He Than (1750 – 1799) was an important official under the reign of Emperor Qianlong, and was also known as the most famous grandmaster in Chinese feudal history.

Hoa Than comes from a military family.

Since then, Hoa Than’s path has been extremely smooth.

Hoa Than is also famous for being extremely rich as he holds a huge amount of assets.

According to Thanh Su Cao, after Qianlong died in 1799, Gia Khanh ascended the throne and announced Hoa Than’s 20 crimes and ordered the confiscation of his family’s assets.

However, according to analysis by experts, although Hoa Than is a great businessman, the wealth he earned was not entirely thanks to accepting bribes.

It turns out that Hoa Than makes a lot of money from selling many special `items`.

Besides taking on many important jobs in the court, Hoa Than thought of many ways to make money by opening pawn shops, food stores, inns, antique shops, pubs, banks and many other things.

Hoa Than was willing to do business in goods that Qing Dynasty mandarins did not dare to do, such as trading in weapons, palanquins, coal mines, horse saddles… At that time, palanquins could be considered on par with cars.

Relying on his power, Hoa Than took over most of the shops selling many goods in the capital and many other provinces in China during the Qing Dynasty.

However, according to historical records, the above items can only be considered small projects of Hoa Than’s business empire.

In ancient times in China, land was considered a major asset and most owners would not sell it.

It turns out that in the final years of Qianlong’s rule, the White Lotus sect rebelled against the Qing government, causing a bit of chaos in society.

Therefore, many people sell land everywhere.

During the time of the White Lotus sect’s uprising, Hoa Than accumulated a lot of land.

Indeed, thanks to being sharp and taking advantage of his power, even in a chaotic social situation, Hoa Than still knows how to get rich that few people can expect.

From the above analysis, it can be seen that it is not simple for Hoa Than to have such a huge amount of assets.

Source: Soha, Baidu, Zhihu