Chapter 285: The Wind of History (2)

The income obtained from fishing and hunting is not as good as the profits from trafficking in special goods in the mountains and exchanging with the Han people, so the number of Jurchen people as intermediary merchants is increasing, and they are of the same clan as those who are born in the Jurchen Tunguska tribe in the deep mountains and old forests, and there is a possibility of communication.

They took all kinds of materials from the Central Plains to the mountains in exchange for these suddenly valuable materials, the various tribes of the Jurchen don't know why in previous years they could only say that some dry goods and fungi of ordinary goods have risen in price this year, and some powerful tribes simply sent their own warriors in order to monopolize this piece of profit, and directly occupied the hunting grounds of those wild Jurchens and drove them further north.

After obtaining their own resources, they directly did business with the merchants, so that the profits greatly increased, and because of the expansion of demand, although the Jurchens tried their best to expand production, the price still gradually rose, because of such a high price, even some of the production of North Korea began to be transported here to trade.

The money spent on raw materials is more, and the profit earned is naturally less, but if there is no mountain delicacies such as bear's paws, it will be regarded as no grade, just like the modern hotel if there is no seafood and can not talk about the grade, no this thing is not good, but with this thing, you can't make any money. These merchants in the Ming Dynasty began to be a little resentful.

There is a stable and affordable source of goods has become the consensus of the owners of various restaurants, and the number of officials and nobles who can be related to the twelfth floor of the Jingshi is quite large, since there is such a consensus, some people immediately put it into action. Most of the guards and immigrants outside the customs are criminals and people who have no way out, and the people have always been strong. Therefore, the various guards in Liaoning outside the customs have always been known for their courage and good fighting.

Immediately someone brought a large amount of silver and promises, encouraging the brave and brave people in the Liao people to reclaim outside the Guan, this period of time, the rolling silver money brought by the trade of those mountain goods is in the eyes of everyone, naturally it is greedy to death, but these things are controlled by those savages outside, and they are at most the silver that makes money and runs errands, if you really do it, the court has a saying that it is strictly forbidden to provoke border provocations, even if the border generals rashly go to war or cause right and wrong, they must be punished, not to mention the border people who are people with their tails between them.

But no one thought that there would be businessmen to organize to go to the north to make money, businessmen have always been lambs to be slaughtered in the guard outside the customs, and they were arbitrarily blackmailed by the border generals of the border army, and they lost their lives if they didn't do well, which naturally made people feel uneasy, but the businessmen who came over the years were more like officials than the officials of the government, and those generals who were arrogant and domineering on weekdays saw these businessmen with a smile and a flattering look on their faces.

What's even more surprising is that outside the gate, he seems to be the eunuch of the Tu Emperor, and on some occasions he seems to be a horn dog behind those merchants to curry favor.

Although these border people don't understand why, but the merchants sent by these restaurants to buy are often the family members or cronies of a certain senior member of the Beijing Division, such an oily and watery thing, naturally let the trustworthy people do it, although these people have no grade, but their words are often for the officers in the border area, can determine the future of life and death. Ning Jinwei's command caused him to drink too much wine one day and whipped a merchant from Baoding Mansion on the street, and it didn't take long for a document from the Ministry of War and the Governor's Mansion to remove him from his post and hold him accountable for exploiting the soldiers and civilians of the guard.

I later learned that behind this businessman was from the mansion of a certain marquis in the capital, as for those merchants who even treated the eunuchs politely, most of the backgrounds were the background of the great eunuchs of the twenty-four yamen, such as the imperial dining room, the imperial horse eunuch, and even the place of the celebrant eunuch, which was not something that a small eunuch could offend.

This kind of power of the merchants gave these border people great confidence, and the land outside the border was thousands of miles away, which was already a vast and sparsely populated place, and the border people set out in groups with the grain, grass and silver money that were pulled, and immigrated to various places suitable for hunting and gathering.

The Jurchens have lived in a bitter cold land for a long time, and have always had a fiery and warlike temper, but now they are still a mess of scattered sand, and the administrative composition is still tribes and tribes, and there are quite a lot of contradictions between these tribes, and the undeveloped area in the northeast is too big.

Even if they wanted to organize the reclamation of the Han people, they were powerless, and almost as soon as these border people left the border checkpoints, some people came over to distribute weapons and equipment, and some people joined halfway by very "coincidence", and these people were often soldiers in the guards.

A reclamation group is often hundreds of people, although there are also old and weak inside, but there are many men in the right age, and they are well-equipped, after the road is often several reclamation groups echo back and forth, a little wind and grass, that is, the cart is in a circle, and the men are waiting with sharp blades.

These reclamations are very different from the current escape from the pass, that is for livelihood, and now these people go out to make money, although some of the Jurchen tribes are not fishing and hunting, not trade, and specialize in banditry. But the other party can't eat it on such a large scale.

Moreover, according to some so-called notes of later generations, it was vaguely revealed that the hands and feet of these reclamation groups were not clean, and there were so-called "barbarians, ignorant of people's hearts, and slaughtered by unscrupulous people", of course, this sentence is the tone of a consistent masochistic literati, and an article by someone from the introspective faction who was scolded by later generations.

In the official newspaper and the written records of the official history, the people of the reclamation group were really praised along the way, and the various Jurchen settlements they passed by were very enthusiastic to borrow money and grain from people, and they never had to return them, and there were also Jurchen tribes who were willing to obey the king, and followed with their families, even if the road was hard, and there were countless casualties and still followed.

The Jurchen tribe in the deep mountains accepted many people during that time, and the compatriots who fled in from outside all said: The devil is coming.

Incidentally, this history has been known as the "Scarlet Road" among researchers in recent times.

The Jurchen Ula tribe is now the most powerful tribe outside the Guan, their entire tribe has nearly 5,000 people, most of them are engaged in trade to get rich, and the tide has risen more and more in recent years, and there are thousands of clan soldiers who can rush and fight, and they see that life is getting better and better.

But I saw that the border people of Liaojing, who had never been willing to go out of the border fortress, formed a reclamation group to enter the white mountains and black waters, and those big merchants in the customs began to desperately raise the price to buy the momentum, and began to be cold, and then the Ula Department inquired about the doorway.

Now these merchants are directly trading with the reclamation group outside the Guan, or buying from the reclamation group, or trading with the wild Jurchen tribes, and the elders and patriarchs of the Ula tribe all feel that if this continues, they are afraid that their tribe will be wiped out.

The Jurchen tribe is not as strong as when the old slave Nurhachi was there, and they didn't dare to do anything in the face of the Liao army of the Ming Dynasty with more than 100,000 people, but since they entered the Sanzhi zone outside the pass, don't blame them for being ruthless, getting rid of some small reclamation estates, and killing chickens and monkeys.

In the past, the imperial court and the army ignored the residents living in these places, so after a reclamation manor of more than 100 people was slaughtered by the Jurchen tribe, the other reclamation manors were all on the sidelines, and if there was any disturbance, they immediately fled back to the guard.

The guards of Liaoning, who have always been sluggish, reacted very quickly, and the eunuchs of the prison army, who had always been greedy for money and ignored military affairs at all, suddenly became angry, saying that the people of our Heavenly Dynasty could not tolerate barbarian slaughter, under the care of the father-in-law of the prison army, and under the supervision of the merchant group in the Guannei, the guards of the Liao border sent troops one after another to pursue the Jurchen bandits.

The border army, which has always been owed money, was rewarded by the merchant group this time, and also received the promise of the generals that the proceeds of the captivity outside the customs would be their own. Of course, there are also strict orders, fleeing from the battle, and the whole family will be enslaved. Moreover, after being discharged from the army, he had to pay 200 acres of land outside the border, and he was given heavy rewards such as cattle and horses, grain and straw.

At this time, the Ming army was still very combative, and compared with the Jurchens outside the Guan, they were professional soldiers after all, and there were 2,000 soldiers from a guard, and there were dozens of guards in Liaobian, although there were not many troops, but there were also 20,000 people, and now the largest Ula Department can only go to the battlefield is only 1,000 and a half whites.

In addition, on the one hand, the military law is strict, and on the other hand, there is a heavy reward, and everyone is really forging ahead and refusing to lag behind.

On the top of the restaurants in the north and south of the Jiangnan, the wealthy merchants and eunuchs enjoyed the delicacies from the white mountains and black waters with peace of mind, and the price was still so expensive, but they didn't know that in every dish of delicacies now, the silver profits earned by the shops had risen significantly.

There is no other reason, the vast and rich land outside the customs is already all the reclamation manors controlled by various merchants, and the money and equipment spent on these manors when they are opened are all provided by the merchants, and the accounts are settled afterwards.

At this time, the ingredients certainly brought income, but the profits generated by those manors outside the Guanxi had far exceeded the food, and the manors developed a large amount of fertile black soil, all kinds of fertile production, and even better, the main labor force of these manors was actually Jurchen slaves, and there was almost no labor cost.

Of course, after this situation was really determined, it was already fifteen years after the opening of Huifeng Tower, and many conscientious young historians in later generations wrote articles criticizing it:

"Every bear's paw is soaked in the blood of the Jurchen people."