Except these were typical merchants in the provinces, and you're taking statements about the value of Heshen at face
value, which, if true, would mean he was richer than the imperial treasury.
You're making arguments against established historical facts. Heshen
was by far the wealthiest man alive in his time. His fortune amounted to several times the annual government revenue. You will never find an example of a contemporary merchant who could come close to that. OTOH Cortez was possibly the wealthiest man in Spain, no comparison.
And if we are looking at merchants such as the Zheng family of the 17th century, who were rich enough to build their own military, then your argument looks even more dubious.
This is an unquantified anecdote. How big were their private armies? 10 men, 100 men, 1000? Were they just thugs with spears, or did they have cavalry, artillery? It did not require great wealth to build an army. Otherwise peasant rebellions would be impossible.
And since there were merchants who bought titles such as the equivalent of Marquis, we know that is wrong.
Who? Name some merchants who bought an equivalent title. Again you fail to understand the point I'm making. Certainly there were rich Chinese, and many did buy appointments (though none could compared to the Spaniards). But these people were universally villified by Chinese historians. They were not model citizens, they were not admired by later generations. In the Confucian world order, merchants were among the bottom rung of social hierarchy. The order was: officials, peasants, craftspeople, merchants.
And I also find the idea of mapping Chinese currency onto modern America to get an equivalent very dubious, especially given your weird projection of the price of modern foodstuffs onto premodern China.
Actually that's how historical prices are estimated, through the purchasing value of daily staple. While I'm not trying to be precise like Angus Maddison, the prices are in the ballpark, and is sufficient for our purposes. Feel free to use your own metric if you wish.
In fact, I will now ask where you're getting your info on Heshen, who you seem to hold up as a normal character, from.
(Ten bucks says it's that awful 1587: A Year of No Significance).
Heshen was the prime minister under Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty. He was executed in the early 19th century for graft. His story would not appear in a book about the 16th century would it? If you know anything about Qing history you would be familiar with Heshen, his corruption case was legendary. When Emperor Jiaqing ordered his death, Heshen's assets were published on the emperor's orders. I can give you an itemized inventory if you like.
You can keep your ten bucks.