Located in the Xuefeng Mountains of the Wuling Mountains in Xiangxi, Hunan Province, the Hongjiang River is surrounded by mountains and mountains, although it is a small land, but in the history of ancient Chinese commercial development, it was once the birthplace of prosperous and brilliant ancient Hunan merchants, creating a strong and active Hongjiang merchant gang.

The Hongjiang merchant gang began in the Spring and Autumn Period, matured in the late Tang Dynasty, and flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

However, success is not accidental, the right time and place are very important. First of all, the Hongjiang River is the throat of the golden waterway of the "Water Silk Road", that is, from Chengdu in the southwest, detours through Youyang in Chongqing, enters Yuanshui through the Youshui of Xiushan, and then goes south to Guizhou and Yunnan and extends to Myanmar and India. Otherwise, materials from the southwest cannot be exported to Myanmar and India. In addition, the Hongjiang River is also a land passage where the "five dragons converge". "Five Dragons" is five ancient land roads, among which, the ancient road of Hunan and Guizhou is the most. It can be directly connected from the Hongjiang River to Yunnan and Guizhou borders, therefore, the Hongjiang River is known as the feng shui treasure land that connects Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Hubei, Shu, Shanghai and Hunan "seven provinces".

Here is an aside, the so-called five dragons, specifically, are the five ancient business roads:

The first ancient road, starting from Dawantang, passes through Xindian to Qiancheng (formerly Longbiao County). The total length is 30 kilometers, mainly dirt roads, some sections are paved with bluestone slabs, which can be extended through Guizhou Qiandongnan, Kunming, until Myanmar and India.

The second ancient road also starts from Dawantang, passes through Wangjia Pavilion, Xiaojia, Dongyuesi, and Yanjiao to Huitong County. The total length is 60 km. It can also extend to the southeast of Guizhou and Kunming, until Myanmar and India.

The third ancient road, starting from Changzhai, passes through Longchuan Pond, Yanying Boundary, Liangshan Boundary, Storm Wood Pass, Caozhai, passes through Maotang to Dongkou, and can be extended to Baoqing, Changsha and Hankou. It is 152.5 kilometers long and partially paved with bluestone pavement.

The fourth ancient road starts from Radish Bay and passes through Shawan to An Jiang. It is 30 kilometers long and partially paved with bluestone pavement.

The fifth ancient road, starting from the old street, passes through Yuliang Bay in Frozen Qingping to Huangmao, Horseshoe Slope, Ruoshui, and Tuanhe to Huitong and Jingzhou.

The second is the people, Hongjiang merchant gang, in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the formation of the "five mansions and eighteen gangs", during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty (1796-1820), in the timber market, it took the lead, among which the Baoqing gang, the annual trade volume was calculated in millions of silver dollars, and then the Shili range was extended to Hankou, and a special wharf was built - Baoqing Wharf. In the last year of Daoguang (around 1848), he built the Baoqing Hall in Hankou, and finally won the eight-year battle for the Baoqing Wharf between Hankou and the Hui merchants, with the support of the Hunan army of the Zeng State Domain. Due to the northward shift of trade routes, the Hongjiang merchant gang transferred the entrepot of Sino-foreign trade to Shanghai and Hankou, and because of the convenient waterway transportation in Hunan, foreign imported cotton yarn and cotton cloth and other commodities were transported from Hankou to Changsha by civilian ships, and then sold to various parts of Hunan, and Hunan's rice, tea, firecrackers and other agricultural and sideline products and handicraft products were transported from Changsha to Hankou and re-exported to the sea. Changsha was a famous rice market in the early Qing Dynasty, and Changsha Hunan tea was also transshipped from Hankou, opening a channel to sell to the southeast, implementing mutual trade with Zhejiang salt, and exporting from the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Therefore, Hunan merchants were very active in Hankou, such as Liu Linjiao, Zhu Zigui and other tea merchants, all opened tea estates in Hankou and became extremely wealthy tea merchants. Today, Hanzheng Street, the most famous commercial street in Hankou, was formed on the basis of the Baoqing Wharf, and the vast majority of the old citizens of Hanzheng Street are the descendants of Baoqing merchants.

As for this Zhu Zhida, he is really a character, and his story is not only inspirational, but also a legend. It is worth mentioning that, like most members of the Hongjiang Merchant Gang, Zhu Zhida is not from Hongjiang, or even from Hunan.

When the Qing Taiping Army captured Anqing, Anhui Province in June of the third year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty (1853), Zhu Zhida's mother took her three sons to escape the "Long Hair" Rebellion, and fled from Jing County, Nanwan to Hongjiang, Hunan.

The mother and son of four, after escaping to Hongjiang, had no place to live, so they relied on selling a fried snack "steamed dumplings" in the north to make a living. Later, he couldn't get by anymore, so he sent his three sons to be apprentices. Zhu Zhida is the eldest and went to a silk thread shop as an apprentice. Niang'er was frugal, after a few years, accumulated some capital, opened a small shop, began to only operate silk thread, because of the good management, more capital, gradually increased the business projects, and slowly developed to the business cloth satin, until the money village, zuihou expanded to the oil number. By the first year of the Republic of China (1900), there were more than 70 shops in Hongjiang, except for barber shops and bathhouses, which were regarded as obscene accidents, Zhu Zhida almost monopolized all walks of life in Hongjiang that year. At that time, the gold-lettered signboard of the oil number was called "Zhu Zhida", which was famous far and wide.

Zhu Zhida Oil not only set up headquarters in Hongjiang, but also set up Zhuang in Hankou, Zhenjiang and Nanjing, with hundreds of employees. When it comes to the Spring Festival, there is an endless stream of people who come to pay New Year's greetings to the Zhu family. The Zhu family not only has a large number of shops, but also has thousands of hectares of fertile land, extending to Qianyang and Huitong.

After Zhu Zhi made a fortune, in order to leave a way out for his future generations, he took out a large amount of money to build 360 shops, and rented these stores to businessmen for free, on the condition that when his family was in decline and his children and grandchildren had no food and clothing, each family would take turns to give them food.

Ye Zuwen took a sip of tea and continued: "In addition to Zhu Zhida, the Hongjiang Merchant Gang also has three big families, the Zhang family, the Liang family, and the Liu family. Wenzheng, the Zhu family, the Zhang family, and the Liang family are traditional tung oil households, monopolizing the three major items of tung oil, pig sideburns, and wood in Xiangxi. However, in the past 20 years, the Liu family has sprung up, by the way, their head is called Liu Qishan, and he is a brave and knowledgeable character. Not only did this old boy take the lion's share of the opium trade, but he also made a fortune last year on the sale of tung oil. It is estimated that the four major Hongshang families are currently the strongest and the biggest. ”

Wang Zhenyu listened carefully and did not interject casually, at this time, Song Haomin left suddenly, returned to the house after a while, and handed a letter to Wang Zhenyu. Song Haomin returned to his original position and stood without speaking, Wang Zhenyu took a closer look, oh, it was a letter written by He Jian, who was sent to Hongjiang, Phoenix, and Changde to inquire about the news.

Wang Zhenyu looked at the two letters in his hand and suddenly felt that there was an inevitable connection between them.

Zhu Zhida's letter was unremarkable, and in addition to a polite greeting, it was an expression of appreciation for Wang Zhenyu's reform in the Jingzhou Mansion. I really admire the cheekiness of this old-timer, and he actually praised Wang Zhenyu as the first saint in 2,000 years. It is also for businessmen that Wang Zhenyu's reform is tantamount to finding them a hope, a way out.

Zhu Zhida said that his business has been developing in Huitong County, which is under the jurisdiction of Jingzhou Prefecture, and he hopes to get Commander Wang's care, and there will be a good reward (Wang Zhenyu checked the envelope twice, but he didn't see the legendary silver ticket, and he was suddenly depressed. ）。

Zuihou Zhu Zhida did not forget to wish our Wang Zhenyu children's shoes good health and academic progress!

The hundreds of words that this Hongshang tycoon sprinkled with joy failed to make Wang Zhenyu see anything useful from it. Of course, it is not completely absent, at least this letter represents an attitude, perhaps it is the attitude of him Zhu Zhida personally, or it may be the attitude of the entire Hongjiang Business Gang.

Wang Zhenyu shook his head, except for lamenting that Jiang was still old and spicy, he didn't say anything more.

Then he opened He Jian's letter, his eyes suddenly lit up, and Wang Zhenyu suddenly understood the meaning of the previous letter.

As a subordinate, He Jian's letter is much more straightforward and clear.

According to the letter, Hongjiang is an important commercial and tax area in Hunan, and opium is not counted, and there is an annual income of one million yuan from timber alone, and tung oil is even more than four or five million. After the opium business flourished, the annual commercial tax here alone was nearly 10 million yuan, accounting for 40% of Hunan Province.

Another important place for business and taxation is Changde, He Jian said that he had sent people to Changde, and he would reply as soon as there was news.

Hongjiang and Changde's commercial tax accounts for eighty-five percent of the province's commercial tax and sixty-percent of the total tax revenue.

is so important, Tan Yanmin can let it go, but Changde has been occupied by Wang Zhenya, who was as famous as Wang Zhenyu during the Xinhai Revolution. Therefore, Tan Yanmin set up the Fifth Garrison District in Hongjiang, which was directly subordinate to Changsha, and appointed Zhou Zefan to Hongjiang as the commander of the Fifth Garrison District, with a very clear purpose, that is, to guard the lifeblood of the province's finances.

This Zhou Zefan still has some origins, he and the recent Hunan military bigwig Cheng Qian are classmates who stayed in Japan together. For this position, Cheng Qian even did not hesitate to agree to Tan Yanmin to dismiss most of the Hunan army.

The headquarters of the 5th garrison area is stationed in Hongjiang, with 9 battalions and about 2.000 men, and a total of 10 county regimental defense bureaus in the territory are under its control.

According to He Jian's careful investigation, the army under the command of Commander Zhou has a full 7,000 men, which is currently the largest number of troops in Xiangxi. Changde town guard Wang Zhenya with 6,000 people, Wang Zhenyu with 4,000 people again (the first three, in the great Khan).

Oh, by the way, He Jian also mentioned a person in the letter, this person's surname is Shen Mingzong, a native of Phoenix, it is said that during the Boxer Rebellion, he once guarded the Dagu Fort with Luo Rongguang, but his future was ruined because of the defeat. When the Xinhai Revolution broke out, this person relied on the prestige of this clan and successfully planned and organized the Phoenix Uprising.

Due to the absence of the Tian family, the entire army has actually fallen into the hands of this person.

He Jian quickly turned the topic back to Hongjiang, yes, very strategic, and he could actually guess the boss's expansion intentions.

Today's Hongjiang makes Zhou Zefan, the newly appointed garrison commander, unable to toss, and as soon as he took office, he directly allocated 4 million yuan to the eight major merchant gangs.

This can make the merchants angry, you must know that since the end of the Qing Dynasty, the government has not dared to speak to the ** voice of the merchant gang. Now that the revolution has come, the official is actually angry, this just took office and asked for 4 million, you must know that the annual commercial tax is only 10 million, this atrocity is tantamount to collecting half a year's commercial tax in advance, and it does not offset the original part of the payment.

The merchants immediately quit, and some merchants even began to plan a strike.

Originally, this is normal, the boycott is a basic right, I never thought that this week Zefan studied in Japan and didn't learn anything else, and the aesthetics of violence were played smoothly! Directly put your soldiers in front of the shop and stop at that point, if you don't open your eyes and close the door, then I'm sorry, my brother's brothers will help you open the shop. Yes, the merchants can't play, so they can only admit that they are unlucky, and under the coercion of Zhou Zefan, they pay taxes honestly. The matter seemed to be resolved satisfactorily, but Zhou Zefan's rude behavior planted the seeds of hatred in the hearts of Hongjiang merchants.

Looking at Zhu Zhida's letter again, Wang Zhenyu knows that the seed has sprouted.