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

Chapter 136 Exchange of Interests
Ashitemur was not only Tana's father, he was also the taiji of the tribe.

Although my daughter's happiness is important, the tribe is the foundation of myself and my descendants. Without the tribe, everything is empty.

The meal that night was very ordinary. No one drank much and didn't eat too late. Except for beating Zhu Shenzhu at the beginning, Ashil Timur didn't say anything else. It was just the usual chat about family matters.

After the meal, Ashil Temur asked Zhu Shencui to go back and rest first. Although he had agreed to the marriage between him and Tana, some preparations were still needed to marry Tana to Zhu Shencui. The Mongolian wedding was not as complicated as that of the Ming Dynasty, but there were still necessary procedures. Therefore, the wedding was scheduled for three days later, and preparations had to start from tomorrow.

For this reason, Tana reluctantly sent Zhu Shencui away. Although her heart had already flown to Zhu Shencui, she could not follow Zhu Shencui back to his yurt due to custom.

However, Tana could not hide the smile on her face. In her opinion, the husband she chose was unexpectedly excellent, especially since Zhu Shenzui easily defeated Morigen today. This made Tana even more surprised. Her husband was so perfect. As a woman, was there anything better than this in her life?

The next morning, Zhu Shencui went to Ashe Temur's yurt. As the marriage was set, everyone knew overnight that the most beautiful flower in the tribe had been picked by the young man from the Ming Dynasty.

There were jealous people, and there were also indignant people, but most people showed goodwill to Zhu Shenzhui. And no one knew who spread the news that Zhu Shenzhui defeated Morigen with just one move yesterday. For a while, several Mongolian men who originally wanted to compete with Zhu Shenzhui and teach this Ming man a lesson were shocked when they heard about it. Especially when they found Morigen to ask whether it was true or not, they saw that Morigen was silent, and everyone immediately gave up the idea.

This time they met Ashitemur again, nominally for the two sides to discuss the next marriage arrangements, but in fact, both Ashitemur and Zhu Shenzhu knew in their hearts that today's meeting was the real confrontation between them as father-in-law and son-in-law, and yesterday's meeting was just an appetizer.

As mentioned before, Ashi Temur was the Taiji of the tribe and the Jinong of the Mongols. Although he was Tana's father and doted on his daughter, in terms of his identity and status, the tribe always came first.

The few bland words yesterday were actually a test from Ashi Temur, and Zhu Shenzhui knew this very well. So when they met today, without Tana by his side, Ashi Temur could have a good "chat" with Zhu Shenzhui without restraint, and the content of the talk was nothing more than the word "interest".

For Mongolians, including Han Chinese, one of the roles of women is to arrange marriages, which is a long tradition.

In all dynasties before the Ming Dynasty, intermarriages with nomadic peoples of the grasslands were common, and in order to better survive, many tribes on the grasslands also intermarried with each other.

Since Tana has set her eyes on Zhu Shenzhui and Zhu Shenzhui has passed her test, maximizing the benefits is the only option for Ashi Temur now, and he will never let go of this opportunity. Moreover, Zhu Shenzhui is not only a member of the royal family of the Ming Dynasty, but also the head of the merchants. Having a decent-sized business in the Ming Dynasty is also tempting for his own tribe.

The situation on the grassland has not been very good in recent years. Natural disasters have occurred frequently, and every winter is very difficult to endure. Last year, many small tribes on the grassland did not survive. They either surrendered to the big tribes and were annexed, or completely disappeared on the grassland.

In addition to natural disasters, there are also constant wars. Although the wars on the grasslands have never stopped for hundreds of years, the wars launched by Lin Dan Khan in recent years have been too frequent. As a commander of the right wing of Mongolia, Ashi Temur is a supporter of Lin Dan Khan, but it does not mean that he can always support him unconditionally.

In the case of gaining benefits, he would certainly stand on the side of Ligdan Khan. But when the benefits are less than the cost and he suffers long-term losses, Ashi Temur also has his own calculations.

Ashe Temur had to consider his tribe. Once the tribe was gone, his descendants would no longer have a foundation. In this situation, Ashe Temur needed a lot of materials for the tribe to survive, including food, cloth and even ironware. Only with these, his tribe could survive in this cruel situation and no longer just weaken like it is now.

In fact, there was also this reason why Burigude took the initiative to invite Zhu Shenzhu to trade with the tribe. Ashi Temur thought deeper and farther than Burigude. In his opinion, once Zhu Shenzhu became his son-in-law, he would have a way out in the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Shenzhu used the name of the business to continuously transport the resources he needed to the grassland to maintain the development of the tribe, or he used the ironware obtained from the Ming Dynasty to strengthen the strength of the tribe and resist the possible risk of war.

In addition, Zhu Shenzhui was a member of the imperial clan. Although this status was not high, it was still a member of the imperial clan. With this status, Ashe Temur had a direct channel to communicate with the imperial court and even the emperor in the Ming Dynasty.

If things were impossible on the grasslands that day, this would be a way out. Through Zhu Shenzhui's status as a royal family member, he could get in touch with the Ming court, just like some tribes that moved to the Great Wall. It would be better to rely on the Ming and become a Shunyi King than to have the tribe perish, right? That day, the future father-in-law and son-in-law chatted in the yurt for a whole day, and no one knew what they were talking about.

The Mongolian guards waiting outside could only vaguely hear fragments of words coming from inside, and many times the two seemed to be arguing, but they quickly calmed down and even laughed heartily later.

Zhu Shenzhui finally left Ashe Temur's yurt in the evening. But unlike yesterday, Ashe Temur personally sent Zhu Shenzhui out for the first time, and even hugged him warmly when they parted. Seeing this scene, the Mongolians couldn't help but sigh that their Taiji really loved the whole family and was so kind to the Ming people who had picked such a beautiful flower like Tana.

After bidding farewell to Ashi Temur, Zhu Shencui walked towards his yurt. Along the way, Zhu Shencui seemed very calm, with a calm face.

But after entering the yurt, with no outsiders around, Zhu Shenzhui couldn't help but smile and laughed unscrupulously.

For a whole day, he and Ashitemur engaged in a heated argument. The two argued for a long time over interests and finally reached an agreement on many things.

The old fox Ashi Temur finally showed his tail. He intended to use Zhu Shencui to achieve his own goal. Zhu Shencui was no pushover either. Such an opportunity was rare for him as well. Since they wanted to cooperate, he also had to get benefits from Ashi Temur.

After discussion, the two reached an agreement that the main trading partner of Zhu Shenzui's caravan would be Ashil Timur's tribe. Zhu Shenzui was not only responsible for bringing enough food, cloth and other daily necessities to the tribe, but also for helping Ashil Timur get some ironware and even armor and other war supplies.

These things are what Ashi Timur urgently needs, and they are also what his tribe depends on for survival in the future. With Zhu Shencui's support in this regard, his tribe no longer needs to worry about the threat of natural disasters, and is more confident in facing the losses brought by war.

As for Zhu Shencui, what he sought was not only wealth. While trading, he was not only helping Ashitemur, but also himself.

He wanted to accumulate wealth quickly, obtain a large amount of funds through trade with the grassland, and carry out his own development plan. Ashi Temur's conditions were an opportunity for him, and from this point of view it was a win-win situation. Zhu Shenzhu had no reason not to agree.

Of course, business is business, even for father-in-law and son-in-law. Zhu Shenzhui is not a sucker. He needs a generous reward for bringing the materials from Ming Dynasty to the grassland at the risk of his life. The two haggled for a long time over the trade method, price and other details, and even quarreled with each other, before finally coming up with a plan that both sides could accept.

Even so, Zhu Shenzhui had made a great profit. For ordinary companies to go to the grassland to trade, even if they had fixed customers, it would take a certain period of time for the trade process to continue. In addition, the precautions between the two parties and other issues made the process very complicated, so a round trip would take a long time.

But things were different after Zhu Shencui and Tana got married. They became a family. Even if brothers were to settle accounts openly, it was more reliable than ordinary Ming merchants trading with Mongolian tribes. Moreover, Zhu Shencui proposed to Ashe Temur that he wanted Tana to be in charge of the future trade between the two sides, so that everyone would be assured. In addition, Zhu Shencui would leave two of the people he brought this time for Tana to help her get familiar with the next operation and pricing, etc.

There was no reason for Ashe Temur not to agree to this suggestion. Tana was his daughter. Could it be that he didn't even trust Tana? So Ashe Temur agreed immediately. At Zhu Shencui's strong request, he agreed to allocate a group of people from the tribe to Tana. In the future, these people would be Zhu Shencui and Tana's direct subordinates in the tribe.

These people are the bravest warriors in the tribe and the best cavalry.

These people belong to Tana in name, but in fact they belong to Zhu Shenzhui, and they are also the guarantee for his and Tana's future status in the tribe.

Moreover, with these people, Zhu Shenzhui planned to bring some of them back to Ming Dynasty by exchanging them one after another. Of course, the number of people could not be too large, and at most only 10 to 20 people would be brought at a time. With such a number of people mixed in the caravan, there would be no problem in concealing it.

(End of this chapter)