As Tsinghua University celebrates its 110th anniversary, it received a special birthday gift from the deceased Cao Guangbiao.
It turned out that before his death, Mr. Cao had entrusted his descendants to donate all his property to Tsinghua University to help Tsinghua University carry out scientific research and education and build a bright future for the motherland.
Who is Cao Guangbiao? Compared with the familiar business figures, we seem to be less familiar with him. This is obviously related to his low-key and simple style. Cao Guangbiao has been low-key throughout his life, and his name cannot be found on the Forbes list. Although he is not the richest Entrepreneur, but must be one of the most patriotic entrepreneurs.
Today, let us walk into the legendary life of Mr. Cao.
The first person to go to Europe to develop the wool textile market
Cao Guangbiao was born in Yin County, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province in 1920 in Shanghai.
Cao Guangbiao’s father was a businessman who ran a cloth shop in Shanghai under the trade name “Hongxiang”.
He is talented and intelligent, so his parents have great expectations for him, especially his father, who always hopes that he can inherit his father’s business. Therefore, when Cao Guangbiao was very young, his father had already familiarized him with the business model in advance.
At the age of 7, Cao Guangbiao was sent to Mingde Primary School to study. Originally, his father only wanted his son to be literate and know basic arithmetic. Later, he hoped that he could finish his studies early and take over the cloth shop. However, the young Cao Guangbiao had his own ideas. He did not follow his father’s advice and instead passed the exam with excellent results. With good grades, I was admitted to the local Mingqiang Middle School in Shanghai, and after graduating from junior high school, I successfully entered high school with the first place in my grades.
But there are unforeseen circumstances, and people have misfortunes and misfortunes.
When Cao Guangbiao was 17 years old, his mother suddenly suffered from illness and died. His father was deeply affected by his mother’s death and has been unable to recover since then and also suffered from illness.
Under various circumstances, his father’s health no longer allowed him to continue running the cloth shop. For a time, the cloth shop was left unattended and the business ran into problems. The debt was as high as 15,000 yuan. Cao Guangbiao had to drop out of school and go home to officially take over the family business.
As soon as he took over the business, he showed his extraordinary business talent. He made drastic changes in the way the cloth shop was run. The cloth shop’s business was brought back to life in a short period of time.
Later, he turned the shop with only 5 people into a large shop with 100 people. At one time, “Hongxiang” was as famous as the famous “Baodaxiang” and “Xiedaxiang” at that time, and was called the “Three Daxiangs”. .
As business became more and more prosperous, Cao Guangbiao, who was very ambitious in business, was not satisfied with this. He began to continuously expand his business territory and developed along the Yangtze River Basin. In just a few years, he opened stores in Chongqing, Nanjing, Hong Kong, and Taipei. branch.
In 1949, Cao Guangbiao and his family went to Hong Kong. When he first arrived in Hong Kong, with many years of business experience, he keenly discovered the huge gap in the wool spinning business in the Hong Kong market. So, five years later, he decided to establish Hong Kong’s first wool spinning mill – Taiping Woolen Mill.
Immediately, he replicated his previous business methods and then set up a branch factory in Macau. As a result, Hong Kong’s new industry, the knitting industry, has also developed.
In the early 1960s, after Cao Guangbiao made new breakthroughs in the knitting industry in Hong Kong, his knitting factory knitted woolen sweaters. Once the product was launched, it became very popular.
Cao Guangbiao, who had a keen sense of business, immediately realized that this was an excellent opportunity to open up a new market, so Cao Guangbiao rushed to Europe with the woolen sweaters produced by the factory.
Since the previous woolen sweaters were all hand-woven, not to mention time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the output was not large, so when Cao Guangbiao brought this machine-knitted woolen sweater, Europeans were surprised after the novelty. , feel incredible.
Since then, the wool sweaters brought by Cao Guangbiao have become a trend for a while. In this way, Cao Guangbiao opened up the sales of wool textile products in Europe and became the first Chinese to explore the wool textile market in Europe.
1964 was a very significant year for Cao Guangbiao. He and his friends established Yongxin Enterprise Co., Ltd. At this time, his career was booming.
In the 1970s and 1980s, land prices and labor expenses in Hong Kong began to rise rapidly. Cao Guangbiao’s wool textile industry was affected. In order to reduce costs and expand production, he gradually expanded the company’s business overseas.
In order to seize the market and reduce production and transportation costs, Cao Guangbiao set up factories in the United States, France and other places. Because of this, Yongxin Company has the ability to accept orders from all over the world, and Cao Guangbiao’s wool spinning business gradually grew bigger and bigger.
Cao Guangbiao’s company has nearly 10,000 employees, an annual output of tens of millions of sweaters, and a turnover as high as 1.05 billion Hong Kong dollars. In the end, Cao Guangbiao won the title of “World Wool Spinning King”, and Yongxin Enterprise also became the world’s largest wool spinning company at that time. One of the enterprises.
The first person to invest and set up a factory in the Mainland
In 1978, China implemented the strategy of internal reform and opening up to the outside world and began modernization. Although there were policy supports, the economic environment in the mainland at that time still discouraged many Hong Kong people who were willing to invest. Even for them, even just visiting the mainland for inspection requires a lot of courage.
However, in 1978, Cao Guangbiao came to Beijing at the invitation of a friend. When he saw the mainland’s economy that was in urgent need of restarting and the cities that were gradually exuding modern vitality, he took the lead and invested 7.45 million Hong Kong dollars to establish the Xiangzhou Woolen Textile Factory in Zhuhai.
Xiangzhou Woolen Mill started construction in November of the same year, and Cao Guangbiao became the first Hong Kong businessman to invest and set up a factory in the mainland. At the same time, because Xiangzhou Woolen Mill adopted the “processing of supplied materials” method, Cao Guangbiao became the first to invest in the mainland through compensation trade.
The establishment of Xiangzhou Woolen Mill caused a huge sensation at the time. When no one was optimistic about the mainland market, this move undoubtedly played a “leading” demonstration role.
Under the influence of Cao Guangbiao, more and more Hong Kong businessmen turned their investment attention to the mainland, and Sino-foreign joint ventures began to take root in the mainland, boosting the economic growth of the special economic zones.
Speaking of this experience, Mr. Cao Guangbiao said: “If I want to say what meaningful things I have done in my life, I think that opening the Xiangzhou Woolen Mill and participating in the country’s reform and opening up is the most important and important thing I have done in my life. The most meaningful thing.” It can be seen that patriotism is not only a label on his body, but also something he practices and insists on doing.
Caring for the motherland and always insisting on nurturing the homeland
In the 1980s, Cao Guangbiao was not satisfied with his achievements in the textile industry alone. With the emergence of this statement, he began to set his sights on the aviation industry and the optical industry.
The success of Dragonair broke Hong Kong Airlines’ monopoly by British capital and was of great significance to the future development of Hong Kong Airlines.
The optical lenses produced by Yongxin Optical Co., Ltd. have been used in aerospace projects such as “Chang’e-2”, “Chang’e-3” and “Chang’e-4” for many times. The company’s products are sold to many countries and regions, and have become well-known in the industry. Suppliers of corporate Leica cameras, Germany’s Zeiss, and even, for the first time, a Chinese-led company set an international standard in the field of microscopy.
In 1980, Cao Guangbiao returned to Zhejiang to invest and set up factories. His investments in the mainland involved multiple industries such as textiles, electronics, steel, and hotels.
Donate multiple times to achieve the name of charity
Over the years, Cao Guangbiao has never given up the practice of giving back his wealth to the society and benefiting the society. Since his studies were unfinished, Cao Guangbiao has always had a unique sentiment towards education. He has been silently supporting the education industry in the mainland for many years.
Since the 1990s, he has made many donations to the mainland and built many primary and secondary schools in mainland China, including Shanghai Cao Guangbiao Primary School. Cao Guangbiao firmly believes in rejuvenating the country through science and technology. He has donated more than 300 million yuan in total to establish research and development institutions for many mainland universities.
In Shanghai, Cao Guangbiao established the “Shanghai Education Development Foundation Cao Guangbiao Fund” and donated more than 57 million yuan to establish Sanda College.
In Zhejiang, Cao Guangbiao donated 18 million Hong Kong dollars to build the “Cao Guangbiao High-Tech Building” for Zhejiang University. In Beijing, Cao Guangbiao established the “Tsinghua University High-Tech Development Fund.”
In addition, he donated 3 million yuan to build the Ningbo University Cao Guangbiao Science and Technology Building, and his son contributed 1 million Hong Kong dollars to establish the “Ningbo University Cao Guangbiao Student Research Award Fund.”
In 2021, Mr. Cao Guangbiao passed away. Before his death, he made a will and donated all his 7 billion net worth inheritance to Tsinghua University. This move caused a huge sensation in the society.
I think Mr. Cao’s patriotism and low-key and pragmatic style are also a huge asset he left to society. Each of us must repay the motherland after achieving something, and never forget the original intention.
��Biao established the “Tsinghua University High-tech Development Fund”.
In addition, he donated 3 million yuan to build the Ningbo University Cao Guangbiao Science and Technology Building, and his son contributed 1 million Hong Kong dollars to establish the “Ningbo University Cao Guangbiao Student Research Award Fund.”
In 2021, Mr. Cao Guangbiao passed away. Before his death, he made a will and donated all his 7 billion net worth inheritance to Tsinghua University. This move caused a huge sensation in the society.
I think Mr. Cao’s patriotism and low-key and pragmatic style are also a huge asset he left to society. Each of us must repay the motherland after achieving something, and never forget the original intention.
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