As before, Gao Shishi learned of the victory in Liaobei half a day earlier than the official channels of the imperial court, and he learned the news in the evening of the same day, and the official post sent the news to the capital at midnight. However, because the news of the victory was not as good as the emergency military situation, the report was left in the yamen of the military department and lay down for half a night, until the next day the officials of the military department opened the seal, which was considered known to the imperial court.

Perhaps the imperial court has reported a lot of victories in recent years, and even if more than 1,600 horsemen were beheaded in the battle of Liaobei, it did not cause much sensation, but the news that came with it was more eye-catching than the victory.

There are two and a half pieces of news that came with the report, one is that Nurhachi had an agreement with the Mongols to invade the Nanguan Hada Division, and had planned to join forces with the Tumen; The other is that Ye Hebu deeply felt the grace of the Ming Dynasty's care, and officially sent a Gagong envoy to Beijing.

The first piece of news, while infuriating, is honestly not surprising. In fact, when the imperial court heard that Nurhachi was going north to welcome his relatives, everyone guessed the reason, and now the conclusive evidence is nothing more than a nail in the coffin board, but there is no need to be shocked.

The second piece of news is also precursor, a few days ago, Cao Yan had Shangshu talk about it, and the imperial court also agreed, and now Yehe's tribute envoy "officially" set off, which is completely in line with the regulations of the imperial court. As for Ye He's desire to get on a ship in Yingkou and come to Beijing by sea, the imperial court also "granted" permission.

Cao Yan mentioned a few sentences in the report of success, saying that after retaking Yehesi City, he found a letter that Tumen had not taken away in the mansion of the lord of Xicheng City, where Tumen had temporarily lived, and found some clues from the letter, which may involve someone providing gunpowder to the Mongols, which is very large.

Cao Yan said that because he considered that Tumen may have the intention of deliberately designing to frame Zhongliang, he will not submit clues and evidence this time, and after an investigation, he will go to the details again.

This half of the news is far more exciting than the first two for the princes of the imperial court.

First of all, since Cao Yan dared to bring up this matter, it means that he must have "clues" in his hands; secondly, since Cao Yan did not hide it, it is obvious that the object of implication in this matter will not be himself, nor is it most likely not an official or general of the Shixue School; In the end, Cao Yan's half-talking, "sloppy eyes" is more uncertain than poking it out directly. Because even if you don't do it yourself, what if it's your own allies, or even the officials you recommend?

If it is done by an ally, out of "morality", it is always necessary to lend a helping hand and try to rescue it; It's even worse if the officials you recommend do it. In the early years, when Gao Gong reformed the Ministry of Officials, he repeatedly emphasized a criterion, that even if the person who was promoted was punished for something, the person who recommended it also needed to be jointly and severally liable.

Because of this, many officials, especially those with higher status, have begun to secretly "self-examine and self-correct" and recall who they had recommended to go to Liaodong.

Of course, there are still some people who hope that this matter is not the work of local officials and generals, and it is better that some local tycoon chooses to take risks because of financial obsession or other reasons, and then everything will be fine. The so-called dead Taoist friends do not die poor Dao, but for various reasons, it is sometimes difficult to get rid of the relationship between Daoist friends and poor Daoists, so it is best to die an irrelevant person.

But there are also some smart people who know that things are not going well at a glance, so they start to think of his method.

Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue are obviously smart people, judging from the test results of that year, these two people are simply extremely smart: the champion and the eye of the same list.

As soon as the two of them read the news, they knew that most of the matter was related to Li Chengliang, and the reason why Cao Yan wanted to say goodbye was also because of this.

Involving Li Chengliang is now equivalent to involving the Heart School, and Li Chengliang's situation is very special, as long as the Heart School still wants to get a piece of the pie in the Great War of Annihilation in three or four years, and does not let the Real School focus on the front, then Li Chengliang is almost a character who must be protected.

Shen Shixing took the initiative to invite Wang Xijue to his duty room, and the two began to discuss countermeasures.

Before Gao Pragmatic set foot in Liaodong, Li Chengliang controlled most of the private markets in Liaodong, and even if he was not directly involved, he had to lose money, which was roughly equivalent to paying protection money.

After the Gao pragmatic forces entered Liaodong, this situation was slightly reversed, and Jinghua relied on its strong economic power and trade ability to develop in a short period of time when Gao pragmatic was in charge of Liaodong, and controlled four large-scale private markets and nine private markets of average size but relatively important.

Although in terms of the number of private markets, Jinghua is only about half of Li Chengliang's, but in terms of trade volume, the two sides are almost evenly divided.

Li Chengliang went from monopolizing the private market in Liaodong to having a five-to-five fight with Jinghua, and the pressure in his heart was obviously huge. Although Jinghua's entry is actually adhering to the consistent purpose of "making the cake bigger", and what has increased is the trade volume of the entire Liaodong, which has little impact on Li Chengliang's "absolute income", but Li Chengliang is used to being a snake after all, and now that a strong dragon suddenly comes, it is very difficult to say what reaction he can have.

It is not very cost-effective to face Jinghua on the surface, and Li Chengliang is not very brave as a general. Although his backstage backer Shen Shixing is the first assistant, he has also lacked suppressive power for Gao Pragmatism in recent years, and of course a smart person like Li Chengliang will not take eggs to hit stones.

In this case, it is completely understandable to "develop" some new ways to make money.

Wang Xijue said to Shen Shixing: "The imperial court has not traded with Chahar for a long time, but Chahar has no Ming goods?" No, Chahar has always been able to get all kinds of goods, doesn't Yuanfu know? ”

Shen Shixing could only smile bitterly, of course he knew about this situation.

In the fourth year of Longqing, Wang Chonggu was reappointed as the governor of Shanxi Xuanda Military Affairs, and strongly advocated the negotiation and mutual market with me. Under the strong leadership of Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng and other important ministers of the imperial court, in the fifth year of Longqing, the Ming Dynasty canonized the Mongolian Altan Khan as the "King of Shunyi", and opened the Tonggong market in the same year, and Zhangjiakou became the first border trade port to open the port to Mongolia.

In addition to the official market, Wang Chonggu also promoted the private trade between Ming and Mongolia, so that under the situation of peace between Ming and Mongolia, the scale of trade between Ming and Mongolia became larger and larger. "The border rests, from Yanyong in the east, to Jiayu seven towns in the west, thousands of miles of military and civilian happiness, no need for military revolution, the province of Fish-seven."

The resulting social effect is not only to give Xuanhua and Datong a long-term peaceful environment, but also to a continuous return of population - in the past, the Mongol soldiers often attacked southward, and the locals ran to other places, but now that they are talking about peace, there is no longer the worry of military disasters, and the opening of the border pass horse market has provided an opportunity to do business, and everyone runs here.

But this brought about another problem, that is, Tumut had the right to trade with the Ming in any way, including horses, cattle and sheep in exchange for any kind of goods they wanted.

Tumut is now almost a hardcore brother of Da Ming, and they can buy and sell Da Ming's products, which is no problem, and it is also what Gao Pragmatic has always insisted on before. However, although the relationship between Tumut and Chahar is tense, after all, they have the same roots, and the "Great Khan" of both sides are still the descendants of Genghis Khan, so the confrontation is a confrontation, and it is impossible to sever the connection.

In particular, the ties between commerce and trade cannot be broken off by saying that they can be broken, and even if Hannaji is ordered, it must be a policy and a countermeasure. What's more, it is more convenient for the Mongols to communicate with each other than the Ming Dynasty, and there are not many clear demarcations between them, and some tribes and generals quietly trade with each other, and it is impossible to find out Hannaji at all.

This kind of thing not only exists now, but even in the original history, it led to the so-called "Jin merchants betraying the country".

At that time, the Jianzhou Jurchens rose in Liaodong, and after Nurhachi rebelled against the Ming Dynasty in the 46th year of Wanli, he also attached great importance to contacting the Mongol tribes in southern Mo. After Huang Taiji inherited the throne, he adopted a more active strategy against Mongolia through various soft and hard means.

In order to suppress the Jianzhou Jurchens, the Ming Dynasty once co-opted and supported the Haixi Jurchens such as Ye Hebu. However, in the forty-seventh year of Wanli, after a series of setbacks such as the defeat of Sarhu, the fall of Kaiyuan and Tieling, and the defeat of Yehe, the Ming Dynasty began to support the Chahar Department of Mongol in southern Mongolia.

Chahar was the khanate of the Great Yuan Emperor and the Great Khan of Mongolia. In the early years, the Ming Dynasty reached a peace agreement with Tumut, but did not reach a similar tribute clause with Chahar, but at that time, in the face of the aggressive Houjin, in line with the principle of "the enemy of the enemy is an ally", the Ming began to take the initiative to reward Chahar.

Chahar Lingdan Khan was also ambitious, trying to re-establish himself as Great Khan in the Mongol tribes. The Houjin, who was actively passing through southern Mongolia, naturally came into direct military conflict with Chahar Lindan Khan, who was trying to establish his position in southern Mongolia.

In February and March of 1626, hearing the news that Nurhachi had just been repelled by Yuan Chonghuan under the city of Ningyuan, Chahar Lindan Khan instigated the combined forces of the five Inner Khalkha tribes to invade Houjin.

However, although Nurhachi touched Yuan Chonghuan's nail under Ningyuan City, in fact, the significance of this incident was mainly Yuan Chonghuan's boasting, Nurhachi did not suffer much losses, and his military strength was still strong, so he immediately launched a counterattack against Inner Khalkha, and at the same time adopted the means of division and disintegration.

The war was very smooth, the Nekhalkha originally nomadic in the west of Liaoxi to Chifeng at a point of the Xilamulun River, after they were defeated by the Houjin and fled, there was no buffer zone between the Houjin and Chahar, and they were directly adjacent.

In 1627, in order to win over the Ao Han and Naiman tribes, Houjin and Chahar clashed again. In order to avoid the threat of Houjin Bingfeng, Lin Dan Khan, who was strong outside and in the middle, made a move in this year - moving west.

A domino-like chain effect appeared at this time - the rise of the Later Jin in Liaodong, the military strategy, the southwest conquest or co-optation of Southern Mongolia, and the Chahar army to resist; Chahar was defeated, so he had to move westward as well, oppressing Karaqin and Tumut, which were originally outside Xuanhua and northern Jin.

At the beginning of 1627~1628, Chahar, which moved westward, fought many battles with the Tumut-Karaqin coalition army outside Zhangjiakou and Guihua City. At this time, the originally powerful Tumut had been clearly corrupted, and the coalition forces were gradually defeated. In February 1628, Karaqin Tabunang urgently sent an envoy to Houjin for help, hoping to conclude an alliance against Chahar, and asked Emperor Taiji of Tiancong Khan to send troops. Later Jin was given the opportunity to launch another campaign of the Western Expedition.

In September 1628, October 1629, and May 1632, the Later Jin launched three western expeditions against Chahar. Finally, on this occasion in May 1632, they arrived at the Naturalized City of Tumut (Hohhot).

When Houjin came to Guihua City, he also got an unexpected gain: he got the opportunity to use the name of the Tumut Department to start a horse market trade with the Ming Dynasty.

In mid and late June of that year, Huang Taiji went south from Guihua City and sent letters to the Ming defenders of Datong Desheng Fort and Xuanhua Zhangjiakou respectively, demanding that the Ming Dynasty give the Chahar Department the annual reward of silver, and that the border market trade should be opened according to the example of the past with Tumut.

At the same time, he declared his might outside the border wall, making a look of preparing for war and about to attack the city, "either peace talks or fighting" to deter the Ming army in these two places.

1632 was the fifth year of Chongzhen, and the Ming Dynasty guards of Datong and Zhangjiakou must have known about the perennial war between the Ming and Qing armies in Liaodong and Liaoxi, but they did not expect that the Qing army would come to Tumut Mongolia so soon and appear in the distant northern Jin and Zhangbei regions. In the severe absence of defensive countermeasures, the Ming armies in Datong and Zhangjiakou soon chose to compromise with the Qing army.

"On June 14, the Ming army of Victory Fort sent 16 people to the battalion to contribute, two cattle, eight sheep, four silk horses, one hundred and eighty-four bags of tea, six bags of tobacco, thirty-nine bags of sugar, and nine bags of rock sugar...... and the Qing army "gave back a sheep to each person"; "On June 28, the Xuanfu Shou will send an envoy to negotiate peace."

As a result, after the Ming army guards in Zhangjiakou privately reached a peace agreement with the Qing army, the Ming army guards connived at the local merchants to trade with the Qing army in the horse market. The local people and merchants in Zhangjiakou are naturally mainly from Shanxi. This is how the "Jin merchants" at the end of the Ming Dynasty came into contact with the Qing army.

Fraudulently using the name of other tribes to carry out horse market trade and tribute exchanges with the Ming Dynasty has always been called "coercion of tribute" and "coercion of reward", which is very common in Mongolia and Jurchen tribes at that time. For example, when the relationship between the Chahar Ministry and the Ming Dynasty was tense, the Ming Dynasty closed the horse market to him. For a long time, Chahar used the names of the Inner Khalkabalin and Uziyette departments to go to Guangning to collect tribute and Kaiyuan Horse Market to extort rewards, and the Ming court did not intervene too much in this.

Before the Tatar Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the Qing army and the merchants of the Eight Banners of the Qing army went to Datong and Zhangjiakou to trade with the Jin merchants in the name of Tumut, taking advantage of the favorable conditions of opening the border Saima City after the Longqing Peace Conference. Some local Jin merchants in Zhangjiakou, with the permission of local military and political officials in the Ming Dynasty, did business with the Qing army in the name of Tumert.

As for the descriptions of the Jin merchants going out of the Great Wall and going to the outside of the Saiwai and even in the territory of the Later Jin, including the so-called "providing intelligence" to the Later Jin, there is no official historical basis and is unfounded rumors.

In other words, trade existed, not only later, but now. But to say that this is a traitor, at least from the legal level of the Ming Dynasty, it is not yet possible.

Chahar is now also banned from trading, but Chahar has several avenues to obtain Ming output, including "smuggling" with certain tribes of Tumut who are not directly subordinate to Hannaji, including a legal private market in Quang Ninh (where Li Chengliang is station) in the name of the Inner Khalkha tribes, and even from Yeh before the eastward invasion of Yeh, who was often used as a second-hand dealer, as it has been said before.

However, Shen Shixing knew that Wang Xijue's statement was deliberately confusing the nature of trade: Chahar obtained Ming output from Tumut, Yehe, and even Inner Khalkha, all of which were sold and sold, which was equivalent to an extra layer of "dealers", and the price was definitely not so cost-effective.

The reason why Da Ming didn't pursue it much before is also here: since the ban must not be stopped, it is not too much of a loss to let Chahar spend more unjust money, and it is okay to turn a blind eye.

However, this time the situation Cao Yan said is different, Li Chengliang is afraid that this time it is a direct transaction with Chahar, although the specific situation is not clear, but it is conceivable that the profits of the original layer of "dealers" must be shared by Li Chengliang and Chahar, and both parties can earn more.

And in this way, can the Ming court still be satisfied? Apparently not.

----------

Thank you for the support of the book friend "Cao Mianzi", thank you!

Thank you for the monthly pass support of "ASolaF", "nn in disrepair", and "20200121063749702 book", thank you!