Banqiao Linjia in Linjia Garden

The Lin family of Banqiao, the richest man in Taiwan Province Province in Qing Dynasty, made a fortune by selling rice from Linpinghou in Vale to Taiwan Province Province, and at the same time donated officials to be the magistrate in Liuzhou, Guangxi, which was the foundation of the Lin family. Later, after the determination of the second generation of Lin Guohua and Lin Guofang to expand, they expanded their business scope to salt industry, camphor industry, shipping industry and money houses, and made considerable profits. They also moved the house to Banqiao, built Banqiao City with local Zhang Min, and established the inheritance of the Lins' "old things"; After Lin Guofang's unfortunate dismissal and sudden death, Lin Weiyuan inherited the Lins' family, which not only carried forward the Lins' family and became the richest man in Taiwan Province, but more importantly, Lin Weiyuan actively assisted Liu Mingchuan to build Taiwan Province Province, which accelerated the development of modern chemical industry in Taiwan Province Province. On the one hand, it made great contributions to Taiwan Province Province, on the other hand, it also made the Lins more developed and profitable. The three generations of Banqiao Lins are not only rich in wealth, but also very enthusiastic about public welfare undertakings of social relief in the impression of ordinary people. According to the records in the literature, the first generation of Lin Pinghou's performances in charity relief include: setting up a righteous field, establishing a righteous school to educate its people, re-cutting the field to fill the school rent, and donating to build a Danshui Confucian temple; Gongyuan and Yicang in the provincial capital; Yuecheng, Kaobong and Haidong Academy in Shaocheng also received donations. As for the second generation of Lin Guohua and Lin Guofang, although they are not their fathers, they have achieved something, mainly in two aspects: repairing the city and providing disaster relief. In the records of Danshuitang, they praised Lin Guohua: "During the four years of Daoguang, they transported rice to Tianjin to provide food for the people. In the seventh year of Daoguang, he served as the prime minister and managed the construction of the city gate. " Lin Guofang also donated rice to Tianjin in 1854 (the fourth year of Xianfeng) and was awarded the title of salt carrier to enjoy flowers and feathers. From the above records, we can see an obvious feature: that is, the first and second generation of the Lin family's charitable relief objects, many of which belong to the victims or ethnic minority villagers in their hometown, certainly have some relief to the local villagers in Taiwan Province, but compared with the third generation of Lin Weiyuan, they are relatively insufficient.

According to records, Lin Weiyuan's charity performance is obviously more comprehensive and popular, and it is mostly aimed at the people of Taiwan Province Province: the government and the monarch donated huge sums of money, set up nurseries, abandoned graves and built thousands of roads. Rebuild a nursing home to sympathize with the poor; Repairing fresh water records and saving literature factories; Open Daguan Society for the benefit of scholars. Da Jiaxi/Kloc-drowned at the age of 0/8, which is called strange danger. The government and leaders built a pontoon bridge and the people crossed it safely. It can be seen that Lin Weiyuan's charitable acts spread all over the fields of children's relief, poverty alleviation, funeral, charity crossing, escorting the way, compiling records and so on, and were mostly directed at Taiwan Province Province. However, this does not mean that Lin Weiyuan has never participated in disaster relief in China. In fact, he may be involved in the disaster in China like his father, because "anyone who builds railways, runs coal mines, works in China Construction Bank, and provides disaster relief in Shun, Zhi, Jin and Yu are exhausted." The question we want to ask now is: Why did the three generations of Banqiao Lins invest a lot of money to help the famine in China? What is the process? Are they voluntary or forced? To answer these questions, we must first understand the special donation system in Qing Dynasty. "Giving donations" is actually a mechanism for local officials in Qing Dynasty to ask local gentry and businessmen to "collectively donate and lose". Through the operation of this mechanism, a set of "political and business communication network" has been constructed, which is both healthy and threatening. Therefore, the focus of donation lies in how the government, gentry and businessmen exchange interests through the operation of donation mechanism, integrate political and metallurgical governance, and realize the interaction between politics and business. As for the objective relief effect caused by donation, it is only an additional achievement of the donation mechanism. Without the operation of the political and business network behind the donation, the disaster relief operation will be difficult to succeed. The formation of donation has its historical and institutional reasons.

The official system of the Qing Dynasty stipulated that local officials could not be held by people from their hometown, so as not to damage their interests. Therefore, the original intention of this regulation is to implement the principle of "avoiding conflicts of interest", but because it is governed by foreign officials, it is easy to have the disadvantages of "not understanding the feelings of local people" and "administrative metallurgical management barriers". In order to avoid improper administration and people's dissatisfaction due to ignorance, local officials must win over local gentry and wealthy businessmen to stabilize their ruling foundation. "Giving donations" is an instrumental product under this basic consideration. The above considerations are all the more necessary for local officials in Taiwan Province Province, because they are all from China, and their term of office is only three years. If they don't strengthen the interaction with local gentry and businessmen through the operation of donation, it is likely that their achievements will not be easy. Therefore, local officials in Taiwan Province Province often use this donation mechanism. From the perspective of political economics, giving donations has very complicated considerations and interests. The success of donation depends not only on the unilateral profit-making by local officials or local gentry and businessmen, but also on the evaluation and coordination between local officials and local gentry and businessmen, and whether a consensus can be reached on the total amount, distribution ratio and relative profit-making benefits of donation. In other words, can we get a "mutual balance of interests" so that the two sides can form an agreement. However, it must be pointed out that the power to start the donation mechanism is in the hands of local officials. The reason why local officials can successfully ask local gentry and businessmen to donate may include the relaxation of administrative power discretion, the distribution of local monopoly interests and the equality of social symbolic status. But the biggest chip should be the improper threat of sovereignty, that is to say, it is a two-handed strategy of using threats and inducements at the same time, so the so-called "balance of interests" is actually a "balance of terror". For local officials, using the donation mechanism can achieve three administrative conveniences:

(1) Politically, local officials can control the conflicts of interests between different factions of the squire group by sending donations, so as to contain each other and seek benefits, so as to strengthen their own rule. (2) Economically, due to the limited subsidies of the central government, if we can get the support of local gentry and businessmen, it will help alleviate financial difficulties and strengthen local management and construction in the case of shortage of cities and military supplies; (3) As for local officials, if local officials can effectively win over local gentry and businessmen, they will not only be praised by local sages, but also be enshrined in the local official temple after leaving office, and be revered by local people, which can be described as fame and fortune. The ruling interests of these three levels intersect and interact, so it is conceivable why local officials must effectively and often use donations as a ruling means. On the other hand, for local gentry and businessmen, there are four practical considerations in accepting donations from local officials. In terms of political relations, gentry and businessmen can get good opportunities to make friends with the government by sending donations, establish good political and business relations, and get through the joint of further requesting administrative support; (2) in social status, donations can often be exchanged for official positions or titles, making donations a brick to enhance social status; (3) In local competition, if other squires agree to donate, especially in the case of different factions of squire groups, if they don't follow up the donation, they will form a backward situation in the competition, so the donation will become a symbolic bargaining chip between local groups; (4) In the exchange of political and economic interests, this can be said to be the most important point, that is, the usual operation of dispatching fingers will form a specific network of political and business relations, so that the more gentry businessmen donate, the more likely they are to seize the management right or agency right of a specific monopoly industry, that is, they can occupy a better "economic concession". At this point, donation has become a structural medium for political and business exchanges, not just donations. From the perspective of the above-mentioned political economy, re-examining the donation behavior of the three generations of the Lins and related issues, we can get the following three important arguments: First, it is very common for the Lins to provide relief in name. Because the Lins were the leaders of Zhang Ren's people, under the donation system at that time, officials often asked the Lins to take the lead to arouse people's hearts. Or when the donation is insufficient, officials often ask the Lins to make up the difference, especially when the total donation is huge (such as building cities and munitions). Therefore, the donation does not mean that the Lins must donate alone, but it depends on their actual operation. But what is certain is that the donation recipients of the Lins, if not one person, should account for a considerable proportion of the total donation. For example, when Danshuitang was built in 1827 (the seventh year of Daoguang), many squires, such as Lin Pinghou and Lin Wansheng, a local gentleman of Danshui, discounted the small rent donation and donated 30,000 yuan. However, because Lin Pinghou owns the most land, he received a donation ("A Record of Danshuitang", the case file of building a city). Second, the Lins' resistance to donations has always existed. In fact, from Lin Pinghou, Lin Guohua to Lin Weiyuan, the Lins' three generations have resisted donations to some extent. The main reason is that the amount and frequency of donations are too frequent, which makes the Lins feel unbearable. Only by "ignoring", "reducing prices in stages" and "openly confronting" can we confront the government.

184 1 year (the 21st year of Daoguang), British troops invaded Taiwan Province province, but Lin Pinghou totally ignored the government's advice to donate military salaries. Later, in desperation, he reluctantly donated 10 thousand yuan, which caused the government's dissatisfaction. At that time, Yao Ying, the military commander of Taiwan Province, described it as: "Lin Pinghou is old and tired, but he advised to donate but ignored it, meaning to covet his wealth." (Yao Ying's Complete Works of Zhongfutang: Collected Works of East Australia, Volume 7) As for the third generation Lin Weiyuan, he has more experience in resisting donations. 1877 (the third year of Guangxu), Fujian Governor Ding Richang persuaded Lin Weiyuan to donate 500,000 yuan to raise money for coastal defense and mining. Lin Weiyuan handed in the donation in three times, of which 50,000 yuan was converted from 15000 stone rice. The donation lasted for two years and four months, and it was not until 1879 that all the donations were completed (Guangxu moves east and east 1884 (the tenth year of Guangxu). Taiwan Province humane Liu Ying used the precedent of Ding Richang to persuade Lin Weiyuan to donate 1 10,000 yuan again, but Lin Weiyuan's coastal defense funds exceeded 500,000 yuan, and he was promised by the court that he would never donate again. Therefore, he refused to donate again. Despite repeated persuasion and communication by the government, he still refused to submit. In the end, he donated 20 million. From the above description of the protest process, we can see an important argument: that is, the objective relief (or construction) effect achieved on the surface is likely to be greatly reduced because of "political and business confrontation." What we know is that because the beneficiaries and the use direction of donations are determined by the government, and the use process and distribution method are not allowed to be questioned by the Lins, most of the donations from the Lins are unpleasant donations. Therefore, this "low sense of participation" donation model will inevitably make donations resisted, and the resistance of gentry and businessmen depends on their strength. But even the richest man in Taiwan Province, such as the Lins, dares to publicly boycott donations. Strangely, Lin Jiaxiang is famous for his charity, but his repeated resistance to donations actually caused damage and destruction to the relief center (or construction site), which deserves our deep consideration. Thirdly, the typical structural political and business exchange network has been presented concretely and subtly in Lin Weiyuan's later donation behavior.

1885, Liu Mingchuan took over as governor of Taiwan Province province. Although he tried his best to promote the modernization of Taiwan Province Province, when he first arrived in Taiwan Province Province, he lacked effective human and financial support. Liu Ying was exiled because of the disagreement between Liu Mingchuan of Huai Department and Liu Ying of Hunan Department. However, due to Liu's friendship with the southern gentry in Taiwan Province Province, Liu Mingchuan could not make use of the southern gentry and had to turn to the northern gentry. In this case, Lin Weiyuan, the leader who fell out with Liu Ying because of the donation problem and the richest man in Taiwan Province, naturally became the object of Liu Mingchuan's support (Xu, 1987: 12-I3). Liu Mingchuan's way and attitude towards Lin Weiyuan is obviously not like Liu Ying's way of persuading to send donations, but at the same time, he asks to send donations and give Lin considerable power, so the Lins can get considerable economic benefits. Therefore, we say that this is a typical political and business exchange alliance, in which sending donations plays a catalytic role. Here we are going to analyze three operational strategies of Liu Yilin's political, commercial and health alliance. The first is "integration of politics and business". Since Taiwan Province Province began reclamation in 1886, the "Taiwan-wide Reclamation Bureau" has been located in Linjia Biezhuang Village, and Lin Weiyuan is in charge of the actual reclamation responsibility. This cooperation mode of "common use by the people and villages" has become the best foundation and symbol of "integration of politics and business" in Liu Yilin. If deeply analyzed, this way of combining politics and business is beneficial to both sides, because for the Lins, as early as 1886, before the establishment of the bureau, the Lins had reclaimed this area, but it stopped because of repeated injuries. Starting again in the name of Taiwan Province Reclamation Bureau, with the help of the government and the army, will effectively prevent the invasion of aborigines. Therefore, this is a "legal" process, which makes the Lins originally. For Liu Mingchuan, the Lin family's huge financial and material resources and reclamation experience are the best help, which can be used as the forerunner of government intervention in reclamation and reduce the difficulty of raising start-up expenses. In short, the real connotation of the integration of politics and business is the exchange of "legitimacy" and capital, and its goal clearly points to the commercial interests of newly reclaimed land and cash crops. The second mode is called "policy gain".

1887 (13th year of Guangxu), in view of the trend that Taiwanese tea was gradually replaced by Indian tea and Xizhuo tea, Liu Mingchuan wanted to reform, and the vast land in Taiwan Province Province was suitable for growing tea. Therefore, it encourages tea planting. On the one hand, Taiwanese businessmen were ordered to pay tea tax, and the proceeds were allocated to the funds needed for reclamation. In two or three years, the tax revenue is as high as 62,000 to 72,000 yuan. Because Lin Weiyuan is a big businessman, in Wenshan, in Wenshan. Therefore, the first response to Liu Mingchuan's tea planting plan not only provided sufficient funds for reclamation, but also made Lin Weiyuan the largest tea merchant, making considerable profits ("Zhu Shoupeng Guangxu Chaodong Lu Hua" (volume l02)). The third mode is "franchising". According to the General History of Taiwan Province Province, in 1887 (13th year of Guangxu), the government set up the Trade Bureau outside the East Gate of Taipei City to take charge of building stores in the city. But in the same year, Liu Mingchuan designated Avenue City as an overseas residential area for foreigners, and invited Zheshang to set up Xingshi Company and Lin Weiyuan to set up Jianchang Company. Lin and Li Chunsheng and others also built a foreign building in Jianchang Street and Jianjie Street, and rented it to merchants such as tea and camphor. Here, the Lins and several other specific people started real estate investment under the franchise of Liu.