Chapter 928: We Must Go to Nanjing to Make Money (Seeking Subscriptions)

"Great Emperor Your Majesty, your subject Abunai has no objections!"

"Great Emperor Your Majesty, your subject Babu also has no objections and is willing to sign and seal at once!"

The treaty contained many harsh terms, but the future Khans of Chahar and Tumed showed not the slightest dissatisfaction, because in addition to all the harsh terms, the treaty also stipulated the amount of goods and money the Ming court would bestow upon the two great khanates every year!

Beginning in the very year the two great khanates moved north of the Gobi, the Chahar Khanate and the Tumed Khanate would each receive from the Ming court an annual bounty of 360,000 taels of silver. These bounties would be paid in full in the form of Ministry of Revenue silver notes, with no departmental fees and not a single cash of kickback required. The two great khanates could present the notes at the Maritime Merchants Bank or the Salt Merchants Bank and draw the corresponding silver. However, they could not carry the silver back to the steppe; instead, they had to use it within the directly administered provinces of the Ming court to purchase goods, pay transport costs, or cover other related expenses.

As for what the two great khanates could buy, the Ming court would issue a restricted list — not everything could be purchased! But so long as an item was not on the list, it was permitted.

In addition, the Khans of both great khanates would be enfeoffed as Ming Princes and granted residences at Laoshan in Nanjing. The khanate Princes would not receive land grants, but they would receive corresponding stipends of roughly 10,000 taels of silver a year. This money would be used to maintain the princely establishments and to cover the expenses of the Khan's heirs or other sons while they were held as hostages within Ming territory.

In other words, the two khanates together would receive a total of 740,000 taels of silver in bounty from the Ming every year!

They had truly struck it rich!

Of course, the Chahar Khanate and the Tumed Khanate were both vassals of the Ming and were likewise required to offer tribute to their suzerain, the Ming. But their tribute was the symbolic "Nine Whites" tribute — that is, each year the two great khanates would each submit eight white horses and one white camel.

To trade nine worthless animals for 370,000 taels — Babu and Abunai would have been fools not to sign such a treaty!

And this 740,000 taels was not even the full cost of Zhu Cilang's bid to win acclaim in the Mongol lands of the northern frontier. The Zhu Emperor still had to spend several hundred thousand taels every year on the great lamas who came from Tibet, and he also had to give the Dzungar tribe in the northwest a large subsidy — the bounty for the Dzungar tribe was provisionally set at 400,000 taels per year!

In addition, the Ming court would station small garrisons at key points within the territories of the Chahar Khanate, the Tumed Khanate, and the Dzungar Khanate. That was yet another enormous expense!

Merely to maintain these three Mongol vassal states, the Great Zhu Emperor would have to spend nearly two million taels of silver a year, and this business of losing money to win acclaim was a bottomless pit that would have to be filled endlessly!

Never mind machine guns and railways — even with an atomic bomb, ruling the Yellow Hat Mongol territories would still come down to one word: "loss." And the losses would be even greater. How many American dollars was two million taels of silver? Only a bit over thirty million. If that were all it cost, the leaders of great powers in later ages would laugh themselves awake in their dreams.

But two million taels of silver now was not the same as thirty-odd million American dollars in later times. Two million taels now was an enormous sum, and even Zhu Cilang, the most skilled at squeezing revenue in all of Ming history, felt a sharp pang at the thought of this expense.

And such a vast sum of silver certainly could not be thrown around carelessly!

The Zhu Emperor let out a breath and said with a smile to the two Mongol Khans: "The Ming dynasty's bounty is for those with the ability to take it! The bounty treaty has been given to you, but to receive the bounty, you must first defeat the three Khalkha tribes and establish yourselves north of the Gobi, because this bounty is for the Chahar Khanate and the Tumed Khanate north of the Gobi!

Do you two understand?"

The Chahar and Tumed tribes were not worth that much money, but so long as they could return north of the Gobi and subdue the three Khalkha tribes, then they would be worth the price!

Without their efforts, the Zhu Emperor could not subdue the three Khalkha tribes. This was not the Zhu Emperor's own idle claim, but the unanimous view of Prince Dai, Zhu Cijiong, who was thoroughly familiar with Mongol affairs, and Duke of Liang, Wu Sangui.

The reason was simple: the land north of the Gobi was too vast, and the three Khalkha tribes were nomadic and unpredictable, while the Ming cavalry itself lacked the ability to live as nomads and therefore could not remain north of the Gobi for long. They could only launch short, blind northern expeditions based on outdated intelligence. The three nomadic tribes could easily play hide-and-seek with the Ming army across the boundless steppe. So long as they hid for thirty or fifty days and waited until the Ming army's provisions ran out, they could win without fighting.

Therefore, to defeat the three tribes, the only way was to arm the Chahar and Tumed tribes south of the Gobi and send them north of the Gobi. They themselves were nomadic tribes, and once they moved north, they could remain there for the long term. Once the Chahar and Tumed nomadized north of the Gobi, the three Khalkha tribes would have no way to "drift" anymore — these people would not be leaving, and once they occupied the three tribes' richest pastures, where could the three tribes hide? When that time came, they would either fight to the death or flee.

And once the three Khalkha tribes were finished, the Khorchin would be finished along with them, or they would all roll out together!

Because the Khorchin tribe's west and northwest would have become their enemy, the Chahar tribe. In that case, the Khorchin tribe would no longer be able to "drift" either. Facing a pincer attack from the Daning army and the Chahar Khanate, they would have only one road: death!

So the northward migration of the Chahar and Tumed tribes should help the Ming settle the three Khalkha tribes and the Khorchin tribe, and in passing allow the four garrisons of Daning, Anbei, Shuofang, and Beiping to seize large tracts of land.

And once the Daning and Beiping garrisons among them were established, Dodo's Andong Protectorate would find itself facing enemies on three sides!

"Understood, your subject understands!"

"Rest assured, Great Emperor, we will certainly defeat the three tribes north of the Gobi, because the three tribes north of the Gobi are very weak in military strength and are no match at all for us Mongols south of the Gobi!"

Seeing that the two Mongol princes were brimming with confidence, the Zhu Emperor had nothing more to say. Everyone knew the three tribes north of the Gobi were weaklings, and the Chahar and Tumed tribes would also receive help from the four armies of Shuofang, Anbei, Beiping, and Daning, as well as considerable military aid from the Ming court, so they should not lose to the three tribes north of the Gobi and the Khorchin tribe.

The two Mongol Khans finally departed with beaming smiles, but Zhu Cilang's money-losing business was not over yet!

Zhu Cijiong, Zhu Yujian, Wu Sangui, Huang Degong, Gao Jie, Shang Kexi, Kong Tingxun, and one Chuo Luosi Chuhuer Wubashi from the Dzungar tribe — eight "creditors" in all — were all holding their bills and waiting with cheerful smiles to dun the Ming Emperor for payment!

Without at least ten million a year, there was simply no way to send them packing!

The Zhu Emperor now understood the bitter predicament behind the Xuande contraction — it was all caused by lack of money! After the Ming moved its capital to Beijing, the court was far from the economic center, and at the same time, in order to supply Beijing with grain, it had to labor to maintain the Grand Canal and also pour money into the bottomless pit of Yellow River and Huai River flood control. Fiscal problems were bound to grow ever more severe!

If His Majesty the Xuande Emperor had enjoyed an annual income of a hundred million like Zhu Cilang, he surely would not have given up even an inch of territory!

But although Zhu Cilang had money, he could not throw it away without limit, or sooner or later he would bankrupt the Ming!

"Summon Prince Dai, Huang Degong, and Gao Jie to the hall!" Zhu Cilang called out the names of three "creditors" in one breath.

Prince Dai, Zhu Cijiong, had originally been Military Governor of Shuofang and was now to shift his garrison to Datong and assume the post of Grand Protector of Anbei. Huang Degong had originally been Military Governor of Huaibei and was now to shift his garrison to Daning and seize Khorchin territory. Gao Jie had been Military Governor of Xuhai and was now to shift his garrison to Xuanfu and assume the post of Military Governor of Beiping — the Beiping Military Governor's jurisdiction covered the territory of the Beiping Branch Regional Military Commission, excluding Shuntian Prefecture.

The great re-enfeoffment of these three frontier commands, plus the military operations they would have to launch in support of the Chahar and Tumed tribes' northward advance, added up to an astronomical expense!

So the Zhu Emperor had to settle accounts carefully with the three of them — he could not let these three creditors fleece him too savagely, nor could he let the three of them lose their shirts.

Otherwise, if the three frontier commands of Anbei, Daning, and Beiping went bankrupt, the stability of the Ming's northern frontier would be in trouble.