The accidental banker

Jinci Temple in Shanxi. [Photo by Pete Marchetto/For chinadaily.com.cn]

The proposition served Li well. It would mean he himself did not need to transfer the money from Beijing to Pingyao, risking those same bandits. So it was that an agreement was reached, and both men retired from the conversation well satisfied.

The story may have ended there, but word got around. Before long, Li was approached by others who needed to travel the road to Beijing. They sought a similar favor. Indeed, so many approaches began to be made that Li decided to begin charging money for the service. As the custom grew, Li's dye business fell by the wayside. He opened new finance branches in other cities — the Rishengchang, or "Sunrise Prosperity", exchange shops. Before the end of the decade, several such branches were scattered across China's major cities.

Customers at Pingyao's Rishengchang exchange may have wondered where all the money was kept. Indeed, thieves may have observed the premises in the hope of trailing it back to Li’s secret store, which they must have presumed was located somewhere safe elsewhere in the town. They would have failed to find any mysterious cache. The exchange business hid the money in plain view, in a room next to the exchange room itself, beneath its floorboards upon which furniture and carpets rested as if nothing of any great significance was to be found there.