Photos of Shengxuanhuai Former Residence

Sheng Xuanhuai played an indispensable role in China's modernization, known as the "Father of Chinese Businessmen", and still holds the title of statesman, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Sheng Xuanhuai (1844~1916), courtesy name Xingsun, and nicknamed Yuzhai, was a native of Wujin, Jiangsu (now Changzhou), and joined the shogunate of Li Hongzhang in 1870. After participating in the establishment of the large-scale civil shipping industry steamship investment bureau, he presided over the establishment of enterprises and schools: the telecommunications company Tianjin Telegraph Bureau, the inland river shipping company Shandong Inland River Small Steamship Shipping Company, the domestic north-south trunk line Luhan Railway, and the Chinese self-run China Commercial Bank, the iron and steel conglomerate Hanyeping Coal and Iron Factory and Mining Company, the University of Science and Technology Beiyang University (today Jin University), as well as the Hubei General Administration of Coal and Iron Mining, Huasheng Textile Factory and Nanyang Public School (now Jiaotong University). Sheng Xuanhuai is a native of Changzhou. Although he has been abroad for a long time, his hometown still retains its ancestral home. The former residence was built by Xuanhuai's father Shengkang and his nephew Yuhuai together with a wooden structure made of hard mountains. There are five halls, four flower halls, and two buildings with inner gardens and yellowstone rockeries. Its life is now introduced in the form of a graphic exhibition.