According to the pre-war strategic plan, the Ming government would screen these large numbers of prisoners.
The first step is to separate the captives of the tribal alliance in the forest from the captives of the Wanggu tribe and the Tatar tribe.
All the captives of the Forest Tribe Alliance and the upper echelons of the two major tribes, the Wanggu Tribe and the Tataer Tribe, are evil in nature and must be dealt with severely.
The specific strategy was to select women of childbearing age and incorporate them into the Ming Dynasty household registration, and then send them to remote areas to marry local bachelors, help them start families, and increase the population and stability of border areas.
There was no way around it. The living conditions in various border areas of the Ming Dynasty were harsh. Even the residents who were willing to respond to the country's call to move to border areas were mostly unwilling to settle in these bitter and cold places.
Most of the people who are willing to settle in those places are poor single men who have lost their homes and families in previous wars. They take a fancy to the generous immigration policies in border areas, so they are willing to go.
Most women are unwilling to settle in border areas.
The "immigration real border" policy in border areas must be implemented. To this end, Su Yonglin thought of many ways, but could not improve the population structure of border areas.
In the end, Xin Qiji proposed that he could obtain women of appropriate age from the Northern Expedition, select them, incorporate them into the national household registration, and assign them to border areas to marry bachelors, so that they could thrive in the local area. This would solve the problem.
After Xin Qiji opened everyone's horizons, Lin Jingchun immediately proposed that some of the extra prisoners after the distribution was completed could be used as special conditions for recruiting people to settle on the border, and continued to recruit more single men who were willing to settle on the border and continue to immigrate to the border.
Single men who are willing to settle on the border for reclamation construction not only enjoy very generous border settlement policies, but also enjoy a spouse arranged by the government.
It turns out that residents in border areas are not only exempted from tax for five years, but can also enjoy the government's policy of providing land, houses, farm tools, and livestock. This can be regarded as directly helping them to settle down at the border for free and move in with their bags.
Now even the government assigns spouses.
Presumably, it can attract more single poor men to settle in border areas and increase the population in border areas.
Not only can the current problems be greatly improved, but after the Western Region is retaken in the future, it can also attract more single men from the mainland due to the war to live on the border, live with the garrison, multiply, and gradually transform the local area completely. Became the native land of China.
In the past, such suggestions were just suggestions, but now they are policies that can actually be implemented.
After the women of the right age were stripped away, the remaining prisoners who were screened out were basically the important labor force of the Ming Dynasty in the construction of border areas and water conservancy projects and transportation in various places.
They will spend their lives happily in labor and become the "bricks" in building the Ming Dynasty without any complaints. They will be the "top priority" in the Ming Dynasty's future actions to build border areas.
Of course, the most important thing is to save money.
After all, when the Ming Dynasty dispatched civilians to carry out project construction, they had to pay real money.
In addition, there are the low-level herdsmen and their families who have suffered cruel and severe oppression within the two major tribes of Wanggu tribe and Tatar tribe.
The Ming Dynasty will identify them, create household registrations on a family basis, incorporate them into the Ming Dynasty household registration, and grant Ming Dynasty national status.
They have rich herding experience and will become the main labor force in the livestock industry in the northern pastoral area of Datong Province in the future. They will live together with the Han herders who will go north in the future, and jointly make their own contributions to the development of the livestock industry in the Ming Dynasty.
For this reason, Su Yonglin dispatched a large number of officials and revival members to the grasslands to assist the local army in arranging the disposal of this huge captive population.
It is relatively simple to deal with the prisoners of the tribal alliance in the forest and the upper ruling class of the two major tribes Wanggu and Tata'er. They just need to treat them the same way they treat their enemies.
For the large number of lower-level herdsmen, it is relatively complicated, but it is not difficult.
The main reason here is that after the two major tribes were subdued by the Ming Dynasty and adopted as dogs, due to the prosperity of trade, the ethnic conflicts in the border areas of the Ming Dynasty were greatly alleviated. The two sides no longer fought wars, but instead used commerce and trade instead of war for exchanges. .
What followed was the long-awaited peace, as well as the unexpected intensification of internal class conflicts between the two tribes.
In order to obtain more cattle, sheep, livestock and various handicrafts with grassland characteristics and trade them with the Ming Dynasty and earn high profits, the leaders of the Wanggu tribe and the Tatar tribe transformed from iron-blooded warriors into gentry, and started fighting one by one. The idea of making a lot of money.
They were dazzled by the massive wealth and luxurious life, and their demands on and oppression of the lower-level herdsmen of their tribes were greatly intensified, to the point where they could use up all their money like sand.
The herdsmen at the bottom of the tribe were originally the tribe's reliable fighting force and the tribe's strong support. Relying on their contribution to plundering resources, the herdsmen families at the bottom were also allocated relatively generous resources, and their lives were actually not bad.
Therefore, the conflicts within these tribes are actually controlled within a relatively reasonable range.
However, under the Jin and Yuan offensives of the Ming Dynasty, the leaders of the two major tribes found that they no longer needed huge armed groups, but instead needed huge herdsmen groups to provide them with goods.
They need a larger number of cattle, sheep, horses and various grassland handicrafts. They need a larger number of herdsmen and craftsmen, and no longer need so many warriors.
As a result, many warriors were forced to become cheap laborers, exchanging their blood and tears for the decadent lives of the upper ruling classes of the two major tribes and their extravagant customs of fighting for wealth.
The leaders drove the lower-level herdsmen to overwork and overexploited their cattle, sheep and horses, exploiting them horribly. The situation was almost the same as at the end of the Central Plains Dynasty.
The internal conflicts of the two major tribes, which originally relied on exporting conflicts to the outside world to transfer conflicts and obtain a relatively stable life, suddenly intensified. Class conflicts quickly became the main contradiction, and the upper-level rulers lacked new means and goals to transfer conflicts.
Their original method of relying on plunder and the blood and tears of the Han people to divert conflicts can no longer be used, and new methods have not yet been discovered.
Or they don't notice it at all, or they notice it, but they don't want to and can't make any changes.
Because the new life is so comfortable, the good days are so comfortable.
So the revival members who arrived on the grassland used traditional skills to tie up the tribal leaders and parade them among the lower-level herdsmen, calling on everyone to hit them with all kinds of rotten and smelly things, curse them, and pour out their anger on them.
Then they were hanged in public and their bodies were allowed to fly in the wind.
In a very short period of time, the lower-level herdsmen of the two major tribes captured by the Ming army no longer felt that they were prisoners.
Together with the Ming army, they criticized the greedy tribal leaders, and suddenly they no longer felt that the Ming army was scary. Instead, they felt that the Ming army had helped them avenge their great revenge, and they even felt a little bit grateful.
With this relationship, the matter of mobilizing them to help build grassland and pastoral areas has been settled.
All you need to do is tell them that they have been included in the household registration of the Ming Dynasty and become people of the Ming Dynasty. They will enjoy a series of Ming Dynasty policy benefits for grassland herdsmen, and if they are really implemented, then within three to five years, there will be people on the grassland. The national flag of Ming Dynasty will be flying everywhere.
They will recognize from the bottom of their hearts that they are from the Ming Dynasty and recognize the existence of the country Ming Dynasty.
In the future, the Ming Dynasty will be able to train a larger number of cavalry on a wider grassland, increase the number of cavalry in the major corps stationed in northern Xinjiang, increase the number of horses raised, and it will be easier to breed fine war horses.
Sometimes, turning an enemy into a friend may just require grasping the core contradiction and tweaking it a little.
(End of chapter)
