Near the east gate of Xinzheng County, there is a small courtyard with green bricks and black tiles, which is simple and unpretentious. Although the small courtyard has three rooms and three rooms, its depth is limited and it seems not grand enough.
The rare bright spots in the whole courtyard are the plum blossoms planted in scattered places. It is the twelfth lunar month, and the plum blossoms are in full bloom, with sparse shadows and a faint fragrance. If there is any shortcoming, it is probably the lack of snow.
This small courtyard, named Meiyuan, belongs to Gao Cai, the fifth uncle who is highly pragmatic.
Gaocai, whose courtesy name is Deqing and whose name is Mei'an. Born in March of the second year of Jiajing, he was born in Jiyouke Yayuan in the 28th year of Jiajing - that is, he ranked second in the provincial examination. In other words, it is the second-place Juren in Henan, and it stands to reason that the results are very good.
Unfortunately, this was his best result. After that, he took the imperial examination three times, but failed in all of them. At that time, he was already old and did not dare to waste time anymore, so he served as a candidate for the vacancy of the governor's office. Afterwards, he was promoted to the former military governor's office and was granted the title of Feng Zheng Dafu.
The former military governor's office experienced that this official's position was actually quite embarrassing.
First, it is a civilian official. It stands to reason that civilian officials usually have a higher status, but the problem is that in the experience of this governor's house, all their immediate superiors were military officials. You can imagine how embarrassing it must be for a civilian official to take orders from military generals in an era when the status of civilian officials was much higher than that of military generals.
Secondly, the responsibility of this position is to "handle documents and move them to cashier". In short, it is to handle all kinds of official documents. The status of the Commander-in-Chief of the Fifth Army has been in decline since Yongle, and a large number of powers that originally belonged to the Commander-in-Chief were usurped by the Ministry of War.
Especially the areas under the overlapping jurisdiction of the Ministry of War and the Governor's Office, the Ministry of War basically has the final say. The Governor's Office has no say at all. When things happen, they can only transfer documents to the Ministry of War for approval as a matter of routine. Even the affairs of the garrison and farming are also handled by the Ministry of War and the Household Affairs Bureau. The ministry and local governors took care of it.
Later, the only areas where the Governor's Office barely had any say was military registration management and ordnance manufacturing. Even the power of ordnance manufacturing had to be shared with the Imperial Household and the Ministry of War.
It is obvious that it would not be very pleasant for a talented person to serve as an official in such a department and such a position.
But Gao Xie is an open-minded person. Since his career is a foregone conclusion, it is better to develop his personal hobbies than to work hard on paperwork or do nothing.
The hobby of high talent and high experience is the study of firearms. This hobby was developed after he arrived at the Dudu's Mansion: he was in charge of official documents and files. He sat in the public room every day with nothing to do. He couldn't read other books or do other miscellaneous things, so he had to look through the files to see if he could find anything. Do something interesting.
After going back and forth, Gao Cai found that the development of firearms in the Ming Dynasty was quite interesting, so he began to study it interestingly by taking advantage of his ability to consult any files.
The development of firearms in the Ming Dynasty was based on the Song and Yuan dynasties. During the war to unify the country, Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, "relyed on firearms to win" many times.
But Gao Cai discovered that after entering the Ming Dynasty, the development of firearms accelerated greatly. Not only has it made amazing breakthroughs in quality, quantity and production technology, but it has also absorbed some advanced foreign technologies and has been widely used in actual combat with outstanding results.
Gao Cai checked the archives and found that during the Northern Song Dynasty, hot and cold weapons were used together, but only some incendiary and explosive firearms were used in the attack and defense of the city, which had little impact on tactics.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the situation was different. The Mongols, who were in the period of a powerful military empire, entered the Central Plains, especially Genghis Khan's Western Expedition and two attacks on Japan. They not only gave full play to the advantages of the nomadic cavalry, but also took the initiative to use gunpowder and The power of iron artillery can defeat the enemy in siege battles.
From the perspective of overall tactics, although the wars of the Yuan Dynasty were still limited to the military model of the past and were typical wars of the cold weapon era, there have been significant improvements in the application of firearms. Not only did they use explosive trebuchets, but they also began to manufacture metal tubular firearms, which caused a fundamental change in the army's equipment, strategy, and tactics.
Although Gao Cai did not have the advantage of being a highly pragmatic time traveler, he also discovered in his research that the changes and development of firearms were achieved through war. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, continuous border conflicts have provided a battlefield for the extensive use of firearms, and firearms have also been gradually improved and perfected in response to war needs in war after war.
From the day when Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, the conflict between the Ming Dynasty and the "barbarians" on the frontiers has been continuous, from the multiple provocations of Wala Yexian to the civil engineering changes; from the worries of coastal Japanese pirates to the Qi family's army Xianyou breaking the siege. As soon as there are no firearms showing off, there are even more and more people. In these wars, large and small, the advantages of firearms in use and their role in decisive victory have slowly emerged and become known, valued and accepted by people.
Gao Cai also discovered that judging from the equipment situation of the entire Ming Dynasty army, the ratio of cold weapons to firearms is also constantly changing, with firearms increasingly replacing cold weapons. The Shenji Battalion, which was established after the introduction of Shenji guns and cannons in the early Ming Dynasty, became the first pure artillery unit in the dynasty. It was not only used in city defense and offensive battles, but also in Kaiping, Huailai, Xuanfu and other ten cities since the Yongle period. In the border defense areas, divine machine guns have also been erected to increase defense; now, "the Beijing army has one hundred thousand, and firearms rank sixth among them."
As a result, Gao Cai became more interested and began to study fire starters seriously. No one knows the extent of Gao Cai's research. Even his third brother Gao Gong only knows that his fifth brother is interested in firearms. After years of research, they don't know what he has gained.
What is even more regrettable is that Gao Cai's health was not very good. In the middle of the third year of Longqing, he had to resign and return to his hometown. Of course, looking at this time point, we can see that there is actually another important reason for this: Gao Gong was forced to become an official at that time. In order to please Xu Jie, some people went to Shushen to impeach Gao Cai, saying that under his management, some guards The military status of the institute is in chaos, with many vacancies.
Well said, it is indeed true. But the problem is, at this time in the Ming Dynasty, which guard station was not like this?
Besides, the military status of the guard station is in chaos, and there are many vacancies in the staff. Could this be caused by his talented person's experience in managing official documents and files? If you have the ability, try a nationwide census and see if those hereditary nobles are willing to fight for you!
Not to mention the Governor's Mansion, even the Ministry of War and probably even the Cabinet will not be able to hold it back!
It's nothing more than a wall falling and everyone pushing it down - if Gao Gong falls, how can his brother be safe? That is to say, the pragmatic and cheap father Gao Zai was lucky. He was an official in Fengyang, the central capital. He was far away and was not in the capital. The licking dogs in Xujie did not think of him for a while, otherwise they would definitely be impeached. .
Later, Gao Gong was resurrected. After arriving in the capital, Gao Cai also talked about the importance of firearms in a letter to his family, hoping that Gao Gong would not ignore it. This was even one of the reasons why Gao Gong did not directly refuse when Gao Pragmatic expressed his intention to get involved in the production of firearms and military industry.
