Chapter Eighty-Seven: What King Yan Wanted

King Yan said: "My captives, don't even think about it, have you forgotten the advice you gave me before?" These people are the foundation of my Yan Kingdom, and it is impossible to give them to you. And then those tartars, grazing can be, how can you do such a job, you die. ”

King Yan is concerned about chaos.

He Xi didn't actually ask King Yan to send the captives here. It was precisely because he knew that King Yan valued these people. Even if some people immigrate from the interior in the future. You still need to adapt, and Mobei is not so troublesome for these aborigines.

It's just that He Xi saw that King Yan was so misunderstood, so he also pretended to sigh and said, "Okay then." ”

It's a pity.

When King Yan looked at He Xi's appearance, he knew in his heart that he had just made a mistake in judgment. After all, King Yan really attaches too much importance to his own little team. That's when this low-level mistake was made. In fact, King Yan is also worried about the population problem.

You're welcome, the grassland is not the same as the agricultural area. There is no gentry group. Nor can there be a gentry bloc.

Because of the thin economic environment on the grassland, it is impossible for an extra layer of class in the middle, and even the officials can't support it, let alone the gentry. The people must be in the hands of the prince, that is, there are hundreds of thousands of people in the hands of the king of Yan, and these hundreds of thousands of people are the king's own. It's no one else. There is no one who can break out with great combat effectiveness and mobilization ability.

This is why the Ming Dynasty has only more than 3 million troops out of 60 or 70 million people, while Mongolia has hundreds of thousands of troops and can mobilize more than 100,000 troops.

If the population under the command of King Yan exceeds one million, King Yan will not hesitate to fight with Warat, not afraid at all.

Therefore, the population problem is also the first major plan that Yan Wang thinks about, and this problem of Yan Wang is more difficult to solve than He Xi's population gap.

That's why King Yan is so sensitive to this issue.

King Yan simply got to the point and said: "Brother He, I have seen Brother He's methods today, and I can't describe how to turn stones into gold. ”

He Xi's heart suddenly froze, he had dealt with many politicians a lot, and understood some of the laws of these people, such as King Yan, all of a sudden, there was no reason to praise people, it was not a good sign, it was very likely that he had ulterior motives.

He Xi hurriedly said: "Your Highness's words are ------ there"

He Xi has not yet said the words of resignation. King Yan's words have already come. King Yan said: "You are the husband of my sister in Anqing, that is, my younger brother, everyone is your own people, and the plan of Mobei to seal the country is even more out of you for me." There are some things I don't hide from you, you just came back from Mobei, and the situation in Mobei made me so disappointed. You see," Yan Wang rolled up his sleeves, revealing a lot of red chilblains on his arms, although they had improved a lot, they were still not completely healed.

It looks shocking.

King Yan said: "This Mobei is not a place for people to stay at all, and it is hard for my brother." ”

He Xi looked at King Yan's appearance and knew that there were some things that could not be escaped. Although King Yan didn't say it directly, he said word by word, you have to help.

He Xi said: "Your Highness, if you have something to say, I will definitely help if I can." ”

King Yan waited for He Xi's words and said, "This is what you said." Then he took out an envelope from his body, handed it to He Xi, and said, "There is really no way to be a brother, and I ask Brother He to help." ”

He Xi was already mentally prepared, but the moment he opened the envelope, he was still startled by King Yan's lion opening his mouth.

King Yan didn't ask for silver directly, because in Mobei, silver is useless. This time, the booty captured from Mobei was more than one million taels of gold and silver, which was a huge amount of money. But it didn't work.

The reason is simple, money is only useful if it is spent.

Under the strict defense of the Ming Dynasty, it was too difficult for the Tartar royal court to buy things with silver. Moreover, Emperor Tianyuan even wanted to use this money as capital, and he didn't dare to spend it indiscriminately, so he left so much.

King Yan also knew that even if the Liaosong Canal was opened, any materials from the Central Plains would come to Mobei, and the price would be as much as two to three times that of the Central Plains. It couldn't be less. If you want silver, you can't hold a few million taels at all. It's better to ask for supplies.

On the contrary, it seems to say, but even so, in He Xi's opinion, it is unacceptable.

Salt, iron, wood, that's all acceptable. But cotton, cloth, grain, etc., this is completely unacceptable. Cotton and grain are particularly unacceptable, because they grow out of the ground, and technological reforms have hardly changed about them. And He Xi's move to transform the textile machine, but also to increase the price of cotton, which is determined by the relationship between supply and demand, after all, the efficiency of cotton textile is improved, more cotton is needed, the cotton on the market is reduced, the price of cotton increases, this is a natural market fluctuation, even if He Xi has been promoting cotton planting in Liaodong. But it still can't keep up with market demand.

He Xi feels that in the next few decades, the price of cotton will not be low.

Without him, the Chinese in this era actually did not have any freedom of dressing at all, and decades later in history, Emperor Yongle was the one in front of him, taking the good saint Sun Xuande Emperor on the side of the canal, visiting the farmer's house, and he saw that there were only a few clothes at home, who went out and who wore them, and the female relatives of the family hid in the straw and did not dare to see people.

The reason for this is that there is certainly a battle of Jingjing, which affects the local economic development. But it also shows that such a situation is even more widespread in Daming.

Therefore, for a long time, the clothing needs of the people of the Ming Dynasty could not be met. The amount of cotton consumed by each person will definitely increase. Cotton cannot be saturated as easily as wood.

It is not for nothing that clothing, food, shelter and transportation, and cotton and cotton cloth became the first bulk commodity of capitalism.

And food, it is even more difficult to handle.

It can be said that the areas affected by He Xi's jurisdiction are not the grain-producing areas of the Ming Dynasty. Even if Liaodong's grain production is increasing day by day, it is just a little more self-sufficient, and it is still a little short to provide a large amount of grain to Mobei.

I guess it will be a few more years.

King Yan also knew that this was not too easy to do. It's a little difficult, but this is something that King Yan must do. Without him, the north is too cold, and the desert north is too cold. If you want to gain a foothold in Mobei, whether you can eat enough is not the key issue, but whether you can dress warmly.

If you don't eat for a day, you won't starve to death, and if you don't dress well for a day, you will freeze to death.

Even in the Northeast in later generations, there were many drunk people who fell asleep in the wild, and after one night, they turned into ice cubes. In this day and age, even more so.

King Yan must solve this problem, which is related to the life and death of King Yan in Mobei. King Yan originally thought that there was a solution for the herdsmen in Mobei to live in Mobei all year round. I didn't expect that in fact, the solution of the herdsmen in Mobei was sheepskin jackets, and simple sheepskin jackets would not work, so they would be crowded with livestock.

In winter, the sheep are huddled together to keep each other warm. And it is with these sheep that the herders are huddled together to escape the cruel winter.

The rest is to rely on one's own physique, to live if you can resist the past, and to die if you can't resist the past. The affairs of the Mobei region in the Han and Tang dynasties are millions of people. There are so many people in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and there is a reason.

This is also why the Han people talk about the Mongols, they all smell of sheep, not only the sheepskin jacket on the body.

King Yan had to solve this problem, otherwise, many people would freeze to death every year, and the Mongols felt accustomed to it. However, King Yan couldn't bear it, and it didn't mean that King Yan had any benevolence, after all, population is power. It is the power of the Yan King.

He didn't want to lose too much. It is also part of his plan to win hearts and minds.

So other things can be said, but cotton and grain, one to wear and one to eat, is absolutely indispensable.

He Xi said: "Your Highness, it's not that I don't want to help you, it's really not." Even if there is, I don't have the authority to give you so much, otherwise, you can go to Nanjing and have a good talk with Your Majesty. ”

"Okay." King Yan said: "A word is a certainty, as long as my father agrees, you will definitely do it for me." ”