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Chapter 1409 Impatience 2
"Doing nothing is the greatest help we can give to the Poles!" Marshal Buturlin, whose hair was turning gray, did not follow suit and remained firm in his stance, not moving a single soldier who was merely watching the spectacle.

"Helpful to the Poles?" Tatarinov was surprised and puzzled by this answer.

“If we make a move, the Poles will not only have to deal with the Ming army, but also have to divide their forces to guard against us.”

Marshal Buturin was clearly not a chatterbox; in fact, he was rather silent, but he still offered an answer. However, it wasn't meant for Tatarinov; it was more like a monologue, because he himself couldn't understand what the point of such a battle was besides increasing casualties.

"Sigh... Marshal Buturin, is the Ming Dynasty really as wealthy as the legends say? If so, with hundreds of millions of people, why don't they spend more money to hire more troops? If they stationed tens of thousands more cavalry here, neither the Tsar nor the Poles would dare to come."

If not, why would European nations unite for such a costly expedition? Even if they won, they wouldn't gain anything valuable. Did they really intend to occupy the distant lands of the Ming Empire?

Although he was just a Cossack leader and didn't hold much of a position in the political landscape of the Tsarist Empire, Tatarinov and Marshal Buturlin had a long history of cooperating in the Ryazan and Tula fortresses against the invasion of the Crimean Khanate, and their personal relationship was quite good, so they naturally had more topics to discuss.

“Mishka, Mishka, you really should go out and see the world. You can’t grow stronger by just staying by the Don River. Only by seeing the world and understanding it will you know where to go next.”

Taking advantage of the lull before the Polish army launched its formal attack, Marshal Buturlin took out a thick, long cigar and put it in his mouth. He then took out a very fine silver lighter and lit it while mocking the Cossack leader.

Mishka is a nickname for Mikhail Ivanovich Tatalynov, used only between very familiar and close adults, which shows that the two were indeed very close friends.

"Click... As long as there are caravans, I can learn a lot without going anywhere!"

But Tatarino wasn't annoyed. He took out a golden sailboat-shaped lighter from his pocket and lit the marshal's cigar, proudly proving that he didn't need to go on a long journey.

"Hiss... Huff... The information that caravans can bring is too limited, which is why you don't understand why Catholics, Protestants, and Muslims are attacking the Ming Empire together. If it were just because the Ming Empire is rich, after such a large-scale war, the remaining wealth wouldn't even be enough for the participating countries to divide up."

Looking at his friend, Buturlin was even more moved. He had seen envoys from the East at the Moscow court ball and heard them converse with nobles. Most of what they said had gone in one ear and out the other, but some of their views had left a deep impression on him.

When the refined and cultured Ming Dynasty envoy answered a question from Prince Ivan Cherkasky, the Tsar's chief minister, about the importance of a strong nation, he emphasized the necessity and indispensability of education.

The general idea is that for a country to continue to develop and progress, education must be prioritized. Besides selecting elites to join the ruling class through systems like the imperial examinations, it's also crucial to vigorously develop and popularize education so that all people can understand principles.

Prince Cherkasky, as the Tsar's chief minister, was also highly educated and immediately refuted the Ming envoy's statement. He agreed with strengthening elite education but did not believe in developing universal education, arguing that the more intelligent the people were, the more difficult they were to manage for the rulers.

"This is a misconception. The smarter the people are, the harder they are to manage, but the harder they are to deceive. Rulers who hold this idea do not want to manage but to deceive. True managers will cleverly combine their personal interests with the interests of the people. In this case, it is not better for the people to be less intelligent."

The Ming envoy's words strikingly echoed the behavior of the Don Cossack leader before them. For such a large ethnic group to have such a superficial and naive understanding of the world—how much ability must the Tsar and nobles possess to lead the country forward so rapidly? They probably couldn't do it even if they worked themselves to the bone, because there are just too many people like that!

"Then, what are we going to do?" This time Tatarinov understood, mainly because the content was quite mundane. There was still a lot of uninhabited land west of the Ob River, and the Cossacks wouldn't choose such a distant place if they wanted more land; there was plenty near the Don River. Driving out the Crimean Khanate would be enough.

Cossacks demand compensation for helping anyone in battle; besides gold and silver, livestock, horses, and weapons are all acceptable. But if these aren't provided, there's no room for negotiation. No one can force free Cossacks to fight for nothing, not even the Tsar!

"...Where do lighters come from? Where do cigars come from? Where do sugarcane liquor come from? And what about guns, silk, cotton, wool, steel, sailboats, clocks, and so on!"
If you take the time to count them carefully, you'll find that we've become increasingly reliant on these things over time. The vast majority of them come from factories in the Ming Dynasty, where workers produced goods non-stop, like harvesting wheat fields.

However, these things were far more lucrative than farming. The Ming Empire rapidly accumulated national strength, trained a large army, and built numerous warships through the trade of these goods, ultimately becoming the ruler of Asia.

Don't be fooled by the few words in Tatalinov's question; it's incredibly complicated to explain. Fortunately, the Zaporozhye Cossacks launched their third feint attack, so we'll have to wait to see the real Polish offensive. It wouldn't hurt to chat with old friends a bit more.

"...If it's that easy, why don't we just do it the same way? Over the years, Ming Dynasty craftsmen have built many factories, and I heard they're going to build a very, very large wool mill in Astrakhan."

There's no need for war. The Tsar could simply spend money to hire more Ming Dynasty craftsmen to teach our people how to operate the machines. Once the products are made, we can sell them to the British and Dutch. Wouldn't that make us just as much money?

It wouldn't be accurate to say that Tatalynov was truly ignorant; given the relatively closed environment of the Don Cossacks, it was quite remarkable that he knew about factories and Russia's largest trading partner.

"The craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty did help us build many factories and train many workers, but unfortunately, compared with their local factories, our products are not the best, and our costs are not the lowest."

If you were in that situation, would you rather buy this or that for the same price? The answer is obvious. No other country could produce any of the products of the Ming Dynasty. Even if they could, the production volume would be very low, while the cost would be extremely high.

Every year, they traded large quantities of goods with Persians, Arabs, and Dutch in Europe, earning huge sums of gold and silver coins. They then took this money back to Europe and lent it out through the Sun and Moon Bank.

If this continues, all the royal families of Europe will become tenant farmers of the Ming emperor. After so many years of fighting and turmoil between Catholicism and Protestantism, most of their income will eventually end up in the Ming emperor's treasury.

Last year, the French, led by the Prince of the Netherlands, made a special trip to the capital of the Ming Dynasty to negotiate with their emperor, hoping to break the passive situation through free trade, but the Ming emperor did not agree.

This would force European countries to unite and fight each other. If they could free western Asia from the control of the Ming Empire, they could force their emperors to sit at the negotiating table and agree to some of the conditions.

If we could defeat the Ming army, just imagine how many factories, machines, and artisans would be sent to Europe. This would be an immeasurable fortune, one that many simply cannot see.

Marshal Buturin's words essentially reflected the sentiments of the royal families and nobility of various European countries. It wasn't that they couldn't be made public, but rather that few people would understand them, and those who did understand were mostly already part of the nobility.

(End of this chapter)