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Chapter 380 Yes, we did it!

Before the first snow fell, the situation in Liaodong, which had just eased for a short time, suddenly changed again. The leader of the five inner Khalkha tribes, Zoliktuhunbatulu, personally sent an envoy to Jinzhou to meet with Kundulun Khan of the Aixin Kingdom and told him face to face that the marriage agreement between the two tribes was cancelled.

In order to make up for their failure to keep their word, the five Inner Khalkha tribes decided to withdraw from the land south of the border wall. From then on, the two sides did not interfere with each other. Nurhaci almost drew his sword and chopped down Zhurikuthunbatulu's envoy on the spot. It took him a long time to suppress the tightness in his chest.

This is so ridiculous. You just said something to me, but you turned around and refused to acknowledge it. However, no matter how much he asked, Zhurikuthunbatulu's envoy did not give a clear answer.

He just kept reasoning that the opinions of the lords of various ministries were not unified. The grand leader even asked Lin Danhan for his opinion, and that was the result. He knew nothing about other situations.

Seeing that nothing could be asked, Nurhachi stopped pressing. All previous efforts were in vain, and the soldiers who had just withdrawn had to be called back to continue to defend the Mongols.

There is still a long way to go between staying true to one's will and getting married. Although the Mongols withdrew to the north of the border wall, they could not be stopped by the Great Wall alone when they wanted to go south. The Jurchens did not have a large army like the Ming Dynasty to fortify everywhere. This land seemed easy to come by, but in fact it was not easy to swallow.

"...It's him again! Just wait, Zhu Changluo, sooner or later we will meet!"

But as the ancients said, paper cannot contain fire. The reason for the renegade of the five Inner Khalkha tribes quickly reached Nurhachi's ears. Then the Jurchen leader, who was called Kundulun Khan by the Mongols, became completely angry. He drew out his long knife and smashed half of the room in one go. While panting, he swore an oath bitterly.

It was not Lin Dan Khan who prevented the marriage between the five Khalkha tribes and the Jurchens, but the Ming Emperor. Not long after the peace talks between the two sides ended, the Ming army quietly came out of the border wall, followed the valley to the Daling River, and attacked two Bahrain tribes. Tens of thousands of sheep and thousands of horses were captured, along with hundreds of herdsmen.

However, the Ming army who took advantage of it did not disguise themselves or sneak away and disappear. Instead, they left Taiji from the Kailu tribe and asked him to bring a letter to Zhuoli, the leader of the five Khalkha tribes. Ketuhunbatulu.

Few people know the specific content of the letter, but its general meaning is not a secret and has been spread among the five Khalkha tribes. The letter was written by the emperor of the Ming Dynasty and stamped with a jade seal, so it must be correct.

In this letter, the Ming emperor warned Zhuriktuhunbatulu that if the five Khalkha tribes and the Jurchens were to marry or form an alliance, they would be the mortal enemies that the Ming Dynasty would first consider attacking.

Just hearing this part, most people will still be confused in their reaction to Choriktuhunbatulu. The Ming Dynasty, Jurchen Dynasty, and Khalkha Dynasty are at the intersection of each other, forming a triangular relationship. They have been fighting each other for many years. Generally speaking, no one has taken much advantage.

If either side wants to attack the other side, it must be prepared for a sneak attack by a third party. In this situation, the party that initiates the war not only cannot prevent the other two parties from forming an alliance, but can actually promote it.

Zhurikuthunbatulu is not a soft persimmon. He has been fighting for so many years before. How could he be frightened by a letter? Even a letter written by the emperor of the Ming Dynasty should not have such power.

Nurhachi thought the same way at the time, and he couldn't figure out Zhurikuthunbatulu's intention. But the news that came one after another not long afterward finally made him realize it, and then he smashed the room again. Zoliktuhunbatulu is neither stupid nor cowardly. Of course he knows how to handle the triangle relationship. If the emperor of the Ming Dynasty wanted to threaten the five Khalkha tribes with this kind of harmless harassment, he would have made a mistake. If the Mongols say they are second, no one would dare to say they are first!

But if he is going to face the dual pressure of the Ming Dynasty and the Karaqin tribe, Zhuolithunbatulu will have to think carefully about which end is more important and which is less important. At the same time that the Ming army attacked the Kailu tribe, a group of Ming envoys crossed the border wall from Gubeikou and penetrated deep into the hinterland of the Karaqin tribe.

However, they were not here for a sneak attack, but as peace envoys from the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. They wanted to discuss a very big matter with the leaders of the Kalaqin Tribe, Bian Que. The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty offered very attractive conditions to the Haraqin tribe, intending to use mutual trade between the two parties in exchange for the Haraqin tribe to form an alliance to jointly deal with the threat of the Jurchens in Liaodong.

Border disputes have always been the focus and pain point between nomadic peoples and farming peoples. The two sides have been fighting over this issue for hundreds of thousands of years, but still have not found a suitable solution.

Nomads have always lived by water and grass. They have summer pastures in the summer and winter camps in the winter. Sometimes the whole tribe has to migrate long distances. The so-called territorial pastures are basically temporary in nature. Their property consists of sheep, cattle and horses. Wherever the breeding of sheep and horses is suitable, that is their home.

This nomadic custom is very conducive to combat. Without settlements and cities, there are no weak points that need to be defended. Almost all the people are soldiers, and the logistical pressure is relatively light. They are very good at large-scale transfers and interspersions, and can often win more with less.

However, there are always two sides to everything. Their nomadic lifestyle destined them to be unable to develop large-scale industry and handicrafts. They were unable to produce many daily necessities themselves and had to rely on exchange.

But daily life is inseparable from these things, such as iron pots, iron kettles, porcelain, cloth, salt, tea, scriptures, books, etc. The farming people are best at making these things, but they are not very good at raising livestock on a large scale, especially horses.

At first glance, this problem seems to be easy to solve. The nomadic people exchange sheep and horses for the handicrafts and agricultural products of the farming people. The two sides exchange what they need, so they get the best of both worlds. Why bother to fight and kill.

But what seems to be a very simple problem is actually very complicated. To sum it up in one sentence, it means that transactions are not equal. The items that the nomadic people can exchange are too few, or the value is relatively low, and they cannot exchange the products of the farming people at reciprocal prices.

Let’s first take a look at what goods the nomads can exchange for. The largest number of them is sheep, then horses, animal furs and a small amount of gold, silver and gems.

In the eyes of farming people, sheep are just meat and are dispensable. Without mutton, they can still get enough protein from other animals, such as pigs, cows, chickens, ducks, fish, etc., so the value is not very high.

Animal furs and gold, silver and gems are very valuable, but the output is too small, and the nomads are not very good at finding mineral veins for large-scale mining. In fact, it would be of little use, as nomadic peoples do not have enough surplus labor for labor-intensive industries.

(End of this chapter)