Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 886
Dragon Boat Festival.

In Qianqing Palace, the 35-year-old emperor leaned on the couch to rest. Concubine Ruan stood beside him and fanned him, while talking about the affairs of the Six Palaces in the past few years, talking about concubines and princes and princesses, "Your Majesty is on a tour to the west. It’s been three years since I left, I don’t know how much everyone misses it.”

Concubine Ruan's tone was a bit sour when she spoke. They said that the Ruan sisters were favored, but the emperor did not take them with him on his west tour. After three years of tour, he took in many concubines and beauties, and added 20 Multiple princes and princesses.

When he came back, he didn't have any luck with her.

"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince made the Northern Expedition to conquer the Manchuria, and after conquering Manzhouli, he brought all the false imperial concubines, princesses, and wives, concubines and daughters of the false princes and ministers back to Beijing..."

Zhu Yihai said: "Didn't I reply to the prince's treatment of these people before?"

After the Manchus subjugated, the end was very tragic. Zhu Yihai refused to forgive them, thinking that the crimes they committed were too great, so he insisted on beheading all the Jianzhou Jurchens, royal clans, and officials with titles, and dedicated their heads to the Taimiao.

The rest of the Eight Banners soldiers were all slaves in southern Xinjiang, the old and the young were slaves with the troops stationed in border towns, and the young women, whether married or not, were all escorted back to the Central Plains to reward the heroes and soldiers as concubines.

The East Palace will directly dedicate the honorable and young and beautiful ones to the emperor, and the rest will be rewarded by the nobles and ministers.

This practice is very traditional.

It is also the fate of the loser, and it is the revenge of the Manlu.

Among these women, many of the tribes of Mongolia were married to the captives, and Horqin had the most among them. With the Horqin ministries finally attached to the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court treated these women of Horqin origin a little better, basically serving as concubines to the princes and generals of the Ming Dynasty.

The emperor's family is also assigned to many, most of them are the daughters of princes and princes of the Horqin Banners, and they are also concubines or princes Fujin in the Tartars.

"Now there are more than 100 people, and the courtiers and concubines are all arranged to learn the rules in the East and West Palaces. Do you want to summon them?"

Now Zhu Yihai has lost interest in women due to illness, and he has no interest in those Manchu women, "Continue to learn the rules, but there is no need to keep so much. I will reward some of the ministers later."

"Yes." Concubine Ruan agreed. For some reason, she was a little happy to hear the emperor's arrangement.Over the years, the imperial court has promoted policies such as marrying Mongolia. The Mongolian ministries alone have sent more than 1 women to the Central Plains in recent years. Married to the clan, nobles, ministers, and generals.

In addition, the tens of thousands of Mongolian women are the daughters of herdsmen picked from the tribes when the leaders and nobles sent their daughters. These commoner women picked Daming and were also arranged to give marriages to generals and officials. Most of them were concubines. .

In addition to Mongolia, the tribes of Jurchen, Yi, Miao and other chieftains in the southwest also need to send a certain number of women every year to marry their relatives.

Correspondingly, the imperial court would send some Han girls to Mongolian Jurchens and other vassals for marriage every year. Those vassal princes and princes who were canonized by the Ming emperor would basically marry Daming women as their wives and concubines, and they would also send their sons to study in Daming. , guard.

Even the vassal states of Joseon, Annan, and Liuqiu are doing the same now.

This astonishingly large-scale marriage-granting system has brought closer ties and more exchanges between the various ethnic groups.

In Beijing, there are many concubines such as Mongolian Jurchens in the homes of noble officials, as well as many foreign slaves such as Japanese female slaves and Kunlun slaves. Similarly, foreign businessmen and envoys can be seen everywhere in Beijing.

The number of aristocratic children from various vassals and foreign countries studying in Beijing alone is astonishing, far exceeding [-].

Some of these come from the Yaksha Peninsula in the distant Bering Strait, some from the Liugui Peninsula, some from the North Sea, some from the Yakut Khanate, the Turkic descendants of Gaoche, and some from Baikal The Buryats and Tiger Fighters by the lakeside include Jurchens from Changbai Mountain, Korea, Japan, and Liuqiu, and those from Champa, Luzon in Annan, and even Ladakh and Kansas on the snow-covered plateau. The giant ones come from Dawan, Bukhara, and Khiva in Central Asia, and Nogai, Turghut, etc. from the Caspian Sea...
A huge civilization circle is forming.

In this circle, Da Mingzi is the co-lord of all people and unique.

Whether it is the Mongols, the Jurchens, or the Turkic descendants of the Huns, or the Turkic Mongols of Central Asia, etc., they are now beginning to be drawn into this huge circle and are quickly affected.

"His Royal Highness the Prince built a beast garden under Jingshan Mountain by the North Sea. Inside are all kinds of rare animals that the barbarians and vassal vassals paid tribute to, such as peacocks and white elephants from Mughal, monkeys from Annan, parrots from Champa, Lu Song’s little buffalo, thorny rhino, oh, there are also kangaroos and unicorns from the wild land, and the bison from the Yin land. If you want to say that the strange beasts in the wild land are the strangest, the kangaroo with a bag on its belly, and There is a unicorn with a huge neck, and a platypus..."

Concubine Ruan likes the Beast Park in Meishan very much. When she is bored, she often takes the princes and princesses to visit to relieve boredom. It is indeed an eye-opener.

Even the palace will regularly summon the wives and concubines of princes, nobles and ministers into the palace. One of the reserved items is to visit the Jingshan Wanshou Garden.No matter what kind of famous Xun Qi's family, whoever saw these rare and strange beasts for the first time should not be extremely surprised.

Not to mention those women from the surrounding barbarians, even the women from the Sauron tribe in the northeast who are used to hunting tigers, leopards and wolves have never seen giraffes, kangaroos, ostriches and other such things.

Zhu Yihai smiled lightly, "These things are indeed quite rare. One side of the soil and one side of the people naturally breeds strange animals. In fact, you can build another zoo in the southern or western suburbs of Beijing, and you can sell tickets to the common people. A few days of free open days are set up every month, so that everyone can see and see."

Speaking of these animals, on the surface they are rare birds and animals, but they actually represent the powerful national power of Ming Dynasty. For example, this kangaroo, Ming Dynasty had already set sail and landed in Australia a few years ago. After several years of continuous exploration, not only found A safe route, and several colonial strongholds have been established there. Although it is too far away, it has not been developed much yet. At most, some criminals who have committed the most crimes will be dispatched there, and some clan princes will be rewarded with some land. Let them develop their own.

But Ming Dynasty was indeed the first country to establish a ruling order on it, and some of the rather primitive barbaric natives were conquered.

Now it mainly relies on raising sheep and transporting wool back to the Central Plains. The other is to catch slaves and catch some strange animals to sell back to the Central Plains.

Compared with Australia, after the Ming Dynasty went north to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, it successively established many strongholds along the coast of the Far East, recruited the natives, and engaged in fur trade. Even under the guidance of the emperor, the Liu Dynasty also followed the Bering Strait , went west to North America, along the coast of Alaska, and went south, where they met Indians. Because these people looked like Orientals, Zhu Yihai said that they were immigrants from wealthy merchants in the past. Many people really believed that America is now called For the Yin Shang Continent, those people are called Yin people.

Although the Ming Dynasty was not the first to come to North America, it was relatively early to come from the north, especially from the west coast. Nowadays, many European companies are also hunting furs here and trading with the natives. The Dutch, the French, and the British have already done it. Very powerful.

Several major powers frantically occupy their spheres of influence over there.

Even Zhu Yihai couldn't help sighing. Driven by the huge profits of the fur trade, he only pointed in one direction. Now, many maritime merchant forces, represented by the Royal Shaofu Supervisor of the Ming Dynasty, have set sail one after another, and they have also begun to go to sea. The road to overseas colonization.

Not only did it take a few years to eradicate the dataless points that Tsarist Russia had built up in Siberia for decades, it even captured tens of thousands of Tsarist Russian immigrants as slaves and transported them back to the interior. Qudumei, Yakutia, Buryatia, Dahuer, Altan, Huite, Ergiz... One after another, the Khanates and Duhufu in the extreme north were established. Respect Daming as the main one.

Those large and small strongholds established by the Tsarist Russians in the east are now flying the sun and moon red flag of Ming Dynasty.

Although Emperor Alexei of Tsarist Russia also tried to send troops to fight for it, he could rely on Cossacks and muskets and iron cannons to advance eastward. When facing the natives, it was a dimension-reducing blow, but when facing the current Ming army, it pales in comparison. The ammunition is stronger, more numerous, and the reinforcements are faster. The relationship between Ming and the natives is also closer. The several expeditions of Tsarist Russia were actually just a few thousand people, but after they lost those strongholds, they crossed the Ural Mountains. Not far away, it began to be difficult to get an inch.

The bastion expanded by the Ming army on the basis of their previous fortress was even stronger, with artillery, wall guns, and soldiers from the town, as well as the aborigines recruited and settled near the castle, as well as those adventurous fur traders and hunters. There were policemen gathered in all directions, crushing the Tsarist Russians in all aspects. They came down several times, lost soldiers and generals, and sent many young and strong slave laborers to Far East Tun Town for nothing.

After a few times, the young Tsar Alexei no longer dared to go east, and even had to build a large number of castles in the Ural Mountains and gather troops to prevent the Ming army from counterattacking.

It's just that the Ming army did not cross the mountain range to invade in a large scale. The emperor ordered that the mountain be the boundary, and the east of the mountain is the territory of Ming Dynasty, and the west of the mountain is ignored.

Siberia is so vast, and there are still too few strongholds based on the hundred or so strongholds.

The oriental fur that once brought one-third of the country's tax revenue to Tsarist Russia was taken away by Daming at once. Now Daming is the largest fur supplier in Europe, especially high-end fur.The old Maozi has not had a good time these years. He has been repeatedly taught by countries such as Poland and Sweden, and he will not even be able to compete for a Baltic Sea estuary.

Tsarist Russia has been in power for more than [-] years since Ivan III drove away the Mongols and unified the principalities in the northeastern part of Russia into the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Annexing other countries and expanding the territory six times, especially after marrying Princess Sophia, the niece of the last emperor of Byzantium, the status of Russia has risen sharply, and even said that Moscow is the third Rome, and Ivan III even promulgated laws to convert the double-headed eagle from Rome Established as a symbol of Russia, it is regarded as the orthodox successor of the Eastern Roman Empire. After Ivan III's grandson IV succeeded to the throne, he directly changed his title to the Tsar (Caesar), no longer called the Grand Duchy of Moscow, but changed his name to Tsarist Russia.

When the IV was in power, he always wanted a warm outlet to the sea to establish the status of Tsarist Russia and make Tsarist Russia truly the successor of Rome.

In his poor life, the expedition destroyed the Kazan Khanate and the Astrakhan Khanate, and then annexed the Great Nogai Khanate and Bashkiria, making many tribes in the North Caucasus submit to Tsarist Russia, and Tsarist Russia also fell in one fell swoop. Open up the Caspian Sea.

Then he went on an expedition to the Siberian Khanate.

Since then, the attempt to seize the outlet of the Baltic Sea has consumed a lot of national power and involved the entire major countries of the Baltic Sea, but ultimately failed.

Since then, Tsarist Russia’s policy has been to turn to the east, hoping to obtain more financial resources by conquering Siberia and the Far East, and even Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Heilongjiang and other places, and support them to continue to compete with Poland, Sweden, etc. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, and the Eastern Ming Dynasty once again revived , gave them a blow to the head.

Tsarist Russia failed to counterattack several times, and spent a lot of national power by relying on nothing. In addition, they lost a large amount of income from the East. This made Poland and Sweden start to clean up Tsarist Russia again. Resisting Russia, refusing to pay tribute to Tsarist Russia, not to mention accepting their military service, refusing to fight for them, this made Tsarist Russia worse.

A few sticks were beaten back to its original shape, the efforts of Ivan III and IV were in vain, and Tsarist Russia was once again turned into a quasi-landlocked country, leaving only the northern seaport, but those ports that are almost frozen all year round, for them , how many is equal to none.

Northern Europe has Sweden as the overlord, and Eastern Europe also has Poland as the hero. For a while, Tsarist Russia was blocked in the west, and now the east is blocked again, so we can only go back to the old road to develop in the Caspian Sea, but today’s Torghut and Nogai are not the same as before. Yes, with Daming's support, his attitude is very tough.

Coupled with the powerful alliance between the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, after forming the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania, after a hundred years of unprecedented prosperity, it is a veritable Eastern European hegemon, and almost the entire Ukraine is also under their control.Under the ravages of the 30-year war in Europe, the strength of all European countries has been greatly damaged, and only the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania still has strength.

Poland can single out Tsarist Russia, Sweden, and Ottoman countries.

After Tsarist Russia was frustrated in the east, Alexei could only go south. According to Zhu Yihai's information, Tsarist Russia attempted to invade Ukraine. They secretly instigated and supported the Cossack riots in order to shake Poland's rule over Ukraine, and even secretly provoked Sweden, intending to unite with Sweden Send troops to Poland.

War is everywhere.

For Zhu Yihai, Torghut on the Volga River in the Caspian Sea and Nogai on the Ural River in the Aral Sea are both Zhu Yihai's vassal states in the far west, and the border of the westernmost sphere of influence of the Ming Dynasty. Disputes in the West are fun to watch.

The Crimean Tatars supported the Cossack riots against Poland, and the Tsarist Russians secretly instigated support. In fact, the Turghuts also participated in it, and they also supported it behind the scenes. They even started a trade of arms for slaves with the Cossacks and Crimea. .

It’s just that the Turghuts are not just trying to resell Ming’s arms to make money, they also have their own ideas about the Ukrainian prairie, and they all want to take advantage of the opportunity to make money. Zhu Yihai’s support for Eastern Europe is even more chaotic, so that they can sell more weapons and buy them cheaper Slavic slaves can also make Turhut stronger over there.

As the westernmost vassal of Ming Dynasty, Turhut is naturally also the bridgehead in Europe. Only when he is strong can he keep the enemy out.

Tsar Akshay's mission is now in Beijing, negotiating with Ming Dynasty, preparing to sign an armistice agreement and reach a formal territorial demarcation agreement.

Tsarist Russia was also forced to come to the negotiations. Although Zhu Yihai did not intend to cross the Ural Mountains, he did a lot of fake moves, especially now that the Turghut and Nogai vassal states in the Caspian Sea made Tsarist Russia feel uneasy and very scared. The Ming Dynasty will continue to advance westward. If it unites with Poland and Sweden, Tsarist Russia may be divided up by then.

In desperation, they had no choice but to seek peace, hoping to sign an armistice agreement, and at the same time hoped to reopen trade with Ming Dynasty, and even obtain arms purchases from Ming Dynasty, and even war loans, so as to prepare for the next Ukrainian war.

All parties are hindered, Tsarist Russia now has no choice but to focus on Ukraine, ready to grab this territory from Poland, and directly open up the Black Sea outlet. For this goal, he can only compromise with the eastern powers, and even hope to reunite with Daming. Reached a number of treaties such as fur trade, arms procurement, and war loans.

Zhu Yihai was very wary of the aggressive Tsarist Russia, but this time when Tsarist Russia came, Zhu Yihai was willing to make a treaty with them, and even gave them loans and sold arms, hoping that they could continue to fight with Poland, Crimea, etc. Get up, the more intense the fight, the better.

"His Majesty?"

Concubine Ruan saw that the emperor was in a daze, and called out softly.

"Ok?"

"Your Majesty is tired?"

"Oh, I just remembered something. By the way, I have been back for a few days, but I have been busy all the time. You can set a date and arrange it. There will be a family banquet in the palace, and our family will have fun together. Let the prince Bring all the wives, concubines and children from the Eastern Palace, and the king of Han also came back, let his whole family come too."

Zhu Yihai has many sons and daughters. Although he has lost interest in women due to illness, he has accepted many concubines over the years, so he still has 39 sons and 42 daughters, excluding the second prince who died in war in Nanjing and the son of Huang Concubine who died young. And several daughters, there are still 81 children, one more than Song Huizong.

Among a group of sons and daughters, the eldest son and third son are now adults, and they all marry wives and have children. Among the daughters, the eldest daughter has also reached the age of marriage.

In addition, Zhu Yihai also adopted five adoptive sons and three adopted daughters, not counting the adopted princesses who were given the title of emperor's adopted daughters by extramarital vassals.

Zhu Yihai planned to arrange a frontier fiefdom for the princes at this family banquet, and the princesses would also share some of Tangmu's fiefdom and property, so it could be regarded as a family division in advance.

(End of this chapter)