After hearing Emperor Hongzhi's question, Liu Jin naturally knew what Emperor Hongzhi was thinking at this time. He thought about it and said, "I was just thinking about what will happen in the grassland in a few decades, a hundred, or even hundreds of years."
"Oh, yes, let's talk about it."
When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he immediately understood that Liu Jin was changing the subject, which was exactly what he wanted.
Let these civil servants worry about it and talk about other things first.
"Your Majesty, the grassland is included in the territory of our Ming Dynasty and has close contacts with our inland. Through trade, the grassland herders can easily obtain a large amount of food, salt, tea and other materials necessary for daily life."
"Coupled with the turmoil of war, the population of this grassland will continue to expand in the future. Today, the grassland is vast, and the total number of herders may not be 1 million, but in the next twenty or fifty years, one million
Where is the year?”
"There may be five or ten million herders on the grassland. What kind of huge impact will it have on our Ming Dynasty?"
Liu Jin came here mainly to discuss with Emperor Hongzhi the migration of the prairie people to Australia and the Southern Golden Continent.
There is no need to migrate too much at one time. A certain proportion of the population will be migrated out every year. This can be done year after year to maintain the grassland population at a certain scale and number.
This can not only maintain the stability of the grassland, but also control the population and the number of livestock. It can maintain the environment of the grassland and prevent large-scale desertification like in later generations.
As for the expedition to the Western Regions, is this very important?
It doesn't matter if it's earlier or later. For Ming Dynasty, the meat of the Western Regions can be eaten at any time and easy to conquer. This is the real test for long-term stable rule.
After hearing Liu Jin's words, everyone immediately looked at Liu Jin. When everyone was discussing whether to attack the Western Regions, Liu Jin was already thinking about what would happen in the northern grasslands and the Western Regions in a few decades or hundreds of years.
.
At the same time, everyone immediately realized the importance of what Liu Jin said.
How can the population of the grassland continue to increase like the Central Plains? The consequences can be imagined with your toes. By then, will the Ming Dynasty be able to control the grassland as easily as it does now?
"Keep talking."
Emperor Hongzhi thought for a while and motioned for Liu Jin to continue.
"Your Majesty, gentlemen~"
"The grasslands in my north are very vast. Please look at the map. From the Great Wall to the north, all the way to this vast area, it basically belongs to the grassland area, and it covers such a vast area."
"But since ancient times, the number of people living on this vast land has always been very rare. The number of people in the entire northern grassland is around one million."
"It is hard to imagine that such a vast area has a population of only one million."
"But this is the current situation on the grassland. The land is vast and the people are sparse. Herders live in pursuit of water and grass. There are few people and there are more cattle and horses than people."
Liu Jin came to the huge map and began to explain it.
After listening, everyone nodded. The Ming government had already made statistics on the herdsmen on the grassland. The current number of herdsmen in the grassland province was not even one million. The total number of herdsmen was only more than 500,000. If you include Wala and others, there may be some.
million.
"Why is the population so sparsely populated in such a vast area?"
"There are many factors involved, among which the most important factors are several. One is that the grassland people are nomadic people who make a living by grazing and require a large amount of pasture for grazing."
"A few acres of land in our customs is enough to feed a family, but on the grassland, hundreds of acres or even thousands of acres of grassland may not be enough for a family of herders to graze."
"Their lifestyle determines that they need a lot of pasture, and it also determines that it is difficult for their population to grow."
"The second is war. Since ancient times, grassland people have been fond of robbery. Not only for us in the Ming Dynasty, but also among their various tribes. In addition, in vast areas such as the Western Regions, they have invaded a large number of countries and regions.
.”
"The long-term war, on the one hand, created their tough habits, and on the other hand, it caused a large number of their people to die in the war."
"In addition, the grassland people's medical technology is very poor. When they get sick, they often don't see a doctor and can only resign themselves to fate. This also leads to a very high mortality rate for them."
"Of course, the weather on the grassland is cold in winter, and a large number of cattle, sheep, and horses will die due to the cold weather. Once extreme weather like the white-haired wind occurs, a large number of herdsmen will starve to death in the coming year."
"These factors have made it difficult to increase the population of grassland people, which has remained at this number since ancient times."
Liu Jin first analyzed the reasons for the sparse population in the grassland.
After listening to Liu Jin's analysis, everyone nodded immediately, and they understood why the grassland people's population was always very sparse.
"Now that the grassland has been included in the territory of the Ming Dynasty, Your Majesty is benevolent and regards the grassland as his own people. He treats them very kindly. A large amount of food, materials, doctors, etc. are supported on the grassland. Even if there is a white-haired wind on the grassland, the grassland will remain intact."
Herders can still survive."
"There are also medical clinics with staff in the grassland towns that can also provide medical treatment to the grassland, which improves their survival rate. Coupled with the absence of war, the population of the grassland will inevitably increase rapidly in the future."
"Once the population increases dramatically, it will definitely not be a good thing for our Ming Dynasty."
"Let's not talk about whether it will breed their desire to rebel against our Ming Dynasty. The rapid increase in the grassland population will inevitably require more cattle, sheep and horses to meet their needs."
"But we all know that an ordinary herdsman on the grassland needs hundreds of acres, thousands of acres, or even tens of thousands of acres of pasture to meet their grazing needs."
"In this situation of inconvenient land, population growth, and more cattle and sheep grazing, will inevitably lead to the degradation of pastures on the grasslands and fierce competition, which will have unimaginable consequences for our Ming Dynasty."
"For example, if the pastures are overgrazed and turned into deserts, the herdsmen will not be able to live without pastures. Then they will be like the famine victims in our customs, with wars and uprisings."
Liu Jin described to everyone what will happen on the grassland in the future.
In later generations, with the explosion of population and wanton grazing, grasslands degraded and deserts continued to expand, so that extremely severe sandstorms occurred in the northern imperial capital.
After hearing this, the expressions of Emperor Hongzhi and the ministers finally changed. This was not alarmism, but something that was very likely to happen in the future based on reasonable reasoning.
Once the herdsmen on the grassland can no longer survive and rise up, the consequences will be much more serious.
The reason why the herdsmen on the grasslands are very honest now is that they have been hit hard one after another and their population is sparse, many of them are still children.
Secondly, the Ming Dynasty has a strong military, with 50,000 cavalry training on the grassland, which is awe-inspiring in all directions. They dare not have any thoughts; the most important thing is that their life is much better than before, much better.
Who would live a good life but have to commit suicide?
Who does this think of as a Khan and not a Khan?
Whether it is the Ming Emperor or the former little prince, as long as it allows everyone to live a good life, everyone will support it. On the contrary, if everyone does not live a good life, everyone will naturally oppose it.
In fact, people are all the same, and there is not much difference. If you live a good life, no one will follow you to behead someone, not to mention that it is impossible to succeed at all.
"Then what should we do?"
Liu Jian thought for a moment and asked immediately.
"It's very simple. Control the population on the grassland and keep the herdsmen on the grassland at the current scale."
Liu Jin replied immediately.
"Controlling the population?"
"How to control?"
Emperor Hongzhi also asked quickly.
"There are two ways to control the population, one is reduction and the other is immigration!"
"It is obviously unrealistic to reduce the number of countries. All that will be left are immigrants."
"There is vast land in Australia, there is also a lot of land in Golden Continent, and there is also a lot of land in Africa. In addition, the Eurasian continent is so vast. As long as we can conquer it, we can also have a lot of land. Some of the land is far away.
We are too far away, and we Han people may not be willing to immigrate there, but we can let these grassland herdsmen migrate there and guard the border for us."
Liu Jin pointed to Australia, Golden Continent, Africa, Central Asia, Europe and other vast areas on the map.
The world is very big. In some places, when there are too many people on the grasslands, they are moved out, and they are constantly sent to various parts of the world to reduce the pressure on the northern grasslands and expand territory for the Ming Dynasty.
"Minus Ding?"
"migrant?"
Emperor Hongzhi pondered, thought for a while and said: "If people immigrate overseas over the years, won't they also form a powerful force overseas, and then they will pose a threat to our Ming Dynasty?"
"Your Majesty, there is absolutely no need to worry about this."
"The world is very big. Australia alone is not as big as us. Such a vast place can support thousands of people grazing."
"The same is true in Golden Island and Africa. These places have very high-quality pastures and are very suitable for grazing."
"And overseas, even if the population increases in the future, it will not pose a threat to our Ming Dynasty. Will they still build ships to attack our Ming Dynasty?"
"They are cavalry on the grassland, but what if they go to the sea?"
"Can they still ride horses to fight naval battles?"
"What's more, when we immigrate them, we can also mix them with our Han immigrants, and at the same time change their nomadic ways, from nomadic herding to settled grazing, delineate pastures, and settle them down."
"I think as long as this policy continues to be implemented, not only will we no longer have to worry about them threatening the Ming Dynasty, but in a few hundred years, they will probably be no different from the Han people in our customs."
"And by grazing around the world, the number of cattle and sheep they graze can greatly increase. By then, they will not only be able to meet the needs of the people of the Ming Dynasty for meat, but they can also produce more wool to meet the needs of the textile industry of the Ming Dynasty.
"
"The most important thing is that the grassland herdsmen are fierce. Wherever they are, our Ming Dynasty's rule will be more stable. We don't even need to deliberately expand our territory. Wherever they graze, they can become
My territory of the Ming Dynasty."
Liu Jin thought for a while and said.
Even if you can't make waste on the grassland, are these immigrants afraid that they will make waste when they go overseas?
After these immigrants went to Australia for hundreds of years, even if there were millions of prairie people in Australia, would they still be able to ride back to the Ming Dynasty on horseback?
If we let the good days pass, who will rebel?
What's more, let alone hundreds of years, in a few decades, with the development of Ming Capital and the development of new technologies, the nomads will have nothing to fear.
The era of war horses and scimitars is gradually coming to an end. The next era is the era of giant ships and cannons. There is no need to worry about this problem at all.
Moving them out is also to protect the northern grasslands and prevent desertification. It is not to worry about how much impact they will have on the Ming Dynasty.
With the current strength of the Ming Dynasty, coupled with the path to capitalism and the development of science and technology and industrialization, there is no need to worry about these at all.
It's best if you let me graze honestly. If you really have any objections, Daming can easily suppress it.
"Immigrate overseas?"
Even though I fell into deep thought and thought about it, it seemed that this was indeed a good idea.
If the excess population is moved overseas and the number is always controlled to a certain level, there will naturally be no problems.
"Your Majesty, I think what Liu Jin said is reasonable."
"Just like the Western Regions, it is easy for us to conquer the Ming Dynasty, but if we want to rule the Western Regions for a long time, we must not only move a large number of Han people to the Western Regions, but also continuously reduce the original grassland people in the Western Regions, so that we can achieve long-term stability."
Xie Qian stood up and expressed his support.
However, I did not forget to remind Emperor Hongzhi about the Western Regions. It is very easy to conquer the Western Regions and can be defeated easily. As for long-term rule, it is almost the same as here on the grassland.
Migrating the Han people and relocating the original people from the Western Regions, in short, is changing the population structure, so that the rule here can be consolidated for a long time.
"Your Majesty, what Liu Jin said is very reasonable, but if we move the grassland people to Australia and the Golden Continent, will they be willing to move out?"
Li Dongyang thought for a while and said, "Will this matter force them to rebel?"
"Forcing them to rebel?"
"It's easier to deal with counterattack now than later, not to mention they don't dare to counterattack at all."
Liu Jin said very confidently.
How many people are left on the grassland?
There are not many men left, just some old and weak women and children. How dare they rebel against the Ming Dynasty?
If a few decades pass, they may really dare to rebel. Now, if the Ming Dynasty wants them to go east, they will never dare to go west.
