Zhong Shanshan Net Worth: World's Richest Chinese Was Elementary School Dropout

Decades of perseverance and hard work evidently paid off for bottled water and tea magnate Zhong Shanshan as he is now considered the richest person in China.

The 67-year-old billionaire, who founded China's largest bottled water company Nongfu Spring, has the highest net worth among the Chinese billionaires on Forbes' rich list with $71.6 billion.

Zhong is currently the 15th richest person in the world, according to the list, which Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk topped with an estimated net worth of $264.9 billion.

Here's a look at how the Nongfu Spring chairman built his fortune slowly over the years.

Hangzhou-born Zhong comes from humble beginnings. He dropped out of elementary school during China's Cultural Revolution. During this time, despite his young age, he helped support his family by working as a bricklayer and carpenter for 10 years, according to a South China Morning Post report.

Zhong twice failed the college entrance exam, but later on, he was able to enroll at what is now called Zhejiang Radio and TV University. After graduating from college, he worked as a reporter in the 1980s prior to becoming a businessman.

In 1988, he resigned and moved to the island province of Hainan following the declaration of the Hainan Special Economic Zone. In the succeeding years, he ventured into various businesses, including a newspaper business, a mushroom business, and later on, a prawn farming business. However, none of the three businesses succeeded.

It was when he met fellow Hangzhou native Zong Qinghou, CEO of Wahaha, which sold bottled water, juices and various health products, that he ventured into selling beverages. In 1996, he started Nongfu Spring.

The majority of Zhong's fortune is reportedly derived from his 84% stake in Nongfu Spring, according to Bloomberg. The beverage maker went public in Hong Kong in September 2020.

Aside from the bottled water company, Zhong also has a 75% stake in Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, according to the outlet. He owns the stake directly and through closely held Yangshengtang.

The medical products company began trading publicly on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in April 2020. According to reports, Zhong left the Wantai board in January 2021, citing personal reasons.

Meanwhile, after Zhong, the second-richest Chinese billionaire today is Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, which owns news aggregation service Toutiao and the video-sharing app TikTok. He has a net worth of $49.5 billion, according to Forbes.

The third-richest Chinese on Forbes' real-time billionaires list is Ma Huateng. He is the co-founder and CEO of Tencent Holdings, one of the world's largest Internet companies. Ma has an estimated net worth of $33 billion.