Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1113 1108 [Mobei Dramatic Change]

After selling three rose stones in Luoyang, Wang Chongdu, Li Zuqia and others left Beijing, anxious to return and organize gold diggers to go to Australia.

At this time, the Military Intelligence Department received a telegram.

Telegram from Han Shizhong!

Shi Yuangong had retired and returned to his hometown, and Ma Kuo took over his position.

Ma Kuo, Zhang Guangdao, Li Bao and others hurried to the side hall of the Chuigong Hall to attend the imperial meeting with the cabinet ministers.

Ma Kuo, who was usually in charge of intelligence analysis, gave everyone a basic introduction: "Belu Khan of the Kerey tribe was injured when he broke through the siege and died soon after returning to the tribe. He had more than 30 sons..."

Historically, Beilu Khan had forty sons, but in this time and space, they died before they had the chance to have so many sons.

One of the sons, Wang Han, was only thirteen or fourteen years old at the time.

"When Beilu Khan unified the Kereyid tribe, many tribes were not conquered by him by force. In order to consolidate his rule, Beilu Khan appointed many of his sons and sent them to rule various tribes, which led to increasing conflicts with some of the small tribes under his rule."

"This time, a small tribe rebelled. When Beilu Khan sent troops to Mongolia, they revealed Beilu Khan's whereabouts to the Mongols. The Mongols took advantage of the fact that the Kereyid army had not yet completed its assembly and ambushed and defeated the Kereyid tribe. Beilu Khan's wife and several sons were all captured..."

"After breaking out of the siege, Beilu Khan was seriously wounded and died. His eldest son Toli and his brother Jur Khan gathered troops to resist. They fought with the Mongols many times and ceded land to negotiate peace."

"After the Mongolian army retreated, Toli claimed to be the successor to the throne of Beilu Khan and sent envoys to Han Shizhong to ask for the title. His brothers were dissatisfied, so he lured and killed more than 20 of them in one go, and took the opportunity to annex their tribes and pastures..."

The ministers were shocked when they heard this. What a ruthless man! He killed more than 20 brothers at will.

"Toli's uncle, Jurghan, was shrewd and did not attend the meeting hosted by Toli. After learning that Toli had killed more than 20 brothers, Jurghan immediately united all the tribes and sent troops. Toli had just annexed his brothers' tribes, and the people were unstable and the army was in chaos. They were defeated and surrendered to the Mongols with the remnants of their tribe."

"The Mongols sent troops to help Toli regain the Khanate, and took the opportunity to cut off a large area of ​​the Kereyid tribe's pasture."

"Gurhan was defeated by Toli and the Mongolian coalition forces. He took the remnants of his army south to seek refuge with Han Shizhong and asked the Ming Dynasty to send troops to help..."

The Jurhan here is of course not Yelu Dashi, but the younger brother of Beilu Khan, the former chief of the Kerait tribe.

Ma Kuo pointed to the map of Mobei and said, "Mobei is now dominated by the Mongolian tribes, and the Kereyid tribe has been torn apart. Although Toli borrowed troops from Mongolia and nominally unified the Kereyid tribe again, he killed his brothers and ceded land twice, which made him very unpopular in the Kereyid tribe."

In fact, in addition to Toli's uncle Jurghan who defected to Han Shizhong, Toli's other brother, Yelihela, also led the remnants of his troops westward to defect to the Naiman tribe north of the Anxi Protectorate.

The Naiman tribe has always wanted to get involved in the northern desert, and it is very likely that they will send troops next year to help Yelihe assassinate and seize power from the Kerait tribe.

The Ming court was still unaware of this news.

The ministers looked at the map and listened to Ma Kuo's explanation, and soon they all understood the situation in Mobei.

Li Bao said: "This series of events happened too quickly, and neither Han Shizhong nor Yue Fei had time to stop it. If we sit back and do nothing, the Mongols will most likely unify the northern desert."

Historically, the traitors of the Kerey tribe led the Tatar tribe to ambush and raid, which tore the Kerey tribe apart. At that time, the Mongolian tribes were also suppressed by the Jin Kingdom and the Tatar tribe, and they could barely protect themselves but were unable to expand.

Now that the Tatar tribe and the Jin Dynasty are gone, the stronger Mongolian tribes will naturally not miss the opportunity to seize the fragmented Kereyid tribe.

After some discussion, Zhu Ming made a decision: "Next year, the troops will march north in three groups: Yue Fei in the east, Han Shizhong in the middle, and Liu Qi in the west. Yue Fei will go straight to the Mongolian tribes. Han Shizhong and Liu Qi will first attack the Kereyid tribe, and then march east to join forces with Yue Fei. Li Yanxian will still be the commander-in-chief, but Mobei is too far away, so Li Yanxian can stay in Linhuang and coordinate from the rear. The specific battle method will be decided by the frontline generals."

Li Yanxian accepted the order.

As the head coach, he failed to achieve full success in the battle against Xinjiang and was recalled to Beijing before he could capture Yili.

This time he will serve as the commander-in-chief again, and he will only stay in the south of the desert. Basically, he will come back to gain some military merits. In the future, he will no longer lead troops like Zhang Guangdao and Li Bao.

The ministers of the cabinet and the ministries dispersed one after another and returned to their respective offices to discuss specific plans.

As for Yue Fei and Han Shizhong, after conquering the northern desert, they would both be promoted and return to Beijing. They had served as protectors in the southern desert for ten years and could not continue to do so, otherwise they would become warlords sooner or later.

In the future, if there is any major war, such as the destruction of Western Liao, Yue Fei or Han Shizhong will most likely be the commander-in-chief. The two will take turns, and after winning a few more battles in the Western Regions, they will not lead the troops on the front line again.

Since my readers don’t like watching wars, I won’t write about the details of the battle in Mobei.

Of course, before the Ming Dynasty sent troops, it had to send an envoy first.

After all, the Mongolian and Kereyid tribes were both vassal states of the Ming Dynasty, so it was against etiquette to deal with them without saying a word.

The two groups of envoys headed north separately.

A group of envoys went to rebuke the Mongolian tribe and asked them to return the territory of the Kereyid tribe that they had occupied this year.

A group of envoys went to the Kereyid tribe, denounced Toli for slaughtering more than 20 of his brothers, and ordered Toli to come to Luoyang in person next year to apologize.

The other party is definitely unwilling, so don't blame the Ming Dynasty for sending troops.

……

But when Li Zuqia passed through Chuzhou, after some deception, more than a hundred tribesmen were willing to go out to sea with him.

They are all descendants of the Li family implicated in the Huainan case. Many of them have lost their qualifications for the imperial examinations, and the rest are also because of the decline of their families.

The treasure-hunting trio also sent people back to their hometown in Shanxi, each recruiting dozens of fellow tribesmen.

The crews under their command were also recruiting their fellow countrymen to go to sea. There were more than 600 people from the same clan and hometown alone. Together with the poor people from Fujian and Guangdong provinces who were attracted by gold, the number of people going to Australia in the first wave unexpectedly reached more than 1300.

The treasure hunting trio's boats were not big enough to carry the treasure as they still had to bring a lot of supplies with them.

So, they recruited two Fujian and Guangdong merchants to join them and formed a fleet of 15 ships.

By the way, the boat people along the coasts of Fujian and Guangdong provinces have disappeared.

If given a choice, who would want to be a boatman forever?
Some of the Tanka people went to Taiwan, where they farmed and fished.

Some of the Tanka people went to Jiaozhi, and some went to the Kingdom of Southern Yu. All of these people were recruited by Zhu Kang.

Zhu Kang recruited immigrants crazily, recruiting five to six hundred people from Fujian and Guangdong every year. If the imperial court had not banned the Han people from Guangxi from migrating, Zhu Kang would probably have set his sights on Guangxi.

There were even some scholars from Fujian and Guangdong who had failed the imperial examinations many times and took the initiative to go to the Kingdom of Southern Henan to seek refuge with Zhu Kang, because they could really be valued if they went there.

They built the Temple of Confucius and the Temple of Martial Arts in Southern Yu State, promoted various books of the Ming Dynasty, and planned to establish an imperial examination system in the future.

Today's Southern Yu Kingdom has two administrative systems.

A system that imitated the Ming Dynasty, enforced Confucianism, and supported Buddhism and Taoism, was used to govern Zhu Kang's direct jurisdiction.

A set of old Champa system was continued, Brahmanism and Buddhism were popular, and there were many princes and hereditary nobles.

Civil strife is bound to break out sooner or later, and Zhu Kang will have to fight a few more battles to suppress those disobedient princes.

Of course, there were also some princes and nobles who took the initiative to accept Chinese culture.

To put it bluntly, they admire and fear the strong. They imitate the Han people's dressing and pursue various fashion trends. At the same time, they continue to believe in Brahmanism and Buddhism, and have no interest in Confucianism and Taoism.

As long as Zhu Kang does not send troops to fight, these local princes will not rebel on their own initiative.

Although he was called a prince of a local state, in fact, his territory was only one or two counties.

Even Zhu Kang's direct jurisdiction was only the size of three or four counties, and he could only barely maintain military expenses by relying on income from maritime trade and tribute from local states.

However, Zhu Kang still had a lot of inventory. When he fought against Jinnah, he not only robbed a lot of wealth, but also received war reparations from Jinnah. In addition, when he led his troops south from Jiaozhi, he also took a lot of money and food away.

When there are more and more Han people under his direct jurisdiction and there is not enough land to go around, Zhu Kang will send troops again.

The first one to be fought was the King of Bintonglong (the prince of the local state), because Bintonglong was a very prosperous trading port.

We can't just attack blindly, otherwise the princes and nobles of the local states will definitely form a group.

We can first increase the tribute of King Bintonglong, and then use the excuse of not obeying the king's order to attack him. The other princes are already jealous of the port, and they may even gloat over the misfortune.

Or he could sow discord between King Bintonglong and the prince, causing them to fight among themselves, and then Zhu Kang would take action after the fight became a mess.

By turning Bintonglong into a direct-controlled territory, monopolizing the port profits there, and distributing the land to Han immigrants, Zhu Kang could double his power in Southern Yu State.

"Raise the sail!"

The fleet heading south to Australia replenished its supply of fresh water at Bintonglong, set sail and sailed further and further away.

Although this place is under the rule of the princes of the local state, there are already some Chinese-style buildings in the port, which are shops opened by maritime merchants from Fujian and Guangdong provinces.

The ports and docks are even more amazing.

Eight out of ten merchant ships docked at the port were owned by Han Chinese merchants. Many Han Chinese merchants and crew members could be seen coming and going at the dock.

Since the fall of Srivijaya, Han Chinese maritime merchants have rapidly seized market share.

Their commercial warfare methods were simple and crude. Major maritime and land merchants joined forces to lower prices, forcing foreign ships coming to China to sell their goods at low prices.

Over the years, the number of foreign merchant ships coming to China has decreased.

Arab and Seljuk merchants often sold their goods in India and Ceylon, and at most sailed their ships to the Strait of Malacca. Most of the South China Sea merchants were also forced to take the Indian route.

The trade route from Guangzhou to Southeast Asia has been occupied by Han Chinese merchants!
The situation has changed a bit now.

After forcing foreign merchants away, Ming Dynasty merchants began to fiercely inward-looking. As more and more ships went out to sea, it was impossible for the big merchants to monopolize the business, which led to the increasingly prosperous ship leasing business.

That is, the ship owners themselves do not sell goods, or sell less goods. They divide the cabin into many parts and rent them to small merchants who do not have money to buy ships but want to engage in maritime trade. As long as there is no shipwreck, they will make a profit.

It is possible that the goods in the same cabin belong to more than a dozen different small merchants.

This model existed in the Northern Song Dynasty, but it was not mainstream.

Nowadays, it is becoming more and more common. Some people even scrape together a few hundred strings of cash to rent a space, buy goods and go out to sea. When there are too many similar goods, they often lose everything; but if they are lucky, they may make five or ten times the profit.

The treasure hunting trio went to Australia this time, and there were more than a dozen gold diggers who were heavily in debt from maritime trade.

(End of this chapter)