From the time when troops were sent out at the turn of spring and summer in May to when Li Huan escorted tens of thousands of young captives and the chiefs of nearly a hundred tribes, large and small, and the nobles entered the capital together, it was already approaching the end of the year.
After hearing the news that Li Huan had returned from the north with his army, Emperor Zhu Houzhao personally went out of the city to greet him. The favor he showed for Li Huan was only envied by the leaders of the grassland tribes who followed Li Huan to Beijing.
Surrounded by hundreds of officials, when he returned to the court, the emperor personally summoned a group of tribal chiefs and nobles from the grasslands who had come to surrender and beg for surrender.
As for the arrangements for these people, the imperial court had already made a decision in advance. According to what had been discussed previously, for the tribes who came to beg for surrender, the imperial court's arrangement was to demarcate pastures for these people on the grasslands, and in these areas
People built large and small cities in their settlements.
Of course, if we follow this approach, we will have to build at least hundreds of cities on the grassland. Even with the support of artifacts like cement, building so many cities at once is not a small project.
The most important thing is that for some small tribes with only a thousand people, there is no need or value to build cities. Therefore, after the ministers of the court divided the map on the grassland, for those small tribes, adjacent
Several or more than a dozen small tribes built a city as the center for the imperial court to govern and restrain these tribes.
Calculated this way, it would be enough to build only twenty or thirty cities on the grassland.
There were nearly 100,000 young men from Dayan's army who had been captured before. In addition, this time Li Huan crushed tens of thousands of young men captured by dozens of tribes. In total, there were only 100,000 young men who could be pulled out and used as coolies.
There are as many as hundreds of thousands of people.
For these captives, the court naturally did not need to give money like recruiting common people, so it suddenly saved a lot of labor expenses.
With hundreds of thousands of captives as labor force, not only could they build cities on the grasslands to rule them, but they could also build roads connecting several major cities in the Central Plains and the grasslands.
I believe that with the existence of these roads, even if someone on the grassland has delusions, the court can dispatch large armies to quell the rebellion in the shortest possible time through smooth roads. I cannot say that it is 100% guaranteed to ensure the stability of the grassland, at least to a certain extent.
To a certain extent, it can strengthen the Central Plains’ control over the grassland.
Two years have passed in a flash. During these two years, Li Huan, who has been traveling all year round, seems to have become much more relaxed. After returning from going north to suppress the grassland two years ago, Li Huan has never left the capital again.
However, this does not mean that Li Huan has been idle. In fact, Li Huan seems to be getting busier and busier now that he is in charge of the Governor's Mansion of the Fifth Army.
As a large amount of power was wrested from the hands of the civilian clique, the Fifth Army Governor's Office began to perform its duties, and as the head of the Fifth Army Governor's Office, it is conceivable that Li Huan had to deal with many things.
On this day, Li Huan left the Yamen of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion and headed towards the imperial city.
When Li Huan entered the imperial study, he happened to catch up with the chief minister of the cabinet, Wang Yangming, and the cabinet boss, Yang Yiqing, who were reporting government affairs to the emperor.
Li Huan sat aside and did not speak, but listened to Wang Yangming's report.
I heard Wang Yangming say to the Emperor: "Your Majesty, up to now, the imperial court has built a total of twenty-three small towns on the grassland, and with each small town as the center, it is divided into twenty-three prefectures and counties, and there are also large cities.
Eleven, including eleven state capitals, and thousands of officials, large and small, have been dispatched, and we have initially completed the control of the grassland."
Li Huan listened on the sidelines. Li Huan naturally knew these data. After all, every city had troops stationed by the Guards Station of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion. It can be said that in order to strengthen its control over the grassland, the imperial court only had these numbers in the grassland.
There are nearly 100,000 troops deployed in ten cities.
One hundred thousand troops does sound like a lot at first, but think about it. In order to defend against the threat of southward invasion from the grassland, the Ming Dynasty established nine important towns in the north. The total number of soldiers and horses stationed in these nine sides is quite large.
As many as one hundred thousand.
But now that the northern grasslands have surrendered, it is equivalent to eliminating the threat from the north all at once, and the Nine Borders no longer has to hoard and station a large number of troops.
It can be said that these 100,000 troops stationed on the grassland are men and horses drawn from the land of Jiubian. It is nothing more than that the soldiers and horses originally stationed in Jiubian were replaced by grasslands, which did not add any burden to the court.
At the same time, Wang Yangming added: "According to the imperial court's plan, most of the official roads from the capital to Xuanfu, Datong, and then to several core cities in the grassland have been completed. In at least one or two years, all planned roads will be completed.
Completed.”
Li Huan couldn't help but raise his brows. Building roads was no small matter. It could be said that if there were not hundreds of thousands of hard-working prisoners, the imperial court's investment in manpower alone would have been millions of taels of gold and silver.
Dozens of large and small cities and several official roads were built in a short period of time. If labor was required to do this, it might lead to civil unrest.
But if you use prisoners to do this, you don't have to worry about these problems at all. Although a large number of prisoners died of exhaustion due to high-intensity fatigue during the process of building cities and roads, this did not have any impact on the Ming Dynasty.
No impact at all.
Even Li Huan, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion, knew the situation of those prisoners very well. After all, so many prisoners were sent by the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion to take care of them.
In total, there were almost 130,000 to 40,000 prisoners, but now there are only less than 100,000 left. In other words, in just two years, almost one-third of the prisoners died.
It can be said that the Ming Dynasty's control over the grassland was several times stronger than in the past, and the contribution of these prisoners was definitely indispensable.
Here Wang Yangming and Yang Yiqing reported on some government affairs. Zhu Houzhao's eyes fell on Li Huan and said: "Why does Li Qing have time to see me?"
Li Huan looked serious and said: "I came here to report something. There is another unrest in the hometown of Jiaozhi in the southwest. The Li family once had soldiers and horses raiding the border of Yunnan, killing my people and plundering my property. I have no regard for the majesty of our Ming Dynasty. I
Please send troops to fight against it."
Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but look at Wang Yangming and said: "My dear, is the court capable of supporting a war now?"
Wang Yangming took a deep breath and said confidently: "Your Majesty, you can rest assured that now our government has sufficient finances and taxes. Whether it is grain taxes or commercial taxes, they are far higher than in the past. The treasury is full, and the national wealth is definitely the highest in the history of the dynasties.
Not to mention supporting one war, the imperial court can support it even if it supports several wars."
Zhu Houzhao immediately said: "In this case, send an edict to reprimand the Li dynasty, order them to hand over the thieves who have harassed our people in the Ming Dynasty, and at the same time let the king bind himself to the capital to plead guilty."
After hearing what Zhu Houzhao said, Li Huan, Wang Yangming, and Yang Yiqing all knew that the other party would never agree to this request, and a war was inevitable.
As expected, Zhu Houzhao said to Li Huan: "Li Qing, I will order you to personally handle this matter, dispatch troops and horses, and crush the Li Dynasty for me. I will re-establish the Jiaozhi Chief Envoy Department and re-incorporate it into our Ming Dynasty territory.
"
In the spring of the 14th year of Zhengde in the Ming Dynasty, the envoys sent by the imperial court to Jiaozhi were expelled by King Li. King Li even declared that if the Ming Dynasty dared to send troops to invade its territory, the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty would never come back.
Subsequently, in Yunnan, hundreds of thousands of elite troops had already been assembled, led by Xu Ying, the general who conquered the south. The mighty army marched straight into Jiaozhi like a torrent.
The leader of the Li Dynasty was naturally very frightened when he saw this. While he sent envoys to try to pray to the Emperor of Heaven to give up the conquest, he also actively gathered troops to try to prevent the Emperor of Heaven to enter the land of Annam.
However, facing the fierce and terrifying artillery fire of the Ming Dynasty, the soldiers of the Li Dynasty who tried to use fortified cities and dangerous passes to resist the front of the Ming Dynasty were horrified to discover that the passes they relied on as natural dangers in the past were facing the terrible artillery bombardment of the Ming Dynasty.
But it is like paper. Often after a burst of artillery fire, no matter how steep the pass is, it will be reduced to ruins, unable to stop the advance of the Heavenly Soldiers.
In just half a month, the Ming Dynasty marched hundreds of miles and almost reached the capital of the Li Dynasty. Such a speed of advance frightened everyone in the Li Dynasty.
In the front, the army swept across, and in the back, the imperial court sent a large number of officials to directly take over the occupied areas. At the same time, the powerful adopted extremely tough policies against the local landlords, confiscating all the land directly and distributing it to the relocated people.
Of course, the people who came from the Ming Dynasty were also local people.
Although there were some landlords and powerful people who tried to resist, it was a pity that the resistance of these people could not cause any trouble at all, and they were directly put down. They also took the opportunity to eliminate the local resistance forces, making the Ming Dynasty stronger in the area it occupied.
A few points.
In September of the 14th year of Zhengde in the Ming Dynasty, in only half a year, Xu Ying, the general who conquered the south, directly attacked the Li Dynasty and captured the Li Dynasty's royal family and hundreds of officials alive. From then on, the Li Dynasty established itself as an independent party.
It was destroyed.
When the news reached the capital, everyone in the Ming court was not too surprised. After all, after all these years, the ministers above the court had already understood that with the current strength of the Ming Dynasty, looking around, there were no opponents at all.
A mere Li dynasty that was entrenched in a local area dared to provoke the Ming Dynasty. Once the Ming Dynasty's soldiers arrived, they were naturally suppressed like chickens and dogs.
Above the court, Wang Yangming walked out of the ranks of hundreds of officials and said to the emperor: "Your Majesty, I have established the province of Jiaozhi, stationed officials, and stationed soldiers and horses, and completely integrated it into the territory of the Ming Dynasty."
Zhu Houzhao nodded slightly, his eyes fell on Li Huan and said: "I wonder if Li Qing has anything else to add?"
Li Huan pondered for a moment and said: "Your Majesty, I thought that while establishing the province of Jiaozhi, I could follow the example of Emperor Taizu in the past and ordered Mu Yingyong, Duke of Guizhou, to conquer Yunnan and select among the nobles who were loyal to the court and capable.
A man of extraordinary honour, he has held Cochin for a long time, assisted the imperial court in enlightenment, and ruled the newly annexed province of Cochin."
Many people's eyes lit up when they heard this. Emperor Taizu ordered Mu Yingyong, Duke of Guizhou, to conquer Yunnan. It indeed played an excellent role in controlling the imperial court and educating the land of Yunnan. Now it is not impossible to send an honorary minister.
Jiaozhi, Guiyong Town.
Among the nobles, many people's expressions changed when they heard this.
Although the Shizhen area, like the Yunnan Guizhou Duke lineage, has as much power in the local area as that of a prince, such a thing is not something that everyone wants to do.
Not to mention that far away from the capital, the newly opened lands in Jiaozhi belong to the barbarians. It can be said that as long as they are sent there, it is equivalent to leaving the prosperous capital and running to a remote place in the countryside.
Anyway, Duke Dingguo, Duke Cheng, and Duke Ying, who have been passed down from generation to generation, will never be willing to go to a remote place in Jiaozhi, even if they can dominate the place.
Xungui is not a fool. Shizhen Jiaozhi seems to have great benefits. If it is done well, it will be another Yunnan Mu family. But if it is not done well, the imperial court will not be able to pass the test.
As the emperor, Zhu Houzhao glanced at the crowd, took a deep breath and said: "Who do you think should be sent to Jiaozhi to take charge?"
An official rolled his eyes and stepped forward and said: "Your Majesty, I think that looking at the whole court, the Duke of Qin is the most suitable..."
It's a pity that before he could finish his words, the emperor glanced at him lightly and said, "Forget it, Duke of Qin. There is no need for Duke Qin to sit in the land of Jiaozhi."
Looking at Duke Dingguo, Duke Ying and other nobles, Zhu Houzhao didn't know what these people were thinking. They all said that forceful melons are not sweet. Seeing that these people did not want to go to Jiaozhi to sit in power, Zhu Houzhao did not beat these people.
Instead, he pondered for a moment and said: "I decree that Xu Ying, the general who conquered the South, be made the Duke of Anguo, and he will rule Jiaozhi from beginning to end!"
Everyone was stunned when they heard this, and then they reacted, especially the nobles, who all took a deep breath and bowed to the emperor at the same time: "Your Majesty, you are wise!"
When all the officials saw that the emperor had made up their mind, Xu Ying, as the general who conquered the south this time, had the power to destroy the country. If the army returned to the court, a hereditary Duke would definitely not be able to escape.
The nobles are more powerful.
It would be best if Xu Ying, a noble man with military exploits to destroy the country, was trapped in the land of Jiaozhi.
If you think about it this way, the civil servants will naturally not stand up to oppose it, and they will also follow the nobles and shout that the emperor is wise.
From the perspective of the imperial court, Xu Yingnian was only in his thirties and was responsible for the military service of destroying the country. If nothing unexpected happened, there would definitely be no problem in living to the age of sixty or seventy. With his ability, he could at least stabilize the situation in Jiaozhi.
For decades.
With so many decades, it was enough for the imperial court to completely control the land of Jiaozhi.
The officials retreated, and Zhu Houzhao, who had changed into regular clothes, walked with Li Huan in the imperial garden. Zhu Houzhao said to Li Huan, "What does Li Qing think I ordered Xu Ying to be in charge of Jiaozhi?"
Li Huan smiled and said: "It is perfect to have Xu Ying guard Jiaozhi. Its power of destroying the Li Dynasty can scare some ambitious people in Jiaozhi. If Emperor Taizong Wen could order the British Duke Zhang Fushi to control Jiaozhi back then,
, I’m afraid there won’t be any chance of Jiaozhi being gained and lost again.”
Li Huan then said: "Your Majesty can order the cabinet to build a road from Yunnan to Jiaozhi to connect the two places and strengthen the Central Plains' control over the border areas. At the same time, he can recruit great Confucians and celebrities to go to Jiaozhi to educate the people. In less than a few decades, it can be guaranteed
Jiaozhi has completely entered China, and there is no need to worry about recurrence."
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