Shanxi merchants are profit-seeking as businessmen, when the Ming Dynasty began to rise. They funded Zhu Yuanzhang, and after Zhu Yuanzhang succeeded, he also gave them many benefits, such as selling salt, and Shanxi merchants became stronger and stronger. However, the friendship between Shanxi merchants and Ming rulers did not last forever. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, in order to make money, Shanxi merchants provided materials to the late Jin Dynasty, and also revealed some important information of Daming to the rulers of the late Jin Dynasty. Shanxi merchants and the late Jin colluded with each other and jointly pushed the Ming Dynasty to extinction.
After the demise of the Ming Dynasty, Shanxi merchants did business under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. Shanxi merchants supported the Qing Dynasty economically, and the Qing Dynasty also gave them many preferential policies. Later, Empress Dowager Cixi fled, and Shanxi merchants also donated a lot of money to help Empress Dowager Cixi tide over the difficulties. In modern times, national capitalism rose, and Shanxi merchants who had been brilliant for hundreds of years withdrew from the historical stage.
Shanxi merchants betrayed the Ming Dynasty for their own interests. In terms of national justice, it is indeed collaboration with the enemy, and to put it more seriously, it is treason. I think business has no borders, but businessmen have nationality, so it is very inappropriate for them to collaborate with the enemy as Ming people. We can't think that it is understandable for businessmen to betray their country for profit. In life, no one is free. If you do something wrong, you should be condemned, just like businessmen and farmers.