Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 103 Secrets of Border Market (Part [-])
The price of silver in Daming is quite high at the moment, ten thousand taels of silver is indeed a huge sum of money, and it is only natural that it cannot be paid, so Gao Wushi did not bother with this one, and asked again: "Since you are reselling to the frontier army, how can the frontier army pay you?" The limit is tight, can they afford the money to buy horses? You sell them at cost price?"

"The cost price is not enough, I still have to lose." Cao Gan said with a smile: "Even if the horse is only in my hands, it will take some time, so the horse feed, care and other expenses will have to be spent. The money, plus the frontier troops often have to delay for a while to get enough goods, how can I give them the cost price? But generally speaking, I sell it not too expensive, and the price of a horse is about [-] taels. After all, you have to be scruples about your friendship with the frontier army, right?"

He paused, then continued: "As for whether the frontier army can get the money, the young master doesn't know. It may be quite difficult for the frontier army to directly use money to buy horses. Anyway, in the past few years Frontier soldiers rarely give cash. They usually use other materials to offset the payment. These items range from a wide range, such as the silk, cloth, cotton, needles and threads, ropes, combs, rice, salt, Candies, saucloth, otter skins, sheepskin boxes, etc., they will use them to offset... This is one of the reasons why the little one said that they can't sell horses to them at the original price: their goods are too mixed, not only can they make up the goods themselves Trouble, it is very troublesome for us to calculate the price, it will always waste a lot of time, those who raise horses with little money can’t pay for themselves, no one will be stupid enough to do this business.”

Gao Wushi understood now, and asked, "And you traded these goods with the Mongols?"

"That's right, anyway, the Mongols want everything." Cao Gan said, "But in fact, there are some small things that they don't like to accept, such as those cheap things like ordinary needles and threads. The prices for the frontier troops are very low.”

Gao Wushi was a little curious: "Why don't you like to ask for it? Don't Mongolians lack these little things?"

"There is a shortage in Mongolia, but those who can sell a large number of horses to the younger ones are people of considerable status in Mongolia. Why would they be interested in buying things like needlework? What they want are silk and satin. Such good things. As for the things that ordinary Mongolians need, most of them can only be exchanged for cattle, sheep, furs, horsetails, etc., and for some reason, Mongolians don’t like selling cattle much in recent years.”

"Oh?" Gao Wushi frowned slightly: "Why don't you sell cattle? Do you know the inside story?"

Cao Gan stroked his big bald head, and said hesitantly: "I didn't think about it, but it probably has something to do with the white lotus sect rebels engulfing a large number of Han people from the border areas and moving them to Mongolia to reclaim the fields."

Oh, it’s this matter... Gao Yushi knew about this situation in his previous life. To put it bluntly, it is nothing more than some Han people in the border areas who can’t survive because of one or another reason. .Although Mongolia is dominated by grasslands, it does not mean that there is no land that can be cultivated. Therefore, such land was allocated to the Han people under the rule, and even the so-called "bansheng" came into being.

The incident of Bansheng City was often used in later generations to criticize the unpopularity of the Ming Dynasty’s rule. The main argument was that farming techniques and some handicraft techniques of the Ming Dynasty, as well as city-building techniques and medical skills were “spread” to Mongolia, making the Han people themselves The competitiveness of the company has dropped so much.

Gao Pragmatism's view on this is: fart.

Why?

Don't you know the term "cultural export"?Gao Pragmatism wished that the Mongols would accept Han culture faster and more, and increase the intensity of building cities and living in settlements—it would be convenient for Han people to rule in the future!

If the Mongols always maintain the nomadic style of tens of thousands of miles, there will be no development in science and technology, but the Han people want a long-term peace and stability in the frontier, and it is basically useless-the weaker their productivity, the more they can only rely on coming to Han to graze the valley. To make a living, people are mainly cavalry, and they will leave after a wave.Although your Great Wall is long, can it really be fortified for thousands of miles?
The Ming Dynasty often left after being robbed by the Mongols. When the Ming army arrived, they could basically only clean up the battlefield. What is the reason?You can't run away from others!The Mongols don't plan to rule the places he conquered for a long time. They just want to rob some living supplies and have no intention of occupying cities and lands. What can you do?

Therefore, Gao Yushi is not opposed to the sinicization of the Mongols at all, and even wishes to personally plan for them how to speed up the Sinicization!So although the Ming court was very annoyed by the border residents fleeing north, Gao Yushi was not annoyed at all.Not only was he not annoyed, but he even remembered another matter.

Every time Mongolia applies to the Ming court to open the market, it also asks the Ming court to give them Buddhist scriptures, and even sends the great lama of the capital to Mongolia to preach, but the Ming court seems to have no interest in this, and always ignores it. The appearance of - this is simply a door-to-door good business and refuses to do it!
If Gao Yushi can take power, he will try his best to print more Buddhist scriptures and send more lamas to preach to the Mongolians!Because Lamaism is basically a suicide religion for Mongolia, or at least a self-mutilation religion-this is not to say that Lamaism is a cult that makes Mongolians commit suicide or self-mutilation. At the national level, advocating the Lamaism seriously damages national power and enterprising spirit.

Don't you see that after the prosperity of Lamaism in Mongolia, the glory of the Mongols completely disappeared without a trace?Although in the original history, there was also the influence of the Manchu policy of reducing Ding, but the Lamaism caused the Mongols to abolish their martial arts is also an important reason.

Therefore, judging from all the circumstances, Gao Yushi does not think that Ming Dynasty needs to conquer Mongolia by force at all—it can turn Mongolia into a big sieve only by relying on economy and culture, and then guarantee a certain amount of force to deter it. Take it for your own use.

Why not do it!

As for your claim that the contradiction between Mongolia and Han is sharp and irreconcilable?That is the Tang Dynasty in the barren world. The Ming Dynasty lasted for more than two hundred years. I don’t know how many Mongols went on to serve the Han people!

Just to cite a few examples, such as the famous Tumu Fortress battle, the Ming army claimed to be 50 (actually about 20), and lost [-] troops, among which a large number of losses were Mongolian soldiers. They often changed their Han surnames and retreated to defend the Ming army He fought desperately with his Mongolian compatriots until the last moment.So much so that some people in later generations jokingly said that the battle of Tumubao appeared to be a fight between the Han court and the Mongols, but in fact it was more like a civil war between the Mongols.

During the Wanli period, the Ming Dynasty assisted North Korea twice to attack Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Japanese invading army.Among them, the Xuanfu Datong is the Ming army, and its main force is the Mongols.At that time, the four Xuanda generals, Bai Sai, Yang Dengshan, Xie Qingdeng, and Pogui, were all Mongolians.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were tens of thousands of Mongols serving the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong. When the Ming army failed in the Songjin War, there were still more than 3000 Mongols defending the Ming army until the last moment. On the contrary, after the surrender of the Han people, the Mongols had no choice but to be captured. , and was finally killed by Man Qing.

Therefore, a high-level pragmatist who is well aware of the inside story and development is quite "open" to the matter of Ban Sheng.

　The signing contract was due to some problems at the starting point after the first mailing, and it turned out to be done after the second mailing. It took a long time, but it is finally OK now.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)