If the prince is granted the power to supervise the country by the emperor, his orders will of course be legally binding. As long as they do not conflict with the emperor's own will, all officials in the world must obey it. For example, during the Northern Expedition, Zhu Di ordered the prince Zhu Gaochi to supervise the country several times. The orders issued by the prince to supervise the country were theoretically the prince's orders. For example, Zhu Yijun's order could only be formally called the prince's order. However, the prince is the crown prince after all. People usually refer to the orders issued by the prince as the prince's orders. It is like when people meet in later generations and the other party is a deputy director named Zhang, but when people call him, they will definitely call him Zhang. Director instead of Deputy Director Zhang for the same reason.
Therefore, the real meaning of the prince's edict in Gao pragmatic's hand is not that it has actual legal effect when holding it, but a symbolic meaning: the prince is very concerned about this matter, and everything Gao Shi read has seen and heard. Everything must be heard by Da Tian - after all, the emperor is a maniac who loves his son. If the prince knows, doesn't it mean that the emperor knows?
In other words, the real power of holding this edict is to show everyone the fact that not giving face to the high minister is equivalent to not giving face to the prince, and not giving face to the prince is equivalent to not giving face to the emperor.
Yan Guan dare not give the emperor face, because unless the emperor himself loses face, he can't do anything to Yan Guan. But it is impossible for ordinary officials to casually deny face to the emperor. If you don't respect the emperor, the emperor, the ministers, the fathers and the sons, will the book be read into the dog's belly?
Those who have understood the true meaning of this prince's edict have understood that although the official envoy on this tour is Cheng Wen, who is an engineering major, I am afraid that the real concern of His Majesty and his son is actually this man who is regarded by the outside world as Gao Shidu, who travels at public expense.
But at this moment, Gao Pragmatic couldn't care less about paying attention to these things. He was on his way to Datong.
This is the first time he has enjoyed the treatment of an imperial envoy traveling. Although he is only a deputy envoy in name, and is strictly stipulated by the imperial edict to be a silent deputy envoy, Cheng Wen, as the chief envoy, is his "senior brother". He is one of the core members of the Gao Party. He is well aware of the causes and consequences of this imperial mission, so he takes great care of Gao Pragmatic, his junior brother. It may be too much to say "ask for instructions in the morning and report later", but he always consults with him on everything. It's always the same.
In fact, the honor guard for imperial envoys is not worth mentioning. Gao Jingzhi has seen the emperor's honor guard countless times in the palace (not in full), and even saw the full crown prince's honor guard when he went out to study. The so-called imperial envoy honor guard he currently enjoys is completely insufficient. look.
But this time the imperial guard of honor was different from usual, because Gao Pragmatic brought two hundred servants with him.
Imperial envoys can bring their family members with them when traveling, especially if they go to areas that are in war or are about to be in war. The country does not have many restrictions on this - in fact, there were some regulations in the early years, but those regulations have long been a matter of old sesame seeds and rotten millet. In the military After the servant system became popular, almost no one mentioned it anymore. Anyway, the court will not pay for your accompanying servants. If you can afford it, you can bring it. Even if a few decades later, the imperial court would allocate funds as appropriate for the accompanying military servants.
Gao Jingshi's manpower, which can be called "military servants", if calculated from all aspects, is close to the two thousand mark. However, he will not be stupid enough to gather these two thousand people. That would be an act of seeking death.
He first gave these military servants different names. Although they were collectively called the Servant Guards internally, they did not call them that way externally. They were known by many names to the outside world, such as Jinghua Caravan Guards and Sanshen Garden. The servants who protect the hospital, the servants who protect the village in Bailixia, the servants who protect the mine in Kaiping Jinghua, etc., there are all kinds of strange things.
At the same time, he carefully dispersed these people: three hundred were placed in Sanshenyuan, three hundred were placed in Bailixia, three hundred were placed in Kaiping, and two hundred were placed in the capital... As for Datong and Xuanfu, because they were required The safety of those leading to trade outside the mouth is the least guaranteed, so there are four hundred each.
Of course, the 800 troops from Datong and Xuanfu were all dispatched together because Gao Mo and Gao Jue cooperated with Cao Gan on his trade trip to Fengzhouchuan last time. Now they are all left behind by Bai Hu who invited Han Naji to surrender. fort.
The top commander of Baihu Fort is just a garrison, with only five to six hundred troops under his command, and the actual strength is only more than 300. Therefore, the regular troops of the imperial court in Baihu Fort are not as large as those of the highly pragmatic servants.
Knowing that the chief and deputy imperial envoys and his entourage were going directly to Datong first, Wang Chonggu, the governor-general of Xuanda, rushed to Datong from Tianchengwei, the governor's residence, in order to show his attention.
Tianchengwei was the seat of Shanxi Xingdusi during the Ming Dynasty, which later became Shanxi Tianzhen County. It was roughly located in the middle of Datong and Xuanfu. The Governor of Xuanda was stationed here for the purpose of coordinating the two towns of Xuanda.
Because of this, from the time Wang Chonggu heard the news of the imperial envoy's departure, to the time he rushed to Datong, he even rushed in front of the imperial envoy and his party.
When the two parties met, Wang Chonggu did not need to salute Cheng Wen, because although Cheng Wen was an imperial envoy, Wang Chonggu was actually an imperial envoy. In the Ming Dynasty, whether he was a governor or a governor, even now, these positions have long been permanent officials. , but in theory they are still imperial envoys. For example, Wang Chonggu, the governor-general of Xuanda, served as the censor of the right capital of the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the imperial envoy governor-general of Xuanda, Shanxi and other departments, in charge of military affairs and food and salary.
Since they are both imperial envoys, when it comes to their duties, it is Cheng Wen and Gao Pragmatic who want to salute Wang Chonggu first.
However, after all, Wang Chonggu is the second-ranked boss within the Jin Party. He knows that the two in front of him are almost the same as Gao Gong, the current main ally of the Jin Party. Of course, he will not show any airs in front of them and go through a simple ritual. During the process, he and Datong Governor Fang Fengshi welcomed the two of them in.
As for the imperial eunuchs who guarded Datong, Cheng Wen didn't care, and neither did Gao Pragmatic. On the contrary, it was Ma Fang, the chief military officer of Datong. Because Cheng Wen knew that he was the "most capable general" in Gao Gong's name, he was treated with courtesy.
And Gao Jingshi was even closer to Ma Fang - they had become as close as a family under Cao Gan's mediation. Gao Jingshi sold horses to him to replenish his armaments, he helped Gao Jingshi train his cavalry, and even gave Gao Jingshi "the right to withdraw troops". "In this matter, Ma Fang also cooperated accordingly, and the two parties have been close friends for a long time.
Moreover, Gao Pragmatic came this time with the mission of "viewing the government" to inspect the armaments of Xuan University. In fact, Gao Pragmatic had sent him a private message in advance, slightly revealing something such as "may consider strengthening firearms equipment for your department" etc. Therefore, Ma Fang was very happy to see Gao Pragmatic - in fact, he was not ignorant of the benefits of firearms, but the firearms he had received before were of really poor quality, so his cavalry still mainly used sabers and three-eyed blunderbuss, while Gao Pragmatic attached the letter to Qi Jiguang's newly improved Saigong gun, and told Ma Fang that if firearms are supplied to other departments in the future, the quality and level of the firearms will not be lower than this gun.
After Ma Fang found someone to try it, he found that this gun was much stronger than the three-eyed blunderbuss. Due to the use of the paper shell fixed charging method, the filling speed of the ammunition was significantly improved compared to the previous blunderbuss. At the same time, The quality is also very reliable.
Ma Fang believes that if his subordinates can be equipped with Saigon guns of this quality in batches in the future, then the earlier three-eyed guns can obviously be given up. Of course, the border army is extremely poor, so giving up does not mean abandoning it. It is completely necessary to provide the second and third line garrison troops to make full use of the remaining heat.
