New Shun 1730

In the study.

The white porcelain pieces fell to the ground, and the tea on the table dripped down and gathered into a stream.

Liu Sheng, the Duke of Yi, was very angry, panting continuously, and his beard twitched with his breathing.

Tian Suo, the Duke of Qi, who was sitting on the opposite side, was still calm, holding the tea and sipping it slowly. After a long while, he asked: "Have you broken enough? If you don't have enough at home, I'll ask the servant to go back and get some, and you can break more."

The lazy tone, coupled with the servile look of sipping tea, added fuel to the fire.

But Liu Sheng's anger had almost been vented. It is said that only those who do not show their emotions on their faces are cultivated, but it is precisely because of this that the action of breaking the cup can convey anger.

This cup was broken for the Duke of Qi to see, indicating that he was really angry.

After a long time, Tian Suo slowly put down the teacup and shook his head.

"Brother Liu, you don't have to be like this. My son came to you every day a few days ago. Don't say you don't know that your third son wrote "A Brief Study of Western Countries". Even if he didn't tell you, you would know it with your personality."

"Yes, I know."

"That's it. You thought your son could be favored by the emperor, so you didn't care about it. Well, now your son is favored by the emperor, and the emperor has assigned him a task, but you are unwilling to do it? Now you blame me again. I really didn't know about Liu Yu's going to the northeast in advance. I originally thought that the emperor would let him go with me to receive the delegation, but I really didn't expect the emperor to let him go to the northeast directly."

Tian Suo presented facts and reasoned, secretly mocking Liu Sheng for not being grateful when he took advantage of him, and now looking for trouble when things were unexpected.

"Then again, it's good to go and gain some experience."

"Nonsense! It's good to go and gain experience. It doesn't matter if he goes to the northwest or to his uncle's place in the southwest. But to Songhua River? Is that a place for people?"

"Oh, I don't like to hear that." Tian Suo deliberately used an exaggerated tone, and said something sarcastic.

"There are more than a dozen guards and Zhechongfu at Songhua River. Border soldiers guard the border, so we can have fun in the capital. In your place, that place has become an inhuman place? Besides, we are nobles and we rest with the country. When it comes to rewards, border soldiers don't get a turn, and you get angry when you ask your son to go to Songhua River; when something happens, you ask the border soldiers to fight bravely. What's the reason?"

"Why, your son is a human being, but those soldiers who guard the border for the country are not human beings?"

This is what he said deliberately.

Liu Sheng knew the lazy nature of Tian Suo, the Duke of Qi, and laughed at his sarcastic tone.

"Have you eaten lamp ash? You just fart lightly. Why the hell are you so high-profile?"

"My Duke Yi is a meritorious official, but you Duke Qi are not? Why don't you write to His Majesty and ask your son to go? The Songhua River is not a place where people live. It is a bitter cold place. It is frozen in August and thaws in April and May. Summer is short, mosquitoes are like rain, and the border troops flee every year. You know it."

"Besides, the Russians are cruel, and spying on military intelligence is extremely dangerous. Yu'er only read about the Yongning Temple inscription in a book. How do you know that it is not a literati's nonsense? Let him lead a team to copy the Yongning Temple inscription, and let him lead a team to check roads and rivers, draw mountain and river maps, and spy on the defense of the Russian castles. How can this be as simple as serving the border troops?"

Speaking of this, Liu Sheng became even more angry.

At noon, he received a strange imperial edict and entered the palace, and found that Duke Qi was also there. He only knew what the emperor had arranged for his son.

It was said that he was promoted to serve in the army, but in fact it was a cover-up.

The decision-makers of Dashun, who knew about the affairs of Luosha State, had already decided on a countermeasure, which was to take the enemy by surprise and attack them when they were unprepared.

Duke Qi went to receive the Luosha delegation and argued about etiquette.

There was a lot to do around the Northeast.

Liaodong continued to build post stations and stockpile food and grass.

Send people to Korea to recruit some of Korea's musketeers, one to reduce expenses, two to see Korea's attitude, and three to check Korea's armaments.

The artillery of the Beijing camp should also take advantage of the time when Tian Suo and the Luosha people were arguing to secretly transport the cannons to the Songhua River.

Jilin Shipyard rushed to build ships, recruited the elite boarding warriors left by Zheng family in Fujian, sword and shield soldiers, and rattan shield soldiers, and quickly went north to strengthen the navy strength of Songhua River.

Once the opportunity comes, gather troops and launch a northern expedition against Luosha State.

Let some Mongolian tribes in the north who are sitting on the fence choose their side correctly to avoid the disaster of the Eastern Tartars in the late Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, use the trade of rhubarb and tea as a threat to force Luosha Kingdom not to interfere in the war against Dzungar in the northwest.

Once the war in the northeast is over, immediately recruit the elite soldiers and light cavalry from various Zhechongfu along the Songhua River to go to the northwest.

First the northeast, then the northwest. The general idea has been decided.

Liu Yu will take a group of people and go to the Songhua River secretly first.

As a rhubarb smuggler, cooperate with some naturalized Solon people disguised as the Ewenki deer hunting tribe to investigate the defense of Luosha Castle and the traffic conditions along the river, and draw maps of various places in Songhua River and Heilongjiang River.

And... copy the inscription of Yongning Temple during the Yongle period for future negotiations.

The people in the court are not crazy or stupid. Those who can make decisions like Tianyou Temple will all calculate economic accounts.

The only way to negotiate with Luosha Kingdom is to fight and negotiate at the same time. It is thousands of miles away from the Dzungar Kingdom in the northwest, which can be conquered with a little effort.

The northeast is bitterly cold, and there is the Songliao watershed.

The imperial court cannot afford to station tens of thousands of troops for a long time, or to continue a war for several years.

That is, from 20 years ago, after the Little Ice Age, the weather gradually warmed up, and that place could grow some food.

In the past, it was called "Dog Country", not an insulting name, but because the tribes there domesticated moose and hunting dogs, and relied on moose and hunting dogs to hunt in winter.

Sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn were introduced to China in the late Ming Dynasty, and people thought that they were artifacts, but they were not suitable for the Songhua River at that time.

The song in later generations was very accurate, "My home is on the Songhua River in the northeast... and there are soybeans and sorghum all over the mountains", not "corn and soybeans all over the mountains".

Before the advancement of corn breeding technology, the Songhua River Plain with a very short frost-free period could not grow corn at all, and could only grow sorghum and soybeans.

And soybeans... Even if the technology in later generations improved, fertilizers were spread as if they were free, and one acre of land would only produce 400 kilograms.

Songnen is not Liaodong.

If that place is really suitable for farming as some people imagine, how could the desire for arable land in the Xia Dynasty be blank for hundreds of years?

The Great Northern Wilderness, before the large tractors, could only be the Great Northern Wilderness.

Going to Guandong, without the railway that runs across the north and south and crossing the Songliao watershed, one could only go to Liaobei.

Songnen Three Rivers, the land is covered with swamps, and there is no pump to cultivate the land.

The grass roots are half a meter deep, and the chain track tractor can only break the grass roots. The cattle and horses can't plow even if they die of exhaustion.

The swamp water has been silted up for many years, and there are no deep water wells. Yellow rats that have not died from plague are everywhere. Ticks that have grown from the size of millet to the size of a fingertip after sucking blood can crawl all over the bodies of cats and dogs like Cthulhu creatures with warts all over their bodies. All kinds of strange diseases, Keshan disease, wind mouth disease, hemorrhagic fever, plague, cretinism, forest encephalitis.

Gadflies, horseflies, mosquitoes, small biting ticks, countless blood-sucking flying insects, gold miners only need to strip off their clothes to deal with their accomplices who hide gold, and they will be a skin bag and dry bones in less than a day.

Heavy snow on August 15, ice still not melted during Qingming outing, hail common on Qixi Festival, cold wind in December - this is the true appearance of the black land at this time.

Counting from the hanging of Chongzhen in Jiashen year, the country has been in chaos for 80 years, and there have been wars for decades, and there have been few years of real recuperation.

The population of Liaodong was almost empty after the chaos in the late Ming Dynasty. At that time, Dashun swept holes and plowed the courts in Liaodong, four words, countless corpses.

Now Liaodong is not full, let alone "knowing that the north is bitter, but going to the north".

There are very few people who cross the Songliao watershed to the Songhua River system, and at most they are gold miners and fur hunters.

War is the continuation of politics.

After the fight, it will eventually have to be resolved through negotiations. And negotiations not only rely on force, but also on "since ancient times".

Fortunately, Emperor Yongle left some legacy, and the court had its own bottom line.

Originally, after Li Gan succeeded to the throne, he wanted to solve the border troubles in the northeast and northwest. At first, they hoped to use the help of missionaries to draw accurate maps in the northeast.

During the negotiation, if they didn't even have a map, they would lose in momentum.

But now they have fallen out with the missionaries. They had caught the missionaries secretly sending maps to Macau before, which is hard to trust. There were few maps of Europe in China at that time, but Europe was full of Chinese maps with longitude and latitude secretly brought back by missionaries. There were a group of missionaries in the Imperial Observatory and the Ministry of Personnel, and the mountains and rivers were no secrets to the West.

This matter was confidential, and the only one in the circle of nobles who understood Western learning was Liu Yu.

This job was a hard job.

It even meant a life-or-death struggle: the most northeastern border fort of Dashun on the bank of the Songhua River was in Yilan County in later generations, three to five hundred miles away from the confluence of the Songhua River and the Heilongjiang River, not to mention that the Yongning Temple Stele was near the mouth of the Heilongjiang River.

In order to guard against the Luosha people, they could not take a boat, and they could not take a boat.

You have to rely on the tribes along the way to get there.

You have to pretend to be an Ewenki tribe hunting deer; pretend to be a merchant smuggling rhubarb to find out the defense of Luosha Castle.

You have to build good relations with the tribes you meet along the way, record the mountains and rivers along the way, and ask the tribes about their dissatisfaction with the "Yasak" fur tax levied by Luosha State.

Although it is not as easy as Zhang Bowang's access to the Western Regions, it is not easy either. "Nine deaths and one life" is not just a description.

In front of the emperor, Liu Sheng was submissive; in front of Tian Suo, Liu Sheng hit hard.

After all, it was his own flesh and blood, and he had to take on such a life-and-death mission.

He dared not vent his anger in the Forbidden City, so he could only return home and smash plates and bowls at Tian Suo to show his anger.

The road of the children of nobles does not need to be so difficult.

Even if it is said that he goes to the front of the army to gain experience, why do the children of nobles need such experience?

The one who guarded the southwest and changed the natives to officials was Xiangguo Gong, Liu Yu's uncle; the northwest was in constant war and the army was gathering, so it was easiest to make meritorious deeds. Although the generals there were not from the noble circle, and they had once spoken wildly in the Wude Palace and were quite dissatisfied with the noble children and playboys, it was at least safer.

Liu Sheng had long known that Liu Yu was secretly working on "A Brief Study of Western Countries" with Qi Guogong, and he did not stop it before because he thought it was a good thing.

Jian was in the emperor's heart, or followed Qi Guogong to contact the Luosha envoys, both of which were good ways to gild.

Gilding, gilding, neither dangerous, but also long-term.

Who would have thought that the emperor was so ambitious that he would throw his own son to the three thousand miles of white mountains and black waters.

How could this be gilding?

This was a real fight.

Tian Suo estimated that Liu Sheng had almost vented his anger, so he flicked the teacup and said quietly: "Brother Liu, do you think that the second son was given the title of Honor Guard casually? Since the founding of the country, how many people who were not the eldest son of the inherited title have been given the title of Honor Guard? Do you really think that the Honor Guard is a cabbage like the Sanqi Sheren that is common on the street?"

"Don't get angry here. Call the third son over and tell him what to do. It's August now, and we have to leave before the twelfth lunar month."

Liu Sheng sighed, knowing that this was the only way to deal with this matter.

When he was about to ask someone to pass on the message, he finally couldn't help asking the last question.

"Old Tian, ​​why are you so concerned about Yu'er's matter?"

Tian Suo rarely looked serious, and his expression was solemn.

"Brother Liu, you and I will be fifty soon. The younger generation is full of playboys and wastes, so there must be someone who can protect the younger generation. After choosing and choosing, I decided on your third son. You know what happened to the nobles of the Ming Dynasty after the Battle of Tumu Fortress. If the nobles can't even train soldiers and fight, why don't the civil officials take away your power?"

"The previous dynasty taught us that you nobles can't fight, so the civil officials must bring border generals to Beijing and preside over the affairs of the Beijing camp. The Beijing camp can't be abolished. You can't use a group of people who wet their pants when they hear about war, right? If the border generals come to Beijing, will we still have a good life?"

When it comes to concerns, Tian Suo even said some presumptuous and illegal words.

"The nobles cannot be a group of pigs, nor can they be a group of wolves."

"If there are two or three wolves in a group of pigs, that is what your majesty wants to see. If they are all pigs, your majesty has no choice but to use civil officials and generals to reduce the power of the nobles; if they are all wolves, Lan Yu, Hu Weiyong and Li Shanchang are lessons."

"Now they are a group of pigs. If you don't force out a wolf cub, they will all be surrounded in the pigpen and lick the food."