I'm sure of the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong!

Chapter 495 Jianwu Switch

The Ming Dynasty pacified the Monan Grassland and recovered the Liaodong, Lelang, and Heilongjiang river basins. It cannot be said that it was a waste of people and money.

Regardless of the mink ginseng, which is abundant in Liaodong and Monan, or the priceless Dongzhu, private merchants in the Ming Dynasty and the New Dynasty were quite happy anyway.

When Lelang Province and the three major capitals were first established, many merchants directly sent people to establish trading strongholds in places such as Monan and Pyongyang.

When Binjiang New City is completed, these merchants will have to continue to expand their trade network in Harbin.

As long as business catches up first, we can use this as the center to continuously attract people and indigenous people to expand the city area and accelerate the stability of border areas.

This is just for commercial interests. There are a large number of minerals buried in the area under the jurisdiction of Liaodong Town alone, and they are basically open-pit mines. Sitting on such rich mineral resources, only the Tatars were crazy and pursued a wicker policy, wasting great land in vain, and in the end, a large piece of it was eaten away by Tsarist Russia.

To put it bluntly, if Japan had not also taken a fancy to Liaodong back then, and then fought with Tsarist Russia, Liaodong would have been gone long ago.

After a brief chat with various tribes in the Monan grassland, Zhu Yijiong let Yang Gong go home.

In the next few days, Yang Gong basically stayed in his house and reunited with his wife and children.

This mansion was a reward from the imperial court and belonged to the imperial palace of Dingguo. Yang Gong also had a wife and children in Nanjing. His wife was promised by the emperor back then, but his son was not born to his original wife. Instead, she was born as a concubine in Northern Xinjiang, but was simply sent to Nanjing to be educated by her original wife.

The child is now seven years old, two years younger than the prince, but about the same age as the second prince.

"Your Majesty, in the past few days, except for a few court elders who sent greetings and greetings to Duke Dingguo's residence, no other officials in the court have gone there. Duke Ding basically refused the visits of several cabinet elders, and the rest It was still time to thank guests behind closed doors as usual. However, many private merchants sent people to the Duke Ding's mansion to deliver gifts, but they were all rejected by the Duke. These merchants and officials have been checked and most of them are innocent, and most of them are in the fur business, and they also have food. merchants, salt merchants, and tea merchants, but relatively few.”

"I understand, please step back! There is no need to monitor you anymore."

Zhu Yijiong put down the memorial in his hand and was quite satisfied with Yang Gong's performance.

Although he was relatively close to Yang Gong yesterday, as an emperor, he still had to be on guard. This was not some cunning rabbit-death lackey thing, it was purely for the sake of imperial power and stability.

Fortunately, although Yang Gong is quite brave in fighting, it does not mean that he is simple-minded. At least he has a good political sense.

Yang Gong had obviously expected that since he was now in charge of northern Xinjiang and pacifying the Monan Grassland, there would definitely be private businessmen coming to get close to him.

After all, the fur business is so profitable, especially since the Tatars do not allow the sale of precious furs such as mink, which further increases the value. Even in later generations, mink fur is still considered a luxury product and is one of the three treasures of the Northeast.

Fortunately, by thanking guests directly behind closed doors, we could not only refuse to meet these merchants, but also reduce our contact with courtiers, thus avoiding the problem of forming cliques for personal gain.

The civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty also understood this truth, and Zhu Yijiong was not only the founding emperor, but also followed Lao Zhu in all policies... Well, at least that's what the officials thought. Under the eyes of such a king, no minister would dare to have casual contact with Yang Gong, the Duke of Dingguo in the Ming Dynasty, the Commander-in-Chief of the Central Army of Northern Zhili, Zuo Zhuguo, and the crown prince's Taibao.

What if the emperor misunderstands and becomes suspicious?
  The cases of Hu Weiyong, Li Shanchang and Lan Yu in the former Ming Dynasty are all vivid in my mind!
  ……

Time flies, and it’s spring again.

It can be considered that Zhu Yijiong has spent ten years since he started his army in a corner of Taiwan.

This year's Spring Festival banquet held in the imperial city was more lively than in previous years. Except for the civil and military officials in Beijing, as long as they were not in important frontier towns, all the generals who could return to Beijing had basically returned to Beijing. Even Huang Dian, who had been idle at home for several years, was allowed to attend the banquet this time.

For this old man who had fought with him, although his dukedom of the auxiliary country was not restored, Zhu Yijiong took advantage of the last time when he made a large number of ministers and ennobled two princes to elevate him to the rank of marquis.

This is pretty good.

As the founding emperors of the country, these earliest Conglong heroes can survive stably and it’s already good. There will always be people who can’t keep up.

Moreover, regardless of what others thought, at least Huang Dian was very happy to have a marquis heir apparent. He no longer had to worry about getting involved in political struggles every day, and he also had the most basic friendship with the emperor.

Just say it! Huang Dian was not under the supervision of Jin Yiwei.

The New Year's Day has passed and the imperial court's holiday has ended. Except for Yang Gong, the other generals have returned to their respective stations one after another.

Today, the Ming Dynasty's military system is still in a state where one general manages an army until he retires and leaves office, without exchanging military defense zones.

This is inherently risky, but the world today is in the colonial period, and troops are used to fight foreign wars everywhere. Therefore, it is impossible to really change the defense of generals, which will greatly reduce the combat effectiveness and execution efficiency of the army.

Fortunately, as the founding emperor, Zhu Yijiong did not have to worry too much about military generals rebelling. If anyone dared to rebel, the soldiers would be the first to refuse. Moreover, as long as the local government cuts off money, food, and soldiers, and then pulls out the troops and reserves from other provinces, the rebellion can be put down in an instant.

However, in the following generations of emperors, this problem will definitely have to be corrected. How to correct it will be a matter for the future.

Zhu Yijiong will not take care of it, and it is impossible to take care of it.

On the third day of February, Yang Gong, who had been in Nanjing for more than a month, finally left Beijing and went north, taking the emperor's imperial edict with him.

Rather than saying it is an imperial edict, it is better to say it is a development plan for the future Monan Grassland.

The main content is the relevant regulations for Monan Dusi, Liaodong places and Dusi, fur, ginseng, Dongzhu and other businesses. It can basically be regarded as the "Longqing switch and Anda tribute" of the Jianwu Dynasty. It not only officially opened the fur and Dongzhu trade between the grasslands and Liaodong areas to the mainland, but also further formalized it and imposed various taxes and franchises. Detailed regulations are made for buying and selling.

Naturally, private merchants warmly welcomed the emperor's imperial decree.

With this imperial edict, they no longer need to use loopholes and dangerous methods such as bribery and smuggling to go to the grasslands and Liaodong places to do business in fur, ginseng and Dongzhu.

And not only the Monan Dusi, but also the Yunzhong Dusi that is about to be established, and the Mobei Grassland, which is nominally attached to the Ming Dynasty, are all included in this imperial edict.

Many businessmen with a keen sense of politics instantly realized that the imperial court was preparing to launch troops on the Mobei grassland.

As the saying goes, when a cannon is fired, there is thousands of gold, and when a war breaks out, there are endless business opportunities. Even if the imperial court does not buy grain from merchants, as long as the Mobei grassland is conquered by the imperial court, the resources and commercial network of Mobei will be opened up.

These businessmen don't care about the bitter cold in Mobei. They can even go to Heilongjiang to do business for Dongzhu, ginseng, and mink skins, not to mention the mere Mobei grassland.

(End of this chapter)