****
In Beijing, Qin Mu rarely went to the Huangji Palace to hold court meetings unless necessary. If there was any matter and what departments were involved, he would usually recruit officials from the relevant departments to the Yangxin Palace. After a small-scale discussion, if the matter was minor, he would Solve it quickly. If the matter is serious, it will be discussed at the court meeting.
Du Feng, the minister of Taipu Temple, was originally named Du Mu, who had the same name and surname as Du Mu, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty. In order to avoid the taboo of Qin Mu's name, he changed his name to Du Feng. Early that morning, he came to see him holding a memorial.
This time, the Minister of Taipusi, the two young ministers, and the following Yuanwailang basically came to Beijing with him. Among all the departments in the court, Taipusi was the only one that "dispatched all the troops".
Taipu Temple was the official in charge of the chariots and horses. When the emperor went on a tour, the Taipu Temple was in charge of all the chariots, horses and miscellaneous items of the retinue. In addition, Taipu Temple also has a very important responsibility, which is to control the decree of horse herding.
There were no herding horses in the south. When the Manchus were wiped out, a large number of horses, cattle and alpacas were seized in Liaodong alone, and many were seized in the customs. It is not difficult to understand why Qin Mu sent all Taipusi troops to the north when he went north.
With a spring breeze on his face, Du Feng entered the palace, hugged him and bowed, saying, "Your Majesty, Du Feng, see my king."
"Du Qing, no courtesy, please come and give me a seat and tea!"
This is Qin Mu's practice. When summoning ministers in the side hall, officials from the third rank and above are given a seat and tea;
Officials from the fourth rank and above are given seats but not tea.
Officials below the fifth rank, I'm sorry, you have to keep up your efforts and make more contributions. There are no seats or tea for the time being.
"Thank you, my king."
In the past, Du Feng had few opportunities to join the Royal Prelude, so although he held the position of a third-grade temple minister, he never had the opportunity to enjoy this honor. Today was the first time, and the spring breeze on his face became stronger.
After thanking him for taking the tea, he quickly put the tea cup on the sandalwood carved table aside, stood up again and bowed his head: "I would like to inform my king that all kinds of livestock from the Qing Dynasty have been seized this time. The ministers and members of the Taipu Temple have already I have compiled a rough statistics urgently. Please take a look at it.”
Du Feng raised the memorial high above his head, and the young eunuch quickly picked it up and presented it to the emperor. Qin Mu raised his hand to Du Feng and motioned for him to sit back, and then opened the memorial.
The memorial clearly lists: 280,000 horses, 530,000 cattle, 2.41 million sheep, and 130,000 camels.
This number was compiled by Taipusi in Guanhai, and in Liaodong it was compiled by Meng Ke and Ningyuan. It mainly includes the amount seized from the Jurchens, excluding the amount owned by Liaodong people and Horqin herdsmen.
Qin Mu knew. Although these figures on paper are simple and clear, Taipu Temple officials have gone through a lot of hard work to obtain these figures.
After reading it, Qin Mu said happily: "Thank you for your hard work, Du Qing, for being able to calculate a rough figure in such a short period of time. This is extremely crucial for settling this animal before winter. All the officials of Taipus Temple are so grateful." This king has made great contributions, I am very pleased, very happy."
As soon as Du Feng heard the compliment, all the fatigue he felt these days was worth it. He stood up again and worshiped: "Eating the emperor's salary and being loyal to the emperor are the duties of the ministers. I dare not take the credit."
"Du Qing, sit down. Sit down, there is no need to salute back and forth." Qin Mu was not just verbal praise, he was really pleased with the high efficiency of the various departments in the imperial court;
Of course, at the beginning of the founding of the past dynasties. The efficiency of imperial institutions was usually relatively high. Qin Mu attaches great importance to this. The efficient operation of various institutions in Daqin is indeed very satisfactory.
"Du Qing. How to manage so many animals? Does Taipu Temple have a practical plan? This matter is no different than others. If they cannot be properly placed in time, the animals will die in large numbers."
"To inform my king, I have already made arrangements for the short-term resettlement plan. I guarantee that all the captured animals can survive this winter safely, but..."
"If Du Qing has any difficulties, just tell him."
"King Qin, although our dynasty had many war horses before, they were all assigned to the army. Taipu Temple actually had the name of being in charge of pastoral administration, but it had no real meaning. Therefore, Taipu Temple was short of more than half of its staff. Now our dynasty has taken over After arriving in Liaodong, it was necessary to set up official ranches to ensure the supply and demand of war horses in the army, so there was an urgent need to fill the vacancies for subordinate officials in Taipu Temple. "
Qin Mu nodded and said: "Du Qing can rest assured about this. I will send an order to the Ministry of Civil Affairs and ask the Ministry of Civil Affairs to select a group of capable people to enrich Taipu Temple first. Du Qing is in charge of Taipu Temple and has a heavy responsibility. He does not know how to deal with Ma Zheng. Any suggestions?”
Before Du Feng came, he expected that Qin Mu would ask about Ma Zheng.
Horse administration has been an extremely important matter for all dynasties. The role of cavalry cannot be replaced by infantry;
The strength of a dynasty's control over the northwest depends to a large extent on the dynasty's horse administration. Because there are not enough horses, relying on infantry to control the vast borders in the northwest is not only costly, but also ineffective. , facing the nomadic cavalry, they often can only be beaten passively, without being able to flexibly fight back.
Of course, as the Taipusi Qing in charge of Ma Zheng, he cannot ignore these things.
Du Feng was fully prepared and replied energetically: "For my information, my king, I have looked at the horse administration of the Han, Tang, Song and Ming dynasties. In the Han, Tang and Ming dynasties, there was generally no shortage of horse herding land, and the protection of war horses was also ideal. The government is also relatively extensive in general and has many drawbacks.
On the contrary, during the Song Dynasty, due to the lack of horse herding land, a lot of thought was spent on horse administration, and all aspects were managed more carefully. Especially in the early Song Dynasty, although there was no horse herding land, through these strategies, the number of official horses could be increased. Reaching more than 200,000 horses is a great achievement, so I think the horse politics of the Song Dynasty is particularly worth learning from. "
As soon as he heard Du Feng's words, Qin Mu felt that he was not aimless. Not only in ancient times, but even in the 21st century, looking at the world, the policies and management of some big countries are usually relatively extensive; only countries like Singapore, Japan, and South Korea have relatively rough policies and management. These small but relatively developed countries will be as meticulous as possible in all aspects. It is not an exaggeration to say that it was forced out.
The same was true in the Song Dynasty. Since there was no land to herd horses, they had to work hard to formulate complete horse policies to ensure the needs of war horses as much as possible.
"Well, please tell me in detail, Du."
"Yes, King Qin, I have carefully analyzed it. In the Song Dynasty, not only were officials and supervisors set up in each state, but the details of horse administration were also detailed. At the same time, it was also clearly stipulated that each state government should collect fodder for horse feeding every year. The amount was clear, for example, 660,000 acres of grass. There are 60,000 kilograms of bran and 100,000 kilograms of salt, medicine, oil, sugar, etc. There are more than 20 pastures in the suburbs of Kaifeng, and the fodder is piled up like a mountain.
Its meticulous management is unprecedented in all dynasties. There are many of these management rules that our court can directly learn from, so I will not go into details.
I will focus on one point today, which is the tea-horse trade in the Song Dynasty. The King of Qin, in fact, both in the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, because there was no shortage of horse grazing land, the government set up a large number of official ranches. However, in the eyes of the minister, although this move ensured the supply of the court's war horses, it also caused huge losses. Setting up such a large pasture is a good idea. "
Hearing this, Qin Mu's spirits were lifted, because Du Feng's point of view was quite novel, and Qin Mu felt that what he meant was as if he was opposed to spending all his attention on state-owned enterprises and ignoring private enterprises.
"I believe that although the official prison ranch cannot be abandoned, it should not be too large. Once it is too large, it will inevitably have many things that cannot be managed and the state's use will be wasted.
Therefore, I think that the Guanjian Ranch can only guarantee the supply and demand of 30% of the horses in our dynasty, and the rest can be obtained through the tea-horse trade by following the methods of the Song Dynasty.
King Qin, the tea horse trade in the Song Dynasty was not only the main source of war horses in the Song Dynasty, but also promoted the development of border trade.
With this good strategy, our dynasty does not need to have the official ranch to be responsible for the domestication of all war horses. It only needs to guarantee part of it so that the dynasty is not subject to foreign restrictions. The rest can be obtained through border trade, killing two birds with one stone, saving effort and promoting border trade. Why not? "
To be honest, Qin Mu really wants to applaud Du Feng. His views and strategies are in line with Qin Mu's wishes. According to Qin Mu's previous idea of dividing the pastures in Mongolia, once it is successfully implemented, Da Qin will not have to worry about being without horses at all. Available.
In other words, there is no need to set up large-scale official prison ranches, causing unnecessary waste.
The key is that Du Feng's thought is not the kind of self-sufficient conservative thought. This is the most valuable thing.
This is like running a company. Just ensure the core things. Other peripheral and less profitable parts can be left to other companies. This can reduce cost expenditure.
This concept came from Du Feng, why didn't Qin Mu want to give him a high-five? With such an official presiding over Taipu Temple, Qin Mu felt that he could rest assured in terms of the supply of war horses.
************************************
ps: Please subscribe, please recommend, and if you still have a monthly ticket, don’t forget to vote to support it.
.(To be continued...)
...