"Do you know how many horses Gao Shidu, this servant, has brought from Tumochuan for our border troops in Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi towns in the past six months?"
As soon as Zhu Xixiao said this, he immediately attracted the attention of everyone present. Not to mention that Emperor Longqing immediately cast his gaze over. Even Li Chunfang, the chief assistant of Qingci, came back to his senses from the state where the old monk was in meditation before and looked at Zhu Xixiao. .
Everyone knows the importance of horses to the army, and they also know that since the collapse of the horse administration in Ming Dynasty, the problem of horse shortage has become more and more serious. Even on the sixth day of February this year, Gu Cunren, the minister of Taipu Temple who was responsible for managing Ma Zheng, issued a note saying that the court should pay attention to six matters concerning Ma Zheng.
The six items he proposed in the article are: 1. Excellent care for stallions. Recently, the stallion family has been suffering from officials' intrusion into fishing, and they are afraid of losing their horses. From now on, any horse that is determined to be an important horse by the people will be given a premium allowance and will still be exempted from the forage and silver taels. Second, instruct the pastoral caretakers. Tongpan is responsible for horse administration. Third, the grand relocation. Horse management officials should be appointed for a long time. Fourth, strict supervision and transportation. Many states and counties have been monopolized when it comes to releasing money and horses, so they should strictly prohibit leather goods, and track down those who have not completed the grains of horses in Beijing and Yingying. Fifth, the faction was changed. The non-horse-producing areas in southern Zhili are far away from the capital, so it is appropriate to change all the horse-producing areas to a reduced price. 6. Store records carefully. Many of the documents and records of this temple have been forgotten. Please use the old warehouse that is idle to be converted into a pavilion and order the officials to guard it.
This memorial by Gu Cunren is very famous in history, but no one here today except Gao Pragmatic understands this. But at least they all knew that the two most critical points in Gu Cunren's horse policy were actually "horse owners raise horses" and "exchange money to buy horses."
Let’s not talk too much about the horse households raising horses. Anyway, the northern horse households were tortured to death by this policy, and the famous Hebei horse bandits were born. For example, the Bazhou bandit that Cao Gan inherited from his father-in-law is a typical example.
The Southern Zhili of the Ming Dynasty was almost the generation of Southern Jiangsu and Southern Anhui in later generations. The economy was developed enough, but it obviously did not produce horses. However, there was always a "share" of horse breeding hanging over them, so they could only change it to handover. Money, that is, "replacement of levy and discount of silver".
Gu Cunren's statement mainly talks about the problem of not collecting enough "the levied silver", but in fact, all the ministers in Jiyi Palace today know that even if the money can be received, it will most likely be diverted to other uses. Use, why? Because there is no place to buy horses.
As early as when Duoyan Sanwei was still obedient, Daming could still buy some horses from them. Although even Duoyan Sanwei was not willing to sell stallions, the geldings could be used for some years after buying them, which was better than nothing. Later, after the Duoyan Sanwei were surrendered by the Mongolian left wing who moved south, the channels for buying horses in the Ming Dynasty were basically broken, and the number of local horses was insufficient. As a result, in recent years, only Liaodong has sufficient horses, and the rest of the areas including Xuan Such an important town can only maintain one or two elite but relatively small cavalry.
The problem of horse shortage in the Ming Dynasty has caused headaches even for the civil servants of the imperial court.
Therefore, as soon as Zhu Xixiao said these words, the eyes of everyone in the Jiyi Hall were all cast on his face in an instant, as if a large number of horses could be found on his face.
Of course, Zhu Xixiao didn't even have a hair on his face, but as soon as he opened his mouth, everyone was overjoyed. Zhu Xixiao stretched out two fingers and said: "In about half a year, Cao Gan, the servant of Gao Shidu, bought a total of 2,327 good horses that can be used in battle from various tribes in Tumochuan. .”
"Wow!"
"hiss--"
"More than two thousand three hundred horses?"
"Is this true?"
"Can they all be used in combat?"
…
Zhu Xixiao's elder brother Cheng Guogong Zhu Xizhong stepped forward, gestured to everyone, and said with a smile: "This is indeed not a lie. British Duke, you are in charge of the former military governor's house, you should know the changes in the number of war horses announced, you come Tell me?"
Everyone then looked at Zhang Rong again, only to see Zhang Rong nod his head: "In the three towns of Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi, the number of war horses has increased by more than 1,900 in the past six months. If the number of war horses is broken or died of illness according to the usual Judging from the general situation, it should be true that the three towns purchased more than 2,300 additional war horses."
Long Qing suddenly clapped his hands and said loudly: "Okay! Good buy! That Cao Gan did a good job and should be rewarded!" When he said this, he suddenly remembered that Cao Gan was neither a civil official nor a military general, but he was highly pragmatic. Servant, even if he is the emperor, he cannot go beyond his master to reward others, so he added: "Gao Aiqing, this is all because of your merits in training the servant, and you should receive this reward."
Gao Pangshi breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. He estimated that this matter could be covered up, and the biggest significance of this was not to cover it up for now, but that he could use this reason to trade with Mongolia in the future. After the tribute was successfully completed and the horse market became normally open, this reason did not seem to be so important. But don't forget, after Anda paid tribute, the Ming Dynasty only opened the horse market with Anda's main Tumochuan tribe and the Woerdu Division that it could control. The door to trade was still firmly closed to the Mongolian left wing.
But things are different now that Gao Pragmatic has laid the foundation for today's drama. He can use the same reason to get in touch with the Mongolian left wing and also start trade.
The reason is still the same. Gao Pragmatic is not worried that these transactions allow the Mongols to resist disasters, reduce losses, strengthen the economy, etc. to a greater extent. Because history has proven that the harder these nomads live, the more aggressive they become. On the contrary, if their lives become more comfortable, their aggression will be lower - they don't know how to produce agriculture, so if they can't survive, will they have to rely on robbing? Do you think they don't die when they fight, and do they naturally like to fight?
This is also the root cause of Gao Pragmatic's courage to consider using economic and political means to control Mongolia.
Of course, there is always a premise here, that is, the Ming Dynasty can maintain sufficient defensive power. If there is a war mad leader among them who wants to fight, the Ming Dynasty must be able to give him a head-on blow. When they realize that fighting hard is not as cost-effective as doing business honestly, even internal forces will prevent them from forming a joint force to invade the Ming Dynasty. And this is what is called economic influence on politics.
I felt secretly happy in my heart. I still had to do the show that should be done. I saw Gao Pragmatic, his face as usual, stepped forward, bowed to Long Qing, and said: "The Gao family has been favored by the emperor for generations, even though I am a humble minister. He was young and had little knowledge, and he knew that war horses were very important to our Ming Dynasty, so he sent Cao Gan and others to the north privately to sell horses for the country. However, although the civil and military officials tacitly agreed to take care of this matter, it was still a matter between the minister and Cao Cao. Gan and others violated the ban first. I think that Your Majesty's failure to punish is already a great favor, so how dare you accept the reward? Please take back your Majesty's order."
