Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1408 Liaodong always has something to do (Part [-])
On the fourth day after Nurhachi returned to Hetuala, there was a not-so-intense confrontation in the Fuyuan Yamen in Liaoyang.

The confrontation is the point of view: Li Song, governor of the Liao Dynasty, believed that Nurhachi's war within the Jianzhou Zuowei had the nature of "punishing against disobedient ministers", because the latter was originally the commander of the Jianzhou Zuowei appointed by Ming Dynasty.Therefore, Daming has neither the need nor the position to oppose Nurhachi's dispatch of troops this time, as long as it "wait for changes".

Liaoyang deputy general Cao Yu expressed his disapproval of this. He believed that although Nurhachi was the commander of the left guard in Jianzhou, the relationship between Dong E's department and Daming was not bad.

Moreover, Cao Yu believes that the most critical issue is not only the "obedience" of the Dong'e tribe, but the geographical location of its tribe is very important-the Dong'e tribe is located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yalu River (further south is near Dandong in later generations).

Nurhachi's Sukesu River Guard Headquarters and its expanded territory are located to the north of the Dong'e tribe—in other words, once Nurhachi completely controls the Dong'e tribe, his territory will directly border North Korea.

Li Song believed that the border between Nurhachi and North Korea did not matter at all, but Cao Yu firmly opposed it.He had received high-practical guidance and knew that Nurhachi was all about revitalizing Fushunguan trade and bringing him more financial resources.But now that the Dong E Department is blocking him and North Korea, the trade price difference of some North Korean goods will be taken away by the Dong E Department, and Nurhachi has nothing to do with it.

What kind of goods can North Korea trade with Ming Dynasty, and how does it trade with Ming Dynasty?

In fact, North Korea and Ming were engaged in a kind of "envoy trade", but this issue will be ignored for the time being (I will talk about it during the war to aid North Korea, because it will have something to do with the logistics system of the Ming army). Only the types of trade between the two sides and some of the main commodities are mentioned here.

The envoy trade between Ming and North Korea can be roughly divided into two categories, one is free trade, and the other is expropriation trade.Among them, free trade generally includes public trade, private trade and prohibited trade.

Public trade refers to the purchase of goods in short supply in North Korea by North Korean envoys on behalf of the country or the king under the order of the country. Most of the trade items are books, silk, etc.

Books are in short supply in North Korea and play a role in maintaining the rule, which makes North Korea attach great importance to the purchase of books.Many books in North Korea were obtained through trade between North Korean envoys and Liaodong, and Liaodong was an important channel for Ming Dynasty books to flow into North Korea.

For example, the Korean envoys saw "Daming Jili" in the Ministry of Rites. The Korean king attached great importance to this book and personally instructed Zhenglang Jin He, who was in Liaodong, to try to get it in Liaodong. Since the Great Ming Ceremony."

The importance attached to books by the Joseon Dynasty made the Korean envoys keen to trade books in the Liaodong area.In the trade between North Korean envoys and Liaodong, trade books can be regarded as fruitful.

For example, at Shichen, Zhao Xian traded one of the nineteen volumes of "The Encyclopedia of Xing Li" and "Supplementary to the Great Learning" by using the inkstone one and the fan nine.People in Liaodong had "Husansheng Pingchonglu" in their possession and wanted to sell it. After learning about it, the Korean official signed a purchase contract with the people in Liaodong, and finally bought it with [-] pieces of linen.

In addition to books, horses, donkeys, and mules are also important items in North Korea's public trade.But here is an interesting point. Originally, North Korea was a country with many horses, but later North Korea often came to Liaodong to buy horses and livestock.

This seems to be the case: in the early Ming Dynasty, a large number of horses were required to recover the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty and restore production in the Liaodong area, so the Ming Dynasty conscripted and bought horses from North Korea many times at that time.The Hongwu Dynasty, Jianwen Dynasty and Yongle Dynasty all had transactions of buying horses from North Korea. In addition, horses were continuously exported to the Ming Dynasty as tribute items and bargains.

As a result, Daming’s purchasing power was too strong, so a large number of North Korean horses were imported to Daming through the means of buying and paying tribute. On the one hand, it caused a sharp decline in the number of domestic horses in North Korea, and on the other hand, it caused a serious decline in the quality of the existing horses in North Korea. Old, weak, Most of them are poor horses.Over time, because most of the Liaodong horses are used for border defense, there are more good horses, but North Korea urgently needs to trade Liaodong horses to improve its domestic horse status.

So in the 13th year of Yingzong Zhengtong, the Korean government issued a proposal to order the North Korean envoys to trade Liaodong horses and donkey mules, "Liaodong mares can be used as stallions and donkey mules. The two officials traded horses and cloth goods in the Yellow Sea and Ping'an Ranch. The method of feeding donkeys and mules, and asked for it, so that they can make money." The King of Korea followed the suggestion of the government.

During the Munjong Dynasty of Joseon Dynasty, the trade of Liaodong horses was proposed again. The king of Joseon convened the government to discuss the trade of Liaodong horses. Good horse, how about planting it in my land?"

At that time, North Korean officials resolutely opposed horse trade with Liaodong, believing that private trade was not suitable for the country. A horse with a staff of eighty can serve as an army, and this is a lesson to be learned."

The North Korean official named Qian also pointed out that the private trade of Liaodong horses may result in the consequences of being condemned by the Emperor Ming for private border crossings: "Furthermore, all the horses in China are official horses. If there are profit-seeking people selling them, the market In other words, once it is revealed, the emperor will condemn me for trespassing on the frontier, how will I answer?"

However, the king of Joseon did not give up trading horses because of the fines imposed on Lianshan Pass and the possible serious consequences of trading Liaodong horses. He still insisted on trading horses with Liaodong.

Originally, Daming was quite concerned about this. Not only did it strictly control the trade of war horses, it even imposed strict quotas on the trade of cattle, mules and other livestock.

However, after Jinghua worked hard to promote corn planting in Liaodong for the past two years, although Daming still controlled the war horse trade, it opened the door to the cattle and mule trade.

As predicted by Gao Yushi at the beginning, with the introduction of high-yielding corn, although it is not enough to quickly become the main food due to the influence of taste, folk planting habits, and eating habits, corn, as an excellent feed raw material, is It soon brought a qualitative change to the animal husbandry in Liaodong.

In just two years, the production of cattle, donkeys, mules and other livestock in Liaodong has soared by [-]%, and the original self-sufficiency has quickly become enough for export.

Due to the sudden increase in livestock among the people, the Liaodong army and civilians had to export some in addition to continuing to open up wasteland.

The above-mentioned public trade is a national task for North Korea. In addition, North Korean envoys will also trade some of the items they need. This behavior is called private trade.Private trade appeared along with public trade, and because private trade had huge benefits, it accounted for an increasing proportion of envoys' trade.

The private trade of North Korean envoys in Liaodong is quite serious.Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty wrote to the imperial court regarding the fact that Korean envoys in Liaodong often asked for chariots and horses to transport private trade and stayed in Liaodong for a long time: "The barbarians from Jianzhou and the Korean accompanying officials paid tribute, and when they all went out of Liaodong, they often asked for more chariots and horses. Carrying private goods, pretending to pick up and drop off the long-lived mansion, the ambition is unruly."

At this time, the silk and colored satin of Ming Dynasty were very popular in North Korea, and there was no difference between top and bottom. Clothes competed for silk and colored satin, and married families competed for luxury, even poor families.

The pursuit of silk and colored satin in North Korea made silk and colored satin the main items of North Korean envoys' private trade in Liaodong. Things come and go in Liaodong, and they often trade in colorful silks."

The North Korean envoys’ private trade in Liaodong became more and more serious, and there was even a situation where merchants pretended to go to Liaodong to buy and sell. .”

For this reason, the North Korean Ui government suggested that "in the future, the envoys will conduct strict inspections, and they will not be the same as before. Their gifts and carry-on luggage will be the same as before, and there should be no heavy loads left."

In the 15th year of Yongle, Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, the King of Korea specifically stipulated the quantity of privately deposited items for envoys sent to Liaodong: "The number of privately delivered items by envoys sent to Liaodong shall be based on the rules for envoys going to Beijing to deposit items."

However, the promulgation of restrictive measures has little effect on restricting North Korean diplomatic personnel from private trade in Liaodong.The private trade of North Korean envoys in the Liaodong area is still very popular: "Officials of the Department of Translation and Translation Institute envoys to Liaodong, with merchants as companions, buy a lot of cloth, and sell at will."

The officials, slaves, soldiers and civilians of Yizhou were also entrusted by the wealthy families in central Beijing and Kaesong Prefecture, and sneaked into Liaodong secretly outside of their missions: In addition to the few trips to Beijing, those involved in sneaking to Liaodong and exchanging things from the Tang Dynasty belong to each other."

The Joseon court was deeply worried about this, "If this is not the case, profit-seeking people will come and go, and there must be those who cheat and fight to make troubles in the upper country. It's not a small reason."

All in all, North Korea's pursuit of goods from the Ming Dynasty made it possible for North Korean envoys to do private trade in Liaodong.

In recent years, Gao Wu has started the tussah silk industry in Liaodong. Tussah silk, which is slightly inferior to silk in color but relatively cheap but more durable, is also very popular in North Korea and has become a favorite of the middle class in North Korea.

According to Jinghua’s statistics this year, the total price of tussah silk “exported” from Jinghua to North Korea will soon be as high as 13 taels—the absolute value of this amount may not be high in Ming Dynasty, but considering the size of North Korea, That's pretty amazing.

The third category is prohibited trade.For the sake of maintaining military security, Ming Dynasty strictly forbids foreigners to privately trade military supplies in Daming.However, North Korean envoys disregarded Ming's prohibition and conducted trade secretly. North Korean officials called this kind of trade "hidden trade", while Ming people called it "prohibited trade".

The latent trade is mainly concentrated on military materials such as bow horns and smoke gunpowder.Bow horns, smoke gunpowder and the like are not produced in North Korea, and all rely on Ming Dynasty. He frankly replied that Shangguo was the only source of gunpowder for North Korea.

The trade of bow horns was relatively free at one time. Later, because Mongolia and Jurchen continued to invade the border, the Ming court banned the trade of ironware and bow horns.

The Ming court resolutely cracked down on prohibited trade and formulated severe measures to punish lawbreakers.For example, Ma Wensheng, the right servant of the Ministry of War of the Xianzong Dynasty, suggested: Pedestrians accompany those who pay tribute from the barbarians of the Northeast to leave the country, and their weapons are prohibited from being sold, and those who violate it are banished to remote areas.Following Ma Wensheng's suggestion, Emperor Xianzong increased the punishment for trading prohibited items.

However, the severe punishment measures of the Ming court did not prevent the occurrence of prohibited trade.The Liaodong region has never been a pure land, and there are also a large number of North Korean envoys’ prohibited trade in the Liaodong region.

Moreover, under the high-pressure attack of strictly prohibiting prohibited trade, prohibited trade was carried out in a more covert manner in Liaodong.For example, in the 23rd year of Chenghua, Liu Xun, an envoy from North Korea to celebrate the Qianqiu Festival of Emperor Daming, bought bow horns privately in Liaodong.

And when the Ming Dynasty opened a new era of "military industry private ownership", this kind of prohibited trade became even more difficult to prohibit.The key point here is that although the military industry and private enterprises after the private military industry have to accept the supervision of the Ministry of War and other yamen, they can directly "supply freely with the yamen, guards, etc." at all levels of the Ming Dynasty.

This is troublesome. As we all know, the army of the Ming Dynasty is not all the "army of the economic system", and there are also a large number of family troops allowed by the imperial court.Liaodong has a particularly large number of domestic troops. After purchasing weapons and equipment from military and private companies such as Jinghua, these domestic troops secretly sold them to North Korea without any psychological burden.

In particular, the muskets and gunpowder produced by Jinghua are hard currencies in the private trade with North Korea, and the price usually more than doubles, making them extremely sought-after.

In fact, North Korea still wants to buy Jinghua’s artillery. Unfortunately, this is different from firearms. The Ministry of War checks them very strictly, and each artillery piece has a serial number. Therefore, North Korea can only quietly get a very small amount of second-hand artillery, which are some private troops. Reported "battle damage".

As for expropriation for trade... It's a bit embarrassing to say that it's trade.

The local and special products brought by the Korean envoys to Ming Dynasty usually include ginseng, fried rice, fan, white tissue paper, pen and ink, white rice, bow and so on.Among them, ginseng, white rice and other items are of high quality, and the workmanship of fried rice, fans, bows, etc. is also very fine.

Excellent quality and good craftsmanship make Korean local products popular among Liaodong people, and even local officials in Liaodong have a soft spot for some Korean local products: "I heard that your country's copper bowls and white porcelain bowls are exquisitely made. , the body is clean, if I want to see it, I must send it to your prime minister."

The word "send it" is very precise. The "trade" between Liaodong officials and North Korean envoys is obviously an exchange of unequal value. The North Korean envoys on the other side of the trade did not get what they deserved.

This is of course not that the North Korean envoys voluntarily ignored the trade rewards, but that the Liaodong local officials on the other side of the trade were the ones in charge, and they had the power to send cars and companions to the North Korean envoys, so this kind of "requisition trade" was just The helplessness of North Korean envoys under the heavy pressure of local officials in Ming Dynasty was not so much trade as extortion of bribes. (I won’t give more examples of this, it will be written during the war to aid Korea.)
In short, under these trades, Ming had a huge trade surplus with North Korea. North Korea’s goods had to exchange quantity for quality because of insufficient added value of trade, and provided Daming, especially Liaodong, with a large amount of raw materials and medicinal materials.

If these things are viewed according to the current situation, most of them go directly from Yizhou to the southeast of Liaodong, and the other part goes from Dong'e tribe to Fushun Pass to the east of Liaodong. Therefore, Dong'e tribe has enough financial resources to maintain resistance to Nurhachi.

Cao Yu adhered to the highly pragmatic idea of ​​suppressing the Nurhachi Sukesu River Protection Department, and believed that once Nurhachi took over the Dong E Department, it can basically be regarded as monopolizing the Fushun Pass trade and officially becoming the three Jurchen powerhouses alongside Yehe and Hada One of the chieftains.

Of course, Gao Pragmatic could not agree to this, so Cao Yu could not accept it either. He insisted that Nurhachi must withdraw from Wengguo Luocheng and the territory of Dong'e tribe, and vowed not to invade Dong'e again without Daming's permission.

However, Li Song was the governor of Liaodong, and Cao Yu, the deputy commander in chief, was only a military general. Li Futai quickly said, "It's cold winter, and there was a bloody battle in Beiguan before, and the army and food reserves are all insufficient. Why do you prestige Jianzhou?" And refuse.

Cao Yu expressed his dissatisfaction, thinking that Nurhachi would not dare to fight rashly because of the might of the Ming army after the Battle of Liaobei. Liaoyang only needs to make a gesture in this matter to force Nurhachi to retreat.As for the military stockpile, how did Nurhachi know whether it was enough or not?

However, Li Song didn't listen, and only said, "Military affairs are important, and the victory lies in prudence."It just so happened that Li Chengliang's letter also arrived, saying that he was aware of the dispute between the Sukesu River Guard Department and the Dong E Department. The project has not yet started, and the defense of the area is very tight. He intends to personally lead the troops there to expel and suppress them. Therefore, the east of the Liaohe River cannot be acted rashly to avoid being attacked by the enemy.

Cao Yu was furious when he heard that, although he didn't dare to send the fire directly to Li Futai, he immediately wrote a memorial after he went back, asking the Ministry of War to make a decision, and the emperor made a decision.

Therefore, Gao Wushi, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, received another summons, and went to the Wenhua Hall to face the saint together with a group of cabinet ministers and Liang Menglong, Minister of the Ministry of War.
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(End of this chapter)