"Do you know that in the past six months, Gao Shishu has brought many horses from Tumochuan to the border army of our Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi towns?"

As soon as Zhu Xixiao's words came out, it immediately attracted the attention of everyone present, not to mention that Emperor Longqing immediately turned his gaze, and even Li Chunfang, the first assistant of Qingzi, came back from the previous state of the old monk and looked at Zhu Xixiao.

Everyone knows the importance of horses to the army, and they also know that the problem of lack of horses has become more and more serious since the collapse of the Ming Dynasty. Even on the sixth day of February this year, Gu Cunren, the imperial servant Siqing who was in charge of managing Ma Zheng, also made a statement, saying that the imperial court should pay attention to the six matters of Ma Zheng.

The six points he put forward in the article are: 1. Preferential stallions. Recently, the stallion family has suffered from the invasion of fishing by officials, and they are afraid of their own foals. In the future, those who report the importance of the horses will be given preferential benefits, and they will still be exempted from forage and silver. Second, the task of sending shepherds. The general judgment is in charge of horse politics. Third, the grand relocation. The officer in charge of horses should be in office for a long time. Fourth, strictly supervise the liberation movement. All states and counties should strictly ban the reform and track down those who have not finished the grain in the Jingying. Fifth, the faction was changed. Nanzhili is not a horse-producing land, and it is far away from Beijing, so it is advisable to change all of them to discount. Sixth, be cautious about storing volumes. The temple has been forgotten for many books, please change the old warehouse to the cabinet library, and order the officials to keep it.

Gu Cunren's recital is very famous in history, but no one present today knows this except for Gao Shipra. But they are at least very clear that Gu Cunren, the two most critical points in the Ma Zhengzhi Chen, are actually "horse households raising horses" and "buying horses at a discount".

Ma Hu raised horses not much to say, anyway, the northern horse households were tortured by this policy, and the famous Hebei horse bandits were also born, such as Cao Gan's Bazhou Xiangma inherited from his father-in-law is one of the typical.

The southern Zhili of the Ming Dynasty is almost the generation of southern Jiangsu and southern Anhui in later generations, the economy is developed enough, but it obviously does not produce horses, but there has always been a "apportionment" of raising horses on their heads, so they can only change to pay money, that is, "change the levy and discount silver".

Gu Cunren's article mainly talks about the problem of not being able to collect the "decorated silver", but in fact, all the ministers in the Jiyi Hall today know that even if this money can be put in place, in fact, most of it will be diverted for other purposes, why? Because there is nowhere to buy a horse.

As early as when Duoyan Sanwei was still obedient, Daming could still buy some horses from them, although even Duoyan Sanwei was not willing to sell stallions, but geldings could be used for some years if they were bought, which was better than nothing. Later, after Duoyan Sanwei was subjugated by the Mongolian left wing that moved south, the channels for buying horses in the Ming Dynasty were basically broken, and the number of local horses was insufficient, so in recent years, only the horses in Liaodong were sufficient, and the rest of the regions, including important towns like Xuanda, could only maintain one or two elite but small number of cavalry.

The problem of the lack of horses in the Ming Dynasty has caused even the civil officials of the imperial court to feel a headache.

Therefore, as soon as Zhu Xixiao's words came out, the eyes of everyone in the entire Jiyi Hall instantly fell on his face, as if a large number of horses could be found on his face.

Of course, Zhu Xixiao didn't even have a single horse hair on his face, but as soon as he opened his mouth, everyone was overjoyed. I only heard Zhu Xixiao stretch out two fingers and said: "In about half a year, Cao Gan, a family member who is a senior attendant, has bought a total of 2,327 good horses from various departments of Tumochuan that can be used for battle. ”

"Wow!"

"Shhhh

"More than two thousand three hundred?"

"Is that true?"

"Can it be used in combat?"

……

Zhu Xixiao's brother Zhu Xizhong, the Duke of Chengguo, stepped forward, signaled to everyone, and said with a smile: "This matter is indeed not a lie, British Duke, you are in charge of the former military capital Governor's Mansion, you should know about the change in the number of war horses in Xuanda, can you?" ”

Everyone then looked at Zhang Rong again, only to see Zhang Rong nodded: "The three towns of Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi, the number of war horses has increased by more than 1,900 in the past six months. ”

Long Qing clapped his hands suddenly and said loudly: "Okay! Well bought! That Cao Gan did a good job, and he should be rewarded! When he said this, he suddenly remembered that Cao Gan was neither a civil official nor a military general, but a highly pragmatic familyman, even if he was an emperor, it was not easy for him to go beyond the master of the family to reward, so he added: "Gao Aiqing, this is all your merit in training the family, and this reward should be received by you." ”

Gao Shishi breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, and estimated that this matter should be able to cover up the past, and the biggest significance of this is not to cover it up for a while, but to use this reason to trade with Mongolia in the future - although in the future, after the successful completion of the tribute and the opening of the horse market, this reason does not seem to be so important. But don't forget, after Alta was crowned tribute, the Ming Dynasty only opened up the Ma Market with the Tumochuan Department of Alta Headquarters and the Woerdusi and other departments that could be controlled, and the door to trade was still firmly closed to the Mongolian left.

But Gao pragmatic is different after today's drama is established, and he can use the same reason to get in touch with the Mongolian left and start trading.

Again, Gao pragmatic is not worried that these transactions will allow the Mongols to resist disasters to a greater extent, reduce losses, strengthen the economy, and so on. Because history has shown that the harder the life of these nomads, the more aggressive they become. On the contrary, if they become more comfortable, the less aggressive they will be - they can't produce agriculture, so if they can't survive, can they only rely on robbery? Do you not die when they fight, and you are born to like to fight?

This is also the root cause of Gao Pragmatism's courage to consider controlling Mongolia by economic and political means.

Of course, there is always a premise here, that is, the Ming can maintain sufficient defensive forces, and if there is really a war maniac leader among them who wants to fight, the Ming must be able to give Yu a head-on blow. When they found that it was not as cost-effective to fight hard as to do business honestly, even internal forces would prevent them from forming a joint force to invade the Ming Dynasty. And this is the so-called economic influence politics.

I saw Gao Shishi's face as usual, stepped forward, bowed to Longqing, and said: "The Gao family has been favored by the emperor, although Weichen is young and shallow, he also knows that the war horse is important to my Ming Dynasty, so he sent Cao Gan and others to the north to sell horses for the country. However, although this matter was tacitly agreed by the civil and military princes, after all, it was the ministers and Cao Gan and others who violated the ban first. Weichen thinks that His Majesty's failure to punish is already a great grace of the emperor, how dare he be rewarded? I also ask Your Majesty to retract the order. ”