2020-02-07

The financial, business and spiritual insights of the movie "Silver Empire"

This is a story about the inheritance of the family business of the two generations of Shanxi Tiancheng Yuan Bank in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. The story shows the collision of thinking between two generations of Jin businessmen in the turbulent era.

At that time, the financial empire established by Shanxi merchants was called "China's Wall Street" by foreigners. But over the past 100 years, China's Wall Street has declined and disappeared. Now, China's financial industry lags far behind the West. A quick question: Don’t Chinese people have financial intelligence?

The scene that shocked me the most in the film was: the four-year quarterly accounts were revealed, and all the branch managers came back. There is a sense of ceremony: the long abacus comes on stage, porridge is laid out, offerings are made, porridge is eaten, shares are calculated and dividends are calculated, and the masters of the shop show off their martial arts.

Let’s talk about your thoughts on the four ritual links: First, the words read by Mr. Kang during the dedication: "I have compassion for my ancestors, I look up to the heaven and the earth, I am sincere and trustworthy, my righteousness is towering!" Sincerity and trustworthiness, this is This is the key to the success of Shanxi merchants. (The root of the success of Shanxi merchants lies in the business gang policy of integrity and unity - Baidu)

The second is the dividend calculation link: the three businesses of Tiancheng Yuan exchange, deposit collection and lending *** 21,153,111 taels, Mr. Kang proudly said: "My 23 banknotes are worth 10% of the imperial court's annual income." There are 21 Dongjia Finance shares, and 17 shares are distributed to colleagues in this accounting period, 15,816 taels per share. The top three dividends in the general ledger period are: General Manager Qiu’s full amount, Beijing branch’s Dai’s 8 and a half cents, Tianjin’s Liu’s 7 centimeters.

Key point: Caidong system or Donghuo system, isn’t this the prototype of joint-stock system? Caidong does nothing but pays dividends based on financial shares. This is investment behavior. (I searched Baidu again: "As business competition became increasingly fierce, in order to strengthen their own strength and safeguard their own interests, Shanxi merchants' commercial organizations began to appear. At first, businessmen with strong capital funded and hired local merchants, *** They formed a loose group of merchants through joint operation and profit-making, and later developed into the Donghuo system, which was similar to the joint-stock system. This was a major innovation of Shanxi merchants and an important reason for Shanxi merchants' enduring popularity.")

The third detail is the scene where the shopkeepers’ hands are emptying their counters under the table. How skilled this must be, touch typing! (I thought of the touch typing when I learned the Wubi input method, and also imagined the scene of masters playing blind chess). I admire the hard work of the Chinese people because of their diligence, and then think of the many intangible cultural heritages in our country ( Jade carving, dough figures, shadow puppets, paper cutting, New Year pictures, etc.), ancient Chinese craftsmen have reached the pinnacle of many industries. There used to be many masters, but in modern times there have been few masters. Instead, the Japanese wrote "The Spirit of the Craftsman" and made sushi the best. To the extreme, take cleaning to the extreme (please see "Sweeping Road"). Now, the Japanese have become the representatives of the craftsman spirit, which is really sad. The ancients also taught us that it is enough to do one thing well in a lifetime, but now society encourages cross-border and versatile talents. Let’s ask ourselves: Is there any specialization in Shu industry?

Fourth, eating porridge, the shopkeeper’s young masters showing off their martial arts skills, and shopkeeper Dai teaching his son to be “respectful and peaceful” reminded me of the Chinese tutoring culture. The feudal society of more than five thousand years, and the feudal patriarchal system represented by the family system, has its essence and its dross. The radical revolutionary movement has changed China into a new world, but it has also discarded many Chinese treasures together with the dross. However, in recent years, people have begun to pay attention to traditional culture (such as TV programs looking for family tradition and family mottos, etc.). Western aristocrats and large families in ancient China attach great importance to the education of their children (poor families have a hard time surviving and cannot afford education). Now, citizens' right to education only guarantees basic public education (i.e. school education), and should not exclude family education (not the narrow family education that is opposite to school education under the current so-called cultural education system), such as morality. Are quality education, emotional intelligence education, dealing with people education, etc. more important than knowledge education? But the problem now is that tutoring is out of date. As parents, we have not received good tutoring, so we don’t know how to tutor our children. (Similarly: If there is no love in the heart, there will be no love. Therefore, the importance of learning and experience is self-evident)

Finally, let’s talk about the core values ??of the film.

In the opening scene, the third young master of the Tiancheng Yuankang family stood in the vast world and sighed and asked: "The world is so big, but people are so small, how do people get along with themselves?" How do people get along with themselves in this turbulent background? Mr. Kang and Shopkeeper Dai are the two positive representatives, while Shopkeeper Qiu is the negative representative. There are sharp contrasts between several groups of characters in the film:

First, the contrast between the second-generation heads of the bank, Mr. Kang and Mr. Kang. Mr. Kang is a remarkable person. He has traditional ideas (such as passing on the family line). Obsession, the slave-oriented concept of controlling people), shrewdness (such as keeping a hand when punishing shopkeeper Qiu), sophistication (such as being calm when the daughter-in-law disappears, not letting the second child go, because "relatives lead to chaos"), able to take things and let go (Later, when the third master refused to listen to his opinion, he said: He is strong and I am soft, and I rely on him); the third master is kind and virtuous (he himself said this about Shopkeeper Dai, because he himself is such a person, so he has this in his dictionary words - the principle of projection), and responsible (I know that Du Huaqing is not dead, and I have thought about going to the United States with her, but I also agree with her point of view: as the head of a family, you should focus on the family business and put aside the love between children).

The second is Shopkeeper Qiu and Shopkeeper Dai. Qiu was born into a poor family. Mr. Kang believes that if he punishes first and saves later, he will be loyal. However, this kind of servile "loyalty" does not come from the heart. In the end, it is to save his life. He did not hesitate to shoot his colleagues. Looking at the fact that he took advantage of the folks' spring drought to lend money at high interest rates and forget about justice at the sight of profit, it shows that his underlying logic is still unscrupulous. Dai is different. He comes from a scholarly background, so he is sensible, talented, moral and virtuous. The third master thinks that he does not need to be controlled. When Master Kang wants to adopt him as his adopted son, he declines politely saying that he is responsible for it. However, during the war, the third master The position of general manager was a hot potato, but he promised to "go all out." Seeing as how he took the initiative to go to Tianjin with Shopkeeper Liu to deal with Siniang's disappearance, he was very responsible! After Shopkeeper Liu committed suicide, people panicked and ran out of money. He transferred the money from his own account in Beijing to Tianjin, but half of it was empty (the silver box contained stones and bricks). Before the Eight-Power Allied Forces entered Beijing, they thought of using official taxes to remit money to Fujian. The method is to use empty warehouse to deal with the war situation, and be resourceful! The kindness is reflected in asking the third master to bring Bao Bao to shopkeeper Liu's family. (Underlying logic: The crime is not as serious as that of the family)

The third is the two women in the film who are unable to love. Shopkeeper Liu fell in love with a prostitute. In order to blackmail Liu, he found someone to kidnap Si Niang. Uncontrollably, the hired Qingpi became lustful for Si Niang. Si Niang committed suicide, harming Shopkeeper Liu and herself, so she had no choice but to die. Apologize (cannot do things that harm others and benefit yourself, as it will only harm yourself in the end). As the daughter of an ambassador, Du Huaqing received a Western education but was still imprisoned by traditional ethics and morals. He confined himself to the backyard of the Kang family just to see his sweetheart, his stepson, and was misunderstood by him, which caused both of them to suffer ( It seems that my mind has been opened. If it were me, I would either run away from marriage or elope). The only Western-style method is to remove the uterus (other than despair here, it is stupidity). At the end of the film, she will praise her for the sacrifice she made when she went to the United States. The third master is responsible for being the head of the family, but this exactly represents the concept of thousands of years of feudal society asking women to sacrifice themselves for the family. This is the real out, and this is where the film fails to sublimate.