In order to curb the continued growth of Huang Taiji's prestige, Dai Shan and Mang Gurtai finally put aside their past grudges and conducted a sincere and thorough exchange in this big tent.

This expedition to Chahar was originally customized at a conference held in Shenyang in June. The Mongol tribes and the Korqin tribes that had just surrendered to the Later Jin were unwilling to completely defeat the Chahar, so they preferred to support the Later Jin to go south to attack the Ming.

However, the veterans of the Eight Banners, led by Dai Shan, Mang Gurtai, and Amin, were unwilling to attack the strong Ningyuan defense line of the Ming Dynasty. What's more, under the leadership of the three major Baylors, many Eight Banners nobles were busy doing various businesses with the merchants of the Ming Kingdom, and their interest in fighting the Ming Kingdom was gradually decreasing.

Wood and soybeans from Liaodong have now become the largest export goods in Houjin, and the total export price of these two goods this year has almost reached the total export price of mink and ginseng in previous years.

The historical record of the land of Liaodong began in the Warring States Period. However, until the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Liaodong was still a land scattered with primeval forests and swamps, and no man's land was the majority.

Before Nurhachi raised his army, the population of Liaodong was about 10 million, and the cultivated land developed was only 6 or 7 million mu, and the imperial court needed to import a large amount of grain from other places every year to supply the Liaodong garrison.

After Nurhachi rebelled against the Ming Dynasty, nearly a decade of brutal warfare and the massacre of Han Chinese by old slaves made about half of the population of Liaodong less than half of them. Due to the tense war situation, the Later Jin Dynasty has no energy to restore agriculture in Liaodong.

What's more, Nurhachi's discriminatory and oppressive policies towards the Han people made the Jurchens feel uneasy about letting these Han people leave their sight to cultivate fields in the wilderness, for fear that they would flee.

It was not until Huang Taiji came to power that the Chahar-Ming alliance with the Later Jin Dynasty, because of the westward migration of Lin Dan Khan and the death of the Apocalypse, led to the abolition of this alliance, and the external military pressure of the Later Jin was greatly reduced, coupled with the Ming people and other factors, so that the Eight Banners of the Later Jin finally began to pay more attention to agriculture.

After reaching an agreement with the Four Seas Trading Company last year, Erbel Amin took the lead in reclaiming the abandoned cultivated land in Hexi, and then Dai Shan and other Eight Banners began to follow up, so that the number of cultivated land in the Houjin country has been greatly restored, and the total amount of cultivated land this year has exceeded 50,000 dumps.

Later Jin had very strict food control, but soybeans were not considered serious grains, so as long as there was no shortage of domestic grain, it was not forbidden to sell them to the Ming people.

The purchase price of soybeans by Sihai Commercial Bank is quite high, and there is no limit on the number of soybeans purchased, so that at least 30,000 dumps of soybeans have been planted in China after this year. Based on 150 catties per mu, this is also 450 million catties of soybeans.

According to the purchase price of 150 catties / yuan of Sihai Commercial Bank, it is a big business of millions of yuan. And Dai Shan and other Jurchen relatives can get 3% of the benefits from this soybean business.

However, because of the defection of various Mongolian ministries, the shortage of domestic food, coupled with the obstruction of Huang Taiji, the soybeans sold by Daishan and others in the end were only more than 110 yuan in the open and private. As a result, Dai Shan and others did not get as much of the benefits as expected, and they were forced to hand over some of the grain for relief to those Mongol vassals.

This incident made Daishan, Amin and others very dissatisfied, and they were not dissatisfied with taking out food to help those Mongol vassals. Instead, he was dissatisfied that Huang Taiji made them hand over their personal belongings, but distributed these grains in the name of the Later Jin Great Khan, so that they lost a sum of money and did not receive any benefits.

However, although they have lost a lot in the soybean business, in the timber business, Dai Shan and others have made a lot of money. Don't look at the restoration of nearly 50,000 hectares of cultivated land in the country, which accounts for less than 1% of the land in the entire northeast region.

Mountains and forests account for about 60% of the land in the entire Tohoku region, grasslands account for 35%, swamps also have nearly 5%, and the last remaining is less than 1% of arable land. For example, near Yingkou in the lower reaches of the Liao River, it was originally a swamp, and it was after more than a year of repairing water conservancy that the silt was gradually drained away, and it had a bit of a grassland appearance.

However, the forests in the Northeast are so prosperous, but when the capital needs to build a palace, it rarely goes to the Northeast to cut down large trees, which is not to say that the wood in the Northeast is bad. Fraxinus mandshurta, walnut tree, yellow barberry, these precious tree species in the northeast, have been known in the Ming Dynasty. In addition, there are few people in the primeval forests of Tohoku, so trees that are tens of meters high abound, and it is not uncommon for several people to hug giant trees.

But transporting wood from the northeast to the capital is not profitable for those imperial wood merchants. From Sichuan and Yunnan to transport the imperial wood into Beijing, it is necessary to pass through the Yangtze River to the Grand Canal, and dozens of customs on this way do not dare to check the ships transporting the imperial wood, for fear of being deceived by the palace attendants. Therefore, the real money of these merchants is not to provide timber for the royal family, but to smuggle in this name.

From the Yangtze River to the Grand Canal, it is the richest town in the Ming Dynasty, even if tens of millions of smuggling wood are smuggled, in these riverside towns, it is silently absorbed. And from the northeast to the capital, except for a Tongzhou, there are basically no decent towns on the way, if it is just for the royal family to transport wood, these imperial wood merchants are estimated to have to jump into the river to commit suicide.

However, the wood that is now transported from the Northeast is mainly used as a raw material for various workshops established in Beijing and Tianjin. In particular, textile machinery and agricultural implements, military equipment, furniture and ship materials are all major consumers of timber. The sawmill built with windmills and water wheels has increased the efficiency of wood processing by hundreds of times, which has also made wood from Liaodong now one of Tianjin's most important resources.

By October of the second year of Chongzhen, the wood transported from Yingkou every day was almost close to 3,000 yuan. Even so, more and more workshops were opened in Tianjin, and they still felt that the wood shipped from Liaodong would always be lacking. In the timber business alone, Daishan has earned more than 10 yuan in profits this year.

In fact, compared to this expedition to Chahar, Dai Shan is more willing to let his people go to the mountains to cut down trees immediately. After all, for every additional person who chops wood, his income is greater. However, as the great Baylor of Houjin, he has not yet been fascinated by money, and knows that Houjin and Daming can still make peace, but they can't make peace with Chahar.

Because the Ming people were an agrarian nation after all, even if they wanted to turn against Houjin, at most they would recapture Shenyang and other places and drive the Jurchens away from the heartland of Liaodong. The Ming people, who lacked horses, could not wipe out the Later Jin in the vast Liaodong region.

But the Mongols are different, although the current Mongolian tribes are divided, but once there is a male lord among the Mongols and the Mongol tribes are unified again, then the Houjin will inevitably be the first target that these Mongols need to eliminate. After all, the Manchu and Mongolian integration theory put forward by the Later Jin is essentially to seize the suzerainty of the Golden Family bloodline over the Mongolian tribes.

Moreover, the infatuation of the Mongolian tribes with the bloodline of the golden family also made the Jurchen relatives and nobles secretly wary. For example, Korqin is a Mongol tribe that has been allied with the Houjin since the time of Nurhachi and has been attacked by the Chahar tribe many times. When Lin Dan Khan led his troops to leave the Liaohe Loop, he lost interest in continuing to attack the Chahar Department, and began to talk about Lin Dan Khan after all, the blood of the Golden Family, and the two sides should now keep peace and stop pursuing Lin Dan Khan.

From the perspective of Dai Shan and other Jurchen relatives and nobles, the land of the Ming Kingdom was too large, the population was too large, and the resistance of the lower classes was too fierce. The Jurchens wanted to enter the customs and rule the Han people, but even Nurhachi couldn't do it, let alone them. However, the living habits of Manchuria and Mongolia are similar, and the respect of Horqin and other Mongolian tribes for the Houjin over the years makes them feel that the Manchus still have some opportunities to be the monarchs of the Mongols.

It was with this in mind that Dai Shan and Mang Gurtai agreed with Huang Taiji's idea of sending troops to Chahar. But none of them thought that Huang Taiji would change course on the way out of the army and want to weaken his army to attack the Ming Kingdom, which was a little difficult for them to accept.

Let's not mention it, after the start of this war, can Yingkou's business continue. Even Huang Taiji's use of Manmeng's relatives to suppress the two on the way to the expedition this time completely angered the two.

The four major bailes discuss politics, which is the court council system that Huang Taiji also agreed with before he ascended the throne. In other words, the major political measures in the Houjin country were discussed by the four major Baylors after all, and then the minority obeyed the majority before they could be passed.

But now, halfway through the journey to the west, Huang Taiji remembered to change the destination of the march and asked to go south to attack Ming. If this matter is done by Huang Taiji, won't the system of the four major Baylor deliberations in the future become a child's play? If Huang Taiji gets a few Manchurian relatives and nobles to oppose their claims every time, I am afraid that the Kingdom of Houjin will really become Huang Taiji's world.

The two discussed for a day, and finally decided to force Huangtai Jiban to return to Shenyang. In the afternoon of the same day, before the time came, the Great Bel Dai Shan and the Third Bel Mang Gurtai came to the tent of Huang Taiji with their cronies to ask for an audience, and ordered their cronies to guard the tent and not allow anyone else to come in and disturb their conversation with the Great Khan.

The conversation lasted for more than an hour, and then the Great Bel Dai Shan and the Third Bel Mang Gurtai walked out with a relaxed face. After coming out, the two Baylors conveyed their will on behalf of Huang Taiji, saying: "Leave the camp early tomorrow morning and return to Shenyang." ”

After receiving the order to retreat, the Mongols honestly went to pack their luggage, but Yue Zhen and other Jurchen relatives were greatly surprised, and they hurried to see Huang Taiji and ask for the reason for the retreat.

Huang Taiji's face was unswerving and said to the generals who came to inquire: "The two brothers said that our soldiers are deep, and the division is far away. If I see this, and I don't say anything at the beginning, I have traveled far away, and I will use this as an excuse. I am scheming, what to do! ”

After Huang Taiji explained the reason, he drove the Jurchen generals out of his big tent, but did not let them go back to collect their own salutes.

Yue Tuo, who understood Huang Taiji's intentions, immediately gathered a group of young Jurchen relatives outside the tent, and persuaded them that they must not just obey the order and return to Shenyang in disgrace.

Yue Tuo means that since the founding of the Later Jin Dynasty, he has not been defeated in a hundred battles, even in the face of dozens of times the Ming army, he has not retreated more than half a point. Now that the Mongolian allies have been united, there are nearly 30,000 people in the battalion, can they break up without even fighting, and after they go back, won't everyone become the laughing stock of their companions who stayed in Shenyang?

What's more, when a large army goes on an expedition, it has to use money and food. In this expedition, all flags have sent troops, so each flag has allocated a lot of money and food. Now that we go back without fighting, how can we make up for these shortfalls? This year's New Year, do you want everyone to drink the northwest wind?

At the instigation of Yue Tuo, most of these Jurchen relatives and nobles, who were already young and vigorous, immediately expressed their willingness to follow Yue Tuo and petition the Great Belle and the Third Belle to take back their lives.

Yue Tuo shouted outside Huang Taiji's big tent for more than half an hour, but Huang Taiji did not send anyone to stop him, which made Yue Tuo finally sure that what he was doing now was exactly what Huang Taiji wanted him to do.