The winter of the twenty-fifth year of Wanli was exceptionally cold, and this severe cold did not give any excuse to anyone, and God gave the cold to everyone in the north very equally, from the emperor to the Li people, Han people, Mongols, Jurchens, without exception.

According to the old rules, the Han people shrank in the city for the winter, the Jurchens hid in the mountains for the winter, and the Mongols hid in the yurts for the winter.

The Han people eat stored grain, the Jurchens eat stored grain and prey, and the Mongols eat slaughtered livestock.

Of course, this is based on the fact that everyone has enough food to survive the winter and can enjoy the good life of the coming year, and if something goes wrong, then no one can feel the beauty.

Unfortunately, something went wrong last year and this year.

Since last year, I don't know what's going on, the weather suddenly became much colder than in previous years, and heavy snow fell on the grassland outside the Saiwai, and Mei Guozhen, the governor of Datong, played the imperial court, and asked to open a grain exchange market in Guihua City to sell enough food to the Tumut Department of the Sanniangzi family to help them survive the winter and support the spring of the next year.

At that time, Zhao Zhigao still had the heart to do things, and he still allowed Mei Guozhen's request, of course he knew that the Ming court befriended the Tumut tribe of the Sanniangzi line in order to make it a grassland barrier for the Ming Dynasty, so as to resist other tribes from the north that were not friendly to the Ming court.

They don't care about the lives or deaths of those tribes, as long as the Tumut tribe insists on standing on the side of the Ming court.

Fortunately, thanks to the Tumut tribe, there was a strange woman who admired the Ming and admired the Han culture to the point of madness, and the Tumut tribe became a staunch ally of the Ming during this period, and received all aspects of the support of the Ming Dynasty, successfully survived the difficult winter, and helped the Ming to kill the three waves of enemies.

It's just that this year's situation has undergone some changes, and the severe cold is even worse, and the several major places that the Ming court relied on to provide military rations to the three towns of Xuanfu in Datong and Taiyuan have all suffered heavy losses from the severe cold, resulting in a large area of grain harvest.

A large number of peasants went bankrupt and lost their land and became displaced people, most of whom were organized and dumped in Myanmar, but there was no food.

It was already very difficult for the Ming court to mobilize grain from Jiangnan and other places to go north to support the garrison, and there was no surplus food to support the Tumut tribe.

Therefore, although Mei Guozhen played the imperial court three times, Zhao Zhigao's exhausted side did not have much execution to help Mei Guozhen.

Xuanfu and Shanxi and other places also have their own difficulties, and no one can help, and Mei Guozhen himself is also difficult to protect.

The rations in the army are tightly maintained, and the next batch of rations does not know when it will arrive, where can the food be distributed to support the Tumut tribe who have been affected again, large fields and large numbers of cattle and sheep have frozen to death?

For this reason, the wife of the leader of the Tumut tribe, who is respected by the Han people and called the Three Ladies, has come to Datong for the third time to ask for support for grain and grass.

At this moment, the third lady, who is in her forties, is sitting in Mei Guozhen's house in the clothes of a Han woman, looking at Mei Guozhen with a sad face and Ma Gui with a serious face, and her heart is quite uneasy.

She admires Han culture, and she admires Han culture, and in the dead of night, she just hates that she can't be the daughter of the Han family, and enjoys the wind and snow in the beautiful land of the south of the Yangtze River, but she has to undergo cruel training in the bitter cold land of Saibei.

Therefore, she thought, if she can reconcile with the Han people and make good friends with the Han people, then can she be reincarnated in the Han land in the next life, become a daughter of the Han family, and enjoy the grace of the daughter of the Han family?

For this idea, Sanniangzi, as the only sister of Alta, single-handedly promoted the reconciliation between the Tumut Department and the Ming Court after his death, and became the only exception of the Ming Dynasty, a country that was extremely stubborn and never friendly with the northern tribes.

In the Ming Dynasty, the Ming court did not have a good relationship with any northern nomadic tribes, because of the lessons of the Song Dynasty, the Ming people generally believed that peace was humiliating, and it was not a good end to exchange women for peace, so even if they were beaten by the Mongols to Beijing City, they still organized troops to fight back bravely.

When the strength is strong, take the initiative to counterattack, when the strength is weak, take the tribute exchange market in exchange for the other party's withdrawal, in short, no matter what, never kissed, let alone befriended, has always been a high posture looking down on the Mongolian tribes in the north, this posture is basically not in Chinese history.

Daming has this kind of historical baggage and can't let it go, but there is only one exception here in Sanniangzi, only this legendary woman can be treated with kindness and friendliness by the Ming court, and only a woman like her can open a tiny gap from the stubborn Daming.

In the more than 20 years that she was in power, the Tumut tribe basically achieved the purpose of guarding the border for the Ming court, she liked to communicate with the Han people, make friends, and the Ming court border officers and civil officials had a very good relationship.

Especially in Datong Town, both the military and the government have a very good sense of the three ladies, when Wu Dui was the governor, he treated her as a daughter, and when the talented Xu Wei traveled to the north, he wrote a lot of poems for her.

It is precisely because of this that the name of "Three Ladies" has become a pass recognized by both sides of the border and Mongolia, and an important or even the only link between Ming and Mongolia to maintain friendly relations.

In order to maintain this bond, she married three "Shunyi kings", and now this one is the grandchild of one of her earliest husbands.

Originally, she was unwilling, but under the guiding ideology of the Ming Court's "only recognize the three ladies", the three ladies still accepted their fate, stood up, married three Shunyi kings in a row, and exchanged their daughter's body for more than 20 years of peaceful coexistence.

In the Naturalization City that she presided over, you can often see Ming and Mongolian civilians who have a friendly trading atmosphere, and even Sinicized Mongols and Mongolized Han Chinese can be seen everywhere in the Naturalization City.

However, such a strange woman, a strange woman whose handwriting is more reliable than that of the king of Shunyi himself, was also forced by the cold to have no choice, and personally came to Datong City to ask for help from her trusted allies.

It's not that she wants to come, but she is really forced to be helpless, even the cold of the past two years, even the Han people are not happy, can they be better in the further north? Will the wolves a little further north be better? The grassland economy has never been able to feed that many people.

In the course of history, the alternation of the warm period and the Xiaoice period has greatly dominated the trend of Chinese history, and the large number of people accumulated in the warm period will become a huge burden in the severe cold period, and the burden will be heavier the further north it is.

Once the Xiaoice River period came, the land would become unproductive for a period of time, the power of the Han people shrank south, and the nomads in the north had to show their bright blades to the south in order to survive.

The great wars that preceded the Han regime and the northern nomadic regime can basically be classified as a weather-induced war for survival.

And at this moment, the war for survival is about to come again.

Xiao Ruxun didn't know what kind of impact his advent had on this era, he felt that there might or may not be, but his own advent was a mysterious thing, and the impact would be unpredictable.

He wanted to change the course of history, but history did not want to change his course, and from the moment he came, everything was destined to be different from what he remembered.

Of course, Mei Guozhen knew that if the matter did not reach a very serious point, the third lady would never come to Datong City in person to ask for help, and the third lady would go out in person, which could only be said to be because the situation of the Tumut Department was so bad that it could not be solved to the point of collapse.

Most of the Tumuts, who had been friends with the Ming court for decades and were basically accustomed to peace, were reluctant to go to war again, and they lived together with the Han people, learned from the Han people to cultivate and build houses, and lived a stable life for the Han people.

A considerable number of them did not want to go back to the past, so the moderates who dominated the mainstream had to push out the leader of the three ladies and ask for relief from the Ming court.

The same was true last year, they spent it safely, this year is more severe than last year, they have to ask the Ming court again, but the three ladies never imagined that the Ming court itself is also a mud bodhisattva crossing the river itself is difficult to protect, in the case of a poor harvest, the Ming soldiers have to drink porridge to survive, let alone draw food to support them.

"Mei Futai, is it true that you can't extract any food at all?"

The third lady still did not want to go back empty-handed, she knew very well that if she went back empty-handed, it would make the Tumuts completely desperate, and the blow of this despair would be fatal.

She understands very well that her one-sided policy of befriending the Ming court to the Ming court has been supported by many people, but there is a very important hidden danger, that is, her third husband, the current Shunyi Wang Tulik.

His great prestige and fame, coupled with the strong support of the Ming Dynasty, was able to replace her husband as the de facto ruler of the Tumut tribe, but her husband was still the most legitimate owner of power in the legal system.

Her husband was not so willing to go to the one-sided road of Daming, and even hovered on the verge of betraying Daming a few times, and pulled her back, for this reason, he still complained.

Unlike her, who admires Han culture, her little husband is full of wolf thinking.

Even if the people in charge of the army obey her orders, and even she has 10,000 elite horsemen directly under her, this is also based on the fact that she can seek benefits for everyone, seek the support of the Ming court and receive a lot of rewards, which is her fame and the foundation of her governance.

But once the time comes to a very special moment, such as when everyone can't eat enough, is the nomad willing to learn from the Han people and become a homeless and wait for death, or is she willing to obey her little husband's orders and ride back on horseback and wield a steel knife to find a way to live?

She didn't want to know.

Mei Guozhen knew it clearly.

"Sanniangzi, it's not that I don't want to help you, if I don't want to, at this time last year, I won't support a large amount of grain from the Tumut Department to help you survive the cold winter, it's really cold this year, the grain harvest in the north of Guanzhong is out of harvest in a large area, the imperial court transfers grain from the south of the Yangtze River to support us, and the soldiers can only survive by drinking porridge, where is there any extra food?"

Mei Guozhen let out a long sigh.

If he can help, he will definitely be willing, but ......

"Three ladies, don't hide it, don't say it's in the army, my Ma clan is guarding in Datong for generations, and the family has a lot of land, but last year and this year were in a cold winter, and most of the grain froze to death.

The third lady covered her face in pain.

If there is food, everything will still have a turnaround, but if there is no food, everything will be over!

"Even if it's just a little bit, it can give the clansmen some hope, so that they can at least continue to survive and not fall into despair, once the clansmen are desperate, it will be difficult to control!"

The three ladies tried their best to explain their situation.

Mei Guozhen and Ma Gui don't know this, they are not newcomers who have not been war, Ma Gui will not talk about it, the general knows a lot about the Tumut tribe outside the Saiwai.

Even Mei Guozhen also experienced the Battle of Ningxia a few years ago, and stayed in the northwest frontier, and years of experience made him well versed in border affairs and was a brave general.

If there is no food, it is tantamount to pushing the Tumut tribe to the brink of collapse, it is the success of the Ming Court's decades of co-optation, and the strange woman of the three ladies will no longer exist, and the border pass will rekindle the war, and what will be consumed is not just some rice grain?

Even if it is squeezed from between the teeth, let the third lady go back to the errand, appease the Tumut Department, even if it is temporary, it must be stable, at least for a few days first, the soldiers and officials here will be more patient for the time being, Mei Guozhen himself decided to lead by example, and Ma Gui decided to donate at least a little food.

After that, the third lady left with a batch of grain with a thousand thanks, leaving Mei Guozhen and Ma Gui with solemn faces and upset.

The Tumut Department is an ally of the Ming Dynasty and has helped the Ming Dynasty block a lot of disasters, and the three ladies have spared no effort to help the Ming Dynasty resolve disputes, and some disputes that may develop into war have also been dealt with internally by her.

Such a strange woman is something that the Ming Dynasty cannot afford to lose, and it is precisely because of the existence of the Tumut Department that Ma Gui was able to transfer troops to Ningxia to quell the rebellion at that time, without worrying about the safety of Datong.

The necessary investment is well worth it, well worth it, even great value.

But now Daming can't get food, and he is about to starve to death, where is there food for them? If they continue to give it back, they didn't come over to grab the food, and the soldiers on their side will mutini first, and then it's over!

"Futai, in the current situation, it's better to ask the imperial court as soon as possible how long it will take for the food to arrive? This batch of grain will last for three to five days at most, and we will not have a next time. ”

"Of course I know, Mr. Ma, you go and clean up and accompany me to visit a few people, if it is successful, maybe there will be a turning point in this matter."

Ma Gui was relieved.

"Futai, those people ......"

"It's okay, the country is in trouble, and it is difficult for them to be alone, at this moment, they should be able to see clearly, if we can't stand it, they will also be finished, in this matter, they will not be confused."

Mei Guozhen made up his mind.