"Discussion is not allowed" is very difficult to deal with politically. It doesn't mean that if you say it is not allowed to be discussed, we will not discuss it. After all, you are pragmatic and you are not His Majesty the Emperor. You can say the law and make people shut up. The premise that cannot be discussed can only be that you have an absolute advantage, and the other party has no choice but to shut up.
Therefore, while Gao Pragmatic insisted that Guo Pu's posthumous title must be "Wenzhen", he also strongly opposed the previous peace talks with Japan decided by the cabinet, saying that peace talks at this time would do more harm than good to the Ming Dynasty, and instead gave Japan's Toyotomi Hideyoshi regime a chance to A respite.
Don't think that these two things are unrelated. In fact, politics is an art of compromise. When you don't have enough chips in your hand, you have to find some other chips.
As the first assistant to connect the past and the next, Guo Pu's relationship with Gao Gong is probably the "Cao" who followed Xiao Gui and Cao. Since Gao Gong has obtained the supreme and rare "Wenzheng", then if Guo Pu cannot obtain the "Wenzhen" second only to Wenzheng, it means that the real school has not done well enough, and it denies the work of the real school during that period. mean.
And if the real school did not do well enough during the period of Guo Pu Bingzheng, the successor to the founder Gao Gong, then it is naturally unlikely that the subsequent Zhang Siwei era will receive a higher evaluation, then what if the future The era of Shen Shixing will be defined as an excellent ruling period in the future, and the merits of the real school will be given to Shen Shixing or the Xinxue school.
This is not surprising. After all, Gao Pragmatic's later great achievements were nominally achieved during Shen Shixing's reign. If the "self" of the practical school and the "non-self" of the Xin school cannot be distinguished at a higher level, some In the future, the merits of the Practical School may really become the merits of the Heart School.
There have been many examples of this situation in world history. For example, many people in later generations believe that 90% of the contribution to the anti-Japanese movement lies in the United States, but the red giant bear has become a soy sauce existence, let alone China. This is actually caused by the gap in propaganda power after the war. The current fight for Guo Pu’s posthumous title by Gao Pragmatic can be regarded as a fight for the right to speak and the right to define.
Although at first glance, Wenzhen is good, Wenzhong is not bad, and even Wenjian is okay, but since Gao Pragmatic insists on getting the best among several posthumous titles that are all considered good, he must have something to gain. exchange. If you want to exchange, you must have bargaining chips. Gao Pragmatic's objection to the peace negotiation at this time is actually using the peace negotiation issue as a bargaining chip.
Due to Gao Jingshi's huge influence on military issues, no matter how much Shen Shixing emphasized that the resolution had been formed and the imperial edict had been issued for some time, Ming Dynasty must have begun to implement this plan in North Korea, so opposition at this time has lost its meaning. However, in the end the emperor decided to hold another imperial meeting to discuss the issue again.
At the Wenhua meeting, Wang Xijue was the first to fire, saying that the Ministry of War had first agreed to the peace negotiation. Even the Ministry of War also believed that the situation on the front line was worrying, and it was not the cabinet's unreasonable desire to negotiate peace.
He believes that the views of the Ministry of War are well-founded. First of all, the food problem has troubled both the Ming army and North Korea at the same time, making both sides feel tight and embarrassed.
For North Korea, while they have to supply the army, they also have to worry about civilian famine. In theory, they even have to support the Ming army. Therefore, the food pressure is huge, and they need at least one or two years as a buffer period.
As for the Ming army, the previous conflicts between the northern and southern armies due to the issue of merit and reward have not been reconciled until now. The northern and southern armies are currently under the control of Song Yingchang, and they maintain harmony in name, but in fact everyone knows That's because both sides are looking at high pragmatism.
Not only the cabinet ministers, but also the emperor himself, all knew that Song Yingchang could not suppress the evil fire in the hearts of both parties. As long as something happened in the future, it would not be surprising for the conflict to intensify at any time. It could be said that he was sitting on a powder keg. light fireworks.
In addition, Li Rusong's direct lineage suffered serious losses, which made him obviously more cautious in the subsequent use of troops. This is actually a deliberately descriptive statement. The real situation is nothing more than a significant decline in aggressiveness and an unwillingness to rush forward. beat.
Li Rusong's attitude cannot be entirely blamed on his selfishness. The military system of the Ming Dynasty is here. The greater the loss of his direct lineage, the higher the chance of command failure on the battlefield. There is actually no way to be cautious. Both the emperor and his ministers knew the actual situation, so they could only give Li Rusong time to recover.
All in all, Wang Xijue's attitude is very clear: It's not that the cabinet doesn't want to fight, but the situation on the front line is worrying. To be on the safe side, it takes a while to accumulate strength, and then it depends on the situation - if Japan becomes honest, peace is possible; if Japan If you are not honest, you are sure to fight again.
When he said this, Wu Dui and Liang Menglong were a little embarrassed. After all, Gao Pragmatic left Beijing to supervise disaster relief in Henan after settling the feud between Song Yingchang and Li Rusong, but the front line ended up like this. Although all of this can be said to have happened for a reason, after all, the scene was ugly and it was still a bit difficult to explain.
Zhou Yong, as the Minister of War, was even more nervous. The rules of the Ming Dynasty were actually quite simple. If the battle was fought well, the Great Sima would always get a share of the credit. But if the battle was not fought well, the Great Sima would rarely be exempted from questioning. responsibility. Now that a small country on the front line has reached a stalemate, and is even in chaos internally, how can he, the great Sima, say that he is not responsible?
Shen Shixing agreed to negotiate peace, apparently to ease the contradiction between the Xin School and the Real School, and to give Wu Dui, Liang Menglong and Zhou Yong face, as if everyone was discussing the matter: Due to the current stalemate in the war situation, there are internal conflicts within our army. There are some troubles that need to be resolved urgently, so we need to make peace temporarily to stabilize the situation in order to follow up. As for holding people accountable, let’s not talk about that for now. We first need to solve the problem...
However, the reality is not so simple! From Shen Shixing's point of view, your Reality School has always been responsible for this war. Now that the battle has become a mixed bag, the responsibility will not go to the Woxin School instead, right?
Not only do I, the chief minister, have no responsibility, I also take the initiative to clean up the aftermath for you. I only use the title of canonization to buy time to reconcile internal conflicts and accumulate strength for fighting again. Isn't this the magnanimity of a prime minister?
Of course, once this matter is done, the Xin School will not only show Yuan Fu's magnanimity, magnanimity, and courage to do things, but it will also show that the Practical School not only fails to do things well, but also entrusts too much to others. No responsibility.
In fact, to a certain extent, this is due to the fact that Gao Pragmatic, as the core figure of the current Practical School, was not in the capital at the critical moment. The others, Wu Dui, Liang Menglong, and Zhou Yong, did not dare to make the decision casually on war issues. From this, he fell into Shen Shixing's trap. But now that Gao Pragmatism is back, things must get back on the right track.
"I already understand the difficulties mentioned by Yuan Fu." Gao pragmatically replied calmly: "But these difficulties are not insurmountable. I had even prepared a plan before the war."
As soon as he said this, everyone in the audience was stunned. Only Zhu Yijun was overjoyed and said quickly: "If you have any plans, tell me quickly!"
Gao pragmatically cupped his hands and said to the emperor: "Your Majesty, the food dilemma Yuan Fu mentioned just now is actually divided into two levels. One is that it was winter before, and some ports on the west route were frozen or blocked by ice floes, and North Korea Port construction lags behind, making it difficult for our sea transportation to achieve expected performance.
The second is the east road. Due to the heavy snowfall in Liaodong and the need to pass through the Jurchen land, the road is difficult to travel and the transportation capacity is insufficient. In short, it is not enough to support the entire military expenditure. As for providing some food and grass to North Korea, it is also a temporary situation that was unexpected before. This makes our army's food and grass somewhat difficult.
However, as the weather gets warmer, most of these problems have actually been solved. It is only because North Korea has stretched the front line by regaining the two capitals, and the food in the original occupied areas was confiscated by the Japanese army, resulting in a large number of refugees, and the spring plowing and autumn harvests were seriously affected. On the contrary, the army needs to provide more assistance to North Korea, which shows that our army's food and grass are still not enough to support the next stage of operations. "
He paused and continued: "But the problem of food shortage in North Korea should not be solved by the Ming Dynasty. I have already proposed a cooperation to the King of North Korea Li Huo through Jinghua Trading Company to contract the mining of several mines and coal fields in North Korea. And conditions such as opening an iron factory and producing farm tools, in exchange for Jinghua Trading Company providing rice from southern Xinjiang to North Korea to cope with the food crisis in the North Korean court... Thanks to Emperor Hongfu, North Korea has agreed to this transaction."
This news once again left everyone stunned, thinking that there is still such a way to play? However, after thinking about it, I felt that there was nothing wrong with it. In essence, it was the same as the Ming Dynasty's Kaizhong method, except that the identities of the two parties were different.
The so-called Kaizhong method was that in the third year of Hongwu, Shanxi and other border areas were in urgent need of military rations. The imperial court recruited merchants to transport grain in exchange for salt, and led the salt transportation and sales to designated areas. This method was called Kaizhong.
As for the deal that Gao Pragmatic made now, the North Korean court used the mines and coal fields as salt diversions, while Jinghua Trading Company acted in its true role, responsible for transporting grain to designated areas.
If there is any difference, it is that the salt in the hands of merchants in the early days of opening up China and France was official salt received from the court, and then sold the salt to buy grain from inland provinces and shipped it to the frontiers, but now Jinghua Trading Company ships grain to North Korea It came from southern Xinjiang - Gao Pragmatic did not say how the food came from, but neither the emperor nor the ministers cared much about it, or it was inconvenient to discuss it in detail.
There is no need for Gao Pingshi to prove his talent in financial and logistical aspects. Since he said that the food problem is no longer a problem, the emperor and his ministers have nothing to say. Next, it is their turn to talk about the conflicts between the North and South armies on the Korean front, as well as Song Yingchang and Song Yingchang. The relationship between Li Rusong is delicate.
In fact, speaking of the latter alone, the problem is not big. After Gao Pingshi replied to the two of them respectively in letters, the relationship between the two could not be said to be reconciled, but at least they could maintain a superficial unity. Since each other has to be pragmatic and respectable, this team arrangement can actually operate effectively.
The real trouble lies in the discord between the Northern and Southern armies, which is the most difficult to deal with. At present, no one in the Southern Army in North Korea is qualified to compare with Li Rusong, and the main force sent is indeed the Liaodong Army, so it is natural for the Northern Army to be strong.
However, although the number of the Confederate army is small, it is the part with a higher degree of firearms, especially in siege warfare, which can play a more obvious role, so it is not surprising that they have a "temper". But in this way, the contradiction between the two parties will be difficult to resolve.
According to Gao Pragmatic's view, if you want to solve the problem at this time, you must either send a new commander who neither side dares to disobey - then apart from the imperial commander's personal expedition, it is almost only Gao Pragmatic himself, and even Qi Jiguang No, because Li Jiajun may not give Qi Shuai face.
However, Gao Wuchen does not want to go to North Korea yet. His previous plan was that unless Ming Dynasty launched an offensive against the Japanese mainland, it would not be to the extent that he would personally take charge.
In this case, another method can only be used: the Li Jiajun returns to Liaodong, a new army is sent to replace the Li Jiajun, and closely cooperates with the Southern Army to carry out the next phase of the battle.
The advantage of this plan is that it is highly pragmatic and someone can be used. The disadvantage is that it requires adjusting the defense of the newly recovered areas of Jiubian and Chahar. It means that one move can affect the whole body. If anything goes wrong after the transfer, it is suggested that The person will definitely be implicated.
To put it bluntly, doing this requires courage and the courage to bear possible chaos. For the level of the Ming Dynasty cabinet, stability is always everyone's first demand, so no one considered it from this perspective before. .
However, this is far from dangerous for high pragmatism. After Chahar's power vacuum, several forces around this area once fought under his banner, and he had enough prestige and strength to intimidate them. Therefore, as long as he, Gao Pragmatic, does not leave the center and continues to sit in the capital, he is not afraid that these forces will dare to have any evil thoughts.
The current problem is who to replace Li Rusong. With the Jiangnan Cao Army defecting and asking for surrender, Qi Jiguang will be able to return to Beijing soon. With his status, he is certainly enough to replace Li Rusong.
However, Qi Jiguang, the commander of the Imperial Guard, is about to end his term. Gao Pragmatic's next arrangement for him is to serve as the principal of the military academy, so that the Ming Dynasty's military system will gradually become formalized and modernized, so that famous generals will not rely solely on " Chosen."
This matter is very important, and in Gao Pragmatic's eyes, it is even more important than the current war in North Korea. Therefore, Qi Jiguang has other important responsibilities and cannot delay going to North Korea.
From the principle of proximity, Xiao Ruxun can also go, but Xiao Ruxun is good at defense but not necessarily good at offense. Moreover, he is not the commander-in-chief. Sending him to replace Li Rusong may make North Korea feel that the Ming Dynasty's support for them has declined, so because of fear and uneasiness And what kind of evil moth is done is not beautiful.
In this way, when the emperor asked who could replace Li Rusong, Gao Pragmatic almost unexpectedly recommended his old subordinate: Ma Gui.
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Thanks to book friends "Dr. Xu Jiahui", "Yue Xiaoyao", "Dancing at the Peak", "The Sun and the Moon Never Set on Hawaii", "Cao Mianzi", and "Ride Alone to Shine the Blue Heart" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
PS: I still have a cold, so I fell asleep after dinner last night and woke up at 1 a.m., so this chapter was delayed until 5:30 a.m., sorry. But this does not affect the normal update tonight...if I don't fall asleep again.
