Howqua

A Hokkien by his paternal ancestry with ancestry from Quanzhou, Wu was known to the West as Howqua, as was his father, Wu Guorong, the founder of the family business or hong. The name "Howqua" is a romanization, in his native Hokkien language, of the business name under which he traded, "浩官" ({{zh|poj=Hō-koaⁿ}}).{{Cite web |last=Parkes |first=Douglas |date=2022-04-29 |title=Who was 19th-century merchant Howqua, the 'Chinese Bill Gates of his day'? |url=https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3175760/who-was-19th-century-merchant-howqua-chinese-bill-gates |access-date=2023-06-30 |website=South China Morning Post |language=en}} He became rich on the trade between China and the British Empire in the middle of the 19th century during the First Opium War. Perhaps the wealthiest man in China during the nineteenth century, Howqua was the senior of the hong merchants in Canton, one of the few authorized to trade silk and porcelain with foreigners. In an 1822 fire which burned down many of the cohongs,{{cite book|title=觸藩始末 (The Start and End of Upsetting The Foreigners)|chapter=3|date=1885}} the silver that melted allegedly formed a little stream almost two miles in length. Of the three million dollars that the Qing government was required to pay the British as stipulated in the Treaty of Nanking, Howqua single-handedly contributed one million.[http://www.szdaj.gov.cn/dadg/rwzz/19.html 档案揭秘:被称为“天下第一大富翁”的伍秉鉴-欢迎进入深圳档案网]{{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} He died the same year in Canton.

After the Opium Wars, Howqua's familial and business lineage quickly diminished. In 1891, the American trading house that had been handling Howqua's international investments, Russell & Company, collapsed. The descendants of Howqua are now commoners.{{cite news |last1=Parkes |first1=Douglas |title=Who was 19th-century merchant Howqua, the 'Chinese Bill Gates of his day'? |url=https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3175760/who-was-19th-century-merchant-howqua-chinese-bill-gates?campaign=3175760&module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article |access-date=2 February 2024 |agency=South China Morning Post |date=April 29, 2022}} What had been a massive and beautiful estate for the Howqua family is now relatively unmarked in a poor neighborhood in the region of Honam.{{cite web |last1=Absolute History |title=How The Opium Trade Destroyed China's Greatest Empire |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62BABCgJSO8&t=5s |website=YouTube |date=22 November 2023 |access-date=2 February 2024}}

The founders of then world-renowned firms including James Matheson, William Jardine, Samuel Russell and Abiel Abbot Low all had a close relationship with Howqua. Portraits of the pigtailed Howqua in his robes still hang in Salem and Newport mansions built by American merchants grateful for his assistance.{{citation needed|date=October 2014}}

Following the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, which spelled the end of the Thirteen Factories, Jardine Matheson & Co continued to use "Ewo" as their Chinese name.{{Cite book|last=Cheong|first=W.E.|title=The Hong merchants of Canton: Chinese merchants in Sino-Western trade|year=1997|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-7007-0361-6}} p.122 [https://books.google.com/books?id=3BjCHpQk5J8C&dq=ewo+canton&pg=PA122 Online version at Google books]

A settlement on the east bank of Lake Eildon, {{convert|23|km|mi}} from Mansfield, in Victoria, Australia, is named after him, possibly by Chinese miners who passed through the area during the Victorian gold rush.

• Houqua, 1844 clipper ship

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{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Grant |first=Frederic D. Jr. |title=The Chinese Cornerstone of Modern Banking |url=https://brill.com/display/title/26230 |date=2014 |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |isbn=978-90-04-27656-7}}
• {{cite book |last=Downs |first=Jacques M. |title=The Golden Ghetto |url=https://hkupress.hku.hk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=427 |others=Introduction by Frederic D. Grant, Jr. |date=2014 |publisher=Hong Kong University Press |isbn=978-988-8139-09-5}}

• {{cite ECCP|title=Wu Ping-chien}}

{{Commons category|Howqua}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20071011034956/http://history.163.com/07/0929/08/3PHVJBFD00011246.html In Chinese – Howqua's Bio on NetEase]
• [http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E4%BC%8D%E7%A7%89%E9%89%B4 In Chinese – Howqua's Bio on Hudong]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110712230233/http://hu-kwa.com/history/ In English – The story of the merchant] (site maintained by tea importer)

{{Foreign trade in Imperial China |state=collapsed}}

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Category:1769 births

Category:1843 deaths

Category:History of Hong Kong

Category:History of foreign trade in China

Category:Businesspeople from Fujian

Category:People from Quanzhou

Category:Hokkien people

Category:Billionaires from Guangdong

Category:18th-century Chinese businesspeople

Category:19th-century Chinese businesspeople