Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 391 Filial Son of the Ming Dynasty
"Your Highness, if we hold back and give in, the Ming army will definitely have to look forward to Shu. Let's send troops!"

"Send troops, Your Highness..."

On a cold winter day, in the Changdeok Palace in Seoul, North Korea, as dozens of ministers knelt down and sat at the top, a man in his forties dressed in the costume of a Ming Dynasty prince remained silent.

This silent man is now North Korea's powerful official Li Bangyuan, and the courtiers who fell to their knees are supporters of Zheng Daojun's old ministry who have always advocated the armed invasion of Liaodong.

Zheng Dao was a representative figure of the pro-Ming faction during the Goryeo Dynasty. He advocated doing great things to the Ming Dynasty and opposed the envoy to the Northern Yuan Dynasty.

However, after he went to the Ming Dynasty as an envoy, his attitude towards the Ming Dynasty suddenly changed, and on the way back to his country, he vented to his own envoy: "It's good, it's good, don't come and compete!"

This statement was detected by the Ming Dynasty and passed to Zhu Yuanzhang, who began to be wary of Zheng Daochuan.

In the 29th year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang said that the words of greetings and memoranda sent by North Korea were "frivolous and insulting". He successively detained several envoys of North Korea and asked Li Chenggui to hand over Zheng Daochuan. However, Li Chenggui handed over many officials but never handed them over. Zheng Daozhuan.

For this reason, Zhu Yuanzhang angrily exiled these North Korean officials to Yunnan. It was not until Li Fangyuan came to power that Zhu Di forgave these people and returned them to North Korea.

Under the circumstances of the deterioration of relations between Ming and Qian, Zheng Daochuan and his comrades Nan Ji and Shen Xiaosheng urged Li Chenggui to attack Liaodong, believing that they should not only seize Liaodong, but also seize the Central Plains like the Northern Wei, Jin, and Yuan Dynasties.

In comparison, the best way is to hand over this place to Daming, then have a good talk with Daming, and move away Meng Brother Timur and others.

After getting Li Fangyuan's attention, everyone understood his thoughts. Quan Jin quickly came out and scolded: "The benefits to us of our father's country entering the East China Sea to recruit Jurchens are self-evident."

This gap gradually widened after Zhu Di came to power and Zhu Gaoxu took charge of the country.

Li Zhongshan came out and bowed and said: "Since my father's country accepted Japan as a vassal, the commander of Zhengdu, who was just a vassal, has rescued our country's people who have been kidnapped by Japanese pirates seventeen times, and more than 2,600 people have been rescued. people."

A military attache appeared at the palace gate, and then he kowtowed five times and kowtowed three times: "Your Highness, there is news from Ping'an Road."

Because of this, from the first year of Yongle to the fifth year of Yongle, he kept sending officials to the Ming Dynasty to discuss matters in Helan Mansion, but Zhu Gaoxu came back every time.

"Speak!" Although Li Fangyuan has become the de facto king of North Korea, he has not changed many habits and speaks more directly.

In order to ease the relationship between North Korea and the Jurchens, Li Fangyuan chose to give the Jurchen leader a title, encourage him to enter the capital as a guard, and allow him to marry Koreans.

After all, when border troubles were discussed, there was a lot of border friction between North Korea and Ming Dynasty. It was not until the end of the Yongle Fifth Military Parade that the frictions between the two sides began to gradually decrease and disappear.

It can be said that the current fierce brother Timur and others are no longer the savages they once were, but a fierce small country with an organizational structure.

After the Ming Dynasty overthrew Annan, made Japan a vassal, and recruited dozens of countries in Southeast Asia as vassals, Li Fangyuan immediately sent his son Li Bao to Nanjing.

"Your Highness!"

Not only that, North Korea also provided horses, servants, clothing, saddles and food, etc., and traded with the Jurchens in Jingcheng and Qingyuan.

Quan Jin even suspected that once the Ming army retreated, Timur, the fierce brother, would take advantage of North Korea's domestic fatigue and lead his troops south to plunder North Korea.

If North Korea was not poor enough, and there were a lot of people like Quan Jin who were working for the diplomatic relations between the two countries, perhaps Zhu Gaoxu would be the first to conquer Annan, but North Korea.

The population of the Ming Dynasty was unable to develop and immigrate to the Northeast and Korean Peninsula, Southwest and Indochina at the same time.

Quan Jin is known to everyone as a die-hard pro-Ming dynasty. In fact, he is not pro-Ming Dynasty. Rather than being pro-Ming Dynasty, it is better to say that he is aware of the gap between North Korea and Ming Dynasty.

As Li Bangyuan thought, footsteps sounded outside Changdeok Palace.

"The land of Xianjing belongs to the land of Jin and Yuan, and women often cause chaos. Now my father's country is willing to pacify this place. It will be of great benefit to our country's northern frontier without any harm. How can we refuse?"

Since receiving the support of the Ming Dynasty, Ahachu, Fudaha, Mengge Timur and others began to frequently rob North Korean soldiers and civilians in Hamgyong Province.

Facing the ministers in front of him, Li Fangyuan turned his attention to Quan Jin, Li Zhongshan, Xu Mixing, Cui Zhou and other pro-Ming factions.

Li Chenggui was moved by their words, so he strictly ordered the soldiers across the country to practice the "Array Diagram".

"Your Highness, the captive chieftains used to rely on the Celestial Empire to plunder our cities and towns, but now that they see the Celestial Empire's appeasement and are unwilling to give up their power, they are trying to join forces with our country to resist the Celestial Empire."

For him, it was enough as long as North Korea was obedient enough and Ming Dynasty could take over Donghai Mansion.

Quan Jin stood up to analyze the pros and cons. He simply did not believe that Timur would submit to North Korea after repelling the Ming army. If he really wanted to submit, why not directly submit to the powerful Ming Dynasty, but instead came to submit to the weak one? Korea?
In the final analysis, he just wanted to use North Korea to resist the Ming army.

Now that Daming has entered Helan Mansion and changed Helan Mansion to Donghai Mansion, this makes Li Fangyuan very nervous, but it is impossible for him to start a direct war with Daming.

In Nanjing, Li Zhu told Li Fangyuan about the Ming Dynasty's military parade, which shocked Li Fangyuan. Especially when the news of Zheng He's destruction of Ceylon reached North Korea soon, it shocked Li Fangyuan even more. He didn't dare to mention anything about Helan Mansion.

"Even if our army repels the heavenly army, the captive chieftain will never surrender to our court."

At the end of last year, Fudaha of the Udiha tribe, together with Ahachu, Mengge Timur and others, dispatched a total of 500 cavalry and 2,000 horse infantry to plunder Jingcheng, and nearly a thousand Koreans died in the war.

Of course, although Li Fangyuan did not approve of attacking Liaodong, the Ming Dynasty, but he also did not approve of allowing the Ming Dynasty to regain the lost territory of Fulan Mansion.

"If this is the case, you will raise troops to conquer and restore the country. How will other vassal states view us?"

In this case, even if the Ming Dynasty handed over the Hamjing Road area to North Korea, North Korea would still need to dispatch tens of thousands of troops to encircle and suppress Mengge Timur and others, and the gains would outweigh the losses.

These past frictions can be used as an excuse to conquer North Korea, but Zhu Gaoxu despises this place.

"Hmph!" Before the military attaché finished speaking, Li Fangyuan snorted.

He admitted that he was no match for Zhu Di and Zhu Gaoxu, but Timur, the fierce brother, was worthy of joining forces with him even though he was no good.

Although the Jurchens were crazily massacred by the Mongols and were almost extinct, over time they gradually developed in the white mountains and black waters of the Northeast.

If Li Fangyuan hadn't launched the first prince's rebellion and killed Zheng Daozhuan and his associates in the army, this group of people might have caused something bigger.

"News came from the Ping'an Road that Ahachu, Fudaha and other Udiha barbarians have accepted the Ming Dynasty's appeasement. Meng brother Timur sent a message to our country, hoping to unite our country to resist the Chinese army. After that, he is willing to submit to me... "

"The coast of our country is also peaceful because of the navy of our father's country."

Li Zhongshan's words received nods of approval from many officials.

"Also, can any of you lead an army to conquer your father's country and win consecutive battles?"

"Did you hear everything?"

Li Fangyuan looked down on Timur, the fierce brother, and at this moment, he took advantage of Quan Jin's words to speak to the group of Confucian scholars who kept saying that he would become enemies of the Ming Dynasty and even attack Liaodong.

"Xianjing Road is not the homeland of our country, but the land of the Celestial Empire. It is a blessing for our country that the Celestial Empire enters the area today to appease the barbarians."

Li Fangyuan took the opportunity to express his attitude towards the Ming Dynasty, and said sternly to the kneeling officials: "From now on, anyone who instigates relations between North Korea and China will be exiled to Waihua Island."

"Your Highness..."

When the ministers heard this, some cried and begged, while others sang loudly about His Highness' wisdom as if they were near the throne.

"Transmit my military order to have the soldiers and horses in the cities of Hamgyeong Province withdraw to Ping'an Road and Gangwon Province without any mistake."

"I obey your orders..."

Many military attachés breathed a sigh of relief. They had all seen the power of the Ming Dynasty's military parade. They scorned and were frightened at the words of the civil servants about "taking Liaodong".

With North Korea's strength, let alone heading to Liaodong, even crossing the Yalu River is questionable. After all, Dingliao Mansion has a permanent navy stationed in the Yalu River, and the North Korean navy is obviously not their opponent.

"He Lun, Zuo Zhengcheng, will send an envoy to the Celestial Dynasty today to bring the words of Meng Brother Timur to Nanjing and tell His Majesty and the East Palace that this prisoner is determined to be a traitor. If the Celestial Dynasty needs it, the imperial court can serve as a subordinate to help send troops to quell the rebellion."

"In addition, since something happened in Japan, I just took this opportunity to ask the imperial court about its attitude towards Japan's shipping trade."

For Li Fangyuan, the land in Xianjingdao was destined to be lost, but he still wanted to take a bite of Japan's trade.

North Korea is not rich in gold and silver. Although there are gold and silver mines, the quantity is very small and the output is very low.

Therefore, for North Korea, Japan, across the sea, is undoubtedly its largest importer of silver and copper coins.

Previously, the Ming Dynasty directly opened a shipping department on the Yinqi Islands, which caused North Korea to lose its original identity as a second-tier dealer.

If Ming Dynasty can withdraw from the Japanese market this time and let North Korea take over, the money shortage problem that has arisen among North Korean people will undoubtedly be solved well.

With this thought, the court meeting in Changdeok Palace also came to an end.

After the court meeting, the civil and military officials went about their lives. At the same time, the area near Haiyang City in Donghai Prefecture was also in full swing.

In this coastal place, more than ten thousand Jurchens wearing coarse cloth and animal skins are widening and thickening the wall.

Although the soil of Donghai Mansion was hard in winter, under the supervision of nearly a thousand soldiers, many Jurchens dared not speak out and kept their heads down while working.

The city wall made of rammed earth and stone was two feet high, nearly two feet thick, and two miles in circumference.

In the eyes of many Jurchens, such a city wall is very strong, and they cannot imagine that any siege equipment can destroy it.

However, behind their work, in front of the small stone courtyard in the city, a short and stocky man in his forties with braided hair hanging down his shoulders was scanning the entire city.

The small courtyard where he is located is the highest point of the city. The entire city is built on the mountain, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack.

But even so, he was still a little worried.

Although they had never participated in the Nanjing military parade and did not know why Fudaha and Ahachu surrendered to the Ming Dynasty so honestly, in his opinion, if the Ming Dynasty wanted to take away any benefits without giving them any benefits, they would want to take it away from him. With tens of thousands of tribesmen, he will use his strength to tell Ming Dynasty that he is not easy to mess with.

Looking at his stubborn look, a woman over fifty years old walked out of the courtyard behind him: "Son, if you don't accept the order, when the imperial army arrives, you will be taken away to Nanjing."

"Mom, you don't need to persuade me. Now I am no longer the small leader with only over a thousand people."

Faced with his mother's persuasion, Timur stubbornly believed that he needed to let Daming see his strength, so that he would take him seriously.

"I heard that all the ministries in the north that disobeyed the imperial court have been wiped out. Although you are strong now, can you still be stronger than Xiyang Ha back then?"

Xiyang Ha is undoubtedly a legendary figure among the Jurchen tribes in the early Ming Dynasty, but even such a figure could not escape the fate of being rectified by the Ming Dynasty. Ye Wuju does not think that his son is stronger than Xiyang Ha back then. After all, behind Xiyang Ha there is Wu Liangha, and behind his son is Daming.

Now that it has developed, I feel that Ming Dynasty is no longer useful. This is obviously unreasonable.

"Mother, watch and see how I defeat that general named Chen."

Meng Brother Timur still maintained his confidence, and when he saw this, Wuju could only sigh and returned to the yard, while Meng Brother Timur was still looking at the continuously fortified city.

In the next few days, Chen Chang continued to cut down trees and build official roads, while Mengge Timur strengthened the city defense and smelted the iron he had obtained from the Ming army into rough armor.

As for North Korea, they made the right choice. The news of Timur's betrayal was brought to Dengzhou City by the envoy He Lun.

The prefect of Dengzhou learned the news and immediately arranged a sea ship to escort Helun southward.

By the time He Lun arrived in Nanjing, it was already the end of the winter moon.

In this era when the average temperature is one degree colder than in later generations, the snowfall in winter is undoubtedly half a month or even a month earlier than in later generations.

Therefore, when He Lun was received and entered the palace, the entire Forbidden City had become a world of red walls and white snow.

The eunuchs were clearing away the snow. When they saw Helun in the distance, they would show resentful eyes.

The main reason for showing such a look is because most of them are Koreans who were castrated and sent to the palace.

In addition to eunuchs, North Korea's beautiful women are also unique.

In the Forbidden City of Nanjing, there are probably more than 6,000 eunuchs and more than 2,000 maids living.

Among them, North Korean court ladies and eunuchs accounted for the majority. This time He Lun came to the Ming Dynasty and brought another hundred carefully selected North Korean court ladies, preparing to divide them into two parts and send them to the inner court and the East Palace.

"Your Highness, North Korean envoy He Lun has arrived."

In the Chunhe Hall, while Zhu Gaoxu was reviewing the memorials, the voices of the eunuchs on duty sounded outside the hall.

When Zhu Gaoxu heard this, he said without raising his head: "Xuan!"

To him, things like Timur's rebellion in Donghai Prefecture are just trivial matters, and even North Korea's national policy is trivial.

At the moment, his main attention is on the new policies in the four provinces of Shanhe.

Shanxi, Beizhili, and Henan have begun to implement administration. With the participation of 50,000 subordinate officials and 50,000 teachers, many customs in the three places have begun to be restrained. Land in various places has begun to be measured. Official schools have begun to be constructed and registration is allowed.

In addition, some previous projects that have been in disrepair have also been reported to nip hidden dangers in the bud.

In Zhu Gaoxu's view, the implementation of the New Deal is a waste of money, and this is also true.

With the elimination of more than 6,000 local subordinate officials in one capital and two provinces, the imperial court did save less than 70,000 dan in salary.

However, with the addition of 50,000 subordinate officials and 50,000 teachers, the salary expenditure of the three provinces immediately reached 3 million dan.

For the Ming Dynasty, this was almost one-tenth of the national land tax income, while the annual land tax income of one province and two provinces was only four million.

In other words, if you include the salaries and military pay of officials and garrison troops, one Beijing and two provinces will undoubtedly fall into negative income.

However, things cannot be viewed so simply. For example, with the influx of 100,000 subordinate officials and teachers this time, the problems of the entire one capital and two provinces have been exposed. Measuring acres of land, stationing troops to convert civilians, and registering the population since June alone have The Ming court benefited a lot.

Although it has only been half a year, all paper data of Beijing and two provinces have been improved.

First, more than thirty guards in one capital and two provinces took the lead in the reform. The result of the reform was that only nineteen guards were retained, and all of them were soldiers. The remaining twenty or so guards were all eliminated for the people, and the guards were The military camps and fields were divided equally according to the number of people.

The elimination of military stations in the three provinces will undoubtedly further reduce the already precarious military crop. However, this does not matter, because the number of military stations in Nanyang, Northeast and Southwest will increase day by day.

Zhu Gaoxu wanted to transform the interests of military attachés from the original two capitals and fourteen provinces to the Indochina Peninsula, Nanyang, and Northeastern regions.

Only in this way will these military attaches pay attention to these remote places while paying attention to their own interests.

Because now the guard stations guarding the border outside the two capitals and fourteen provinces not only need to organize farming, but also need to be responsible for the development and transfer of local minerals into Beijing.

How much they can compromise on this can be seen from the Mu family who are mining gold mines in Duogan.

According to the information given by Xichang spies, the gold mined by the Mu family in the Santang and Qamdo areas of Duogan last year was worth no less than 500 taels, but Mu Tu donated 200 taels to the court in the form of a donation.

In other words, Mu Tu left three hundred taels for himself.

For Zhu Gaoxu, he would not care about this. After all, the manpower and material resources for mining gold mines were paid by the guards themselves, and it was enough for the court to sit back and collect taxes.

Moreover, the imperial court's military stations in Nanyang, Annan and other places also continued to increase their grain supplies as time went by.

The Xuanwei Department of Jiugang alone has estimated that the amount of seed grain for Juntun this year has reached 700,000 shi, which is already a lot.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu turned his attention to the situation after measuring the fields and conducting population census in the three places of Beizhili.

At the same time, He Lun, who was an envoy to the Ming Dynasty, also walked into the Chunhe Hall and came to Zhu Gaoxu to bow five times and kowtow three times.

"Flat body, give me a seat."

Zhu Gaoxu said this calmly, and the eunuch on duty brought a chair for Helun.

"Thank you, Your Highness..."

He Lun bowed in return and then took his seat carefully.

After sitting down, he took a breath and bowed to Zhu Gaoxu: "Your Highness, Donghai Mansion..."

Zhu Gaoxu didn't find it strange when he told Meng Brother Timur that he was rebellious.

Mengge Timur was a frog in the well from the beginning. In history, just because he was not mentioned in the imperial edict, he stubbornly wanted to refuse to be promoted.

You must know that at that time, he had only more than a thousand people, and most of them were women and children.

If his mother hadn't persuaded him, he might have died there long ago.

Of course, the reason why he was unruly was that his vision was too small. After he accepted the recruitment and went to Nanjing, he immediately realized the power of Ming Dynasty and hugged Zhu Di's thigh tightly.

Zhu Di also liked him better, so he took him with him on the Northern Expedition. When he returned to Jianzhou Zuowei afterwards, Zhu Di also rewarded him with many things.

But all this is just his disguise, as can be seen from his son Dong Shan.

If Timur was really loyal to the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Gaoxu didn't believe how bad the Dong Shan he taught would be.

However, the reality is that after the Tumubao Incident, Dong Shan thought that the Ming Dynasty was weak, so he began to invade Liaodong and plundered the local people.

Not only that, Dong Shan also continued the tradition of Timur, the fierce brother. While accepting official positions in the Ming Dynasty, he also privately accepted official positions in North Korea, which can be said to be eating both ends.

If Zhu Jianshen hadn't been decisive and dispatched a large army to level Dongshan, which shocked the other Jurchens in Jianzhou and Haixi, then perhaps the Jurchens' plundering of Liaodong would have become increasingly frequent.

From Dong Shan himself, we can see what kind of person Meng Brother Timur is.

Now he is like a nouveau riche who has not left the countryside. He thinks that he is great if he has more than a thousand armored soldiers, and he is even powerful enough to repel the Ming army.

Although this kind of thing sounds funny, for Timur, who has never seen the colorful world outside, this is the world he thinks.

Since this is the world he thinks, Zhu Gaoxu doesn't mind breaking it.

"Send an order to Chen Chang and tell him not to worry about razing the Jianzhou Zhongwei."

Zhu Gaoxu's understatement made He Lun break into a cold sweat.

For North Korea, whose military force is weak, if it wants to defeat the Mengge Timur alone, it will require at least the mobilization of nearly 10,000 soldiers and horses from Ping'an Province and Gangwon Province.

But for the Ming Dynasty, Timur, the fierce brother, was like a bandit who showed off his power and could be defeated easily.

The gap between the two countries is constantly increasing, and all this mainly comes from...

He Lun looked at Zhu Gaoxu secretly, and after a moment he said: "Your Highness, I heard about the turmoil in Japan, so I want to ask the imperial court if North Korea can..."

He Lun relayed Li Fangyuan's words to Zhu Gaoxu intact, but Zhu Gaoxu still didn't put down his pen after listening, as if he thought it was a small matter.

"There will be no changes in Japan's affairs. Gu Ye already knows about the money shortage in North Korea."

"As for your money shortage, there is no need to worry. You can wait for the return of the Western Fleet."

Zhu Gaoxu was still understated, but He Lun became restless after hearing this: "The fleet is returning?"

"Yeah." Zhu Gaoxu responded and glanced up at He Lun: "What you want is available overseas, and it's easier to get it than from Japan."

"However, all the output of the Western Lands still has to travel through the Straits of Lac, so that the imperial court can extract taxes from it."

"Yes..." He Lun listened in a daze and wanted to ask more carefully, but after Zhu Gaoxu lowered his head, the eunuch on duty standing next to him poured a cup of tea for Zhu Gaoxu.

The meaning is obvious, it means seeing off guests.

Seeing this, He Lun could only stand up and salute, and walked out of Chunhe Hall in a daze.

When he turned around, Zhu Gaoxu raised his head and looked at He Lun's back.

With the current national power of North Korea, as long as it is separated from Northeast Asia, it will be a regional hegemon no matter where it is placed in the world.

How can we not make good use of such national power...

(End of this chapter)