Gao pragmatically knew something about the White Lotus Sect, which was considered famous in later generations. He first saw that the White Lotus Sect was causing trouble in the Ming Dynasty when he was reading novels in his previous life. Later, he discovered that not only the Ming Dynasty, but even in the Manchu and Qing dynasties, the White Lotus Sect was also very... After a few waves of existence, Gao Pragmatic was quite surprised that the White Lotus Sect had been tirelessly carrying out the cause of rebellion for hundreds of years. Only then did he pay some attention to this extremely tenacious sect, so he spent some time on a rest day in the afternoon. I took the time to check the historical materials of the White Lotus Sect.
You wouldn’t know if you didn’t look it up, but you’d be surprised to find out that the earliest source of the White Lotus Sect can be traced back to the Southern Song Dynasty, and its founder was the Shaman Mao Ziyuan of Wu County. By the Yuan Dynasty, the White Lotus Sect had further developed and was known as "thousands of branches and leaves spreading throughout the universe". The White Lotus Sect of the Ming Dynasty was naturally the inheritance and development of the White Lotus Sect of the Yuan Dynasty.
Although due to well-known reasons, the White Lotus Sect has been banned since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, it has been banned repeatedly. Its power has developed like a prairie fire, almost all over the country, in Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Shaanxi, Henan, Jiangsu, There are activities in Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Sichuan, Zhejiang, Fujian and other places. Of course, the leaders respected by these White Lotus cultists may not all be the same person, which means that there are also factions among them.
The Mobei White Lotus Sect mentioned by Cao Gan, according to Gao's pragmatic understanding and analysis, should mainly flow in from Shanxi and other provinces close to Mobei. For example, during the Zhengde period, Li Fuda, a native of Guoxian County, Shanxi Province, participated in Wang Liang and Li Yue's rebellion and was guarded by the border guards after the incident. Before that, his grandfather also "used illusions to induce Liu Qianjin and Shi Monk to cause trouble in Chenghua." This shows that this It is also popular in the White Lotus Sect that sons inherit their father's inheritance.
Because it was close to the border, in order to strengthen and expand their power to compete with the imperial court, these people used the Mongolian forces that had retreated to Mobei to fight against the official army. In the 24th year of Jiajing's reign, Luo Tingxi and others from Yingzhou, Shanxi Province, deceived the public with the White Lotus Sect. "They planned to send the young prince to the fortress, use his troops to attack Yanmen, capture Pingyang, and establish Chongzhuo as the leader. They planned to kill the young prince." ." In the 30th year of Jiajing's reign, White Lotus leaders Xiao Qin, Lu Mingzhen and many of their companions led the Mongolian army to invade the border. In the thirty-sixth year of the Jiajing reign, Yan Hao, the leader of the White Lotus Sect in Yuzhou, Northern Zhili, and others went in and out of Mobei and leaked border information to the Mongols.
From this perspective, these people led the invaders into the country and harmed the Han compatriots. They were guilty of the same crime as traitors, and they all deserved to be killed.
But Gao Pragmatic is not a young angry young man, he is an old angry young man who has been in politics.
The characteristics of young angry youths are: as long as you have committed the crime of being a traitor, you will be punished by death, and you must be executed immediately. Don't mention anything else. When you catch the opportunity, you will kill and kill. Kill them all, so that I don't have to worry about it. It looked upsetting.
The attitude of the old angry young man is different: Even if you have been a traitor, or even continue to be a traitor now, as long as you are still valuable, I dare to use this trick and let you survive for a few more days while I wait. It’s not too late to kill you after draining all your value.
This group of White Lotus believers are willing to act as traitors in order to rebel, and they should all deserve to die, but Gao Pragmatic will first consider it from another angle, such as using them to speed up the sinicization of Mongolia in order to achieve his plan to gradually control Mongolia through economic and political means in the future. For this "lofty ideal", Gao Pragmatic is willing to let them live for a while.
While the Ming Dynasty was cracking down on the frequent harassment and plunder by the Mongolian forces in Mobei, it also adopted some restrictive policies such as allowing "tribute" and opening the "horse market". Although these measures stabilized the precarious economy of the Mongols to a certain extent, they also made the population flow between Mongolia and Han more frequent and expanded.
In this kind of population flow, on the one hand, some Mongolians followed the tribute team into the Ming Dynasty border and stayed in the interior. For example, in the early years of Zhengtong, more than 10,000 people settled in the capital; on the other hand, it was also accompanied by a large number of Han people moving northward. . In addition to some of the border residents who were plundered by the Mongolian army, the rest were so-called "defectors". In fact, most of these "defectors" are White Lotus believers in the border areas. Most of these White Lotus believers came from Shanxi. In order to avoid the suppression and pursuit of the imperial court, they fled from the interior to the Mobei border. History books say that "the White Lotus sect numbered 10,000 people during this period."
These White Lotus believers who fled to Mobei haunted the Central Plains and Mobei border areas. Although they sometimes led the invasion and plunder of the Mongolian army, they also leaked the situation in the Central Plains to the outside world and actually acted as traitors. But in turn, You see, it also invisibly played a role in promoting the Sinicization of Mongolia.
For example, the "Chinese traitors" led by Qiu Fu and Zhao Quan fled north to avoid the Ming Dynasty's suppression. They brought advanced production technology from the Central Plains with them, reclaimed land locally, built houses, and taught manufacturing techniques. By building cities, settling on desolate grasslands and carrying out agricultural production, the former nomadic resort with "sweet water and grass" turned into a "Bansheng" outside the Great Wall with numerous palaces and thousands of hectares of fertile land. The Mongols therefore transformed from a backward nomadic economy to an advanced one. Agricultural economic transition and transfer.
At first glance, the Mongols became stronger and seemed more difficult to deal with. However, Gao Pragmatic knew that the settled Mongolians were far less scary than the nomadic Mongolians. When the Mongols settled down and wanted to fight with the Han people, they would use their own shortcomings to attack the enemy's strong points - if you can't defeat them, just move thousands of miles away. How much trouble would it be to chase them down? Moreover, the Ming Dynasty's firearms, especially artillery, had little room to use against the Mongols who would fight if they could and run away if they couldn't. However, once the Mongols built a city and settled in it, with a large amount of property in the city, if they were reluctant to give up easily, Then the Ming Dynasty's heavy firearms can be used to attack cities. In this way, the effectiveness will be obvious.
Gao Pragmatic felt that if the Ming Dynasty after his own magic transformation could not even handle the settled Mongolia, then this plan to save the Ming Dynasty would be meaningless.
Therefore, he asked about the situation in Bansheng City in detail. Cao Gan knew that the Ming Dynasty had always attached great importance to the rebellion of the White Lotus Sect, and he thought Gao Jingshi did the same, so he told Gao Jingshi everything he knew, which really made Gao Qingshi happy. Pragmatically learned a lot about the development of the White Lotus Sect in Mongolia.
The two chatted for a while. Gao Pragmatic, who was used to making long-term plans, was fine. However, Cao Gan lost his temper and said, "Master, since I have taken refuge with the young master, there is one thing that I still need to do with the young master." Make a decision as soon as possible.”
"What's the matter?"
Cao Gan said: "Will Bailixia continue to maintain the current situation in the future, or does the young master have other plans?"
"Let's maintain the current situation for the time being. Don't worry that I will ask you to stop. I can tell you a little bit about the situation above." Gao Pragmatic pointed at the roof with his index finger and said: "For trade with Mongolia There are disagreements in the court about this matter, but...some senior ministers believe that only by doing more business with Mongolia will the Mongolians' livelihoods improve. When their livelihoods improve, they will not be obsessed with plundering the Han. Of course. , the premise here is that we ourselves have to refresh ourselves. If the Mongols have no fighting power and find that robbery is more cost-effective than doing business, they will still come. Only when they feel that war and robbery is a loss-making business, and do it honestly The business is quite profitable, so they are willing to stay in Mobei obediently and do not dare to think about going south to herd horses."
