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

Chapter 396 Inaction

Although Yuan Chonghuan and Sun Chuanting have a huge gap in status and position now, they are of the same age and are friends after all. Yuan Chonghuan was still very happy to receive the letter from Sun Chuanting.

Before reading the letter, Yuan Chonghuan wondered why Sun Chuanting, who had not been in contact for a long time, suddenly wrote to him. Could it be that Sun Chuanting regretted staying at home after returning home? Was he planning to use his connections to get back on his feet?
If this is the case, Yuan Chonghuan would not mind helping Sun Chuanting. He is very familiar with Sun Chuanting and knows that Sun Chuanting is very capable. More importantly, Sun Chuanting is a rare talent who is both civil and military.

He had just taken over as the governor of Liaodong. Although many generals in Liaodong had been bribed by Yuan Chonghuan, there were still some generals who still refused to give Yuan Chonghuan face. This made Yuan Chonghuan, who had a high opinion of himself, very angry.

These days, Yuan Chonghuan has been thinking about how to deal with those Liaodong generals who are not dependent on him and completely control the military and political affairs of Liaodong. Now Sun Chuanting's letter has given him an opportunity. If Sun Chuanting intends to make a comeback, he can ask Wei Zhongxian for help and let Sun Chuanting come to Liaodong to help him.

With Sun Chuanting's ability, if he was willing to work under him, it would be like adding wings to a tiger for Yuan Chonghuan. When the time came, the two of them would cooperate with each other and deal with those Liaodong generals without any problem. Thinking of this, Yuan Chonghuan was even happier and immediately opened the letter to read it carefully. Unexpectedly, Yuan Chonghuan was stunned after reading it, his face was uncertain and his brows were furrowed.

"Bastard!" After reading the letter, Yuan Chonghuan slapped the table hard, sweeping the paperweight on the table to the ground. His face turned ashen and he couldn't help but stand up and walk quickly around the room.

After walking for a while, he stopped, went back to the table and picked up the letter to read it again. This time he read it more carefully than the first time. After reading it again, although there was still anger on his face, he suppressed it.

Yuan Chonghuan never expected that Sun Chuanting would write him such a letter. The content of the letter did not mean that Sun Chuanting was planning to be reinstated, nor did it ask Yuan Chonghuan to help him in his official career.

There are two things written in this letter. One is to remind Yuan Chonghuan that some people are secretly smuggling goods to the Jiannu in Liaodong on a large scale. The smuggled materials include food, medicine, cloth and even military equipment. These smuggling are led by businessmen, and behind the businessmen there are some big figures.

As their smuggling became rampant, it had seriously affected the strategy of blockading the Jiannu in Liaodong formulated by Sun Chengzong. The Jiannu in Liaodong obtained a large amount of supplies from the Ming Dynasty through smuggling, which was a very serious problem for the entire Liaodong war situation.

Considering the overall situation, Sun Chuanting suggested that Yuan Chonghuan must immediately put an end to this smuggling behavior, strengthen the main roads leading to the Jiannu in Liaodong, strictly block possible loopholes, and never let a grain of food or a piece of ironware fall into the hands of the Jiannu in Liaodong.

In addition, any smuggling discovered must be severely punished, no matter who it is. Some may be beheaded, some may be imprisoned. At the same time, the network of relationships behind them must be revealed and reported to the emperor, and collective punishment must be implemented to make sure that such incidents never happen again.

When Yuan Chonghuan saw these murderous words, he felt as if someone had slapped him hard in the face, making half of his face burn with pain.

As the top leader of the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong, Yuan Chonghuan was actually the main backstage of the Ming Dynasty's smuggling to Liaodong. Over the years, relying on the smuggling trade, everything his brother Yuan Chongyu did was tacitly approved by Yuan Chonghuan. It was also for this reason that Yuan Chonghuan not only made a lot of money from smuggling, but also used smuggling to win over Liaodong generals, including the Zu family and the Wu family.

After Sun Chengzong left office, Yuan Chonghuan's smuggling behavior became even worse. Even shortly after the Battle of Ningyuan, Yuan Chonghuan reported to the court that the Battle of Ningyuan had consumed a huge amount of materials and required replenishment of various materials. At the same time, he withheld a lot of materials. However, the withheld materials were smuggled by Yuan Chongyu to Liaodong and directly into the hands of Nurhaci, the enemy of the Ming Dynasty.

After Nurhaci's death, Yuan Chonghuan had an idea and found people to spread the rumor that Nurhaci died from his artillery fire in the Battle of Ningyuan. As this statement spread, Yuan Chonghuan's fame was at its peak. Emperor Tianqi did not give it much thought due to health reasons, and with the advice of Wei Zhongxian, he agreed to let Yuan Chonghuan replace Gao Di as the governor of Liaodong.

After becoming the governor of Liaodong, Yuan Chonghuan became even more unscrupulous. He not only began to figure out the ideas of Emperor Tianqi, but also took the initiative to propose to the court to negotiate peace with the Later Jin Jiannu. In this way, with the consent of Wei Zhongxian and the fact that Emperor Tianqi did not object, Yuan Chonghuan directly began to contact Huang Taiji. In the process of contact, in order to show the "sincerity" of the Ming Dynasty, Yuan Chonghuan directly resold a large amount of military rations and other supplies to Huang Taiji in order to dispel the other party's concerns and promote peace talks. Now Sun Chuanting's letter mentioned the issue of smuggling, and said that smuggling was not only the behavior of merchants, but also had backstage instructions. This backstage was not an ordinary backstage, and it must be an important official in the court. When looking at these words, Yuan Chonghuan almost felt that Sun Chuanting was standing in front of him, pointing at his nose and scolding him.

This made Yuan Chonghuan furious. What did Sun Chuanting mean? Did he know that he was the one who ordered the smuggling to Huang Taiji? Did he even embezzle a large amount of military rations and send them to the Qing Dynasty?
Subconsciously, Yuan Chonghuan thought that Sun Chuanting was directly scolding him and using this matter to warn him. But after calming down, Yuan Chonghuan found something wrong. He knew Sun Chuanting very well. With Sun Chuanting's temper, if he knew that he was the mastermind behind the smuggling, he would never be so polite. He would never write him such a letter, let alone say such words in a letter.

So, was Sun Chuanting completely unaware of the connection between smuggling and himself? Did he just hear about the smuggling from somewhere and wrote this letter to him out of good intentions?

The more Yuan Chonghuan thought about it, the more he felt that this possibility was greater, otherwise Sun Chuanting would never do this. Although he had already resigned, he was still an official after all, and Sun Chuanting also had some foundation in the court. Even if he did not have a big backer, he had teachers, friends and so on. If he wanted to deal with Yuan Chonghuan, there was no need to do this. He could just write a memorial and ask someone to hand it to the emperor. Why bother taking off his pants to fart?

His expression gradually relaxed, and Yuan Chonghuan felt that his judgment should be correct. Sun Chuanting didn't know the details at all, and only heard the basics. The letter was well-intentioned and not directed at him.

After feeling relieved, Yuan Chonghuan soon became angry again. This time, he was not angry at Sun Chuanting, but at his younger brother Yuan Chongyu. This guy had been a little arrogant these days. When he was in charge of Ningyuan before, Yuan Chongyu was very careful in doing things. But as he became the governor of Liaodong first and now the governor of Liaodong, Yuan Chongyu began to get carried away and did things almost without concealing it. Otherwise, how could Sun Chuanting, who was far away in Shanxi, know that someone in Liaodong was smuggling to the Jiannu?
"This bastard! Damn it!" Yuan Chonghuan cursed with gnashing teeth. What would happen if this continued? This kind of thing could only be done secretly, how could it be publicized everywhere? This was a capital offense. Fortunately, Sun Chuanting sent a letter. If the Donglin Party or others knew the truth and used it to attack him, even if he could get away with it, he might still lose his job.

Yuan Chonghuan had finally climbed to his current position through great difficulty and hardships. He did not want to be dismissed from office because of such a thing, otherwise all his hard work over the years would be in vain.
We'll settle the score with that bastard Yuan Chongyu later. We can't find him now. This guy went to Shenyang with a batch of supplies a few days ago and will not be back for a few days.

Then Yuan Chonghuan continued to read an incident mentioned by Sun Chuanting later, which was the news that Huang Taiji was integrating his military forces and uniting various Mongolian tribes to prepare to attack Ligdan Khan in the west.

Yuan Chonghuan had known about this situation for a long time. It could even be said that he knew it earlier than anyone else. As early as when Huang Taiji just announced that the Later Jin Dynasty would change its name to Qing and proclaimed himself emperor, Yuan Chonghuan got the news that Huang Taiji intended to send troops to Mongolia. However, Yuan Chonghuan did not report this news to the court, nor did he make any response. On the contrary, he seemed to be happy with the prejudice.

In Yuan Chonghuan's view, the war between Huang Taiji and Lin Danhan had nothing to do with him. It was nothing more than a dog-eat-dog fight.

Many years ago, Lindan Khan formed an alliance with the Ming Dynasty because the Ming Dynasty planned to deal with the Jiannu. The Ming Dynasty's move was to join forces with the Mongols to attack the Later Jin Dynasty, but Lindan Khan always talked big but took no actual action. There were even a few times when he acted like a fisherman who benefits from the quarrel between the snipe and the clam.

The Ming Dynasty paid a lot of price to win over Ligdan Khan, including a lot of money and food, but Ligdan Khan never gave the Ming Dynasty any actual return. Over time, the Ming Dynasty people had a very bad impression of Ligdan Khan, and some even cursed Ligdan Khan for having no credibility and making a fool of the Ming Dynasty.

Since Lin Danhan can be the first, then the Ming Dynasty can also be the fifteenth. Now that Huang Taiji is not coming to attack the Ming Dynasty but to attack Lin Danhan, doesn't it mean that the peace talks between Yuan Chonghuan and Huang Taiji have been effective?
Otherwise, why would Huang Taiji go all the way to fight the Mongols? Moreover, Yuan Chonghuan thought that Huang Taiji's attack on Lin Danhan was not a bad thing. Isn't it the best thing to let Lin Danhan suffer the consequences of his own actions?
So when Yuan Chonghuan learned that Huang Taiji was going to make military preparations against Ligdan Khan, he was not worried at all. Instead, he had an attitude of gloating and was ready to watch a good show.

With such a good show about to be staged, how could Yuan Chonghuan give up easily? Of course, he would not take advantage of the opportunity of Huang Taiji's dispatch of troops to Mongolia to stab the Jiannu in Liaodong as Sun Chuanting reminded him, because Yuan Chonghuan had great expectations for the peace talks at this time. He felt that if he did so, the previous efforts would be in vain, and the peace talks between the two sides would not be possible to continue.

(Ask for monthly ticket)

(End of this chapter)