Dark Horse Tycoon - The Legend of Yan Jiehe

His typical Chinese wealth creation story attracted numerous eyeballs, and his popularity even surpassed the first tycoon on the list, Huang Guangyu, who made his fortune through electrical appliance chain stores.

"He became fabulously rich, an unknown in the 1990s, then leapt to become China's second richest man!" remarked an old acquaintance of Yan Jiehe.

Yan Jiehe, 45 years old, was born in a village in Jiangsu province, worked as a high school teacher, then ventured into business, starting out in Nanjing by contracting infrastructure projects. In the late 1990s, he began large-scale acquisition of state-owned enterprises. His personal wealth on the Rich List soared from 1.5 billion yuan last year to 12.5 billion yuan this year. His personal history of becoming wealthy paralleled the process of China's economic reform, which is why it drew so much attention.