DU YUESHENG The Lord of Shanghai - Paperback

by Henri Dauber (Author)

Shanghai, like Macau, Portuguese colony, or Hong Kong, colony English, played a special role in China. The Imperial bureaucracy considered the merchants as pirates or smugglers. Unable to control the economic mechanisms, the Imperial officials were going to Shanghai spearhead of these autonomous areas. Because Shanghai was a frontier town, we lives there land of adventurers seeking fortune where they gave free rein to their criminal talents joining Chinese who would prosper and forge the fate of this particular city. With the political upheaval, the Chinese secret societies were transformed in criminal organizations that would monopolize many trades. The most prestigious of them will bear the name of Green Band. And the most prestigious of the heads of the Green band will be Du Yuesheng, Du the big ears.Du Yuesheng, an orphan who grew up in the slum of Pudong, in the suburbs of Shanghai, went into the Green Band at sixteen and his taste for adventure made him one of the most powerful leaders. At the price of the blood of his opponents. He opered in opium trafficking in the French Concession of Shanghai where he prospered, holding this trade with an iron hand thanks to the many members of the Green Band.The political events which disrupted the Imperial China at that time enabled him to establish contacts with the strong man of the nationalist Party, Kuomintang, the general Chiang-Kai-shek. Only the Japanese intervention made a brake on his rise, preventing him from getting elected as Mayor of Shanghai. His distance from the field signed the beginning of his descent into the underworld.Du Yuesheng managed nevertheless to maintain his power and get elected Mayor of Shanghai in 1947 with the assistance of the Kuomintang. But this glory lasted only one day because he had to, immediately, withdraw from life policy. He then devoted himself to business and became the richest man of the city, the Lord of Shanghai.The seizure of power by the Communists forced him to permanently leave the city and take refuge in Hong Kong where he continued his activities.Du Yuesheng died on August 19, 1951. Could not be buried in Hong Kong, his body was transferred to Taiwan where he was buried in a mausoleum at his image.