Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1197 Nurhachi's Lifeline

Gao Wushi said that he wrote a letter to Nurhachi, not because he was inflated, but because he was really confident that he could suppress Nurhachi with such prestige.

At least at this time, he believed that Nurhachi did not dare to have the courage to provoke himself.

Perhaps the Battle of Monan was still a little too far away from Liaodong, but for the Jurchen, the Battle of Southern Liao was a big battle that broke out at their doorstep.The course of the war is now very clear to all the ministries around Liaodong, whether Jurchen or Mongolia.

Gao Wushi not only strategized in this battle, but also demonstrated the unparalleled strength of the Jurchens.His subordinates not only gathered powerful generals, but besides using the power of the Ming court, he also had a team of servants who could turn into soldiers at any time, and the number of this servant team was particularly huge.

What kind of quantity can be called particularly huge?Anyway, Nurhachi counted with his fingers. The population he controls now is not as good as [-]% of Jinghua’s employment in Liaodong. half of the employees.

Population and employees are of course not the same thing, but Jinghua's industry in Liaodong now has a large number of young and strong employees such as miners and blacksmiths because of the new Liaoyang base.According to Jinghua's habit, such a base must have a mine protection team and a factory protection team. Nurhachi knew that these people could turn into soldiers at any time, and they must be included in Jinghua's armed forces.

And how many troops does Nurhachi itself have?
Regardless of the fact that he just defeated Nikan Wailan, his actual strength is more than 3000, less than [-]. Even the Jinghua Liaoyang Iron and Steel Plant may not be able to win this number of people, let alone the rest.

You know, Gao Wushi is not only the owner of Jinghua, he is also the left servant of the military department of Ming Dynasty. Gao Wushi really pissed off, and it is not surprising that the court should first suppress him Nurhachi.

What's more, because of the ginseng trade, Nurhachi is now inseparable from high pragmatism.

Gao Yushi, who controlled the waterways of the Liaohe River, has now become the emperor behind Liaodong's business. Almost any large-scale trade can hardly avoid Jinghua's trade network.

In the trade market in Liaodong, ginseng, fur, honey, mushrooms, fungus, hazelnuts, and pine nuts are all popular specialties in the customs, and among them, ginseng is the most popular and almost irreplaceable.

As we all know, in the ancient Chinese medicine book, ginseng is listed as the top grade of medicine.Physicians of the past dynasties believe that it has the effects of nourishing the five internal organs, tranquilizing the spirit, calming the soul, relieving palpitations, eliminating evil spirits, improving eyesight, improving intelligence, lightening body and prolonging life after long-term use, and curing all deficiencies in men and women. Therefore, the price of ginseng has always been high.

However, Shangdang, Shanxi, which was originally rich in ginseng at this time, was almost extinct due to over-harvesting. Therefore, the main production area of ​​ginseng has been transferred to the Liaodong area where Jurchen gathers. Even the world's largest ginseng trade market.

According to Jinghua's own statistics, Jurchen's annual trading volume of ginseng to Daming is more than tens of thousands of catties. According to the price of ginseng at this time, and depending on the quality of ginseng, it is about three taels to five taels of silver per catty (Note : This is recorded in "Compendium of Materia Medica", that is, the price in the early years of Wanli, and the price of ginseng on the eve of the end of Ming Dynasty has skyrocketed to 15-20 taels), so the annual transaction volume is as high as 10,000+ taels or even more than 20 taels. For the extremely poor Jurchens, one can imagine the profits.

It can be said that the ginseng trade is not only an important source of income for the life of the Jurchens, but also an important economic pillar for the expansion of Nurhachi's power.In other words, as long as the high pragmatism at this time kills the ginseng trade, Nurhachi's strength will plummet, and there may even be internal chaos.

At this time, how dare Nurhachi challenge the high-level pragmatic authority?

Therefore, after Gao Wushi sent Wu Dui away, he wrote a letter directly to the Ministry of War, and sent someone to Liaodong through Jinghua's own channel, and handed it directly to Nurhachi.He believes that with Nurhachi's level of performance in the original history, he will not fail to see the key to this, and will not do stupid things.

Don't you want to hide your strength and bide your time to accumulate strength?Okay, then you can continue to be obedient, and don't jump out and cause trouble for me in the past few years.As for a few years later, whether you have developed more strength, or I will come back to settle accounts with you after I have dealt with Tumen Khan, the biggest threat in Liaodong, then we will ride a donkey and read the script - we will wait and see.

Gao Yushi himself is skeptical about the medicinal properties of ginseng, because he remembers that modern medicine analyzed the ingredients of ginseng and concluded that it is "almost the same as carrot root", and he is also very clear about the gradual myth process of ginseng.

The earliest records about the medicinal value of ginseng in China can be found in the "Shen Nong's Herbal Classic" written in the Qin and Han Dynasties.At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing said in "Treatise on Febrile Diseases" that ginseng "indicates that ginseng is mainly used to treat abdominal pain, and to treat indigestion and vomiting."Later, medical books of all dynasties such as "Famous Doctors" in the Southern Dynasties, "Medical Materia Medica" in the Tang Dynasty, "Zhujia Materia Medica" in the Song Dynasty, and "Medication Method Xiang" in the Yuan Dynasty all mentioned the medicinal functions of ginseng, but none of them were miraculous. .

But in the Ming Dynasty, ginseng suddenly became more powerful, and became "ginseng cures all deficiencies in men and women", including "fever and spontaneous sweating, dizziness and headache", and "sickness, chronic diarrhea and diarrhea".Ginseng then stands out from common Chinese herbal medicines and has been awarded the status of "miracle medicine".

Fang Cai once said that the ginseng eaten by Chinese people before the Ming Dynasty was mainly produced in the Shangdang area (now Changzhi, Shanxi), and was called "Shangdang ginseng"; followed by Liaodong ginseng in Liaodong area, also known as Liao ginseng.

In the early years, ginseng was only regarded as a common food and medicinal material.For example, Su Shi said in a letter to his friend Wang Dingguo, "If you want to send a letter, you can only send more dried dates and ginseng. If you don't have the convenience, you don't need to send someone. How can you work hard for thousands of miles." The letter to Zhang Zhifu also said, "In case there are people from the south, it is necessary to send ginseng and dried dates for several kilograms."

It can be seen from this that for Su Shi, ginseng, like dried jujube, is just a food to satisfy the appetite, not a magic medicine that can cure all diseases.Moreover, he often asked people to bring "a few catties" along the way, which also shows that this kind of food was not expensive at that time.

Of course, before the Ming Dynasty, a small number of ginseng varieties were considered very valuable.For example, there is a kind of "Zituan ginseng" in Shangdang ginseng, which is said to only grow on the Zituan mountain in the Shangdang area. There is a record in "Mengxi Bi Tan", saying that Wang Anshi suffered from asthma and needed to be treated with purple group ginseng but could not get it.A friend sent a few taels, but Wang Anshi refused to accept it, saying: "I have lived without purple ginseng in my life, and I have lived to this day."

However, judging from the fact that Su Shi ate ginseng "day and night" in order to satisfy his "stomach", at least ordinary Codonopsis ginseng was still a common thing in the Northern Song Dynasty, and only a few special ginseng products were highly regarded.But this is not surprising, just like ordinary tea is only worth a few dollars, but if you want to talk about famous tea, how many times will the price be doubled?
The price of ginseng is also very telling.Until the Jiajing period, ginseng was still a cheap commodity, and a catty of ginseng cost only one cent and five cents of silver.In the Wanli period, the reference price rose to about 3 taels of silver per catty-the reason was mentioned above.By the time of Chongzhen, the reference price had reached as high as 16 taels of silver per catty.

However, the status of ginseng changed drastically, and it directly became a miracle medicine. In fact, it happened after the Qing Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. There are probably four main reasons.

One is that ginseng was regarded as a manifestation of the royal spirit of the Qing Dynasty.Originally, the naming of ginseng has a strong mystery.For example, there is a story in the Sui and Tang Dynasties legend novel "Guanggujin Wuxingji": "During the time of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, there were people in Shangdang who heard people's voices every night behind their house, and they couldn't ask for it. When I went to the house for a mile, I saw that the ginseng branches and leaves were abnormal, so I dug them in. The ground is five feet long, and ginseng is obtained, which is like a human body, with all four limbs complete, and the voice will be silenced."

This kind of saying has been handed down, and even influenced Li Shizhen. In "Compendium of Materia Medica", this kind of mysterious talk was also included as the origin of ginseng's medicinal effects: "Ginseng grows gradually, its roots are like a human body, and it has a spirit. Therefore, it is called ginseng and divine grass."

Specific to the Qing Dynasty, because the Northeast where ginseng is produced is the "land of dragon prosperity" and full of "royal spirit", ginseng is naturally regarded as the embodiment of this "royal spirit".For example, Ruan Kuisheng, a famous literati during the Qianlong period, said: "Since the east of Liaoyang, there are all the mountains and forests, and it is covered by the atmosphere of the earth. Is it a coincidence?" This is a clear connection between the growth of ginseng and the atmosphere of the northeast. At the same time, as for the fact that his statement is obviously flattering the stinky feet of Tartar, there is no need to talk about it. In short, these statements have strengthened the superstition of ginseng, which is for sure.

The second is that the Qing government monopolized the ginseng trade, driving up the price of ginseng and exacerbating the superstition of ginseng among the people.

After Shangdangshen withdrew from the market, Daming could only import large quantities of Liaodong ginseng from Jurchens outside the customs as a substitute.The amount of ginseng trade between Jurchen and Daming is huge, and it is the most important source of income for the rise of Jurchen.

For example, in the original history, from July of the 11th year of Wanli to March of the following year, in eight months, the Haixi Jurchen traded with Daming 26 times at the border and sold 1733.75 catties of ginseng.From the 11th year of Wanli to the 12th year of Wanli, the Ming court alone paid 3 taels of silver for the purchase of ginseng.

The above two transactions are only official acquisitions, not counting the larger private trade.Therefore, in order to reduce the pressure on the national treasury and reduce the price of ginseng, the Ming court once closed the border market in history, resulting in the backlog of more than [-] catties of ginseng in Jianzhou Jurchen all rotting.

There are some other things here, and I won't go into details for the time being. In short, in the entangled ginseng trade, Jurchen gradually gathered strength to fight against the Ming Dynasty.

After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, its royal family continued to firmly control the ginseng trade in their own hands.In the early Qing Dynasty, the royal family set up a special ginseng collection organization in the Northeast, "Dasheng Ula General Manager Yamen", and the princes of the Eight Banners were also allowed to send people to the designated mountains to collect ginseng.Private ginseng collection is strictly prohibited, and there is even an edict that "if any Han people are encountered at the ginseng collection place, they will be arrested."

During the Qianlong period, in order to increase the control of the ginseng trade, the "Official Ginseng Bureau" was established.It is stipulated that anyone who enters the mountain to collect ginseng must hold a certificate issued by the government.Some of the top-grade ginseng collected by the Official Ginseng Bureau is used in the palace, some is sold or disposed of by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the rest is sold to ginseng merchants.

The ginseng management system of the Qing Dynasty was extremely complicated, but in the final analysis, its system guaranteed the profits of the Northeast ginseng trade, and most of them fell into the emperor's private pockets—at most, the amount reached 100 million taels of silver per year.

The imperial court monopolized the ginseng trade, and the result was a skyrocketing ginseng price.For example, in the Jiangnan area, the Ministry of Internal Affairs designated "Jiangnan Three Weavings" (Jiangning Weaving, Hangzhou Weaving, Suzhou Weaving), Guangdong Customs, etc. as ginseng franchise dealers.These government-run dealers spared no effort to drive up the price of ginseng, so in the mid-Qianlong period, the price of ginseng reached 800 to 2000 taels of silver per catty; during the Jiaqing period, it even broke through to [-] taels of silver per catty.

The soaring price of ginseng is complementary to the deification of ginseng.Xu Lingtai, a doctor who lived in the Qianlong period, once wrote an article "On Ginseng", which mentioned that people at that time had a mentality of "superstitious belief in the curative effect of ginseng because of its high price": "The reason why doctors use it when they are sick , but the sick and home-served died without any regrets, why? Because of the foolish heart, everyone regards expensive medicine as good medicine, and cheap medicine as bad medicine."

The gist of this passage is simple: patients feel that since the price of ginseng is so high, ginseng is naturally the best medicine.Physicians are also willing to take advantage of patients' mentality and often prescribe ginseng to them. After patients eat ginseng, it is of course the miracle of ginseng that their condition improves.Because in their view, if ginseng can't cure a disease, it must be true.

Hmm... some so-called qigong masters in later generations have also made good use of this kind of thinking.

The third is that the royal family of the Qing Dynasty took a large amount of ginseng, which played a demonstration effect on the folks.A large number of top-grade ginseng was retained by the Qing court because the royal family consumed a lot of ginseng.

According to the archives of the Qing Palace "Ginseng Shangyong Dibo", in the last two years of Emperor Qianlong's life, "a total of 350 nine times of ginseng was eaten, and the fourth-class ginseng was 37 taels of money".He also wrote a poem "Ode to Ginseng", saying that ginseng "five leaves, three ya, Yun Jiyong, Zhu Shilu Ganpu. The land spirit is a resource for the Yin, and the merits of the medical classics are great."The concubines and princesses of the Qianlong Dynasty also took ginseng.Even Cixi often ate ginseng. During the period of more than 26 days from October of the 300th year of Guangxu to September of the following year, "shared two catties of ginseng, one tael and one coin."

The emperor of the Qing Dynasty often rewarded ministers with ginseng.For example, Ji Zengyun, a scholar, asked to go back to his hometown to recuperate, and Emperor Qianlong ordered to reward ten catties of ginseng; for Fu Heng, a scholar who led the army to fight in Jinchuan, he was not satisfied with the climate, so Emperor Qianlong rewarded three catties of ginseng.The vassals of the Qing Dynasty, such as the King of Siam and King Annan, also received this special reward of ginseng.

With the royal family taking the lead in demonstrations, folk superstition about ginseng's "miraculous effect" was out of control, and there was an obsession that "if you take ginseng, you will not cure it, and you must take it completely".

The last one is the "warming and tonic" culture in Jiangnan, which caters to the prevalence of ginseng superstition.Probably also from the Qianlong period, a strange tonic culture developed in the south of the Yangtze River.For example, Xu Dachun, a doctor at that time, said: "Nowadays, the ancient sage's method is considered despicable and insignificant, and the name of the disease cannot be pointed out. Instead, it is generalized in terms of yang deficiency, yin deficiency, liver qi and kidney weakness, etc., and it is dedicated to warming and tonifying, so that external evils enter the interior and tame the disease." To the point of no help."

Xu Dachun's criticism is very spot on - of course, Gao Yushi thinks that what he said is "external evil enters the interior" is rather mysterious, and can only be understood as a virus infection or something.In short, many Jiangnan doctors liked to prescribe tonics at that time, and among all kinds of tonics, ginseng was the most popular.

This kind of atmosphere in the medical field is actually catering to the ginseng superstition of the people of the time.Since "all the nobles in the capital like to take ginseng, even though they are very poor, they try their best to buy ginseng and take it"—whether rich or poor, they all believe that chronic diseases can be cured through warming and tonic ginseng, so as a doctor, the safest and most profitable way is Undoubtedly that is to prescribe more ginseng when prescribing medicine.

The deification of ginseng in the Qing dynasty was supremely pragmatic. Before time travel, there were still many Chinese who believed that ginseng was a tonic that could cure all diseases.However, scientific testing has long confirmed that the main component of ginseng root, which is considered to be the most effective, is similar to that of carrots; other components in ginseng root only show very low medicinal properties after extraction.

The only reason why Gao Wushi dare not completely deny ginseng is not ginseng itself, but the fundamental difference between traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine.

Western medicine is usually very straightforward. What kind of disease my medicine is for, you can use it for whatever disease. Its efficacy is very clear and highly directional.But Chinese medicine is different. Chinese medicine pays attention to the ruler, minister and assistant. The same few medicines, even if they are only mixed in different quantities, sometimes have completely different effects, and may not even target the same disease. This is complicated.

Gao Pragmatic does not understand medicine. Although he believes in modern medicine, Chinese medicine has cured countless patients for thousands of years. He dare not think that Chinese medicine is useless, so he dare not rely on his position in the market to directly to break.

However, although Duan has been broken easily, it is completely possible to use it to threaten Nurhachi.

According to Gao Wushi's letter, cutting off the ginseng trade will not cause any major problems for Ming Dynasty, but for you Jianzhou Zuowei, there is a risk of life and death.If you don't withdraw your troops, there will be no more Ming merchants going to Fushun Pass to collect ginseng in this year's border market.

As for whether I can do it... If you want to prove it, then you might as well try it.
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Thank you book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Too Fat to Fly", "Tesla's Leakage Protector", "Mysterious Pineapple", and "ASolaF" for their monthly support, thank you!
PS: I would like to ask, do other novels say that the lifeblood of Nurhachi's rise is actually the ginseng trade?
Again PS: This chapter explains the myth of ginseng, which takes some space, so 800 words are given for this chapter.

(End of this chapter)