The Rise and Fall of Old Events in Hangzhou

Introduction to "Termites in the Human Heart: The Hidden Code of Family Rise and Fall" Hu Xueyan, a great businessman in the late Qing Dynasty, looked at the ups and downs of families in the world and realized that the rise and fall of a family business was not a matter of luck, but stemmed from three "termites" deep in the human heart. This book takes the century-old vicissitudes of the Shen family, a prominent family in Hangzhou, as its core context, telling the whole process from Shen Jingzhi's creation of a silk and satin business with diligence and integrity, to Shen Zhongshu's ruin of his family's fortune due to insatiable greed and speculation, to Shen Wenyuan's indulgence in luxury and laziness, and his destitution on the street, and finally the complete collapse of the feud between wives and concubines in the backyard and the feud between brothers. Using the rise and fall of the Shen family as a mirror, Hu Xueyan traveled across the country and witnessed countless prominent families repeating the same mistakes. He also saw that families who abide by the family motto of "contentment, thrift, and harmony" continue to endure. The book uses stories soaked in blood and tears to reveal the ultimate code of the rise and fall of a family: If the ants in the human heart are not eliminated, no matter how illustrious the foundation is, it will eventually decay; only by keeping true to one's heart and correcting the family tradition can we withstand the torrent of time and let the family's lifeline be passed down from generation to generation.