On the second day of March in the eleventh year of Wanli, the good news from Liaodong came to Beijing:
Previously, the two slaves of Qingyang of Yehe tribe in Liaodong were good at fighting and started provocations. Together with the Mongolian chieftains Nuantu and Tongtangtai, they attacked the Hada tribe. The Fu minister issued a ban and issued an order to the two slaves, but they refused. Gao Pingshi, the Fu minister of Liaodong, lured the two slaves to Kaiyuan with a market trap. They cooperated with each other inside and outside, and killed the two slaves, their sons Wusun Polo, Harhama, and the general Baihuchi and other slaves. They were awarded the head rank of 310 One.
Cao Yu, the deputy commander-in-chief of Liaoyang, and Meng Gebulu, the commander of the left guard of Tashan, and others set up ambushes and annihilated all the captive soldiers outside the city. They obtained 1,682 heads, horses, barbarian weapons, clothing, armor and other valuables. Calculate.
The governor of Liaodong, Gao Pragmatic, and the governor of Shandong, An Jiuyu, were sparse.
When he joins the cabinet, the cabinet ministers will approve the proposal, and the votes will be drawn up and sent to the Supervisor of Ceremonies.
After reading the memorial, Zhu approved: meritorious officials should be given preferential treatment, officers and soldiers killed in battle should be given preferential treatment, and the two slaves who left the barbarian tribe were all subject to Meng Gebulu's supervision. According to the fact that there are originally few horses in Liao, the horse price is not enough. In addition to the original amount of 40,000 taels, an additional 10,000 taels will be added as an annual rule. Another 20,000 taels will be issued to make up for the shortfall in this expedition. All are sent to Taipu Temple. Provision.
He was impressed by the success of Liaodong in consecutive battles, and then issued an edict: Liang Menglong added Prince Shaobao, and Yin had a son, Jin Yiwei, who was hereditary for thousands of households. He was rewarded with fifty taels of silver and four pieces of silk.
Gao Pingshi was promoted to the right minister of the Ministry of War and the right censor of the capital procuratorate. He was still the governor. Yin Yizi was hereditary to thousands of households. He was rewarded with forty taels of silver and four strands of silk. He and Menglong each received their due orders.
Li Chengliang was promoted to one level of salary, with an additional salary of 200 shi; Cao Yu was promoted to one level of salary, with an additional 100 shi of lumi; Cao Jian was promoted to Tieling guerrilla, and was rewarded with twenty taels of silver, and two pieces of silk.
Wang Yan (Kaiyuan Army Bei Dao) was promoted to one level of salary, with two pieces of silk, thirty taels of silver, and fifty shi of rice; Yang Yuan (Kaiyuan General) was promoted to one level of salary, and an additional salary was given. Thirty stones per meter.
Each of his subordinates will be promoted to one level of salary and rewarded with ten taels of silver, and they will be used in case of shortage. The rest follows suit.
The sergeant worked hard in bloody battles, and the horse price was 20,000 taels of silver. He sent one of the ministers to reward him together with the press officer, and sent another officer to survey.
For meritorious deeds of this soldier, Wu Dui was rewarded with fifty taels of silver and four taels of silk; the ministers on the left and right were each rewarded with twenty taels of silver and two taels of silk;
…
This time, Gao Pragmatic's contribution was not only attributed to himself and the subordinates he commanded and mobilized at that time. Not only Liang Menglong, the governor of Jiliao, also took the credit, but also all the officials from the Ministry of War, including Shangshu, Shilang to Langzhong, took credit.
Li Chengliang, who was "at the same level" because he was the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, was the superior of Cao Yun who actually went into battle this time, and he also received the same reward as Cao Yun.
Among the military generals, the most "lucky" this time was Cao Yun's younger brother Cao Jian. This guy didn't get much benefit from the last battle in southern Liaoning, but this time he was the first to "conquer", commanding the army from the guard. He was promoted to the position of real power, Tieling guerrilla general.
However, I don't know what Zhu Yijun was thinking. He placed him as a guerrilla in Tieling. At first glance, it seemed like he was mocking Li Chengliang.
Of course, as the emperor, Zhu Yijun had no need to ridicule his ministers. He had a basis for doing so - the previous time the Tieling Guards were breached by the Tumen, the ancestral graves of Li Chengliang's family were insulted by the Tumen. At that time, the Tieling guerrilla responsibility had not yet been As for the liquidation, it happens to be a one-stop thing now, so we can just take care of it together. As for what Li Chengliang thinks... He has received a reward anyway, so it's definitely not easy to say anything clearly.
Gao Pragmatic, on the other hand, continued to display his usual style of being a favored minister of the emperor. He still believed that meritorious deeds must be rewarded, and he was given the title of Right Minister of the Ministry of War.
It stands to reason that it is not unusual for a border minister to be promoted to the title of Right Minister of the Ministry of War after receiving important military honors. It is even routine to a certain extent. However, the problem is that Gao Pragmatic's original job was to be the Right Minister of the Ministry of War. Shi, now became the right minister of the Ministry of War.
The biggest difference in this is actually not that there has been a change of yamen, but that the right censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate is only a fourth-rank official, while the right minister of the Ministry of War is an upright third-rank official!
To put it simply, this position is truly the so-called official of the imperial court.
Although the system of the Ming Dynasty is rather strange, sometimes things like rank are not so reliable - just like the second-rank chief envoy who even calls himself "low official" in front of the seventh-rank patrol censor.
However, the Right Minister of the Ministry of War and the Right Minister of the Ministry of War are not ordinary positions. Both positions have their own particularities.
For example, after the reform of the Ministry of War's right minister to Gao Gong (the Ministry of War originally had one minister on the left and right, Gao Gong changed it to two ministers on the left and right, this is a historical fact), there are only two in Beijing, one of whom is a serious official in the Ministry of War. Called Tang Shangguan, it is very likely that one of you will also serve as "assistant in charge of the military affairs of the capital."
These two right ministers of the Ministry of War are actually the official right ministers of the Ministry of War. Although other foreign governors and governors often have the title of right minister of the Ministry of War, they are all based on "rank" considerations and cannot actually participate in the war. Ministry of War affairs.
However, it is not uncommon to find governors who have the title of Minister of War, but it is rare to see governors who have the title of Minister of War. The addition of the governor to the Minister of War means a more critical issue, that is, the governor's say in the town's military affairs will be greatly improved.
Generally speaking, the governor focuses on military affairs, while the governor focuses on government affairs. Once the governor also adds a minister of war, it is likely to infringe on the military power of the governor. In some cases, it is easy to cause inconsistency in power, leading to some troubles that are inconvenient to express. Therefore, the court has It is still prudent to give governors from various places the title of Minister of War.
But Zhu Yijun may have considered that the current governor of Jiliao, Liang Menglong, has a special relationship with Gao Pragmatic. Liang Menglong himself is also very shrewd. After Gao Pragmatic procured Liao, he almost never interfered with the military affairs of Liaodong, so Zhu Yijun simply gave a more obvious hint. For a moment - in fact, for a person like Liang Menglong, this is almost a clear statement.
Express what?
What is clearly stated is that you, Liang Zhijun, don't need to take care of Liaodong's military affairs, just leave them to Gao Fujun.
It's hard to say how Liang Menglong himself will view this matter, but Zhu Yijun is not in a hurry. He has other arrangements. Besides, he thinks that handling the relationship with Liang Menglong should not be difficult for Gao Pragmatic.
Besides, Liang Menglong also has an important matter to deal with now, and he doesn't seem to be doing nothing just because he doesn't ask about Liaodong matters - he is now responsible for rebuilding the Daning military town.
The importance of this matter can be understood by just thinking about the importance of Daning City before Yongle. If Chengzu had not obtained King Ning's three guards of Wuliangha cavalry, it is hard to say whether Jingzu could have been successfully settled. Of course, this sentence did not People dare to declare it with their mouths.
Qi Jiguang in Daning City now has a very heavy task. Firstly, he must defend this isolated city outside the Ming Dynasty, and secondly, he must start training a new army. Both of these tasks are directly related to the governor Liang Menglong.
Defending Daning City, with Qi Jiguang's presence, is not a big problem as long as the supplies are constant, and the supply problem has basically been solved after Qataiji stationed his herd in the south of Daning City. Liang Menglong's main task is to make a good connection between Qi Jiguang and Tuotuo to avoid conflicts between the two top generals of Ming and Mongolia.
The difficulty lies in organizing and training the new army.
Qi Jiguang was originally the "Minister of Military Training". After taking office in Jizhen, he had been responsible for the training of the nine-border frontier army for a long time. After the Battle of Monan, he began to guard Daning (his position remained unchanged and he was still the commander-in-chief of Jizhen). After that, his rotational training of the frontier troops was temporarily put aside, and he began to train the new Jizhen cavalry and continued to strengthen the car camp.
This incident shows that the imperial court is still very confused about whether to "use foot to control riding" or "use cavalry to control riding".
The performance of Qi Jiguang's chariot camp in the Battle of Monan illustrates two issues: first, when the forces are basically equal, the chariot camp that incorporates the hollow square formation tactical thinking can completely defeat the Mongolian cavalry; second, if the Mongolian cavalry chooses If they avoid fighting, the chariot camp will still have no choice but to follow behind, and the initiative in the war will still be in the hands of the more mobile cavalry.
In this way, the central government of the imperial court was still trapped in the vicious circle of the public saying the public was right and the mother-in-law saying the mother-in-law was right.
While saying that it is useless to develop car camps, because what can be done by car camps, Gao Jingshi also did it with infantry in the Battle of Monan - the famous battles of Zhang Bingzhong and Zhang Wanbang and his son are proof, and Zhang Bingzhong and Zhang Wanbang's famous battle in the Battle of Liaonan is proof. Wanbang even repeated it again, resisting Chaohua's breakout attack with infantry, and made great contributions to capturing Chaohua alive.
But the Chaoying faction also said: Although the hollow square formation tactics are powerful, Zhang Wanbang cannot achieve zero casualties after all. Qi Jiguang Chaoying’s performance in the last match was almost zero casualties, so Chaoying is still a simple An enhanced version of the infantry hollow phalanx. In theory, it should even be able to defeat the incoming Mongolian cavalry with inferior strength.
At the same time, although the carriage camp may sound expensive, it is not necessarily so, because the Ming Dynasty did not lack carpenters. Although the sidecars and other chariots in the carriage camp also consume some iron materials, the iron parts generally do not wear out much. Most of them can be recycled. The only relatively large expense item is the "spring" on the new tank that only Jinghua can produce. However, Jinghua has also made it clear: after accumulating sufficient experience in long-term and mass production, the spring Costs are expected to be reduced.
Regardless of the fact that the Ming Dynasty has always been known for having "more troops", in fact the Ming army did not have a high tolerance for casualties. Historically, one of the main reasons why the Ming army easily collapsed in the later period was that it had a poor tolerance for injuries, and even the ability to withstand casualties reached 10%. Causing the entire army to collapse. Of course, this refers to the general troops, not counting the servant troops, especially Qi Jiguang's "legacy". The three thousand Zhejiang troops were completely wiped out in the final battle.
The central government of the imperial court was certainly aware of this situation, so the main advantages of the chariot camp were emphasized: it could defeat the Mongolian cavalry and its own battle losses were extremely low, and the cost was not particularly large, at least it was much cheaper than the cavalry.
But the cavalry faction also has its own argument: what really determines the outcome of the Monan War is the cavalry duel. The embarrassment that Ming used to brag about was that the actual main force in this battle was Mongolian cavalry versus Mongolian cavalry.
The victory of the Ming Dynasty was mainly attributed to Gao Pragmatic's control of Han Naji, Zhongjin Hatun, Qataiji and others, which enabled the Ming Dynasty to complete a perfect "use of barbarians to control barbarians".
In other words, although the victory was won, the main battle was not fought by oneself. When there is no one around, ask yourself, everyone will inevitably have some doubts about whether this battle is the victory of the Ming Dynasty or the victory of Tumut.
Therefore, in the view of the cavalry faction, Ma Fang's insistence on using cavalry to control cavalry was what the Ming Dynasty really needed to put effort into implementing.
Especially after Daning was recovered, the Ming army had a land to raise horses to some extent. The cavalry faction strongly suggested setting up a new Yuanma Temple in Daning to raise horses and supply cavalry.
Of course, this matter cannot be accomplished overnight. Not to mention that Daning City has just been acquired, how to use the surrounding horse breeding land is also a big problem - that land has almost become a no-man's land after Chang Ang gave it up. If you want to raise horses, you have to move the population there first. This kind of thing may not be effective for three to five years.
However, just because it is done slowly does not mean that it should not be done. The cavalry faction still strives hard for what should be fought for. As for where to find people to raise horses, isn't this the job of the cabinet, the Sixth Ministry and the governor of Jiliao?
In the end, the imperial court was deadlocked on this matter, and Zhu Yijun couldn't make a decision, so he decided to adopt a two-pronged approach, do it first, and then decide based on the actual results.
At this time, we can see the wisdom of the policy of opening up the sea. If the tariffs at those ports hadn't been rising year by year, would Zhu Yijun be so generous with money? The Ming Dynasty is not Spain, so you have to be talented if you want to spend money. The emperor's loan did not exist in the Ming Dynasty. Gao Pragmatic offered to lend money to Zhu Yijun before, but Zhu Yijun refused directly.
So Liang Menglong doesn't have to worry about having nothing to do now. He can put aside matters in Liaodong and do his errands in Daning with peace of mind. This is Zhu Yijun's expectation. Zhu Yijun thinks that Liang Menglong should be able to understand it.
When the edict was sent to Liaodong, Gao Jingshi had already gone south from Kaiyuan, but had not yet arrived in Liaoyang. Instead, he took a break in Shenyang and inspected the military equipment and other matters of the guards in Shenyang.
To be more specific, he went to Fushun Pass, which was managed by Fushun Qianhu under the jurisdiction of Shenyang Zhongwei.
The reason why the dignified governor actually went to check a pass in person was mainly because he wanted to see with his own eyes Fushun Pass, the important pass closest to Sarhu.
You must know that in the original history, Nurhachi rebelled against the Ming Dynasty in the forty-sixth year of Wanli. The first shot was fired at Fushun Pass. The traitor Li Yongfang was the guard general of Fushun City at that time (Fushun City Preparation). After being defeated, the Jurchen soldiers surrounded Fushun City and surrendered directly, causing the Jurchen soldiers to take over this important town in Liaodong without any effort.
At that time, Nurhaci rested his troops in Fushun City for three days and left, plundering more than 300,000 people and livestock. Before leaving, he also set fire to Fushun City. From then on, until the 21st year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, Fushun City was still in ruins, with only a dozen families scattered around.
Gao Pragmatic just wanted to come and see if Fushun City and Fushun Pass were incapable of city defense, or if Li Yongfang was just a traitor.
However, he had just arrived in Fushun, and the holy decree to promote him as the right minister of the Ministry of War arrived. Gao pragmatically accepted the order calmly, secretly pondering Zhu Yijun's intentions.
On the surface, this is just "increasing officials as usual". After all, a previous imperial edict first stated the principles. The first article is "officials with meritorious service should be given priority." But Gao Pragmatic knew that Zhu Yijun was reminding him.
Your fundamental purpose in going to Liaodong is not just to fight, but to help me sort out the military affairs in Liaodong - how is Li Chengliang's matter handled? Is it because Li Chengliang is Ning Yuanbo, so you don’t have enough power to control it? Okay, I will give you the title of Right Assistant Minister of the Ministry of War. Do your best.
Helping the ministers who were selected to serve in their posts eliminate interference and strengthen their authority. This is what the Wanli Emperor often did in the original history. It is not surprising that he was highly pragmatic. However, after the Wanli Emperor in history gave his ministers the full power to serve, he also required " "Producing results", so Gao Pragmatic had to turn his attention back to other things and consider Li Chengliang's problem first.
----------
Thank you to the book friend "Wuyouwuk Book" for your monthly ticket support, thank you!
