Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 585 The Wind Blows North China 4
Zhangjiakou.

This city gradually rose up in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and changed from a desolate town to an extremely prosperous big city in the Qing Dynasty, all of which benefited from the rise of Shanxi merchants.Yes, the history of the rise of Zhangjiakou is the history of the rise of Shanxi merchants. With the gradual relaxation of border trade in the Ming Dynasty, a large number of Shanxi merchants trafficked cloth, grain, tea, ironware, salt and other materials to the Mongolian prairie. Zhangjiakou, due to its unique The geographical location has suddenly become an important dry wharf. Shanxi merchants built a large number of warehouses and opened shops here.

It is now the seventh year of Chongzhen. According to the original time and space, it was the beginning of the Manchu and Qing plundering the customs more and more rampantly, and the rogues ravaging the Central Plains. It was also the beginning of the Shanxi merchants' prosperity. And weapons, both left and right, made a lot of money, and laid a solid foundation for Shanxi merchants to dominate the Chinese business world for 300 years.But now something seems to be wrong, the main force of hundreds of thousands of rogue bandits was completely wiped out in Henan and Hebei, and the Qing army, which has always been invincible, was defeated by the Ming army in Lushun, and lost a quarter of it all at once. His strength was severely injured, and the Tianxiong Army, which had made great achievements in this battle, even drove beyond the Great Wall and took over the Xuanda defense line in an all-round way!Jinshang Group was somewhat at a loss. It had been decades, and it had never encountered such a bad situation.

They have heard too much about Lu Xiangsheng's deeds. He was a ruthless character who brought [-] peasants and soldiers and dared to enter King Qinqin to fight with Jiannu, and cut off hundreds of heads in Dingxing. For such a ruthless character, Beauty tricks are useless, money offensives are useless, power... Just kidding, everyone is already a Marquis of the Empire, and is still on the rise. Can Shanxi merchants who have not yet reached their peak give him more power?What's more terrible is that behind Lu Yanwang's massive entry into Xuanda is the vision of the gradually rising Northern Zhili merchant group to enter outside the customs.Outside the pass is a cornucopia, not only the inexhaustible supply of cattle, sheep, horses and furs, but also the salt lake, where you can get inexhaustible salt and alkali with a little refinement, all of which are money!Coal mines and iron mines abound, and the Hetao Great Plain is extremely attractive. Such attractive benefits are enough to make Northern Zhili businessmen jealous. Of course, they will desperately support that King Lu Yan!
Not good, really bad.

In the Fan Mansion, Wang Dengku, Jin Liangyu, Wang Dayu, Liang Jiabin, Tian Shenglan, Zhai Ying, and Huang Yunlong gathered together, and Fan Yongdou, the owner of the Fan Mansion, was sitting at the head. Everyone was buzzing and discussing countermeasures.Among the Eight Great Families, the Fan family was the most financially powerful, the closest to Shengjing, and won the trust of Huang Taiji. Naturally, the Wang family, Jin family, Tian family and Liang family were headed by them, but the Fan family followed suit.Wang Dengku frowned and said to Fan Yongdou: "Brother Fan Shi, the army came in force that day. I'm afraid the attackers are evil. In your opinion, how should we respond?"

Tian Shenglan said: "Those red-skinned dogs are too abominable. Once they arrived in Datong, they robbed us of our fields, real estate, and horse farms, which caused me a lot of losses!"

Zhai Ying also complained: "Yeah, that guy surnamed Lu is too unreasonable! These fields, real estate, and horse farms were all bought by me, so why should he snatch them all away with just one word!"

Huang Yunlong said: "They also robbed my property in Xuanfu and Zhangjiakou!"

All Shanxi merchants looked helpless.These days, the Tianxiong army forcibly took back the land, real estate, and horse farms that belonged to the guards in Xuanfu, Datong, Zhangjiakou and other places, causing considerable losses to Shanxi merchants.In fact, their family has a big business, so this little loss is nothing, but the feeling of letting someone gouged out a piece of meat is really uncomfortable. In their words, it is very uncomfortable!But what if you are unhappy?When a scholar meets a soldier, it is hard to explain why, and when a businessman meets a soldier... Do you think you have a chance to reason?
Fan Yongdou smoked his pipe slowly, calmly.It's just that his mood may not be so calm. At the end of last year, he sent his grandson Fan Jian to Nanyang to buy [-] catties of high explosives. Everything went smoothly, but after sending several hundred catties to Shenyang, he found out that it was a fake and would never explode. kind of.When such a big mess happened, although Huang Taiji didn't say anything harsh, his dissatisfaction was written on his face.Fan Jian ran to Nanyang to inquire about his crimes, but Nanyang was arrested and labeled as "attempting to assassinate the Marquis of the Empire". He didn't think that the envious Lu Yanwang would let go of the eight Shanxi merchants who started their fortunes by making money from the country's disasters after he grasped the real evidence!Wang Dengku and others just saw that the Tianxiong Army entered Xuanda and caused them to suffer property losses, but Fan Yongdou clearly heard the chilling sound of the executioner sharpening the ghost knife!
Lu Xiangsheng and Yang Menglong must be resolved as soon as possible, otherwise the entire Jinshang Group may be ruined!

Thinking of this, he tapped his pipe against the edge of the table, and everyone immediately stopped talking.Fan Yongdou's deeply sunken eyes were shining brightly, his voice was low and his expression was gloomy: "Everyone is an old man who has experienced big winds and waves, why is his reaction so slow this time?" He slapped the table hard and made a loud noise , said sharply: "That Lu is here to kill us! Listen clearly, he is here to kill us!"

As soon as this remark came out, everyone was astonished. Tian Shenglan said: "The old man is a bit alarmist, right? We have no grievances or enmity with King Lu Yan..."

Fan Yongdou snorted heavily: "No grievances, no enmity? Don't pretend to be ignorant. As far as what we have done, killing the head ten times is not enough, and these things cannot withstand investigation. Once he finds out What, with Lu Yanwang's jealous temper, will he let us go?"

Tian Shenglan shuddered, and said in a hurry: "A businessman is after profit. Who doesn't do business that makes money? I'm not wrong! Besides, if he wants to gain a firm foothold in Shanxi, he still has to rely on me. Even if he finds out What, you have to be sloppy, right?"

Fan Yongdou sneered: "I'm afraid that even if he wants to be sloppy, some people will not agree! The businessmen in Beizhili have been staring at the oil and water outside the Great Wall for more than a day or two. For them, the governor of Lu Yanwang's five northern provinces is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Do you think the merchants in Beizhenli will let this opportunity go?" He said sharply, "They will never! They will go all out to help King Lu Yan uproot us! They will swarm us and tear us into pieces Swallow the fragments, skin and bones, and then monopolize the huge profits of the border trade!"

Everyone shivered in unison, as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water over their heads, and it was so cold to the bone.There is no reason to talk about business wars, especially the war between two business consortiums from different regions. It is really bloody. Once it breaks out, one side will inevitably fall, even if it is cooperation, it will be on one side. After the game, they started to cooperate, and the strong preyed on the weak, but that was all.If King Lu Yan had really made up his mind from the very beginning to exterminate Shanxi merchants and clear the obstacles for the merchants in Beizhili, I'm afraid that none of the eight of them would be able to escape!
Guest Liang said: "Whether the old man's guess is right or not, Lu Yan's stay in Xuanda will be a big threat to us after all! He doesn't even have to do anything else, as long as he strictly investigates smuggling at the border, we can't stand it anymore." !"

Fan Yongdou smiled sinisterly, and said: "He shouldn't have come to Xuanda...Everyone, get moving, mobilize all the power in your hands to win over the officers of the Tianxiong Army, and collect information about the deployment of the Tianxiong Army. Seeing some weapons of the Tianxiong Army, I think that if there is a chance, Huang Taiji will be interested in eating the main force of the Tianxiong Army and avenging Lushun!"

Tian Shenglan was shocked: "Master Fan, you..." Not only him, everyone present was frightened by Fan Yongdou's madness.They did a lot of things like betraying the intelligence of the Ming army to Xiang Houjin. They lured the Jin army into the bandits and wiped out a famous army. They really didn't dare to do such things. Not only will they be hacked into pieces, and the nine clans will be murdered, but they will also have a bad reputation for thousands of years. They are worse than Qin Hui and Bank of China who said that these big traitors have made the Han people gnash their teeth and scold them for thousands of years. They are just businessmen. How can they bear such a bad reputation?

Fan Yongdou looked around the crowd with green eyes, like a ferocious beast trapped in a cage, and said word by word: "This is the only way! Otherwise, we will die without a place to die!"

Everyone was relatively speechless.They have committed so many evils that they can only go to the dark side and there is no turning back.Originally, they hedged their bets, providing Houjin with information and military supplies, selling stolen goods for Houjin, and providing iron and food to the rogues. A hundred years of wealth can be expected, how comfortable is it to hedge your bets?However, now that the bandits have been wiped out, Hou Jin was beaten with a bruise on his nose and face in Lushun, and the Tianxiong Army has entered Xuanda University, everyone is a little hesitant.Now Fan Yongdou made it clear as soon as he opened his mouth that the Tianxiong Army is here to kill everyone!Everyone was shocked, and then realized that the empire seemed to be settling a score with them!

There is no other way but to do as Fan Yongdou said, otherwise they will all die without a burial place!
According to Fan Yongdou's instruction, businessmen from Xuanfu, Datong, Zhangjiakou, Taiyuan and other places started to move into action one after another.Sentinels of the Tianxiong Army from all over the country also found that the number of suspicious people wandering around the barracks increased exponentially. No matter where they went, there were people staring at them furtively.This is a harbinger of the coming storm, and the Shanxi Merchants do not plan to tear themselves apart from the Tianxiong army for the time being, and use a large number of sugar-coated shells to drown the Tianxiong army.If the Tianxiong army accepts these sugar-coated shells, then they can disintegrate and disintegrate the Tianxiong army step by step, corrupting them with money, wine, and beauties, and letting them join forces with themselves like the soldiers of the original Xuanda towns.If the Tianxiong army rejects these sugar-coated shells, then they will be impolite, strike the market, all shops will strike, and tell the court with this attitude, we don't like this King Lu Yan, you'd better transfer him away as soon as possible!
After transferring Lu Yanwang away, Tianxiong's army has no leader and is in a state of disunity. When the time comes, Jin Dajun will kill them all, and leave no one behind?
Winning with money and threatening to stop the market have always been the two magic weapons for Ming Dynasty merchants, and they have always been invincible in many games with the court.This time, will these two magic weapons still work?

(End of this chapter)