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Zai Zhen
Eldest son of Prince Qing who attended Edward VII's coronation, headed the new Ministry of Commerce and later turned to business in Tianjin
In a riverside storehouse, sacks of grain and white salt blocks are stacked high; workers weigh grain in a basket hung from a large steelyard, others carry sacks along a plank onto a barge at the right, and a clerk sits at an abacus beside bundled tally sticks.
Zaizhen, the eldest son of Yikuang, Prince Qing, was born in 1876. In 1902 he went to Britain as special envoy to the coronation of Edward VII and also visited France, Belgium, the United States and Japan. On his return he was named the first minister of the new Ministry of Commerce in 1903, and remained minister when it became the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce in 1906. In 1907 the censor Zhao Qilin charged that Duan Zhigui had won office by presenting him with the singer Yang Cuixi; an inquiry found no proof, but Zaizhen resigned all the same. He inherited the title of Prince Qing in 1917, moved to Tianjin in 1924 and invested in businesses such as the Quanyechang department store, and died there in 1947.
Life and times
Dates 1876 CE–1947 CE