"What do you think of Warat, Goryeo, bowing down to the courtiers, and asking for the title?" Zhu Yuanzhang summoned Zhu Quan back to Beijing because there were many nomadic tribes in Daning who came to trade, Zhu Quan was here, and he should have some understanding of the situation outside the Saiwai, thinking of Mahamu, Li Chengyuan came to Yingtian, so he suppressed the unhappiness in his heart, and asked.

Zhu Quan recalled the situation when he led the army to escort Mahamu and Li Chengyuan met Zhu Di when he went south, so he immediately said in a deep voice: "For these barbarian tribes, the fourth brother means to cut the strong and help the weak, and to raze and control the enemy. He said this, but he secretly thought to himself in his heart: Although the Northern Yuan Dynasty has been defeated, but my Ming Dynasty cannot permanently garrison the army, and actually control the vast grassland, these nomadic tribes are really inexhaustible wildfires, and the spring breeze blows and grows, Zhu Laosi's method is quite real.

Zhu Yuanzhang bowed slightly when he heard this, obviously quite satisfied with Zhu Di's opinion, looked at Zhu Quan with burning eyes, and said slowly: "What else does Ma Hamu want when he comes to my Daming this time except for the title he asks?" Zhu Yuanzhang heard that after Li Chengyuan and his entourage arrived, they had already sent a message to the officials of Honglu Temple to receive them, but they had not seen these two people. Tonight, the imperial study summoned Zhu Quan to find out what these small countries wanted, so that they could know in advance.

Zhu Quan said in a deep voice: "Ma Hamu came to see the Heavenly Dynasty this time, and is willing to belong to my Daming, and ask His Majesty to give him the title of Khan, in addition, I also hope to exchange cattle and horses for more pig iron, silk, tea and other things." ”

Zhu Yuanzhang snorted lightly in his nose and asked lightly: "Since Di'er and you both advocate the use of the strategy of razing and razing, then I should use Warat to control the Tatars?" "Nell doesn't flower, bite and wait for the Northern Yuan to be escorted back to Yingtian, Zhu Yuanzhang also issued a decree to summon him, and Zhu Yuanzhang also knows about the situation on the grassland.

After Zhu Quan became a vassal of Daning, he was quite concerned about the news of the nomadic tribes outside the Saiwai, and deliberately instructed his subordinates to inquire among the tribes who came to Daning to trade in the bazaar, and then confirmed what Mahamu said when he went south, and then replied after sorting out his thoughts a little: "After the defeat of the Northern Yuan, the three tribes of Mahamu, Guilichi, and Arutai were the strongest on the grassland. This situation is naturally the most favorable to my Ming Dynasty, but after the cavalry of the Asut tribe under the command of Arutai was defeated by the army led by the son of Mahamu, Tuhuan, he actually joined hands with Gui Lichi temporarily, bowed to the Tatars, and although the Khan Benya of this Tatar was only a puppet, he claimed to have the blood of the golden family. Therefore, the retainers thought that I might as well temporarily support the Varat for the time being, so as to contain the Tatars and prevent them from dominating the steppe. ”

Zhu Yuanzhang heard Zhu Quan, the commander of the army, actually say what dog eats dog in front of him, with a mouthful of hair, quite undignified, and he couldn't help but be angry and funny, and couldn't help but laugh and scold: "It's really unlearned, unskilled, and unscrupulous." With that, he stood up and paced to the window, looking up at the bright moon in the sky.

When Zhu Quan went all the way south, he was thinking about the exchange of business with Warat, and at this time, he said: "For Warat's request to trade pig iron, Erchen has a way. Speaking of this, he looked at Zhu Yuanzhang, who Huo Ran turned to stare at him, and said: "Mahamu, Tuhuan is eager to get pig iron, but he is just using it to build weapons to fight with the Tatars." It's better for us to push the boat down the river, not to trade pig iron, but to trade war horses and cattle according to their style requirements. ”

"Oh?" Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but sigh when he heard this, and after a little thought in his mind, he suddenly understood, but on his face, he pretended not to know and feigned anger: "Isn't your method of raising tigers and eating yourself?" The Red Turban Army under Guo Ziyi, which he followed in the past, was a peasant rebel army, and when fighting with the Tatar soldiers of the Yuan Dynasty, the most important thing was that the peasant rebel army had no formal military training after all, and it was easy to become a rabble without discipline. The second point is that there is an extreme shortage of craftsmen in the army to build this weapon, and the craftsmanship of the craftsman is directly related to the tempering of the sword, and it is also related to the life and death of the soldiers who fight on the battlefield with these weapons, and this skill is by no means something that can be achieved overnight. Therefore, skilled blacksmiths are also essential to an army. Zhu Yuanzhang pretended to be angry, not because he didn't know it, but he just wanted to hear Zhu Quan explain the long-term benefits of this matter in detail.

Zhu Quan led the army to be stationed in Daning, and he also watched the craftsmen in the army repair damaged weapons in the barracks, and knew that in this era of cold weapons warfare, the loss of weapons was not only very large, but also the construction of a large number of weapons required a lot of manpower and material resources. Seeing that Zhu Yuanzhang was quite annoyed, he replied unhurriedly: "The Ministry of Industry may wish to divide the fire of weapons into three classes when building weapons, the first-class swords are exclusively for my Ming soldiers, and the second-class and third-class things are specially traded for the nomadic tribes we need temporary support." These nomadic tribes advocate fighting and fighting, and there are quite a number of craftsmen who are good at building weapons in the army, if their soldiers are accustomed to using the scimitars provided by our Ming Dynasty, the craftsmanship of these craftsmen will naturally become unfamiliar over time, and they will become dependent on my Ming Dynasty in building weapons. ”

Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but bow his head slightly when he heard this, and after a low sigh, he said categorically: "Although your method is a plan to secretly weaken the nomadic tribes, you must not openly propose it in the court, you have to think of a safe way." ”

"Spring is coming, and Erchen hopes to go to Guozijian to watch one or two." Although Zhu Quan took classes with Zhu Di, Li Jinglong, and Xu Huizu in Guozijian in the past, he did not come into contact with those civilian scholars from humble backgrounds.

Zhu Yuanzhang returned to the desk and sat down on the dragon chair, and after a moment of silence, he sighed softly and said: "The last time the Jinshi with the title of the gold list was inscribed, to this day, more than ten people have been executed by my decree for corrupting the law. Since I conquered the world of our Ming and Zhu families, we have imposed severe punishments on corrupt officials, stripped the skin and grass, and exterminated the family. Speaking of this, he picked up a page on the desk and threw it down angrily, and said angrily: "This is the limerick poem left on the wall of the prison of the Criminal Department by a royal historian who was sentenced to be beheaded some time ago. ”

Zhu Quan bent down and picked it up to take a closer look, but saw that the poem called "Seeking Official Fu" was as follows: The thorny strands are dyed with frost on the sideburns, and the old and young are fighting in the same hall. Where did the cold window come from for ten years? The outer circle and the inner square are a fortune.

With a "snap" sound, Zhu Yuanzhang stretched out his hand and slapped it on the desk, and said angrily: "Could it be that all the readers under Fang today only remember the sentence that there is a golden house in the book?" "I recalled the imperial history of the DPRK and the Central People's Republic of China, and the six departments had the responsibility of supervising officials in the matter to put an end to the greed for ink, and at this moment in my heart, I suddenly felt powerless, and leaned heavily on the back of the chair.

Zhu Quan muttered the poem "Seeking Official Fu" in his mouth, and heard Zhu Yuanzhang's helpless sigh in his ears, seeing his white hair, he was suddenly no longer the commander of thousands of troops, the ruthless emperor who determined the life and death of people with one word, but an old man who fought ruthlessly with all the corrupt officials and corrupt officials in the world.

Zhu Quan sighed secretly in his heart, slowly walked to the desk, and saw that the paper with "Seeking Official Fu" was burning on the candle flame, and gradually turned into ashes and the embers drifted away, and said in a deep voice: "In the eyes of Erchen, Jiangshan Sheji is like a house, and no matter how good the house is, it is inevitable that there will be moths to eat, and the best way is to kill these emerging black sheep before the moths have eaten the beams and collapsed." Speaking of this, my mind suddenly recalled that when I was in Daning, I saw Liu Chengzong, the magistrate of the county who held local power but lived a very poor life, so he boldly said: "According to what Erchen has seen, the salaries of our Ming officials are really too low. He said this only because what he saw and heard that the officials under Emperor Hongwu in the early Ming Dynasty were indeed far inferior to those of previous dynasties.

Zhu Yuanzhang sneered when he heard this, and shouted angrily: "The people's hearts are not enough to swallow the elephant, even if the court's Yulu is twice as high, do you say that if they hold the local power, everyone will be honest and self-controlled?" The emperors of the Song Dynasty were generous, and the military generals of the Wenchen Dynasty were even more arrogant when they were greedy for ink. ”

Zhu Quan's words originally had the meaning of high salary and honesty, at this time, I heard Zhu Yuanzhang's words that people's hearts are not enough to swallow elephants, and I couldn't help but be silent, and secretly thought to myself in my heart: There have been corruption in all dynasties, Han, Tang, Song and Ming dynasties, ancient and modern China and foreign without exception, perhaps this comes down to human nature, greed.

"In the past, I said to the civil and military officials more than once in the early dynasty that even if I was an official with six books, I only had to get dozens of thin fields, and it was wishful thinking to make a lot of money. If there are people who don't want to be officials, they can go home and farm, since they are reluctant to wear black yarn on their heads, then it is no wonder that I will be punished for not teaching. At this point, his tone was already full of calm, and the feeling of burnout on Fang Cai's face disappeared.

At dawn on the second day, when the thousands of Li people in Yingtian City had not yet started their ordinary life, the civil and military officials in the court had barely cheered up, wearing various official uniforms embroidered with birds and beasts, standing solemnly on both sides of the Fengtian Palace, waiting for Zhu Yuanzhang to come to the court.

When Zhu Yuanzhang, who was wearing a five-clawed golden dragon robe, appeared, it was a cumbersome ritual of three kneeling and nine knocking.

At dawn, Li Chengyuan and Ma Hamu walked into the Fengtian Hall under the guidance of officials of the Ministry of Rites. Since entering the Forbidden City, I saw the Jinwuwei forbidden soldiers standing on both sides of the royal road with snow-bright weapons and bright armor standing on both sides, and then saw the brocade guards with cold expressions and flying fish suits outside the Fengtian Palace, and finally walked into the Fengtian Palace, where hundreds of civil and military officials stood quietly. Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor who sat on the dragon chair and quietly watched the two.

Officials of the Ministry of Rites read aloud the letter of state sent by the envoy of King Yi Sung-gye of Goryeo. In this letter of state, Li Chenggui was very humble in his words, saying that the military and people of Goryeo respected the Ming Dynasty as the suzerain, and his descendants would prefer to submit to the Ming Emperor from generation to generation, and hoped that his throne could be recognized by His Majesty the Hongwu Emperor.

In the past, after hearing that Goryeo and Wara came to meet His Majesty the Emperor, they were already gearing up and ready to go, and at this time they came out one after another, impassionedly quoting scriptures and classics, denouncing Goryeo for being influenced by the culture of Middle-earth, but they did not know what courtesy, righteousness and shame were, and did not know what the two countries did not kill the envoys, and blatantly killed several envoys from the Ming Dynasty to Goryeo to show goodwill.

Although Li Chengyuan was quite influenced by the Confucian culture of the Central Plains, he never set foot in Middle-earth, and came all the way south. Because the culture, population, national strength, and army of this country are not what I could have imagined before, let alone the cramped corner of Goryeo can compete. At this time, seeing a group of Ming Dynasty ministers foaming at the mouth and angrily reprimanding themselves, he panicked slightly, and then remembered one thing that his brother Li Chenggui had confessed to himself, and he fell to the ground in a hurry, and said respectfully: "The lord of the contempt country also solemnly entrusts him when the villain is leaving, although Goryeo is a small country with weak strength and a hundred wastes to be revived, he is also willing to get rid of the old policy and change his mind." After saying that, he looked at Zhu Yuanzhang, who was frowning and silent in the distance, and continued: "The lord of the country remembers that Goryeo was too deferential to the Tatars in the past, and hopes to revise the country name. ”

Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but groan when he heard this, is the name of a country a child's play? It seems that this Li Chenggui is quite clever, and he is unwilling to openly let himself be given the national name, so as not to appear too groveling, but he has thought about the two national names in advance, let him decide, and let the Goryeo monarchs and ministers have a better time.

Liangguo Gong Lanyu looked at Ma Hamu and Li Chengyuan with disdain, and there was a faint sneer on the corner of his mouth, which obviously looked down on these foreign barbarians from the bottom of his heart.

Zhu Quan saw Lan Yu's proud face, and his heart was also very complicated, although he didn't like this empty-eyed Liang Guogong very much, but he also had to admit in his heart that the reason why Waramahamu came to see Zhu Yuanzhang in person today was because Lan Yu led the army to the desert and completely eradicated the Golden Horde.