In April of the third year of Chongzhen, the land warmed up, the spring flowers were blooming, the vehicles and ships from the south, and the camel caravan from the north transported all kinds of southern and northern goods to the Beijing for sale.

The streets and alleys are bustling, noisy and busy, and the crisis faced by the people of Gyeonggi has long been forgotten by the people of the city, and the recent killings and wars in the northwestern frontier seem to have nothing to do with the lives of the people here as if they were happening in another world.

Of course, if it doesn't matter at all, then it's impossible, at least the selling price of mutton in Jingshi is much more expensive than a year ago.

At the beginning, because of the war, the fields along the border of Xuanda and Jibei were temporarily closed, and the trade of horses and sheep was naturally temporarily settled.

Later, the war was over, and the field was reopened, but the imperial court almost wiped out the Jin merchants who had been engaged in border trade for generations in Xuanfu and Datong.

Without these merchants who traveled the border all the year round to trade with the Mongol tribes, the mouths and farms along the border were deserted, business was sluggish, and the number of horses, cattle and sheep and other livestock sold into Gyeongshi and even the entire Gyeonggi land dropped sharply, and the price of course rose all the way.

However, problems like this, except for the families of high-ranking officials and nobles, not many ordinary people can feel it.

Because the mutton shabu in Donglai Shun Restaurant, which has the background of the imperial store, is not something that ordinary Shengdou ordinary people can afford.

On the trade issues of Xuanfu, Datong, Rehe and other places along the border, Emperor Chongzhen has already had the will to attract investment to the north in the edict of the Zhengdan Dynasty to send the world.

Encourage merchants from Huaiyang, Susong, Fujian and Zhejiang to go north to replace the original position of Jin merchants.

However, perhaps because the time is still short, a few months have passed, and there are not as many Jiangnan merchants who went to Xuanfu and Datong to buy Jin merchants' shops, land, goods, and warehouses at various borders.

Although the merchants were born for profit, the previous practice of Emperor Chongzhen to execute a large number of Jin merchants for the crime of traitor and captivity still made the merchants in Jiangnan feel apprehensive about going to Xuanda to trade with the northern captives.

Moreover, at this time, Su Maoxiang, the secretary of the household department of Nanjing and the political envoy of Nanyu, continued to implement the policy of opening the sea to trade and encouraging overseas trade in the south of the Yangtze River.

In addition to the Moon Port, several ports that were later opened to trade have also been on the right track, and trade at sea is no longer prohibited by the imperial court, but encouraged by the imperial court.

Under such circumstances, the tea, silk, and porcelain in the south of the Yangtze River were not at all marketable, and the merchants who operated these large trades were naturally unwilling to take the risk of going north to Xuanda to trade with the poor Beiyu, who had only horses, cattle and sheep.

The salt merchants of Lianghuai and Changlu came the most, because the imperial court continued to implement the opening of the Chinese law, if they did not transport grain from the south of the Yangtze River to the north, they would not be able to exchange for the salt of the Chongzhen Dynasty, and there would be no concession to operate the salt industry.

It is precisely in consideration of such a situation that in these days, Emperor Chongzhen had to take action again in person, and successively set up several companies that specialized in taking over the trade along the northern border of Pansai.

Prior to this, in order to trade with the Dutch East India Company, Emperor Chongzhen asked Fang Zhenghua to send a group of people from the Royal Baohe Company to Guangzhou, and set up another Nanyang Company in Guangzhou, which was responsible for docking official trade with the Dutch East India Company.

After the establishment of this Nanyang company, like Baohe Company, it was under the supervision of the East Factory Inspector Founder Dispatch Management.

In this way, while the power in Fangzhenghua's hands continues to expand, it also makes Dongchang, an institution that originally made hundreds of officials talk about it, dilute its original main business, and instead devote more and more energy to the side business as a cover.

This situation, of course, is not what Emperor Chongzhen wants to see now.

Therefore, it is imperative to make some adjustments.

Fortunately, the Dongji Factory, the Baohe Company that came from the side of Baohe Sandian is the royal family's own affairs, and the ministers have no room to interject and speak, and Emperor Chongzhen is willing to change it, and the courtiers have nothing to say.

Shortly after the Chinese New Year, Emperor Chongzhen specially summoned Fang Zhenghua, the governor of Dongchang, into the palace, and asked him to report to Zhou Xiang in front of himself and the queen's concubines, the accounts of Baohe Company, the factories and mines of Baohe Company's own restaurants, commercial houses, shops, and mines all over the country, as well as the factories and mines of the commercial houses in which he became a shareholder.

It was also at that time that Emperor Chongzhen handed over the general accounts of Baohe Company to Empress Zhou, and appointed Zhang Yixian, an old man eunuch who was famous among the eunuchs for his slight wealth, as the chief eunuch of Baohe Company, to separate the various businesses of Baohe Company from the system of Dongchang as soon as possible.

At the same time, Emperor Chongzhen also spun off the newly established Imperial Nanyang Company from Dongchang and Baohe Company, appointed Wu Weihua, the younger brother of Gongshun Hou Wu Weiying, to promote Nanyang Company, and appointed Qianhu, who participated in the establishment of Nanyang Company throughout the whole process and traded with the Dutch East India Company, as the deacon of Nanyang Company, and also appointed Gao Qiqian, a eunuch who was also an old man in Qiandi but had been neglected by Emperor Chongzhen for a long time, as a supervisor and minister of Nanyang Company.

Emperor Chongzhen really doesn't want to use a person like Gao Qiqian, but the reason why he doesn't want to use it can't be said to anyone.

He, like Cao Huachun, Wang Chengen and others, are all people that Emperor Chongzhen relied on during the period of Qiandi, and now, there is not much difference between them.

And although these people are all sick, their loyalty to the emperor himself is still guaranteed.

The headquarters of Nanyang Company is located in Guangzhou, far away in Lingnan, and there are few candidates who can check and balance each other and reassure themselves, so how can Emperor Chongzhen let it go.

Gao Qiqian, a eunuch, has done many big things in history as a minister of the prison army, but now arranging for him to go to Lingnan District to become a supervisor and lieutenant official of Nanyang Company can be regarded as cutting off all possibilities in the original history.

Now, months later, these people have taken office.

After Emperor Chongzhen split Dongchang and Baohe Company, and split Baohe Company itself, he had to come forward again because of the poor investment promotion in Jibei, Xuanfu, Datong, Hetao and other places, and set up a number of trading companies directly under the royal internal affairs by using the Jin merchant shops and warehouses seized by Dongchang and Jinyiwei in Xuanda Shanxi and other places.

First, based on the Jin merchants' shops and goods confiscated by Dongchang in Dushikou, Hengtong Company was established in Dushikou, Xuanfu Town, and Li Jishan, a eunuch under Gao Shiming's name, was appointed as the deacon and eunuch of Hengli Company.

Second, based on all the shops, goods, warehousing and other materials owned by the Zhangjiakou Jin Chamber of Commerce, Hengxing Company was established in Zhangjiakou, and Wang Jiadong, a eunuch under the name of Wang Chengen, was appointed as the deacon and eunuch of Hengxing Company.

Third, on the basis of the seized shop goods and other materials of the Deshengkou and Datong Shanxi Chamber of Commerce, the Hengyuan Company was established in Jiningbao outside the Deshengkou, and the eunuch Han Zanzhou under the name of Cao Huachun was appointed as the deacon and eunuch of the Hengyuan Company.

Fourth, on the basis of killing Hukou and a large number of Jin merchants who were confiscated in Shanxi, Hengfeng Company was established in Zhuhukou, and Li Fengxiang, a eunuch who was also the old man of Emperor Chongzhen's palace, was appointed as the deacon and eunuch of Hengfeng Company.

The "Four Hengs" here are the current Chongzhen Emperor with reference to some practices of later generations, according to the gourd painting scoop.

In the Xuanda border along several important border ports, the establishment of these four companies specializing in the border trade of various Mongolian ministries, in addition to undertaking the original border trade business operated by the Jin merchants for generations, to fill the gap left by the Jin merchants in these border ports after being removed, there are also several other purposes.

One is to let the station system of Dongchang all over the country get rid of these cumbersome commercial operations as soon as possible, and from then on concentrate on his old profession and fulfill his duty of secretly supervising civil and military officials, including Jinyiwei.

The other is that in addition to the two secret agencies of Jinyiwei and Dongchang, several groups of teams directly belonging to the emperor are placed in the border areas of Saibei.

These teams are said to be officials, but they are not counted, because their primary purpose is trade, to make money, to make profits, and they are not allowed to interfere in any military and political affairs in the places where they are located.

However, it is not all to say that it is a people, after all, it is an imperial errand, and it has a channel to report to the emperor on the military, government, and people in various places outside the border.

Speaking of which, this is a bit like the so-called Jiangning Weaving Mansion in the later Manchu Qing Dynasty, on the one hand, it is responsible for purchasing and supervising all kinds of luxury goods for the Imperial Palace, and on the other hand, it is also responsible for delivering the local military, government and civil affairs to the Imperial Palace, and making small reports to the emperor.

Of course, Emperor Chongzhen's new Four Hengs were based on a large amount of non-cash cash real estate and materials in the hands of Jin merchants, and as a royal trading company for the Mongolian region, its business was much more than that.