"Waste, waste, everything is waste!" The Great Khans of Mongolia and Zhasak Tutumen Khan were furious in the sweat tent near Pangu Town outside the Ming Dynasty Monolith Fort, and they cursed almost without any image. ,
"Quickly deal with Hai, this loser. This Khan asked him to come and quell the Tumote Rebellion. He didn't come. Instead, he insisted on pursuing the idea of Shanhaiguan Baggage Transport out of greed. Even after Dong Hu's repeated warnings, he abandoned Chahanhot and went south. He had a good idea to join Dong Fox. He thought that after joining Dong Fox, the two soldiers and horses would be together. Not only would Li Chengliang not dare to move lightly, he would even be able to continue to rob the Shanhaiguan baggage team."
"What's the result? These two losers used their brains to fulfill the reputation of Li Chengliang and Li Rusong and his son! I can think with my toes that the Han emperor will definitely want to worship his ancestors again after hearing these two news, and maybe even more Zhujingguan!"
Everyone in the tent, including the four governors and a group of Mongolian generals, all had gloomy faces and remained silent.
Tumen couldn't get rid of his anger, and continued to curse: "Although they are useless, they still died on the battlefield, but what happened to Chang'ang? Qi Jiguang could only send more than 10,000 troops, and his cavalry under Chang'ang There are more than 10,000 people, and yet they just abandoned the giant town of Daning and ran away after just a small battle? If I had known that this guy was like this, I shouldn't have kept him in Daning!"
Everyone in the tent sighed and was speechless.
Tumen Khan's face was full of anger mixed with unspeakable fear, and he said in a cold tone: "Who can tell me, with Qi Jiguang's move, does the Emperor Zhu want to reopen Daning Town?"
As soon as Tumen said this, everyone in the tent didn't sigh, but were stunned, and their faces instantly turned pale.
Reopen Daning Town?
Daning is located outside Xifengkou. It is the land of ancient Huizhou. It is connected to Liaozuo in the east and Xuanfu in the west. It was a giant town in the early Ming Dynasty. The town was fortified with ninety cities, ten thousand soldiers, and six thousand leather chariots. The three guards of Duoyan were under the command of King Ning who had left Daning in the past.
If it weren't for Zhu Dijing's subsequent victory, he was worried that Daning Town was too strong, and its geographical location was critical, and there were three elite guards of Duoyan to listen to his orders, so he moved King Ning inland and Daning was abandoned and could not be restored in the past two hundred years. If so, it is not certain whether the Chahar tribe could successfully move eastward to Chahanhot.
Therefore, when Tumen mentioned that the Zhu family emperor might want to reopen Daning Town, all the Mongolian nobles in the tent were shocked.
Reopen Daning Town and then "unify the Ninety Cities" again? What about us Mongolians? Moving north to fish in Lake Baikal, that ghost place where even bears can freeze to death?
However, the thinking of this group of Mongolians is still too simple. They know that reopening Daning Town will be very oppressive to them, but they do not know how difficult it is for Ming Dynasty to reopen Daning Town. ,
In fact, as the "mastermind" behind the series of wars in the Monan region, Gao Pragmatic has no plans to restore Daning Town now.
It’s not something you don’t want to do, it’s something you can’t do.
This matter can only be explained clearly by starting from the Battle of Jingnan.
In the first year of Jianwen, the Battle of Jingnan broke out. Before King Yan Zhu Di launched the Jingnan Campaign, in order to prevent King Ning from outflanking his retreat, he raised troops to attack Daning and took King Ning Zhu Quan and other troops back.
In later generations, academic circles have different opinions on the reasons why Daning Dusi moved inland. In some historical records of the Ming Dynasty, it is believed that the three guards of Taining, Duoyan and Fuyu of Wuliangha followed the Yan King Zhu Di during the Jingnan Rebellion and fought with meritorious deeds. It can be found in Fu'an Dongyi Ji, Wu Xuebian, Sanweikao, Siyi Kao, Ming History, Fangyu Minutes of Reading History and other books.
Among them, the Chronicle of the Ming Dynasty points out that in order to relieve his worries, Zhu Di rushed to Ning Fan, threatened King Ning to surrender, and "returned all his horses to Peiping." The History of the Ming Dynasty said that Zhu Di went straight to Daning at that time and abducted King Ning and his family. Collect their elites, especially the three guards of Duoyan, who are the most brave and good at fighting. After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he abandoned the defense of Daning, which was actually a reward for the three Wuliangha guards to help him seize the throne.
In later studies of Ming history, there are similar statements. For example, the General History of the Mongols believed that before launching the Jingnan Campaign, Zhu Di relied on the support of the Mongolians of the three Uuliangha Guards to defeat Ning Wang Zhu Quan who was guarding the Daning Guards. Later, he borrowed 3,000 elite soldiers from the three guards of Wuliangha as the backbone of his Jingnan army.
Therefore, after Zhu Di ascended the throne as emperor, in order to reward the Mongolians of the three Uuliangha guards for their meritorious service in the war, he decided to cede the Daning Guard to them. At the same time, he also granted the lords of the Three Guards the titles of governor, commander, thousand households, and one hundred households, and decided to open mutual markets in Kaiyuan and Guangning, so that the Uuliangha Sanwei Mongols could trade with the Ming Dynasty.
However, this view has also been questioned by many scholars. They believe that Zhu Di moved the Peking capital to Baoding in order to ensure the security of Peiping and focus on consolidating Baoding's defensive power.
Some further believe that during the Jianwen Emperor's period, because Zhu Di launched the Jingnan Campaign, he had no time for border affairs in the northeast, and his focus was on deploying troops in the south, so he exhausted all Daning's troops, which greatly damaged the combat effectiveness of the guards under the Daning Dusi. The original personnel and supplies stationed at the station were seriously insufficient and could no longer shoulder the responsibility of guarding the border. As a result, the three guards of Ulliangha took advantage of the Ming government's internal strife and began to gradually move southward, almost regaining their independence.
This view shows that the three guards of Wuliangha were already operating near Daning at that time. However, according to the records in Volume 40 of Ming History, during the Jingtai period, the three guards once begged to live in the abandoned city of Daning.
But what was Daming’s reaction?
"No, I'm going to live two hundred miles away." In other words, the activities of the three guards of Wuliangha in the Daning area were illegal. The Ming court did not allow the Mongolians of the three guards to move south to the Daning area to station their herdsmen, but still required them to return to the area north of Huangshui.
In fact, in the face of the Uuliangha tribe who coveted the southward movement, Zhu Di adopted a policy of combining military strikes and political softness during the Yongle period. On the one hand, he adopted a variety of strategies to appease the tribes of Ulyanha, while accepting tribute from Oara and Tatars, and granting them lord titles. On the other hand, he used military conquest against the Mongolian tribes that did not obey the Ming Dynasty, and personally conquered the desert five times. north.
Not only that, after Zhu Di came to the throne, he also began to manage the border defense, and ordered the Ministry of War to review the three guards of Daning, Yingzhou, and Xingzhou, and formulate various methods to try to restore the farming system and repair the production of each guard station, but it was too late Night. According to the records of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di moved King Ning to Nanchang on the grounds that "the people and property were withered after the war with Ning".
Zhu Di's move was, on the one hand, a response to the reality of Daningwei, and on the other hand, it was actually to further weaken the vassal.
Station the guards of Daning around the capital, strengthen the military deployment around Beijing, build a new political and military center, and then transfer the kings of Gu, Ning, Dai and others to other places to weaken the strength of the frontier vassal kings.
However, these measures actually undermined Zhu Yuanzhang's strategy of establishing vassals extensively and controlling the northern frontier, causing the Ming Dynasty's northern border defense line to shrink inward.
However, the apparent reason for Zhu Di's move to Daning was "to improve people's livelihood". This was not just a random talk, but something real.
One of the biggest troubles is food shortages. Since the establishment of the Daning Guards in the 20th year of Hongwu's reign, ensuring the supply of military food has become a heavy burden for the imperial court.
In March of the 20th year of Hongwu, the imperial court mobilized people from Shandong, Beiping, Henan, and Shanxi provinces to transport grain to Daning. Those who participated in the transportation of grain were exempted from summer taxes.
In July of the same year, Daning's grain reserves were 310,000 shi, Songtingguan 50,000 shi, and Huizhou 250,000 shi, adding up to more than 1 million shi. But only two years later, Daning was running out of grain, and "the military reserves would not provide it." As a result, it had to be modified and the merchants received millet and salt instead. "Every Daning lost five measures of millet and gave Huai and Zhejiang one measure of salt. "
Due to effective policies, by the first month of the 31st year of Hongwu, Daning's millet accumulation had reached 620,000 shi. As a result, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered to stop exporting millet to Daning and ordered merchants to transfer millet to Dongsheng and other places.
From the above sporadic records, we can see how heavy the pressure on grain transportation was in Daning. In order to ensure the food supply for northern military towns such as Daning, the imperial court used a large amount of manpower and material resources to transport food from the south to the north. Among them, the Liaodong sea transportation alone lasted for more than 30 years.
In the early years of Yongle, in order to restore the dilapidated economy of the north, sea transportation had to be resumed. However, it was stopped one after another after a short time. The ships and personnel transferred to the activities of the Western Ocean. The northern military food was changed to "mainly farming, supplemented by Chinese salt" ” solution.
However, the situation in Daning is different. There have been no residents here since the early years of Hongwu. After Hongwu established a guard for 20 years, there was a good opportunity to restore the population. However, the Ming Dynasty immigrated here.
After the Battle of Jingnan broke out, Zhu Di moved all his population southward, and this area once again became a no-man's land.
As for now, not to mention, Daning has been the pastureland of the Mongols for more than a hundred years. How easy is it to restore Daning and ensure the food supply for the more than 100,000 garrison troops?
From a highly pragmatic point of view, if we reset Daning Town, it would be better to set up "Dabansheng Town". At least there are almost 100,000 Han people in Dabanshengcheng, and now the degree of farming is getting higher and higher. With the foundation of farming, not to mention complete self-sufficiency, at least most of the food supply can be guaranteed. The remaining part will be left to the court to find a way to solve.
But there were no Han people in Daning at all, and there was no farming. Even in later generations, when this place became Ningcheng County, it was not a good place to grow food. Until the 21st century, "high-efficiency water-saving irrigation" and "conservation farming" were still being carried out. .
Now reopen Daning Town, unless Zhu Yijun plans to invest one million taels in Daning Town every year to ensure supply and revitalize the agricultural economy.
Zhu Yijun has so much spare money? Definitely not.
Besides, if he really had so much money, he wouldn't do this! For example, all the armies of the nine sides uniformly changed into the new Wanli style bayonet model. Isn't it delicious?
Even using this one million taels for disaster relief seems more reliable than "expanding territory" and "restoring old lands". After all, reopening Daning Town is not a one-time deal, it is a continuous investment. One million taels per year. Who knows when Daning will be self-sufficient?
Gao Pragmatic would not recommend Zhu Yijun to do this kind of loss-making business, at least if he can't afford to lose money, he can't do it.
Naomao Da suddenly slapped the table and said angrily: "Chang Ang deserves to be killed!"
Huang Taiji glanced at him, then glanced at Tumen Khan, and said: "How to deal with Chang'ang, I might as well put this matter aside for now, now I have a more serious problem, quickly Hai and Dong Hu After he died in battle, Chang'ang abandoned Daning and fled, leaving Chahanhot without any protection. The land of Duoyan Sanwei was almost completely lost, leaving only a fried Huayan Sanwei. Now the only leader of the remaining guard is still far away. In the Liaohe Hetao”
He sighed and asked: "Excuse me, Great Khan, do you want to continue the western expedition to Tumut?" 11
