The Ngo Ho Tjiang Kongsi (Chinese: 五虎将; pinyin: Wǔ Hǔ Jiàng; the 'Five Tiger Generals'), sometimes spelled Ngo Houw Tjiang, was a powerful consortium that dominated the opium pacht or tax farm of the Residency of Batavia, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in the early to mid-nineteenth century.[1][2] The pacht was an outsourced tax operation, collecting customs, excise and indirect duties on behalf of the Dutch colonial government.[3] The five partners of the consortium were the pachters Lauw Ho, Gouw Kang Soei, Luitenant-titulair der Chinezen, Tan Ling, Khouw Siong Bo and Tan Kong Boen.[1][2] The name of the kongsi refers to the five generals of the 14th-century Chinese classic novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.[1][2] Of all colonial-era pachten, opium was by far the most lucrative; and the five partners of Ngo Ho Tjiang were consequently among the wealthiest and most powerful tycoons of early to mid-nineteenth century Java.[1][2][3] Ngo Ho Tjiang had very close ties to the colonial Chinese bureaucracy. One of the partners, Luitenant-titulair Gouw Kang Soei, sat on the Kong Koan ('Chinese Council') of Batavia, while the consortium's administrator, Lim Soe Keng Sia, was a son-in-law of Tan Eng Goan, the 1st Majoor der Chinezen of Batavia and the city's most senior Chinese official.[4][1]
Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo Ho Tjiang.
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