In the Dezhuang hot pot restaurant on Qipan Street, Zhu Cihong is in the private room on the third floor.

The dozen or so green skins have been secretly escorted to the edict prison by Li Tingbiao to drink tea, and Zhu Cihong asked Li Tingbiao to check which grain store these dozen troublesome green skins were instructed by.

After a period of time, Li Tingbiao reported that the grain shops that sent people to make trouble were opened by a few businessmen in Shanxi, and he also personally sent the information of those owners.

Li Tingbiao also said that the news that the grain transport in the capital had been intercepted was secretly disseminated by them, and that before the grain was intercepted, several of them began to purchase grain in large quantities from the capital and Tongzhou.

Zhu Cihong picked up the information of these grain shop owners and looked at it: "Wang Dengku, Jin Liangyu, Wang Dayu, Liang Guest, Tian Shenglan, Zhai Tang, Huang Yunfa, Fan Yongdou? ”

"This Fan Yongdou's name seems a little familiar...... Shanxi businessman....... Jin Shang ......." Zhu Cihong silently muttered these words.

Suddenly, he stood up and cried out, "My day! The Eight Emperors of the Manchu Dynasty? It's actually these dog traitors! ”

At the juncture of social turmoil at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the eight merchant families in Shanxi realized that the Manchu Qing Dynasty had the ambition to rise and unify the world with their keen sense of smell, so they secretly transported military supplies to the Qing army in addition to normal trade, and provided various information in the customs to engage in political trading.

After the Qing army entered the customs, the little emperor of Shunzhi did not forget that the eight Jin merchants who had established great achievements for the Manchu Qing Dynasty to enter the Central Plains held a banquet in the side hall of the Forbidden City, personally summoned them, and gave them clothing.

At the banquet, Shunzhi wanted to give them official rewards, and the eight families were flattered and tried their best to resign, and Shunzhi borrowed the donkey from the slope to seal them as "imperial merchants", known as the "eight imperial merchants".

Zhu Cihong wanted to take this opportunity to raid the homes of the eight Jin merchants and let Da Ming return a wave of blood, but when he saw a large stack of Jin merchant materials sent by Li Tingbiao later, he hesitated.

The power of the Eight Great Jin Merchants was far greater than he imagined, and according to the intelligence, these guys began to lay out in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, vigorously cultivating the children of the clan to become officials.

Over the years, there have been countless children of various families who have become officials, among which Wang Pu, the chief soldier of Datong, is a member of the Wang family among the eight families, and it is said that the general soldier is piled up with money.

Not only that, but the eight Jin merchants also vigorously made friends with powerful people, whether they were local or in the capital, and there were even people in the cabinet who they had bribed.

When they learned that an official was going to buy a field, take a concubine, or have a difficult life, they contracted it all, sent land, money, and women, and did things properly, which was even more intimate than the real estate agents of later generations.

If this is all there is, Zhu Cihong can still forcibly get rid of them, however, these Jin merchants still have many allies in the Jiangnan area, such as the Jiangsu-Zhejiang consortium and the Guangdong consortium.

The north was short of grain, salt, iron, tea and other materials, and the Jin merchants had to buy them from Jiangnan, so that the southern consortia were closely linked to their interests.

Zhu Cihong paced back and forth in the room, thinking about how to deal with it, if there was no perfect strategy to easily attack the eight major Jin merchants, if one was not careful, he would really oppose the merchants and interest groups in the whole world, as Emperor Lao Tzu said.

Just when Zhu Cihong had a headache, Wu Zhong whispered to him that Zhang Dabiao, the owner of Zhang's grain shop, was here.

Zhang Dabiao is a middle-aged man in his fifties, quite wealthy, when he saw Zhu Cihong, he immediately bowed and said: "The grass people meet His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Chitose!" ”

Zhu Cihong helped him up with a smile, and said with a smile: "Boss Zhang, please get up, I didn't expect the two of us to meet again." ”

The crown prince was so courteous, Zhang Dabiao was excited, and said: "The grass people were given the word by His Royal Highness last time, and to this day, the mood is surging, and it is difficult to calm down. ”

The businessman's mouth is Lisuo, Zhu Cihong waved his hand after sitting down, and motioned for Zhang Dabiao to sit down as well.

Zhang Dabiao didn't dare to say anything, Zhu Cihong was helpless, and directly asked Xu Sheng to press him on the bench.

Zhu Cihong said directly: "Boss Zhang doesn't have to be too formal, the palace is inspecting the people's situation outside today, and I accidentally learned about the righteousness of the Zhangjia grain shop, and I am deeply impressed, so I summoned you to meet, the palace wants to ask, the businessman is profit-seeking, why do you want to do this?" ”

Zhang Dabiao said: "Your Royal Highness Miao Zan, our Zhang family and even the entire Hui businessmen have their own way of doing business: morality, integrity, integrity-based, and righteousness!" I have more ancient precepts in Huishang: Si Shang: not to see profit for profit, to be honest for profit; Siye: not to be rich and noble, to be harmonious......."

Seeing that the crown prince was quite interested in the Hui merchants, Zhang Dabiao introduced the Hui merchants very hard, from Huainan in the east to Yunnan, Guizhou and Guanlong in the west, from Youyan Liaodong in the north to Fujian and Guangdong in the south, and then from Japan to Portugal.......

According to him, most of their Huizhou businessmen came from Huizhou and Xin'an, everyone was hard-working, diligent and thrifty, small business, from small to large, almost no land, every household was engaged in business, and among adult men, businessmen accounted for seventy percent.

After these years of development, it has begun to be as famous as the Jin merchants, especially in recent years, the footprints of the Hui merchants are almost all over the country, and even as far as Japan, Siam, Southeast Asian countries and Portugal.

Finally, Zhang Dabiao said that their Huizhou businessmen have always been patriotic, and as long as the imperial court is in need, he said that he will contact Huizhou businessmen from all over the country to support the imperial court!

He also listed their past patriotic deeds, such as when Qi Jiguang resisted the Japanese, Hui merchants made a large amount of donations.

Zhu Cihong also knew what Zhang Dabiao's psychology was, but if a businessman could take a ride with the imperial court, it would be more conducive to his own development, but after listening to Zhang Dabiao's words, Zhu Cihong suddenly had the idea of encircling Hui merchants.

Shanxi's eight Jin merchants are too powerful to do, why don't he support the Hui merchants to fight with them, in the future, he also needs to find a breakthrough if he wants to collect business taxes, if the operation is good, maybe the Hui merchants are a good breakthrough.

Thinking of this, Zhu Cihong made up his mind to support the Hui merchants, you have eight profiteers in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and I have a lot of Hui merchants in the Ming Dynasty, do it! Who's afraid of whom!

After the two talked secretly, Zhang Dabiao happily left Dezhuang Hot Pot and began to contact the Hui merchants in Beizhili.

Zhu Cihong ordered Li Tingbiao to supervise all the shops of the Jin merchants in the capital, especially the managers of the eight major Jin merchants in the capital, and he must keep an eye on them.

After receiving the order, Li Tingbiao immediately began to make arrangements, and with more than 400,000 taels of silver as support, Li Tingbiao's intelligence network can now be described as a real sky net.

In the afternoon of the same day, Zhu Cihong ordered the transfer of 100,000 stone of grain from Xincheng to alleviate the food crisis in the capital, which was part of the materials of the Qing army captured by the Yongwei Battalion in Liangxiang City.

When truckloads of grain were transported to the capital under the escort of heavily armed troops, many people in the capital rushed to tell each other and rejoiced when they saw it.

The price of grain in the capital is rising day by day, making their lives more and more difficult, and at this time, seeing so much grain transported by the imperial court, the whole city is boiling.

However, some Jin merchants hired beggars and green-skinned villains to hype up the streets that it was all sand, not food, and that the imperial court was just trying to ease the people's feelings.

Under the impact of this kind of public opinion, the people in the capital have become panicked again, and grain prices are still high.

Jin Shang's despicable actions made Zhu Cihong hateful, and at the same time let him know the importance of public opinion.

When it comes to public opinion, Zhu Cihong remembered a big killer - newspaper!