My God, I am the emperor, the lord of mankind.

Chapter 370 Barbarians

But it's one thing to think in your heart, and another thing to draw a clear line on the surface.

But others are not fools. The entanglement between Buddhism and the White Lotus Sect is enough to keep many people awake at night.

In the process of mobilizing Taoism from all over the world to encircle and suppress the White Lotus Sect, the imperial court tried its best to avoid using Buddhism to quell the White Lotus Rebellion.

When Liu Zhen heard the name Pure Land Sect again, he instinctively felt a sense of disgust in his heart.

"The Zen master is an eminent monk, and many of his disciples serve in Qintian Prison. Brother Liu can rest assured."

The two of them are from the same hometown, and both have great achievements, so it is not wrong to call them brothers.

Speaking of this, Mr. Zhao couldn't help but look towards the courtyard. He wanted to introduce Liu Zhen to Liu Zhen, but at this time, the great monk of the Pure Land Sect was not here for some reason.

Liu Zhen looked at the classmate in front of him who was studying in a private school in the township with his group. He remembered that he had passed the imperial examination at the same time as himself during the Zhengde period, but today it seems that he does not have an official position yet.

I couldn't help but ask.

"I remember that my dear brother achieved fame together with me. Why haven't you left home to take up a post yet?"

When he heard this, Mr. Zhao couldn't help but reveal a wry smile on his face.

He led Liu Zhen into the inner hall, and the cries of women in the mourning hall next door became more and more real and miserable.

When the two of them sat down, hot tea was immediately served to them by domestic slaves dressed in gray coarse linen clothes.

After finishing, he quickly stepped back and closed the doors and windows of the inner hall for the two of them. On the one hand, it was to keep out the cold wind outside the house, and on the other hand, it was to create a relatively private space for the two of them.

Liu Zhen noticed that most of these domestic slaves were boys of twelve or thirteen years old.

Moreover, according to Liu Zhen's observation, his servant has a strong build, slightly long arms, and thick finger joints.

At first glance, they look like people who have been fishing and hunting with bows and arrows since childhood, rather than Han people who farm in the interior.

Seeing Liu Zhen's eyes lingering on these servants after he sat down, Mr. Zhao explained.

"These are the Jurchens who were rescued from the evil sacrifices of Shengfan by the imperial court when they opened up the wasteland..."

"..."

Liu Zhen was silent.

He is naturally very aware that the Ming army has been strictly screened and purged by the court over the years, and since he ascended the throne, the slave ban during the Hongwu period has been strictly implemented. Very few people dare to rely on human trafficking to the mainland to seek personal gain for themselves. .

And these big mainland households obviously knew the imperial decree.

After all, as a big family in the imperial court and a family of officials, it is impossible not to know how many officials, generals, and landlords the court has dealt with due to the slave trade in the past two years.

And starting from this year, the Ministry of Rites rebuilt the naval and coastal defense. After defeating the sharks, the empire began to clean up the pirates and shark tribes in the surrounding waters.

It directly cut off the main way for the wealthy families in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to obtain slaves from the sea.

He looked at Mr. Zhao next to him, waiting for his explanation.

He didn't believe Mr. Zhao's lies about saving the Jurchens.

Nonsense, who is a good person who has nothing to do and goes to other people's places to save other people's children.

"Brother Liu doesn't know. These Jurchen children were not obtained by us from the border generals... Moreover, these teenagers have been registered with the government and are temporarily fostered in my house. They are definitely not something that Brother Liu wants to trade for profit..."

Mr. Zhao smiled bitterly, knowing that he had aroused the other party's suspicion.

He quickly explained. "Even if it is really sold to us, the Jurchens will sell it to the government first, and then the government will sell it to us. Everything must be approved by the court..."

After hearing the explanation, Liu Zhen nodded thoughtfully.

These Jurchens were indeed not obtained by the local wealthy families in collusion with the border troops, but rather by the Jurchens themselves who took these young men as prisoners and sold them to the imperial court as slaves.

When the Ming army entered the jungle in the north, it was naturally impossible for them to publicly express their intention to kill people and seize the city.

In fact, Zhu Houcong would not allow them to carry out large-scale, indiscriminate, and inhumane massacres and enslavement in the north.

As the orthodox emperor of China, he is the commander of a civilized country. How could such a thing happen under his rule?

Zhu Houcong felt that he was not Huang Taiji, and he did not have any abnormal special interest in indiscriminate massacre and slavery.

Moreover, after the Jurchens took the initiative to donate soil on behalf of the Jurchens in Haixi to request the imperial court for canonization and establish an official system in the local area, and Zhu Houcong sent people to issue gold seals and official uniforms to them, they have automatically regarded them as part of the Ming Dynasty.

The Liaodong Ming army entered the north this time, claiming to be requested by Haixi King Yibaha to help them clean up the evil shamanistic sacrifices among various tribes and raise sneaky tribal chiefs who harmed the people to maintain their rule.

Only a small number of the most elite troops of the Liaodong Ming Army directly went into battle.

Most of the Liaodong army was only responsible for transporting arms, equipment, food and grass, helping the Jurchens to establish a complete logistics system, and sealing the borders to minimize the chaos caused by the influx of a large number of people into Liaodong with the outbreak of the war.

In order to ensure the supply of grain and grass in Haixi, the imperial court specially borrowed a hundred barges from North Korea, and then transported grain and grass from Shandong, Fujian and other places northward along the sea and land, and continuously transported it to Liaodong.

After that, the army went deep into the hinterland and conquered various tribes in the north. Basically, it was handled by the Haixi Jurchen army under Yibaha.

After receiving the full support of the Liaodong Ming Army, Haixi's strength has greatly increased.

Moreover, the Jurchen Haixi had already carried out a series of military expansions to the surrounding Jurchen tribes because of Yibaha, with the support of the Ming court, and annexed dozens of surrounding small and medium-sized tribes.

He was also armed by Ming Ting, and his strength increased greatly.

Caught between the Mongols and the Ming court, the Jurchen tribe, which was fragmented and struggling to survive, was no match for them.

It was soon annexed by the Haixi Jurchens.

According to the Jurchen tradition, the Haixi people will kill all males and their sons over eight years old in the conquered tribes who refuse to surrender.

When Mingren saw such a bloody scene, the Jurchens followed their cruel jungle laws and mercilessly chopped off the heads of each of the "children" in Mingren's eyes.

The few young military censors of the Ming army who were sent to various Jurchen units to record the progress of the Jurchens were shocked.

Although the officers of the Ming Army dismissed this - most of these Liaodong elite soldiers had participated in Emperor Zhengde's bloody suppression of the peasant armies in Hebei and Shandong. They had seen and executed military laws and massacres that were ten times more cruel than this. .

But the first batch of poor scholars admitted by Zhu Houcong since he ascended the throne had never seen such a battle.

Massacre of helpless children in large numbers.

This is not something that Confucian students taught by Confucius and Mencius could watch without any hesitation.

These scholar-officials faced such human tragedy.

He sternly ordered the generals in Liaodong who had been dealing with the Jurchens all year round and were familiar with various Jurchen affairs and customs to tell the Jurchens to stop.

And how to ensure that such an endgame will not happen again in the future.

The solution given by these scholar-officials was to advise these confused Jurchen chiefs to take these children back to the tribe to be slaves.

(End of this chapter)