Gao pragmatically said that he would write a letter to Nurhaci. This was not because he was arrogant, but because he truly believed that he had such prestige that he could suppress Nurhachi.
At least at this time, he believed that Nurhaci did not dare to have the courage to anger him.
Maybe the Battle of Monan is still a little far away from Liaodong, but for the Jurchens, the Battle of Southern Liaoning is a war that breaks out at home. During the war, the various tribes around Liaodong, whether Jurchens or Mongolians, are now very
clear.
Gao Jingshi not only strategized in this battle, but also demonstrated unparalleled power of the Jurchens. Not only did he have a large number of powerful generals, but in addition to being able to use the power of the Ming Dynasty, he also had a team of servants who could turn into soldiers at any time.
The team, the number of people in this team of servants is extremely large.
What kind of quantity can be called extremely huge? Anyway, Nurhaci calculated on his fingers. The population he currently controls is less than 20% of the various types of employees that Jinghua has in Liaodong. Even excluding those female workers engaged in the tussah industry, Jianzhou Zuowei
The population is less than half of the workers employed by Jinghua in Liaodong.
Of course, population and employees are not the same thing, but Jinghua's industry in Liaodong now has a large number of miners, blacksmiths and other mostly young workers due to the newly built Liaoyang base. According to Jinghua's habits, such a base must have mine guards.
Nurhaci knew that these people could be turned into soldiers at any time and must be included in Beijing's armed forces.
And how many troops does Nurhaci himself have?
Even though he had just defeated Nikanwailan, his actual strength was only more than 3,000, less than 4,000. Even the Jinghua Liaoyang Iron and Steel Plant might not be able to capture this number, let alone the rest.
You know, Gao Jingshi was not only the boss of Jinghua, he was also the left minister of the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty. Gao Jingshi really pissed off Gao Jingshi, and it was not surprising that he persuaded the court to kill him first, Nurhaci.
What's more, because of the ginseng trade, Nurhachi can't do without Gao Pragmatism now.
Gao Jingjing, who controlled the Liao River waterway, has now become the de facto emperor behind Liaodong's business. Almost any large-scale trade can hardly avoid Jinghua's trade network.
In the trade market of Liaodong, ginseng, fur, honey, mushrooms, fungus, hazelnuts, and pine nuts are all popular specialties in Guanhai, among which ginseng is the most popular and almost irreplaceable.
As we all know, in the ancient Chinese medicine classics, ginseng is listed as a top-quality medicine. Doctors of the past dynasties believe that it can nourish the five internal organs, calm the spirit, calm the soul, relieve panic and palpitations, eliminate evil spirits, improve eyesight and happiness, and cure men.
It has many functions such as gynecological deficiency syndrome, etc., so the price of ginseng has always been high.
But at this time, Shanxi Shangdang, which was originally rich in ginseng, was almost extinct due to over-harvesting. Therefore, the main ginseng production area has been transferred to the Liaodong area where Jurchens gather. This made the border market of Fushun in Liaodong become the whole Ming Dynasty.
Even the largest ginseng trade market in the world.
According to Jinghua’s own statistics, the annual trading volume of Jurchen ginseng to the Ming Dynasty is more than tens of thousands of catties. According to the price of ginseng at this time, depending on the quality of the ginseng, it is about three taels to five taels of silver per catty (note
: This is recorded in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", which is about the price in the early Wanli year, and the price of ginseng on the eve of the late Ming Dynasty has soared to 15-20 taels), so the annual transaction volume is as high as hundreds of thousands or even more than 200,000 taels.
Two, for the extremely poor Jurchens, one can imagine how much profit there is.
It can be said that the ginseng trade is not only an important source of income for the Jurchens, but also an important economic pillar for the expansion of Nurhachi's power. In other words, as long as the high pragmatism at this time kills the ginseng trade, Nurhachi's power will plummet, and even internal problems will arise.
Chaos, that's also possible.
At this time, how could Nurhachi dare to challenge the high and pragmatic authority?
Therefore, after Gao Jingshi sent Wu Dui away, he wrote a letter directly to the Ministry of War and sent someone to Liaodong through Jinghua's own channels, and handed it directly to Nurhaci. He believed that Nurhachi would not be able to do anything according to the level shown by Nurhaci in the original history.
If you don't see the key, you won't do anything stupid.
Don't you want to hide your strength and bide your time to accumulate strength? Okay, then you can continue to stay there and don't jump out and cause trouble for me in the past few years. As for a few years from now, whether you have developed more strength or I have taken care of it.
The biggest threat in Liaodong is that Tumen Khan will come back to settle the score with you, so let's just sit on the donkey and read the songbook - we'll see.
Gao Pragmatic himself is actually somewhat skeptical about the medicinal properties of ginseng, because he remembers that later modern medicine analyzed the ingredients of ginseng and concluded that it is "similar to carrot root", and he is also very aware of the process of ginseng's gradual mythology.
The earliest record of the medicinal value of ginseng in China can be found in the "Shen Nong's Materia Medica", which was written in the Qin and Han Dynasties. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing said in "Treatise on Febrile Diseases" that ginseng "mainly treats pimples in the heart, and sideways treats vomiting without eating."
Later, medical books of the past dynasties such as "Famous Doctors" of the Southern Dynasty, "Medical Properties of Materia Medica" of the Tang Dynasty, "Zhujia Materia Medica" of the Song Dynasty, and "Medicinal Methods of Use" of the Yuan Dynasty all mentioned the medicinal functions of ginseng, but none of them can be said to be magical.
.
But in the Ming Dynasty, ginseng suddenly became more powerful, and became "ginseng cures all deficiencies in men and women", including "fever, spontaneous sweating, dizziness and headache", and "degenerative diseases, diarrhea and long-term illness". Ginseng then became more common than ordinary ginseng.
Chinese medicinal materials stand out and gain the status of "miracle medicine".
Just now he said that the ginseng eaten by Chinese people before the Ming Dynasty was mainly produced in the Shangdang area (today's Changzhi, Shanxi) and was called "Shangdang Shen"; followed by the Liaodong Ginseng in the Liaodong area, also known as Liaodong Ginseng.
In the early years, ginseng was only regarded as a common food and medicinal material. For example, Su Shi said in a letter to his friend Wang Dingguo, "If you want to send a letter, you can only send more dried dates. Ginseng is the hope. If you don't have it, you can also
If there is no need to send people, how can we work for thousands of miles with food and drink?" In the letter to Zhang Zhifu, he also said, "In case someone comes from the south to buy ginseng and several kilograms of dried dates, it will be necessary day and night."
It can be seen from this that for Su Shi, ginseng is just like dried dates. It is just a food to satisfy the appetite, not a magic medicine that can cure all diseases. Moreover, he often asked people to bring "several kilograms" along the way.
, also shows that this kind of food was not expensive at that time.
Of course, before the Ming Dynasty, there were also a few ginseng varieties that were considered very valuable. For example, there is a kind of "Purple Tuan Shen" in Shang Dangshen, which is said to only grow on Zi Tuan Mountain in Shang Dang area. It is recorded in "Mengxi Bi Tan" that
Wang Anshi suffered from asthma and needed purple ginseng for treatment but could not get it. A friend sent him a few taels, but Wang Anshi refused and said: "I have never had purple ginseng in my life, and I am still alive today."
However, judging from the fact that Su Shi ate ginseng "day and night" to satisfy his "eating" desires, at least in general Codonopsis ginseng was still a common thing in the Northern Song Dynasty, and only a few of the specialty ginseng products were distinguished. But this is not surprising.
For example, ordinary tea is only worth a few dollars, but if you want famous tea, how many times will the price increase?
The price of ginseng is also telling. Until the Jiajing period, ginseng was still a low-priced commodity. A pound of ginseng cost only one cent and a half of silver. By the Wanli period, the price of ginseng had risen to about 3 taels of silver per pound——
The reason is mentioned above. By the time we arrived in Chongzhen, the price of ginseng was as high as sixteen taels of silver per catty.
The great change in the status of ginseng, which directly became a miracle drug, actually happened after the Qing Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. There are probably four main reasons for this.
One is that ginseng is regarded as the embodiment of the royal aura of the Qing Dynasty. Originally, the naming of ginseng has a strong mystery. For example, there is a story in the legendary novel "Guanggujin Five Elements" of the Sui and Tang Dynasties: "During the reign of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty,
"There was a man in Shangdang who heard people's cries from behind his house every night, but he couldn't get what he asked for. He went to the house for about a mile and saw abnormal branches and leaves of ginseng. He dug five feet into the ground and found the ginseng, which was like a human body. All four limbs were ready, and the cries stopped."
This view has been passed down, and even influenced Li Shizhen. The "Compendium of Materia Medica" also regarded this mysterious talk as the origin of ginseng's medicinal effects: "When ginseng gradually grows, its roots are like human figures and have spirits.
That’s why it’s called ginseng, a sacred herb.”
Specifically in the Qing Dynasty, because the northeastern region where ginseng was produced was the "land of dragon prosperity" and was full of "kingly energy", ginseng was naturally regarded as the embodiment of this "kingly energy". For example, Ruan Kuisheng, a famous scholar during the Qianlong period,
Said: "From the east of Liaoyang, they can be found in the mountains and forests, and they are so popular with the local atmosphere. How can it be a coincidence?" - This is a clear connection between the growth of ginseng and the local atmosphere of the Northeast. As for his statement, it is obviously a compliment.
There is no need to discuss the issue of Tatar's smelly feet. In short, these statements have strengthened the superstition of ginseng, which is for sure.
Secondly, the Qing government monopolized the ginseng trade, which drove up the price of ginseng and intensified the superstition of ginseng among the people.
After Codonopsis ginseng was withdrawn from the market, the Ming Dynasty could only import a large amount of Liaodong ginseng from the Jurchens outside the customs as a substitute. The ginseng trade between the Jurchens and the Ming Dynasty was huge, and it was the most important financial source for the rise of the Jurchens.
For example, in the original history, from July of the 11th year of Wanli to March of the following year, the Haixi Jurchens traded with the Ming Dynasty 26 times at the border and sold 1,733.75 kilograms of ginseng.
In twelve years, the Ming court alone paid thirty thousand taels of silver to purchase ginseng.
The above two transactions are only official purchases, not counting the larger private trade. Therefore, in order to reduce the pressure on the treasury and lower the price of ginseng, the Ming Dynasty once closed the border market, resulting in a backlog of more than ten Jurchens in Jianzhou.
All 10,000 kilograms of ginseng rotted.
There are some other things here, which I won’t discuss for now. In short, in the entangled ginseng trade, the Jurchens gradually gathered the power to fight against the Ming Dynasty.
After the Tatars entered the customs, their royal family continued to firmly control the ginseng trade in their own hands. In the early Qing Dynasty, the royal family set up a special ginseng harvesting organization in the Northeast, the "Dashou Ula General Manager Yamen", and the princes of the Eight Banners were also allowed to send people to designated places.
Gathering ginseng in the mountains. Private gathering of ginseng is strictly prohibited, and there is even an edict that "any Han people encountered in the ginseng gathering place will be arrested."
During the Qianlong period, in order to increase control over the ginseng trade, the "Official Ginseng Bureau" was established. It was stipulated that all people who went into the mountains to collect ginseng must hold a certificate issued by the government. Some of the top-grade ginseng collected by the Official Ginseng Bureau was donated to the palace.
For domestic use, part is given to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for sale or disposal, and the remainder is sold to merchants.
The Qing Dynasty's ginseng management system was extremely complicated, but in the final analysis, its system ensured that most of the profits from the northeastern ginseng trade fell into the emperor's private pockets - at most, the amount reached 1 million taels of silver per year.
The imperial court monopolized the ginseng trade, and the result was a sharp rise in ginseng prices. For example, in the Jiangnan region, the Ministry of Internal Affairs designated the "Jiangnan Three Weavings" (Jiangning Weaving, Hangzhou Weaving, and Suzhou Weaving) and Guangdong Customs as franchised ginseng dealers. These government-run distributors
Merchants spared no effort to drive up the price of ginseng, so by the middle of the Qianlong reign, the price of ginseng had reached 600 to 800 taels of silver per catty; during the Jiaqing period, it even exceeded 2,000 taels of silver per catty.
The skyrocketing price of ginseng is complementary to the deification of ginseng. Xu Lingtai, a doctor who lived during the Qianlong period, once wrote an article "On Ginseng" and mentioned that there was a "superstitious belief in the efficacy of ginseng because of its high price".
"The psychology of: "The reason why doctors use it immediately when they are sick, but the sick people take it to death without any regrets, why? In the minds of fools, they all regard expensive medicine as good medicine and cheap medicine as bad medicine."
The general idea of this passage is very simple: patients feel that since the price of ginseng is so high, ginseng is naturally the best medicine. Doctors are also willing to take advantage of this mentality of patients and often prescribe ginseng to them - the patients' condition improves after eating ginseng.
Of course, it is the wonder of ginseng. If the condition still does not improve, they will not blame the doctor. Because in their opinion, if the disease cannot be cured by ginseng, it must really be incurable.
Well... some so-called qigong masters in later generations also made good use of this kind of thinking.
The third reason is that the Tatar royal family consumed large amounts of ginseng, which set an example for the people. A large amount of high-quality ginseng was retained by the Qing palace because the royal family consumed a lot of ginseng.
According to the "Ginseng Use Book" from the Qing Palace archives, in the last two years of his life, Emperor Qianlong "got ginseng a total of 359 times, paying thirty-seven taels and nine cents for fourth-grade ginseng." He also wrote a song "Ode to Ginseng"
The poem says that ginseng "has five leaves and three ya clouds, and is rich in Zhu Shilu and nectar. The earth's spiritual resources are beneficial to the yin, and the merits of the medical classics are noted in Daduan." The concubines and princesses of the Qianlong Dynasty also took ginseng. Even Cixi often ate ginseng.
, for more than 300 days from October of the 26th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu to September of the following year, he "shared two kilograms of ginseng, one tael, and one penny."
Emperors of the Qing Dynasty often used ginseng to reward ministers. For example, the scholar Ji Zengyun requested to return to his hometown to recuperate, and Emperor Qianlong ordered a reward of ten kilograms of ginseng; the scholar Fu Heng led the troops in Jinchuan to fight, but the climate was not suitable for him, and Emperor Qianlong rewarded him with three kilograms of ginseng. The vassals of the Qing Dynasty,
For example, the King of Siam, King Annan, etc. also received special rewards such as ginseng.
With the royal family taking the lead in demonstrating, the folk's superstition on the "miraculous effects" of ginseng became out of control, and there was an obsession that "it will not cure without ginseng, but it will be complete if you take it".
The last one is the "warming and tonic" culture in Jiangnan, which caters to the prevalence of ginseng superstition. Probably starting from the Qianlong period, Jiangnan developed a weird tonic culture. For example, Xu Dachun, a doctor at the time, said: "Today, it is based on the ancient sages'
The method is despicable and insignificant, and it cannot name the disease. It can only be summarized with clichés such as yang deficiency and yin deficiency, weak liver qi and kidneys, etc. It is dedicated to warming and tonic, so that external evils can enter the body and be tamed to the point of being incurable."
Xu Dachun's criticism was very spot on - of course, what he said about "external evil entering the body" was rather mysterious to Gao Pragmatic, who could only understand it as viral infection or something. In short, many Jiangnan doctors at that time liked to prescribe tonics, and various tonics
Among them, the most popular is ginseng.
This trend in the medical field is actually catering to the ginseng superstition of the people at that time. Since "all the nobles in the capital like to take ginseng, they try their best to buy ginseng to take it even though they are very poor" - no matter rich or poor, everyone believes that ginseng can be used to warm and nourish the body.
If chronic diseases can be cured, then as a doctor, the safest and most profitable way is undoubtedly to prescribe more ginseng when prescribing medicine.
Tartar's influence on ginseng's deification was supreme and pragmatic. Before time travel, many Chinese still believed that ginseng was a tonic that could cure all diseases. However, scientific testing has long confirmed that the main component of ginseng root, which is considered to be the most powerful, is the same as carrots.
Similar; other components in ginseng roots only show very low medicinal properties after extraction.
The only reason why Gao Pragmatic dares not completely deny ginseng is not the ginseng itself, but the fundamental difference between traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine.
The use of medicine in Western medicine is usually very direct. You can use it for whatever disease this medicine treats. Its efficacy is very clear and highly directional. But Chinese medicine is different. Traditional Chinese medicine pays attention to the principle of monarch and minister, and the same medicines
, even if the ingredients are different, sometimes the efficacy of the medicine is completely different, and it may not even be for the same disease, which is complicated.
Gao is pragmatic and has no knowledge of medicine. Although he believes in modern medicine, traditional Chinese medicine has cured countless patients for thousands of years. He does not dare to think that traditional Chinese medicine is useless. Therefore, he does not dare to directly rely on his market position to import ginseng from Ming Dynasty.
Cut it off.
However, although it is easy to break off, it is completely okay to use it to threaten Nurhachi.
According to what Gao Jingshi said in the letter, cutting off the ginseng trade would not cause any major problems for the Ming Dynasty, but for you, Jianzhou Zuowei, it would be a life-and-death risk. If you don’t withdraw your troops, there will be no border market this year.
Another merchant from the Ming Dynasty went to Fushun Pass to collect ginseng.
As for whether I can do it...if you want to prove it, you might as well give it a try.
----------
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Too Fat to Fly", "Tesla's Leakage Protector", "Mysterious Pineapple", and "ASolaF" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
PS: I would like to ask, are there any other novels that say that the lifeblood of Nurhaci’s rise was actually the ginseng trade?
PS: This chapter takes some space to explain the myth of ginseng, so this chapter is 800 words long.