Who's Who in China (3rd edition)/Yang Shou-mai

Mr. Yang Shou-mai

楊翰 西

(Yang Han-hsi)

Mr. Yang Shou-mai was born at Wu-sih Hsien, Kiangsu province, in 1875, from a very well known family. His father was one of the starters and the Director of the famous Military College at Paotingfu of which many students afterwards became noted soldiers and leaders both in the Ching time and the Republic. He became a Provincial Graduate when he was still young Then he followed his father to Peking to serve as an academic member in the Board of War. Later he entered civil official life. He was for some time the Director of the Kuangtung Provincial Mint, Canton. He retired from the official life before 1912. In 1903 Mr. Yang's father founded the Nieh-Ching Cotton Mill Company at Wusih, his native district, it being one of the oldest cotton mills in the inland of China. In 1912, when his father had died, Mr. Yang became the managing director of this Mill. He started the telephone company at Wusih in 1911. In 1912 he extended his telephone business to Tai-Chang and Li-Yang districts. In 1914 he opened an oil mill. This was the first mechanical oil mill in the interior of China. In 1916 he started the Kuang-Ching Weaving and Spinning Company with a total capilization of one million dollars. He has been its managing director since its establishment. In 1920 he put up the Kuang Ching Soap Faotory and the Kuang Ching Foundry Company in the vicinity of the new spinning and weaving mill. Mr. Yang has opened a stone-paved road connecting his mills with the Shanghai-Nanking Railway Station at Wusih. It is several miles long and in its vicinity he has put up schools, police stations, a fire brigade, market houses, and a band composed of orphan boys. He has made the new section a modern self-governing district and it is called the Kuang Ching District. It is about a mile north of the city of Wusih. Besides his business activities, Mr. Yang is at present the chairman of the Merchants Volunteer Corp and Chief of the Engineering Department of the local Waterways Improvement Bureau. He is considered a leader of tthe modern industrial development of Wusih District which has lately gained the name "The Little Shanghai."