Chapter 1472 Ali's Fear, Golden Tribute, a Dead End!

"A thousand pounds of...gold?!"

The rich divine smoke lingers in the blood-colored Yongning Temple, which is as dazzling as the flashing golden light. Ali, the chief of the Harman Tribe, opened his eyes wide, holding the golden talisman in his hand, and looked at Zuwaro in disbelief. At this moment, he thought he had hurt his ear or was hallucinating.

"Zu...Zu Shaman, are you kidding me? A thousand kilograms of gold? That's sixteen thousand taels of gold and at least one hundred thousand taels of silver! Such an astonishing amount of wealth would be difficult for even the Liaodong General Soldier to obtain Come out! In the cold lower reaches of the river, the savages drink blood and have few iron weapons. How can there be such a large sum of gold?..."

"Oh? You don't believe it?...Xiong Da, go to the flagship and get the bag of gold talismans from the bottom of the bilge!"

"good!"

The majestic Xiong Da nodded and ran out quickly. Not long after, he came back panting, carrying a heavy and strong straw bag tied tightly with leather straps. Then, he took off the straw bag from his shoulders and threw it heavily on the ground. A clear and sweet collision sound sounded in the bag.

"Ding! Ding!..."

“!!…”

With trembling fingers, Harman Chief Ali knelt down and untied the straw bag. Then, the dazzling golden light enveloped his face and dazzled his old eyes. He stretched out his palm and grabbed two handfuls of the golden talisman. Feeling the heavy weight in his hand, the expression on his face was both greedy and shocked. It was like a dream!

"Ancestor! This one is gold! So is this one! Are these all gold? This bag is all?! How is this possible?!... How could the poor savage tribe in the north just take out a bag so easily? Gold comes?…”

"That's right! Ali, this bag contains probably more than a hundred gold talismans. When the fleet came, they packed it in a bag and didn't count it carefully. Anyway, together, it will only be more than a hundred kilograms, not more than a hundred kilograms. Less! As for a thousand catties of gold, even ten thousand catties are easy for us who believe in the Lord God...

"The power of the Lord God is so incredible! He holds a spear of lightning in one hand, and in the other hand is the shining golden light. He has great magic power and can give us gold..."

"!!Mana? Is this a gift from the gods? Is it the conjured gold?..."

"Um…"

Zuvalo smiled slightly, carefully looked at Ali's excited expression, and probed meaningfully.

"How about it? Ali, do you believe it now? You said that if we go south with ten horses and one thousand kilograms of gold to pay tribute and trade to the Ming Dynasty in the south...the divine emperor of the Ming Dynasty will receive us and give us Need a craftsman in return?”

"!!...Zu Shaman, let me slow down, let me take a breath...Is this true?...This is true!..."

Ali, the chief of Harman, knelt in front of a bag of gold, trembling all over. He stared at the shining golden light in confusion, greedily inhaling the smoke of the temple. In the smoke, there was the familiar rosin of the Tungus tribe, the Anchun incense used by the Jurchens in Heilongjiang, and a strange spice that was difficult for him to distinguish, but was particularly soothing.

At this moment, in front of a large bag of gold "conjured" by the savage shaman, he was so shocked that he even thought that he had been enchanted by the shaman.

"Ancestor! In Kaiyuan Market, one stone of rice only costs five yuan and more silver. Even if it is sold to our Jurchen tribe at a higher price, it only costs six or seven yuan... This one hundred kilograms of gold is at least ten thousand taels of silver and fifteen thousand clear stones. The food is enough to feed a large tribe of five thousand people for a year..."

"But this is not food, or even silver, but gold! This is the rarest and hardest gold, the gold that everyone wants! Only the merchants in Kaiyuan Market are willing to buy the furs produced by the tribe, and you have to look at it. Their pricing. But no one will refuse these shining gold, whether they are joining the guerrilla army or going to the border guards!”

"The main god of golden light! As long as there is such a golden talisman, give it to the guard of Kaiyuan Market. The iron weapons that the tribe can bring back can be quadrupled! ... No! As long as there is such a golden talisman, the iron tools that the tribe can bring back will be quadrupled! The connections are traded to the various frontier forts. The commander-in-chief, even the higher-ups...all the armor, iron swords, and whatever weapons they want can be traded privately! Even if they are brought out of the border wall for trade...no! Trade outside the border wall. The smell of blood. ?…The smell of blood!…”

In the curl of divine smoke, Harman Chief Ali's eyes changed. He stared at the bag of golden talismans in front of him, as if he were seeing mountains of grain, or bundles of iron soldiers and armor.

His greed and desire when he first saw these golds were actually no different from those of peaceful warriors and businessmen. But his background is, after all, a Jurchen chief fighting for survival in the white mountains and black waters. Even if he accepts more "Chineseization", it will be difficult to change the situation of his tribe. All the tribal logic for survival...

"O Lord God! In front of the golden light of the Lord God, I smelled the smell of blood. It was the heart sacrificed on the altar, and it was death that was close at hand. Just like my chest with the emblem of the divine bird engraved on it!..."

Smelling the smell of blood in the divine smoke, Harman chief Ali suddenly woke up. With difficulty, he moved his eyes away from the piles of golden talismans and looked at the scarlet shaman altar under the emblem of the main god, and at the bloody heart sacrifice.

The ignorant, barbaric, ancient and mysterious tribal scene in front of him reminded him that he was not in the prosperous Kaiyuan market of the Ming Dynasty, but in the abandoned and desolate Yongning Temple, in the brutal lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River. His identity was no longer the "Haerman Wei Du Qianshi" or the "Haerman Chief", but the newly converted "apprentice Ali". As for the person beside him who took out such a bag of gold, it was not a tribal merchant who was trading, but a mysterious "savage shaman" who could perform spiritual rituals. The gold was meant for the Ming border troops, a group of wolfhounds that were not much better than the Jurchen tribes and were equally hungry. They were just being held on tight by the "civil priests" and "eunuchs"...

"Respected ancestor shaman who can conjure gold! These bags of gold are indeed the incredible power of the Lord God. They are huge wealth that I, Ali, and even the entire Jurchen tribes have never seen before!... I believe that you must have some kind of great magic power! Since you can conjure up this 100 kilograms of gold, whether it was robbed, given by the gods, or exchanged for some witchcraft sacrifice... You can definitely take out the 1,000 kilograms of gold as well!..."

Halman chief Ali pursed his lips, tried to drop the heavy golden talisman in his hand, and barely broke free from the golden light and stood up. The appearance of these golds, like the appearance of these tribes on the big boats, was shrouded in a mysterious color, and could only be explained by the gods. Anyway, in the history of the Harman tribe, it has never been heard that the northern savage tribes would carry a large amount of gold and sail south on a large ship. And no gold mines have ever been found in the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River...

"Zu Shaman, you may not know the value of these golds given by the Lord God to the Southern Ming Dynasty and the Liaodong Border Army. If we carry a thousand kilograms of gold to the south, we will never see the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Instead, we will die without a burial place, and not even a single person will be left alive!..."

"Oh? Ali, tell me in detail!"

"Hey!"

At this point, Chief Ali walked in front of Xiang Zuwaro and knelt down respectfully. Kneeling and kowtowing is a common etiquette among the Mongolian and Jurchen tribes to express respect for the superiors. In fact, it is not popular in the Han area at this time. And the Manchu colloquialism "je" still means "yes" and "yes". At this moment, Ali made a respectful gesture of obedience, his expression was not only full of awe, but also a little worried.

"Zu Shaman, in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the tribes fought each other, and the transactions were all barter, and they did not recognize gold and silver. These golds have always been brought to the southern Han area to exchange for what the tribe needs... and for the southern Han area, gold and silver are "money", which can buy everything. Whether it is food and drink, or marrying a wife and buying a house, you need money!... The value of this gold is beyond imagination, and all the Ming border troops who encounter it cannot tolerate and cannot let it go!"

"The southern Ming army has tens of thousands of troops. These "soldiers" with swords are different from our tribal warriors. They need "money" to support themselves... and ordinary border guards are counted as "one Ding". After being deducted by all levels every month, they can get the salary, or It is called "lucky money", which is usually no more than four or five coins. This little money can be exchanged for more than half a stone of grain, plus the border land that one grows, which is just enough to make a living, and often one cannot fill one's stomach... Of course, in order to get more "lucky money", there are always many vacancies, and they are increasing..."

"As for the capable soldiers in the border army, such as those scouts and vanguards at the front, they are probably "one man is worth two men". They can get about eight coins a month, and they don't have to farm themselves, as long as they work hard, they can have a full meal. Among them, only a very small number of the most elite warriors can "one man is worth three or four men", and rely on their extraordinary bravery to become the trusted servants of various commanders and thousand commanders. Their salaries will not be deducted, and the officers who follow them are often rewarded, about one or two taels a month Silver, no worries about food and drink..."

"And above them, like the 'commanders' appointed by the Ming Dynasty, there are corresponding positions in the Liaodong border town. Their monthly salary is 'five stones of rice', which is only three or four taels of silver. Of course, these salaries are just a small part, and they can't support their servants and servants at all. The bulk of their income is still 'eating empty salaries' and using 'soldiers' to work. "

"Generally speaking, there are 90 or 100 people in a 'post', and the empty salaries account for at least 20%. Calculated at 5 cents per person, this is 10 taels of silver! Of these 10 taels of silver, 30% are given to the lower level, 30% are kept for themselves, and 40% are given to the upper level, or they will not be issued at all..."

"Therefore, a thousand commander of the Liaodong border army, even if he eats 200 empty salaries, eats 100 people, and 100 people are not paid. Of the 100-liang "monthly ration", he could only get 30 liang a month. This was the best case scenario, which was actually impossible! Because the court would never pay the full salary, 80% of the money was a common practice. 80% of the money came from above, and the officials who handled it added 20% to the ration. If you could get 60%, you would have a very strong background..."

"And the thousand households in the border forts lived even harder. From the top thousand households to the lowest peasant soldiers, they all lived in extreme poverty. The monthly rations issued by the court were often less than half, and could even be as low as 20% or 30%. These border forts could not even get enough food, so they had to trade privately with our Jurchen tribe to make money. Those Haixi Jurchen ironwares were probably obtained in this way, and there must be border military forts involved in reselling! ..."

At this moment, Ha'erman, the commander of the Qianshi Ali, talked about the complex food and salary system of the Liaodong frontier army, as well as the advanced "empty salary experience" and the private trade that emerged at the border. Zuwaro's eyes widened as he listened. Eyes, "opened my eyes and saw the world" for the first time. At the end of the sentence, Ali took another breath of the divine smoke, pressed his heart with one hand, pointed to the bag of gold on the ground with one hand, and shouted through gritted teeth.

"Witness the blood-eyed Lord God! The Liaodong General Soldier in Liaodong Town controls tens of thousands to one hundred thousand border troops. Even if he eats the free pay of 10,000 soldiers for a whole year... it is estimated that this hundred kilograms of gold, this Ten thousand taels of silver!”

"This does not include the large share that the eunuchs at all levels ask for. In total, the Liaodong General Soldier can only get five or six thousand taels in a year..."

"Holy Emperor! As for one thousand kilograms of gold and one hundred thousand taels of silver, those are huge sums of money that even the general soldiers of Liaodong in the Ming Dynasty rarely see! As long as you get it in your hands, you can pay for twenty years at a time! ... Zu Shaman, If you carry a thousand kilograms of gold and go south with us, even if you successfully pass through the Jurchen tribes along the way, come to Kaiyuan Market and report it to the Liaodong General Soldier..."

"I'm afraid that when the time comes, the outcome waiting for us will not be accepting tribute, but will be a massacre by the Ming army. No chickens or dogs will be left behind! Together with the Kaiyuanwei market, everyone who knows about our tribute, whether they are Jurchens or No one from the tribe or the Han people can survive..."

"Then, Liaodong Town will report a great victory! Wipe out all the 'barbarians' who 'invaded' the Kaiyuan Guard and massacred the people in the market. Take the heads of our 'barbarians' to report their merits to the imperial court and pass the nine Bian, ask for another reward from the court!…"

I have been working at school these past few days and my waist has been injured. I just got up today and quickly coded a chapter. Sorry! .

By the way, as I promised before, I will recommend this book, "Domination of France Beginning with the Hundred Years' War". After Carlo traveled through time, he found himself in the Middle Ages, still a small conscript participating in the Hundred Years War between England and France.

Facing this chaotic era, Carlo walked on thin ice, acted cautiously, and took advantage of the changing times of the Middle Ages until he reached the crown:

"The throne of France may belong to me, Carlo!".