Chapter 54 Tongguan
Guan Shengyun's army marched by land and water along the Luoshui River, to Yanzhou (today's Fuxian County), Luochuan, Central China (into Huangling), Baishui... Everywhere they went, the local prefectures and counties had already prepared hot meals for the laborers. Long. Even in Yanzhou and central areas, because the city is close to the Luoshui River, the local officials were afraid that the army would find trouble and enter the city for a while while they were close, so they organized the civilians in advance to build camps for the army to station!
Under the professional guidance of Dusifu, the camp was built impeccably. Not only are tents, stables and other facilities available, but even the beacon towers and warning towers outside the camp are exemplary - every location is carefully selected, and everything seven or eight miles ahead can be seen, and everything behind is The road to the campsite is smooth and smooth! The subtext is self-evident: You can stay here with peace of mind, our every move cannot be hidden from the sharp eyes of your army Wangzi, and if something happens, Wangzi will ensure that they will have enough time to run back to the camp safely after raising the alarm!
Well, this is called a gentleman’s magnanimity!
At first, Guan Shengyun was really not used to this kind of warm and thoughtful service. He was afraid that the other party would dig a trap for him and there was no Luo Yonghao around to help him make decisions, so he did not dare to drive directly into the camp. Chai Junju, the magistrate of Yanzhou, had already expected this, so he went to greet him personally. Chai Zhizhou led Guan Shengyun around the camp and saw the neatly stacked copper and iron materials, the small mountain of shovels, pickaxes and other materials, as well as the more than a hundred pigs and sheep, and There was a large open silver box in the handsome account. Guan Dashuai, who wanted to find faults and extort more things, was speechless! Later, the Gu brothers surveyed the early warning facilities outside the camp and came to a unanimous conclusion: If we built it ourselves, we would never find a more appropriate location or build it so solidly!
Guan Shengyun smiled happily and sincerely invited Chai Zhizhou to have dinner. Unexpectedly, Chai Zhizhou misunderstood and thought that Marshal Guan was going to detain him. He whispered a few words to his family, and they ran back to the city. After a while, another box was delivered, containing seven to eight hundred taels of large and small silver ingots, as well as a pile of gold hairpins, earrings and other items. Chai Zhizhou told Guan Shengyun with a bitter face: "This is all the belongings of the lower official. Even what Zhuo Jing and my concubine wear on their heads are here. If the commander wants to keep them, he can only take off their clothes and give them away." Here we come..." This made Guan Shengyun feel a little embarrassed. Sorry for the shame, so he pretended to decline, but still kept half of the things.
All this was seen by the "accompanying" Master Wang Ziyu. At that moment, Master Wang patted his chest and assured Master Chai that the provincial government's three ministers would never turn a blind eye to Master Chai's noble deeds and that Master Chai's "righteous deeds" would definitely be rewarded. Well deserved reward. Everyone is happy.
Although the local officials along the way treated Guan Shengyun with great hospitality, they treated the real officers and soldiers in a different manner.
For example, in the second year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji broke through the border wall and invaded, and captured Zunhua, Yutian, Sanhe, Xianghe, and Shunyi. His troops reached the capital city. Wang Yuanya, the governor of Zunhua, committed suicide, and Zhao Lijiao, the commander-in-chief of Shanhaiguan, was killed in battle. The capital was shaken, and the imperial court ordered all regions to supervise King Huojiqin. Shanxi Governor Geng Ruqi came forward and personally led more than 3,000 people from the Governor's Biao Camp and Taiyuan Camp. Zhang Honggong, the commander-in-chief of Shanxi Province, also led 5,000 elite Jin troops to rush to the rescue.
When this elite rescue force arrived in the Gyeonggi area, the order of the Ministry of War was changed three times in three days: stationed in Tongzhou on the first day, transferred to Changping on the second day, and guarded Liangxiang on the third day. It's eighty or ninety miles from Tongzhou to Changping, and one hundred and forty and fifty miles from Changping to Liangxiang. Walk on two legs!
This is nothing, but the most immoral and brainless scene happened: the local officials in the three places unanimously said: According to the ancestral system, the army is not allowed to provide food on the day it arrives in the flood area! They traveled thousands of miles to help the capital, marched nearly 300 miles for three days, and had no food for three days! Someone was really going to die, so the hungry soldiers robbed food nearby.
How could the imperial court tolerate such an incident and its consequences and impact being so bad? It must be investigated in depth and dealt with seriously!
Investigation results: The fact that soldiers snatched food is irrefutable!
Opinions on handling: Geng Ruqi and Zhang Honggong failed to manage the troops well and their military discipline was loose. They should be imprisoned for their crimes!
Did the soldiers go looting because they had nothing to eat? fart! “If you freeze to death, don’t demolish your house, if you starve to death, don’t plunder”, have you ever heard of it? Why don't you just starve to death!
Not providing food to the soldiers? The adults did the right thing! This is ancestral! Adherence to principles should be commended! What's wrong?
Not only do you have to follow blind instructions and run around like a headless fly, but you also have to be ready to risk your life at any time. What will you do if you have no food? Haha, I'm sorry: this matter is not my business, I deserve it!
The soldiers who came from afar were angry: Go to hell, whoever works for you again is a fool, I won’t play anymore! Dispersed in a hurry. Zhang Honggong's five thousand elite Jin soldiers all fled back to Shanxi, and nearly a thousand people from Geng Ruxi's Biao Camp and Taiyuan Camp also fled!
Learn from the pain and make up for it.
The lesson was profound. Chongzhen finally understood the inappropriateness of his handling of the problem and hurriedly corrected it: behead Geng Ruqi and Zhang Honggong!
After seeing this, I believe readers can understand why when Li Zicheng or Dorgon swept away the Ming Dynasty, powerful officials and military leaders from all over the country had the attitude of watching Chongzhen die, right?
If you still don’t understand, Zhu Youjian will give you another lesson soon. In the ninth year of Chongzhen, Dorgon invaded and threatened the capital again. The Tang King Zhu Yujian of the Zhu family clan personally commanded more than a thousand palace guards to go north to King Qin!
The journey was windy and rainy, and we also fought several battles with the peasant army of rogue bandits from the mainland. Needless to say, the palace guards are the elite among the elite. Although their numbers are small, their combat power is huge. They have defeated several groups of peasant armies that have an absolute advantage!
When the news reached the capital, Chongzhen was deeply moved. Decisive order: ancestral system, vassal kings are not allowed to enter the capital! The king of Tang who came to help with his army was deposed as a commoner and imprisoned in Fengyang for life!
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Therefore, Guan Shengyun, who enjoyed such meticulous care from the local officials, couldn't help but feel unhappy!
They drove to Tongzhou (today's Dali) with great force and comfort, and dispatched Guan Jianlin with a hundred soldiers, accompanied by Mr. Wang Ziyu, deputy envoy of the Shaanxi Punishment and Prosecution Department, to Weinan to pick up Luo Yonghao and his son. Continue towards Chaoyi.
Tongguan was the last stop on the way out of Henan Province in the east. In order to wait for Military Advisor Luo and to make a final blackmail, Guan Shengyun stationed here.
Tongguan is located in the eastern part of the Guanzhong Plain and is a strategic hub in the three provinces of Qin, Shanxi and Henan. It lies in the Qinling Mountains in the south, and the Weishui River and Luoshui River in the north merge into the Yellow River and go down through the pass. The surrounding valleys are deep and the cliffs are steep, and the mountains are high and the roads are narrow. There is a narrow trail in the middle. Since the Ming Dynasty, only one car and one horse can come and go. Du Fu once left a poem to describe the majestic and dangerous terrain: "The father-in-law sees the important place, and it is narrow enough to accommodate a bicycle. It is difficult to fight with a long halberd, but it will take one man for eternity."
In the ninth year of Hongwu's reign, Tongguanwei carried out a large-scale expansion, from a checkpoint to a city. However, because it is a military hub, there are few ordinary people in the city. Most of them are military households, and the residents are either active soldiers or family members of soldiers.
Because of the tacit understanding reached with Shaanxi Province, Guan Shengyun's Ministry did not openly display flags to identify themselves. They only used the flags of each battalion general to guide the troops to march in an organized manner. The armor, weapons, golden drums, and flags were all stolen or fraudulently obtained from the army. , coupled with the mediation and cover-up of the commander-in-chief Bao Zhicai and others, this large army stationed nearby not only failed to arouse the vigilance of Henan, but even the defenders of Tongguan Guard mistakenly thought that they were under the command of the Shaanxi Dusi. The government ordered the mobilization of friendly forces, thus missing the last opportunity to issue an emergency warning to Henan Province and even the capital.
On the contrary, the good news jointly issued by the three departments of Shaanxi and the two hundred and sixty-nine-level "bandit heads" pickled with lime were already galloping on the official road leading to the capital.
Tongguanwei was originally under the jurisdiction of Shaanxi Dusi Prefecture. After expansion in the ninth year of Hongwu, it was placed under the jurisdiction of Henan Dusi Prefecture. During the Yongle period, Tongguan Guards were placed under the direct jurisdiction of the Chinese Army Dudufu. Since they were not part of the military management system of Shaanxi Province, it was a bit far-fetched to not notify them of the Shaanxi Dusifu's troop deployments, but it made sense.
Tongguanwei's status is extremely special: the administrative area belongs to Shaanxi, but it is not under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi Dusi Prefecture. Not only that, it even governs a small area of Shanxi!
The reason for this strange phenomenon is the unique military guard system of the Ming Dynasty.
We know that the administrative system of the Ming Dynasty had six central departments, including officials, households, rituals, soldiers, and punishments, followed by the provincial-level administrative envoys, that is, the provincial government, and then the prefectures, prefectures and counties.
As for the military management system, the center is composed of the five military governor's offices at the front, rear, left and right. The provincial level below is the military commander's office. Then there is the guard. Under the guard is the thousand-household office, and below that is the hundred-household office.
Sorting it out in this way, the two lines of administrative management and military management of the Ming court are relatively clear: corresponding to the six administrative departments of the central government, there is the Fifth Military Governor's Office of the military department, and the provincial-level administrative envoys department corresponds to the capital command. The main management system of the Ming Empire was composed of administrative and military parts.
Because of its important geographical location, Tongguan set up a guard station for thousands of households in the seventh year of Hongwu. There are essential differences between the Senhu Guard Station and the ordinary Senhu Guard Station: the former is vertically managed by the Capital Command and Envoy Division, while the latter is managed by the guards - it can be understood that the Senhu Guard Station is an independent brigade directly under the jurisdiction of the provincial military region. Yuqianhusuo is a field regiment under the organization of each division.
Just two years later, Zhu Yuanzhang felt that the level of the Qianhu Station was not enough to reflect the importance of Tongguan, so he simply upgraded the administrative level by one level: from the Qianhu Station to the Guard. The corresponding administrative unit of the military unit's guard is the prefecture. There are prefectures and counties below the prefecture, and there should be thousands of households under the guard. Therefore, the Puzhou Guard Qianhu Station on the north bank of the Yellow River was placed under the jurisdiction of Tongguan Guard.
Puzhou is located in Shanxi. This setting actually has two meanings: on the one hand, the military deployment on both sides of the Yellow River facilitates unified command; on the other hand, the military management area of the Provincial Command and Envoys Department and the administrative management area of the Provincial Envoys Department are deliberately and artificially staggered, and It is entangled with neighboring provinces and allows neighboring provinces to manage the border areas of the province, so that provincial-level administrative divisions and military divisions are intertwined and restrict each other, which is conducive to centralized rule.
A simple example will make it clear. In the administrative region of province A, there is a place (wei) that is managed by the military department (dusifu) of province B. The military department of province B has an area (wei), which is embedded in the administrative area of province C.
Lao Zhu, a chicken thief, only thought that if there was a rebellion in any province, the neighboring province would have wedged a nail in. You can't hide it, but you can give an early warning; but he didn't expect that in the middle and late stages, when the accumulated evils have spread all over the place, except for They were fighting each other, and the guards were all in ruins.
During the Yongle period, Zhu Di considered that Tongguan was not only a gateway to three provinces, but also an important east-west transportation route, so he simply upgraded it: it was placed under the direct jurisdiction of the Fifth Army Governor's Office, similar to the concept of a municipality in the military field. The soldiers in the guard station need to be fed by military camps, and the Tongguan Guard is no exception. However, it is under the direct jurisdiction of the "Ministry of Defense" and does not belong to any province. Therefore, in addition to the one thousand acres of land in the center of the city (it can be seen that Zhu Yuanzhang already had this when he expanded (preparations have been made), and then one piece from each of the three surrounding provinces will be used for military garrison.
When Military Advisor Luo returned to the camp and Guan Shengyun got the last supplies and left the camp, the defenders of Tongguan Guard realized that something was wrong: How could such a large-scale inter-provincial military mobilization not have any information beforehand? However, the day before, several generals including the Wei commander Sheng Zhiyong and the commander Xu Chao were taken to Huayin County for a drink by Lord Bao of the Shaanxi Dusi Mansion. It was said that the old mother of Zheng Guoping, the magistrate of Huayin, celebrated her seventieth birthday and even mentioned it. Mr. Wang Ziyu of the Criminal Investigation Department personally came to congratulate him, which shows that this usually low-key Zheng County Magistrate has a good background! If you don't do this, it would be a bit shameless - since the Tumu Fort Incident, the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion has gradually been reduced to a dispensable supporting role, with the Ministry of War having the final say on everything. Besides, many military camps in Tongguan Guard are still administratively under the jurisdiction of Huayin County, so there will never be any harm in establishing a good relationship with them.
Doubts are doubts, but the defenders are all illiterate soldiers. They just talked a few words, and they didn't attack you. Regardless of the height of the flags or the size of the troops, there are at least one commander-in-chief and two or three deputies. The six or seven handsome generals (whether it is Gao Tengdou or Gu Baihua and Gong Derun) all have the mentality of a nouveau riche who suddenly gets rich from the poor. Since Guan and Luo didn't talk, they all made their generals' flags to a higher standard. ), who is looking for a disease when he is full? Anyone who kills a talkative bastard is like crushing an ant to death.
When Tongguan Guard Commander Sheng Zhiyong and Commander Xu Chao came back, they brought a lot of things with them. Several porters carried boxes and luggage boxes and sent them directly to their residences. The two generals led their guards and went straight to the east city of Tongguan. Building, with a livid face, he looked at the endless stream of people passing by at his feet.
This is the rearguard of Guan Shengyun's army. Further forward, there is an endless snake, winding on the narrow mountain road. To the south are cliffs and to the north is the surging Yellow River. Hundreds of boats and rafts on the river are driving cautiously along the shore. Neither of the two adults spoke. Sheng Li, the captain of General Sheng's bodyguard, said, "Hey, dear, where did this army come from? What are they going to do?"
With a crisp sound of "pop", Shanda Ren turned around and slapped you with a big mouth: "Dog! Shut your dog mouth! If you chew your tongue again, I will throw you into the Yellow River and feed it to the turtles!"
Shanda stared at Sheng Li fiercely, and then his eyes met the gaze cast by Master Xu. The two adults exchanged meaningful glances, and invariably turned their eyes to the team at their feet again. When the soldiers on the tower saw this, they were all frightened, and no one dared to whisper to each other.
Seeing the back of the last rider leaving a stone's throw away and the last large ship sailing away, Commander Sheng suddenly shouted: "Close the city gate!"
This was followed by General Xu's roar: "Go up the wall, go up the wall! Everyone, get the hell out of here, go up the wall and be on guard!"
The two heavy doors of Tongguan Guard slammed shut.
Under the scolding of the two adults, the generals gathered up the soldiers and rushed to the city wall. The cattle working in the fields were hitched to carts, huge rocks were transported, and the gate was blocked tightly.
As the door closed behind them, Guan Shengyun's seemingly harmless army, under the watch of the Tongguan defenders, took off their disguises, showed their ferocious fangs, and rushed towards Henan Province, and captured Nexiang that day.
