From the late Jiajing period to the Longqing period, famous ministers and generals emerged in large numbers in the Ming Dynasty. However, in the Wanli period, especially in the early Wanli period, the most famous ones were Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang.
Qi Jiguang was a son of a general. He inherited his father's position at the age of seventeen and became a commander. The final conclusion of later generations is very clear that he was a national hero.
As for Li Chengliang, he was actually the queen of the generals and the hereditary commander of the Tieling Guards. Unfortunately, in his generation, his family was so poor that he could not afford the travel expenses to the capital to inherit the position. In the end, he had to scrape together here and there to survive. Go to Beijing.
At this time, there was nothing happening with the Jurchens. The main problem on the Ming border was still the conflict with the Mongols. We have been fighting for almost two hundred years. Today you rob me, and tomorrow I will chop you. After robbing and chopping, everyone goes home to wash up and sleep. No one can beat the other down completely.
In the first year of Longqing, Li Chengliang finally returned to Liaodong. At this time, he was already in his forties, but he started his military career from scratch, and then he was promoted to Staff General, Deputy Chief Soldier, and Chief Soldier.
The position of Commander-in-Chief of Liaodong is not easy to fill. He has to face the Mongolian left wing and the Jurchens alone. Regarding these two forces, the court's attitude was to fight against each other. The Jurchens were deliberately supported by the Ming Dynasty in order to fight against the Mongols.
However, the Jurchens and the Ming Dynasty seem to be inseparable, but in fact they each have their own needs. Many of Li Chengliang's predecessors died at the hands of the Mongols, and some died at the hands of the Jurchens.
When Li Chengliang was a leader, he was actually somewhat similar to Gao Pragmatism. When he led the troops, he never instilled in his subordinates such things as destiny and the benevolence of the emperor. His style is very simple and crude. As long as the soldiers kill the enemy bravely, he will be satisfied with all the glory, wealth, food, drink, whoring and gambling! So many Mongolians and Jurchens came to serve him.
There are three Jurchen tribes in Liaodong: Jianzhou Jurchen, Haixi Jurchen, and Donghai Jurchen. These three major tribes are sometimes at war with each other.
Among them, Jianzhou Jurchens are the most powerful. They were originally the three guards of Jianzhou established by the Ming Dynasty. However, in this era, they basically changed from defenders to bandits.
Li Chengliang had two main strategies for dealing with the Jurchens: on the one hand, he used the barbarians to control the barbarians, pulling one to defeat the other; on the other hand, he never killed them all and always ensured that the enemy had a way out. While making military achievements, he ensured that he could still have another chance. Fighting.
As a result, despite the constant war outside the pass, his military exploits continued to accumulate, and he even won a title and became an indispensable pillar of the imperial court. Especially in Liaodong, no one disrespected him.
Compared with Li Chengliang, who is "good at planning", Qi Jiguang seems much "stupid". He prefers to solve the problem at once. In his view, stabilizing the border relies on devastating blows to the enemy. If it cannot be destroyed, If you want to attack the enemy sexually, then strengthen yourself so that the enemy has no chance to take advantage of you.
At that time, Qi Jiguang was transferred to the north to guard the border after clearing the Japanese pirates along the southeast coast to curb the threat from Mongolia. From the beginning, he always wanted to adopt a once-and-for-all strategy, striving to carry out destructive purges so that the enemy would not dare to attack again. However, because Mongolia was different from the Japanese pirates, the Japanese pirates were basically infantry. Qi Jiguang relied on strict military discipline and was more mobile than the Japanese pirates, destroying Sexual strikes can be achieved, but this is not the case against Mongolia. After several attempts, they can only be defeated and repulsed.
Coupled with the change in the imperial court's policy, it became "West Huai East System", so Qi Jiguang mainly turned to defense and began to repair the Great Wall, build hollow enemy towers, and research and develop various weapons and military tactics in order to consolidate the defense line in the long term.
Later, when the Mongols saw that there was no benefit to be gained from Jizhen, they gradually stopped invading this area.
This is certainly a good thing for a country, but not necessarily for Qi Jiguang personally. In the tenth year of Wanli in history, Zhang Juzheng died of illness. Qi Jiguang, who lost his value due to border stability, was quickly deposed as a member of Zhang Juzheng's party. However, the amazing thing is that Li Chengliang, who was also a close confidant of Zhang Juzheng, died because of the ongoing war in Liaodong. Continue to be reused.
Qi Jiguang died in depression, while Li Chengliang lived a wealthy life. The hugely contrasting ending told all the generals of the Ming Dynasty the best way to find a career. Therefore, in the great turmoil at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the generals of the Ming Dynasty who were responsible for defending the territory took the tricks of raising and playing with the bandits to the extreme. In the end, the tragic ending was reached when Emperor Chongzhen was hanged on a coal mountain.
Perhaps the self-esteem of the bandits was not the only reason for the death of the Ming Dynasty, but it must be one of the direct reasons. The most ridiculous thing is that when these people raised the bandit, they treated the bandit as a wild beast in a cage, but they did not expect that after raising the bandit for a long time, the beast could actually tear open the cage and kill the hunter.
As for raising bandits, the first person to raise bandits in the Ming Dynasty was Li Chengliang in his later years.
Gao pragmatic originally thought that Li Chengliang should have started playing banditry when he was in his sixties, but unexpectedly, he degenerated earlier than he thought, and he had already started doing it before he was sixty years old.
Forget it, Zhu Yijun actually found out.
Did Emperor Wanli ever discover this in history? I'm afraid there are some. After all, not all idiots in the court are stupid. There are always people impeaching Li Chengliang. It is impossible that Emperor Wanli has not seen these memorials - just because he does not go to court does not mean that he does not manage politics. If he does not manage politics, how can the three major Was Zheng commanded by ghosts?
But why did Emperor Wanli in history only remove Li Chengliang for a period of time, but eventually reinstated him to his post and continued to control Liaodong?
If I remember correctly, it should have been in the 19th year of Wanli that Li Chengliang was impeached by the official. In November, Emperor Wanli dismissed Li Chengliang from his post in Liaodong and asked him to come to Beijing as a mere Ning Yuanbo.
In the 20th year of Wanli, Kuaibai rebelled in Ningxia. Mei Guozhen, the imperial censor, petitioned the court to re-appoint Li Chengliang, but Wang Dewan firmly believed that it was not possible, so the matter was shelved. In this way, Li Chengliang lost the opportunity to participate in the Battle of Ningxia.
However, Emperor Wanli sent his eldest son Li Rusong as the commander-in-chief to participate in quelling the Kuaibai Rebellion. As a result, although Li Chengliang lost the opportunity to make a comeback through meritorious service, Li Rusong became a famous general of the new generation. At the same time, the generals led by Li Chengliang were also reused one after another. His subordinates Li Pinghu, Li Ning, Li Xing, Qin Deyi, Sun Shoulian and others all gained wealth and became important generals who dominated the territory.
Since Li Chengliang left Liaodong, Liaodong has changed eight coaches in ten years. Liaodong's border defense has been weakened step by step, providing objective conditions for Nurhachi's rise.
In August of the 29th year of Wanli, Ma Lin, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, was impeached and convicted because of a dispute with Gao Huai, the tax envoy. Academician Shen Guanyi wrote a letter saying that although Li Chengliang was old, he could continue to lead the army. So the imperial court ordered Li Chengliang to control Liaodong again.
At this time, Li Chengliang was already seventy-six years old. However, at this time, the Tuman, Chang'ang, and Batu'er on the Mongolian left wing that Liaodong faced had all passed away, and there were very few Mongolian invaders. Kaiyuan, Fushun, and Guangning had previously opened horse and wood markets. In order to gain profits, the Jurchen tribes were very respectful and submissive.
This was a good thing for the court, but a bad thing for Li Chengliang, because in his mind, "the cunning rabbit dies, the lackey is cooked." If the border is stabilized and the Mongols and Jurchens all kneel down and call the Ming Dynasty daddy, then there will be more What's the use of his lackey?
So in order to completely destroy the possibility of the Ming Dynasty uniting with other Mongols and Jurchens, he carried out violent conquests. First, he attacked the Taining tribe and then the Yehe Jurchens and others. During this period, Nurhaci had unified the Jianzhou Jurchens and was gradually encroaching on the Haixi Jurchens. His power continued to grow. Li Chengliang deliberately turned a blind eye in order to cultivate enemies.
In the early years of Wanli, Li Chengliang suggested building six forts in Kuandian. By the middle and late period of Wanli, there were already more than 64,000 households in the six forts. The Ming Dynasty's strength in eastern Liaodong was significantly strengthened, and it had sufficient deterrent power against the Jurchens in Jianzhou. This It was the correct decision he made from the standpoint of Ming Dynasty in his early years.
But in the thirty-fourth year of Wanli, in order to support the bandits and respect themselves, Li Chengliang abandoned the Kuandian Six Forts and moved more than 64,000 households there to the interior on the grounds that they were isolated and difficult to defend. The local residents were attached to their families and did not want to leave, so Li Chengliang used a large army to drive them away, which even caused a lot of bloodshed and many casualties. For this reason, he was impeached again. In the thirty-sixth year of Wanli, Li Chengliang was impeached again.
When Xiong Tingbi was guarding Liaodong, he once clearly said that Li Chengliang's crime could lead to death. However, Zhu Yijun still did not kill him. He was only "dismissed" without killing him.
Now Gao Jingshi feels that the most important thing for him is to understand. Logically speaking, Emperor Wanli in history should have seen that Li Chengliang was trying to support the bandits, so why didn't he kill him?
Even judging from what Zhu Yijun said to him today, he already knew very well about Li Chengliang's respect for raising bandits.
In this case, the question becomes even bigger: Why not kill him?
Li Chengliang was not a pragmatic person. With his current reputation as a pragmatic person, if the emperor killed him, he would definitely be "infamous." Dare to rebel?
What a joke, Liaodong at this time is not the "Beidacang" of later generations. Even if the Liaodong army really rebels, as long as the Central Plains is deprived of food and pay, Liaodong itself will kill each other, and even Shanhaiguan will not be able to enter.
Gao Pragmatic was scratching his head. He really couldn't think of a perfect answer. He could only estimate in his mind that there must be some situation that he couldn't control, and that or those situations seriously affected Wanli's decision.
So he asked tentatively: "If the emperor feels that Li Chengliang has betrayed the divine grace, he can just dismiss him. Why bother so much?"
"Who will be replaced after dismissal?" Zhu Yijun waved his hand and said: "I have carefully looked at the resumes of the generals in Liaodong. Now except Li Chengliang, I am afraid it is not safe to replace anyone. Besides, the situation in Mongolia is not convenient for the court to change now." Replace Li Chengliang."
"Why is this?" Gao pragmatically asked.
Zhu Yijun sighed and said: "I'm going to die now. I even sent my eldest grandson to Chahar. It seems that I no longer have any ambitions, but the guy in Tumen is restless. I doubt if I'm going to die now." With his sudden death, I'm afraid Tumen will have no worries. At that time, whether he goes to seek the right wing of Mongolia or continues his "eastern expedition" to plot against me in Liaodong, it will be a bad thing for the Ming Dynasty.
Although Li Chengliang's victory was not without merit, it was deliberately publicized by the imperial court in order to frighten Chahar and the Jurchens. If Liaodong changes its commander at this time, and An Da accidentally dies, Liaodong will Will something happen? If something goes wrong, how do you clean up the situation? How much will it cost to clean up this situation? All of these must be considered... To tell you the truth, I have reduced taxes nationwide by more than 700,000 taels this year. If there is trouble in Liaodong now, this money will be a hole. "
"So," Zhu Yijun came to a conclusion: "Li Chengliang cannot be replaced now, but I can't watch him act like this... This matter will not be handled before you come back. Now that you are back, I have I came up with some ideas, let Li Chengliang be lawless for a while, wait for me to die, and see the situation, then I will take action."
Gao Jingshi was surprised and said: "Your Majesty, when will I die? Can you tell me accurately?"
Zhu Yijun smiled proudly: "That's right, I have inside information."
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