Fan Yongdou, whose ancestral home is Jiexiu, Shanxi, lived in Zhangjiakou in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. As early as the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the Fan family did business in Zhangjiakou and Mongolia, after seven generations, it was passed to Fan Yongdou to become a wealthy Han merchant in Zhangjiakou area to Manchu and Mongolian trade.

At that time, the Jurchens living in the northeast established the Houjin, and due to the hostile relationship with the Ming Dynasty, the military and living materials they needed could only be obtained through the trade market in Zhangjiakou, that is, they used Zhangjiakou as a base to run in the past, and Fan Yongdou and seven other merchants began to do business in this area.

Because the eight merchants contributed to the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, after the Qing Dynasty was established, Emperor Shunzhi did not forget to establish the eight merchants who had made great achievements in the Central Plains, set up banquets in the Forbidden City, and gave them clothes. Shunzhi also wanted to give them official rewards, and the eight major merchants were flattered and tried their best to refuse. As a result, Emperor Shunzhi named them "imperial merchants". Fan Yongdou was appointed to preside over trade affairs and "give Zhangjiakou as a world business". The other seven also have their own rewards.

Just three years after the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, Zhu Hongsan, an inconspicuous clan of the Ming Dynasty, declared himself a prisoner in Guangdong. Of course, at that time, the world was in turmoil, and there were more than a dozen clans in the entire South China that announced that they would supervise the country, and even the unlucky ghost Zhu Hengjia, the king of Jingjiang, was ready to supervise the country and stand on his own at that time, so that Zhu Hongsan did not make much trouble at all.

No one in the whole of China takes Zhu Hongsan seriously, but Fan Yongdou, who is far away in Shanxi, is entangled with this clan. Of course, this is not that Fan Yongdou is talented and found that Zhu Hongsan has the image of an emperor, but that there was a big warlord Jiang Yang in Shanxi at that time.

Jiang Yang's personality is similar to Li Chengdong and Wu Sangui, he is a capricious villain, and when the Ming Dynasty was there, he followed the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng came to surrender Li Zicheng, and naturally took refuge in the Manchu Qing Dynasty. is such a stinky 800 miles of goods, Zhu Hongsan in order to resist the overall situation of the Qing Dynasty, he actually gave him the title of King of Jin, you must know that Li Chengdong and Jin Shenghuan made great contributions to the Qing Dynasty, and they only made a county king.

But at that time, Zhu Hongsan had no choice, everything had to serve the great cause of resisting the Qing Dynasty, and as for Jiang Yang's reputation, it was not a matter. But at that time, Jiang Yang was located in the hinterland of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the big aid could not be sent in, so he had to make up for it with a knighthood. However, it was not that there was no aid at all, Zhu Hongsan ordered his Jinyi guards to also give Jiang Yang some assistance, such as knives, guns and muskets, etc., and the transportation of these weapons depended on Fan Yongdou, the head snake in Shanxi.

Of course, Fan Yongdou's move was not very much in love with the Ming Dynasty, but the price given by Zhu Hongsan was really tempting, and the snow-white frosting really made Fan Yongdou's heart move, so Fan Yongdou risked offending the Manchu Qing to deliver weapons to Jiang Yang in Datong.

In this way, Fan Yongdou was in a relationship with Zhu Hongsan, at first Fan Yongdou just wanted to make some small money to spend, but when he thought of the turn of feng shui, the Manchu Eight Banners, which were known as invincible, were wiped out by more than 200,000 people in the first battle of Nanchang, and even the most elite two white flags lost more than 20,000 people.

Fan Yongdou had a lot of contacts with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and he knew that the two white flags were Dorgon's old roots, and his combat effectiveness was the top among the eight banners, so Fan Yongdou began to pay serious attention to Zhu Hongsan after knowing the news.

After Zhu Hongsan occupied Nanjing, Fan Yongdou knew that the Ming Dynasty was going to turn over, so at this time, Fan Yongdou began to spare no effort to help Zhu Hongsan support Jiang Yang.

Jiang Yang has such a big foreign aid, he wants food and food, weapons and weapons, and Zhu Hongsan kept bleeding the Manchus in the south, so Jiang Yang has persisted for so many years.

But when Zhu Hong's third Northern Expedition was successful, Jiang Yang's old problem was committed again, he didn't see that Zhu Hong's three major trends had been achieved, can you compete with the entire Central Plains Dynasty with a mere Shanxi Datong? At this time, Fan Yongdou and other Zhangjiakou businessmen cut off Jiang Yang's grain, so Jiang Yang held out for less than half a year, and Datong City was captured by Zhu Hongsan's cannon, and more than 50 members of Jiang Yang's family were killed by Zhu Hongsan.

Jiang Yang was killed and the clan was wiped out, but Fan Yongdou and other eight businessmen became heroes because of their meritorious efforts to resist the Qing Dynasty, plus Fan Yongdou was very clever, and after Zhu Hongsan occupied Beijing, he immediately went to Beijing with gold and silver treasures to bribe Ma Mingyuan, so he left his life under Zhu Hongsan.

Of course, this is not that Zhu Hongsan really thinks that Fan Yongdou is meritorious, according to Zhu Hongsan's character, as long as he wants to kill you, you can't be the king of heaven. At that time, the Zhang family in Ningbo, Zhejiang, had great achievements in resisting the Qing Dynasty, and was still Zhu Hongsan's cheap old man, so as long as this kind of honor went against Zhu Hongsan's intentions, he would die and the clan would be wiped out. Zhu Hongsan left Fan Yongdou just to leave a contact channel with the Mongols outside the Guan, after all, at this time, the Central Plains Dynasty was just established, and it would not be fun for the Mongols to come to Koubian.

Therefore, Zhu Hongsan gave Fan Yongdou a hereditary brocade cloth and a thousand households in the seven years of Shenwu's knighthood, which can be regarded as a tribute to his outstanding contributions in the Shanxi Anti-Qing War.

When Fan Yongdou learned yesterday that the emperor had come to Xuanfu to see him, he was really ecstatic, as long as he had a relationship with the emperor, then he would not have to be afraid of Hu Guangxun in the court. Those Huguang nine-headed birds are really not things, not to mention hundreds of thousands of silver dollars from themselves every year, but also to intervene in the border trade business.

In the past, Fan Yongdou was afraid of the power of the Ma family, and originally wanted to compromise, but now it is different, as long as the emperor is willing to take his own merits, that is, the Ma family will not be able to move himself.

Fan Yongdou knelt in front of the eight people, bowed his head and didn't dare to look ahead, and could only see a pair of black cowhide boots walking in from the corner of his eye. The man walked to the front and sat down and said, "A few Aiqing are flat!" ”

According to what the eunuch taught, Fan Yongdou hurriedly shouted respectfully: "Thank you, Lord Longen!" Then he kowtowed and stood up.

After standing up, Fan Yongdou looked at the person with his spare eyes, and saw a fat middle-aged man sitting in the main hall, wearing a red five-clawed golden dragon robe, a gauze hat made of gold silk, and a jade belt as wide as a palm around his waist. This middle-aged man was burly with a chest-length beard, and was looking at Fan Yongdou with a grin.

Seeing that the emperor looked at him, Fan Yongdou hurriedly lowered his gaze, because the eunuch told him that he should never look at the emperor without the emperor's permission, which was a great crime of disrespect.

Zhu Hongsan saw the cautious Fan Yongdou and said with a smile: "Okay, this is not the palace, and everyone doesn't have to follow any etiquette, today is my treat, everyone sit down!" ”

There are nine tables in the main hall of the General Soldier's Mansion, the top is naturally the emperor's seat, and the remaining eight are arranged on both sides, Fan Yongdou and the other eight people heard the emperor say this, and hurriedly sat behind their own desks according to the size of their identities.

Zhu Hongsan entered the house with Zhu Yuan, the fourth son of the emperor, Zhu Shengduo, the eldest grandson of the emperor, and Zhao Liangdong, the chief soldier of the Xuanfu, Zhu Hongsan said to Zhao Liangdong: "Zhao Aiqing, did you tell the eight of them what I told you yesterday?" ”

Zhao Liangdong bowed down and said: "Back to Your Majesty, the last general has already conveyed His Majesty's intention to reopen the mutual market to the eight people!" ”

Zhu Hongsan nodded and asked the eight people, "What are the opinions of the eight of you?" ”

These eight merchants were headed by Fan Yongdou, and Fan Yongdou quickly stood up and said when he heard the emperor's question: "Your Majesty is really a genius, and there will be no major wars in the entire border pass as soon as the mutual market is opened!" ”

In the early Han Dynasty, it had trade with Nanyue and the Xiongnu, and later with the smooth road in the Western Regions, the border trade with the Xiongnu was continuously developed. After the Sui and Tang dynasties, each dynasty had a special management agency, and the tea and horse exchanges with various ethnic groups in the border areas during the Song and Ming dynasties were also very frequent.

Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, because the Ming Dynasty did not have a major war with Mongolia, the social economy of Mongolia has developed. In the sixteenth year of Chenghua, Dayan Khan eliminated the feudal division and chaos within Mongolian society. The development of animal husbandry production and the growth of population in Mongolia have led to the social and economic problem of "many tribes and insufficient food" in Mongolia. Under such circumstances, Mongolia will inevitably have a strong demand for foreign exchange of commodities in order to exchange its own livestock products for grain and other consumer goods produced in the Han region. When this demand could not be met, the rulers of the Mongol region went to war in an attempt to open the door to trade with the Han Chinese. The major event in the history of the Ming Dynasty, known as the "Gengxu Change", is a typical manifestation of this kind of war.

During this period, although there were frequent armed conflicts between the Mongol and Han rulers, and the wars between ethnic groups were intermittent, trade activities had spontaneously appeared among the people, which was known as the "private market" in history. The "private market" has appeared in Hongzhi at noon, and under the huge profits, businessmen will rush to it. Although the Ming government issued a series of bans in an attempt to ban the "private market", the trade between Mongolia and Han was an inevitable product of the socio-economic development of Mongolia and Han China, and could not be stopped by the Ming government using the coercive power of the state.

In the early years of Longqing, Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng and others, who had successively entered the cabinet, reviewed the previous government's policy toward Mongolia in view of the situation of the border war at that time, and put forward the idea of "Huayi family". In the fifth year of Longqing, Mu Zong named the ruler of the Mongolian region as the "King of Shunyi" and opened a mutual market between Mongolia and Han, thus improving ethnic relations. At that time, there were eleven mutual markets in the frontier, such as Victory Fort, Xinping, and Shoukou in Datong; Zhangjiakou in Xuanfu; Shuiquan Camp in Shanxi; Hongshan Temple Fort in Yansui; Ningxia's Qingshui Battalion, Zhongwei, and Pingyuwei; Gansu's flood Dukou and Gaogou Village. These mutual markets are under the jurisdiction of the border guards.

At the same time, whenever the market was open, the Ming government and the Mongol rulers jointly sent troops to act as market guards to maintain market order. The market of the mutual market is generally located at the side wall, surrounded by high walls, just like the "urn city", there are gates inside and outside the gate that can be opened and closed, this is the setting of the mutual market in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.