Ten thousand elite horsemen, walking on the grassland in a hurry, it was Gao Pragmatic and Chataiji and his party - obviously, Chataiji had been persuaded by Gao Pragmatic and was now joining forces with him.

The guard of honor of the highly pragmatic envoy is basically an ornament, and his riding skills are now quite good, so he usually rides a horse, so as not to slow down the speed of the procession.

His equestrian level, in his own words, has no problems except for letting him fight on horseback, not only can he gallop on horseback, but he can even do a few tricks, such as hiding in stirrups for a short time, which is now difficult for him.

Chataiji can only be described as amazed at his performance, and of course, after the surprise, he sincerely admired.

Gao Shizheng's identity is very clear to him, Gao Wenzheng's nephew, Wanli Tianzi's classmate, the six champions of the Ming Dynasty, the left concubine of Zhan Shifu and the attendant of the Hanlin Academy, such a typical Ming civil official, actually has a good riding skill, which is like letting him go to the Hanlin Academy to talk about learning and discussing Taoism, which completely subverts his view of the Ming Wenchen for thirty years.

It is no wonder that in the past, the Great Khan never considered occupying the territory of the Ming Dynasty for a long time, and sneered at the words of Zhao Quan and others who instigated him.

How many such civil officials are there in the Ming Dynasty?

Chataiji didn't know, but he knew that at least there was one in front of him.

Forget it, for the sake of mutual market, some things will give way to one step, and it is not a big deal. At least, Dacheng Taiji is also the bloodline of the Golden Family, and he is the proud son who is blessed by the Immortal Heaven.

He was thinking about these things in a mess, and he heard Gao Shishi next to him ask, "Has this area always been like this?" ”

"Huh? Which? Chataiji looked in the direction of Gao Shishi's finger, but saw that it was an ordinary meadow in front of him.

Gao pragmatically reminded: "Those grasslands, why are there still a lot of loess directly exposed, and even the grass is not full? ”

Chataiji looked surprised and said, "Most of the pastures in Monan are like this, and there are very few places full of grass, at least since I can remember. ”

"Really?" Gao Pragmatic frowned slightly, and said secretly in his heart: There is a way that "the Yellow River is harmful, and only one set of riches", isn't this the former set of one of the "three sets", why is soil erosion so serious?

Gao pragmatic asked this sentence just now, mainly because he remembered a saying on the Internet in later generations that the Ming Dynasty was extremely lacking in strategic foresight, so it gave up the Hetao. Especially after I Da vigorously developed agriculture in Tumochuan, this argument was even more noisy, thinking that the Ming court foolishly gave up a large area of strategic land.

Those who say this may not have seen the precipitation distribution map of China, in fact, the core territory occupied by the Ming Dynasty in Guannei, except for the northern part of Shanxi and northern Shaanxi, is all within the 400 mm precipitation line.

The northern part of Shanxi is the two border towns of Xuanfu Datong, and the northern part of Shaanxi is the so-called three sides of Shaanxi. These two places are typical military towns and national defense towns, and they themselves cannot support their own use, relying on blood transfusions from the mainland.

The front, back, and west sets of the Yellow River are actually outside the 400 mm precipitation line.

These three places, together known as the Hetao, are in what location?

"The Yellow River is blocked on three sides around the Hetao, and the soil is fertile and can be cultivated. Yulinbao, Shaanxi, east to Shanxi Yaotouguan, west to Ningxia Town, east to two thousand miles; South to the side wall, north to the Yellow River, far ** hundred miles, near two or three hundred miles. —This passage is from the History of the Ming Dynasty.

Well, it still doesn't seem clear enough to say that.

In fact, the Hetao is the piece of the Yellow River that is a few characters of the big bend, and the northeast corner of the outside of the big bend is the front set, the northwest corner is the back set, and the west is near Yinchuan.

Not counting the outer part, the inner side is located in the south of the Yellow River, so the Ming people called Henan Land, and the approximate range corresponds to the Mu Us Sandy Land, Ordos Plateau, Kubuqi Desert and Hetao Plain in later generations.

It is a pity that most of the Hetao in the Ming Dynasty was outside the 400 mm precipitation line, so the precipitation in the Hetao was actually quite scarce and not suitable for large-scale farming, and there was also a Mu Us Desert, one of the four major deserts in China.

Until the high-level crossing, China was still investing huge sums of money in planting trees in the Mu Us Desert. Therefore, the sentence "fertile soil, arable mulberry" in the "History of the Ming Dynasty" is very problematic, even if it is not nonsense, it obviously cannot refer to such a large desert.

Such a large desert, you told me that the soil is fertile and arritable, and I will see if you cultivate one?

Therefore, in fact, only three alluvial plains along the Yellow River are suitable for cultivation and can rely on rivers for irrigation. However, because the Yellow River was once diverted, the area of Yinchuan in later generations did not exist in the Ming Dynasty.

In other words, a narrow strip of land in the north of the big bend, which is only a few words, is land that can be cultivated for agriculture.

If we compare the map of later generations, from east to west, from Hohhot to Baotou, and then to Bayannur, this narrow strip of land is the front set and the back set.

The front and back sets are the so-called fertile soil and arable suitable cultivation areas, which are an enclave suitable for cultivation outside the traditional Han land.

Modern people often confuse these two geographical concepts, and some people probably think that this is thousands of miles from Yinchuan in Ningxia to Yulin when they talk about Hetao, and even think that this large piece of land is a blessed land with abundant water and grass.

All in all, the Zhenhetao area of the Ming Dynasty was not suitable for farming, but it was actually the Fengzhou Beach area north of the Yellow River and outside the suit, and it was also used for river irrigation. The vicinity of Ordos in the Hetao is rich in water and grass, but due to the lack of precipitation, it is more suitable for grazing rather than farming, and this is the area where the Ming Dynasty "trapping" often moves, that is, the place where Kangxi, a rabbit shooter in the Qing Dynasty, shoots 300 rabbits a day.

At this moment, it can basically explain why the Ming people did not occupy the Hetao: an area that is not suitable for farming, once it is occupied, it needs a steady stream of military supplies to meet the needs of the garrison. For the Ming Dynasty, this was a region that could not be self-sufficient and would become a huge financial burden.

Daningwei, which was set up in the early Ming Dynasty, was also a place that could not be self-sufficient, and had to spend the power of the four inland provinces to supply, so if it was to occupy the Hetao, it would inevitably become a huge financial burden.

If you really want to occupy it, then it is better to occupy Fengzhou Beach, which is the front set.

However, the problem is that the Qiantao itself is also a cultivated enclave, a little far away from the traditional Han land, not directly bordered, and it is separated from Datong and Xuanfu, which are the key defense points in the western direction of the mountain, and there are many problems in both military and strategic terms, and if they are stationed for a long time, the local defenders can easily become a lone army. Therefore, although the Ariake Dynasty sent an army to attack and burn down the city, it had no intention of occupying this place.

The above is only a matter of geography, so let's just talk about the abandonment of the Loop.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty could not talk about giving up or not giving up the Hetao, because the Ming generation had never actually controlled the Hetao, so how could it be said to give up?

In fact, at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Hetao area was just a no-man's land that no one cared about. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, in view of the scarcity of the Mongols in the Hetao after the Yuan Dynasty's forces withdrew northward, they directly adopted a simple and brutal policy of expelling or relocating the surviving people in the Hetao to the interior - "In four years, the general Tang Hebing attacked Hannaoer, captured the fierce general Huchen Zhenjun Xie Cheng and other people, and entered the interior, and the Hetao was ruin."

In other words, the few remaining tribes have also been moved into the interior, artificially creating a no-man's land and creating a military buffer zone.

Many people in later generations, perhaps including some people in the Ming and Qing dynasties, thought that the Ming Dynasty gave up Dongsheng Satellite TV for the Ming Dynasty to give up the Hetao, in fact, this cognition is a typical cognitive error with the benefit of hindsight.

The place where Dong Shengwei is set up is also outside the set, which is near Toyosu Beach. In fact, in the early Ming Dynasty, it was only used as a part of Shanxi's defense system, and as an inpost for the army to march from Shanxi in the early Ming Dynasty's flexible defense system, it was not set up to defend and control the Hetao.

Therefore, the dismissal of Dongshengwei has nothing to do with the Hetao, it is just a strategic adjustment. During the Hongwu and Yongle periods in the early Ming Dynasty, it was impossible to predict the changes in civil engineering, nor could it be expected to be trapped, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di were able to fight, but they were not immortals after all. In their generation, because the Loop was a no-man's land, in fact there was no need for fortification.

It was only when a few years later, when the Tatars were oppressed by the Warat and had to move to the Hetao area to form a trap, that the Ming looked back and looked back - lying in the trough! Dong Shengwei is such an important place, why did he give up? How could such an important place as the Hetao be abandoned?

In addition, many later generations, even including the Ming people, like to use the Han and Tang dynasties as an analogy to "restore the Hetao". In fact, the Ming Dynasty is not very suitable for comparison with the Han and Tang Dynasties, because with the southward shift of the economic center of gravity, the capital is no longer in Guanzhong but in Beijing.

To put it simply, due to the shift in the country's political and economic center of gravity, the strategic threat to the Central Plains of the Hetao has been far less great than that of the Han and Tang dynasties. After all, the Hetao can be directly approached by the existence of Longyou Guanzhong, and the ruling center of the Ming Dynasty is not in Guanzhong, and there is no motivation like the Han and Tang Dynasties to seize the Hetao. If you want to seize and control, the only reason is to map the territory and fight for fame with the people's fat and people's ointment.

How did Zeng Mill die? Internal power struggles are, of course, important reasons, but they are also one of the reasons.

Therefore, in Gao Pragmatic's view, the Hetao itself has little effect, at most it can be used as a horse farm, but the Han people do not like to raise horses, and forcibly force the Han people to raise horses, the result is the same as raising horses in Hebei, there was no big problem at the beginning, and after a few decades, the people's resentment boiled, not only the horses could not raise a few horses, but the scolding of the people was also huge, and even made a batch of horse thieves at every turn, becoming a source of chaos for local security.

Hebei's current horses are almost extinct, but not only the horsemen of Jinghua collected the money from the government and the effect was particularly good, but the more fundamental reason was that at that time, Gao Pragmatic controlled the Bailixia horse bandits and opened up the channel to do business with Tumut, so the government released the pressure of raising horses from the people little by little, and finally the tribute was completed, and the mutual market was opened, and the people of Hebei basically did not have the pressure of raising horses, so the horse bandits did not exist - the skin did not exist, and the hair would be attached?

Gao pragmatic has always believed that many things do not need to be solved by war, in fact, it is like practicing medicine, you only treat the symptoms, here it is cured, there it is bad, the doctor looks very powerful, always medicine to get rid of the disease, in fact, what is the use? It is better to go directly to the source of the disease, that is the real solution to the problem.

Governing the country, it is useless to be Bian Que, Bian Que's eldest brother is powerful, if it really can't work, with the level of Bian Que and his second brother, it can be improvised.

But now Chataiji's words make Gao pragmatic a little worried, don't let the front and back sets in the Toyosu Beach area also have soil erosion, right?

But after thinking about it, I am a little glad that now Tumut has begun to change their governing thinking and vigorously engage in agriculture, which means that they will pay more and more attention to irrigation and soil conservation, instead of migrating to other places when there is no abundance of water and grass as in the past, as in the pure nomadic period of the past, when there is no abundance of water and grass, and there are deserts and Gobi everywhere.

It seems that Hannaji really deserves to be this Chechen Khan, compared with Xin Ai, who is more willing to live a settled farming life like the Han people, that is not to be compared - Hannaji has lived in Dabansheng City for a long time, and Xin Ai has been living in a felt tent, which of the two is more inclined to farming, does this need to be compared?

However, on the contrary, I want to remind Han Naji, don't be like some Chinese people in later generations who want to "****" at every turn, they can vigorously sinicize, but they must not be fully sinicized - if you are fully sinicized, who will help me raise cattle and sheep in the Ming Dynasty and supply cavalry?

Gao pragmatic then said to Chataiji: "In agriculture, the most important thing is not only the quality of the seeds, but the proper cultivation, the maintenance of the soil is also very important, for example, here in Tumochuan, according to the official's point of view, the soil is still good, but the protection is very inappropriate, and in the long run, I mean, maybe as long as it takes one or two decades, it may not be able to grow crops." ”

"Can't grow crops?" Chataiji was taken aback, now the reason why Tumut is basically not afraid of white disasters and black disasters, but relying on the mutual market and the crops planted by the Han people, this is a matter of life and death, so he can't help but be in a hurry, and hurriedly asked: "Then how to maintain the strength of the earth?" We Mongolians don't understand this. ”

Gao Pragmatic smiled and said, "I am Da Ming Wenkui, how can I maintain my strength...... Of course I know. ”

Chataiji was overjoyed, and was just about to continue to ask, when he suddenly found that Gao Shishi smiled a little deeply, and suddenly came to his senses, hesitated, and said angrily: "The Qin envoy is a great talent in the world, and he can't escape the grasp of the Qin envoy with every word and deed." Anyway, as long as you can help me to avoid natural disasters and get rid of it...... I am willing to drive for the admiration. ”

----------

Thank you for the monthly ticket support of "Daystar 90", thank you! Ask for subscriptions, ask for all kinds of tickets~

[Youyu Bookstore is a free source APP software for free reading, Android phones need to be downloaded and installed on GooglePlay, and Apple phones need to be downloaded and installed by non-Chinese mainland accounts]