The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 469: The Power of the Far North Canal
In mid-October, the wind north of Liaodong gradually became colder.

Winter is coming in the Far North.

The Haixi Jurchen tribe also began to migrate south.

The vast plain covering thousands of miles was full of migrating groups, converging towards the Liao River like streams.

In the Ming army camp, the cavalry of the Shenwu Camp and even the food carts of the Shenji Camp were constantly entering and exiting like long dragons.

Wanli was really planning to spend the winter here.

Therefore, they had to transport and even collect a lot of supplies.

When the navy warships came to pick up the people, they were loaded with food, charcoal, coal and other winter supplies.

The soldiers of the Shenwu Camp had to ride their horses and scatter to collect fodder and firewood.

Fortunately, most of the Haixi Jurchens were nomadic tribes, so their cattle, sheep, and horses did not need to be taken away. Wanli simply paid real money to buy them.

This way we will have meat to last through the winter.

If all the meat had to be transported, the Shenjiying grain carts would probably be too busy to handle it.

There is no way. The Songhua River is not a tributary of the Liaohe River, and the waterway here is blocked. All the transferred materials have to be transported to the Liaohe River wharf four or five hundred miles away.

This is a big problem.

The winter supplies for their hundreds of thousands of troops would not be enough even with tens of thousands of grain carts. If hundreds of millions of acres of land are opened up here in the future, how will the grain produced be transported out?
Originally, Wanli wanted to open up the Heilongjiang waterway and then pull the water out.

But now he found that this was not feasible.

Because the mouth of the Heilongjiang River is at least tens of thousands of miles away from the mouth of the Haihe River north of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the distance from the Songhua River to the mouth of the Heilongjiang River is another three or four thousand miles.

For such a long distance, it would be too costly to transport food by rowing boats with human power. Relying on wind power, there would only be a few trips a year, and it would not be cost-effective to use a large number of Fujian ships to transport food.

So, what to do?

Early in the morning at about noon that day, he took the emperor's second son Zhu Changxu to the grain cart next to the big tent and looked out through a telescope.

To the south of the camp, the fleet of food carts from the Shenji Camp had already turned into a long dragon and headed south. The end of the long convoy could not be seen even with a telescope.

This is not a solution.

The Shenjiying's food carts were all pulled by war horses, and it took six or seven days to make a round trip.

Moreover, each grain cart could only carry ten shi of grain per trip.

In other words, a grain cart can only transport forty to fifty dan of grain per month.

If all the plains here were planted with crops, how much would there be?

Hundreds of millions of mu of land can produce at least 200 to 300 million dan of grain a year.

The annual food rations required for a population of tens of millions is only about 100 million dan.

In other words, they have to transport at least hundreds of millions of dan of grain out every year.

Even if a grain cart can transport 50 dan of grain a month, it can only transport 300 dan of grain in six months. Ten thousand horse-drawn carts can transport 3 million dan of grain in six months.

If we take the ice period here into consideration, then transporting hundreds of millions of stones of grain would require at least 300,000 to 400,000 horse-drawn carriages!

This is a joke. Horses need to eat grass. Three or four hundred thousand war horses in the weather conditions here would require at least thirty to forty million acres of grassland to feed them!
Perhaps it's time to consider digging a canal.

The Grand Canal is two or three thousand miles long. The Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties were able to dig a canal, so why couldn't the Ming Dynasty dig a canal?

This canal is only about four or five hundred miles long, so it shouldn't be very difficult to dig it out, right?
As for manpower, we can go to the northwest.

He gave money, land, and even houses, oxen, and farm tools, just to help the people in the northwest survive the Little Ice Age. Isn't that enough?

If that doesn't work, then use force!

He was thinking about it.

Zhu Changxu suddenly couldn't help but ask, "Father, are you really going to spend the winter with us here?"

Of course, if I don’t come here in person to see it, transporting the food out will become a big problem.

By the time the grain has been produced, it will be difficult to transport it out, which will be very embarrassing.

Also, it is not easy to develop such a large area. You do not have such great power or ability, and I have to be here to take charge.

Wanli nodded slightly and said, "Yes, I won't go back. If I go back this year, I will have to come back next year. It's too troublesome."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Changxu carefully reminded, "Father, I heard that it is very cold here in winter, with ice and snow everywhere."

How come you only learn to speak half of your words, kid?

Wanli said angrily: "What's wrong with the ice and snow? Just say what you want to say."

Zhu Changxu said very simply, "Father, your Majesty, how did the memorial on the ice and snow get here?"

When Wanli heard this, he was stunned.

This is indeed a problem. He cannot go nearly half a year without dealing with memorials. Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty will be in chaos.

The reason why he stayed here for the winter was actually to lure the snake out of its hole.

Now that Japan has been conquered, the Jiannu have been forced to flee to the extremely cold land in the north. It is only a matter of time before the Nurgandusi is conquered.

In other words, there are basically no major problems in the east and north of the Ming Dynasty.

As for the south and west, there is no major threat for the time being, so he does not need to rush to pacify them.

Next, he would consider thoroughly cleaning up the court and removing all problematic civil servants.

If he were in the capital, many officials with problems would choose to remain silent and not let him know anything was amiss. But it would be different if he stayed outside and didn't return to the capital. Without anyone to keep them in check, those guys would definitely behave themselves. He wanted to expose them all and deal with them all at once.

The more you clean up this time, the less trouble you will have later.

In addition, the development here is related to the impending Little Ice Age disaster, which is of vital importance to the Ming Dynasty, so he plans to spend the winter here and not go back.

However, even if he did not return to the capital, he still had to deal with memorials, and it would be impossible not to deal with important memorials.

It’s not so bad right now. It will only take about three days for the Clippers to speed up the delivery of the memorial from Ma Jingcheng.

If the world is frozen, it will be troublesome because neither fast ships nor fast horses can pass through!

He really didn't consider this issue.

There is currently no means of communication that can span two or three thousand miles at temperatures of minus 20 to 30 degrees Celsius, or even 30 to 40 degrees Celsius.

There was no other way, he had to go somewhere closer to the capital.

Wanli heard this, thought about it carefully, and then praised: "Well, yes, this is a good question.

Your Majesty has indeed not considered the issue of memorials. It seems we have to go to Daning Guard.

There is a highway leading to the capital, and even in winter, fast horses can pass through there."

He had just mentioned the horse when a thunderous sound of horse hooves suddenly came from the west.

This is Qi Jiguang coming with his personal guards.

It was just right, he felt relieved to hand this over to Qi Jiguang.

Wanli raised the telescope and scanned the area, then waved and said, "Let's go down, Yuan Jing is here."

He and Zhu Changxu waited in the big tent where maps were placed for a while, and Qi Jiguang arrived.

After the emperor and his ministers exchanged greetings, he pointed to the map and asked, "How's the cleanup going on over there with the Tatars?"

Qi Jiguang pointed to the map and explained, "Your Majesty, there is actually no clear boundary between the territories of the Tatars and the Yehe tribes.

The cavalry from Liaodong Town ran to this front line yesterday. They were originally going to clean up the remnants of the Tatars. Unexpectedly, when they were about to arrest someone, they were told that they were not from the Tatars, but from the Yehe tribe, and that the Yehe tribe had received an imperial edict and was preparing to move south.

This means that we have almost wiped out the remnants of the Tatar tribe.

So I went to this line yesterday to take a look, and early this morning I had someone from the Yehe tribe lead me here."

The remnants of the Tatar tribe have been almost cleared out, and this area has truly become the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

Wanli said with some satisfaction: "We have finally taken over this vast plain, and the scourge of the Northern Tartars is almost eradicated.

Now, apart from the remnants of the Jianzhou Jurchens and the Donghai Jurchens, there is no other force in the entire Nurgan region that can cause trouble for the Ming Dynasty."

Upon hearing this, Qi Jiguang cautiously asked, "Your Majesty, I dare to ask, Liang Yu and his 400,000 troops failed to encircle the Jiannu?"

This time he was in charge of the Western Front, and he really had no idea how the battle was going on the Eastern Front.

Wanli shook his head slightly and said, "Nurhaci is too slippery.

He probably received the news that we sent hundreds of thousands of troops to destroy his lair. He probably felt that sending back 30,000 or 40,000 troops would be a waste of food, so he led the main force of the Jiannu army to the north.

This was a good thing, as Liang Yu took over the Jiannu's territory without losing any men.

If the main force of the Jiannu army came back to support, there would probably be a big battle.

The Jiannu were very familiar with that place, and they had also built many stone strongholds there. If a fight really broke out there, the Jiannu would have the advantage of location and people, and Liang Yu would probably suffer a loss.

Now it's all right. The main force of the Jiannu army has fled to the territory of the Jurchens in the East China Sea. There are probably no defensive facilities there.

Moreover, the winter there is very cold, so the Jiannu can forget about building any defensive facilities this year.

We will attack them in the early spring of next year, and the Jiannu will definitely not be able to withstand it."

Oh, it turns out that the Eastern Army did not engage in battle with the main force of the Jiannu.

Upon hearing this, Qi Jiguang nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty is wise. It is indeed better to engage the main force of the Jiannu in the territory of the Donghai Jurchens than in the Jiannu's own territory.

We can even seize the geographical advantage and the people's support.

After all, to the Donghai Jurchens, the Jiannu were invaders.

As long as we promise the Donghai Jurchens some benefits, they will probably not help the Jiannu but help us instead."

This Ming Dynasty war god was good at using various means to reduce losses in battle.

Upon hearing this, Wanli nodded slightly and said, "Well, I'll leave this to you.

As for the Donghai Jurchens, we can promise to provide them with a piece of land with abundant fishing and hunting resources in the warmer south, allowing them to migrate there and recuperate."

The territory in the south?
Upon hearing this, Qi Jiguang said cautiously, "Your Majesty, I dare to ask, are we going to move all the Haixi and Donghai Jurchen tribes out of the Nurgan Regional Command?
There doesn't seem to be any territory in the south comparable to the Nurgan Dusi, right?"

Wanli nodded slightly and said, "Yes, we must move all the Jurchen tribes out of Nurgandusi.

There is no territory comparable to the Nurgandusi in the south, but there is one in America.

Besides, there is no need for us to give them a territory comparable to that of Nurgandusi.

Each of their tribes has a population of only a few hundred thousand at most, so a prefecture is enough for them."

Oh, so they were planning to move them to America.

That place is great, but it’s thousands of miles away, and you can’t come back without a huge ocean-going ship.

(End of this chapter)