Time goes back to 1927, when Sheng Peiyu was about to get married, Mrs. Zhuang, the speaker of the Sheng family, died, and the children were going to split up. In fact, as early as ten years ago, after Sheng Xuanhuai died, the five rooms of the Sheng family had already been divided once, and this time, they wanted to divide the "Yizhuang". 
The family assets left by Sheng Xuanhuai, the richest man in the late Qing Dynasty, are equivalent to about 12.96 million taels, equivalent to 10.45 million US dollars in the same period. In 1917, the United States purchased the 351-square-kilometer Virgin Islands for only $25 million. Sheng Xuanhuai planned the family wealth early on, and he drew on the experience of Japan, Europe and the United States to design a structure that combines family trust and philanthropic attributes.
According to his plan, the nearly 13 million taels of inheritance will first be placed in the dowry of the two widows and female descendants, and the remaining 11.6 million taels will be left for the five houses to be divided equally, and the half will be used for the family trust Yuzhai Yizhuang. The fund of Yizhuang is 5.8 million taels, which follows the principle of moving interest and not moving the capital, 40% of which is used for the principal of charitable activities, 40% for clan activities, and 20% for daily operation and maintenance expenses. He designated Li Hongzhang's eldest son, Li Jingfang, as the executive supervisor to avoid the Sheng family's words.
At the beginning, Mrs. Zhuang was in control of the overall situation, and Yizhuang was still able to maintain its operation. In 1927, Mrs. Zhuang died, and Mrs. Zhuang's son, Sheng Enyi, took the lead and his brothers in wanting to divide up 60% of the non-charitable assets of the family trust. ** At that time, the law had already stipulated the inheritance rights of unmarried daughters, Sheng Enyi's sister, Sheng Qi's sister Sheng Aiyi, took her brother and nephews to court, demanding that the inheritance be divided equally with the male heirs, and then other female members also joined the inheritance war. In addition to the members of the Sheng family, even ** also covets this inheritance. In 1931, Yuzhai Yizhuang was dissolved, and the 2.3 million taels of money that should have been used for charity were confiscated by *** and used as "funds for relieving bandits". In this way, what could have been a model for modern family trusts in China came to an end, while American families such as Rockefeller were active to this day.
Inheriting this pouring wealth, Sheng Enyi was even more unscrupulous and ruined, he married 11 aunts, and lost more than 100 houses in one go in the casino. Who would have thought that it only took 30 years from old money to no money, and by the time of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Sheng Enyi had almost lost all his inheritance. In the fifties, he died in his family's Lingering Garden. His other two brothers, one died in Hong Kong and the other in Japan, and they all failed to invest before their deaths. On the contrary, Sheng Enyi's eldest son, Sheng Yuyou, started from scratch in Japan, starting from a roadside stall in Japan in the 60s, opening a seven-story New Asia Hotel in Tokyo, and his younger brother Sheng Yudu also opened the Lingering Garden Hotel in Japan.
Miss Sheng Qi, who was competing with them for property, invested part of the inheritance she got into Paramount, and later sold her shares because of the poor management of Paramount. Miss Sheng Qi once had a famous story with Song Ziwen, and later she married Zhuang Zhujiu, Mrs. Zhuang's nephew. In fact, due to the turbulence of the times, their wealth had shrunk significantly before the founding of the state.
This embarrassing story tells us that both the chicken baby and the chicken themselves may be equally powerless in the face of the randomness of future generations and the changes in the current situation.