Chapter 80: The Jin Merchants and the Hui Merchants

In the Dezhuang Hotpot restaurant on Chessboard Street, Zhu Cilang was in a private room on the third floor.

Those dozen or so ruffians had already been secretly escorted by Li Tingbiao to the Imperial Prison for "tea," and Zhu Cilang had taken the opportunity to have Li Tingbiao investigate which grain shop had put those troublemakers up to it.

After some time, Li Tingbiao reported back that the several grain shops that had sent people to cause trouble were opened by merchants from Shanxi, and he had personally delivered the dossiers of those shop owners.

Li Tingbiao also said that the recent rumor in the capital about grain shipments on the canal being intercepted was spread by them in secret—before the grain shipments were even intercepted, these shops had already begun buying up grain in large quantities in the capital and Tongzhou.

Zhu Cilang picked up the dossiers of the grain shop owners and read: "Wang Dengku, Jin Liangyu, Wang Dayu, Liang Jiabin, Tian Shenglan, Zhai Tang, Huang Yunfa, Fan Yongdou?"

"That name Fan Yongdou sounds a bit familiar... Shanxi merchants... Jin merchants..." Zhu Cilang muttered these words to himself.

Suddenly he shot to his feet and exclaimed, "Damn it! The Eight Imperial Merchants of the Manchu Qing? It's actually these traitorous dogs!"

At the critical moment of social upheaval in the late Ming, eight merchant families from Shanxi, relying on their keen instincts, realized that the Manchu Qing harbored ambitions of rising and unifying the world, so beyond their normal trade, they secretly transported military supplies to the Qing army, provided all kinds of intelligence from within the passes, and engaged in political dealings.

After the Qing army entered the passes, the young Shunzhi Emperor did not forget the Eight Great Jin Merchants who had rendered outstanding service for the Manchu Qing's conquest of the Central Plains. He held a banquet in a side hall of the Forbidden City, personally received them, and bestowed clothing upon them.

At the banquet, Shunzhi wanted to grant them official positions and noble titles. The eight families, flattered and overwhelmed, declined with all their might. Shunzhi, seizing the opportunity to back down gracefully, instead conferred upon them the title of "Imperial Merchants," and they became known as the "Eight Imperial Merchants."

Zhu Cilang very much wanted to seize this opportunity to confiscate the property of the Eight Great Jin Merchants and give the Great Ming a transfusion of blood, but when he saw the large stack of dossiers on the Jin merchants that Li Tingbiao subsequently delivered, he hesitated.

The power of the Eight Great Jin Merchants was far greater than he had imagined. According to the intelligence, these fellows had begun laying their groundwork as early as the mid-Ming, vigorously cultivating their clan's young men to become officials.

Over so many years, the number of clan sons who had become officials was incalculable. Among them, Wang Pu, the Regional Commander of Datong, was a member of the Wang family among the eight great families—it was said that his rise to Regional Commander was bought entirely with money.

Not only that, the Eight Great Jin Merchants also vigorously cultivated connections with the powerful and influential, whether local or in the capital—they befriended them all. There were even people in the Grand Secretariat whom they had bribed.

Whenever they learned that some official wanted to buy land, take a concubine, or was in financial difficulty, they would take care of everything—sending land, sending money, sending women, handling matters so thoroughly that they were more attentive than a modern real estate agent.

If it were only this much, Zhu Cilang could still forcibly deal with them, but these Jin merchants also had many allies in the Jiangnan region—for instance, the Jiangsu-Zhejiang financial groups and the Guangdong financial groups. On one hand they competed with each other, and on the other they were bound by common interests and supported one another.

The north lacked grain, salt, iron materials, tea leaves, and other supplies, and the Jin merchants had to purchase all of these from Jiangnan, which tightly linked the interests of the southern financial groups with theirs.

Zhu Cilang paced back and forth in the room, pondering countermeasures. Without a foolproof strategy, making a move against the Eight Great Jin Merchants rashly could, with one misstep, truly become what the Emperor had said—opposing all the merchants and interest groups under heaven.

Just as Zhu Cilang's head was aching from the problem, Wu Zhong quietly told him that Zhang Dabiao, the owner of the Zhang family grain shop, had arrived.

Zhang Dabiao was a middle-aged man in his fifties with a rather portly build. When he saw Zhu Cilang, he immediately bowed deeply and said, "Your humble subject pays respects to His Highness the Crown Prince—may you live ten thousand years!"

Zhu Cilang smiled and helped him up, saying cheerfully, "Please rise, Boss Zhang. I never expected the two of us would meet again."

Receiving such courtesy from the Crown Prince, Zhang Dabiao was deeply moved and said, "Your humble subject received Your Highness's calligraphy last time, and to this very day my heart still surges with emotion, unable to calm down. Today, to receive Your Highness's favor once more with a personal summons, your humble subject truly feels it is the blessing of three lifetimes!"

A businessman's tongue is certainly glib. Zhu Cilang sat down, then waved his hand, signaling Zhang Dabiao to sit as well.

Zhang Dabiao repeatedly declined, saying he dared not. Zhu Cilang, at a loss, simply had Xu Sheng press him down onto the bench.

Zhu Cilang said directly, "Boss Zhang need not stand on such ceremony. Today I was out inspecting the conditions of the people and happened to learn of the Zhang family grain shop's righteous conduct. I was deeply impressed, which is why I summoned you. I wish to ask—merchants by nature pursue profit, so why did you do such a thing?"

Zhang Dabiao said, "Your Highness flatters me. Our Zhang family, and indeed all of us Hui merchants, have our own way of doing business: uphold righteousness, value integrity, make honesty the foundation, and pursue profit through righteousness! Our Hui merchants also have an ancient precept: In commerce—do not take profit as profit, but take sincerity as profit; in enterprise—do not take wealth and honor as honor, but take harmony as honor."

Seeing that the Crown Prince was quite interested in the Hui merchants, Zhang Dabiao introduced them with great enthusiasm, speaking from Huainan in the east to Dian-Qian and Guan-Long in the west, from Youyan and Liaodong in the north to the lands of Min and Yue in the south, and then from Japan to Portugal.

According to him, most of their Hui merchants came from Huizhou and Xin'an. Every one of them was hardworking and enduring, frugal and thrifty, starting with small capital and growing from small to large. They owned almost no farmland—every household was in trade, and among adult males, seven out of ten were merchants.

Through years of development, they had begun to rival the Jin merchants in reputation. Especially in recent years, the footsteps of the Hui merchants had spread to nearly every corner of the country, and even as far as Japan, Siam, the countries of Southeast Asia, and Portugal.

Finally, Zhang Dabiao expressed that the Hui merchants had always been patriotic, and that should the court have any need, he would contact Hui merchants everywhere to support the court with all their strength!

He also enumerated their past patriotic deeds—for instance, when Qi Jiguang was resisting the Japanese pirates, the Hui merchants had made substantial donations.

Zhu Cilang also understood Zhang Dabiao's psychology—whenever a merchant could hitch a ride on the court's wagon, it would be even more beneficial to his own development. But after hearing Zhang Dabiao's words, Zhu Cilang suddenly had the idea of winning over the Hui merchants.

The Eight Great Jin Merchants of Shanxi were too powerful and hard to deal with—why not support the Hui merchants to fight against them? In the future, when he wanted to collect commercial taxes, he would also need to find a breakthrough point. If handled well, perhaps the Hui merchants would be an excellent breakthrough.

Thinking of this, Zhu Cilang made up his mind to support the Hui merchants. You Manchu Qing have your Eight Traitor Merchants; my Great Ming has its multitudes of Hui merchants. Let's do this! Who's afraid of whom!

After the two had a secret discussion, Zhang Dabiao left the Dezhuang Hotpot overjoyed and began contacting Hui merchants in the Northern Metropolitan Region.

Zhu Cilang ordered Li Tingbiao to monitor with full effort all the Jin merchants' shops in the capital, especially the managers of the Eight Great Jin Merchants in the capital—they must be watched closely without a single one missed.

Upon receiving the order, Li Tingbiao immediately set about making arrangements. With over four hundred thousand taels of silver as backing, Li Tingbiao's intelligence network could now truly be called a net that covers heaven.

That afternoon, Zhu Cilang ordered one hundred thousand dan of grain to be transferred from the new city to first alleviate the capital's grain crisis. That was part of the Qing army supplies that the Yongwei Camp had seized in Liangxiang city. He did not dare to bring out all the stored grain, wanting to first use a portion to test the waters.

As cart after cart of grain was transported to the capital under the escort of fully armed troops, many capital residents who saw it spread the news as they ran, overjoyed.

The rising grain prices in the capital had made their lives increasingly difficult. Now seeing the court shipping in such a large amount of grain, the entire city was in an uproar of excitement.

However, some Jin merchants hired beggars and thuggish ruffians to loudly spread the word on the streets that it was all sand, not grain—that the court was merely putting on a show to ease public sentiment.

Under the impact of this rumor, the capital became anxious and uneasy once again, and grain prices remained stubbornly high.

The Jin merchants' despicable actions filled Zhu Cilang with hatred, and at the same time made him realize the importance of public opinion.

Speaking of public opinion, Zhu Cilang thought of a powerful weapon—the newspaper!