The most reckless man in the Ming Dynasty.

Chapter 422 Liberation and Assimilation

Let’s not talk about Liaodong for now.

Chang Kuohai trusted Tang Hao immensely, so he just had to follow the Duke's arrangements and didn't need to think about the problem at all.

Then Tang Hao looked at An Guo, the brave and resourceful general in the army.

"An Guo, you are the bravest and responsible for guarding the Hetao area."

"And the three Tumed tribes will also be stationed in Hetao in the future. You need to slowly assimilate them into the subordinate tribes of the Ming Dynasty!"

assimilation?

An Guo murmured the word slowly.

"General, you must know that Mongolia's tribute is fake. They are just forced by the situation to open up trade with our Ming Dynasty. Once the trade is opened, Mongolia can obtain the daily necessities they need through the trade!"

"Not to mention other places, just take the grasslands for example. They have been blocked by the Central Plains for these years and don't even have enough iron pots to cook. When these grassland barbarians harass the border wall, they mainly steal food, cloth, ironware, especially iron pots!"

"Because blacksmiths on the grassland can make scimitars and arrowheads, but they can't make molds for casting iron pots, an iron pot is more important to Mongolian herdsmen than a hundred taels of silver."

An Guo was reminding Tang Hao not to keep a tiger as a threat.

Why did Mongolia pay tribute?

It’s because they couldn’t defeat the Ming army, so they had to bow their heads temporarily.

But since they are not of my race, their hearts must be different!

They cannot defeat the enemy now, and the Ming Dynasty is engaging in trade with them. In a few years, these Mongolian tribes will slowly grow stronger. By then, they will surely forget the pain after their wounds have healed and will start to plunder and harass the Ming Dynasty's border defenses again.

Tang Hao nodded with a smile and explained patiently.

"You are right. They pretended to surrender and wanted to open a trade with the Ming Dynasty in order to trade with the Ming Dynasty in exchange for the daily necessities they wanted!"

"The question is, what are the advantages that the Mongolian barbarians have over us Han people?"

"War horse!" Tang Mu raised his hand and gave an accurate answer.

"Yes, it's a war horse!" Tang Hao gave an affirmative answer.

"The Mongols are a nation on horseback. It can be said that every adult young man is a qualified cavalryman, and they are cavalrymen who provide their own horses. This is also the reason why the Tatars can mobilize 100,000 cavalrymen under the limit of a population of hundreds of thousands. The biggest advantage of cavalry is high mobility. They fight when they can win and run when they can't. This is the real reason why the Ming Dynasty suffered a disastrous defeat in the battle of Lingbei that year."

"Because the grassland has wide pastures and is suitable for horses to gallop, it is the most ideal place to raise horses, so the Mongols have no shortage of war horses. When they fight, they almost always ride two horses. The Ming Dynasty has mostly infantry, and the cavalry can only play a supporting role. Without elite cavalry, we can't completely control the grassland."

"This is the key to our trade with them. Perhaps we can use special trade methods to change the grazing habits on the grasslands, so that the nobles on the grasslands feel that raising cattle and sheep is more profitable than raising horses. Driven by the interests, they will gradually expand the scale of cattle and sheep breeding and reduce the scale of unprofitable horse breeding!"

Hearing this, everyone present was shocked.

Because this is simply impossible!
War horses are the Mongolians' partners for survival. They themselves made their living by herding cattle, sheep and horses. How could they give up raising horses?

Aren't you treating people like fools?

All the generals came from the military and had fought against the Mongols before. They knew the importance of war horses!
People must be crazy or stupid to give up raising horses, they are their lifeblood!
"General, these Mongolian barbarians are not educated, but they are not fools. How could they cut off their own arms?"

An Guo reminded gently.

Tang Hao was not angry, but continued to speak in a calm tone.

"An open market in Hetao Dongsheng City and a cement road from the imperial capital directly to Dongsheng City. This is what we need to complete in the next one or two years."

"The content of the mutual trade can be relaxed without restrictions. Our Ming Dynasty needs the cattle, sheep and horses of the grassland barbarians, and the grassland barbarians need our Ming Dynasty's ironware, salt, tea, silk and even grain. As long as we can achieve equal exchange, we will give them whatever they want..."

As soon as these words were spoken, all the generals present raised their objections.

Ma Yong swallowed his saliva and reminded carefully: "General, what do you want to do?"

"Salt and iron are important commodities that are prohibited from being traded. Aren't you aiding the enemy?"

Tang Hao gave a direct answer.

"Don't do anything, just meet all the life needs of the Mongolians, let them live a rich life, let them feel the beauty of life, let them feel the preciousness of life, so that they will slowly lose their former bravery and the spirit of daring to kill and fight." There was an inexplicable look in Tang Hao's eyes, which made it difficult for people to understand the meaning.

"..."

No one spoke and the hall was very quiet.

The generals present were stunned and couldn't understand what Tang Hao was trying to do.

"But General, how much will it cost us to do this?" An Guo asked in a deep voice after thinking for a long time.

"It won't be more than the cost of the war, and we also get a lot of cattle, sheep and war horses in return." Tang Hao said, spreading his hands.

"What if these Mongolian barbarians become stronger and continue to plunder the border towns in the south?"

"Go south?" Tang Hao chuckled and asked, "The Mongolian barbarians don't have firearms. Besides, the walls and castles along the Ming border are all built with cement. If they go south to plunder, they'll just be sending themselves to death!"

"But General, what's the point of doing this?"

An Guo asked again.

"What's the point of doing this?"

Tang Hao changed his words to one that was easier to understand.

"Do you know about the class divisions on the grassland?"

Everyone was stunned and confused.

Class division?

What does it mean?
"Just as there is a class division among scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans in the Ming Dynasty, there is also a class division among the Mongolian tribes."

"The Mongolian tribes can be roughly divided into three parts according to their status: nobles, commoners and slaves. Genghis Khan broke the traditional organizational structure of the traditional clan tribes and established a unified system combining administrative, military and production organizations - the thousand-household system."

"Above the thousand households, there are the ten thousand households, and below them are the hundred households and the ten households, which are respectively governed by the ten thousand household chief, the thousand household chief, the hundred household chief and the ten household chief. The heads of these households are mostly the original tribal leaders and nobles..."

Everyone knows these.

We have to admit that Genghis Khan was truly a genius of his time.

He used the system of one thousand households to control the entire grassland, and no one dared to disobey his orders wherever they went.

Under this thousand-household system, all young and middle-aged men in Mongolia were soldiers, incorporated into the army, provided with their own horses and weapons, and led by the thousand-household head and the hundred-household head, ready to go to war at any time.

Moreover, he fixed the residents within designated groups of ten, one hundred, and one thousand households in order to ensure the integrity of the thousand-household system and to guarantee the necessary sources of soldiers and taxes, so that all adult Mongolian men could "mount their horses to prepare for battle and dismount to gather and raise livestock", which was similar to the Wei Suo system established by Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang.

But the only mistake Genghis Khan made was that he personally cultivated a supreme ruling group of the royal clan headed by Genghis Khan, namely the "Golden Family", and feudal lords composed of Nayan nobles at all levels.

Genghis Khan treated the Mongolian people organized into thousands of households and the Nayans at all levels who governed the thousands of households as his property and distributed them to his sons, brothers and other clan members.

According to the custom of distributing family property, his sons and brothers redistributed the civilians and Nayans of all levels allocated to them to their own relatives or subordinates.

The Nayans at all levels were in an absolutely subordinate position to the Great Khan and his relatives, but to the Mongolian people they were the rulers.

They accepted rewards from the Khan or his relatives, became lords, and obtained hereditary power.

They had the power to allocate pastures, collect taxes, assign corvée labor, command the military, etc. within their jurisdiction.

Gradually, they became the backbone of the Golden Family's management of the Mongol Empire.

However, when the Golden Family declined, these noble lords of different surnames became the gravediggers of the Mongol Empire.

For example, Aluta was not a member of the Golden Family, but he had the plan of "using the emperor to command the princes" and supported Guilichi, a member of the Golden Family, as the Great Khan of Mongolia, trying to control the entire grassland through this puppet Khan.

After that came Dayan Khan Batu Mongke, the leader of the revival of the Great Mongol Empire. Through continuous wars and fighting, he finally unified Mongolia again. But he then wanted to eliminate all the great lords of different surnames and restore the sacred ruling status of the Golden Family, which resulted in a rebellion of the Mongolian right wing!
"Our goal is to liberate and assimilate Mongolian civilians!"

(End of this chapter)