Shanxi is an amazing province, from the early years of the Ming Dynasty to the mid-to-late Qing Dynasty, the northern province of Shanxi has been one of the richest provinces in the whole of China, and has never declined.

Even in the period of decline from the late Qing Dynasty to the reform and opening up, it was a helpless decline under the general environment.

China as a whole declined, Shanxi could not stand alone, but after the reform and opening up, Shanxi soon bloomed its own magical light again, creating the world-famous coal boss.

However, compared with the influence of the coal bosses who brought wealth to people but had no culture, the ancestors of these coal bosses were in the middle and late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, which was a symbol of national wealth and culture.

Kang's representative figure of the Jin Dynasty once said a sentence during the great drought in Shanxi - there is an old sky, there are millions of Kang, it does not rain for three years, and there are ten thousand stones of old grain!

How arrogant, and how confident, under the condition that it has not rained for three years, the people have long fled to the point where they don't know where to go, but even if they sit and eat empty, they don't know when they will finish eating.

The influence of Shanxi's great merchants radiated throughout the Guanzhong region of northern China, and they blossomed all over Shanxi, digging caves in hidden places between valleys, hiding stored grain, salt, and other things that were conducive to storage, sealed well, and generally stored for decades.

In this way, they amassed wealth, and soon became rich to rival the rest of the country.

This is not a joke that the rich rival country is really rich, the family assets of the richest families of the Jin merchants are combined, and it is indeed more abundant than the treasury of the famous imperial court and Zhu Yijun's inner treasury, Zhu Yijun is really not as rich as them.

Unlike the coal bosses, their ancestors were well versed in the methods and routines of the rulers, and after more than a thousand years of being tricked, everyone cultivated to perfection.

Under the circumstance that the imperial examination is popular, a new anti-routine of "Shang and You" has long been explored to trick the imperial court, and the Ming court has been successfully tricked.

Zhang Siwei, the famous first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, and Wang Chonggu, a famous minister, were born in the family of the wealthy merchants of the Jin Dynasty, received elite education since childhood, and when they grew up, they participated in the imperial examination and successfully entered the system, and seized the highest political power of the Ming Dynasty step by step.

Even a fierce man like Zhang Juzheng did not dare to attack the Jin merchants directly, but instead led Zhang Siwei as a helper, which shows the strength of the Jin merchants.

The union of the Ming court and the Tumut tribe, and the birth of such a goddess of peace as Sanniangzi, are naturally indispensable to Wang Chonggu, who once served as the governor of Xuanda.

Wang Chonggu's meaning in doing this has two layers, one is out of consideration for the country, hoping to stop the war and stop fighting, and the second is to seek benefits for his Jin merchant family.

Once Shanxi Datong and Mongolia open a trade market, who will benefit the most?

Of course, it was the Shanxi Jin merchants who were close to the water, and the Shanxi Jin merchants sold iron, salt, and grain, and indeed received a lot of benefits from the Tumut tribe.

However, it was a good thing for them, but it was not necessarily a good thing for the Ming court, because the Mongols who had benefited from salt and iron had increased their combat effectiveness, and the Ming court could not collect a little tax from it.

Just kidding, Shoufu is from the Jin Shang family, and you want to collect taxes from Shoufu?

The civil officials were collectively speechless, and at this time, their double-standard faces were exposed.

It is precisely because of this that the Ming court was pitted very badly by the Jin merchants, if the trade with the Mongols was more or less in exchange for peace, then the trade with the Jurchens was a stab in the back of the Ming Dynasty, which exacerbated the defeat of the Ming Dynasty and intensified the fall of China.

Mei Guozhen, as a non-Jin merchant official, a conscientious official with the world in his heart, naturally knows very well the dealings between the Jin merchants and those people in the court.

also knows that starting from Zhang Siwei and Wang Chonggu, the power of Jin Shang is out of control, and he is a governor of Datong who is soft-spoken, and what Zhao Zhigao can't do, he naturally can't do.

What he hopes for is nothing more than that these rich and oily Shanxi businessmen can more or less come up with a little bit of grain, even if they borrow it, it is better than letting the border rekindle the flames of war, after all, this policy was promoted by their former spokesmen Wang Chonggu and Zhang Siwei, and now, this kind of thing has to be borne by them.

When Tumut was rich, they went to do business with Tumut, and now that Tumut is in trouble, they have disappeared without a trace, and they don't even come out of the pass, and the reason for this is very clear to Mei Guozhen.

"These big businessmen and wealthy men in Jinzhong, each of them have a fortune of tens of thousands of families, they are really rich and rival the country, and none of them are tax-free, and their income is very large, and the court has no way to take them.

The last general often heard people say that their food stock is enough for all the soldiers on the nine sides to eat for ten years, and the last general is thinking, how much food is there? ”

Walking on the streets of Datong City with Mei Guozhen, Ma Gui couldn't help but feel a little emotional, compared with these businessmen, he is at most a little tyrant, but he is still very unpopular.

In this way, he often took out food to help the soldiers, but those rich people who had a lot of grain in their hands would rather seal the grain than sell it, which was really ill-intentioned.

"The harm of the rich, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, we can see it very clearly, hoarding and surviving the country, manipulating the throne, and seeking to seize the royal power, his heart can be punished, so there are measures to focus on agriculture and suppress business.

But today, it has become a businessman and an excellent businessman, and the children of businessmen can all enter the office, the former first assistant Zhang Siwei, the governor of Xuanda, and your top boss Wang Chonggu, are all the children of this rich businessman in Shanxi! ”

Mei Guozhen sighed: "The merchants are heavy on profits, without the righteousness of the country, smuggling firearms and iron to the Mongols, so that the combat power has increased dramatically, they take money to accumulate thousands of family wealth, but my border soldiers were killed and injured by the firearms and irons produced by the Ming Dynasty, how ironic?" ”

Ma Gui has known about this for a long time, and of course he also knows why the imperial court does not rectify it.

Shoufu is the son of a merchant, what else do you say?

"Is there really nothing that can be done?"

Ma Gui still has a little hope for this.

"The hustle and bustle of the world is for profit, the hustle and bustle of the world is driven by profit, and the beneficial things can impress them, if you want to seek skin with them, then come up with more attractive benefits, and the current benefits are to avoid the border pass to rekindle the war, so that they can continue to make money, they will understand, once the war is fought, without the protection of the Ming Dynasty, their own family wealth can not be saved."

Mei Guozhen can only say this.

All the way to the door of the Kang family's house in Datong City, Mei Guozhen saw a group of white-bearded old men in extraordinary clothes who had been standing at the door for a long time.