Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 121: Burn the Western Mountains and plow the fields and dig holes!
One billion taels of silver.

Based on the tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty last year.

The imperial court had to collect taxes from hundreds of millions of people for more than twenty years.

For their own selfish interests, Shanxi merchants betrayed the Central Plains regime for hundreds or even thousands of years.

How many people from the Central Plains have been killed by him, how many times has he served as the grain officer for the northern barbarians, it is now impossible to count them.

Only by filling the lake with the corpses of Shanxi merchants can the resentment that has accumulated in this town for thousands of years be dispelled.

Zhang Juzheng lifted his robe, knelt down and said, "Your Majesty, there are hundreds of thousands of criminals in Xishan, but the weather is warm and the bodies cannot be left to rot for a long time, which may lead to ghosts. Therefore, I request an order to burn the thousands of sins and throw them into the rivers to pay off the old debts!"

Zhang Juzheng never believed in ghosts and gods. This had a lot to do with the fact that he studied under Xu Jie, a master of the School of Mind. But more importantly, Confucius said, "A Master does not speak of strange things, supernatural powers, or the like."

But at this time, Zhang Juzheng became a staunch believer in the theory of gods and ghosts, and wanted to burn all the Shanxi merchants and their families, and then scatter them into rivers, lakes and seas.

Grind the bones and scatter the ashes, that's about it.

Gao Gong, Li Chunfang and Chen Yiqin remained silent when they heard this. Given the crimes committed by the Shanxi merchants, even if their bodies were crushed to pieces, it would be difficult to appease the public anger.

The dead are dead, and the purpose of burning their bodies and scattering their ashes is mainly to prevent a major epidemic. We cannot let the Shanxi merchants die and bring disaster to the Ming Dynasty.

Gao, Li, and Chen knelt down together and asked for permission: "We ask for your permission to burn down the entire West Mountain!"

"Aim!"

The holy sound came.

Huang Jin immediately accepted the order and went to draft an imperial edict, which was sent 800 miles away to Xishan by force for execution by the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

After reading about the Shanxi merchants' death, Zhu Houcong also finished reading the confidential military reports on the imperial desk and asked the young eunuch to pass them to Zhang Juzheng's cabinet for review.

The Shanxi merchants were destroyed.

No grain of food was delivered to the grassland.

In war, without logistical supplies, you are literally sending yourself to die.

If Altan Khan led his army to force its way south, the nine border towns of the Ming Dynasty would only need to defend the city and clear the fields for a month before the Tatar cavalry would devour each other.

For the sake of his grandson's life and the survival of the Tatar people, Altan Khan gave up his fantasy and chose to disband the cavalry and return them to their respective tribes.

But for the sake of face, Altan Khan sent an envoy to inform the Governor-General of Xuanda, Wang Chonggu, asking the Ming envoy to enter the grassland as soon as possible to discuss "peace talks".

Tatar directly revealed the two purposes of the negotiations: one, to return Bahanaj, and two, to reopen trade.

The Ming Dynasty court could put forward any conditions, as long as the Tatars had them, they could be negotiated, including the surrender of traitors and even war horses!
With the development of firearms and gunpowder, the way of infantry combat has undergone major changes, but elite cavalry is still the absolute king on the land front battlefield.

The reason is simple. Although firearms and gunpowder are powerful enough, the problem of accuracy cannot be solved.

However, infantry combat vessels cannot be like naval warships, which can be equipped with multiple heavy artillery and sufficient gunpowder to cover enemies and enemy-occupied areas within sight with firepower.

Artillery cannot be used to bombard the ground. On land, artillery can only be deployed at the gates and towers of border towns to defend against enemy attacks.

The Tatars relied on their elite cavalry to come and go like the wind in several border towns of the Ming Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty was unable to organize an effective counterattack because it had too few war horses.

Looking at the entire eastern world, elite war horses all exist on the grasslands, or more precisely, at the junction of the Tatar steppes and the Loess Plateau, in the Hetao region, which is surrounded by the Yellow River on three sides and is shaped like a trap.

With the advantage of irrigation from the Yellow River, the Hetao region is rich in products and fertile land. It also has the geographical advantages of Yinshan Mountain and Helan Mountain. Since ancient times, it has been a battleground for military strategists. Since the Warring States Period, after King Wuling of Zhao adopted the Hu clothing and horse riding, the State of Zhao expanded northward and established Yunzhong County. Later, the Qin Dynasty changed it to Jiuyuan County, and the Han Dynasty established Wuyuan County.

In the early Tang Dynasty, the Shuofang Army was established and a river was drawn as the boundary with the Turks. During the reign of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, three surrender cities were built north of the Yellow River. In the late Tang Dynasty, the local areas collapsed due to the separatist rule of the feudal lords, and the Hetao area was gradually occupied by the Dangxiang Tuoba clan.

The Song court did not mention it.

After the Yuan court destroyed Western Xia, it established the Ningxia Xingzhongshu Province, which was soon merged into the Gansu Province.

After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Taizu Gao expelled the Yuan Dynasty general Wang Baobao to the outside of the Great Wall, recovered the Hetao area and established Dongsheng Prefecture.

In February of the first year of the Yongle reign, Emperor Chengzu Wen, who launched the Jingnan Campaign and gained control of the Ming Dynasty, moved all the guards south of the desert and the kings of the frontier to the interior of the country to prevent any unrest. Most of the Dongsheng guards were moved to the capital to protect it.

The gradual desolation of the Dongshengwei City in Hetao meant that the Hetao region could no longer be controlled by the Ming Dynasty.

In the third year of Zhengtong, the Ming court established the Dongsheng Guard, but it was isolated in the grassland, lacked food and grass, and was difficult to defend, so it was moved to Yan and Sui areas.

During this period, the defense of the Hetao region was weak and it was gradually occupied by the various tribes in the north and south of the desert, becoming their base for invading the inland areas of the Ming Dynasty.

The situation of fighting for supremacy is happening again in the Hetao area.

However, in the 14th year of Zhengtong, in the Battle of Tumu Fortress, 500,000 soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were destroyed, and even the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was captured alive by the Oirat.

The Ming Dynasty's external offensive seemed to have come to an end at that moment, and it entered a state of full defense from then on.

In the following hundred years, the Ming court held several major discussions on the Hetao area.

During the Chenghua period, Wang Yue, the Marquis of Weining, a civil official who was awarded the title for his military merits, went out of the border three times to recover the Hetao region, which brought peace to the Hetao region for the Ming Dynasty for twenty years.

However, due to the passive conservatism of Emperors Chenghua and Hongzhi, the incident of "abandoning the Hetao" happened again, and eventually the Hetao region was occupied by the northern barbarians again.

In the first year of the Zhengde reign, Yang Tinghe, the Chief Censor of the three border areas of Yansui, Gansu and Ningxia, submitted a memorial proposing four strategies for border defense and pointing out the important strategic significance of controlling the Hetao region.

It was planned to set up watchtowers and guard posts in the area from Yansui to Hengcheng at the southern end of the Hetao, increase military preparedness, and repair border walls. Then the Ming Dynasty began to build Dingbian Camp.

However, since then, Yang Yiqing offended the powerful Liu Jin in the court and was dismissed from his post. Yang Yiqing's proposal to "recover Hetao" was subsequently ignored, and no one in the court mentioned the recovery of Hetao again.

The Ming Dynasty court completely lost control of the Hetao area.

In the 23rd year of Jiajing's reign, Zeng Xin, the governor-general and assistant minister of the Three Border Regions, strongly advocated the recovery of Hetao. During this period, he built the border walls of Datong West Road and Xuanfu East Road, took the initiative to attack Hetao, and defeated Altan's tribe.

He also submitted a memorial titled "Please Recover Hetao" and received the support of Xia Yan, the then Prime Minister of the Cabinet.

But at that time, in order to attack and kill Xia Yan, Yan Song claimed that recovering Hetao would "lightly provoke border conflicts." At the same time, he colluded with the defeated general Qiu Luan and falsely accused Zeng Xin of being defeated by Altan Khan. He withheld military pay and bribed Xia Yan in order to get a promotion, which was later connected with Yan Song and killed.

Since then, for nearly twenty years, "no one dared to speak about border affairs" in the Ming court.

Without the Hetao region, there would be no war horses, and without war horses, it would be impossible to take the initiative to go out of the Great Wall to counterattack the Tatars.

Zhang Juzheng did not expect that Altan Khan was willing to sell his war horses in order to conquer Hanaji and reopen trade.

Several people in the cabinet could even imagine the war horses. The Ming Dynasty trained elite cavalry and entered the grassland again to plow the fields and clear the caves!

This time, the Ming Dynasty court will not miss the opportunity again!

(End of this chapter)