China’s Number One Gang

During the Jiaqing era of the Qing Dynasty, Baoqing Prefecture in Huguang, now Shaoyang, produced abundant cedar, coal, paper, tea, and other goods. The people of Baoqing built boats from cedar and transported these goods from the Zi River in southern Hunan into Dongting Lake, then down the Yangtze and upstream along the Han River to Hankou. They built simple docks and bamboo huts along the river's backwaters.

Because the journey was long, nobody was left to guard the docks and huts. When the Baoqing merchants returned, they found that the Anhui Gang had seized the site. The Baoqing Gang and the Anhui Gang then fought for years in a deadly struggle over the docks, leaving countless dead and wounded on both sides. The affair shocked the court and implicated ministers Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan, yet no resolution could be reached...

A frail young man, however, was able to determine the outcome in one stroke. See how he founded China's greatest gang in the late Qing and early Ming era...