Shanxi merchants
Shanxi merchants were active for more than five hundred years from the early Ming dynasty, creating centuries-old prosperity, leaving significant business and cultural legacies. Among the diverse businesses scope that Shanxi merchants had worked on, there are two main trades, one is the draft bank system, or Piaohao, serving as the main financial institutions, and the other is the tea trade to Mongolia and Russia, in exchange of fur and European goods.