To say that these Jin merchant families may not be famous in modern times, but in the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty for more than 400 years, they were all famous Chinese wealthy families, and even once dominated the trend of history.

At the turn of the Ming and Qing dynasties, among the various forces that promoted the Manchu Qing Dynasty to dominate the Central Plains, the Jin merchant families who contributed money, food, weapons and manpower were extremely important.

They began to make a fortune in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and then began a long road to help students, these heads of the Jin merchant families with a unique vicious insight into the fundamentals of China's political game, realized that in the era of heavy agriculture and suppression of business, if you want to ensure that your wealth is not easily taken away by the government, you must have your own political spokesperson.

If there is no umbrella above, how can you live in peace below?

In order to ensure the long-term prosperity of the family and the long-term grasp of wealth, the Jin Shang family started a student assistance action, donated poor scholars everywhere to study and study, and then married people and Jinshi.

In this way, in the past 100 years, the Jinshang Group has achieved a behemoth across the four worlds of military, political, business and science, no matter which world has its own spokesperson for interests, it is not afraid of horizontal and vertical, and anyone dares to scare, and it has almost achieved an invincible golden body.

At the most awesome time, Zhang Siwei, the first assistant of the cabinet, was the son of the Jin merchants, and Wang Chonggu, the governor of Xuanda, was also a child of the Jin merchants.

These Jin merchant children have a very good family tradition, that is, before the development of the family to pay for you, but also to help you marry a daughter-in-law and children, and after you are developed, you have to use the power in your hands to repay the family.

They definitely get more than they give.

Of course, they were not invincible later, because the merchant gangs in other regions also learned this trick, and began to help students in their own territory, crowding out the Jin merchants, and gradually formed a local faction in which the merchants and gangs in various regions worked together to donate to the local poor scholars, and then got their rewards and formed a political and business alliance of a community of interests.

Later, the Jin faction was united by the major local factions, and gradually lost their original advantages, in order to develop, but also for survival, they gradually hooked up with Nurhachi, who was increasingly powerful in Liaodong, and began their glorious journey.

After the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the eight imperial merchants were all Jin merchants, which shows that the Jin merchants helped the Manchus to enter the customs.

No one knows how rich they are, and even if they do, they won't leave much information for future generations to refer to, but with the existence of these old grains that are four or five years old or even longer, Xiao Ruxun can probably estimate how much grain these guys have and how much wealth they have.

The current consensus is that the officials obstruct, why the officials obstruct, because the commercial tax is collecting their money, why is collecting the commercial tax is collecting their money, because only they can use the power in their hands to collude with businessmen to make money.

If the emperor collects the commercial tax, isn't it equivalent to taking money from the pocket of the scholar? How's that going to work?

Poor yeoman peasants, tens of millions of yeoman peasants single-handedly bear 75 percent of the taxes of a large empire of more than 200 million people, while the fat and oily and rich officials and businessmen only need to bear about 10 percent of the taxes.

Zhu Yijun is really not confused, and he also knows that he sent eunuchs to the local area to rob these scholars for wealth, and Chongzhen was fooled and lame, not to mention his right hand, but also to give more endowments to yeoman farmers, the poorer the poorer, the rich the richer, the Ming Empire finally collapsed under the combined blow of such internal factors and Li Zicheng Dolgon's external factors.

The Jin merchant group was an important group that hollowed out the foundation of the Ming Empire.

In fact, not only Chai Guozhu had heard of the Jin merchants smuggling iron and daily necessities to Mongolia to make high profits, but even generals like Xiao Ruxun, who had been guarding the south all the year round, had heard of it, so it can be seen that this is an open secret at all.

Their so-called smuggling is actually an open business, and as long as they give a little money to the border guards, they can smuggle it safely.

Is this still called smuggling?

The Jin merchant groups accumulated a huge amount of wealth through this smuggling business and salt and iron business, and these wealth were not taxed, and the imperial court could not deduct even one or two silver from them, and these people dragged their money bags tightly until they died, preferring to give it to the Manchu Qing and throw it to Li Zicheng rather than hand it over to the Ming government.

They are not tumors, they are cancer cells, to what extent Daming's cancer has reached, Xiao Ruxun no longer dares to imagine.

He even felt that saving the Ming Dynasty had become a delusion, because there were several groups like the Jin Merchants in the Ming Dynasty, the Jin Merchants occupied the north, and there were more and more powerful interest groups in the more economically developed south.

What means can be used to defeat them?

This is a big battle with the entire civil service!

Thinking of this, Xiao Ruxun's face was very ugly, looking at those old grains, Xiao Ruxun couldn't help but pull out his war knife and poke it fiercely.

"The officers and soldiers of the people are cold and hungry, and these profiteers who are unkind to the rich are still hoarding and refusing to take out even a grain of grain to help the army! Now he dares to take it out to help the northern captives! What a traitor! This is ironclad evidence, and this governor will definitely participate in them in front of His Majesty! These rats! ”

Xiao Ruxun didn't say much cruel words, but Chai Guozhu was taken aback.

"Admiral, although the Admiral is also very angry in his heart, the Admiral has to say that the Admiral can't do this."

Xiao Ruxun glared at Chai Guozhu and said angrily: "Why? ”

"Admiral, the last general should know not to mention that the Admiral should also know, the former first assistant Zhang Siwei, the former Xuanda Governor Wang Chonggu, they are all from Jin merchants, although they have passed away, but the family is still there, Yu Wei is still there, and the power in the court is still there, even the last general knows that the Jin system in the court is huge.

Not to mention anything else, this imperial court is not allowed to sell salt and iron to the northern captives, but how can the northern captives ever lack salt and iron? In addition to their own captivity, more were bought from the Jin merchants, and it was not a year or two that they were so unscrupulous, but how could anyone in the DPRK ever mention it?

Admiral, civil officials can't fight against it, we military generals are soft-spoken, and we can't participate in major affairs of the government at all, shake this kind of thing out, even if Your Majesty knows about it, what can we do? The principle of protecting officials and officials should be clearer than the last general, when the time comes, His Majesty will not be able to do anything, but the admiral will offend the Jin Shang to death, so how can it be good? ”

Chai Guozhu's words are quite pertinent and very reasonable.

The emperor has no power, and the people below protect each other, and the emperor basically can't do anything related to the economy, if you offend some big interest groups for the emperor, who do you care? Do you think you are invincible if you are a noble? The two princes of the Xu Da family are now shrinking their heads and being human beings, not to mention that you are a marquis.

Do you think you will be invincible if you climb to the emperor? The emperor is an undefeated golden body?

At that time, in order to calm the anger of the people, it is not impossible for the emperor to directly abolish you, and don't forget the mistakes of the emperor's cronies, this is a life amulet!