Chapter 224 Buying money for life
Continue to guard the passage between Liaodong and the Mongolian grasslands to prevent the Jiannu from bypassing the grasslands and entering the Ming Dynasty.

As for Lindan Khan himself, the Ming Dynasty actually no longer had any expectations for him.

In other words, the Ming Dynasty is still willing to give Chahar the city reward, entirely out of consideration for the face of the Dorlot tribe and with the mentality of less trouble is better, so it gave Chahar the green light for the city reward.

But the Ming Emperor, Lin Danhan, should also know that he was an 18-year-old young emperor whose motto was "My brother should be Yao and Shun" and was the most impulsive emperor.

If Lin Danhan killed the imperial merchant of the Ming Dynasty like this, it would undoubtedly be a slap in the face of the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty!
The city reward, which was originally given or not, is now likely to be taken back immediately!
Upon hearing this, the faces of some of the tribal nobles in the tent suddenly changed.

As the saying goes, everyone knows their own family affairs. In order to avoid a direct confrontation with the Jiannu, or perhaps because Altan Khan wanted to unify the grassland, the Chahar tribe went on expeditions everywhere in recent years and did not even have time to take care of their main job of herding cattle. The entire Chahar tribe felt exhausted.

Because of the war, Chahar suffered a great loss of people, livestock and supplies. Even though some property was seized, the fallen warriors of the tribe could not be replaced in a short time.

This is a very scary reality. The number of adult males belonging to the Chahar tribe is decreasing year by year, and it takes a long time for young boys to grow up.

In order to replenish their fighting power, the Chahar tribe had to absorb captured male members of the hostile forces. As a result, there were more and more outsiders in the tribe, and fewer and fewer real people.

Sooner or later, the power of "outsiders" will take over!
Moreover, in recent years, not only has the Ming Dynasty had a hard time due to natural disasters and man-made calamities, the grasslands have also faced the crisis of epidemics, and a large number of cattle and sheep have been infected with the plague and died.

Countless tribal people died of hunger and cold, and countless lower-class colonists faced the crisis of death.

Chahar seems to be in a prosperous situation, but in fact there are countless crises facing everyone.

Lin Danhan also understood this truth. Although he was extremely domineering when facing Wang An and showed no respect when mentioning the Ming Dynasty, he even thought that the Ming court's reward was a tribute to himself!
But he could not help but admit that if he lost the support of the Ming court, the entire Chahar tribe would immediately fall into an extremely embarrassing predicament.

Do you really want to kill the imperial merchant of the Ming Dynasty for a woman and gamble that the emperor of the Ming Dynasty will not get angry and humiliated by this?
Just as Lin Danhan fell into deep thought, Wang An added a little weight to the scale of life and death.

"Moreover, Datong Prefecture General Man Gui is my sworn elder brother. The men in the caravan that followed me into your tribe are all veterans under my elder brother, and they have made great contributions in Liaodong!"

"If the Khan wants to kill me, they will definitely not surrender. Does Your Majesty really want to kill them all?"

"Kill all of Man Gui's old subordinates, kill all of Daming's veterans?"

Lin Danhan suddenly fell into hesitation. He had been persuaded by Wang An and was worried that killing the other party would cause the anger of the Ming Emperor. Now with the addition of a bunch of old Ming soldiers, the possibility of angering the Ming court and Man Gui soared again.

Lin Danhan looked at Tian Sanlengzi and others behind Wang An. Not to mention that these people were wearing the Ming army's mandarin duck battle jackets, just by looking at their aura and their mutilated limbs, it was not difficult to judge that they were indeed a group of veterans who had fought many battles.

Of course, Lin Danhan could also just kill Wang An and leave these old soldiers alone.

But looking at the expressions of these veterans who were ready to fight him to the death, Lin Danhan had no doubt that when he really took action, these veterans would never sit idly by and watch Wang An being killed.

To take a step back, even if Lindan Khan killed Wang An and these old soldiers, the Ming Emperor would have swallowed his anger.

But can Man Gui, who is just “one step away”, swallow this humiliation?
Datong Prefecture controls the main transportation route from the Ming Dynasty to the right wing of Mongolia. If he offends Man Gui, it will not be easy for him to obtain supplies from the Ming Dynasty in the future.

Maybe the other party would take advantage of the fact that he was away at war and lead his army to rob his home. However, Lin Danhan was the Great Khan of Mongolia. If his wife was played by someone but he didn't say anything, he would not be able to get off the ledge.

Wang An saw the relaxation on Lin Danhan's face and immediately felt that his chance to survive had come. He gritted his teeth and said, "Although I don't know why this happened, in order to express my sincere apology to Your Majesty the Khan, I am willing to donate 20,000 taels of silver, or materials of equal value. What do you think?"

As soon as these words were spoken, Lin Danhan was immediately moved.

No one knew better than him the food crisis that the Chahar tribe was facing at that time.

Many people died of the plague, and all the tribes relied on imported food from the Ming Dynasty. However, due to the Ming emperor's decree to abolish all food imports, all the tribes faced food shortages.

Even if he went on expeditions, he wouldn't be able to snatch much.

However, those Zushi merchants asked for extremely high prices, and because of the Ming Dynasty's severe crackdown, there were very few Ming Dynasty merchants appearing on the grassland during this period.

To put it bluntly, even if Lin Danhan had silver, he might not be able to buy food.

But Wang An, the imperial merchant, was different. Not only did he have the legal customs clearance procedures of the Ming Dynasty court, but he also had the care of his sworn brother, Man Gui, the general of Datong Prefecture. So it was not difficult for him to smuggle some grain into the grassland.

Wang An continued to flatter the emperor, saying things like "A real man was born between heaven and earth, how can he be depressed and live under someone else's control for long?"
If you want to achieve great things, you must not be too particular about small details.

As the saying goes, brothers are like limbs and women are like clothes.

How many tribal people struggling on the brink of starvation can be saved by supplies worth 20,000 taels of silver?

After talking nonsense for a while, I don’t know which of his words hit the nail on the head for Lindan Khan, or maybe no words at all hit the nail on the head for Lindan Khan.

Lin Danhan simply needed a step to get off the slope.

"Alas... In order for the people of our tribe to have enough food, this Khan can only sacrifice himself for others and make some sacrifices!"

Lin Danhan put away the dagger and acted as if he was sacrificing himself for others.

Wang An could finally swallow his saliva without having to worry about his Adam's apple being cut by the sharp blade.

The crisis was over, and suddenly his legs went weak and he almost collapsed to the ground.

Fortunately, Tian Sanlengzi was smart enough to reach out and support Wang An in time, otherwise it would have been another joke.

However, although the crisis was resolved, Wang An only paid for his life with silver.

Lin Danhan and other Mongolian nobles still looked at Wang An with malicious eyes, which made Wang An feel insecure.

(End of this chapter)