The worst plan that Buzhhatu made was that he could not defeat the Ming army and could only escape, so he prepared a follow-up shot in advance and left some goods for Cao Yan in the city of Yehexi.

This "goods" did not secretly plant gunpowder in the city, and Buzhihatu would not regard Cao Yan as a thorn in the flesh, and he had to be eradicated at any cost - if it was Gao Shishi himself who came this time, Buzhihatu might have this idea, but it was only Cao Yan who came, so it was not necessary.

The process of the Ming army entering the city was very smooth, the hundreds of defenders in the city walked quickly and hurriedly, they had just left from the west gate on their front feet, and the people of Yehe took the initiative to open the east gate to let the Ming army in, and some people even suggested to Cao Yan to pursue and kill the Mongol army.

Cao Yan obviously didn't have this idea, when Ma Chengxun left, Buzhai and Nalin Bulu also followed, and now the Ming army has almost no cavalry, and it is impossible to catch up with this group of Mongols.

Cao Dashuai just arranged for Pu Yuanyi and Cao Jian to guard the city gate at random, and then went to the "Baylor Mansion" in Buzhai. The Beylor Mansion in the western city is not damaged, and according to the people of Yeh in the city, the Great Khan of Tumen had lived in it some time earlier.

But something happened to Cao Yan, when his soldiers were cleaning the Beile Mansion, they found several letters in the bedroom of Buzhai, two of which were signed by Tong Weixun and the other by Nurhachi.

It is not very strange that Nurhachi's letter appeared on Buzhai Mansion, but after Cao Yan checked it, he found that it was not as he imagined, it was a connection between Jurchen leaders, and this letter from Nurhachi was not addressed to Yehnara Buzhai at all, and the real recipient of this letter was "His Royal Highness Burihatu Huangtaiji, the ruler of the Great Mongolian State as noble as gold".

The letter was written in Mongolian, and Cao Yan didn't know Mongolian, so he found his own cronies to translate it. As soon as he heard this, Cao Yan immediately knew that the situation was wrong, and he immediately asked the interpreter to read it to him alone.

In the letter, Nurhachi first complimented Tumen and Buzhihatu, and then asked, "Mongolia east and I go north, I can definitely destroy Yehe, but the Ming court will inevitably intervene, at that time, Mongolia can want to fight a decisive battle in Beiguan with the Ming army?" ”

He also said, "My ministry is here, I am afraid that it will be hindered by Mengebulu and others, although this generation has no ability, but Hada is a strong country after all, and it may take time to defeat, I hope His Royal Highness Huang Taiji will know" Yunyun.

Good guys, what is this letter? It's evidence of Nurhachi's collusion with the Mongols!

Cao Yan immediately wanted to arrest Shulhaqi, who came with the army, for questioning, but remembered that he only had less than 600 people with him anyway, and it was very easy to arrest him, so he was not in a hurry, so he might as well take a look at the other two letters first.

The other two letters were not written in Mongolian, but in Chinese characters, and Cao Yan did not have to translate them this time, so he took them and read them himself.

The letterhead of the two letters is still "Buri Hatu Huang Taiji", but there is no unnecessary compliment, but the content of the letters still makes Cao Yan's eyes almost pop out in surprise.

In the first letter, the guy named "Tong Weixun" said that the 3,000 catties of gunpowder sold to Buzhihatu last time had already made it quite difficult for the "master", and this time Buzhihatu proposed to buy another 5,000 catties, and the master was not easy to deal with for a while, and this matter would be "discussed later."

The second letter is more like a list, or price list. Among them, "Tong Weixun" lists a total of 17 kinds of goods, including pig iron, wrought iron, coarse cloth, fine cloth, silk, cotton, salt, etc., and attaches the price, and there is even a classification here. The wrought iron, farm tools and salt produced in Jinghua are listed separately, which is different from ordinary wrought iron, farm tools and salt, and the price is also two percent higher.

In addition to the supply form, Tong Weixun also put forward a receipt form, specifying that he asked for the purchase of "high-grade ungelrated horses, 50 males and 300 females", and that the number of war horses that had been castrated was "not limited", and in addition, "600 horses, 1,000 strong cattle, and any sheep".

Outside the list, Tong Weixun even made a threat, and said pointedly: "Since he bartered with me, I should know that the court is strict, and I will be embarrassed, and the price will not be changed."

Since you want to do business with me, you should know that the imperial court strictly prohibits it, and I can't do it very well, so the above prices must not be changed.

What is a trade power? That's probably it.

Of course, Cao Yan doesn't care about this, Daming is a trade power, and he knows it since he is sensible. Whether it is the Mongols or the Jurchens, or even the Koreans, they don't have much bargaining power when doing business with the Ming Dynasty.

It is impossible to produce it by yourself, if you can produce it yourself, do you still need to ask grandpa to buy things from Daming like grandma?

What Cao Yan really cares about is who this "Tong Weixun" is, who dares to supply such a large amount of money to the Mongols under the strict orders of the imperial court, and even his "master" actually sold a full 3,000 catties of gunpowder to Buri Hatu before!

Three thousand catties of gunpowder, it may not be a lot in the Ming Dynasty, about hundreds of No. 3 guns were consumed in a few salvos, but this amount is very exaggerated when sold to the Mongols, and it is completely a head-off business.

Moreover, how many people can be found in Liaodong who can sell 3,000 catties of gunpowder at once?

If you want to talk about it from the perspective of sufficient supply, the world's first gunpowder manufacturer must be Jinghua, and Gao Pragmatic is the number one master of gunpowder supply. But Cao Yan naturally did not suspect that Gao Pragmatic was selling gunpowder to the Chahar Department, and it was too late for Gao Pragmatic to control it, so how could he sell gunpowder.

Next, there will only be the top military and political leaders in Liaodong. Although Zhou Zhitai has worked in Liaodong for a long time, he has rarely come to Liaodong since he was promoted to the governor of Jiliao, and he does not often take care of Liaodong's affairs.

Futai? It's possible. Li Song, Cao Yan still knows something, not because Cao Yan didn't know anything about him after Li Song was promoted to Liaofu, but because Li Song had worked in Ningqian Bingbei Road for nearly ten years, and for such a long time, the style of dealing with people will naturally have news come out, Cao Yan was already the deputy chief soldier of Liaodong at that time, how could he not have heard of it?

Li Song is regarded as an old man in the outside world, which is also the main reason why he has been serving as a soldier in front of Ning for a long time, but as far as Cao Yan knows, the biggest feature of this person is that he is tied to Li Chengliang. He was responsible for helping Li Chengliang expand his industry in the territory under the jurisdiction of Ningqian in Liaoxi, and Li Chengliang ensured that every time Ningqian and even Liaoxi had military exploits, he would share a part of the profits.

Since the interests of the two people are the same, the relationship is naturally close, and it is probably not wrong to say that he is Li Chengliang's ally. And since Shen Shixing took over as the first assistant, these two people have accepted the pull of the Heart School for various considerations and devoted themselves to it, so they are even more comrades and brothers.

What's more, the governor of the Ming Dynasty is not only in charge of government affairs, it is also in charge of military affairs, if Li Song wants to sell gunpowder, it is only 3,000 catties, it is not difficult to do.

However, Cao Yan felt that compared with Li Song, Li Chengliang was more likely to be the "master" mentioned in Tong Weixun's letter.

Li Chengliang wanted to sell gunpowder, and his motive was even worse than Li Song's, because he was much less money than Li Song.

There are so many family elite horsemen to feed, but they can't just rely on the military salary of the imperial court. Don't look at the military salary given by the imperial court to the family is much higher than that of ordinary guards, but in fact, the root cause is that the salary of the guards is too low, and the amount of money taken by the family can only sustain a family of four to five people to eat, and there is no need to think about anything else.

If you want to have a better life, such as buying some clothes for your family during the New Year's holidays, a little filial piety for your parents, and some jewelry for your wife, you have to have another income. This income can basically only count on the reward of the head of the family, that is, the money that Li Chengliang sent them.

This money is a stable income that does not count as "stable income". The reason why it is not counted is because there are no hard and fast rules, and Li Chengliang will only send it if he is willing to send it. The reason why it can be counted is because Li Chengliang basically distributes it on time, which is similar to a "set rule", and it will not be missing until it is absolutely necessary, and there is even very little delay.

So many people are counting on Li Chengliang to make money, and of course Li Chengliang is also under pressure, so he has been making money all these years, and he has exhausted all kinds of methods. For example, Cao Yan also knows about secretly manipulating the private market.

Not only did Cao Yan know, but in fact, before Gao Shi came to Liaodong and served as the governor of Liaodong, especially before the Ma family general was installed in Kaiyuan, the private trade in Liaodong had always been very "developed", and many generals were involved—including him, Cao Yan himself.

As for why the situation has changed since Gao Pragmatism came, the deep-seated reason Cao Yan is not clear, but he knows that Gao Pragmatism has always had his own principles in this regard, and it is not simply forcible to do it.

The pragmatic approach is to crack down on the private market but expand the trading of the regular horse market, not only removing many of the previously restricted categories, but also not limiting the quantity.

On the other hand, Gao Shi directly allowed the generals to participate in the regular horse market trade, but the generals could also participate in the goods that other merchants were allowed to buy and sell. As long as you don't sell restricted goods in violation of regulations, such as muskets and artillery, you go to sell cloth and rice, and you don't care about it.

Cao Yan himself was very satisfied with this, the so-called water to the clear is no fish, the original imperial court did not allow Liaodong officials and generals to participate in the horse market trade, the result is that these officials and generals are very tacitly concealed the existence of the private market.

Why? Of course, it's to make money in the private market. After all, Liaodong is a magical place that has been under the military for more than 200 years, no matter which private market you are, don't expect the military and political circles in Liaodong to really not know your existence. Since they knew about it, they didn't sweep it away, of course, because they had an interest in it.

In this case, as a private market, do you dare not put these people in place? Umbrellas have always existed, but they are nothing new.

Some of them took the initiative to make points, and some generals with slightly lower status even took the initiative to ask for bribes, or forced the private market to share profits with him, that is another matter, of course, there is not much difference in nature.

The highly pragmatic method is actually to beat a stick and then give a sweet date, which not only gives people a way to continue to make profits, but also cuts off the previous illegal income.

However, it should be noted here that private markets are not all illegal, in fact, the vast majority of private markets themselves are legal, because the so-called private markets are private markets, that is, private markets other than the official horse market. Only matters such as the sale of arms are illegal.

Jinghua has many private markets in northern Xinjiang and even Yunnan and Guangxi, large and small, as long as they have been reported to the government and clearly agreed, they are all legal private markets.

The difference is only that Jinghua's private market is relatively clean, and it does not do and does not need to do illegal trading, while some private markets do not. For example, in many private markets controlled by Li Chengliang, no one would dare to investigate them anyway, and many transactions that violated the ban of the imperial court would dare to do it, and Li Chengliang did not care about them.

Because of this, in fact, many of the imperial court bans in Liaodong have been false, and some even acquiesced.

For example, although the government's horse market is still strictly managed by the imperial court, whenever the market opens, the local yamen must send officials to supervise the market in person, and send officials and soldiers to strengthen protection. It is strictly forbidden to bring weapons into the market, and it is strictly forbidden to enter the market without goods, and they will be ordered to leave the country when the market is completed.

However, there are many types of goods that can be traded in the market, including goods that were banned from trading in the early years. According to the records of the Quanliao Chronicles, the goods entered the market by the Mongol and Jurchen tribes included all kinds of livestock, horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, and sheep. In terms of skins, there are mink, tiger, leopard, bear, deer, fox, otter and so on. In terms of mountain goods, there are ginseng, fungus, pine nuts, honey and so on.

The goods entering the market in Liaodong are mainly textiles such as satin, silk and cloth, iron tools such as pots, ploughshares, etc., and grain. According to a "Horse Market Lottery Register" from July of the 11th year of Wanli to March of the 12th year, during these eight months, the Haixi Jurchens traded a total of 26 times in the Kaiyuan Horse Market, selling 581 catties of ginseng, 337.5 catties of mushrooms, 1,460 catties of honey, 88 buckets of pine sticks, 179 horses, 23 beads, and 783 wooden shovels.

And they bought eighty-seven horses of silk satin, six hundred and fifty-six jackets, two hundred and fifteen pairs of water boots, two hundred and fifty-two iron pots, five hundred and forty-six cattle, and four thousand eight hundred and forty-eight iron ploughshares.

It is not difficult to see the scale of the horse market and the relaxation of certain restrictions: iron farming implements are clearly allowed to be traded, and cattle are also allowed to be traded.

Since iron farming tools are allowed, the equivalent of steel exports has been opened. Although agricultural tools have their added value, especially the agricultural tools produced by Jinghua have always been "expensive", if you look at it another way: no matter how expensive agricultural tools are, they cannot be more expensive than weapons, and can't they be made into weapons by re-melting agricultural tools?

It's just that Tong Weixun is more powerful in this list, he or his master not only sells farm tools, but even directly sells wrought iron and even gunpowder.

If Li Song had to find a way to make fake accounts if he sold gunpowder, and after Gao Pragmatic sent personnel to help patrol the accounts according to the imperial history in the early years, the difficulty of making fake accounts was getting higher and higher, then it was much easier for Li Chengliang to sell gunpowder in comparison.

He said a word about battlefield attrition, have you checked it clearly?

Even if you haven't fought for a while, if he says that he consumes training, can you find out?

Don't forget, his subordinates are all his "own people".

Cao Yan's hand holding the letter paper unconsciously tightened a little, and his palms began to sweat.

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PS: Good guys, I wrote a battle in order to elicit these three letters...... If I have a bad memory, I'll have to forget it.