Chapter 182 The flag of the Ming Dynasty is flying

These young Jurchens moved around on the carriage and finally emptied the fully loaded carriage.

Looking at the piles of supplies piled on the ground, everyone in the tribe believed that Aqina was really prosperous this time.

Aqina ordered the men, women, and children in the tribe to set up several large iron pots, and took out several strips of bacon from the tribe. Then he unloaded several bags of white rice from the carriage and cooked it.

Fragrant rice.

When there is meat and rice, wine is naturally indispensable.

This time, Aqina also brought Shaodaozi wine, a specialty of Peiping.

After a feast of delicious food and drinks, the entire tribe was completely conquered by Aqina's description of joining the army and getting rich.

After several days of eating and drinking, Aqina easily recruited a group of strong young people from several other surrounding tribes.

Follow the requirements in the recruitment manual Aqina brought back.

Aqina conducted a simple evaluation on them and finally selected more than fifty young Jurchens who met the Ming Dynasty's recruitment requirements.

In the entire Liaoyang and Liaodong provinces, not only Aqina's tribe, but almost all the Jurchen tribes became agitated because of the recruitment of troops by Zhu Han's Mobei Protectorate.

In just one spring, more than 6,000 young men from various Jurchen tribes gathered and joined the army to join the Mobei Protectorate of the Ming Dynasty.

This number is not much at all to the Han people in the Central Plains.

However, for these Jurchen tribes, it is definitely a very large number.

Almost the strongest young men in every tribe were attracted to join the Ming army.

The combat effectiveness of each tribe was greatly reduced, and naturally there was no capital to rebel or fight with each other, which greatly eased the difficulty of the Ming army's rule in this area.

The price paid by the Ming Dynasty was only the recruitment fee of ten taels of silver per person.

More than six thousand young Jurchens were mobilized to the Mobei Protectorate, thousands of miles away, for a mere sixty thousand taels of silver.

Moreover, after joining the Ming army, each of these Jurchen soldiers performed well and received a lot of military pay and bounties.

In this way, after they return to their hometown to visit relatives, they will attract a new group of Jurchen young adults to join the Ming army.

In just a few reincarnations, all the Jurchen tribes in the entire Liaoyang Province will fall into this perfect closed loop.

He grew up and trained among the Jurchen tribe, and then joined the Ming army to receive military pay and bounty. After retirement, he received a generous settlement allowance to live in the city or to buy a house and land in the Central Plains.

As a result, the Jurchens on the ground in Liaoyang Province became weaker and weaker, and their number became smaller and smaller.

The Ming Dynasty's forces stationed in the local fields will gradually ebb and flow, completely replacing the Jurchens as the masters of this white mountain and black water.

Not only that, each of the Jurchens who joined the Ming Dynasty army would first take a Han name and change to Han customs.

By the time they retired, they had long been accustomed to the Chinese life and would never return to the original rough and savage Jurchen tribe.

She has no recognition of her identity as a Jurchen.

Every retired Jurchen soldier will regard himself as a Han in the future!

Not only from the social organization, but also from the individual spirit, the concept of Jurchen has been obliterated!

It can be said that Zhu Han used only a few hundred thousand taels of silver every year to completely wipe out the Jurchen, a fierce fishing and hunting nation!

From then on, there was no threat to Ming Dynasty's Liaodong border.

Because there is no longer a possibility of Jurchens rising in this world.

Ming Dynasty, Hongwu fifth year, March.

The capital, Yingtian Mansion.

It was late spring in Jiangnan at this time.

As the saying goes, in late spring in March, grass grows in the south of the Yangtze River, there are mixed peanut trees, and flocks of orioles fly around.

It’s really a beautiful scenery in late spring.

The entire Yingtian Mansion was also filled with joy inside and outside. In the warm spring light, the new atmosphere of the new Ming Dynasty was blooming.

Especially today, it is a good day for Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty to lead hundreds of civil and military officials to present prisoners to the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

Presenting captives to the Imperial Ancestral Temple has been the most solemn victory ceremony in the entire country since the ancient Zhou Dynasty.

On such an important day, Zhu Han, as the second most powerful person in the Ming Empire, naturally could not miss it.

Zhu Han, wearing a purple royal attire, followed closely behind his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang as he worshiped at the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

The prisoners presented to the Imperial Ancestral Temple were naturally a group of princes and nobles headed by Emperor Aiyou of the Meng Yuan Dynasty.

In accordance with Zhu Han's Mobei policy, the captured Mongolian nobles were treated with the method of "catching the big ones and releasing the small ones."

For example, Emperor Aiyou of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty and various host vassal kings all escorted them to Nanjing for a prisoner sacrifice ceremony and then imprisoned them.

As for the small and medium-sized nobles, such as Enke and others who were gradually Sinicized in Beiping Prefecture, they were given official positions and then returned to the grasslands to become the middle and lower-class forces of the Ming Dynasty ruling the grasslands.

So in this way, only Emperor Aiyou of the Meng Yuan Dynasty and those vassal princes staged this good show of offering prisoners to the Imperial Ancestral Temple in Yingtian Mansion, the capital.

Because after nearly a hundred years of Mongolian rule, many Han Chinese rituals have been lost.

Therefore, after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang, under Zhu Han's suggestion, fully adopted the Tang Dynasty to make up for the missing etiquette.

Therefore, this time the sacrifice of prisoners in the Imperial Ancestral Temple basically followed the etiquette process of the Tang Dynasty.

Under the guidance of the Minister of Rites, the gift of Tailao was first presented to the ancestors of the Imperial Ancestral Temple, that is, the ancestors of the Lao Zhu family.

Then Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty came to the high platform in front of the Ancestral Temple, and the Minister of Rites read out the successful report of the northern expedition to Yuerhai under the high platform.

After the announcement of the victory was completed, the elegant music played by one hundred and eight court musicians began.

In the majestic and majestic Yale, three thousand elite imperial guards of the Ming Dynasty, dressed in bright armor and holding sharp weapons of various colors, slowly moved forward from the front of the Ancestral Temple to the foot of the high platform.

"Ming dynasty!"

"Wan Sheng!"

After the Jin Yiwei stood still, the three thousand people immediately became angry and shouted powerful slogans.

Immediately afterwards, thirty-six brass cannons fired one after another.

Boom boom boom!

This is the Ming Dynasty feature added by Zhu Han on the basis of Tang rites. After all, artillery represents martial ethics, so it’s not necessary to use it.

After thirty-six rounds of artillery fire, all the civil and military officials, scholars, peasants, industrialists, virtuous merchants, and envoys from the vassal countries in the Taimiao Square were all shocked by this gorgeous opening.

A total of thirty-six brass cannons!

Not to mention their power, the cost of each bronze cannon weighing over a thousand kilograms is definitely not something a small country can afford.

However, the Ming Dynasty only used these thirty-six valuable cannons for the prisoner dedication ceremony at the Ancestral Temple.

One can imagine how shocked it was to the surrounding small vassal countries.

The main purpose of Zhu Han's move is to use this to frighten various surrounding forces.

After the cannons were fired, the prisoner presentation ceremony in the Imperial Ancestral Temple officially began.

Immediately afterwards, the two ministers, the Minister of Rites and the Ministry of Justice, took over the hosting of the ceremony. The following ceremony will be presided over by the Minister of the Ministry of Justice.

I saw the Secretary of the Ministry of Punishment leading ten officials of the Ministry of Punishment as a guide. Behind them were hundreds of Mongolian prisoners wearing white prison uniforms, with disheveled hair and bare feet. They followed each other dejectedly into the square of the Ancestral Temple.

at this moment!

All civil and military officials and people's representatives have obeyed Emperor Hongwu's order and all stood up!

Everyone's eyes turned to these Mongolian prisoners.

The leader was none other than the short little emperor Aiyou.

Ever since he was taken prisoner to Yingtian Mansion last autumn, Aiyou's life has actually been relatively easy.

I eat and drink well every day, and now I have not only gained weight, but also grown a lot taller.

However, in front of a group of mighty Ming Dynasty Jinyi Guard soldiers, he still seemed a little weak and helpless.

At this time, the Minister of Punishment brought all the Mongolian prisoners to the square, and then began to read a document in his hand aloud.

This document was drafted by all the officials of the Ministry of Punishment, and it is a document of criminal prosecution.

The people being criticized were, of course, the Meng Yuan people headed by Aiyou.

What they committed were war and crimes against humanity. Although these two terms did not exist yet, in order to convict the Tatars, Zhu Han worked tirelessly to formulate these two crimes overnight.

After the Minister of Punishment read aloud the charges against these Mongolian prisoners, he knelt on the ground and asked Emperor Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty to impose punishment on these prisoners.

According to the etiquette passed down from ancient times, generally speaking, there are two final results to choose from when offering prisoners to the Ancestral Temple.

The first one was to chop off the heads of all the prisoners and use their blood to pay tribute to their ancestors and soldiers.

The other option is to absolve them of their sins, grant them some symbolic titles, eat and drink them well and make them a toy to show off the dynasty's benevolence, justice and tolerance.

This can be said to be the most glorious moment for an emperor!

My elder brother, Zhu Yuanzhang, stood on the high platform in front of the Ancestral Temple, looking at the more than a hundred captives of Mongolian princes and nobles kneeling on the ground, and he couldn't help but feel infinite emotion in his heart.

Zhu Yuanzhang's maternal grandfather, the old man, was once a soldier who survived the Yashan naval battle in the Southern Song Dynasty.
To be continued...