eldest son of Ming dynasty

Chapter 115 Tribute
Zhu Houzhao walked out the gate of the academy, and when he stepped into the carriage, he suddenly saw more than 20 to [-] big men dressed as Tatars among the crowd on the street.

They swaggered through the market in groups, which made some people feel a little scared of them.

Zhu Houzhao felt strange. In his concept, the border troubles during the Hongzhi period were serious. What is the situation?
So I kept thinking while sitting in the carriage.

When he arrived at the East Palace, he called Liu Jin over and asked, "What happened to those Tatars on the street?"

"Your Highness also saw it? The servants thought that the Tatars who paid tribute had arrived in the capital."

"Pay tribute?"

Zhu Houzhao is a bit ashamed person anyway,

Those who are bullied at the border do not dare to go out, and pay tribute?
If it was Zhu Di's time, paying tribute was called tribute, what kind of tribute is being paid now?

With a flash of his mind, he roughly guessed, isn't this the tribute trade of "Altruistic and harmful to me"?
"Which gentleman is in Zhan Shi's mansion? Call him over."

Zhu Houzhao's understanding of many things in this year is still not as clear as that of people in this era, so he will study what he encounters first, and what is recorded in the history books may not necessarily be the facts at that time.

In modern times, this is called holding a special meeting for research and finding someone to make a report.

Today happened to be the right Yude Wang Hua.

Seeing him, Zhu Houzhao thought of his son, "Mr. Wang, did your son write to you? How about others?"

"Thank you, Your Highness, for your concern." Wang Hua cupped his hands and saluted, "Gouzi wrote a letter in May, saying that he was learning how to manipulate battle formations with General Wang Yue, and that the Northwest... frontier army was abolished..."

"Oh." Zhu Houzhao's face changed, and he was not so happy immediately. He was not angry, but it was not a happy event. "I just want to ask you. Why are there so many Tatars suddenly appearing in the capital?"

"Tartar?" Wang Hua reacted before he had time to think about it, "It should be the tribute envoy sent by the little prince."

"Tell me."

"Yes." Now that he knew that His Royal Highness wanted to know, Wang Hua simply started from the source.

Speaking of it, the Ming Dynasty and the evil neighbor Tatar in the north have always been in a rather paradoxical state.

On the one hand, the two sides fought against each other. For example, Wang Yue attacked the Mongolian camp around Weining Haizi outside the border of Mu Datong in the 16th year of Chenghua and won the "Weininghai" victory. Three years later, in the 19th year of Chenghua, Dayan Khan again The rate of more than [-] people invaded the border, causing the Ming court to still have lingering fears every time it thought of it.

Afterwards, from the first year of Hongzhi, Dayan Khan submitted a letter to the Ming Dynasty, asking for tribute. This was done once a year until the fifth year of Hongzhi. During the period from the fifth year to the ninth year of Hongzhi, the two sides actually did not have much contact, and they were considered peaceful. thing.

In fact, because Dayan Khan was cleaning up the interior, the so-called ZTE Lord of Mongolia successively conquered the tribes of Oirat, Yisimain, Huosha and other tribes, and unified Monan Mongolia.

After tidying up the interior, he sent another envoy to pay tribute,
This happened exactly in the 11th year of Hongzhi.

In the spring of this year, he asked 6000 people to enter the customs and pay tribute. The two sides bargained with each other and spent a lot of time. In the end, the court allowed 2000 people to enter the customs and 500 people to come to Beijing.

This exaggerated number of people is not the first time, and the previous few times were all in the thousands.

"Chaogong, why are there so many people?" Zhu Houzhao didn't quite understand the number at first.

Wang Hua replied: "Perhaps it's because of the heavy supplies. Thousands of cattle and sheep need to be chased after all."

"Joke, thousands of cows and sheep, one person drives one?" Zhu Houzhao rubbed his fingers, he paced slightly, and a question arose in his heart, "In the end, 2000 people entered the customs and 500 people entered Beijing. What about the remaining 1500 people, will anyone go?" I checked, what did these people do?"

In his opinion, since Dayan Khan claims to be the master of ZTE, he will not make such a decision at will. After all, this is the most memorable Mongolian leader after Genghis Khan Temujin and Xue Chan Khan Kublai Khan .

"I don't know about this matter."

It can't be blamed on his head,
After all, whether it is You Yude of Zhan Shifu or the Japanese lecturer of the Imperial Academy, no one will come to tell him the details of the Tatar tribute.

"Liu Jin!"

"The servant is here!"

"Find someone who knows."

"Yes!"

As soon as the prince was looking for someone, it was the Minister of Honglu Temple who was in charge of foreign guests.

Speaking of this position, Zhu Houzhao's grandfather Zhang Luan also held this position, but this was before.

Now this one is only in his 30s, with a fair face, and a somewhat handsome Zhou Du, coupled with the red official robe, he looks very temperamental at first glance, that is, in front of the prince, in front of other people. Great old man.

"Zhou Du, let me ask you why there are so many people in the little prince's mission every time?"

Zhou Du said: "In the past, Mongolia sent envoys to pay tribute, and indeed there were only a dozen or so people. But since the early years of Hongzhi, every time the little prince sent a large-scale mission, I thought... it was the little prince who was very happy and pretended to be He is a hero of a generation, so he sent a large mission to show his prestige as the "Khan of ZTE."

"Is there a more reasonable reason?"

Zhu Houzhao still likes to think about problems from the perspective of interests. Great success and face are of course one aspect, but if there is no actual benefit, it is hard to imagine doing such a strange thing just for the sake of face.

But to his surprise, Zhou Du was stopped by this question.

He replied: "I don't know what the more reasonable reason His Highness said... What does it mean?"

He was stunned, and Zhu Houzhao froze. He thought of a question that was frightening to think about carefully, "Have you...never thought about this reason?"

"Perhaps..." Zhou Du thought for a while, and pieced together an answer, "Maybe the Tatars want to see the beauty of our Great Central Plains, or maybe they just want to take advantage of it."

"What's cheap?" Zhu Houzhao grasped the key point.

Zhou Du was also a little dazed,
He didn't expect that the so-called prince of the generation of the British Lord would ask such a small question.

So much so that he didn't know whether to say yes or not.

But in the end, he still couldn't bear the eyes of Donggong and said, "...Wei Chen privately thought that maybe he just wanted to come to eat, drink and have fun for a while."

Zhu Houzhao:? ? ?

On the one hand, he was amazed that there was such a thing as entertainment fee, and on the other hand, he was surprised that they only thought of the entertainment fee?
"What do you mean, these 500 people are all paid by the imperial court for food, drink and accommodation in Beijing?"

Zhou Du nodded, "Not bad."

boom!
Zhu Houzhao didn't know what he was holding in his hand, it looked like a teacup, and he fell to the ground, making Liu Jin and Zhou Du jump in fright.

Both of them knelt down and prostrated themselves on the ground.

"Zhou Du, you stop it right away! I, Daming, still have people who are starving to death, yet still spend money to entertain them?"

Zhou Du felt wronged, and quickly replied: "Your Highness, foreign envoys have always been received by the imperial court. This is something that the emperor and the cabinet have agreed to. Moreover, this matter is an old rule, and it has always been handled in this way. Now that it has changed suddenly, how can this... be explained?"

"Who do you want to explain to?" Zhu Houzhao asked him.

"Naturally... naturally with the Tatar envoys."

"You are an official of my Ming Dynasty. The person you want to explain is the crown prince, not some Tatar envoy! Besides, has his little prince changed the old rules? The mission of such a large scale began with him, right? ? Did he change it? How could he change it, but the prince of the Ming Dynasty, Ben Gong, could not change it?"

Zhu Houzhao was so angry that it was the ancient tributary trade that suffered losses. He pointed at Zhou Du and said, "You are just a minister of the Honghe Temple. I should not blame you for spending money. But you also said it just now, little prince." It’s a great feat, sending so many people to the capital is showing off their power, what’s wrong? He came to show us off, and you want us to pay him?!”

This is the principle, but in the hearts of the ancients, it would be stingy to speak such words as a prince, and there is no celestial bearing.

Liu Jin was cautious and reminded: "Your Highness's concerns are not unreasonable. However, matters related to foreign affairs are no small matter. Do we still need to discuss with the emperor and the cabinet? If the relationship between the two countries is frozen, it will be bad."

This is the truth, and the ancients thought that diplomacy is no small matter.Such a rash decision, without the knowledge of the cabinet and Emperor Hongzhi, is indeed not very good.

But Zhu Houzhao also has some disdain, what is rigid and not rigid,
Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di are about to exterminate their species, Yexian and the little prince have had so many bright people's blood on their hands,

Now the border is still fighting, this kind of feud, this kind of relationship, are you afraid of becoming rigid?Is it possible to expect to have a friendship with them?
After thinking about it, he said to Zhou Du: "You go back now and stop this old practice. As for the father and the cabinet, I will talk about it."

The so-called arrogance of the country and the people, the Tatars are more powerful now, so those Tatars who come to the capital also feel that they are like upper-class people.This is unbearable, and now we have to pay for eating and drinking, so Zhu Houzhao will be stingy with him this time no matter what.

"Don't forget about those 1500 people." After thinking about it, he felt wrong, "Liu Jin, go and check, what are these people doing?"

He concluded that there was a reason behind it, and no matter what the reason was, he would make a random move to make them uncomfortable first.

It is said that after Zhou Du left the East Palace, he was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot. The order of the East Palace was unheard of, how dare he just accept it like this?If something happened to these 500 people in Beijing, and the emperor and the court lost face, then he would die without a place to bury him.

But the prince was so angry, he didn't dare to ignore it directly, and after thinking about it, he went directly to the cabinet to report.

(End of this chapter)