He just talks the talk but does not practice the tricks. He is pragmatic and does what he says. When he returned to Liaoyang, he began to review the files and sent people to investigate in detail some cases in horse markets in various places in recent years, especially economic dispute cases and cases caused by economic disputes. All kinds of cases are the top priority for high pragmatic and thorough investigation.
In fact, the governor himself generally does not personally resolve cases, which is very different from the performance in some movies and TV series. The case-adjudicating officers of the Ming Dynasty were usually mainly local officials, supplemented by Si Xian Guan (led by the patrol commander, supplemented by the inspectors and military personnel). There were very few "unruly people" who could bring the case directly to the governor.
However, as the de facto highest official in a local administration, the governor still has the power to participate in the resolution of cases and even retrials. Therefore, when a new high-pragmatic official takes office, reviewing files is a routine operation. It is not surprising and not very eye-catching.
However, there is no need to elaborate on some specific economic dispute cases for the time being. Gao Pragmatic discovered something very interesting from these files.
He discovered that the reason why the conflict between Ye He and Hada was irreconcilable was not only the issue of the imperial edict, but also the issue of trade routes. Moreover, this issue also foreshadowed that no matter who Hada or Ye He would win in the end, the other The victors will inevitably go to war with the Jianzhou Jurchens.
War is usually the product of irreconcilable political contradictions, and political contradictions mostly arise from economic contradictions.
Gao's pragmatic conclusion is that this is a ginseng trade war - not a simple trade war, but a war caused by the ginseng trade.
Since there are "three passes and three cities" near Kaiyuanma City of Haixi Jurchens, while Jianzhou Jurchens only have one pass and one city in Fushun, the Hercynian Jurchens have long hindered the Jurchen trade in Jianzhou, among which the Hada tribe and the The Yehe tribe is the most powerful. Among such trade obstacles, the problem of ginseng is particularly prominent.
The main production areas of ginseng in Liaodong are Changbai Mountain and Suzi River Basin. From the Tang Dynasty to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the main producing area of ginseng was still around Liaoyang, especially the area east of Liaoyang and outside the Fushun Pass. A large amount of ginseng was mined every year, with a wide variety of varieties, mostly used as tribute to the imperial court.
Gao Pragmatic summarized from the files and found that the main producing areas of ginseng have expanded to Heilongjiang and central Jilin in later generations. Of course, overall, eastern Liaoning is still the main producing area in later generations.
However, the files show that although Jianzhou Jurchen occupied the main ginseng production area, the amount of ginseng sold in Fushun Ma City was very small. Instead, the Hada tribe in the northeast of Kaiyuan City and the Yehe tribe in the north monopolized the ginseng trade.
This is interesting. Could it be that Jianzhou Jurchens don’t go to Fushun to sell ginseng, but prefer to walk hundreds of miles to Kaiyuan?
No, it’s not that the Jianzhou Jurchens refused to go to Fushun to sell ginseng, but that the edicts in their hands were not enough. In the decades when Wang Tai ruled Hada, he followed Li Chengliang and the earlier Liaodong General Army on many expeditions. Jianzhou robbed many of the imperial edicts of Jianzhou.
Of course, it was not all robbing. Many of them were obtained by Li Chengliang and then given to Hada.
The Jianzhou Jurchens have basically been under attack since Li Chengliang suppressed the Liao Dynasty, especially the previously strong right-backs Wang Gao and Atai and his son, who were the focus of Li Chengliang's attack.
Relatively speaking, the Jianzhou left guard of Jue Chang'an and Tucker Shi was relatively weak on the one hand and relatively honest on the other. Since Li Chengliang suppressed the Liao Dynasty, he had not suffered much blow, and was even rewarded with some by Li Chengliang. Edict.
The imperial edict represents the trade quota. As mentioned before, since the Hada tribe has mastered most of the imperial edict, other Jurchen tribes who want to sell what they have have to go to Hada to find a way.
Due to their lack of strength, the Jianzhou Jurchens could only find a way to accept the exploitation of the Hada tribe. However, due to the surge in strength of the Yehe tribe, they were unwilling to accept the continued exploitation of the Hada tribe, so they chose to directly rob them through war.
This discovery made Gao Pingshi suddenly realize: It turns out that the core conflict between Jianzhou and Ye He in history was that Nurhachi controlled various Jurchen tribes in Changbai Mountain, cut off this trade route, and successfully obtained Ye He's control of ginseng trade rights ( Note: After Nurhaci conquered the tribes in the Changbai Mountains, he monopolized most of the ginseng producing areas, which is considered an upstream monopoly), so Ye He had to launch the "War of Nine Tribes" to fight Nurhaci for life and death.
In the original history, after Nurhaci inherited the Jianzhou Zuowei command of Takshi, he was not satisfied with the existing territory and planned to continue to expand his power. In order to develop his own strength and maintain his dominance, he continued to seize Liaodong. The control of trade with the Jurchens is naturally reasonable.
Only by constantly suppressing the trade monopoly of Kaiyuan and Nanbeiguan could Nurhachi control the horse trade in Liaodong and gain wealth.
In the first month of the 19th year of Wanli, Nurhachi sent troops to occupy the Jurchen tribes in the Changbai Mountains, which immediately aroused Ye He's strong dissatisfaction - the supply of goods was controlled by Nurhaci, how could Ye He maintain his ginseng monopoly? Therefore, the conflict between Ye He and Jianzhou is about to break out.
Under this situation, as long as something happens, the powder keg will explode.
So, something happened? Out, because in the 19th year of Wanli, Li Chengliang went to the countryside for the first time - a big mountain that had been pressing on the Jurchens for a long time actually collapsed on its own.
However, since Li Rusong and other brothers were still there and not busy, Ye He did not dare to fight immediately at that time, so he first tried to "overwhelm others with force" to see if he could force Nurhaci to spit out Changbai Mountain and other ministries.
As a result, in the 20th year of Wanli, the Battle of Ningxia and the first aid to Korea against the Japanese broke out successively. The main force of the Ming Dynasty, especially the Liaodong Army, was transferred, and the pressure on Ye He's tribe suddenly eased.
At the same time, Nurhaci also rejected the "unreasonable demands" of Ye He's tribe, and the nine-minis coalition's attack on Jianzhou could no longer be avoided. So in the twenty-first year of Wanli, the war finally broke out.
Gao pragmatically figured out this "underlying contradiction" and thought of Li Chengliang's handling of the Jurchen ministries when he suppressed the Liao Dynasty. It seems that Li Chengliang did not make any big strategic mistakes during this period.
After all, judging from the historical results, Ye He, who owned Kaiyuan, three passes and three cities, actually lost to Nurhaci, who only owned one pass and one city in Fushun. It can be seen that Li Chengliang's idea of strengthening the Haixi Jurchens and suppressing the Jianzhou Jurchens seems to be correct. of. baby
But after Gao Pragmatic thought about it for a while, he discovered that this conclusion may not actually be true, because Li Chengliang's support for the Haixi Jurchens was mainly for the Hada tribe, and he had always maintained a suppressive attitude towards the Ye He tribe.
It's just that Meng Gebulu in history was later defeated by Ye He and actually took refuge in Ye He, a great enemy. I'm afraid Li Chengliang didn't expect this.
In addition, Li Chengliang also misjudged Jianzhou's strength, because after Nurhachi came to power, Li Chengliang suppressed him very little and even allowed him to unify Jianzhou.
This move was not very understandable to Gao Pangjing at first, but now he suddenly understood it: after the decline of the Hada tribe, the Ming Dynasty lacked an obedient and relatively strong Jurchen tribe as an agent to represent the Ming Dynasty in "using barbarians to control barbarians."
At this time, Ye He was obviously not Li Chengliang's first consideration, because Ye He originally came up on Hada, and his image in Li Chengliang's mind was obviously not very good. However, Nurhaci was extremely deferential during this period, and was naturally regarded as Li Chengliang took a fancy to him and began to "train" him.
Nurhaci made good use of this training, and he also found a way to break the alliance between Ye He and Hada (Menggebulu had already defected to Ye He at this time), that is, first unify Jianzhou, and then take over the Changbai Mountains. The Ministry of Agriculture completely controlled most of the ginseng producing areas and controlled the output from the upstream. Then Ye He and Hadak had the imperial edict but did not have enough goods to trade with the Ming Dynasty, so they took over the initiative.
Now, Li Chengliang's historical approach has a more reasonable explanation: he still adheres to the idea of "supporting the second strongest and attacking the strongest", but he made a serious misjudgment in actual operation-Nurhaci this time Qiang actually defeated Ye He's "nine-unit coalition" easily.
As luck would have it, the Ming Dynasty's internal troubles (Ningxia) and foreign troubles (Japan) happened to break out at the same time, so there was no time to quickly launch a "preventive war" to remedy the situation and bring Nurhachi back to his original shape.
So...it's a waste.
Nurhaci completely replaced Hada and Ye He, firmly controlled the monopoly of the ginseng trade, and took advantage of the Ming Dynasty's powerlessness in Liaodong for at least eight years to grow rapidly - in fact, it was more than eight years, because of the three major conquests (actually more The Ming Dynasty and Burma War) emptied the treasury and internal funds that were not rich in the first place. After the war, there was no spare energy to fight Nurhaci again. They had to spend time to recuperate. At this time, Nurhachi was no longer greatly weakened. The Li family army could easily The small flames were extinguished.
Gao pragmatic looked at the pile of files in front of him and thought: The root of Nurhaci's rise has been found, but it is not difficult because he is different from Li Chengliang. Li Chengliang did not know that the Ming Dynasty in the 20th year of Wanli would have major events one after another, so he had no idea. Unprepared, and he knew these "accidents", so he was well prepared. If Nurhaci still wanted to take advantage of the Ming Dynasty's powerlessness period to suddenly grow to the point where the Liaodong Ming Army could not suppress it, as in the original history, that would be a dream.
But how can I use this situation to defeat Li Chengliang now?
Simply single out those cases in these files where Li Chengliang was partial to Hada to make the case? This is not only meaningless, but also fails to achieve the purpose of beating, because in principle, it is just a difference in means, or the difference in thinking between him and Li Chengliang on how to control the Jurchen tribes in Liaodong. Using these things to talk about matters, in the center of the imperial court It seems that it is nothing more than a political dispute.
Sometimes in political disputes, there is no right or wrong, only sides.
However, because Gao Pragmatic needs to control the intensity of the beating, it is not advisable to hit too hard at the beginning. It is also good to choose a lighter method.
Kaiyuan itself has its own special characteristics. For example, in terms of transportation location, Kaiyuan was not only the post road center in the northern Liaodong region in the early Ming Dynasty, but also a transportation landmark in Eastern Mongolia and the Jurchen region. The Jurchen tribute and customs clearance must go through Kaiyuan, which is the only official channel connecting Liaodong and the Jurchen region.
In the early Ming Dynasty, the province of Liaoyang in the Yuan Dynasty was divided into three parts, with Daning Dusi in the northwest, Liaodong Dusi and Nurgan Dusi in the northeast being set up. Liaodong was under the overall control, and their intersection was Kaiyuan. In the early Ming Dynasty, Kaiyuan was used as a transit station and distribution center when dispatching personnel to Nuergandusi, transferring food and wages, and recruiting foreign barbarians. Because of this, Kaiyuan became the forward base for the Ming Dynasty to manage the Jurchen region, and it was also an important military town in Liaodong to defend against the Mongolian invasion.
"The imperial dynasty established four guards, Shenyang, Liaoyang, Sanwan, and Tieling, unified in Kaiyuan to contain the attack of Beidi."
After the Daning Dusi moved inward and the Nuergan Dusi was abolished, the Kaiyuan guards and generals performed liaison and management duties at the Jisi Guard Station outside the border. Until the time of Chenghua, some of the guards in the Nuergandu Division were still held concurrently by the guards and generals from Kaiyuan, who directly controlled the border guards.
This allowed Kaiyuan to take charge of the responsibilities of paying tribute, mutual trade, internal relocation, recruitment and relief to the Eastern Mongolian and Jurchen tribes. Through Kaiyuan, the Ming Dynasty was able to effectively control the various ethnic groups in the Northeast and the Jisi Guard Stations outside the border, and cut off the alliance between Mongolia and Jurchen. Therefore, "Quan Liao Zhi" and "Kaiyuan Pictures" positioned Kaiyuan as "controlling foreign barbarians".
The particularity of Kaiyuan is also reflected in the diversity of sources and composition of the Kaiyuan garrison and residents. As an important military town in Liaodong, Ming Dynasty set up a large number of garrisons and residents in Kaiyuan.
Kaiyuan has jurisdiction over Tieling, Sanwan and Liaohai three guards, five cities and twenty side forts. It has military buildings and more than 15,500 soldiers. Taking into account the families of soldiers, villagers, civilians and guests, the population would be no less than 100,000. Among them, ethnic minorities account for a considerable proportion and they belong to different ethnic groups.
"Not long after (referring to the beginning of Hongwu), Xigeng counties were designated as military guards. There were seventeen Chinese, thirteen Koreans, indigenous people, vassal women, and savages." On the one hand, historically, the Kaiyuan area was a mixed area of multiple ethnic groups; On the one hand, in the early Ming Dynasty, a large number of Mongolians and Jurchens joined the Liaodong, and most of them were included in the military guard system and granted military attache positions, forming a special group of military guards in the Ming Dynasty, called high officials.
There were a large number of high-ranking officials among the Kaiyuan military guards. In the early Ming Dynasty, Kaiyuan established Anle and Zizizhou and Sanwan and Liaohai Wei, and settled a large number of Mongolians and Jurchens who had surrendered.
Until the current eleventh year of Wanli, this ethnic ratio has not changed. This complex ethnic relationship has brought about different impacts: on the one hand, it makes people worried, such as "Kaiyuan is half a descendant of high-ranking officials, but he harbors evil intentions and is a powerful man, and he is attracted by it. It is too late to start feeling chilly before something happens." On the one hand, it was with the help of the high-ranking officials of Erzhou and Erwei that Kaiyuan performed the important responsibility of liaising and managing Eastern Mongolia and the Jurchens, so as to realize the Ming court's jurisdiction over the foreign tribes and Jisi guards.
So if he wants to hit Li Chengliang now, Gao Pragmatic doesn't plan to do it hard all at once. He must control the intensity. For example, he first uses Li Chengliang's butt to sit crookedly as an excuse.
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