Zhang Jian on Corporate Governance

Zhang Jian's role is documented as: founder, Dasheng Cotton Mill; late Qing industrialist, educator, and constitutionalist official Deceased August 24, 1926, per Berkshire Publishing's Encyclopedia of China biography (research date: 2026-08-23).

Contemporary Chinese officials and commentators, including a reported remark attributed to Mao Zedong in the 1950s naming Zhang among four figures not to be forgotten in China's national light-industry history, credit Zhang with founding modern Chinese textile and light industry.

Dasheng Cotton Mill grew into a diversified Nantong-based industrial and educational group (mills, fisheries, salt works, schools, a museum) and is described by China Daily and Berkshire Publishing as a foundational episode in China's early industrialization.

Zhang resigned his national government post in 1915 and returned to focus on Nantong's local industrial and education projects until his death in 1926.