Shen Wansan
'Shen Wansan'
Yangjiabu, Shandong
21 x 34 cm
modern reprint of early 20th century image.
Shen Wansan, this picture tells us, was a man from Henan province who worked hard as a fisher until he was rewarded with fabulous wealth by the Dragon King. Suddenly his whole environment is flooded with riches as money grows on trees and his nets pull in a self-replenishing pot of gold. This seems to borrow from another legend of a man who caught an old pot in his net and took it home to use as his dog's dish (see figure 8).
Although there are many legends about the supernatural acquisition of wealth, Shen Wansan was a real person, although he actually made his fortune through trade. Shen was one of the richest men in China at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, unfortunately for him his entire fortune was seized by the emperor Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang) and used to build the massive walls around the city of Nanjing.
copyright 2003
