The price of silver in the Ming Dynasty was quite high at the moment, and ten thousand taels of silver was indeed a huge sum of money. It was natural that he could not afford to give it away, so Gao Pragmatic stopped worrying about this and asked again: "Since you are reselling it to the frontier army, but the frontier army's military salary The limit is so tight, can they afford the money to buy the horse? Can you resell it at cost?"
"The cost price is not enough, I still have to lose money." Cao Gan said with a smile: "Even if the horse is just in my hands, it will take some time, so the horse feed, care and other expenses will have to be spent. Money, plus the border army often has to delay for a while to get enough goods, how can I give them the cost price? But generally speaking, my sales are not expensive, just about two taels more for a horse. After all, you have to worry about your friendship with the border army, right?"
He paused and continued: "As for whether the Bianjun can get the money, the young master doesn't know. It would be quite difficult for the Bianjun to directly use the money to buy horses. Anyway, in the past few years, Border troops rarely give cash. They usually use other supplies to offset the payment for goods. These items range from a wide range of things, such as the silks, cloths, cottons, needlework, ropes, combs, rice, salt, etc. They would bring candies, tassels, otter skins, sheepskin boxes, etc. as offsets... This was one of the reasons why Xiao said he couldn't sell the horses to them at the original price: their goods were too miscellaneous, and they couldn't just collect the goods themselves. Trouble, it is very troublesome for us to calculate the price here, and we will waste a lot of time. Those who have little money to raise horses cannot pay for it themselves, no one is stupid enough to do this kind of business."
Gao Pangshi suddenly understood and asked, "And you took these goods to trade with the Mongols?"
"That's right, Mongolians want all kinds of things anyway." Cao Gan said: "But in fact, there are some things that the little ones don't like to buy, such as those cheap items such as ordinary needlework, the small ones don't like to buy them, generally The prices for border troops are very low."
Gao Pragmatic was slightly curious: "Why don't you want them? Don't Mongolians lack these little things?"
"Mongolia is in short supply, but the people who can sell horses to young people in large quantities are all well-established people in Mongolia. How can they be interested in buying those things like needlework? What they want is silk and silk. Such good things. As for the things that ordinary Mongolians need, most of them can only be exchanged for cattle, sheep, furs, horsetails, etc. And for some reason, Mongolians have not been very fond of selling cattle in recent years."
"Oh?" Gao Pingshi frowned slightly: "Why don't you sell the cow? Do you know the inside story?"
Cao Gan touched his bald head and said hesitantly: "I haven't thought about it carefully, but it is probably related to the White Lotus Sect's bandits coercing a large number of Han people from the border areas to move to Mongolia to cultivate fields."
Oh, that's the thing... Gao Pragmatic knew about this situation in his previous life. To put it bluntly, it was just that some Han people in the border areas couldn't survive for one reason or another, and some White Lotus cultists tried every means to get them to reclaim wasteland for farming in southern Mongolia. . Although Mongolia is dominated by grasslands, it does not mean that there is no land that can be cultivated. Therefore, there are such places allocated to the Han people under their rule, and even the so-called "bansheng" was created.
The incident of Bansheng City was often used in later generations to criticize the unpopular rule of the Ming Dynasty. The main argument is that the Ming Dynasty's farming technology and some handicraft techniques and even city-building techniques and medical skills were "spread" to Mongolia, making the Han people themselves Competitiveness has declined.
Gao Pragmatic's view on this is: fart.
Why?
Don’t you know the term “cultural export”? Gao Pragmatic wished that the Mongols would accept Han culture faster and more, and increase the intensity of building cities and settlements - so that it would be easier for Han rule in the future!
If the Mongols could always maintain their nomadic style of thousands of miles, there would be little technological development, but if the Han people wanted to have a long-term and stable frontier, they would basically have no chance - the weaker their productivity, the more they would have to rely more and more on coming to the Han land to harvest grass and grain. They came to make a living, and they mainly used cavalry, so they just grabbed a wave and left. Although your Great Wall is long, can it really be fortified for thousands of miles?
The Ming Dynasty was often snatched away by the Mongols. When the Ming army arrived, they could only clean up the battlefield. Why? You can't outrun them! The Mongols don't intend to rule the place they conquered for a long time. They just want to rob some living supplies and have no intention of occupying the city and occupying the land. What can you do?
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic is not opposed to the sinicization of the Mongols at all, and even wishes he could personally plan for them how to speed up the sinicization! Therefore, although the Ming court was very annoyed by the border residents fleeing north, Gao Pragmatic was not annoyed at all. Not only was he not annoyed, he even thought of another thing.
Every time Mongolia applied to the Ming court to open a market, they would also ask the Ming court to give them Buddhist scriptures, and even send the great lama from the capital to preach in Mongolia. However, the Ming court seemed to have no interest in this and always ignored it. The appearance - this is simply refusing to do good business that comes to your door!
If Gao Pragmatic could be in power, he would definitely try his best to print more Buddhist scriptures and send more lamas to preach to the Mongols! Because for Mongolia, Lamaism is basically a suicide cult, or at least a self-mutilation cult. This is not to say that Lamaism is a cult that makes Mongolians commit suicide or self-mutilation. Of course, it is also a serious religion that encourages people to do good, but from the perspective of the country At a certain level, advocating the Lama Church seriously damages national strength and enterprising spirit.
Don’t you see that after Lamaism flourished in Mongolia, the glory of the Mongols completely disappeared without a trace? Although in the original history, this was also influenced by the Qing Dynasty's policy of reducing the population, Lamaism was also an important reason for the Mongols to abandon their martial arts.
Therefore, looking at all the circumstances, Gao Pragmatic does not think that the Ming Dynasty needs to conquer Mongolia by force at all - Mongolia can be turned into a big sieve only by relying on economy and culture, and then a certain amount of force can be guaranteed to deter it. Collect it for your own use.
Why not!
As for you saying that the conflict between Mongolia and Han is acute and irreconcilable? In the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, which lasted for more than two hundred years, countless Mongolians served the Han people one after another!
To give just a few examples, take the famous Battle of Tumubao. The Ming army claimed 500,000 troops (actually about 200,000) and lost 70,000 troops. A large number of the losses were Mongolian soldiers. Many of them changed their surnames to Han to defend the Ming Dynasty. The army retreated and fought to the last moment with their Mongolian compatriots. So much so that some people in later generations jokingly said that the Battle of Tumubao appeared to be a fight between the Han court and the Mongols, but in fact it was more like a civil war fought by the Mongols.
During the Wanli period, the Ming Dynasty came to Korea twice to fight against Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Japanese invading army. Among them, Xuanfu Datong belongs to the Ming army, and its main force is the Mongols. At that time, the four generals of Xuan Da were Pao Sai, Yang Dengden, Xie Qingdeng, and Pogui. All four of them were Mongolians.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were tens of thousands of Mongolians serving the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong. When the Ming army failed in the Songjin battle, there were still more than 3,000 Mongolians who defended the Ming army until the last moment. On the contrary, after the Han surrendered, the Mongols had to be They were captured and eventually killed by the Manchu Qing Dynasty.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic, who is well aware of the inside story and development, is quite "open-minded" about the board's rise.
