"No more, no more, all gone..."
Beijing, Meishan.
After eleven years, Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty once again climbed the Meishan Mountain in Beijing that had haunted him, but what he saw was an unrecognizable scenery, which really disappointed him.
However, Zhu Cixiang liked the golden soup-like Meishan Fortress and the city of Beijing.
Beijing in the Ming Dynasty should have been a fortress!
Even if the emperor really wants to guard the country, he should build a fortress that can last for a long time. That Ming Dynasty emperor Chengzu built a metropolis comparable to Nanjing. How could this be possible? Nanjing is located in a land of fish and rice, and has the Yangtze River water transport to rely on. It is easy to obtain rice from the upper reaches and between the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers. Naturally, it can feed many people.
But how can Beijing do this? Not only is there not much grain production around Beijing, there are also four military towns in Jizhou, Liaodong, Xuanfu, and Datong! Although the Ming Dynasty implemented the military household farming system, the land in Liaodong Town among the four major military towns was more fertile. Even if the other three towns did not encounter the Little Ice Age, it would be difficult to have any good harvests.
In the long run, it is unrealistic for them to be self-sufficient through farming, as they do not have such good agricultural conditions.
Therefore, the three towns of Jizhou, Xuanfu, and Datong must rely on food and financial support from the south to be able to sustain themselves for a long time.
Before the advent of trains and ships, the cost of transporting grain over long distances was quite staggering!
Therefore, if the emperor really wants to defend the country in Beijing, he must control the population of Beijing. One hundred and eighty thousand people is enough, and he must not create a metropolis with a population of one million. This is not the same as Jizhou and Xuan. Are the three towns of Fufu and Datong grabbing food rations?
Moreover, it must be easy to make money in the metropolis under the emperor's feet. What can the miserable soldiers on the front line do to compete with the Beijingers living in the second and third rings for rice and noodles?
As a place where the emperor guards the country, Beijing must not be made bigger than a medium-sized city with a population of 100,000. Beijing, which had been shrunk by Dorgon and Fulin, was still big in Zhu Cixiang's eyes.
The city with 14 gates and 18 forts was still too big, and it couldn't be defended without 40,000 to 50,000 people - this was the number of defenders needed after the forts were modified to save manpower.
So after Emperor Zhu entered Beijing again, he thought about demolishing Beijing's old city wall - because after regaining Beijing, a lot of people, including Emperor Chongzhen, tried to persuade Zhu Cixiang not to turn Beijing into Peking. The Ming Dynasty was still Because we maintain the two capitals of the north and the south, we can add the west capital and Wuhan at most.
And Beijing should become the key place for the emperor to defend the country!
Everyone said so, and Zhu Cixiang also planned to follow the good example, so Beijing's old city wall would probably not be saved!
After demolishing the city wall, Zhu Cixiang also planned to demolish all the buildings between the Beijing City Wall and the Imperial City Fortress, and then use the materials obtained from dismantling the Beijing City Wall to strengthen the Imperial City Fortress.
The Imperial City Bastion is actually not that small. The inner circumference of the bastion (not counting the outer bastion) is more than 20 miles, and the internal area exceeds ten square kilometers.
Without tens of thousands of elite soldiers (there are tens of thousands of soldiers standing on a one-meter city wall), it would be difficult to fully defend the city.
Today, when Zhu Cixiang accompanied Emperor Chongzhen to climb Meishan Mountain to view the scenery, he drew geometric figures in his mind - repairing and attacking bastions is a geometric problem!
Now when he suddenly heard Emperor Chongzhen speaking, Zhu Cixiang came out of his thoughts and responded: "Ah, what's missing?"
Emperor Chongzhen looked back at his son, what was missing? Of course his imperial power is gone!
"The old locust trees are gone!" Chongzhen said angrily, "There used to be a lot of them on Meishan Mountain, but now there's not a single one left!"
"Well..." Zhu Cixiang smiled, "It is said that Fulin ordered all the trees on Meishan Mountain to be chopped down!"
"Hmph, this thief dared to cut down my old locust tree. He really deserves to die!"
Zhu Cixiang thought to himself: Is Fulin really dead? Maybe not! But it doesn't matter, even if he is alive, he can't change the world!
At this time, Pan Shuchen, the eunuch who was following Zhu Cihong, walked quickly behind Emperor Zhu, handed over a memorial, and said in a low voice: "Long live the Lord, this is a joint memorial written by His Highness the King of Dai and His Highness the Prince of Chongqing. The two Highnesses have already arrived. We are under the castle of Long Live Mountain (Meishan), please be summoned."
"What? Third brother and fifth brother are here? Let's meet together!"
As soon as he heard that Zhu Cijiong and Zhu Cihuan were coming, Emperor Chongzhen's interest immediately arose.
Zhu Cixiang did not speak, but opened the memorial - there was a memorial sent before the meeting. Of course, it was not to chat about family matters, but to have official business to talk about.
The things reported in the memorial are related to the Mongols! Zhu Cijiong and Zhu Cihuan jointly reported the eastward direction of the Five Monan Mongolian Leagues - Monan Mongolia had a total of six leagues, among which the Six Banners of Ordos were located under the Yikezhao League, all of which had now surrendered to the Ming Dynasty. The Zhelimu League, with the Horqin tribe as its core and a total of ten banners, still sides with Duduo. The remaining four alliances are Horqin Mongolia, Tumut Mongolia, Chahar Mongolia, and Khalkha Mongolia, all of which want to win over and strive for annexation!
Now there is fierce competition among several aspects around these small and medium-sized Mongolian tribes!
The Qing Dynasty is completely gone, but the Mongolian-Manchu problem is still very thorny. It is impossible to completely solve it!
"Father, let's go meet the third and fifth sons together!" Zhu Cixiang handed the memorial to Pan Shuchen, then pretended to pick up Chongzhen and walked towards the main hall of the Long Live Mountain Fortress.
...
"Father, brother, today's Mongolia is roughly divided into Eastern Mongolia and Mongolia. Mongolia is the Oara Alliance, and now it is the twin brothers of the Zhungeer Tribe and the Heshuote Tribe. Eastern Mongolia has the Chahar Tribe, Tutu Tribe, There are six major tribes including the Meute tribe, the Horqin tribe, the Tushetu Khan tribe, the Chechen Khan tribe, and the Zasaktu Khan tribe, as well as a number of smaller tribes.
Among the six major divisions of Eastern Mongolia, the strongest one is the Horqin tribe. The Horqin tribe has six banners, plus the Zalaite Banner, the Duerbot Banner, the Gorros Front Banner, and the Gorros Back Banner. There are ten banners in total, also known as the Ten Banners of Nenjiang, and the land they occupy is the original territory of Daning Dusi..."
The person who was introducing the situation in Mongolia to Zhu Cixiang was Zhu Cijiong. Because he had dealt with the Ordos tribe for a long time, he was a Mongolian expert and knew the situation in Eastern Mongolia very well.
"Brother, the emperor and I believe that the key to pacifying Eastern Mongolia lies in Horqin, the hometown of Daning Dusi!" Zhu Cijiong said, "I think that when Grandpa Chengmiao withdrew Daning Dusi and the three guards of Wuliangha, he buried them. It was the root cause of the out-of-control situation in Eastern Mongolia. If the Daning Dusi and the three guards of Wuliangha did not withdraw, not only would it be difficult for Eastern Mongolia to cause trouble, but even the Jurchens in Jianzhou would not be able to rise. If we want to stabilize the Northern Kingdom, we must rebuild the Daning Army. Town! My younger brother suggested that while the Northern Expeditionary Army has not yet withdrawn, we should set up a Daning Jiedu Envoy and order the generals and ministers to go out to town Daning!"
Zhu Cixiang nodded, and then glanced at Zhu Cihuan. Zhu Cihuan felt excited and heard Emperor Zhu Da say: "Huang Degong is enough to guard Daning! Now that the Tumote tribe has surrendered and obeyed, they will soon move to Haerhelin and Yulin." , Yan'an is no longer everywhere, and should be placed under Shaanxi Province. Huang Degong can be reassigned to Daning!"
The "Celestial System" designed by Zhu Cixiang for the Ming Dynasty was a circle of "feudal rule". The innermost layer was the "direct provinces", which were directly subordinate provinces and were the core of the Celestial Empire.
Outside the direct provinces are the internal vassals, also known as internal vassals, which are various Jiedushi, Daduhu, and Xuanwei. These internal vassals govern either "border areas" or "barbaric lands". The former needs to be granted Border ministers attach great importance to power (border ministers are theoretically exiled officials, but in fact there is the possibility of hereditary and long-term appointment), and it is difficult for the latter to implement floating official governance.
Outside the internal vassals are the external vassals. The five vassal states of Korea, Annan, Siam, Laos, and Chenla were all external vassals. Tumut and Chahar will also become external vassals in Emperor Zhu's plan.
In addition, there is also the Zhungeer tribe. When the time is right, Zhu Cixiang will separate it from Beiting Town and turn it into a foreign vassal.
"Third brother," after Zhu Cixiang finished talking about Daning, he suddenly asked Zhu Cijiong a question, "How do you think the Heshuo Special Department should solve it?"
