The first official meeting of the Eight Great Jin Merchants and their support was in the 46th year of Wanli, after Nurhachi declared war on the Ming and occupied Fushun.

For the support of the eight Jin merchants, Nurhachi refused at first.

You can't say that if you say you support me, I will believe you, and let you support you.

If the knife you sold me is brittle, the grain is rancid, or even simply poisonous, where can I go to reason? Without 315, no one will defend my rights?

Even if the weapons and food you sell me are good, what if you are a spy and spy on my military intelligence? You have to know that I was invincible before, but it was all because the enemy was clear and I was secret, if the news was accidentally spied out by you, I was surrounded in my sleep, who would I talk to?

Since the eight Jin merchants took the initiative to take the initiative, they naturally had already prepared. In the face of Nurhachi's suspicions, they put forward two conditions other than the deal and offered them to Nurhachi, which has verified that their support for him is credible.

The first condition, the Fan family, who supported Nurhachi the most desperately among the eight Jin merchants, proposed that Fan Xiandou, the second son of the Fan family, should follow Nurhachi all the way from now on, on the one hand, to deal with internal affairs for Nurhachi and give advice, and on the other hand, he is also a personal hostage.

The people who came to negotiate with Nurhachi were none other than the Fan brothers, the elder brother Fan Yongdou, alias Fan Wenhuan, and the younger brother Fan Xiandou, alias Fan Wencheng.

Fan Yongdou has been taking care of the family business since he was a child, and he has a shrewd temperament, and he knows that he is a big businessman with clever means when he talks. When negotiating with Nurhachi, he was the one who spoke most of the time. The specialties inside and outside the customs, the value of weapons and food, are all in Fan Yongdou's heart, where you can make profits, where you must fight for every inch of profit, it is also a clear door. Nurhachi has been on the battlefield for many years, how has he ever seen such a trick? immediately expressed his admiration to him, three hundred and sixty lines, it is really a champion.

Fan Xiandou has been trained to take the imperial examination since he was a child, and in order to avoid suspicion, he arranged a background identity that seems to have nothing to do with the Fan family of Jin merchants, which is this pseudonym, Shenyang scholar Fan Wencheng. When Fan Wencheng negotiated between the two parties, he didn't talk much, but he always hit the nail on the head and talked about Nurhachi's vital point.

In the two years since the founding of the country, Nurhachi has suffered deeply from the lack of scribes under his hands: the handling of internal affairs is overstretched; The marching strategy has to be arranged one by one by him to understand. Now that there is a talent like Fan Xiandou, even if it is just a hostage, it cannot guarantee loyalty, and it is impossible to ask for it, so he should respond immediately.

Since then, Nurhachi has had an iron-clad henchman by his side, the former Shenyang County Xuexiu talent Fan Wencheng, the word Xiandou. As for the one who joined Nurhachi with Fan Wencheng, his brother Fan Wenyu only mentioned it in the history books, whether it was Houjin or later Huang Taiji changed the name of the country to Manchu, this person never appeared again.

Nurhachi did not tell anyone about Fan Wencheng's true identity out of secrecy. Huang Taiji's accession to the throne was not correct, and Nurhachi naturally did not give him any explanation when he was dying. In this way, even Huang Taiji didn't know that Fan Wencheng, who had been highly valued since his father's time, was actually a Jin merchant.

Fan Wencheng also completely completed the transformation from a hostage to the first and auxiliary fathers. Except for him and his brother Fan Yongdou, no one knows the relationship between the two of them anymore. Because of Fan Wencheng's high position in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Fan Yongdou's support for the Manchu Qing Dynasty was even more desperate. Every time the eight Jin merchants gathered to discuss the strength of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, they spared no effort to speak for the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Huang Taiji guessed that Fan Wencheng had guessed the source of the information, but when he mistakenly thought it was from the spies he proposed to buy, how could he know how familiar Fan Wencheng was with the tone of his shopkeepers' reports, how could he not guess the real source of the information? Fan Wencheng explained, but he didn't want to finish me with something more ugly. He is not worried about the exposure of his identity, how many brains does Huang Taiji have to be to guess that he is a Shenyang Xiucai and will be the second owner of the Jin Shang Fan family? We don't have any contact with each other! The Fan family doesn't need him to communicate with him, they just need a backer and position in the court.

The second condition, of course, is to send some news to Nurhachi. Jin merchant firms are all over the territory of Daming, and it is too convenient to inquire about the news.

There is only one point, the eight major Jin merchants have a big business and are under the focus of Jinyiwei, so when inquiring about news, you can't pay too much attention to political secrets, otherwise it will be easy to be exposed. After all, their family business is based in the territory of Daming, and they really can't turn their faces against Daming and support Nurhachi.

Nurhachi was overjoyed. When he was not interested in the political secrets of the Ming court, he paid more attention to the topography of the Ming Dynasty, the deployment of soldiers and horses, the characteristics of the generals, and the hearts of the people.

The Jin merchant caravan went south and north, which piece of landscape in the Ming Dynasty was not set foot in by the Jin merchants? It is impossible for Huizhou, the base camp of the Hui merchants, to ban the Jin merchants, and it is estimated that there are only uninhabited Jedi such as Mount Everest.

Which military camp in the Ming Dynasty can be self-sufficient and does not need to buy materials from Jin merchants? Luo Yangxing said proudly: "Our Jinyiwei training camp materials are not asking for anything, and Jin merchants can't find out." ”

Which general in the Ming Dynasty has confiscated the bribes of the Jin merchants, and how many cities in the Ming Dynasty have no Jin merchants' business names? The captain of the Han general who guarded the palace was very proud: "I haven't received it!" In the imperial city, there is no Jin merchant business. ”

Other than that, it is estimated that there will be none.

The influence of Jin merchants is so exaggerated, and only Hui merchants, who claim to be half of the people in business, can compete with it. The Jin merchants went to support Nurhachi outside the Guan, largely because their business in the Ming Dynasty was affected by the impact of the Hui merchants, so they moved to seek foreign aid.

Hui merchants have always tied themselves to the interests of the Ming Dynasty, anxious about the needs of the Ming court, and resolutely supported the maintenance of the rule of the Ming Dynasty. In order to stabilize the nine borders of the Ming Dynasty, he worked tirelessly to transport grain to the border. For the sake of stability in the coastal areas, he actively participated in the fight against the Japanese invaders.

They are both businessmen and scholars, Jia and Confucian, and they are mixed with the Ming gentry and rely on each other. "urgent public discussion", "donation" and "study to get the top" as a way to grab official positions; With heavy funds, he sought the protection of the Ministry Cao Shou Ling, even the eunuchs and the Son of Heaven, and enjoyed the privileges of officials; Some Hui businessmen themselves could not take the imperial examination because of their household registration, so they urged their children to take the examination to become officials, and they themselves became officials and businessmen.

It is precisely because of this that in the territory of the Ming Dynasty, the business of the Jin merchants was increasingly influenced by the Hui merchants. At that time, the cake was so big, the Hui merchants rose, and the position of the Jin merchants as the overlord was naturally affected. The hatred of the Jin merchants for the Hui merchants was transferred to the Ming Dynasty, who sheltered the Hui merchants, and naturally set their sights on Nurhachi, who declared war on the Ming Dynasty.