Forced to leave Jimingyi City, all the civil and military officials felt as if they were mourning their heirs, and followed the emperor in fear as they continued to march.
On July 25th, Guimao went to Wanquan Valley.
On July 26, Jiachen, it was Huai'an. It's night, and dark clouds are everywhere.
At this time, everyone is frightened in their hearts. The slightest movement in the grass and grass will cause the wind and cranes to tremble, and the grass and trees will become soldiers. That day, it was another cloudy night, and it was so dark that I couldn't see my fingers. There were so many impostors, and the people who were carried here were frightened and almost screamed.
On the twenty-seventh day of the seventh month, Yiji, the next day was in the west of Tiancheng.
On Bingwu, July 28th, the next day was Yanghe.
Here in Yanghe, Yingzong saw an unforgettable sight in his life. He was born in a deep palace and grew up in the hands of women. He was raised as a prince since childhood. I've seen real battlefields there.
More than 40,000 Ming troops died in Yanghe, and corpses were scattered all over the field. July is the hottest month of the year, and July 15th is the Ghost Festival, also known as the Ghost Festival. The corpses killed in battle that day had been severely decomposed after thirteen days of fermentation.
These fallen officers and soldiers were naked and naked, and their clothes, armor and weapons had been stripped off by the Wala people. Mongolia was short of iron, especially armor. The strength of Junggar in later generations was due to their requirement that every ten households must save a pair of iron armor a year.
At that time, it was the first time that Yingzong saw a dead body so terrifying.
I wonder if the more than 40,000 corpses taught Yingzong a lesson. Let us know the cruelty of war. The battlefield is not a treat. If you don't kill him here, he will kill you. There's no sense in it.
On the battlefield, either you die or I live.
Yang Fan could imagine that Yingzong would have vomited to pieces at that time. Being patted on the back by Wang Zhen, I vomited out all the food I had eaten the night before.
At this time, Yingzong felt fear and shaken for the first time.
On the 29th day of the seventh lunar month, at the end of Dingwei, they settled in Yu for the first time.
Yang Fan marked the march route, put down his pencil, and asked with some disbelief: "During the Xuanzong period, there were still four Northern Expeditions, and the Beijing camp collapsed so quickly."
Zhang Shize smiled bitterly and said: "To do good is to climb up, to do evil is to collapse. Building an army is extremely difficult, but to destroy an army, just let it go, and ten years is enough."
Zhang Shize continued: "Previously, according to my investigation of the archives of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion, there should have been 253,800 officers and soldiers in the 77 guard posts in the capital at that time. But in addition to the troops stationed in the fields and defending the city, there were actually 116,400 people who were under the command of the Ministry of Works. They serve as labor force all year round. These people have not been trained for more than 20 years. Only 56,000 people are still training in the camp as a standing army. The Beijing camp, which should have 180,000 combat troops at this time, has a shortage of three points of two."
"The number of soldiers in the Beijing camp, which was finally replenished, is in deficit again. According to Zhu Yong, the Duke of Cheng, who is in charge of the Beijing camp, there is a shortage of more than 25,000 troops in the five military camps in the Beijing camp due to deployment and flight."
Yang Fan asked: "Is the guard station finished at this time?"
"If the Beijing camp is like this, the guardsmen in other places are even more hopeless. According to preliminary statistics made by the Fifth Army Governor's Office at that time, there were as many as 1.2 million deserters in various guard posts in the Ming Dynasty. And the speed of replenishment was far slower than those who fled. The speed. The more people are replenished, the fewer people there are. This situation developed before the Battle of Tumubao, and the number of deserters had risen to more than 1.6 million, accounting for about half of the country's total number of troops."
Yang Fan said: "The Oara people are not Tatars. They are accustomed to the melees in Central Asia. At this time, the Ming Dynasty should not have had large-scale military conflicts with Mongolia in the desert. The combat effectiveness of the Oara people should not be Very understanding.”
Zhang Shize sighed and said: "There is a saying in the art of war. If you know yourself and the enemy, you will not be in danger in a hundred battles; if you don't know the enemy but know yourself, you will win and lose every time; if you don't know the enemy and yourself, you will be in danger in every battle. This time, the Ming Dynasty is a blind man riding a blind horse, facing the abyss in the middle of the night. Now You don’t know the enemy’s situation, and you don’t know your own situation. How can you not fail?”
Yang Fan asked: "After passing these places, we should reach Datong, right?"
Zhang Shize said: "On the first day of August, the Ming army arrived in Datong. On the second day of August, the Yingzong stationed in Datong. The rain became more severe, and we began to discuss the rotation of troops."
Datong originally had tens of thousands of soldiers, but later the Beijing camp once again supported 30,000 people. Those are the people led by the Prince Consort. Then the four generals sent out troops in four groups to fight against Oala, and the entire army in Yanghe was wiped out. Shi Heng fled back. Guo Jing, the eunuch guarding Datong, is said to have escaped by hiding in the bushes.
There is some doubt as to how Guo Jing came back. There is no evidence of whether he was captured and released, or whether he really escaped and died. No one knows the truth, it all depends on what he says.
Guo Jing was a veteran eunuch in the four dynasties of the Ming Dynasty. He was born in Caozhang Town, Xixia County (now Caozhang Village, Shuitou Town, Xia County, Shanxi Province). He followed Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, since he was 18 years old. At this time, he served as a military eunuch guarding Datong.
Guo Jing became friendly with Wala and accepted his bribes. Guo Jing also had a close friendship with Wang Zhen. Guo Jing's family regarded his uncle as a close confidant of Ye Xian. Guo Jing made firearms and steel feathers for Wala in his first year.
That uncle was also a Mongolian, and was later executed by Jin Yiwei on charges of spying.
Guo Jing, the dead eunuch, is also very likely to be Yexian's spy.
He had done many traitorous things, but Wang Zhen protected him. Even though Shi Heng and others impeached him many times, they could not touch him.
In November of the 10th year of Zhengtong, Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty received a report that the Oara envoys who came to pay tribute carried a large amount of armor, weapons, bows, arrows, and cannons in their belongings. After investigation, it was found that they were sold by smugglers in Datong, Xuanfu and other places.
Considering that the Ming Dynasty was still strictly controlling firearms manufacturing technology in the two capitals at this time, and there were very few border guards that could legally manufacture firearms, it was obvious that smugglers were inseparable from the Ming army.
So Yingzong issued an order to the generals such as Wu Jinbo and Zhu Mian, the commander-in-chief of Datong at that time, and the commander-in-chief of Xuanfu, asking them to severely crack down on smuggling in the future, and punish them severely if it happened again.
During the Battle of Yanghe, Guo Jing overstepped his authority and interfered with the command of the troops. At that time, the terrain ahead of the troops' advance was dangerous, and an ambush was suspected. They had already stopped advancing, but Guo Jing forced the army to advance. After being rejected, he led his troops into the valley. The consort was afraid that something would happen to him because he was Wang Zhen's favorite.
The generals could not afford to offend Wang Zhen, so they had no choice but to follow him into the valley, but were ambushed by the Walas. completely annihilated.
Yang Fan couldn't help but ask after hearing this: "Is this Guo Jing a spy from Ye Xian?"
Zhang Shize said: "God knows, no matter how we investigate these things now, we can't find out. Moreover, some files in the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion were destroyed by someone."
