The most reckless man in the Ming Dynasty

Let’s not talk about Liaodong for now.

Chang Kuohai trusted Tang Hao very much. He just needed to follow the arrangements of the Duke and didn’t need to think about the problem at all.

Then Tang Hao looked at An Guo, the brave and resourceful general in the army.

“An Guo, you are the most courageous and responsible for guarding Hetao.”

“And the three Tumed tribes will also be stationed in Hetao in the future. You need to slowly assimilate them into my Ming Dynasty’s affiliated tribes!”

Assimilate?

An Guo slowly murmured the word.

"General, you should know that Mongolia's tribute is fake. It is just forced by the situation to open trade with our Ming Dynasty. Once the trade is opened, Mongolia can obtain the daily necessities they need through the trade!"

"Not to mention other places, just say the grasslands. In these years, they have been blocked by the Central Plains and even the iron pots for cooking are not enough. When these grassland barbarians harass the border wall, the main things they rob are food, cloth, ironware, especially iron pots!"

"Because the blacksmiths on the grassland can make scimitars and arrowheads, but they can't make molds for casting iron pots. For Mongolian herdsmen, an iron pot is more important than a hundred taels of silver."

An Guo is reminding Tang Hao that he can't raise a tiger to harm himself.

Why does Mongolia pay tribute?

It's because they can't beat the Ming army, so they have to bow their heads temporarily.

But they are not of my race, and their hearts must be different!

They can't beat them now, and the Ming Dynasty is opening trade with them. Then it won't take many years for these Mongolian tribes to slowly grow and develop. By then, they will definitely forget the pain after the scars heal, and start to plunder and harass the Ming Dynasty's border defense again.

Tang Hao nodded with a smile and explained patiently.

"You are right. They pretended to surrender and wanted to open a trade with the Ming Dynasty in order to trade with the Ming Dynasty in exchange for the daily necessities they wanted!"

"The question is, what is the advantage of the Mongolian barbarians over us Han people?"

"War horses!" Tang Mu raised his hand directly and gave an accurate answer.

"Yes, it is a war horse!" Tang Hao gave an affirmative answer.

"The Mongols are a nation on horseback. It can be said that every adult young man is a qualified cavalryman, and a cavalryman with his own horses. This is also the reason why the Tatars can pull out 100,000 cavalrymen under the limit of a population of hundreds of thousands. The biggest advantage of cavalry is high mobility. They fight if they can win and run if they can't. This is the real reason why our Ming Dynasty suffered a disastrous defeat in the battle of Lingbei that year."

"Because the grassland has wide pastures and is suitable for horses to gallop, it is the most ideal place to raise horses, so the Mongols have no shortage of war horses. They almost always have two horses when they fight. Most of our Ming Dynasty infantrymen can only play an auxiliary role. Without elite cavalry, we can't completely control the grassland."

"This is the key to our trade with them. Perhaps we can change the grazing habits on the grassland through special trade methods, so that the nobles on the grassland feel that raising cattle and sheep is more profitable than raising horses. Driven by interests, they will gradually expand the scale of cattle and sheep breeding, and reduce the scale of unprofitable horse breeding!"

Hearing this, everyone present was shocked.

Because this is simply impossible!

War horses are the partners that the Mongols rely on for survival. They themselves started by herding cattle, sheep and horses. How could they give up raising horses?

Aren’t you treating people as fools?

All the generals are from the army and have fought with the Mongolian Tartars. How can they not understand the importance of war horses!

They must be crazy and stupid to give up raising horses. That is their lifeblood!

"General, these Mongolian barbarians are uneducated, but they are not fools. How could they cut off their own arms?"

An Guo reminded tactfully.

Tang Hao was not angry, but continued to speak in a calm tone.

"An open market in Dongsheng City in Hetao, and a cement road from the imperial capital to Dongsheng City, this is what we need to complete in the next one or two years."

"The content of the trade can be relaxed without limit. My Ming Dynasty needs cattle, sheep and horses from the grassland barbarians, and the grassland barbarians need my Ming Dynasty's ironware, salt, tea, silk and even food. As long as we can achieve equal exchange, we will give them what they want..."

As soon as this was said, all the generals present raised objections.

Ma Yong swallowed his saliva and reminded carefully: "General, what do you want to do?"

"Salt and iron are important materials that are prohibited from trade. Aren't you helping the enemy?"

Tang Hao gave a direct answer.

"Nothing, just meet all the needs of the Mongolians, let them live a rich life, let them feel the beauty of life, let them feel the preciousness of life, so that they will slowly lose their former bravery and the spirit of daring to kill and fight."

Tang Hao's eyes had an inexplicable look, which made it difficult for people to understand the meaning.

"..."

No one spoke, and the hall was very quiet.

The generals present were stunned, not understanding what Tang Hao was trying to do.

"But General, how much will it cost us to do this?" An Guo asked in a deep voice after thinking for a long time.

"It will not be more than the cost of war, and we will get a lot of cattle, sheep and war horses in return." Tang Hao spread his hands and said.

"What if these Mongolian barbarians become stronger and want to go south to plunder the border towns?"

"Go south?" Tang Hao chuckled and asked back: "The Mongolian barbarians have no firearms, and the border walls and castles of the Ming Dynasty are all built with cement. They are just sending their heads south to plunder!"

"But General, what's the point of doing this...?"

Anguo asked again.

"What's the point of doing this...?"

Tang Hao changed his words to a more understandable one.

"Do you know the class divisions on the grassland?"

Everyone was stunned and confused on the spot.

Class division?

What does this mean?

"Just like the class divisions among scholars, farmers, industry and merchants in the Ming Dynasty, the Mongolian tribes naturally also have class divisions."

"The Mongolian tribes can be roughly divided into three parts according to their status: nobles, commoners and slaves. At that time, Genghis Khan broke the traditional organizational structure of the traditional clan tribes and established a unified system that combined administration, military and production organization - the Thousand Household System."

“Above the thousand households, there are ten thousand households, and below them there are hundreds and ten households, which are governed by the heads of ten households, the heads of thousands households, the heads of hundreds of households, and the heads of ten households respectively. The chiefs of these households are mostly former tribal leaders and nobles. act as……"

Everyone still knows this.

I have to admit that Genghis Khan is truly a genius.

He used the thousand-household system to control the entire grassland at every level, and no one dared to disobey his orders.

Under this thousand-household system, all young and middle-aged men in Mongolia are warriors and are incorporated into the army. They provide their own horses and weapons. They are led by the chiefs of the thousand households and the chiefs of the hundred households, and can go to war at any time.

Moreover, he fixed the residents within the designated ten households, one hundred households, and one thousand households, in order to ensure the integrity of the thousand-household system, and to ensure the necessary sources of soldiers and taxes, so that all adult men in Mongolia can "mount their horses to prepare for battle, and dismount their horses to prepare for battle." "Gathering for pastoral care" is similar to the health system established by the great ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang.

But the only thing Genghis Khan did wrong was that he personally cultivated a group of royal clans headed by Genghis Khan, the highest ruling group of the "Golden Family", and feudal lords composed of Nayan nobles at all levels.

Genghis Khan regarded the Mongolian people organized into thousands of households and the nayans at all levels who were responsible for the thousands of households as family property, and distributed them to his sons, brothers and other members of the clan.

According to the practice of family property distribution, his sons and brothers distributed the civilians and nayans at all levels allocated to them to their own relatives or subordinates.

Nayans at all levels were in an absolutely subordinate position to the Great Khan and his relatives, but to the Mongolian people they were rulers.

They accepted the reward from the Great Khan or his clan, became lords, and received hereditary power.

They have the power to allocate pastures, collect taxes, apportion corvees, command armies, etc. within their jurisdiction.

Gradually, they became the backbone of the Mongolian Empire in managing the Golden Family.

However, when the Golden Family declined, these noble lords with different surnames became the gravediggers of the Mongol Empire.

For example, Arutai was not a member of the Golden Family, but with the wishful thinking of "holding the emperor to control the princes", he supported Guilichi, a member of the Golden Family, as the Great Khan of Mongolia, and tried to control the entire grassland through this puppet Khan.

After this came Dayan Khan Batu Mengke, the leader of the great Mongol renaissance. Through continuous battles and fighting, he finally unified Mongolia again, but he immediately wanted to eradicate all the great lords of different surnames and restore the sacred dominance of the Golden Family. , which resulted in a rebellion on the Mongolian right wing!

"Our goal is to liberate and assimilate Mongolian civilians!"