Gao pragmatically said that he would write a letter to Nurhaci. This was not because he was arrogant, but because he was confident that he had such prestige that he could suppress Nurhachi.
At least at this time, he believed that Nurhaci did not have the courage to anger him.
Maybe the Battle of Monan is still a little far away from Liaodong, but for the Jurchens, the Battle of Liaonan is a battle that breaks out at home. The war process is now very clear to the various tribes around Liaodong, whether Jurchen or Mongolian.
Gao Jingshi not only strategized in this battle, but also demonstrated the unmatched power of the Jurchens. Not only did he have a large number of powerful generals, but in addition to using the power of the Ming Dynasty, he also had a team of servants who could turn into soldiers at any time. This team of servants was extremely large in number.
What kind of quantity can be called extremely huge? Anyway, Nurhaci calculated on his fingers that the population he currently controls is less than 20% of the various types of employees that Jinghua has in Liaodong. Even excluding the female workers in the tussah industry, the population of Jianzhou Zuowei is less than that of Jinghua in Liaodong. half of a hired hand.
Of course, population and employees are not the same thing, but Jinghua's industry in Liaodong now has a large number of young workers such as miners and blacksmiths due to the newly built Liaoyang base. According to Jinghua's custom, such a base must have a mine protection team and a factory protection team. Nurhachi knew that these people could be turned into combat soldiers at any time and must be included in Jinghua's armed forces.
And how many troops does Nurhaci himself have?
Even though he had just defeated Nikanwailan, his actual strength was only more than 3,000, less than 4,000. Even the Jinghua Liaoyang Iron and Steel Plant might not be able to capture this number, let alone the rest.
You know, Gao Jingshi is not only the boss of Jinghua, he is also the left minister of the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty. Gao Jingshi really pissed off Gao Jingshi, and it is not surprising that he persuaded the court to kill him first, Nurhachi.
What's more, because of the ginseng trade, Nurhaci is now inseparable from Gao Pragmatism.
Gao Jingjing, who controlled the Liao River waterway, has now become the de facto emperor behind Liaodong's business. Almost any large-scale trade can hardly avoid Jinghua's trade network.
In the trade market of Liaodong, ginseng, fur, honey, mushrooms, fungus, hazelnuts, and pine nuts are all popular specialties in Guanhai, among which ginseng is the most popular and almost irreplaceable.
As we all know, in ancient Chinese medicine books, ginseng is listed as a top-quality medicine. Doctors of the past dynasties believe that it has the effects of nourishing the five internal organs, calming the spirit, calming the soul, relieving palpitations, eliminating evil spirits, improving eyesight, improving the mind, lightening the body and prolonging life after long-term use, and curing all deficiencies in men and women. Therefore, the price of ginseng has always been high.
But at this time, Shanxi Shangdang, which was originally rich in ginseng, was almost extinct due to over-harvesting. Therefore, the main ginseng production area has been transferred to the Liaodong area where Jurchens gather. This made the border market of Fushun in Liaodong become the whole Ming Dynasty. Even the largest ginseng trade market in the world.
According to Jinghua’s own statistics, the annual trading volume of Jurchen ginseng to the Ming Dynasty is more than tens of thousands of kilograms. According to the price of ginseng at this time, depending on the quality of the ginseng, it is about three taels to five taels of silver per kilogram (note : This is recorded in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", which is about the price in the early Wanli year, and the price of ginseng on the eve of the late Ming Dynasty has soared to 15-20 taels), so the annual transaction volume is as high as hundreds of thousands or even more than 200,000 taels. Two, for the extremely poor Jurchens, one can imagine how profitable it is.
It can be said that the ginseng trade is not only an important source of income for the Jurchens, but also an important economic pillar for the expansion of Nurhaci's power. In other words, as long as the high pragmatism at this time strangles the ginseng trade, Nurhachi's strength will plummet, and there may even be internal chaos.
At this time, how could Nurhachi dare to challenge the high and pragmatic authority?
Therefore, Gao Jingshi wrote a letter directly to the Ministry of War after sending Wu Dui away, and sent someone to Liaodong through Jinghua's own channels, and handed it directly to Nurhaci. He believed that with the level Nurhachi had shown in the original history, he would not fail to see the key to this and would not do anything stupid.
Don’t you want to hide your strength and bide your time to accumulate strength? Okay, then you can continue to stay there and don't jump out and cause trouble for me in the past few years. As for whether you have developed more strength in a few years, or whether I will come back to you to settle the score after taking down the biggest threat in Liaodong, Tumen Khan, then we will just sit on the donkey and read the book - we will see.
Gao Pragmatic himself is actually somewhat skeptical about the medicinal properties of ginseng, because he remembers that later generations of modern medicine analyzed the ingredients of ginseng and concluded that it was "similar to carrot root", and he was also very aware of the gradual myth of ginseng.
The earliest record of the medicinal value of ginseng in China can be found in the "Shen Nong's Materia Medica" written in the Qin and Han Dynasties. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing said in "Treatise on Febrile Diseases" that ginseng "mainly treats pimples in the heart, and sideways treats vomiting without eating". Later, medical books of various dynasties such as the Southern Dynasty's "Famous Doctors", the Tang Dynasty's "Medical Properties of Materia Medica", the Song Dynasty's "Zhujia Materia Medica", and the Yuan Dynasty's "Medicinal Methods" all mentioned the medicinal functions of ginseng, but none of them can be said to be magical. .
But in the Ming Dynasty, ginseng suddenly became powerful, and became "ginseng cures all deficiencies in men and women", including "fever, spontaneous sweating, dizziness and headache", and "degenerative diseases, diarrhea and long-term diseases". Ginseng then stood out from ordinary Chinese medicinal materials and gained the status of "miracle medicine".
Just now he said that the ginseng eaten by Chinese people before the Ming Dynasty was mainly produced in the Shangdang area (today's Changzhi, Shanxi) and was called "Shangdang Shen"; followed by Liaodong Ginseng in Liaodong area, also known as Liaodong Ginseng.
In the early years, ginseng was only regarded as a common food and medicinal material. For example, Su Shi said in a letter to his friend Wang Dingguo, "If you want to send a letter, I can only send more dried dates and ginseng. If you don't have enough food, you don't need to send people. How can you live thousands of miles and work for people." In The letter to Zhang Zhifu also said, "In case someone comes from the south, I will bring you several kilograms of ginseng and dried dates, which will be needed day and night."
It can be seen from this that for Su Shi, ginseng, like dried dates, is just a food that satisfies appetite, rather than a magic medicine that can cure all diseases. Moreover, he often asked people to bring "a few kilograms" along the way, which also shows that this kind of food was not expensive at that time.
Of course, before the Ming Dynasty, there were also a few ginseng varieties that were considered very valuable. For example, there is a kind of "Purple Tuan Shen" among Shang Dangshen, which is said to only grow on Zi Tuan Mountain in Shang Dang area. There is a record in "Mengxi Bi Tan" that Wang Anshi suffered from asthma and needed purple ginseng to treat it, but it was not available. A friend sent him a few taels, but Wang Anshi refused and said, "I have never had purple ginseng in my life, and I still live to this day."
However, judging from Su Shi's consumption of ginseng "day and night" in order to satisfy his "eating" desires, at least in general Codonopsis ginseng was still a common thing in the Northern Song Dynasty, and only a few of the specialty ginseng products stood out. But this is not surprising, just like ordinary tea is only worth a few dollars, but if you want famous tea, how many times will the price increase?
The price of ginseng is also telling. Until the Jiajing period, ginseng was still a cheap commodity, with a pound of ginseng costing only one cent and a half. During the Wanli period, the price of ginseng rose to about 3 taels of silver per catty - for the reasons mentioned above. By the time Chongzhen arrived, the price of ginseng had reached sixteen taels of silver per catty.
The great change in the status of ginseng, which directly became a miracle medicine, actually happened after the Qing Dynasty and Ming Dynasty in Tatar. There are probably four main reasons for this.
One is that ginseng is regarded as the embodiment of the Qing Dynasty's royal aura. Originally, the naming of ginseng had a strong mystery. For example, there is a story in the Sui and Tang Dynasty legend "Guanggu and Modern Five Elements": "During the Sui Dynasty, there was a man in Shangdang who heard people's calls every night and couldn't get what he wanted. About a mile away from the house, he saw abnormal ginseng branches and leaves, so he dug it into the ground. At five feet, you can get ginseng, which is like a human body, with all four limbs ready, and your voice will be extinguished."
This view has been passed down and even influenced Li Shizhen. In the "Compendium of Materia Medica", this kind of mysterious talk is also regarded as the origin of ginseng's medicinal effect: "When ginseng gradually grows, the roots are like human figures and have spirits. Therefore, it is called ginseng and sacred grass."
Specifically in the Qing Dynasty, because the northeastern region where ginseng was produced was the "land of dragon prosperity" and was full of "kingly energy", ginseng was naturally regarded as the embodiment of this "kingly energy". For example, Ruan Kuisheng, a famous scholar during the Qianlong period, said: "From the east of Liaoyang, they can be found in the mountains and forests. They are so popular with the earth's atmosphere. How can it be a coincidence?" - This is a clear connection between the growth of ginseng and the earth's atmosphere in the Northeast. At the same time, as for the fact that his statement is obviously to praise Tatar's smelly feet, there is no need to talk about it. In short, these statements have strengthened the ginseng superstition, which is for sure. 187
Secondly, the Qing government monopolized the ginseng trade, which drove up the price of ginseng and intensified the superstition of ginseng among the people.
After Codonopsis ginseng was withdrawn from the market, Ming Dynasty could only import Liaodong ginseng in large quantities from Jurchens outside the customs as a substitute. The ginseng trade between the Jurchens and the Ming Dynasty was huge and was the most important financial source for the rise of the Jurchens.
For example, in the original history, from July of the 11th year of Wanli to March of the following year, in eight months, the Haixi Jurchens traded with the Ming Dynasty 26 times at the border and sold 1,733.75 kilograms of ginseng. From the 11th year of Wanli to the 12th year of Wanli, the Ming court alone paid 30,000 taels of silver to purchase ginseng.
The above two transactions are only official acquisitions, not counting the larger private trade. Therefore, in order to reduce the pressure on the national treasury and reduce the price of ginseng, the Ming Dynasty once closed the border market, causing the Jurchen's backlog of more than 100,000 kilograms of ginseng to rot.
There are some other things here, which I will not discuss for now. In short, in the entangled ginseng trade, the Jurchens gradually gathered the power to fight against the Ming Dynasty.
After the Tatars entered the customs, their royal family continued to firmly control the ginseng trade in their own hands. In the early Qing Dynasty, the royal family set up a special ginseng collection organization in the Northeast, the "Dashou Ula General Manager Yamen", and the princes of the Eight Banners were also allowed to send people to designated mountains to collect ginseng. Private gathering of ginseng was strictly prohibited, and there was even an edict that "all Han people encountered in ginseng gathering places will be arrested."
During the Qianlong period, in order to increase control over the ginseng trade, the "Official Ginseng Bureau" was established. It is stipulated that all people who go into the mountains to collect ginseng must hold a certificate issued by the government. Some of the high-grade ginseng collected by the Official Ginseng Bureau was used in the palace, some was given to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for sale or disposal, and the rest was sold to ginseng merchants.
The Qing Dynasty's ginseng management system was extremely complicated, but in the final analysis, its system ensured that most of the profits from the northeastern ginseng trade went into the emperor's private pockets - at most, the amount reached 1 million taels of silver per year.
The imperial court monopolized the ginseng trade, and the result was a sharp rise in ginseng prices. For example, in the Jiangnan region, the Ministry of Internal Affairs designated the "Jiangnan Three Weavings" (Jiangning Weaving, Hangzhou Weaving, and Suzhou Weaving) and Guangdong Customs as franchised ginseng dealers. These government-run dealers spared no effort to drive up the price of ginseng, so by the middle of the Qianlong reign, the price of ginseng had reached 600 to 800 taels of silver per catty; during the Jiaqing period, it even exceeded 2,000 taels of silver per catty.
The skyrocketing price of ginseng is complementary to the deification of ginseng. Xu Lingtai, a doctor who lived in the Qianlong period, once wrote an article "On Ginseng", mentioning that people at that time had a mentality of "superstitious about the efficacy of ginseng because of its high price": "The reason why doctors use it when they are sick , and what is the point of a patient who takes it and dies without any regrets? In the minds of fools, they all regard expensive medicine as good medicine and cheap medicine as bad medicine."
The general idea of this passage is very simple: the patient feels that since the price of ginseng is so high, ginseng is naturally the best medicine. Doctors are also willing to take advantage of patients' psychology and often prescribe ginseng to them. After patients eat ginseng, their condition improves, of course because of the miraculous power of ginseng. If their condition still does not improve, they will not blame the doctor. Because in their view, any disease that cannot be cured by ginseng must be something that cannot be cured.
Well... some so-called qigong masters in later generations also made good use of this kind of thinking.
The third is that the Tatar royal family took large amounts of ginseng, which had a demonstration effect on the people. A large amount of high-grade ginseng was retained by the Qing palace because the royal family consumed a lot of ginseng.
According to the "Ginseng Purchasing Book" from the Qing Palace archives, in the last two years of his life, Emperor Qianlong "purchased ginseng a total of 359 times, and the price of fourth-grade ginseng was 37 taels." He also wrote a poem "Ode to Ginseng", saying that ginseng "has five leaves and three ya clouds, which are auspicious, and its ** is Zhu Shilu and nectar. The earth's spiritual resources are yin stallions, and its merits are attributed to the medical classics." Concubines and princesses of the Qianlong Dynasty also took ginseng. Even Cixi often ate ginseng. During more than 300 days from October of the 26th year of Guangxu's reign to September of the following year, she "shared two kilograms of ginseng, one liang and one penny."
Emperors of the Qing Dynasty often used ginseng to reward ministers. For example, the academician Ji Zengjun requested to return to his hometown to recuperate, and Emperor Qianlong ordered a reward of ten kilograms of ginseng; the academician Fu Heng led troops in Jinchuan to fight, but the climate was not suitable for him, and Emperor Qianlong rewarded him with three kilograms of ginseng. The vassals of the Qing Dynasty, such as the King of Siam and King Annan, also received special rewards such as ginseng.
With the royal family taking the lead in demonstrating, the folk's superstition on the "miraculous effects" of ginseng became out of control, and there was an obsession that "without ginseng, it will not cure, but taking it will make it complete."
The last one is the "warming and tonic" culture of Jiangnan, which caters to the prevalence of ginseng superstition. Probably starting from the Qianlong period, a weird tonic culture developed in Jiangnan. For example, Xu Dachun, a doctor at the time, said: "Nowadays, the ancient sages' methods are regarded as despicable, and they cannot name the disease. They can only generalize it with clichés such as Yang deficiency and Yin deficiency, liver qi and kidney weakness, etc. They only use warming and tonic to prevent external evils from entering and taming them." To the point of no rescue.”
Xu Dachun's criticism is very accurate - of course, what he said about "external evil entering the inside" is quite mysterious to Gao Pragmatic, and he can only understand it as a viral infection or something. In short, many Jiangnan doctors at that time liked to prescribe tonics, and among various tonics, the most popular was ginseng.
This trend in the medical community is actually catering to the ginseng superstition of the times. Since "all the nobles in the capital like to take ginseng, and they try their best to buy ginseng to take it even though they are very poor" - no matter rich or poor, everyone believes that chronic diseases can be cured by warming and tonic with ginseng, then as a doctor, the safest and most profitable way is to Undoubtedly, more ginseng is prescribed when prescribing medicine.
The Taqing influence on ginseng’s deification was supreme and pragmatic. Before time travel, many Chinese people still believed that ginseng was a tonic that could cure all diseases. However, scientific testing has long confirmed that the main components of ginseng root, which is considered to have the strongest medicinal effect, are similar to carrots; other components in ginseng root only show very low medicinal properties after extraction.
The only reason why Gao Pragmatic dares not completely deny ginseng is not the ginseng itself, but the fundamental difference between traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine.
The use of Western medicine is usually very straightforward. You can use it for whatever disease this medicine treats. Its efficacy is very clear and highly directional. But Chinese medicine is different. Traditional Chinese medicine pays attention to the principle of monarch, minister and assistant. The same medicines, even if they are only mixed in different amounts, sometimes have completely different effects, and may not even be for the same disease, which is complicated.
Gao is pragmatic and has no knowledge of medicine. Although he believes in modern medicine, traditional Chinese medicine has cured countless patients for thousands of years. He does not dare to think that traditional Chinese medicine is useless. Therefore, he does not dare to directly rely on his market position to import ginseng from Ming Dynasty. Cut it off.
However, although it is easy to break off, it is completely okay to use it to threaten Nurhaci.
According to what Gao Jingshi said in the letter, cutting off the ginseng trade would not cause any major problems for the Ming Dynasty, but for you, Jianzhou Zuowei, it would be a life-and-death risk. If you don't withdraw your troops, there will be no Ming merchants going to Fushun Pass to collect ginseng in the border market this year.
As for whether I can do it...if you want to prove it, you might as well give it a try.
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PS: I would like to ask, has anyone mentioned that the lifeblood of Nurhaci’s rise was actually the ginseng trade?
PS: This chapter takes some space to explain the myth of ginseng, so this chapter is given 800 words.
