.

Even if they failed to leave their names in literature and history, they left their names in history: 24 descendants of the Pan family were included in the Dictionary of Guangdong Historical Figures, who were closely related to the fate of the country and were also the best in their respective professions at that time.

And the most important historical value of the discovery of Pan Youwei's tomb is not about himself, but about his family and even the thirteen houses in Guangzhou.

Because it is proved that the joint tomb of Pan Youwei and his wife is probably the first discovered tomb of the Pan family, which is of great value to the study of the history of the thirteen houses in Guangzhou.

More crucially, Pan Youwei's father was Pan Zhencheng, and the discovery of Pan Youwei's tomb may be of some value to the in-depth study of information related to Pan Zhencheng.

The "richest man" of the Qing Dynasty, and more likely the "richest man in the world" of the 18th century

In fact, there are not too many records about Pan Youwei in history, because the one who is more famous in history is actually Pan Zhen Cheng, the "rich generation".

Pan Zhen Cheng, also known as Pan Qi, was born in Quanzhou Province, Fujian Province. When he was young, his family was poor, and in order to share his father's worries, Pan Zhen Cheng dropped out of school early to work and earn money to support his family.

In his youth, Pan Zhen Cheng went from Fujian to Guangzhou to engage in overseas trade. According to the records, Pan Zhen Cheng first worked as an assistant in one of the thirteen trading houses with the surname of Chen, and was trusted by his boss because he was hardworking and smart.

Later, when the owner of the firm made enough money to return to his hometown to retire, Pan Zhen Cheng set up his own business and opened Tong Wen Hong, continuing to engage in overseas trade.

Pan Zhen Cheng's business career began with a trip south to the Philippines, where he was recorded as having made three trips to do business, and during which he learned multiple languages, giving him a "language advantage" in his future trade.

Moreover, Pan Zhen Cheng business integrity, if he sold bad quality goods, he will definitely make refunds to maintain the reputation of his business, which makes Pan Zhen Cheng become the "most trusted businessman" in the mouth of foreign merchants, and also let his business grow bigger and bigger.

Even though Pan Zhen Cheng's tea was sold at a high price in the European market, Europeans were still happy to buy his tea, and the supply of Tong Wen Hong's tea often exceeded the demand in the market.

For example, Pan Zhencheng made a full refund of the waste tea returned by the British company from England every year, making it a practice for the merchant to refund the waste tea.

In the 22nd year of the Qianlong reign, the Qing government closed the customs and closed the channels of commerce in Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanghai, leaving only one mouth of commerce in Guangzhou, and also stipulated that the export of "tea, silk, rags and satins" could only be handled by foreign firms, which allowed Pan Zhen Cheng's Tongwenxing and other merchant firms to gain almost monopoly privileges of cross-border trade, allowing Pan Zhen Cheng's business to grow bigger and bigger.

In the 18th century, the French magazine reported that the property of Pan's family was more than that of a king in Western Europe, and its annual consumption figure was as high as 3 million francs, the magazine called Pan Zhen Cheng "the richest man" in the 18th century, perhaps this statement is a bit exaggerated, but it is enough to show the huge amount of Pan Zhen Cheng's wealth.

In addition, the Tongwen firm was founded by Pan Zhen Cheng and continued for four generations, and by the third generation of Pan Zheng Wei, the amount of the Pan family's property increased to 100 million francs, not counting the Pan family's property in all parts of North China.

Moreover, another data shows that, taking the financial data of the thirty-first year of the Qianlong reign as an example, the revenue of the Qing court in that year was 48.54 million taels, the expenditure was 34.51 million taels, and the financial balance of one year was 14.03 million taels, while the inheritance of the descendants of the Pan family of Tongwenxing exceeded 20 million Mexican silver yuan (equivalent to 14 million taels of Chinese silver).

That is to say, in the Qing Dynasty's most prosperous Qianlong period, the court's annual financial balance is only the same as the number of inheritance and the Pan family four generations later, it can be seen that in the heyday of the Tongwen line, the Pan family is not exaggerated to describe the wealth of the country, even if Pan Zhen Cheng is not the richest person in the 18th century, he was certainly the richest man in the Qing Dynasty.

Of course, the secret of Pan Zhen Cheng's business lies not only in honesty and trustworthiness, but also in his willingness to innovate. Although Pan Zhen Cheng's business is "steady and stable", we can tell from his three trips to the Philippines that he is actually a businessman with a spirit of adventure and open-mindedness at heart.

The first person to introduce bills of exchange, good at "retreat to advance"

Pan Zhen Cheng is very good at accepting new things from the West, and he will be happy to try anything that is good for business.

For example, in the 1860s, a "British East India London Board of Directors' draft" began circulating in Guangzhou, which was definitely a novelty in China, where silver was still used for payment.

After a period of observation, Pan Zhencheng found that the use of such bills of exchange for credit is efficient, funds exchange is also very safe, he believed that this bill of exchange can promote the development of the same Wenxing, so Pan Zhencheng in the 37th year of the Qianlong period on the introduction of the London bill of exchange, became the use of bills of exchange in China "the first person".

By using bills of exchange to settle accounts with foreign merchants, Pan Zhencheng further improved the efficiency of settlement, speeding up the turnover of funds and greatly increasing his business potential. It is noteworthy that the use of money orders in the United States began 10 years after Pan Zhen Cheng started using them.

Moreover, Pan Zhencheng does not just "wait for the rabbits", he also "takes the initiative" to conduct foreign trade. For example, Pan Zhen Cheng had invested in Western merchant ships and became the major shareholder of several Western merchant ships.

For example, Pan Zhencheng had set up an overseas trading company in Sweden, boldly "going out", which was unimaginable in the closed-door Qing Dynasty.

In the process of communicating with foreigners, Pan Zhencheng is also very good at "retreating to advance" to defend his own interests, and there is a classic example to show this.

Once, the British East India Company's Taipan offered to buy 2,000 quintals of raw silk from Guangzhou XIII, which was a big deal because in previous years the British East India Company only bought up to 1,000 quintals of raw silk, but this time it was directly doubled.

But at that time, no one in the thirteen companies could take up the business, and everyone was daunted by it, and at most they were only willing to take up 1,400 quintals.

After thinking again and again, Pan Zhen Cheng wanted to take this business, because although the business is very risky, but once the success of the Tong Wen Hong will also be very profitable, but before making this business, Pan Zhen Cheng first need to solve a problem - the underwriting of British tweed products.

At that time, in order to open up the market for their tweed products, Britain asked Chinese traders to sell raw silk and other goods while underwriting a certain amount of tweed products, but the market for tweed products was very small in China at that time, and most of the tweed products were languishing in warehouses, taking up space in warehouses and not making money.

Therefore, Pan Zhen Cheng wanted to minimize the amount of underwriting and delay the arrival of the tweed products.

It was here that Pan Zhen Cheng showed his excellent negotiation skills. He first offered to deliver and sell 1,600 quintals of raw silk at a price of 265 taels of silver per quintal - a price that was below the market price and made the East India Company's Taipan very satisfied, and then he duly suggested that because raw silk needed a lot of space for storage.

Therefore, we hope that the quantity of tweed products can be matched by 1,000 quintals of raw silk, and that the British side will deliver the tweed products 1 month after the delivery of raw silk.

In this way, Pan Zhencheng not only reduced the number of underwritten tweed products, but also delayed the arrival time, greatly reducing his burden.

The Taipan of the East India Company found this request very reasonable and thought that they could agree to it in principle, but hoped that Pan Zhen Cheng could deliver some more raw silk so that they could finish the acquisition as soon as possible.

After pretending to think, Pan Zhen Cheng proposed that he could deliver 200 more quintals in order to promote friendship between the two sides, but due to the difficulty of acquisition, the price of each quintal of these 200 quintals needed to be set at 295 taels of silver. Moreover, Pan Zhen Cheng also proposed that in order to complete the purchase as soon as possible, he needed to collect 95% of the advance payment - according to the practice of merchant houses at that time, the amount of advance payment was about 60%-90%.

In order to complete the acquisition as soon as possible, the East India Company readily agreed to Pan Zhencheng's request, and this big deal was negotiated, while Pan Zhencheng seemed to have conceded the price of 1,600 quintals of raw silk, but in fact he did not let much.

Because 1600 quintals of raw silk, each quintal only gave 5 taels of profit, while the additional 200 quintals of raw silk, each quintal earned 25 taels, two offset, equivalent to only 3,000 taels of profit, but more advance payment, equivalent to tens of thousands of taels of silver liquidity, but also reduce the loss of tweed products, this deal for Pan Zhen Cheng is only a profit, not a loss.

It was for this reason that for a long time Pan Zhen Cheng was the largest customer of the British East India Company and the most important trading partner of the Swedish East India Company.

It is also because of the legendary experience of Pan Zhen Cheng that the discovery of the Pan family burial has become an event worthy of the attention of relevant experts.