Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 931 Bingzhou Shang Clan
Yuan Xi's army marched all the way into the Taiyuan Basin and gained an absolute advantage in the field battle, forcing the Southern Huns to retreat into major cities. However, the pace slowed down because the siege did not go smoothly.

The high-ranking cadres who sent troops to the south also encountered this problem and were blocked at the southern entrance of the Taiyuan Basin.

The reason for this is that after Yuan Xi started to attack the city, he discovered that the situation in Taiyuan County was much more complicated than he imagined.

The cities in the Taiyuan Basin not only have large terrain differences and are easy to defend but difficult to attack, but also have extremely rich grain reserves. This is because they have a business family that has made a lot of profits through the north-south trade route of the Bingzhou Passage for hundreds of years.

Yuan Xi had indeed neglected the role of these Bingzhou merchants before. He did not expect that these merchants had hoarded a large amount of money and grain in the city, and were in contact with the Southern Huns die-hards to jointly fight against Yuan Xi.

With sufficient money and food support, although the Southern Xiongnu die-hards suffered repeated setbacks in the field, they were still able to defend the city. The food they stored could last for a whole year and a half without any problem.

Moreover, the cities in the Taiyuan Basin flowed through the Yellow River, and it was difficult to besiege the cities and cut off the water sources. Therefore, Yuan Xi could only temporarily send troops to occupy the land around the cities and trap the Southern Xiongnu in the cities.

Yuan Xi felt that he had been careless, so he had to turn over Yang Feng who was in Black Mountain, and at the same time sent people to investigate the details of the cities in Jinyang.

As the spies sent out information, Yuan Xi gradually understood the inside story and the reason for his miscalculation.

Among the Jinyang cities in Taiyuan County, hundreds of years of north-south trade gave birth to a large number of wealthy families. These families took advantage of the opaque characteristics of frontier trade to falsely report taxes and conceal their income, thereby accumulating a large amount of wealth.

The Jianghuai Lu family is the Lu Su family, which is rich based on the water transport of the Yangtze River. As for the Wei family in Hedong, although Cai Zhaoji mentioned it, she had no contact with the core affairs of the Wei family and did not know everything about it, so Yuan Xi did not Pay attention to.

The same is true for the Wei family, and the same is true for the Bingzhou Shang clan. Moreover, there is a very troublesome hidden danger for such a large business clan that has been dealing with foreigners for many years. Business is to make money. If you can make money and have milk, you will be a mother, so these and The Shang clan, which has close ties with the Hu people, has a much weaker sense of family and country than other people.

What's strange is that because these families are very good at concealing wealth, Yuan Xi didn't take it seriously before, thinking that a few businessmen could accomplish anything, so he ignored it.

What he did was even recognized by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, so he was given many rewards after entering the customs, making his reputation grow.

Now Yuan Xi understands why the Wei family has been standing still. Over the past few hundred years of trade with Waihu, the horse trade alone has been a huge profit, not to mention other things.

The representative of the Bingzhou Shang clan is the Shanxi merchants of later generations. There are many patriotic people among them, but there are also some scum. For example, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the Shanxi merchants sold important materials such as food and weapons to the Hou Jin Dynasty for profit. , established a continuous blood transfusion channel for the Jurchens, which in disguise led to the accelerated collapse of the Ming Dynasty.

But this model is tantamount to cutting off their lifeblood for the local wealthy businessmen who advocate profit. Therefore, they are extremely hostile to Yuan Xi when he invades Bingzhou, and they will naturally fight with all their strength.

The reason why Yuan Xi did this was not that he spent extravagantly, but that he used it to earn military and infrastructure expenses. This approach was actually similar to that of state-owned enterprises in later generations.

Yuan Xi thought to himself that it was no wonder that the Wei family took refuge in Cao Cao and worked hard, not only because of Cai Zhaoji, but also because of his attitude towards the wealthy families. Cao Cao's conditions for the nobles who took the initiative to join him were still very generous. In comparison, Yuan Xi It is understandable that he has been suppressing big businessmen and is not popular with these people.

At that time, the four most wealthy merchant families in the world were the Zhen family in Jizhou, the Mi family in Xuzhou, the Lu family in Jianghuai, and the Wei family in Hedong.

It wasn't until Tian Yu sent spies to sneak into the city and tried his best to pass on the information that Yuan Xi found out how wrong he was. Because in the big cities of Taiyuan County, there were actually more than a dozen wealthy Bingzhou families. There are so many, and the most extravagant among them is even more generous than the Zhen family and the Mi family!
While Yuan Xi clicked his tongue, he also learned that these people were actually closely related to the Hedong gentry, and one of them was a wealthy family who was actually a branch of the Hedong Wei family.

The reason why they united with the Southern Huns to fight against Yuan Xi was also very simple. The most important thing was that under Yuan Xi's rule, he did not give the wealthy merchants full power to act. Instead, most of the shares of the merchant trade were allocated to Zhen under his control. Family and Mi family.

Hundreds of years later, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, another representative figure emerged from the Shanxi merchant group, the Kong family in Shanxi. They colluded with the other three major families from Zhejiang and Guangzhou to form a comprador group, which controlled the economic lifeline of China at that time. It is difficult to make money for the country, and it has embarked on the road to the pinnacle of bureaucratic capitalism.

When the country is in crisis, small and medium-sized businessmen are certainly an important part of the national economy and people's livelihood, and generally play a very positive role. However, in stark contrast, a small number of oligarchic businessmen at the top will exploit the people for their own personal gain. and other small and medium-sized businessmen, even betraying national interests, which is the real source of scourge of national unrest.

It is precisely because Yuan Xi understood this period of history that he was so wary of businessmen establishing monopolies. Generally, businessmen want their children to go to school and become officials, and they want to improve their status. This is fine, but they cannot let their strength expand to the point of dominating one party, which leads to ambition. swell. The growth of wealth and detachment of status will inevitably lead to the loss of morality for the sake of gain. This is due to human nature. For thousands of years, no one has been able to get out of this circle. It was precisely because Yuan Xi knew how harmful it was that he deeply understood that in The importance of putting a chain around its neck and locking it inside the cage.

Now that Yuan Xi is attacking Bingzhou, these people have already caused him so much trouble. In time, if Yuan Xi faces a strong enemy or acts unfavorably, how much harm can these people cause to him if they betray him?

So after Yuan Xi learned the details of the Bingzhou Shang clan, he immediately formulated a series of targeted plans.

First, give him a chance and secretly send letters to recruit all the merchants to surrender. As expected, nine out of ten merchants refused, and only a few small families who took advantage of the situation relaxed their attitude.

Seeing this result, Yuan Xi laughed angrily. He naturally knew that some big families really regarded him as a rare commodity and were waiting to ask for high prices.

But Yuan Xi was not prepared to give them a chance. When he learned that Bingzhou Commercial and Residence had accumulated such huge wealth, he was already murderous.

This is not only because he cannot see the situation clearly and feels that money is more important than life, but what makes Yuan Xi even more annoyed is that there have been several famines in Bingzhou before, and people died of hunger everywhere. Raise food prices.

Yuan Xi had already started such a move in Youzhou. Now that they are stubborn, Yuan Xi can only use the most violent means to deal with them.

In the Jinyang City of Taiyuan, an extremely grand banquet was being held in the Wei family residence.

The host was naturally the head of the branch of the Wei family, who hosted not only the heads of several large families in the city, but also the heads of more than a dozen large and small tribes of the Southern Huns.

There are dozens of orchids dancing in the hall, most of them are slaves bought by Xianbei, and there are also several extraordinary beauties from the Western Regions. At a time when the Silk Road is almost cut off, such dancers are now hard to find. , which shows the Wei family’s wealth and means even more.

Everyone watched Hu Ji whirling around, drinking wine, and cheering loudly. Many people were already drunk, and they pulled the maid serving the wine into their arms to tamper with her.

The reason why the atmosphere is so relaxed is that in the past month, Jinyang City has repelled several attacks by Yuan Xi's army. As the seat of Taiyuan, Jinyang City has been a strong city in the world since ancient times. It is surrounded by the Fen River and controls the mountains and rivers. It is difficult to defend and attack.

The famous battle between the three families in the Spring and Autumn Period to separate the Jin Dynasty took place here. Even though it was attacked by water, Jinyang still did not fall. In the long history of thousands of years, Jinyang rarely fell. Zhao Guangyi's 200,000 The people fought against Jinyang for half a year, and finally used water attacks to force Jinyang to surrender. Later, during the Jingkang Disgrace, Taiyuan withstood the Jin siege twice, and finally held on for a year before falling due to lack of food.

This city is so easy to defend and difficult to attack, which is why everyone in the city is confident now, and also why Yuan Xi outside the city only besieged the city and only attacked tentatively. Otherwise, too many people would die if he attacked forcefully.

And Yuan Xi's caution also fueled the arrogance of the Bingzhou Shang tribe and the Southern Xiongnu tribe in the city, making them feel that they now have enough food and grass. Yuan Xi's tens of thousands of people besieging the city will sooner or later run out of food and retreat. Now they sing and sing every night, which reflects this. their mentality.

From their perspective, the city was not in danger, and under the leadership of the Wei family, these people secretly defected to Cao Cao. As long as they stayed here to delay Yuan Xi's army, they would have made a great contribution.

When Cao Cao is free, he doesn't even have to wait for Cao Cao. Ma Teng and Han Sui have already attacked Gao Gan's back path in the direction of Sili. As long as Gao Cao is eliminated, Taiyuan can be connected with the Sili area and brought under Cao Cao's rule. It has become the most important bridgehead against Yuan Xi's army.

Although these wealthy businessmen and wealthy families have huge wealth, the top aristocratic families look down on them at all, which causes them to have an unbalanced mentality and feel that they are living in fine clothes at night. The only thing that can satisfy them is to become a top wealthy family.

To enter this class boldly, wealth alone cannot do it, but now there is an excellent opportunity for meritorious service. As long as they help Cao Cao fight against Yuan Xijun, they will be able to make great achievements. impossible!

This is the reason why they will not agree to Yuan Xi. Although Yuan Xi is good to small and medium-sized businessmen, for the top merchants, free education and ordinary official positions are no longer attractive. What they want is to be under one person. The power of more than ten thousand people, which Yuan Xi cannot give, only Cao Cao can give them!
Everyone was drinking and mingling happily when they heard a loud noise and something fell down.

(End of this chapter)