Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

After selling three rose stones in Luoyang, Wang Chongdu, Li Zuqia and others left Beijing, rushing back to organize gold diggers to go to Australia.

At this time, the Military Intelligence Department received a telegram.

A telegram from Han Shizhong!

Shi Yuangong has retired and returned to his hometown, and Ma Kuo has taken over his position.

Ma Kuo, Zhang Guangdao, Li Bao and others hurried to the side hall of the Chuigong Hall to attend the imperial meeting with the cabinet ministers.

Ma Kuo, who is usually responsible for intelligence summary and analysis, gave everyone a basic introduction: "Belu Khan of the Kerey tribe was injured during the breakout and died soon after returning to the tribe. This man has more than 30 sons..."

In history, Belu Khan had 40 sons, but in this time and space, he died before he had time to give birth to so many.

One of the sons, Wang Han, was only 13 or 14 years old at this time.

"When Belu Khan unified the Kerey tribe, many tribes were not conquered by him by force. In order to consolidate his rule, Belu Khan appointed many sons and sent them to rule various tribes, and the conflicts with some small tribes under his rule became increasingly serious."

"This time, a small tribe rebelled and revealed Belu Khan's whereabouts to the Mongols when Belu Khan sent troops to Mongolia. The Mongols took advantage of the fact that the Kerey army had not yet completed its assembly and ambushed and defeated the Kerey tribe. Belu Khan's wife and several sons were captured..."

"Belu Khan was seriously injured and died after breaking through the siege. His eldest son Toli and his brother Jurhan gathered troops to resist. They fought with the Mongols many times and ceded land to negotiate peace."

"The Mongolian army retreated, Toli claimed to be the successor to Belu Khan and sent envoys to Han Shizhong to ask for the title. His brothers were dissatisfied, and he lured and killed more than 20 of them in one breath, and took the opportunity to annex his brothers' tribes and pastures..."

The ministers were shocked to hear this. This is a ruthless person. He killed more than 20 brothers at will.

"Toli's uncle, Jurkhaan, was shrewd and did not attend the meeting hosted by Toli. After learning that Toli had killed more than 20 brothers, Jurkhaan immediately united all the tribes and sent troops. Toli had just annexed his brothers' tribes, and the people were unstable and the army was in chaos. He was defeated and took the remnants to join the Mongols."

"The Mongols sent troops to help Toli regain the Khanship and took the opportunity to cut off a large area of ​​grassland from the Kereyid tribe."

"Jurkhaan was defeated by Toli and the Mongolian coalition forces, and took the remnants to the south to join Han Shizhong, and asked the Ming Dynasty to send troops to help..."

The Jurkhaan here is of course not Yelu Dashi, but the younger brother of the former chieftain of the Kereyid tribe, Beilu Khan.

Ma Kuo pointed to the map of Mobei and said, "Mobei is now dominated by all the Mongolian tribes, and the Kereyid tribe has been torn apart. Although Toli borrowed troops from Mongolia and nominally unified the Kereyid tribe again, he killed his brothers and ceded land twice, which made him very unpopular in the Kereyid tribe."

In fact, in addition to Toli's uncle Jurhan who defected to Han Shizhong, Toli's other brother, Kelihela, also led the remnants to the west and defected to the Naiman tribe north of the Anxi Protectorate.

The Naiman tribe has always wanted to get involved in Mobei, and it is very likely that they will send troops next year to help Kelihela return and seize power in the Kereyid tribe.

The Ming court did not know this news yet.

The ministers looked at the map and listened to Ma Kuo's explanation, and soon understood the situation in Mobei.

Li Bao said, "This series of events happened too quickly, and Han Shizhong and Yue Fei had no time to stop it. If we sit back and do nothing, the Mongols are very likely to unify Mobei."

Historically, the traitors of the Kereyid tribe led the Tatar tribe to ambush and raid, which tore the Kereyid tribe apart. At that time, the Mongolian tribes were also suppressed by the Jin Dynasty and the Tatars, barely able to protect themselves but unable to expand.

Now that the Tatars and the Jin Dynasty are gone, the more powerful Mongolian tribes will naturally not miss the opportunity to face the fragmented Kerey tribe.

After some discussion, Zhu Ming made a decision: "Next year, the troops will be divided into three routes to the north, Yue Fei in the east, Han Shizhong in the middle, and Liu Qi in the west. Yue Fei will go directly to the Mongolian tribes. Han Shizhong and Liu Qi will first fight the Kerey tribe, and then march east to join forces with Yue Fei. Li Yanxian will still be the commander-in-chief, but the northern desert is too far away, so Li Yanxian can stay in Linhuang and dispatch in the rear. The specific battle will be decided by the front-line generals."

Li Yanxian accepted the order.

He was the commander-in-chief in Xinjiang but did not do his best. He was summoned back to Beijing before he took Yili.

This time he was the commander-in-chief again, and he only stayed in the southern desert. Basically, he would come back after making some military achievements. In the future, he would no longer lead troops like Zhang Guangdao and Li Bao.

The ministers of the cabinet and the ministry dispersed one after another and returned to their respective offices to discuss specific plans.

As for Yue Fei and Han Shizhong, after conquering Mobei, they will both be promoted and return to Beijing. They have served as protectors in Monan for ten years, and it is impossible for them to continue doing so, otherwise they will become warlords sooner or later.

In the future, if there is any major war, such as the destruction of Western Liao, it will most likely be Yue Fei or Han Shizhong who will serve as the commander-in-chief. The two will take turns, and after winning a few more battles in the Western Regions, they will not lead troops on the front line again.

Readers do not like to watch wars, so I will not write about the details of the war in Mobei.

Of course, before the Ming Dynasty sends troops, it must send envoys first.

After all, the Mongolian and Kereyid tribes are both vassal states of the Ming Dynasty, and it is not in accordance with etiquette to deal with them without saying a word.

Two groups of envoys went north separately.

One group of envoys ran to rebuke the Mongolian tribe and asked them to return the territory of the Kereyid tribe that they had occupied this year.

A group of envoys went to the Kerey tribe, denounced Toli for killing more than 20 brothers, and ordered Toli to come to Luoyang in person next year to apologize.

The other party would definitely not be willing to do so, so don't blame the Ming Dynasty for sending troops.

…

However, Li Zuqia passed through Chuzhou, and after some deception, more than 100 tribesmen were willing to go to sea with him.

They were all Li's descendants implicated in the Huainan case. Many of them had lost their qualifications for the imperial examinations, and the rest were also because of their family's decline.

The treasure-hunting trio also sent people back to their hometown in Shanxi, each recruiting dozens of fellow tribesmen and fellow townsmen.

The crews under their command were also recruiting fellow townsmen to go out to sea.     There were more than 600 fellow tribesmen and fellow townsmen of these people alone. In addition to the poor people in Fujian and Guangdong provinces who were attracted by gold, the number of people going to Australia in the first wave unexpectedly reached more than 1,300.

The treasure-hunting trio's ships were not enough to carry, after all, they had to bring a lot of supplies.

So, they absorbed two Fujian and Guangdong sea merchants to join and formed a fleet with 15 ships.

By the way, the coastal Tanka people in Fujian and Guangdong provinces have disappeared.

If there is a choice, who would like to be a Tanka person forever?

Some Tanka people went to Taiwan, farming and fishing at the same time.

Some of the Tanka people went to Jiaozhi, and some went to the Southern Yu Kingdom. These people were recruited by Zhu Kang.

Zhu Kang was very crazy about recruiting immigrants, and he would recruit five or six hundred people from Fujian and Guangdong every year. If the court had not banned the migration of Han people from Guangxi, Zhu Kang would probably have set his sights on Guangxi.

There were even some Fujian and Guangdong scholars who had failed the imperial examinations many times, and they took the initiative to go to the Southern Yu Kingdom to join Zhu Kang, because they could really be reused.

They built the Confucian Temple and the Martial Temple in the Southern Yu Kingdom, promoted various books of the Ming Dynasty, and planned to establish an imperial examination system in the future.

Today, the Southern Yu Kingdom has two administrative systems.

One set imitated the Ming Dynasty, forced the promotion of Confucianism, supported Buddhism and Taoism, and was used to govern Zhu Kang's direct jurisdiction.

One set continued the old system of Champa, popularized Brahmanism and Buddhism, and had many princes and hereditary nobles.

Sooner or later, civil strife would occur, and Zhu Kang had to fight a few more battles to suppress those disobedient princes.

Of course, there were also some princes and nobles who took the initiative to accept Chinese culture.

To put it bluntly, they admire and fear the strong. They imitate the Han people's dress and pursue various fashion trends of the Han people. At the same time, they continue to believe in Brahmanism and Buddhism, and have no interest in Confucianism and Taoism.

As long as Zhu Kang does not send troops to fight, these princes of the state will not rebel.

They are called princes of the state, but in fact they only have one or two counties.

Even Zhu Kang's direct jurisdiction is only as large as three or four counties. He can only barely maintain the military expenses by relying on the income from sea trade and the tribute of the state.

However, Zhu Kang still has a lot of inventory. When he fought against Jinnah, he not only robbed a lot of wealth, but also received war reparations from Jinnah. In addition, when he sent troops south from Jiaozhi, he also left with a lot of money and food.

When there are more and more Han people in the direct jurisdiction and there is not enough land to share, Zhu Kang will send troops again.

The first one to fight is the King of Bintonglong (Prince of the state), because Bintonglong is a very prosperous trading port.

We can't just attack blindly, otherwise the princes of the local states will definitely form a group.

We can first increase the tribute of King Bintonglong, and then use the excuse of not obeying the king's order to conquer. Other princes are jealous of the port, and they may even gloat over its misfortune.

Or we can provoke the relationship between King Bintonglong and the prince, let them fight each other, and then Zhu Kang will make a move after the fight is a mess.

If Bintonglong is turned into a direct jurisdiction, the port profits there will be monopolized, and the land will be distributed to Han immigrants, Zhu Kang's strength in Nanyu will be doubled.

"Raise the sail!"

The fleet heading south to Australia replenished fresh water in Bintonglong, set sail and sailed away.

Although this place is under the rule of the local princes, there are already some Chinese-style buildings in the port, which are all shops opened by sea merchants from Fujian and Guangdong provinces.

The port and the dock are even more amazing.

Eight out of ten merchant ships docked in the port are ships of Han merchants. Many Han merchants and crew members can be seen coming and going on the dock.

Since the fall of Srivijaya, Han sea merchants have quickly occupied the market share.

Their business warfare methods are simple and crude. The major sea merchants and land merchants have joined forces to lower prices, forcing foreign ships to sell goods at low prices.

Over the years, there are fewer and fewer foreign merchant ships coming to China.

Arab and Seljuk sea merchants often sell their goods in India and Ceylon, and at most they sail their ships to the Strait of Malacca. Most of the Nanyang sea merchants are also forced to run the Indian route.

The trade route from Guangzhou to Nanyang has been occupied by Han sea merchants!

The current situation has changed a bit.

After forcing foreign sea merchants away, the Ming Dynasty sea merchants began to roll in fiercely. Moreover, more and more ships are going out to sea, and it is impossible for the big sea merchants to monopolize, which has led to the increasingly prosperous sea ship leasing business.

That is, the ship owners themselves do not sell goods, or sell less goods. They divided the cabin into many parts and rented them to small merchants who had no money to buy ships but wanted to engage in maritime trade. As long as they did not encounter a shipwreck, they would make a profit.

It is possible that the goods in the same cabin belonged to more than a dozen different small merchants.

This model existed in the Northern Song Dynasty, but it was not mainstream.

Nowadays, it is becoming more and more common. Some people even dare to rent cabins and buy goods to go out to sea by scraping together one or two hundred strings of money. When there are too many similar goods, they often lose everything; but if they are lucky, they may make five or ten times the profit.

The treasure hunting trio went to Australia this time, and there were more than a dozen gold diggers who were in debt from maritime trade.