The thirteenth century was the era of the Mongol cavalry, which originated from the Mongolian plateau and had stronger combat effectiveness than the nomadic predecessors, when the Mongol army, which had less than 200,000 standing cavalry, swept across the entire Eurasian continent and became a nightmare for the countries of Eurasia.
Especially for Westerners, in their records, the Mongolian cavalry is like a ghost, elusive, sweeping the Western army at the speed of the autumn wind sweeping away the leaves, and therefore, the Mongolian cavalry is also called the "whip of God", they have no choice but to tremble under the iron horse.
Swept across Europe and Asia
But there was no forever strong nation, and after a hundred years of dominance, the Mongolian cavalry inevitably declined, and was finally driven back to his hometown in the grassland by Zhu Yuanzhang.
Subsequently, under Zhu Di's repeated conquests, they split into Tatar, Warat, Uliangha and other tribes, harassing the Ming Dynasty's borders from time to time and fighting the autumn wind.
In the Qing Dynasty, the Mongolian cavalry seemed to have completely lost its former prestige, and even behaved more and more crotch-pulling, becoming a vassal of the Qing Dynasty, and even the only Mongolian cavalry was completely buried in the Battle of Baliqiao and never recovered.
Battle of Bali Bridge
Compared with the ancestors who swept across the Eurasian continent at the beginning, it is really too stretched.
Although there will never be a strong nation in the world, even the previously strong nomads, will decline, but the Mongol cavalry is different, their decline is purely artificial.
First of all, the Ming Dynasty, from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, strictly prevented the iron tools of the Central Plains from flowing into the grassland, even if it was a horse market, it was also restricted.
This move was to prevent the Mongols from using iron products to build weapons, and in turn invade the Ming Dynasty.
Originally, the iron pot that the nobles of the Yuan Dynasty regarded as ordinary things has now become a luxury on the prairie, and only the families of the great nobles will have it, and even if it is broken, they are reluctant to lose it, and they use various methods to repair and continue to use it, as if it is a family heirloom.
Ming Dynasty iron pot
So why didn't the Mongols make their own iron pots? The answer is to give him pieces of iron, and they can't make them.
After all, the iron pot is too high-tech, at that time, China would make iron pots all over the world, and even the aristocratic families in medieval Europe had to import a large number of Chinese iron pots, and after getting the iron pot, they also regarded it as a family heirloom.
As for ordinary people, don't even think about it, so every time the Mongolian cavalry goes south, the most valuable thing is not gold and silver, but the iron pot in the people's homes:
The iron pot is used for the day of cooking in captivity, every time the city is sieged and the fort is trapped, the first plunder, and the pot is a strange commodity - "Beidi Shunyi King I Answer the Tribute Table"
But there are so many iron pots, and they can't be looted every time, so what about the Mongols who don't have iron pots? I had to figure it out on my own, and finally came up with a way to stew food in a leather pot.
The so-called leather pot, of course, is not a real pot, but sewn up the leather, of course, it cannot be boiled directly on the fire, but can only be put in after the stone is burned, and the stone is used to heat up, and when it is almost done, the meat is put in.
It is said to be boiled, but in fact it is hot, and the final cooked meat is basically half-cooked, once or twice, but eating half-cooked food for a long time directly leads to the reduction of Mongolians' physical fitness.
Therefore, every time the Mongolian tribe Koubian, it is actually just for trade, for example, as I said before, the Ming Dynasty didn't even sell iron pots and saddles, so they could only use force.
It was not until the Longqing period that the trade between the two sides was normalized, of course, the top priority of trade was the iron pot.
I will pay tribute
But after all, the iron pot is an iron product, and the Ming Dynasty was still afraid that the Mongols would use the iron pot to make weapons, so Zhang Juzheng also spent a lot of time, and finally came up with a solution, which was to make the iron pot extremely strong, so that the Mongols could not melt it and cast weapons.
In this way, the Mongolians can be regarded as able to eat a hot meal in an iron pot.
But after not eating hot rice for decades, the Jurchens rose and then entered the Central Plains.
But before they entered the Central Plains, most of the Mongolian tribes had already submitted to the Qing Dynasty, and even set up the Mongolian Eight Banners in the Eight Banners, which had a higher status than the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty.
In addition, Mongolia also continued to marry the Manchus, and many queens in the early Qing Dynasty were from Mongolian tribes, so it can be said that the Mongols and Hans looked like a family.
But just looking like a family, you must know that the Qing Dynasty is guarding against "relatives", after all, they are both foreign races, and the Mongols have also entered the Central Plains before, the Qing Dynasty is very worried that they will threaten their rule, so they tried their best to limit it, just to weaken the war potential of the Mongols.
For the upper echelons of the Mongolian aristocracy, the Qing Dynasty chose to woo them, such as dividing Mongolia into four alliances and eighty-six banners, and then each divided a bunch of princes and nobles to enjoy glory and wealth, and if you spend money, these titles can all be bought.
Mongol princes
In the end, a hundred taels can buy a Mongolian princely title, of course, if you want to go further, you can, spend a little more money, and the title can be upgraded, and even idle sect kings are not impossible.
It's just that it needs to be taken step by step, from the lowest banner Zasak Khan to the idle sect king, each level needs to cost five hundred taels of silver.
And after having the title, the Mongolian princes and nobles can enter Beijing to participate in the Hajj, where have the princes and nobles who originally lived in the steppe seen the prosperity of the capital? As soon as I arrived in the capital, I was completely fascinated, and then many people settled here.
Settle here, and the territory is still in charge? Most of them were left alone, and in the end these places were taken away by the Qing Dynasty, and the Mongol princes were also in name.
Of course, this is only for the upper class people such as the Mongolian princes, and for the lower people, the Qing Dynasty also has a set of methods, which is religion.
At first, the Mongols believed in shamanism, and later Kublai Khan vigorously promoted the Yellow Religion, so far the Yellow Religion became the new faith of the Mongols.
Since the Kangxi period, the status of the Yellow Sect has been consciously improved, and the monks do not need to pay taxes, let alone serve the conscription, and the status is transcendent, and the Yellow Sect also reciprocates the favor and respects the Qing Dynasty emperor as the embodiment of the Buddha, thus helping the Qing Dynasty consolidate its rule.
Late Qing Mongolian family
So far, the Yellow Religion has blossomed all over Mongolia, and there are Buddhist temples all over the place, because the status of the Yellow Sect monks is too high, attracting many people to become monks, so the Qing Dynasty has launched a male ordination policy on this basis.
According to the regulations, every Mongolian family must send a male monk.
After all, there is no need to do anything to become a monk, the status is still high, and there are rewards from time to time, a large number of Mongolian men have chosen to become monks, and in the end, only one male can be left in the family, and all the rest are monks, that is, if there are six sons in the family, all five sons must be monks, and only one can marry a wife and have children.
Under the influence of three hundred years of religion, by the late Qing Dynasty, there were 1,800 monasteries in the whole of Monan and Mobei, and there were more than 100,000 monks, accounting for more than one-third of the entire Mongolian population at that time.
A large number of Mongols became monks
I have to say that this trick is too ruthless, on the surface it respects the Yellow Sect, but secretly it makes a large number of men become parasites for nothing.
Because the men are monks, a large number of Mongolian women can not become monks, resulting in the strange phenomenon of Mongolian women more than men, in order to get married, have to find businessmen and garrisons, etc., but it is still not enough, in the end, even the next person who comes can have one or two Mongolian daughters-in-law.
And these people did not settle down for a long time, every time they came, they changed batches, and over time, venereal diseases were rampant among the Mongols, syphilis and willow disease were everywhere, so that at that time, 85 percent of the young people suffered from willow disease.
In the early Qing Dynasty, the Mongolian population was about 10 million, but by the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were only 500,000, which could not threaten the rule of the Qing Dynasty at all.
Ulanqab League, Darhan Banner, Prince Zasak, Yunwangchuk
Surely you think that's the end of it? No, no, in addition to the deliberate population restrictions, the Qing Dynasty also cut off the Mongols from living economically.
After all, the Mongols lacked necessities such as salt, iron pots, and grain, but they could not leave their alliance at will, so they could only wait for inland merchants to come to trade, and as for the objects of trade, they could only come to trade with the time-honored Jin merchants.
The Jin merchants were the imperial merchants of the Qing Dynasty, and they were also the only commercial trade objects with the Mongols, but to do business with the Mongols, at most, was to take the mainland's salt, iron pot and other daily necessities to exchange for local cattle and sheep fur and so on, but these are only a few dollars?
This amount of money is far from satisfying the appetite of Jin merchants, so how to make money quickly? That's lending.
You want to buy some food, table salt and iron pots, but you don't have the money? It's okay, Jin Shang will give you credit intimately, and when the time comes, you can pay it back when you have money, and you can consume "without spending money", why not?
The whole of Mongolia, from the princes and nobles to the ordinary herdsmen, were the objects of usury by the Jin merchants.
But free is always the most expensive, how can these people who graze for a living have the shrewdness of Jin merchants who do business?
After going back and forth, everyone owed a lot of debts to the Jin merchants, and they didn't know how to count, and the amount of interest was purely up to the Jin merchants themselves, so that in the end, the Mongols didn't know how much debt they owed, and they could only repay it from generation to generation.
In order to repay the debts, the Jin merchants could take all the property of the Mongols, whether it was gold and silver, cattle and sheep, etc., and even sell their sons and daughters, as long as they could pay off the debts, they would take them all.
Jin Shang
Then the Mongolians found that they had been busy working for a year, not to mention the principal, and even the interest was not enough, so how could they live this day? Every family is a debtor all the time.
Not to mention the low-level Mongols, even the princes and nobles found that they couldn't afford to pay back after selling all their family property, so they hid in the capital and didn't come out, so it can be said that the entire Mongols have become leeks for Jin merchants.
In this way, it is better to lie flat, directly the entire Mongolian people are extremely depressed, and the population is so small, it is strange to be able to make up a strong team.
After all, nomads couldn't beat them before, so they first admit defeat, and then find a place to slowly recover their blood, and wait for the soldiers to be strong and strong to come again.
However, the Qing Dynasty took a salary from the bottom of the kettle, used the alliance flag system to win over the Mongolian upper class on a large scale, and then propagated the Yellow Sect, and used the interests of the Central Plains to support them, so that the good Mongolian men who originally fought on horseback became monks, and finally used the Jin merchants to exploit the Mongols on a large scale.
After several operations, the war potential of the Mongols was completely weakened, and to be honest, the Qing Dynasty never believed in the Mongol relatives, they only knew that the weakened Mongols were good Mongols.
Mongolians in the late Qing Dynasty, I have to say, the old love family is a bit amazing
In this way, the war potential of the Mongols rapidly declined, and the goals of the Qing Dynasty were achieved, and no nomads could threaten their regime anymore.