Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2376: The Wind Within (Part )
Gao Youshi's words were of course not finished. This analysis just now was mainly to tell the present that the reason why the imperial court acquiesced to the Tumed forces' nominal vassalage but actual autonomy was that the current situation had changed somewhat from that time.

The Book of Changes is Gao Youshi's original scripture, and his ultimate understanding of the Book of Changes is: the world is always changing, and I must change with it.

The principle is simple, but the real difficulty lies in “following”.

If you want to "follow it", it means that you must first know in which direction the world is changing, what has changed at the moment, to what extent, how it will change in the future, how many stages it will be divided into, how much change will there be in each stage... and so on.

Only by realizing the above can you fully "follow the way of heaven" and "change accordingly" instead of going against heaven and fate and seeking your own death.

Therefore, when the participants thought they understood Gao Youshi's meaning, Gao Youshi had to tell them: I just told you what the conditions were at the time, and the court had to do this and that. But now, let's see how the situation has changed.

First, the gap in power between the two sides has widened further. This is easy to explain. When Altan Khan paid tribute, although he did not have the ability to severely damage the Ming Dynasty, he did have the ability to attack the border and disturb the people. The reason why he dared to constantly attack the border and disturb the people was that the Ming Dynasty really did not have the ability to severely damage his main force, nor did it have the ability to defend the thousands of miles of defense line.

To put it bluntly, the Ming Dynasty at that time had neither the ability to assemble a powerful cavalry that could "counter cavalry with cavalry" against the Tumed, nor did it have sufficient national strength or technological advantages to forcibly advance with infantry, establish strongholds, and encroach on the grassland.

In this regard, the first key time point is the Battle of Mobei. After the Battle of Mobei, the Ming army demonstrated the powerful power of the hollow square formation of muskets and bayonets to "control cavalry with infantry" in military terms, and politically helped Han Naji, a staunch Ming fan, to the throne of Shunyi King. From then on, the offensive and defensive trends began to reverse politically, and the situation of the two sides in key combat power began to reverse.

In other words, since the Battle of Monan, the Ming Dynasty has had the political power to command the Tumed, which means that the other tribes that were originally controlled by the Tumed, such as the Ordos tribe and the Qinghai Tumed, must directly or indirectly obey the Ming Dynasty and must not attack the border and disturb the people. Otherwise, I will let the Tumed deal with you.

From this period onwards, the Ming Dynasty and the Tumed formed a complementary advantage: the Ming Dynasty began to obtain more and more horse supplements, gradually expanding the originally quite precious and scarce cavalry forces, while the Tumed obtained a stable supply of food and daily necessities, and its ability to resist natural disasters gradually increased.

At the same time, because all of these horse market trades were controlled by Tumed’s King Shunyi on the Mongolian side, King Shunyi also had an increasingly solid voice in the tribes that submitted to him - this meant that Tumed’s political structure began to shift from the Mongolian-style "whoever has the bigger fist has the final say" to the "I distribute the benefits, so what I say counts" model.

This can be understood as the political form of the Tumed or Western Mongolia gradually changing from a warlord structure based on "the size of tribal armed forces" to a civil servant structure based on the determinism of "the right to distribute benefits".

So the question is, where did the Shunyi King get this crucial right to distribute the benefits of the horse market trade? Undoubtedly, it came from the Ming Dynasty - it was the Ming Dynasty that gave you the Shunyi King the right to distribute the benefits of the horse market trade, which effectively supported your royal power.

In this case, I, the Ming Dynasty, can give you this power, and I can also take it back. There is only one premise: the Ming Dynasty is able to effectively prevent your possible military retaliation while depriving you of this power.

So, did the Ming Dynasty have this capability? Yes, after thirty years of growth and decline after Altan Khan was enfeoffed as a vassal, the Ming Dynasty not only made further progress in "controlling cavalry with infantry" compared to the Battle of Mo Nan, but also established a powerful cavalry unit. "Controlling cavalry with cavalry" was no longer a fantasy.

This means that the military threat posed by the Tumed to the Ming Dynasty has almost dropped to a historical low of near zero, while the Ming Dynasty has become stronger in its original strengths and strengthened its original weaknesses, and both the infantry and cavalry can surely defeat the Tumed.

Under such circumstances, unless the Ming Dynasty forced Tumed to commit suicide, Tumed would have no choice but to obey the Ming Dynasty's orders and would definitely not dare to have any thoughts of resistance.

The widening power gap means that Tumed is already in a completely passive strategic situation. Secondly, as the disasters brought by the Little Ice Age become more frequent and severe, Tumed's reliance on the Ming Dynasty has become increasingly obvious and indispensable.

In the original history, this period of time was the stage of Nurhaci's rise, but many people in later generations often overlooked one point: the reason why Nurhaci was able to successfully annex the Jurchen tribes was strongly related to the disaster pressure of the Little Ice Age faced by both Mongolia and Jurchen at that time.

Because of the disaster, the pressure of survival for both the Mongols and the Jurchens was enormous, and it was getting greater year by year. In this situation, their first choice was to rob the Ming Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty had just completed the three major expeditions, and its prestige was still there, and its strength had not declined significantly - except for Liaodong.

Therefore, although the northern border of the Ming Dynasty was under pressure from the invasion, only Liaodong, which had suffered a great loss of strength, had a relatively serious disturbance - the death of Li Rusong in battle. However, although the death of Li Rusong had a significant impact, soon due to the rise of Nurhaci, the Ming Dynasty began to have the prerequisites for using barbarians to control barbarians, so it spent money to buy Mongols to fight against the Jurchens.

At that time, Tumed, because of the horse market trade created by Altan Khan's tribute, chose to rely on the materials exchanged from the Ming Dynasty to resist the disaster, that is, to solve the disaster problem internally; Chahar did not have a horse market trade, so it had to accept the "commission" of the Ming Dynasty and cause trouble for Nurhaci - that is, Lin Danhan wrote a threatening letter to Nurhaci, which eventually led to the Later Jin killing of the Mongolian envoy and the actual hostility between the two sides.

[Note: Although Lin Danhan later chose to use the money given by the Ming Dynasty to suppress the tribes in Eastern Mongolia that did not obey his orders, that did not affect the fact that Chahar was hostile to the Later Jin.]
In short, the situation at that time was that the entire north was severely hit by the Little Ice Age. Western Mongolia chose to rely on the Ming Dynasty to lick its wounds, while Eastern Mongolia and the Later Jin actually chose to integrate internally first and then wait for an opportunity to act - it’s just that Nurhaci acted faster and more smoothly, while Lindan Khan was a step late and not so smooth.

Essentially, under the pressure of survival, everyone's choices were not really choices, but forced choices. And except for Tumed, who was already able to obtain the supplies from the Ming Dynasty, the other two families had to fight with the Ming Dynasty in the end - who made you the richest family, but you refused to cut your flesh and blood to save me? Oh, you said it was difficult for you, but at least you still had a harvest in the south, how could it be more difficult than me?
Now it is different. With the escape of Chahar to the west, the southern part of Eastern Mongolia was taken back by the Ming Dynasty, and the cities of Daning and Fuxin were newly built and rebuilt. The northern part was divided up by the Nenkorchin and other tribes, but they were willing to obey the Ming Dynasty because of the disparity in power and the pragmatic trade policy.

As for the Jurchens, Gao Shishi used both soft and hard tactics to "relocate" the various tribes of the Jurchens to Korea. In this way, not only did Liaodong become the territory of the Ming Dynasty, but later Jilin and a small part of Heilongjiang were also directly governed by the Ming Dynasty, and hundreds of thousands of Han people were relocated there to "strengthen the border."

However, Liaodong was able to relatively completely absorb the "empty land" left by the various tribes of the Jurchens, but Jilin and Heilongjiang were far from comparable. How could a few hundred thousand Han people fill such a vast land?
The reason why the Jurchen tribes did not come to invade was, firstly, because the Ming Dynasty was too powerful, and secondly, because the Jurchen tribes were originally living in a truly bitter and cold place, and their tolerance to "bitter cold" was much stronger than that of the Ming Dynasty, and also slightly stronger than that of the Mongols and Jurchens who were "half bitter cold". The problem was that Gao Youshi did not know the critical point of their tolerance. If the disaster of the Little Ice Age continued to deepen and worsen, and one day the Jurchen tribes could no longer bear it and had to go south to survive, what would happen to Jilin, which only had a few hundred thousand Han people, and a small part of Heilongjiang?
Gao Youshi would never forget that in the original history, the most capable and brave elite soldiers of the Qianlong Dynasty were the representative "Sorlon Tribe" warriors among the Jurchens, and they were also the last face of the so-called "Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty".

But the problem is that these women are even less civilized, and they don't even have the ability to provide war horses for the Ming Dynasty - they are fishermen and hunters. So what can we do? We can't let the Ming Dynasty learn from the Liao Dynasty and ask them for some Saker Falcons, so that the nobles and wealthy families in the capital can try something new and train hawks and walk birds?

Therefore, we cannot just focus on the Tumed. We must also think about the other tribes surrounding the Ming Dynasty from the Tumed’s predicament. The troubles they face will only be greater than that of the Tumed, and solving their troubles is to avoid future troubles for the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty must consider this in advance and take care of this matter.

The Solon tribe and other Jurchen tribes actually don't have that many people when added together. Gao Youshi estimated that at most they would not be more than the hundreds of thousands of Han people in Jilin and southern Heilongjiang. However, the destructive power they could cause was no joke.

Although the Tatars did not seem to face this kind of difficulty, they were already pulling the wool over the Han territory at that time, and they were of the same origin, so they could stabilize themselves by just giving a little direction to their hometown. But now there is no Tatar, and they have no ancestors to rely on when they were born into the Jurchen family and the Ming Dynasty, so if things really get out of hand, they will not have any psychological burden.

Moreover, the Qing Dynasty could find any excuse to support them. After all, it was a matter of great importance to the safety of the "Dragon's Rise Land", but the Ming Dynasty could not do that. Oh, the disaster in the Ming Dynasty was so serious, but you, Gao Youshi, threw money at a group of "barbarians"? Are you Chinese or barbarians?
Because of this, Gao Youshi had to take the opportunity of Tumed's petition to submit to the emperor to first explain the reason to the high-ranking officials at the level of the Nine Ministers, and then spread it. They would then convince their own students and former officials, and then continue to expand it to form a unified understanding among the court and the public.

After his analysis, the attendees finally realized the seriousness and complexity of the problem. Yu Shenxing, the Minister of Rites, who had always been relatively neutral, pondered and said, "What the Prime Minister meant is that not only must the Tumed people do their best to help us, but we must also contribute money and manpower to the Khorchin and the Jurchen tribes, so that they will not fall into despair and have no choice but to invade our weak northeastern border?"

Gao Fusi nodded slowly, his face looking very heavy.

Chen Yubi sighed and spread his hands: "But the Prime Minister has said before that the court does not have any extra money and grain now... We can't just ignore the disaster in the country and go to rescue them first, right? If so, I'm afraid that all of you present here today will inevitably be accused of colluding with the barbarians in the future."

In this way, the participants began to discuss the issue one by one. However, no one got out of the two directions of "wanting to help but unable to" and "wanting to help but having no reason".

Gao Fusi just let everyone discuss without saying a word, but instead looked at everyone casually. Suddenly, he found that Shen Yi Guan, who had been very silent recently and had not made any comments today, had a calm expression and seemed to have a little disdain in his eyes.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

"Lord Shen," Gao Youshi suddenly called out, smiled slightly, and asked Shen Yiguan, "I see that you look normal, as if you have made up your mind. In that case, why don't you offer a good plan to help the court?"

Everyone stopped talking immediately and turned their eyes to Shen Yikuan.

Shen Yi Guan waved his hand and shook his head gently, saying, "I am just an old man, so I don't have any brilliant ideas. But even though Yuan Fu said it seriously, he didn't look panicked. It can be seen that even if the situation is not good, Yuan Fu has already had a way to deal with it... In fact, this brilliant idea is not mine, but Yuan Fu has had it for a long time."

When everyone heard this, they suddenly realized what was going on and looked at Gao Youshi again.

Gao Youshi cursed in his heart: I just want you important officials to not rely on me, to be able to think independently, and to think in the right direction...but you, old thief, insist on ruining my good deeds.

"Heh..." Gao Youshi thought about it, but he couldn't say it after all, and he had to continue to show the demeanor of a prime minister. So he could only laugh to hide his resentment, and said: "Thank you for your high regard, Mr. Shen. Although I have some ideas, it's hard to say that they are the best solution at the moment..."

Unexpectedly, when he said this, everyone obviously didn't believe it. They just thought he was being modest and continued to stare at him. Gao Youshi had no choice but to cough and said, "In my humble opinion, if the court takes the initiative to reward money and food to the surrounding departments, although it can nip the hidden danger in the bud, but as you worry, such a 'regardless of relatives' policy may be difficult to convince the scholars and the people.

In this case, why not take advantage of the opportunity of Tumed submitting to the Ming Dynasty and use Tumed as an example to show the other tribes that no matter what kind of difficulties they are facing, as long as they submit to the Ming Dynasty, they can solve all the problems themselves..."

Everyone was in an uproar, but soon they found that Gao Youshi's statement was not without reason. The most obvious reason was: Don't you think the court should not save these "barbarians"? But as we all know, "barbarians who enter China are Chinese." If they submit to China, then they are no longer barbarians, right? Since they are all Chinese, isn't it reasonable to save them?

However, there is still one final and biggest question looming before you.

Yu Shenxing coughed lightly and asked, "Prime Minister...if this is the case, where will the money, food and supplies come from?"
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PS: It seems that dividing this chapter into upper, middle and lower parts is not enough... ahem.

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