Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 1171: Return to the country
Zhu Shenzhui only gave a rough outline of the so-called Yunnan tea and salt new policy, and the specific aspects still need to be discussed with Mu Tianbo by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the court. Of course, the framework has been established, and the next step is the specific details, including profit distribution and implementation, etc. These are not urgent. Anyway, Mu Tianbo will stay in the capital for a while, so it doesn't matter if he returns to Yunnan after everything is settled.

The atmosphere of the meeting was quite good. In the afternoon, the emperor had lunch with Mu Tianbo. Although Zhu Shenzhui's meals were very simple and no different from those of ordinary people, it was a rare honor and privilege for a minister. Mu Tianbo accompanied the emperor for lunch and chatted for half an hour before leaving. After sending Mu Tianbo away, Zhu Shenzhui put away the smile on his face and replaced it with a solemn expression.

To be honest, Zhu Shenzui had a good impression of Mu Tianbo, and the Duke of Qian's Mansion had been guarding Yunnan for generations, so they were considered loyal enough to the Ming Dynasty.

But in fact, Yunnan has become a big problem since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. It can be said that the situation in Yunnan is caused by the Duke of Qian, and the problem also lies with the Duke of Qian.

Since Mu Ying, the Mu family has been in charge of Yunnan for generations and indeed made great contributions to the stability of Yunnan during the Ming Dynasty. It was also because of the presence of the Duke of Qian's Mansion in Yunnan that Yunnan gradually stabilized from the initial chaos and was thus controlled by the court.

But the so-called control is only in name, and the one who really controls Yunnan is the Duke of Qian, and there is no doubt about that. The attitude of successive Ming emperors towards the Duke of Qian shows that the Mu family has deep roots in Yunnan. To move Yunnan is to move the Mu family. Once the Mu family is moved, no one can guarantee what problems will arise in Yunnan.

As the emperor, Zhu Shenzhui solved the Jiannu in the northeast and, recently, united the Mongolian tribes through a meeting in Guihua City, thus establishing the formal ruling position of the Ming Dynasty over the Mongolian grasslands. It can be said that the problems in the north have been basically solved. It is impossible for war to break out in the north in a short period of time. The next step is large-scale immigration and development of Liaodong, as well as control over the Mongolian tribes.

After dealing with these problems, Zhu Shenzhui turned his attention to the interior. As production in the southwestern and central provinces recovered in recent years, the local areas gradually stabilized. But the only trouble was Yunnan. Because of the special circumstances of Yunnan during the founding of the country and the different policies thereafter, Yunnan was nominally a province of the Ming Dynasty, but it was outside the Ming Dynasty court.

Even though the Ming Dynasty set up the Provincial Administration Commission in Yunnan and sent a governor, the one who really had the final say in Yunnan was not the government but the Mu family. In addition, due to the complicated local chieftain regimes and ethnic minorities, Yunnan seemed stable on the surface, but in reality, it was still like a powder keg, which could change at any time.

The Tusi problem has always been the most thorny issue for the Ming Dynasty in the southwest. Among the three major expeditions of the Wanli Emperor, one was the Bozhou Campaign, which was caused by the rebellion of Guizhou Tusi Yang Yinglong. Compared with Guizhou, the Tusi situation in Yunnan was more complicated and more serious.

If an incident like Yang Yinglong broke out in Yunnan, it would not be so easy for the imperial court to quell it. Moreover, there are already signs of this happening in Yunnan now. For example, Wu Bikui, the chieftain of Wuding, and Sha Dingzhou, the chieftain of Mengzi, who I mentioned when I met Mu Tianbo just now, are ready to make a move, and the latter is secretly plotting. Who knows, these two thunders may explode one day.

As the Duke of Qian, Mu Tianbo had the duty of guarding the city and was loyal to the court, but how loyal was he? Zhu Shenzhui could assert that it was definitely not 100%, but 70 or 80 at most.

The rest was just his selfishness, or the selfishness of the Duke of Qian. As the top nobles who ruled Yunnan for generations, the heads of the Mu family could not be stupid. They must have known that the main reason why their family could guard Yunnan was precisely because of the complicated problems in Yunnan. It was also because of these situations that the court had to rely on the Duke of Qian's Mansion to allow the Mu family to obtain such a transcendent status.

The reasoning behind this is the same as when Li Chengliang was in Liaodong. How did the Jian Nu rise? How did Nurhaci, who was just a slave raising horses for Li Chengliang, become a threat to the Ming Dynasty? Wasn't it because Li Chengliang intended to balance the various ethnic groups in Liaodong and raise the enemy to ensure his and his family's superior status in Liaodong?
Li Chengliang was an expert at this. He would send troops to attack the powerful tribes in Liaodong from time to time, killing a group of people at any time, and at the same time he would support the weak tribes for his own use. According to his actions, Li Chengliang used this method to control the entire Liaodong in his own hands, and made the Li family the actual local emperor of Liaodong.

But Li Chengliang was smart all his life but confused for a moment, and eventually he messed up the game. In addition to the fact that Nurhaci endured and tried to please Li Chengliang, secretly accumulating strength and waiting for an opportunity, another important point was that Li Chengliang never expected that his successor, the famous Li Rusong, would be unexpectedly killed in a battle with the Mongols when he was at the peak of his career.

After Li Rusong's death, Li Chengliang had no suitable successor for the next time, and he was already old at that time, and he had no time and energy to train another successor. As for the other sons, they were far inferior to Li Rusong, and they could not suppress the Liaodong tribes, including Nurhaci, who was ready to move. After Li Chengliang's death, the once powerful Li family of Liaodong collapsed, and Nurhaci took this opportunity to rise up, and finally caused a disaster. In fact, like Li Chengliang's situation, the Qianguo Mansion in Yunnan was also suspected of raising bandits for its own benefit, but the Qianguogong of all dynasties did it more covertly and cleverly than Li Chengliang, and they always divided and used those chieftains and never let them grow. In addition, there was no real hero like Nurhaci among these chieftains, and the specialness of the Qianguogong Mansion among the nobles made the Qianguogong Mansion a permanent town in Yunnan and a stable position.

These problems were not only clear to Zhu Shenzhui, but also to the previous emperors of the Ming Dynasty. Everyone was not a fool. If we carefully analyzed the situation in Yunnan, wouldn't we know what was going on? However, given the special nature of Yunnan, these previous emperors did not dare to touch the Duke of Qian's Mansion lightly, because they all knew that once the Duke of Qian's Mansion was touched, Yunnan would be in chaos without the Mu family guarding it. At that time, not only would the chaos in Yunnan not be resolved, but it was even possible that Yunnan would directly break away from the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Shenzhui also understood this. Mu Tianbo must not be touched. No matter what happened to the Duke of Qian, as long as the Mu family was in Yunnan, Yunnan would still be a province of the Ming Dynasty. Once the Mu family was touched, the situation in Yunnan would be hard to say.

However, this situation cannot be like this forever. The Ming Dynasty will not let Yunnan stay like this forever, right? Relying on the Mu family to maintain the situation in Yunnan. In this way, the longer the time, the more solid the Mu family's foundation in Yunnan will be, and the more difficult it will be to solve the problems in Yunnan. To completely solve the problems in Yunnan, history has proven that the only way is to change the natives into officials.

The so-called reform of Tusi is to change the Tusi regime that currently controls the Yunnan area into an official government set up by the imperial court, and set up officials to effectively manage it. In this way, the fundamental problem of Tusi's father's death and son's succession to actually control the local area can be solved. Doesn't the Mu family know this method? Even if most of the Mu family heads didn't think of it, there are many Dukes of Qian who are very capable and have outstanding vision! But from the founding of the Ming Dynasty to the present, the Dukes of Qian have never done this, let alone proposed this suggestion to the imperial court. They only led troops to suppress and pacify the rebellion of several Tusi from time to time in Yunnan, in order to win credit from the imperial court, and after the war, they did not set up government offices and officials, but only supported new Tusi to replace them. Why can't you see the purpose of such behavior?

Zhu Shenzhu was ready to take action against Yunnan, the key lies in the current situation of Yunnan and the Mu family of the Duke of Qian, but he also knew that it was not easy to attack the Mu family, and the consequences would be disastrous. So Zhu Shenzhu thought about it and finally came up with a solution, which was to find a reason to invite Mu Tianbo to Beijing to meet him, so as to judge Mu Tianbo's attitude first, and also to see with his own eyes what kind of person and character this contemporary Mu family patriarch is.

In addition, taking advantage of the opportunity of the meeting, Zhu Shenzhui first raised the issues of Wuding Tusi Wubikui and Mengzi Tusi Shadingzhou to remind Mu Tianbo and let the other party dispel some concerns, thinking that the Mu family is still in the emperor's favor and relax his vigilance against the court and the emperor.

At this time, Zhu Shenzhui threw out a bait by reforming Yunnan's tea and salt system to lure Mu Tianbo into becoming interested. To be honest, Zhu Shenzhui's manipulation of Yunnan's tea and salt policy was indeed beneficial to the Mu family. This was not a deception or a trap, but a real benefit. Moreover, this benefit was not small. Mu Tianbo was not a fool. If there were any calculations in it, with Mu Tianbo's wisdom, even if he could not see it today, he would be able to understand it in the future, so there was no need to do anything in this matter.

Zhu Shenzhui's real purpose in proposing the new policy on tea and salt was not the new policy, but to use this opportunity to extend his tentacles to Yunnan and directly establish contact with Yunnan without the Mu family. Originally, the local government was the most suitable person to do this, but for so many years, the local government in Yunnan could be said to be a decoration. Whether it was the governor, governor, or general sent by the court, their tasks in Yunnan were nothing more than two: one was to represent the central government's rule over Yunnan in name, and the other was to guard against and contain the Mu family in Yunnan. As for other things, they could not do much at all.

Through the new tea and salt policy, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ming Royal Bank, including the Zongli Yamen, bypassed the provincial government and intervened in Yunnan. This gave them a lot to do. Zhu Shenzhu understood the nature of war better than people of his time. No matter what kind of war it was, it was nothing more than a continuation of economics and politics, especially the former, which was more important.

What was the real purpose of the rebellion of the local chieftains and ethnic minorities in Yunnan? What did they want to gain? Some things are easy to understand if you analyze them. Then, through the new tea and salt policy, promote the development of Yunnan, build official roads to open up transportation, and prepare for the future. This is Zhu Shenzhu's real purpose.

After ten years or so, these results will gradually become apparent, and by then the control of the Mu family over Yunnan will continue to weaken, while the imperial court's influence on local chieftains and ethnic minorities in Yunnan will continue to increase. By then, if the policy of converting chieftains into officials is properly implemented, or even a war is initiated to resolve some troublemakers, the situation in Yunnan will be greatly improved, and whether the Mu family, the Duke of Qian, still needs to exist in Yunnan at that time will depend on the actual situation.

(End of this chapter)