In Jinling City, in the imperial courtyard, Li Xuan was holding a small meeting with several ministers on duty in the imperial study, and what everyone said was exactly how to negotiate the armistice with the Tatars.

"According to the minister's opinion, these Tatars have a very strong desire for an armistice!" Qian Mengjiu said: "According to the colleagues of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when they first negotiated in Youzhou City, the colleagues of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not force much, and they themselves just gave up a few border towns.

And looking at their approach, it is estimated that we will persecute one or two, it is possible for them to hand over all the remaining seven or eight border towns and cities, since their will is so strong, they might as well contact one or two, maybe they can get unexpected benefits! ”

At this time, Lieutenant General Lei Wan on the side spoke: "The matter of the border town city, it can't be said that they really want to stop the war and negotiate peace, our army's view is that it is more likely that they know that they can't hold these border town cities, so they simply pretend to be generous and take the initiative to let it out!" ”

Speaking of this, Lieutenant General Lei Wan paused, and then said in a confident tone: "If it weren't for the Huguang Campaign, which dragged us a lot of resources, otherwise, many border towns in the north would have been recaptured a long time ago, as long as there are sufficient supplies, give us the army half a year, no, three months, we can take back all the border towns and cities on the defense line of the Great Wall in the north!" ”

"We lack cavalry, so it's not easy to say how to fight out of the pass, but if you want to conquer and recapture the border towns and cities within these passes, it will be easy. Don't say it's us, even if the former Ming army goes, it can be taken back, the Tatars are all cavalry, and the field ability is good, but the city is offensive and defensive, it is far worse, if it wasn't for the former Ming Dynasty at that time to take the initiative to put them into the pass, and even acquiesced to the Tatars to occupy these border towns, these Tatars would not be able to enter the Great Wall! ”

"When the time comes, we can take it back by ourselves, and it's only a year and a half away from here!"

Lieutenant General Rewan's confident remarks set the tone for the Army, that is, the Army did not think that the Tatars had any practical value in ceding these cities.

But if the major interests of the empire are ceded just for this little time, then the empire will suffer!

And the empire suffers, and the army will never agree!

The territory of the empire, which was fought down by the Ancient Sage Monarch with the army, every inch of land, every Tang Tongbao, is stained with the blood of army soldiers!

However, Lieutenant General Lei Wan changed his mind at this time, and then said: "Of course, if they can open up the supply of horses, it is okay to give them a little sweetness!" ”

At this time, Lieutenant General Lei Wan basically put forward the views and opinions of the army on behalf of the army, that is, in principle, the empire cannot suffer, but if the Tatars are stupid and dare to provide a large number of horses to the Tang Dynasty, then the army will be the first to agree!

As long as there are enough horses and prepare for two or three years, the army will have the ability to conquer the grassland in the north, and when the time comes, a paper agreement will be just waste paper, and the army believes that His Majesty will be very happy to see the army kill the grassland and open up the territory for the Tang Dynasty!

To put it simply, the army only needs horses, and if there are no horses, the army is against it!

And those who can see this are not only army generals, in fact, Liu Bagou, Qian Mengjiu and other civil officials also know the importance of horses.

And the people of the northern grasslands also know very well what their biggest bargaining chips are, and they always want to exchange horses for more benefits, of course, they also know that once the Central Plains Dynasty gets a large number of horses, it is basically their end, so even if they sell horses, they will never sell them in large quantities.

At this time, Liu Bagou also spoke: "Yesterday, colleagues from the Ministry of Commerce also found the minister's side, saying that they hoped to reach an agreement on the mutual market as much as possible without harming the interests of the empire, they said that if the mutual market is opened, then many commodities of the empire will have a new sales channel, tea, salt, porcelain, silk and woven cloth, soap and many other commodities can exchange a large number of horses, cattle and sheep, gold and silver for the empire, in addition, the empire's industrial market, wool is in short supply, It is difficult to find enough wool in a newly built woolen factory opened by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, and it is difficult to produce it at present! ”

Li Xuan was also a little speechless when he heard this, those officials of the Ministry of Commerce have been thinking about opening the market for commodities every day and looking for various industrial raw materials!

For the development of overseas trade, colonization, and exploration of new routes, the Ministry of Commerce is more active than the navy, and the establishment of the Tang Western Company at the beginning, although it is said that this is Li Xuan's original intention, but in fact, the Ministry of Commerce has also made a lot of efforts.

In order to persuade the navy and the army to allow the establishment of the Datang Western Company, the Ministry of Commerce lobbied the army and navy for a long time.

In the event of war, the company's armed forces must unconditionally obey the dispatch of the Privy Council and the Navy Command to support the army and navy in combat, which made the army and navy bigwigs agree to grant Datang Western Company a license to form an armed force, and send active troops to form a system and retire to join Datang Western Company, otherwise, Datang Western Company will recruit so many officers and soldiers!

You must know that in the Tang Dynasty, there were only three military schools, which belonged to the army's martial arts academy, the imperial academy, and the navy's naval academy, and even the guards were military schools without a specialty.

If Datang Western Company wants to get officers, then it can only rely on the army and navy!

Everyone discussed and discussed, and finally barely reached an agreement, and Li Xuan personally set up a few principled issues that could not be discussed!

First of all, artillery must not be talked about, because artillery is a weapon for attacking fortifications, and if the Tatars have a large number of artillery, the Great Wall will be full of loopholes in minutes!

However, in the case of muskets, some can be sold appropriately, but they must be limited to backward arquebuses, and the number cannot be large.

Anyway, now the Tang Dynasty has begun to fully replace the flintlock pistol, and although the arquebus has not been completely withdrawn from active service, it has basically been reduced to second-line equipment.

At the same time, the musket thing, to be honest, has average technical content, in the surrounding countries, Fuso has it, not to mention the Europeans, and there are many countries in Central Asia, if the Tatars want it, they can get it through Central Asia, from West Asia and Europe, but it is just a little troublesome.

Besides, if the Tatars gave up the traditional cavalry archery and started playing line musketeers, then it would be a good thing for the Tang Dynasty!

At the thought of the Tatars giving up the traditional cavalry archery and then engaging in a bunch of line musketeers, Li Xuan felt an inexplicable sense of joy, and when the time came, he would definitely beat them to the point that even his parents would not be recognized.

In these years, if the Tatars dare to shoot muskets against the Tang Army, this is basically looking for death!

In addition to guns, horses must also be obtained, this is the premise of the Tang Dynasty's truce and mutual market, if there are no horses, then there is no need to talk about it, because the Tang Dynasty has no other urgent needs for other things of the Tatars, if you don't give horses, then talk about a fart, continue to fight!

If you can't exchange horses in the market, then continue to wage war to rob them!

Aren't the war horses ridden by the Tang cavalry all robbed, they used to be snatched from the Ming army, and then from the Tatars!

Besides, there are not only Tatar families who have horses, but also horses in the Chahar Department in the east, this so-called Mongolian central ten thousand households have been unlucky in recent years, and they were beaten and killed all the way by Altan Khan, and finally fled to the Liaodong Hetao, the southeast half of the Great Khing'an Mountains.

Further west, there is Warat, although many years ago Warat was the enemy of life and death of the Central Plains Dynasty, but now, the Warat people have long been gone, and the enemy of the Central Plains Dynasty is Tatar.

And to unite Warat and Chahar against the Tatars, this was what the Ming Dynasty did before, and now the Tang Dynasty is also preparing to continue to do so!

Therefore, although horses are very important, it does not mean that the Tang Dynasty cannot obtain them from other places, even if the above two grassland tribes do not sell horses to the Tang Dynasty, but there is also a Central Asian tribe, where there are many horses!

And after Li Xuan determined these principled bottom lines, the next thing was handed over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and even the many ministers on duty in the imperial study were busy with their own work.

Anyway, the people of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are the most professional in doing this, although they are the ministers of the Imperial Study, but unfortunately, among the seven ministers on duty in the Imperial Study, none of them are from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and they are not good at this kind of affairs!

The people in the imperial study of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are only the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is just a walking minister of the imperial study, and the number of walking ministers in the imperial study has been relatively large in the past two years, there are more than 20 of them, basically as long as it is the head of the heavier department, they can get the title of a walking minister, and there are many people, and this title is not valuable.

At least, they are not qualified to participate in this kind of small meeting of the imperial study today, and there are only seven ministers on duty in the imperial study who can participate!

After receiving accurate instructions from above, the people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began negotiations with Tagri!

What to talk about, naturally, is to talk about the armistice and mutual markets, talk about the transfer of border towns, and talk about the horse trade!

But after talking a few times, Tagri found that what these officials of the Tang Dynasty Ministry of Foreign Affairs said was basically no different from what he heard in Youzhou City, that it was not okay, that was not okay, and even his request to meet the emperor was not allowed.

If you want to meet us, then you have to sign the armistice agreement before we can talk about it, otherwise, why should you, a Tatar, go to meet our supreme eternal saint?

Well, even if the agreement is signed, it doesn't mean that you can see it if you want to, it depends on the mood of the Son of Heaven!

If you are in a good mood, let you take a look from a distance, and it must be emphasized that you must not look directly at the Son of Heaven for a long time during the audience, at most you will look at it like that, and then you must bow your head, otherwise it will be disrespectful!

If the Son of Heaven is in a bad mood, you will stay in Tagri wherever it is cool!