Chapter 31: The Prince Asks for Help A fire broke out in the backyard

Just when Zhang Zhimu was waiting for Yan Boju to arrive, and he was a little anxious, Prince Tori arrived.

Zhang Zhimu originally thought that this prince on the grassland must have taken a fancy to some good things in the kiln again, and wanted to tell him. In Zhang Zhimu's eyes, Prince Tori is also a broad man with a lot of silver, and he doesn't take him too seriously. But after Prince Tori arrived this time, it made Zhang Zhimu look at him differently.

Prince Tori first had to talk to Zhang Zhimu about business, and Zhang Zhimu said: "I don't understand business, you better talk to our shopkeeper Lu." ”

Prince Tori said, "Then we won't talk about business, and invite everyone else to go out." I'm going to talk to you alone. ”

As a result, a translator for Prince Tory was left behind, and everyone else went out.

Seeing that there was no one else, Prince Tori said, "I swear to the Immortal Heaven that what I said today is true. I hope Zhang Dongjia can swear as well. ”

Zhang Zhimu didn't know who to swear to, but when he was a child, he often said: "I swear to Mao**." ”

Zhang Zhimu also said this. Then he said, "I'm telling the truth." After saying that, Zhang Zhimu still felt a little funny.

But from Prince Tori's eyes, he could see that the prince was serious.

Prince Torrey said, "Merciful Zhang Dongjia, I ask you for help on behalf of my tribe? You will definitely agree to our request. ”

The prince's words were a little inexplicable, and Zhang Zhimu asked: "Your Royal Highness, I didn't understand what you meant, can you make it a little clearer?" ”

The prince said: "After we Mongols retreated to the steppe, the tribes have been at odds for many years, nominally because the descendants of Genghis Khan wanted to restore their former glory after unification. In fact, it is all about fighting for power. They kill each other, and they kill each other. As a result, there is no peace everywhere on the grassland, and small tribes like ours are even more suffering, and the leaders of those big tribes can dominate us at will, and sometimes they order us to go out to fight, and they don't know who to fight, but if we don't go to the whole tribe, we will be destroyed. And when we go out to fight, we have to bring our own grain, grass and horses, and sometimes we win and maybe share some of the spoils, but every time we fight, there will be many young people in our tribe who can't come back, and the women and children who stay at home live very miserably. If we hesitate to go to the battlefield, we will be beheaded, so we will all be prepared not to go back when we go to the battlefield. Originally, we thought that the great khan of the Chahar tribe, Lin Dan Khan (the last great khan of Mongolia), basically unified the Mongolian tribes, and we could recuperate, but after the old Lin Dan Khan died of illness, his son led the sixteen tribes to surrender to Houjin two years later. One of the 10,000 households that you destroyed last year was driven out to fight after the gold was lowered. Our small tribe is even more miserable, often ordered to hand over cattle, sheep and horses, and also to send young and strong people out to fight, so that our tribe is full of widows. But we don't want to go on like this. Our tribe is very close to the Great Wall, and we also have frequent contact with the Han people, and we know that you Yaogang people and Houjin are enemies, so we should be friends. There are still many tribes in the steppe who are unwilling to betray Genghis Khan and resolutely refuse to surrender. But a small tribe like ours can't do it on our own without your support. So we've been anxiously waiting for you to arrive. We have also heard that you are like heaven there. ”

Zhang Zhimu has been listening to what the prince said through translation, and some words do not need to be translated, because some words are spoken by the prince in Chinese. In fact, after listening to Prince Tori's words, Zhang Zhimu was very happy, he knew that in the future, to solve the problem of Mongolian people, with a person like Prince Tori, he could get twice the result with half the effort. Because it is still the Mongols who know best what to do when dealing with the Mongols. But it's still a little too early to deal with it yourself, but you can't miss this opportunity. Besides, you can't just listen to him say this about such a big matter, and you have to observe it.

Zhang Zhimu said: "I probably understood His Royal Highness's words. Can you tell us what we need to do? ”

It seems that Prince Tori was prepared for this, and he said, "First, we know that you kilnmen have a very powerful musket, and we want to buy a hundred; Second, we hope to do business directly with the Yaogang people, although our tribe is small, but close to the Ming Dynasty, there are many people doing business, many of your products are sold to the depths of the grassland, even as far as the thorns, Wu'er and other places, we have cattle and sheep, grassland white mushrooms and saltpeter you need, so it is good for both of us; Thirdly, we hope to get more food, we know that you have also suffered from drought, and there is not much food, but you have access to food, our tribe needs food, and our warhorses need food for long-distance travel; Fourth, we hope that our children can also go to your kiln to study, we can't be closed off on the grassland forever, we need to learn and understand the outside world, if we know each other better, it will be easy to be friends. ”

Prince Tori's words shocked Zhang Zhimu, a leader who asked questions after thinking about it. Never be fooled by their rugged appearance. They are a wise people. A nation that can expand its territory into the Danube of the Mediterranean Sea will naturally not be able to rely solely on brute force without extraordinary intelligence.

However, for Prince Tori's request, Zhang Zhimu thought about it very much. In order to restrict the grassland tribes, the Ming Dynasty was not even allowed to trade metal and iron tools with them privately, and to do arms business with them, which was similar to rebellion. I can't hide the eagle dogs of the pervasive court from doing such a thing. Although he is not so afraid of the court now, it is not time to fight against the court. If we don't support Prince Torrey, it will be very troublesome to contact him in the future, and it should be a good move to arm them and let them restrain Houjin's power for us. It is better to support them privately, and then inform the emperor of the matter through Gonggong Li, telling him that this is a step taken to restrain the Mongols and the Manchus in the north. In this way, the emperor is not afraid when he knows it.

As for business and food, it is not a problem at all, and everyone sells things. Fourth? Zhang Zhimu is more interested, because when their children go to the kiln to study, they will definitely be influenced by the kiln culture, and the future management of the grassland will still depend on them.

Seeing Zhang Zhimu thinking, Prince Tori did not interrupt Zhang Zhimu, and said that he was already thirsty after a lot of words, so he took the tea and drank it by himself.

Seeing the prince put down the water glass, Zhang Zhimu said: "The prince must also know the regulations of our Ming Dynasty? ”

"I know. But I also know that people like Zhang Dongjia must have a way. "Prince Tori seems to have thought of what to do.

Zhang Zhimu smiled and said: "In fact, dealing with such a thing as Houjin should be considered by the imperial court, and we businessmen ......."

"No, no, people like Zhang Dongjia are the eagles in the sky, don't look at us living on the grassland, we can see many things clearly. That's why we're here for you. Prince Tori interrupted Zhang Zhimu's words.

Zhang Zhimu's heart was moved by Prince Tori's words, and he felt that he was still too sharp, but now he can't take care of this. But now is not the time to talk too much to Prince Torry. Zhang Zhimu said: "Your Royal Highness the Prince, we Yaogang people are honest businessmen, and we are also deeply favored by the emperor. If we do musket business with you, the court will know that we will be annoyed. But if we don't help you, we can't get over it as friends. ”

The straightforward Mongolian man was obviously not used to what the Han people said, they didn't know if Zhang Zhimu agreed to his request, and the prince who was a little blushing said in a hurry: "Zhang Dongjia, did you agree to our request?" ”

"That's it, we can't violate the laws of the imperial court, and we can't help our friends, the matter of muskets, you are looking for a Han shop in the mouth of the tiger, and someone will trade these things with them, and we won't show up, do you think this is okay?" Zhang Zhimu said.

Prince Tori didn't give it in vain and said, "No problem, as long as the musket arrives at my designated shop." ”

In the end, it was agreed that each musket should be given to the officers and soldiers at a price of 1,000 taels each, with 100 rounds of solid ammunition and 100 rounds of shotgun ammunition, and 10 rounds of ammunition for 1 tael of silver. So it is a hundred and two thousand taels of silver. This business, Zhang Zhimu wants cash.

Prince Tori readily agreed. He also didn't expect Zhang Zhimu to sell them muskets at the price they gave to the imperial court officials.

In fact, Zhang Zhimu knew it in his heart. Li Yunhe: The efficiency of producing this kind of musket is already very high, let's talk about the most difficult process of punching the barrel. Now it is possible to punch several barrels at a time with a hydraulic press, and the workers have become very skilled in production, and the efficiency and quality have improved rapidly. This kind of business is still very cost-effective.

As for other businesses, Zhang Zhimu suggested that the prince go and Yao Jinchen to do it directly, of course, considering the long-term cooperation, Zhang Zhimu would suggest that Yao Jinchen give them a little preferential treatment, and give them priority to supply. The same is true of the food problem.

However, Zhang Zhimu had a suggestion, saying: "Prince Tory, in addition to your cattle, sheep, saltpeter and other things you said, we can also accept things that you don't use yourself." You eat a lot of sheep and cattle every year, but you lose all your bones. In the future, you can also exchange the beef and sheep bones that you have eaten with us. Zhang Zhimu knew that a large amount of bone meal would be needed as a feed additive after expanding breeding. You can harvest it directly from the grassland, which is a lot.

Prince Tori felt very strange about this matter, but since Zhang Zhimu said that those things that were useless on the grassland could be exchanged for good things, it was definitely a great thing for the grassland. Of course, I immediately agreed.

Of course, Zhang Zhimu was most interested in Prince Tori's saltpeter, telling him how much saltpeter there was.

Regarding the children going to Yaogang to study, Zhang Zhimu agreed to be more happy, Zhang Zhimu said: "All the expenses for the children sent by His Royal Highness the Prince to study are provided by us free of charge. We welcome more communication and understanding from the next generation, so that there will be less hatred and more friendship. I also have a suggestion, can Your Royal Highness send your outstanding literati to our Yaogang College to give lectures, so that our students can also learn more about your long and splendid culture. They can also learn from our teachers and students when they come to our college. It would be a good idea if you could send us a few Mongolian teachers to teach our students Mongolian so that we could rely on them to communicate with each other in the future. ”

Prince Tori was even happier to listen to Zhang Zhimu's suggestion, he said: "Zhang Dong's mind is broader than the grassland. When I went back, I arranged for the children who were studying and the outstanding young people of our tribe and the Mongolian teacher to come over. We people on the grassland must go to places like Yaogang to broaden our horizons, otherwise we will be eagles that cannot fly. ”

In fact, Zhang Zhimu also wants to see Prince Tori again, if he can be trusted, he still has a lot of Mongolian prisoners in the smelting field, and he can hand them over to Prince Tori if necessary. But that wasn't the time yet.

As for Prince Tori and Yao Jinchen's business, it is much easier to talk about it with Zhang Zhimu's specific instructions, and Zhang Zhimu didn't ask again, but Yan Boju didn't arrive on time, which made Zhang Zhimu very incomprehensible, Yan Boju is a very strict person and will not delay for so long. Just when Zhang Zhimu was about to inform Yang Jing and ask the person who was going back to ask Xin'er, Yan Boju arrived with five hundred cavalry.

However, Yan Boju brought bad news, Zhang Zhimu had just left the house when a fire broke out in the backyard.

After Zhang Zhimu and the others annihilated the Mongol cavalry, they captured more than 1,000 people, and after bringing them back, they were sent to the smelting mine. At first, these people thought that they would not survive, but when they came to the smelting field and arranged for them to work, they were also very obedient, because they all knew that they had chosen to come here, otherwise they would have been beheaded. Li Dong and them in the smelting field are also obedient, and the supervision of them is not very strict, and the food they give him will be almost the same as that of their own workers, because the labor intensity they are engaged in is very high. These captives knew that if they ran out, they would also be beaten to death by the Han people outside, and they had no idea of running out. Later, Li Dong saw that they were all very obedient, and they were all strong and strong, and they were very good laborers, so he further opened up to them, let them learn Chinese in their spare time, and also organized cultural classes to study by themselves. Tell them that you can let them out when they're done. These Mongolians, seeing a glimmer of hope, worked very hard, hoping that one day they would go out and go back to do business, because they had a little bit of a foundation in Chinese, so it would be much easier to do business with the Han people.

However, not all Mongols think this way. There were a thousand households here, and he saw that the guards on them were becoming less and less strict, and he felt that he had a chance to run out. After careful preparation, I learned about the location and the route to run north back to the grassland. He began to work among the Mongol captives, and soon contacted a number of people. They began to create discontent, and slowly encouraged these simple-minded people. Li Dong and the others knew that there was something unusual about the Mongol captives, so they were not polite and adopted some high-pressure attitudes. This is an opportunity for these agitators to take advantage of their discontent and prepare to escape.

Later they found a reason that sounded ridiculous, and they asked for mutton. They said that that was the food of their Mongols, and that they did not have mutton to eat, so they did not work. Li Dong They have no political sensitivity, they don't see that this is an excuse to make trouble, they think it's ridiculous, how can any captive still ask for mutton as a staple food, even the Han landlords don't have such a thing.

So they sent troops to force them to work, but what they never expected was that the number of soldiers they sent was too small and they were not ready to respond. As a result, the Mongols suddenly attacked, they killed more than a dozen soldiers, snatched their muskets, and led people to storm Li Dong's office building.

Because of the gunshots, soldiers from other places rushed over, so that these Mongol soldiers did not succeed, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable. Later, these Mongol soldiers killed several caravans, grabbed several wagons, pulled the dry rations they had prepared in advance, and fled. Li Dong and his soldiers here organized themselves and followed the more than 1,000 Mongolian soldiers closely, and at the same time sent people to inform the headquarters of Yaogang quickly. Because there were not many soldiers on the side of the smelting field, they could not all be dispatched to pursue these rioting Mongol soldiers.

Fortunately, it was the messenger cavalry who ran ahead of these Mongols. If these Mongol captives wanted to return to the northern steppe, they had to go north from the Yaogang side.

After Chen Yufeng and the others got the news, they immediately ordered Liu Chenghuang to lead 4,000 cavalry to intercept and suppress.

As a result, Cheng Huang soon surrounded the rebellious Mongols on all sides with his cavalry. These Mongol captives still wanted to compare, but after Liu Chenghuang and they killed more than 100 rebellious Mongols, the Mongol captives once again reluctantly surrendered. It is said that a soldier who surrenders once can easily surrender the second time.

After escorting them back to the smelter, Chen Yufeng's order also arrived: "Look at how many people they killed, according to the ratio of one to ten." Kill them in front of all their Mongols. ”

Of course, Fan Chengkun is very experienced in dealing with such things, and after interrogating them separately, they quickly knew who was the mastermind, who was the main participant, which one killed someone, which one injured someone, and which one set the fire.

According to statistics, 12 soldiers were killed, 5 workers were killed, and more than 30 were injured.

Fan Chengkun singled out 170 people according to the severity of their crimes. In front of the Mongol captives, they were all tied.

Fan Chengkun said: "You should have died a long time ago, but we gave you a chance to live, and you also surrendered voluntarily, but today you listened to these people's confusion and rebelled, it seems that we gave you good food and drink, and you thought you were fools." But I'm going to give you a chance to live again today. Rise up and kill one, and bind him, and you may live, or you will be beheaded immediately. ”

Fan Chengkun's soldiers dragged up the Mongol captives one by one, brought them to the bound Mongol captives, asked them if they were willing to kill and live, and if they wanted, handed them a knife. They hacked a tied captive to death. Those who were unwilling were immediately beheaded by Fan Chengkun's soldiers.

After being seen as one who is unwilling to kill, there is no one behind who is unwilling to kill. So he quickly killed all 170 captives.

Li Dong of the smelting field adopted the method of using both grace and power, and also began to seriously sum up the lessons of the dangerous consequences caused by carelessness this time, and the leaders of the smelting field also wrote their own books to seriously review their own mistakes. Although the damage of this incident is still under control, the image is too bad. It makes the smelting yard and kiln gang also panic. Therefore, Yan Boju can't go north right away. When everything was settled, he hit the road. This was a delay of a few days.

After listening to Yan Boju's introduction, Zhang Zhimu took a breath of cool air in his heart. The bad thing is that it happened now, and if it happened when he fought with Li Zicheng, it would be terrible.

Zhang Zhimu Yan Boju asked: "Uncle Yan, how many Mongolian prisoners are there?" ”

"There are quite a few deaths, and now there can be more than eight hundred, less than nine hundred." Yan Boju replied.

Zhang Zhimu said: "It's a pity, these people are still very useful." ”

Yan Boju asked, "What is the use of these uncooked tartars?" If it were me, I would have slaughtered it all this time. ”

Zhang Zhimu couldn't say anything about cooperating with Prince Tori now, so he didn't talk about it anymore. Asked: "Have you done everything in place for the stables at home?" I've got 15,000 horses here this time, and I'm waiting for you to come. ”

Speaking of horses, Yan Boju's little eyes lit up again, and said, "It's all about the same, not to mention 15,000 horses, this time there is a place for 30,000 horses." If you squeeze it, it's okay to have a little more. ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "Don't forget, we have to be taller this time." ”

"What's the matter, don't worry about what you Yan Bo is doing?" Yan Boju asked.

Zhang Zhimu hurriedly said: "No, no! I'm just asking to be sure-footed. ”

"Don't worry, this time I'm determined to make the horse farm a good one, this horse is our big business. I know even more that if we eat a sheep in Yaogang, we can almost earn a sheep. The skin they made out of Yukun is good. It was clean and soft, and I wanted to go into their workshop to see it, but they were all kicked out. Said to be kept secret. Tell me, keep it a secret! Yan Boju said very complacently.

Zhang Zhimu said with a smile: "Yaogang people, who else is so bold that they dare to block your frame?" ”

"I'm not going to go into their workshop, as long as they can get the silver back for the kiln. Ha ha! After Yan Boju finished speaking, he smiled very happily.

After laughing, Yan Boju said to Zhang Zhimu: "I brought five hundred cavalry over, this time we have to drive the horses in a different way." ”

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Mechanics of Materials, Theoretical Mechanics, Elastic Mechanics, Fluid Mechanics. --Progress of "Memories of the Southern Song Dynasty".