Although Hara Hetao is small, there are four major water systems nearby: Luanhe River, Chaohe River, Liaohe River, and Daling River. There are hundreds of miles of wetland grassland with lush aquatic plants and all kinds of things growing there.
When Song Liang arrived, he was quite surprised by what he saw in Chengde, but he encountered obstacles when purchasing a shop.
The city has not yet been built, and the shops will have to wait half a month.
As a result, he took some time off and wandered around Chengde.
The huge city of Chengde is naturally the first choice. The lamas are chanting Buddhist scriptures and Sanskrit sounds are heard, which creates a unique sense of tranquility.
He donated a hundred silver coins of incense and was welcomed by the temple.
In the vast and sparsely populated Chengde, how could there be such wealthy herdsmen?
The host was a disciple of Chahar Lama (Banchan's disciple). He came from Han Dynasty. He immediately ran over and said gently:
"Chengde Temple is a temple built by the royal family. Tens of thousands of dollars were allocated to it. It was just completed last month."
"The city is also rough. If the donor doesn't mind it, he can stay in this temple temporarily and there will be plenty of food."
Song Liang and others naturally agreed. Of course he understood that this was their way of attracting incense.
Businessmen are also believers, and they will naturally donate incense when they stay in temples. As Chengde becomes more and more prosperous, it is a good idea to make friends with businessmen in advance.
After visiting Chengde Temple, I saw that it covers an area of 100 acres, has more than 20 large and small courtyards, and more than 10 temples. Although the Buddha statues are not decorated with gold bodies, they are extremely majestic in their carvings.
I'm afraid it won't be possible to repair ten thousand silver yuan.
The host led the way: "When this temple was built, it took nearly three thousand people, and it took several months of hard work. The temple was built first, and then the city was built."
It turned out that the herdsmen covering hundreds of miles around were all the emperor's khan tents, including the dowry slaves of the Mongolian concubines and the herdsmen cut off from Chahar, totaling more than 5,000 tents.
With the completion of Chengde Temple and Chengde's proximity to the capital, merchants heading north to Chifeng all settled here and it became a transit point.
Seeing this, the imperial court built a city here as an outpost in order to better control the Khan's tent and make it the headquarters of the Khan.
"The Mongolian tribes obey the emperor as Chuluo Khan, this place is the Khan's Court, and the nearby tribes are the Khan's Tent. This is the most prosperous place in the world..."
The caravan went up and down to the hospital to rest.
Regarding the management of lamas, the Imperial Court has its own regulations.
The first level is naturally the Dharma King level. There are only two in the entire Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Banchan and Dalai.
The second level is Hutuktu, which is the translation of "Paspa" in Tibetan and "Sage" in Chinese.
There are only three of these people now.
One of them was naturally Jebtsundamba from Mobei, and the remaining two were disciples of the two great Dharma kings, who were left by the emperor to sit in Chahar and Suiyuan.
It can be said that the religion in Mongolia is controlled by the three of them.
The reincarnations of these five people are controlled by the imperial court. If they are not witnessed by imperial officials, they will not be allowed to inherit.
The rest are naturally the big temples in various places, belonging to the disciples and disciples.
Regarding the map of Monan, the two Hutuktu great lamas understood the interests and accepted several Han and Mongolians as disciples respectively, thus spreading their faith to various places.
The reincarnations of these large temples are generally under the supervision of superior lamas and continue according to their own regulations, with little control from the court.
After doing business in Mengdi for a long time, everyone understood that they would rather offend the nobles than the lamas.
The next day, Song Liang was bored and wandered around the tribe near Chengde.
As the location of the sweat tent, the Mongolian tribes in Chengde are particularly different.
First of all, there is no slave class in any tribe.
All the slaves in the Khan tent were released as herdsmen. If the nobles wanted to use them, they had to spend money to hire them.
As a result, slaves and poor people formed a class of wage earners and gained most of their freedoms.
With this strategy alone, the power of the nobles in the Khan's tent was greatly reduced, and only the wealth was preserved.
In Chahar, Suiyuan and other places, this is far from possible, and the court does not have so much power to implement it.
But the sweat tent is different, the emperor can do whatever he wants.
In addition to the divisions of hundreds of households and thousands of households, there are also judges who are in charge of justice in various tribes on weekdays.
The key is that they still have a grade, the seventh grade.
It just happened that he came and encountered a family property dispute.
Hundreds of families died of the disease, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of acres of grassland, tens of thousands of cattle and sheep, and a lot of money.
Under the open air, the judge sat on the throne, and hundreds or thousands of households nearby sat to testify. The lamas in the temple also testified.
There were hundreds of families standing underneath.
"Master Judge, all the money should be inherited by me, and the inheritance by my younger brother does not count at all."
Among the three brothers competing behind the stage, the eldest son demanded to inherit all the title and wealth, while the youngest son took out the rules of keeping the stove for the youngest son in the grassland.
However, the second child proposed the principle of equal sharing.
What the three said was very reasonable.
The system of primogeniture is a law promulgated by the imperial court; the youngest son keeping the stove has been an unspoken rule among Mongolian people for many years; equal division is another rule that emerged after Dayan Khan.
Throughout the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the methods of inheriting property and titles in Mongolia were messy.
Later, after the unification of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties, except for the eldest son who inherited the title and land, the other sons were all sent to temples to become lamas.
Perfectly solved the problem.
Song Liang stared with interest.
At this time, the judge took a sheep bone stick, hammered the table, and said loudly: "According to the national law promulgated by Chuluo Khan, the eldest son can only inherit the title."
"But for the family property, the eldest son can only take half, and the rest is divided equally among the sons."
"Then can I, a bastard, be separated?" Suddenly, among the onlookers, a young man raised his hands and shouted, his face full of joy.
"Of course." The judge affirmed: "When dividing property, all descendants are equal."
"I don't accept it—" the youngest son yelled.
"This is the law of the Khan, and everyone must obey it."
The judge shook his head and asked the hundreds and thousands of households on the side: "Do you have any objections?"
"Your Majesty the Judge is right, that's the truth."
"Amitabha!" The lama bowed his head and chanted, obviously approving it.
Thus, a property division that was unusual but surprising to the Mongols began.
First of all, there are wives and concubines. They now have their own choices. Those who have sons can follow their sons, and those without sons can continue to live with their eldest son or remarry.
Just like in the Han Dynasty, dowry items can only be regarded as one's own property, not the man's.
This completely subverts the values of the prairie. After all, even women are property. How can property have its own property?
But there is no way, that's what the Khan said.
Some are happy, some are sad.
There are now two futures for the bastards. One is to join the army, join the main army of the sweat camp, and then be selected into the bodyguard department.
The other is to enter a temple and become a lama.
Song Liang was surprised.
When I returned to the temple, I suddenly saw a group of five or six-year-old novices, accompanied by their parents, sent to the temple to become monks.
"Master, why is this?"
"It's nothing more than family property."
The host sighed and muttered: "According to the rules of the court, as long as the children become monks, they do not need to inherit the title or property. In order to avoid the property being divided, the nobles can only do this."
"Besides, if there is no heir, the lama can also return to secular life and inherit the title."
Song Liang suddenly realized and was filled with emotion.
I'm afraid many of these little guys who were taken to the temple were forced to come here by their elder brothers. Although they are brothers, who wants their property to shrink?
Besides, sending the extra son to the temple not only prevents fratricide, but also allows him to have enough food and clothing to become a cultured lama. How good is this?
But the temple naturally gets a lot of benefits.
When the son comes to the temple, he must donate money for incense.
In fact, for Lamasery, the imperial court has given countless gifts.
First of all, the lamas were exempted from corvee service, and the temples were given a large amount of grassland and exempted from paying taxes.
At the same time, in the Khan tent, both nobles and lamas can serve as officials, either as judges, or as civil officials, military officers, and educated lamas are all treasured talents.
Lama is also the way to become an official, which is excellent for nobles and herdsmen with low starting points.
A few days later, a foreign team came from the Suiyuan area.
Envoy of Rakshasa Kingdom.
In the huge Siberia, the Russians are moving very fast and have strongholds everywhere.
The attacks in Central Asia and Lake Baikal completely made the Russians angry.
But neither the Oirat Mongolian tribes nor the Manchus could be conquered overnight by Russia, which was thousands of miles away.
What's more, the Polish-Lithuanian Federation, which was exposed by Pingdu Zhenlu, is stronger than Russia in terms of population and national strength.
For Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Federation is like a thorn in its throat and must be eliminated, but it cannot defeat it and can only remain in a stalemate.
There was a fire in the rear, but we couldn't ignore it.
Nowadays, Russia is militaristic and has financial difficulties. The mink trade in Siberia is its important financial pillar, and there must be no mistakes.
So the reckless Russians had to activate diplomatic mode and find an enemy of their enemies to continue their journey to Siberia.
At this time, the east, which represents wealth, comes into view.
Coupled with the instigation of the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic merchants, Russian merchants, nobles, and officials formed a large-scale team and headed east along the strongholds in Central Siberia.
In fact, for many years at Lake Baikal, the Russians learned from the Khalkha Mongolian tribes that to their south was the legendary Ming Dynasty.
After arriving in Bratsk, we were only a few hundred miles away from Lake Baikal, but the route proved impassable and the stronghold was occupied by a group of Tungus people.
The Tungus people, who number in the tens of thousands, cannot defeat a team of several thousand people, not to mention they have artillery and muskets.
From there, the team continued south, crossing Lake Baikal and passing through Khalkha Mongolia.
Fortunately, this team of 3,000 people, nearly 2,000 of which were Cossack cavalry, carried muskets at their waists. After several attacks, the Khalkhas had no choice but to give up.
This group of people will even rob you openly to replenish their own consumption.
They were being robbed while passing by his own jurisdiction. Sheitu Khan was so angry that he could only stand in a stalemate for a while. When he learned that they were allies of Akito (who deceived them), he was considered to have fallen behind and let them pass.
Even for the sake of doing business, Shetu Khan asked his own people to join him, and the team expanded to 5,000 people.
After fighting again and again, the stalemate is not worthwhile, so we have no choice but to join them.
Ivanov took a sip of strong wine, tightly wrapped his woolen coat, looked at the increasingly warm weather, and sighed:
"Oh my god, this damn weather, it's only August and it's freezing to death."
"I heard it's safer there." The Hanseatic businessman on the side, wrapped in a wolf fur coat, muttered: "I've been walking for several months, and I even wonder if I've arrived in hell."
"Hahaha, my friend, the golden road is not that simple."
The pretentious official stepped forward and said: "If it weren't for the empire's maps and strongholds along the way, we would have lost our way and starved to death in Siberia."
At the end of August, when the first snowflakes fell on the grassland, this team of 5,000 people arrived at Suiyuan Jiuyuan City.
The square city walls, the exaggerated moat, and the steady stream of soldiers and horses made this team breathe a sigh of relief.
Sheitu Khan's guide quickly went to communicate and finally eased the situation.
Obviously, people didn't quite believe the previous rumors.
After putting down their weapons, a few dozen people entered the city.
"My God, this is a prosperous city, no less than Moscow."
The clean and spacious streets, countless shops, densely packed houses, and more importantly, many ditches are impressive.
This kind of architecture, which is very different from Mongolia, Russia, and even the West, makes them extremely excited.
This is the country of silk - Ming Dynasty.
As the governor of Suiyuan, Zhang Guowei saw this group of tribute groups of Sheitu Khan.
Yes, in the previous report, they claimed to be the tribute team of Sheitu Khan.
We also know that the Khalkha Tribe and Sheituhan Tribe have tens of thousands of herders, which is a very powerful faction for Suiyuan.
Although they surrendered, how could the Mongols take their words seriously?
Therefore, one cannot be too cautious.
"What? Rakshasa Kingdom?"
Zhang Guowei was confused when he learned that this team was not only composed of Sheitu Khan's delegation, but also a team from the Rakshasa Kingdom.
He had never heard of this bird country.
Sheitu Khan's envoy said: "The Rakshasa Kingdom was a vassal state of the Golden Horde, one of the four great khanates of Mongolia."
"That's it." Zhang Guowei twirled his beard, with a bit of joy on his face.
Small foreign vassal countries traveled thousands of miles to pay tribute. Isn't this a strong recognition of the Ming Dynasty?
"Let them get ready and leave for Beijing in a few days."
A letter traveled four hundred miles and arrived at Yuquan Mountain five days later.
"Rakshasa Kingdom?" The cabinet ministers were confused.
Not only that, they also didn't know much about the Golden Horde, so they could only ask to see the Emperor's Holy Judgment.
Facing the Rakshasa Kingdom who had come all the way, Zhu Yixi was a little confused when she learned about it.
This is more than just a thousand miles. In the era before the Siberian Railway, traveling thousands of miles was simply risking your life!
"What are the Russians doing here?"
Zhu Yixi muttered, and then ordered: "Let them come over!"
(End of chapter)
