Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 108 Traitors and running dogs, Shanxi merchants are selling out their country!
Ok Hee Palace.

Regarding the crimes of Yang Shun, the former governor of Xuanda, Zhu Houcong handed the case over to the Jinyiwei, the Ministry of Justice, the Dali Temple and the Censorate for trial.

Death is inevitable.

Zhu Houcong was meditating while Huang Jinjing stood by his side, adding sandalwood to the copper incense burner, changing the incense sticks and candles on the altar, wiping the dust off the floor, and moving like a cat, training himself to be able to walk on water without being disturbed by the breeze.

Zhu Houcong was deeply pleased with his intention.

But today Zhu Houcong was unable to enter into meditation and opened his eyes.

Huang Jin, who was opening the lid of the sandalwood incense burner and adding incense to it in front of the altar, thought he was disturbing the Emperor's cultivation and immediately knelt down.

"It's none of your business." Zhu Houcong stood up from the mat, walked to the imperial desk, and looked at the several files presented by the Jinyiwei, his eyes flashed.

Zhao Quan, Qiu Fu, Ban Sheng, and Wang Chonggu.

Zhao Quan, Qiu Fu.

He was the traitor leader who defected to the Tatars.

This can be traced back to the early years of the Jiajing period, just forty years ago. The White Lotus Sect's Buddhist leader Lü Mingzhen, known as Lü Laozu in the folks, brought his disciples Zhao Quan and Qiu Fu to preach in Shanxi and Shaanxi, deceiving the villagers to learn magic. Naturally, he was wiped out by the Governor of Shanxi and Shaanxi.

After all, Patriarch Lu's magical powers were no match for the imperial court's butcher knife.

There are many names in the White Lotus Sect, and the doctrines are also different. They are collectively called the White Lotus Sect, but they are different.

In short, the high-ranking members of the Lu Laozu Mingmu sect, under the leadership of Zhao Quan and Qiu Fu, simply became traitors and led their followers to surrender to the Tatars. They were willing to serve as the vanguard of the Tatars' attack on the Ming Dynasty, and guided the Tatar cavalry when they entered the village to raid it.

Altan Khan accepted these traitors and running dogs, and settled Zhao Quan, Qiu Fu and others in the ancient Fengzhou area near the border of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhao Quan and Qiu Fu, with their followers, established a base camp for traitors and their running dogs in that place, gathering desperate criminals and barbarians from all over the Ming Dynasty. Tens of thousands of people settled there and called it Bansheng.

That was not the Tatar's sphere of influence. Legally, it even belonged to the territory of the Ming Dynasty, but it was a place outside the law of the Ming Dynasty.

Whenever the northern Tatars marched south, these traitors and running dogs would act as guides and serve the Tatar cavalry comfortably.

Before this group of traitors and lackeys came into being, the Tatars and Altan were not familiar with the provincial governments and counties of the Ming Dynasty behind the Great Wall, so at most they would massacre a few villages in the border towns, burn, kill, and loot and then leave.

But with the guide, there were more tricks. In the 29th year of Jiajing, Altan Khan, at the suggestion of Zhao Quan, agreed to accept the bribe from Qiu Luan, the general of Datong Town, and determined the main attack direction towards the capital of the Ming Dynasty.

Concentrate military forces to attack the defense-less Ming hinterland. This idea could only be proposed by a traitor who is very familiar with the Ming Dynasty's borders and military deployments.

Altan Khan readily accepted Zhao Quan's suggestion, and then he marched from west to east, plundering along the way, killing everyone regardless of whether they were soldiers or civilians.

In just one month, hundreds of thousands of people became victims of Altan's cavalry.

Eventually, the Tatars attacked.

Altan's army approached the capital, causing Zhu Houcong a psychological trauma second only to the Renyin Palace Coup.

The imperial court has been trying to eliminate Ban Sheng's traitors and lackeys, but to no avail.

Taosongzhai in the 36th year of Jiajing was considered by Yang Shun, Xu Lun, Yan Song and Yan Shifan to be an opportunity to eliminate Ban Sheng, but it was proved that it brought even greater disaster from the northern barbarians to the Ming Dynasty.

The same cuckold, the same Tatar defection, everyone is worried that the same thing will happen again.

However, the Ming Dynasty now has more information, and Zhu Houcong can feel that this is a real opportunity. But Zhu Houcong has concerns.

This is related to Wang Chonggu, the governor of Xuanda.

Wang Chonggu was from Xishan, or more precisely, he was from a Shanxi merchant family.

A merchant family, no matter how wealthy they are, is still a merchant. According to the ancestral system of Emperor Taizu Gao, they cannot even wear silk brocade clothes, let alone become an official, let alone the governor of the two border towns of Xuanfu and Datong, a second-rank official of the Ming Dynasty court.

The Jinyiwei had already found out everything. As the saying goes, money makes the world go round. Shanxi merchants were the most powerful business group in the Ming Dynasty. It was neither difficult nor easy for them to change their origins.

There were three major merchant gangs in the Ming Dynasty: Shanxi, Huizhou and Chaozhou. The Shanxi merchants were known as official merchants, while the Huizhou merchants, who smuggled Western goods and became the richest men in the world, could be ranked behind them. This is a clear example.

If for no other reason, Shanxi merchants are in the money shop and bill exchange business!
According to the words of the people from Xishan quoted by the Jinyiwei, the merchants from Xishan were the best in the world in ancient times, but even though they had hundreds of thousands of dollars, they could not be called rich.

The annual tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty was only over 40 million taels of silver, but there were more than a hundred rich people in Xishan.

I can't say there are people who are ten thousand rich, but there are always people who are a thousand rich.

Everyone talks about the wealth of the south of the Yangtze River, but who knows that the wealth of the Western Mountains in the border area can rival that of a country?
However, the source of this endless wealth is not legitimate.

There were northern barbarians in every dynasty, and they were killed in every dynasty. Was it because the prosperous Tang Dynasty was not strong enough, or because the weak Song Dynasty was not rich enough, or because the military of our Ming Dynasty was not sharp enough?

Under the attacks of previous emperors such as Emperor Taizu Gao and Emperor Chengzu Wen, the Northern Tartars not only did not show signs of destruction, but became increasingly powerful.

If we trace the root of the problem, it is nothing more than someone giving blood transfusions to the Northern Barbarians.

There is no need to guess who or what force provided the blood transfusion. The Shanxi merchants really sold the Central Plains Dynasty for a good price.

The Embroidered Uniform Guards found two grain routes through which Shanxi merchants transported grain, fodder and other supplies to the grassland.

These two grain routes, one goes out from Xuanfu Town, and the other goes out from Datong Town. Moreover, there is no concealment and the grain is transported out openly.

Could it be that Wang Chonggu, the governor of Xuanda, was completely unaware of this? Then why were the grain carts of the Jin merchant Wang family among them?

The cat that catches mice feeds them food while catching them, encouraging them to have more babies, in order to continuously cheat the imperial court of dried fish.

Zhu Houcong's expression gradually changed from calm to cold. He wanted to applaud the Shanxi merchants and the Tatars for this double act.

According to the secret investigation of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, after Wang Chonggu became the governor of Xuanda, he did try his best to counterattack the Tatars, and the Shanxi merchants did try their best to give blood transfusions to the Tatars.

Every person or force is doing what they should do, but why is it that the Ming Dynasty is the one that suffers the most?

Wang Chonggu, Shanxi merchant, Tatar.

Zhu Houcong kept repeating these three terms. The court was about to negotiate with the Tatars, and in order to stabilize the morale of the Nine Garrisons army, Wang Chonggu could not be touched.

If we can’t touch Wang Chonggu, how can we touch the Shanxi merchants?
The blood debt owed by Shanxi merchants must be repaid with blood.

The military power of the two border towns of Xuanfu and Datong is in the hands of Wang Chonggu. How will Wang Chonggu react when asked to collect the blood of Shanxi merchants?

Zhu Houcong looked outside the temple. The summer weather was unpredictable. It was sunny just now, but now it was overcast. It looked like it was going to rain at any time. He thought for a moment and said, "Send an order to the Jinyiwei to cut off the Shanxi merchants' grain supply route."

As long as it doesn't rain for a moment, no one knows whether it will rain or not, so we have to give it a try.

(End of this chapter)