Gao pragmatic for the famous White Lotus Sect in later generations more or less understanding, the earliest was in the previous life when reading novels always saw the Ming Dynasty White Lotus Sect rebellion, and later found that not only the Ming Dynasty, even in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the White Lotus Sect is also a few waves of existence, Gao Pragmatic quite surprised that a White Lotus Sect has been tirelessly carrying out the rebellion for hundreds of years, so he has some attention to this extremely tenacious sect, so he spent some time on a rest afternoon to check the historical materials of the White Lotus Sect.

I don't know if I don't check, I was shocked when I checked it, the earliest source of the White Lotus Sect can be traced back to the Southern Song Dynasty, and its founder is Shamen Maoziyuan of Wujun. In the Yuan Dynasty, the White Lotus Sect was further developed, known as "thousands of branches and thousands of leaves", and the White Lotus Sect of the Ming Dynasty was naturally the inheritance and development of the White Lotus Sect in the Yuan Dynasty.

Although due to well-known reasons, from the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the White Lotus Sect was banned, but it was repeatedly banned, and its power developed with the momentum of a prairie fire, covering almost all the country, and there were activities in Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Shaanxi, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Sichuan, Zhejiang, Fujian and other places. Of course, the leaders worshipped by these White Lotus Sectists may not all be the same person, which means that there are also schools of thought between them.

According to the highly pragmatic understanding and analysis, the Mobei White Lotus Sect mentioned by Cao Gan should mainly flow from Shanxi and other provinces close to Mobei. For example, Li Fuda, a native of Laoxian County, Shanxi, during the Zhengde period, participated in the rebellion of Wang Liang and Li Yue, and was killed after the incident, and before that, his grandfather also "used illusion to make chaos in Chenghua from Liu Qianjin and Monk Shi", which shows that this White Lotus Sect is still popular for sons to inherit their father's business.

Due to its proximity to the border passes, in order to strengthen and expand the power to contend with the imperial court, these people used the Mongol forces that had retreated to Mobei to fight against the official army. In the twenty-fourth year of Jiajing, Luo Tingxi, a native of Yingzhou, Shanxi, and others used the White Lotus Sect to confuse the public, "because of the plan to invite the little prince into the fortress, use his troops to attack Yanmen, take Pingyang, and set up a plan to kill the little prince." "In the thirtieth year of Jiajing, Xiao Qin, Lu Mingzhen, the head of the White Lotus Sect, and many people from the same party led the Mongolian army to commit crimes. In the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing, Yan Hao, the head of the White Lotus Sect in Ulzhou, went in and out of Mobei and leaked the border situation to the Mongols.

From this point of view, these people led Kou into the customs to harm the Han compatriots, and the crime is the same as that of traitors, and it stands to reason that they should all be killed.

But Gao Pragmatic is not a young indignant youth, he is an old indignant young man who has been in politics.

The characteristics of young and angry young people are: As long as you have done a traitor's deed, you deserve to die, and you must execute it immediately, and the rest of the things will not be mentioned.

And the attitude of the old indignant youth is different: even if you have been a traitor, and even now you continue to be a traitor conscientiously, but as long as you still have use value, I dare to plan it, let you live for a few more days, and then kill you after I squeeze your value dry.

In order to rebel, this group of White Lotus disciples is willing to act as traitors, and it stands to reason that they all deserve to die, but Gao Pragmatic will first consider it from another angle, such as using them to speed up the sinicization of Mongolia, so as to achieve his own plan to gradually control Mongolia by economic and political means in the future, for this "lofty ideal", Gao Pragmatic is willing to let them live for a while longer.

Because the Ming Dynasty cracked down on the frequent entry, harassment, and plundering of the Mongol forces in Mobei, it also adopted some restraint measures such as allowing "tribute" and opening up the "horse market". Although these measures have stabilized the precarious economy of the Mongols to a certain extent, they have also caused the population movement between Mongolia and Han to become more frequent and expanding.

In such population flows, on the one hand, some Mongols were stranded in the interior as the tributary teams entered the Ming border, such as in the early years of orthodoxy, more than 10,000 people settled in the capital; On the other hand, it was also accompanied by a large number of Han people heading north. Except for some of the border people who were plundered by the Mongol army, the rest were so-called "defectors". The vast majority of these "defectors" are actually White Lotus cultists in the border areas. Most of these White Lotus disciples came from Shanxi, and in order to escape the suppression and pursuit of the imperial court, they fled from the interior to the border of Mobei, and the history books say that "during this time, the White Lotus Sect can have 10,000 people." ”

These White Lotus cultists who fled to Mobei infested the border areas of the Central Plains and Mobei, although they sometimes led the Mongol army to invade and loot, and at the same time leaked the situation of the Central Plains, in fact, they acted as traitors, but on the contrary, they also played an invisibly role in promoting the sinicization of Mongolia.

For example, the "Chinese traitors" led by Qiu Fu and Zhao Quan, fled north in order to escape the Ming Dynasty's extermination, and they took the advanced production technology of the Central Plains to reclaim the land, build houses, teach manufacturing skills, build cities and settle in the desolate grasslands and carry out agricultural production, so that the former nomadic resort of "sweet water and grass" has become a "bansheng" outside the Saiwai with many palaces and thousands of hectares of fertile fields, and the Mongols have thus transitioned and transferred from a backward nomadic economy to an advanced agricultural economy.

At first glance, the Mongols became stronger and seemed more difficult to deal with. However, Gao Shishi knew that the settled Mongols were far less terrible than the nomadic Mongols. When the Mongols settle down, and then want to fight the Han people, it is to use their own shortcomings and attack their strengths - if you can't beat them, you will be transferred thousands of miles, and how troublesome it will be to chase them? And the firearms of the Ming Dynasty, especially the artillery, in the face of the Mongols who can fight and run, there is almost no room to play, but once the Mongols build a city and live, a large number of goods are in the city, and they are easily reluctant to give up, then the heavy firearms of the Ming Dynasty can be used to attack the city, so that the effect is obvious.

Gao Pragmatic felt that if the Ming Dynasty after his own magic reform could not even handle the settled Mongolia, then this plan to save the Ming would be meaningless.

Therefore, he asked about the situation of Bansheng City very carefully, Cao Gan knew that the Ming Dynasty had always attached great importance to these White Lotus Sect rebellions, and the same was true for Gao Pragmatic, so he told Gao Pragmatic what he knew about it, which really made Gao Pragmatic know a lot about the development of the White Lotus Sect in Mongolia.

The two chatted for a while, Gao Pragmatic, who was used to long-term planning, was fine, but Cao Gan was a little breathless, and said: "Young master, since the little one has taken refuge in the young master's door, there is a matter that the young master needs to decide as soon as possible." ”

"What?"

Cao Gan said: "Will Baili Gorge continue to maintain the current situation in the future, or will the young master have other arrangements?" ”

"Leave it at that, don't worry I'll let you stop, I can tell you a little bit about the situation." Gao Pragmatic stretched out his index finger and pointed at the roof, and said, "Regarding the matter of trade with Mongolia, there are not no differences in the court, but ...... Some of the old ministers believed that only by doing more business with Mongolia would the livelihood of the Mongols improve, and when their livelihood improved, they would not go to the Han land to plunder. Of course, the premise here is that we have to refresh ourselves ourselves, and if there is no combat power, and the Mongols find robbery more cost-effective than doing business, then it will still come. Only when they feel that fighting and robbing is a loss-making business, but doing business honestly is quite profitable, they are willing to stay in Mobei obediently, and do not dare to have the idea of herding horses in the south. ”