Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 433 The Northern Expedition Ends
"There are dozens of pieces of information, but few of them are correct!"

"Why can the Ming army use firearms on horseback?"

"Also, their firearms don't even need torch handles!"

"Just by charging firearms, more than 3,000 of my men died!"

"Now Benya is out of touch and has run away!"

A few days passed by, and when the curse of Taiping rang out, the Oara tribes had already migrated several times and arrived in a valley in the upper reaches of the Selenge River.

The Ming army did not pursue them, which surprised them, but what they need to worry about now is not this matter, but the consequences of this war.

Taiping sat in the tent excitedly, roaring and saying things that would make people angry.

Sitting at the top, Mahamu also had a gloomy face and said nothing.

In this battle of the Selenge River, the total number of men they lost and captured was more than 22,000. If the casualties on Tupolo's side were included, the number would probably not be less than 25,000.

"I will raise the herd myself this time, but our alliance must continue."

Half an hour later, when the Ming army's tent was filled with generals, a nobleman from Wala was also escorted to the tent by two Ming troops.

He knew very well that Alitai and others in Eastern Mongolia had been bribed by the Ming army, so the only enemy of the Ming army in Mobei was Oara.

Although he is only thirteen years old, Tuohuan's personality is different from Mahamu's. He is calmer and views things more broadly.

"You can show kindness, but I won't show you a horse or a sheep."

The Tatars in the east can send out at most 30,000 troops. Counting their own alliance and Ugqiha Shiha, who has not taken action, they can send out at most 60,000 mounted men, for a total of up to 90,000.

Twenty-five thousand people may not seem like a lot, but for Wala, half his life was undoubtedly lost.

"By the way, I remember Benyasili that your sister married Mahamu, right?"

"Your Great Khan wants to go south with me to see the scenery of Jiangnan. I will take him south this time to live for a few years."

The 500-watt cavalry was disarmed and taken with their herds to the Ming army camp in the Hulan Huchiwen area.

Zhu Di was sitting in the main seat, looking at Hong Guoer and Benya Shili with a half-smile, and said with a smile:

Seeing this, Mahamu said to Tuohuan: "Send someone to send 500 horses, 2,000 cattle, and 5,000 sheep south to Zhu Di."

Hong Guoer looked at the guy sitting next to Alutai and Alitai in disbelief. He never dreamed that Benya Shili would actually appear in the Ming army's tent.

Mahamu suppressed his temper and said this. Although he was very unruly, he could still see the situation clearly after being beaten by Zhu Di in the Selenge River.

Standing in the big tent, Zhu Di ordered Wang Yi, and Wang Yi summoned everyone as he wanted.

Facts have proved that there is no problem with the route chosen by Tuohuan for them, and they also went south for more than ten days. They encountered the Ming army's peripheral sentry cavalry shortly after leaving the mountainous area.

The Ming army will definitely pass by there. Although their walking speed in the river valley is slow, they might encounter the Ming army.

When Zhu Di learned the news, his first reaction was curiosity.

"Those who gave false information have been killed by me. Now what we need to worry about is how to deal with the relationship with the Han people."

Seeing his father and Taiping like this, Tuohuan, who was only thirteen years old, said:

"Take them with you, and also call Alutai, Alitai, and Benyasili."

In this case, the Ming army will never give up the attack on Wala, so they must choose a good path.

"Benja is lost?!"

Mahamu said to Taiping: "Although the Ming army is not pursuing it now and may even have retreated, don't forget that there are Ugeqi Hashha and Alitai in Mobei."

"But don't worry, I have sent people back to Nanjing first to prepare a residence for your Khan, and by the way, canonize him as the Great Yuan King of the Ming Dynasty."

"Only by uniting together can we suppress them with force and protect ourselves. Otherwise, we will only be annexed."

But when he looked up, he saw a gloomy and black face among the crowd.

"Yes!" Tuohuan didn't feel that there were many things given away this time. Although Wala had suffered heavy losses, if he wanted to make peace, he would have to pay enough benefits.

The Navarre nobles walked into the tent and quickly knelt down and hugged Zhu Di to show their respect.

"If he gets tired of staying in Jiangnan in the future, then I can send someone to protect him and return to the grassland to visit his relatives."

"You guys know each other, so it's not surprising..."

"I am going to send envoys and tribute horses to Zhu Didong..."

Under Tuo Huan's arrangement, the five-hundred-watt cavalry drove the herd southward, and their goal was Hulan Huwen in the south.

Now that nearly half of them died at once, let alone peace, even Mahamu couldn't help but tremble his hands when he thought about it.

Under such circumstances, showing kindness to Zhu Di is what Mahamu should do.

With this small force, it is estimated that even Zhu Di's 40,000 cavalry in the northern expedition cannot defeat him, not to mention that Alitai has already been used as a lackey by Zhu Di.

There are only 120,000 to 30,000 men in the tribe of Wala, and only more than 60,000 are able to mount horses and fight.

After Taiping heard what Mahamu said, although he knew that it was the right thing to do, he was reluctant to hand over his cattle and sheep to Mahamu, who handed them over to Zhu Di.

There was nothing wrong with what Mahamu said. Although Taiping snorted coldly, he basically recognized the current fragile alliance.

The current Ming army has sharp weapons, not to mention that Oara is not an opponent, even if Oara and Tatar join forces, they will not be an opponent.

In addition, Uge Qiha Shiha will not follow him to fight against the Ming Dynasty. What he wants has always been to protect his pasture. Therefore, no matter how he calculates, his alliance can only draw more than 30,000 troops.

Zhu Di knew that Benya Shili had learned Mandarin and Chinese characters from Guo Ji and others when he was in Samarkand, so he could communicate with Zhu Di normally. He bowed and said: "Your Majesty, it is true, but our relationship is not good... …”

Benya still can't forget the fact that Mahamu was ready to exchange himself and Daming for benefits, and that he was ready to kill him at any time if he couldn't exchange benefits.

It was indeed a shame to be caught by Zhu Di, but what was even more shameful was to be a puppet in Mahamu's hands.

Whenever he has a chance, he will definitely kill Mahamu to vent his anger!

"It's normal for relatives to have some conflicts, but don't make it too high. After all, they are all relatives."

Zhu Di said this shamelessly, and at the same time looked at Hong Guoer: "Why did Mahamu send you here?"

"The Great Khan sent me to beg for surrender, hoping that His Majesty the Emperor would not be acquainted with us."

Hong Guoer can speak Mandarin, which shows that he has read some books, so his words are relatively refined.

"We, the Great Khan, sent people to send 500 horses, 2,000 cattle, and 5,000 sheep to reward the heavenly army. We hope to guard Moxi for the heaven for generations to come."

"Absurd!" Zhu Neng habitually sang red for Zhu Di: "You fought with us and injured thousands of my soldiers. Now you surrender just because you say surrender?"

"Eh..." Zhu Di opened his mouth to signal Zhu Neng to calm down, and at the same time said to the generals in the tent:

"Wala are ignorant of culture, so we don't want to be like them."

After the words fell, Zhu Di said to Hong Guoer: "I have accepted the herds offered by Mahamu. As long as you guard Moxi for the imperial court, I can still forgive you. Now you can go down and rest." "

"Thank you, Your Majesty, God's grace is so great!" Hong Guoer did not expect Zhu Di to be so easy to talk to, so he immediately bowed to Zhu Di five times, kowtowed three times, and kowtowed three times.

After he finished kowtowing, Zhu Di said: "We also suffered a lot of casualties in this battle, especially horses."

"I will appease Wala for the time being. When I have time, or they start making trouble again, I will personally lead the troops to calm them down."

Zhu Di did not want to continue fighting. His goal of this battle had been achieved. After counting the battle of Selenge River, Oara had 26,72 people killed, 3,240 captured, and 24,000 armor captured. There are more than a thousand sets and more than 10,000 and fifty-six horses.

The results are naturally brilliant, but the losses are not small either.

The Ming army lost 1,627 killed, 3,016 seriously injured or disabled retired soldiers, 5,942 war horses, and nearly 7,000 draft horses.

Among them, the losses of riding horses and draft horses were mainly during the Northern Expedition. After all, hauling artillery for a long time also required high physical requirements on the horses. If they were not careful, they would die of exhaustion.

Although the capture in this battle and Mahamu's contribution to the horse cannot be repaid, the damage they caused to Wala this time will take at least one generation to heal.

I dare not say that there will be peace for twenty years, but ten years of peace should not be a problem.

Of course, during this period, Zhu Di did not dare to say absolutely that there was no need to pay attention to Mobei. At the very least, he had to maintain daily patrols of the Ming army.

Patrolling the border with thousands of people will not be too stressful and can maintain a certain deterrent effect.

According to Lao Er's methods, it is estimated that the cultivated land in Daning and Bohai areas will increase several times in ten years, and it will be easier to send troops from Hailaer by then.

"Ten years...I don't know if I can live until ten years later..."

Zhu Di felt a little melancholy, and at the same time he couldn't help but glance at the generals, with a bit of reluctance in his eyes.

After taking a deep breath, he regained his composure and said: "Okay, report the results of this battle back to Nanjing, and the army will return in triumph!"

"Yes!"

All the generals in the tent agreed one after another. Only Alitai, Alutai and Benyasili felt as if they had eaten shit, but they still had to stay with Smiley Face.

From Hulanhulu Wen sent Tangqi to rush the news to the south. This process was not easy.

From Zhu Di's order on June 24 to Zhu Gaoxu's receipt of the results of the Beizhengtang report, the entire process took twenty-five days.

If Zhu Gaoxu hadn't built post roads and stations along the route of Hailaer, Zhenluwei, Hechengwei, Zhaozhou City, Changchun City, and Shenyang City, it might have taken more time.

"Nearly 24,000 enemies were wiped out. This result is enough for Wala to recuperate for more than ten years. It's no wonder that the old man sent 800 miles to rush."

July 19th, in Chunhe Hall...

Looking at the Tang newspaper in his hand, Zhu Gaoxu had a smile on his face. He really didn't expect that Zhu Di's results would be so great, but thinking about it carefully, it was mainly because he replaced the flintlock gun with a carbine.

These two newly upgraded weapons caught Mahamu by surprise, and they were also the weapons that severely damaged the Oara cavalry the most during the battle.

In addition, another reason is that Zhu Di is familiar with the climate of Mobei, and Meng Zhang, Li Shi and others dared to dismount and fight on foot. The whole war was not complicated, it was just a little more difficult in terms of supplies.

"It would be nice if there was a train..."

Zhu Gaoxu sighed, thinking that if there were trains, the Ming Dynasty would be able to actually control the Mobei area.

"Your Highness, for the great victory in the Northern Expedition, will the reward wait until His Majesty returns to Nanjing, or will it be decided by you?"

Standing in the Chunhe Hall, Guo Zi, the Minister of Household Affairs, spoke deliberately, obviously seeing the general trend.

However, the general trend he saw was just what Zhu Gaoxu wanted him to see, not what Zhu Gaoxu wanted.

Let Zhu Di solve the Mobei Wara and Tatars, which is only half of the result he wants. The remaining half is the comprehensive implementation of the New Deal in Jiangnan, and this difficulty is much more difficult than defeating the Wara Tatars.

"How is the implementation of the new policy in the six Jiangdong governments?"

Zhu Gaoxu specially summoned Guo Zi only for this matter.

"Back to Your Highness..." Guo Zi knew very well what Zhu Gaoxu wanted to hear, so he reported it without a moment's delay:

"It has been a year and a half since the New Deal was implemented. Now the six prefectures have a total population of 9,926,417, and Arita is 36,274..."

The data reported by Guo Zi surprised Zhu Gaoxu.

The population of Liufu in the 14th year of Hongwu was around 6 million. Now thirty years later, he thought that with the premature death rate in this era, it would be at most 9 million, but he never thought that it was close to 10 million.

What is this concept? One-eighth of the population in the Ming Dynasty lives in this place, which is less than one percent of the area in the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, such dense population has also brought local urbanization to a new high.

Based on the county population of more than 25 million that Zhu Gaoxu looked at a few days ago, the urbanization rate has exceeded %, which is several points higher than he expected.

If calculated according to urbanization, it can basically reach about 40%. However, market towns in this era are not much different from rural areas, and there is not much handicraft output.

With such a population situation, it is difficult for commerce to remain undeveloped.

"Of the more than 36 million acres of cultivated land, how much of it is occupied by mulberry fields?"

Zhu Gaoxu asked Guo Zi, and Guo Zi responded solemnly: "It has increased year by year since the second year of Yongle. Now there are about seven million acres of mulberry fields."

"Yes, I understand." Zhu Gaoxu nodded slightly. He did not expect that the conversion of rice to mulberry has already begun in the Jiangnan area.

Once this process begins, it must be measured carefully, otherwise it is likely to lead to the bankruptcy of many middle- and lower-class people.

"Have the officials transferred to the south arrived in the capital?" Zhu Gaoxu asked Guo Zi, and Guo Zi nodded and said: "Forty thousand officials and 30,000 teachers have gathered in the capital."

"The new policy will be implemented throughout Zhili in the second half of the year." Zhu Gaoxu said without hesitation, and Guo Zi also responded respectfully.

By capturing the six prefectures in Jiangdong, almost half of Southern Zhili was captured.

Now that we are implementing the New Deal in Southern Zhili, the resistance will not be so great.

Of course, Zhu Gaoxu did not expect that the six Jiangdong prefectures would have such little resistance. He originally thought that at least several thousand people would have to die to implement the New Deal, but he did not expect that from the beginning of more than 30 people to now, the total number of people has only been a few hundred people. That’s all.

Counting the relatives of wealthy families who were implicated, the number of people involved was only over 6,000, which was much smaller than he expected. It seemed that these guys in Jiangnan really cherished their lives.

But this way, it was a bit difficult for him to deal with.

"This year, the quota will be canceled in Southern Zhili. All taxes will be paid according to the ten taxes per mu of land, and the land will be recognized but not the people."

After Zhu Gaoxu finished speaking, he stood up, picked up the ink pen, and said without raising his head: "Go down."

"I excuse myself..." Seeing Zhu Gaoxu's words, Guo Zi returned the greeting cautiously and exited the Chunhe Hall.

After he left, Zhu Gaochi spoke to Yishiha, who had been standing silently all morning, and said, "That guy Jie Jin, you haven't been keeping your peace lately, have you?"

"No, even if I take office, I will still travel all day long." Yi Shiha shook his head and sneered at the same time:

"The war in Guangxi is about to begin, but he ignores the busyness of others and only lives in what he is doing."

"Continue to indulge him and wait until he makes things big. Then we will take action and take care of Jiang Zuo with him."

Zhu Gaoxu made an explanation, then lowered his head and silently dealt with the memorial.

After a while, he processed Wang Xuan's memorial and couldn't help but praise: "There are quite a few students recommended by Western Yunnan this time, and one-third of them are from student members."

"You tell Hu Lun and let him examine the character of these students. If possible, prepare them to participate in the next general examination. Counting the middle school officials in Liaodong, there should be many imperial examination officials with middle school backgrounds. ”

Compared with primary school, if people who graduate from middle school can pass the imperial examination and become a high school scholar, their quality will undoubtedly be considered superior in all aspects.

With this group of people, it will be easier for Zhu Gaoxu to govern Jiangnan.

With people from the north governing Jiangnan, and local troops stationed there, Zhu Gaoxu didn't believe that Jiangnan would dare to default on taxes as it had in history.

Of course, what is more worthy of his consideration right now is the matter of moving the capital.

"The construction of Beijing is almost over, so it is inevitable to move the capital, but South Zhili still needs to be confirmed."

"After the capital was moved to Beijing, the four states and fourteen prefectures in Southern Zhili were unified and under the direct jurisdiction of the capital, and there were no provinces."

Fragmenting Southern Zhili is one of the things that must be done when moving the capital.

The Qing Dynasty divided Jiangnan Province into two parts because Jiangnan Province was too powerful.

However, compared to the Qing Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty split it up more severely, directly dividing Jiangdong and Huaihe into eighteen pieces.

Historically, the Ming Dynasty did this and did it very well. The entire southern Zhili was never united, and even the Thirteen Taibao of Jiangsu in later generations had certain reasons.

Before it is divided into eighteen directly governed state capitals, it can still be divided into Jiangdong and Lianghuai.

After the split, parties simply started to form from state capitals. In the late Ming Dynasty, Zhejiang was the Zhejiang Party, Shandong was the Qi Party, and Shanxi and Shaanxi were the Qin Party.

Looking at Southern Zhili, there has never been a unified party here, because there is not even a chief envoy there, so there is no chance of unity.

Whether it is the Xuan Party or the Kunming Party, they are all parties based on states and governments. The Xuan Party started in Xuanzhou, and the Kunming Party started in Suzhou...

In addition, there are the remaining nobles of Hongwu who are entrenched in Nanjing, as well as the guarding eunuchs and the six left-behind forces.

It is difficult for broad factions such as Huaixi and Jiangdong to emerge in the early Ming Dynasty. After all, there is still competition between various governments.

There are only so many resources, and if you have more and others don’t have enough, naturally you can’t go together.

Because of this, in the late Ming Dynasty, southern Zhili could still transport taxes to the north normally, but Zhejiang and Jiangxi could not.

As for the southern Zhili Suzhou tax resistance during the Wanli period, it can only be blamed on the uneven quality of the eunuchs sent by Wanli.

Sun Long and Chen Feng, these two eunuchs were the culprits of the Suzhou Civil War and the Wuchang Civil War respectively.

Sun Long, who was in charge of taxing Suzhou, initially only levied "traveling merchants" and not "sitting merchants". He mainly targeted small businessmen and hawkers, not large traders.

Therefore, big merchants were quite supportive of this method of taxation, so the tax was collected smoothly, but Sun Long had more privately.

Later, Sun Long became greedy and began to levy taxes on big merchants instead of lowering the taxes on small merchants. The big merchants seized the opportunity and instigated him several times, which led to a riot among Suzhou merchants to resist the tax.

What Zhu Gaoxu remembers clearly is the historical data that "all the weavers stopped weaving, and the weavers all starved to death."

It can be said that this method is common even in later generations, but later generations can lower their standards and change jobs. However, jobs in this era are difficult to find, and food is expensive, and people can easily starve to death.

In Zhu Gaoxu's view, even if the eunuchs sent by Wanli were incompetent and greedy, as long as there were enough troops stationed in other places, the taxes that should be collected could still be collected.

It’s not like the Manchus didn’t engage in forced conscription after entering the customs. As a result, Jiangnan was not honest.

It is not feasible to use Jiangnan's troops to collect Jiangnan's taxes, so Zhu Gaoxu set up the method of changing defenses.

Nowadays, the soldiers in Southern Zhili, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang have basically been replaced by Zhu Gaoxu with soldiers and horses from Shandong, Liaodong, and Peiping.

The time for this transfer is three years, which means that in the next three years, Zhu Gaoxu can use the army from another place to implement the New Deal. Anyway, the army has no close ties with the local area, and he is not afraid that the army will not do things.

South Zhili is only the first step, and Zhejiang and Jiangxi are the highlights.

"Your Highness, although since the time of Emperor Gao, most of the four prefectures and fourteen prefectures have been under the direct jurisdiction of the capital, but now that the capital has been moved to Beijing, Hebei has eight prefectures directly under its jurisdiction. With these four prefectures and fourteen prefectures, won't it be too big?"

Yi Shiha was worried that too many prefectures would be under direct jurisdiction, which would make management difficult.

Zhu Gaoxu heard this but didn't care: "It won't be difficult to manage, you don't have to worry about that."

Although he doesn’t know when the steam train will appear, Zhu Gaoxu thinks that no matter how difficult it is, it will not take more than 30 years.

After all, the requirements for basic materials for steam trains are not very high, and the current Ming Dynasty can basically meet them. The only thing missing is rubber.

However, as long as the trade to the East could continue and the imperial court continued to plant rubber trees in tropical areas, this only missing material could be made up.

As long as the train appears, it will be much easier to govern Jiangnan.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu was a little anxious about the promotion of middle schools. In addition to middle schools, he was also anxious about the promotion of other schools.

"I've seen the premature death rate of the six prefectures in Jiangdong. It's almost the same as that of Bohai. There's no progress."

"Send someone to the Taiyuan Hospital to ask how many major hospitals there are now and how many hospitals they can be divided into. It is best to have one for each chief minister, so that in the future, the hospital can gradually develop into state capitals, counties and towns. ”

"Also, you should go to the Etiquette Department and ask questions about middle school matters."

After Zhu Gaoxu finished explaining, he saw Yi Shiha respectfully responded, and finally slowly exited the hall.

Watching him leave, Zhu Gaoxu withdrew his gaze and focused on the ink pen in his hand.

After cleaning up Southern Zhili this year, it will be Jiangxi's turn next year. If you want to clean up Jiangxi, you will naturally have to rely on Jie Jin, who is touted by Jiangzuo literati. Only if he commits crimes can the entire Jiangzuo literary world be implicated.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu couldn't wait...

(End of this chapter)