At the end of September of the sixteenth year of Yongli, there was already a wind and snow in Liaodong, but in a few days, the earth was covered with snow. The snow fields reflect dazzling reflections in the sunlight, and the contrast between the snow fields and the blue sky is a different scene, where the sky and the earth meet in the distance.

The wind and snow are rushing outside, and at a checkpoint more than ten miles away from Shenyang City, this is just a checkpoint on an official road, simple and dilapidated, but fortunately, the broken house wall has been re-built with mud bricks. Only then will the wind and snow not be poured into the house, so that the people in the house will not be affected by the wind and snow.

In a brick fireplace against the wall, a few logs are on fire, which not only makes the house extremely warm, but also has hot tea in the kettle against the fireplace, which can be drunk at any time.

However, at the same time, these soldiers, who were sitting on chairs or sitting on the kang, were holding firearms in their arms, and although they seemed to be laughing there, they were still vigilant.

After all, there is still no peace here, and there is still occasional news of Qing captives attacking the outposts - there are still thousands of scattered Qing captives in Liaodong, who live in the mountains and wilderness like savages, and the Han people, naturally, are their enemies.

After pushing open the cotton curtain and entering the house, he put aside some heavy infantry guns, and Tian Qingkun, who had just finished his first shift, walked to the fireplace, and then put his hands on the fire.

"It's so cold outside!"

While talking, while keeping warm, Tian Qingkun roasted for a while before he left Kun, then sat on a wooden bench placed in the corner, took out a cigarette pouch and lit a bag of cigarettes.

"I said, it's only been a few months, it's so cold, if it is the moon, it won't freeze to death!"

"If you don't go out of the house, you won't feel cold."

Just as Tian Qingkun was chatting with the brothers, there was movement outside the house.

It was the sound of a bell, faintly coming from outside the house, and it wasn't a bell, it was a burst!

Someone's coming!

"guy, be careful!"

Li Yun, who was lying on the recliner by the stove, opened his eyes wide and instructed the brothers who were talking and laughing in the room.

While the brothers were getting ready, he had already gone out, and in the direction from which the bell was ringing, he could see a caravan approaching in the snowstorm.

It's a camel caravan!

Looking at the camel team walking along the official road in the wind and snow, Li Yun's eyes stared at them, and his expression became more and more vigilant, and he even turned his head and said to the brothers around him.

"Reload!"

The reason for this order was given was that behind the camel caravan there was a long line of people, and although only human figures could be seen, it made people have to be careful. In normal times, this firearm is rarely loaded, but now, obviously different from usual, when the soldiers are reloading the firecracker, Li Yun slowly relaxed when he looked at the camel caravan that was getting closer and closer.

It was just a caravan of caravans, and when the caravan approached, the leader took the initiative to run forward to the checkpoint and then took off the fur hat of his fur coat.

This is a dark-faced man in his forties. He looked no different from an ordinary businessman.

"Sir, the contemptible person is Fang Yun of the Trade Bureau, this is my certificate."

Fang Yun could sense the danger coming from nearby, and he knew that there were at least a few firearms pointed at him right now.

"Trade Bureau?"

Li Yun took the pass and looked at the camel team again.

"What's this luck?"

"Wool, it's all wool."

"What about them?"

Pointing to the women wrapped in shabby clothes next to the camel team, Li Yun asked with some puzzlement.

"They are all slaves and maids bought from the Mongols, and they are all the families of the Qing captives."

Fang Yun spread his hands with a smug expression on his face.

"After the beginning of spring, it will be sold at the price, if you are interested, you might as well buy one back as a maid ring, now there are many people, cheap, and in the future, maybe the price will increase......"

A moment later, the camel caravan and the hundreds of Jurchen slaves and maids bought from Mongolia passed through this pass, looking at the frightened women, Li Yun just glanced at them, then shook his head, and said no more.

Women are like goods, even in peaceful and prosperous times, and even more so now.

Sending the wool to the warehouse of the Trade Bureau in Shenyang, sending the woman to the slave camp, and just returning to the Trade Bureau, but just taking a bath, Fang Yun received an order from the stationmaster - the king wants to see him! He hurriedly cleaned up, and then rushed to the palace.

"You just came back from Monti, how is it going there?"

After learning that the caravan with a trade bureau had returned, Zhu Mingzhong asked the leader of the caravan to come over.

"King, now Mongolia is full of joy, this time they took advantage of the fire to rob, every household has a lot of things, clothes, iron, even the plundered women, can also be exchanged for tea bricks, cloth, it is estimated that they have not been so generous for decades, this grass is probably a voice of gratitude to my Daming."

Faced with the king's inquiry, Fang Yun hurriedly replied, what he said was not an exaggeration, after all, the people on the grassland had not "plundered" for a long time, and ordinary herdsmen were naturally poor.

"It's not a good thing to get used to it, and when they get used to windfalls, they want to get something for nothing all the time, and this kind of thinking is very dangerous."

Fang Yun's answer made Zhu Mingzhong say vigilantly, what he was most worried about was the predatory nature of the people on the grassland.

"The king, what he said is very true, but those Tartars are not afraid, if they dare to rob my Han people, you have to see if the fire guns in the hands of the loyal and righteous army are willing, the rules on the grass are very simple, nothing more than the strong is the king, as long as they are subdued, they will naturally not dare to rob again!"

For Fang Yun, who has just returned from the grass, he also has a certain understanding of the grass and knows what the "rules" are there.

"Fighting must be fought, but just fighting can't solve all the problems,"

Shaking his head, Zhu Mingzhong continued.

"If you want to solve the problem of Mongolia, in addition to fighting, you must also rely on wool!"

The development of the wool trade in Mongolia was at the heart of the plan to pass through Mongolia, and even the sheep and wool felt for the army were not only to protect against the cold, but also to facilitate the implementation of this plan.

For hundreds of years, Mongolia's economic dependence on the Central Plains is extremely low, they can't do without the Central Plains' tea bricks, cloth, and the Central Plains only need Mongolian cattle and horses, and this can not bring much return to the Mongols, for them, their trade with the Central Plains is a loss, trade asymmetry and the Central Plains always try to restrict the grassland by banning the sale of tea iron, which directly intensified the contradiction between the grassland tribes, the economic blockade, instead of playing a role in taming, but intensified the contradictions between the two sides.

How to tame a steppe tribe?

The so-called "Ming Ming repaired the Great Wall and Qing Temple" was just an "exaggeration", and it did not take advantage of the large-scale massacre of the Mongols when he pacified Zhunger, so how could they have been tamed later. If you want to tame them, it is undoubtedly the best choice to have a stick in one hand and a carrot in the other. And wool is that carrot.

For the grassland tribes, wool is simply not worth a penny of waste, but if it is used, it can be turned into treasure, sheep uniforms, blankets and wool felt need a lot of wool, and this habit from the army to the people, the demand for wool will only increase, and eventually the huge Central Plains market will digest the wool from Mongolia.

In the process, the Mongols will reap the rewards of the wool trade, millions or even millions of taels of trade every year, which will not only make the ordinary Mongols profitable, but also allow the princes to indulge in the rich returns of the wool trade, and then indulge them in a luxurious life.

"It is only through the wool trade that Mongolia is closely linked to us that they dare not and do not want to interfere with the trade, and thus affect their lives, and if they can profit from wool in general, and if anyone tries to interrupt this trade, whoever they try to interrupt will become the common enemy of the meadows, which is the basis of our domination of the meadows."

After some explanation, Zhu Mingzhong stared at Fang Yun and said.

"Therefore, the establishment of a trading post on the grassland and the development of long-term trade are related to the long-term peace and stability of the grassland, and it is also related to our future rule in Mongolia.

The establishment of trading posts in the grasslands was an extremely important link, and those trading posts were ostensibly "strongholds" for merchants, but in fact, they were fortresses deep into the grasslands of the Central Plains, and the existence of the fortresses was not only for trade, but also for conquest.

"King, in the old days, we traded with the Mongols, it was at the pass to trade with each other, and the mutual market was often subject to many restrictions, and the mutual market was often controlled by a small number of merchants, and the government was sometimes cut off, so the Mongolian people were more or less dissatisfied, and the establishment of a trading post was equivalent to opening the mutual market to all parts of Mongolia, first, the Mongolian people could directly exchange the goods they needed with the trade post, selling horses, cattle and sheep and wool, and secondly, I could also take this to go deep into the grassland, and then take the trading post as the point, connect the dots as the line, and protect the fort and fort. Naturally, this meadow is not to be feared......"

Even as a merchant, Fang Yun could see the benefits of the trading post, and when he took out the map and pointed to the thirteen trading posts of different sizes that he planned to set up on the map, and listened to him explain the ethnic groups that these trading posts were aimed at, Zhu Mingzhong asked.

"Since everyone knows that this trading post is equivalent to our tentacles in the grassland, how can we get the Mongols to agree to our establishment of these trading posts in Mongolia?"

Guards and merchant posts will weave a large net in the meadow, enveloping the millions of Mongols on the meadow.

"Tempting them to profit, my lord, those Mongols are heavy and hostile, and the caravans are broken by themselves, and by the time they realize that the caravans have spread all over the Mongols, I am afraid it will be too late to regret it......"