The Ming troops in Hanyang and Pyongyang withdrew to the north for training. Is this true or false? It's true, but training is not the main purpose. Gao Pragmatic transferred them back to Liaodong at this time, with a simple purpose: to let North Korea continue its failure in the Renchen year, and wait until the war situation is critical and North Korea takes the initiative to ask the Ming army for help.
This idea caused controversy in the imperial court, because the middle and lower-level officials in the imperial court were not aware of Gao's pragmatic plan. They simply thought that it was unjustifiable that he did not send the army that was still stranded in Dandong to North Korea at this time. At least this time is very inappropriate for the northward transfer training of the defenders of Hanyang and Pyongyang.
If it weren't for Gao Jingjing's prestige in the field of military affairs, I'm afraid that just with this hand, many people in the court would accuse him of giving random orders or being afraid of the enemy.
Even with his prestige, some people accused him of only focusing on military affairs and ignoring the friendship between clan and vassal. In other words, he had no political acumen and ignored the two hundred years of friendly relations with North Korea. To this, Gao's pragmatic answer was: "What is the friendship between clans and vassals? Has this official ever asked Song Yingchang, Li Rusong, etc.?"
The reason why Gao Jingshi didn't bother to formally defend himself was actually because someone endorsed this decision: before the order was issued, the emperor had held a Wenhua conference, and at Gao Jingshi's request, this Wenhua conference was not announced to the public. Topics and discussion results.
In fact, it was during this imperial military meeting that Gao Pragmatic persuaded the emperor and other cabinet colleagues, insisting that the so-called friendship between sects and vassals was no greater than the difference between sects and vassals, that is, the suzerain was the suzerain, and there was no such thing as a suzerain in the world that could not command the vassal town , the principle of the vassal king's soldiers.
Therefore, since North Korea does not obey the emperor's order, let them suffer a little, so as not to be unable to distinguish between master and subordinate, and not even understand the principles of monarch and minister like last time. This is the so-called combination of kindness and power.
Song Yingchang returned to Dandong very quickly this time, and the reinforcement and training promised by Gao Pragmatic were indeed not just talk. Qi Jin, Wu Weizhong, etc. were all supplemented. Not only did they replace damaged ordnance, they also supplemented some sidecars. .
In the previous actual battle, the Ming army found that the car formation promoted by Qi Jiguang was very effective against the Japanese army, which also had powerful matchlock equipment, and could significantly reduce its own casualties. Therefore, Gao Pragmatic immediately asked Gu Yangqian to rush to make it in Jiliao Quite a few, this time they were sent together to strengthen the army to aid Korea, and Qi Jin and others also got their fair share.
Song Yingchang also discovered something after arriving in Dandong. Although the main forces directly under Li Rusong had been reorganized, some senior generals of the Li Army, including Yang Yuan, stayed with their headquarters. They still had to fight again in Korea.
Song Yingchang quickly understood that this was Gao Pragmatic's intention. The purpose of this is to drag these Li Jiajun veterans in Liaodong through war, giving Li Rusong time to restore his strength and continue to maintain the overall balance of strength of the Li Jiajun;
On the one hand, since the Li Jiajun has defected to the Real School, of course, they cannot all desert because of the loss of several thousand people the previous time. They will have to do the work where they should contribute next, and don't try to take advantage of the opportunity to cheat.
Of course, after the victory of the Battle of Yuan Dynasty, the nine-border defense system changed, and the nine-border troops were tighter than before. There are probably reasons why North Korea still needs the help of the Liaodong Army.
In short, after the military strength was gathered this time, excluding the navy commanded by Chen Lin, the army aided by Ma Gui alone had a total of 107,000 people, twice as many as the first aid. It can be seen that this time the high cabinet is determined to completely solve the North Korean issue.
Song Yingchang felt a little lucky that he was from the Real School. Otherwise, if the last battle was like that, where the strategic goal of driving the Japanese army into the sea was not fully achieved, and there were conflicts between the North and South armies within the army, then there was a high probability that he would be guilty and return to China to accept punishment. Now Gao Ge Lao still insists on using himself to quell the Japanese war. It's a huge amount of trust.
He secretly made up his mind that he must not live up to this heavy trust. Every battle must be fought with caution and no mistakes could be made again. Fortunately, based on past experience, although Ma Gui is also a brave general, at least his style is much more stable than Li Rusong's. There should not be a second battle at Biti Pavilion this time.
Song Yingchang may not know that his ideas coincide with Ma Gui's, but their starting points are slightly different.
After the previous war against Yuan Dynasty, rewards were based on merit. In addition to Gao Pragmatic, who was the overall planner and commander-in-chief of the entire war, he received the highest degree of reward, and was awarded the title of marquis directly after the first battle. The following is how Qi Jiguang was awarded the title of earl. Except for the two of them, the rewards for other meritorious personnel were "mediocre".
For example, Ma Gui ranked third among generals in the final evaluation of merit, second only to Qi Jiguang and Li Rusong. But the problem is that Li Rusong, who was ranked one in front of him, only got "Xu Yuan Gong, promoted to one level, Yin Yizi Jinyiwei Commander Tongzhi hereditary", and was further promoted to the Commander-in-Chief of the Central Military Governor's Palace.
So obviously, Ma Gui's merits and rewards cannot exceed his. In fact, Ma Gui's merits and rewards are almost exactly the same as Li Rusong's, except that the last "Chinese Army Governor's Mansion" is replaced by "Former Army Governor's Mansion", and the Governor's Tongzhi is changed. Becoming the right governor - the right governor of the first rank is naturally higher than the first rank governor Tongzhi.
However, this kind of reward is not an inversion of merit and reward, but because Ma Gui is older than Li Rusong. He was already a co-inspector of the governor before, and he can only be promoted to the right governor this time.
However, since Qi Jiguang has been awarded the title of earl, the general who is most qualified to succeed Qi Jiguang after comprehensive consideration in the army is probably Ma Gui, so of course Ma Gui himself has some thoughts of "progress".
If a military general wants to "progress", the surest way is to gain a title based on military exploits, but military exploits are not something you can just dream of. Needless to say whether you can win the battle or not, you must at least have a battle to fight first, and if there is a battle to fight... then don't you have to rely on the high-ranking officials to cultivate you?
Now that Gao Ge Lao's important cultivation has been put in place, Ma Gui certainly wants to fight this battle successfully. And to a certain extent, this second battle to aid Korea was really no small matter. Not only did more than 100,000 troops be sent, but there was one key point that was different from the previous battles under the command of Mr. Gaoge.
In the past few times, Gao Pragmatic sent out a large number of troops. Naturally, he himself commanded the troops as a civilian official. However, there was a relatively special situation. When Gao Pragmatic led the troops, his general soldiers were not under each other. The court or the emperor did not Do not appoint an admiral to take charge of military affairs among this group of generals.
To a certain extent, this was done to allow Gao Jingshi to command better. Of course, it also meant that the emperor believed that Gao Jingshi himself could take charge of military affairs without having to select another person from the general army. However, the battle in Korea was different. The previous time, it was Admiral Li Rusong who assisted Korea to pacify Japan, but this time it was replaced by him, Ma Gui.
The commander-in-chief can be the commander-in-chief, but the commander-in-chief does not necessarily have to be the commander-in-chief. For example, when Gao Pragmatic pacified the northwest last time, he was the commander-in-chief of the northwest military affairs as a civilian official. Therefore, it can be said that this is the first time that Ma Gui has been in charge of military affairs. This is a kind of qualification and a great opportunity.
In this case, if he plays well, judging from the current emphasis on the Korean War by the emperor and the court, he may have a chance to make a fortune as an earl.
As mentioned in detail in the previous article, in the early Ming Dynasty, it was easy for military generals to be knighted but it was very difficult for civilian officials. In the later period, the reverse was true. There are still a few civilian officials who were knighted based on military merit. However, except for Qi Jiguang last time, there were only a few military generals who were knighted. There is only one Li Chengliang - even Li Chengliang was just a nobility at first, but he later accumulated other merits and became a Spygeuse.
In other words, it is more difficult for military commanders to be knighted than for civilian officials to be knighted by martial arts. So in this general environment, if he, Ma Gui, can also take advantage of the opportunity of this war to aid Korea to gain a title, it will really be a glorious honor for his ancestors, and it will also make "East, Li, and West Ma" truly worthy of the name.
With such a goal in mind, although Ma Gui has not yet gone south to enter North Korea in accordance with high pragmatic requirements, he has made full preparations.
He not only personally inspected various weapons and equipment, logistics, food and salary, but also never relaxed training and preparations for war. He also asked in detail about North Korea's mountain and river situation and other related matters from the Liaodong Army who was transferred to his command. In addition, he focused on understanding and researching the situation of the Japanese army. Based on the previous performance of the Japanese army, he made several sets of war plans - this was learned from fighting with Gao Pragmatic for many years.
This kind of pre-war plan has long been popular in southern Xinjiang, because all the major garrison armies in southern Xinjiang have formal staff establishments, but it has not yet been promoted in the Ming Dynasty's military system.
The reform in the Ming Dynasty is no better than that in southern Xinjiang. It can be decided by Gao Jingshi in one word. The reform of the Ming Dynasty has always relied on the improvement of Gao Jingshi's own status. Previously, he had not been able to carry out such a major event of directly reforming the system in the entire army - - As for the ancestral system, although Gao Pragmatic has made many changes, generally speaking, there are prerequisites for getting around it.
Now that Song Yingchang is here, he is a member of the Real School, so Ma Gui has no worries and just goes to show him a few plans.
Song Yingchang looked at each one carefully and asked in surprise: "Why were all these plans started when almost all of North Korea fell?"
Ma Gui coughed lightly and said, "This... is what the Marquis meant."
"Ah..." Song Yingchang rolled his eyes and asked tentatively: "Master Hou, is he deliberately trying to destroy North Korea?"
Ma Gui hurriedly said: "The Marquis is far-sighted, how can the general understand his meaning deeply? However, the North Korean power interference in the previous war did make the Marquis quite dissatisfied. This time, if it is said that it was done with the help of the Japanese army, North Korea will finally feel that this is a reasonable and natural move."
"It is indeed necessary to beat North Korea, but... is it really enough to beat North Korea so hard that almost all of North Korea will fall again?" Song Yingchang said with some worry: "To this extent, the beating must be enough, but wouldn't it be enough? Has it also made it more difficult for our army to recover?
Moreover, I heard not long ago that the King of Joseon sold some mining rights in Hamgyong Province and other places to Beijing for ninety-nine years. If all of Korea is allowed to fall, what will happen to these mines? "
Ma Gui said: "The Marquis did not mention these issues, but looking at the future, those deals have just been negotiated. No matter how fast Jinghua works, it is impossible to start construction now, so there should be no problems." Substantial impact.”
Song Yingchang thought about it and felt a little relieved, but then asked: "What about from a military point of view? Most of Hamjing Road is mountainous and forested. The last time the Japanese army wanted to shrink the front line to protect Hanyang, so they moved Kato Kiyomasa transferred back and took the initiative to evacuate Xianjing Road.
So if the Japanese army learned their lesson this time and refused to back down from Hamjing Road, let alone whether the cities were easy to fight or not, at least it would be very difficult to march in those deep mountains and old forests - after all, our artillery and cavalry were far away There are more than the Japanese army. "
In this era, the mobility of artillery is a big problem. Even if Jinghua has improved some artillery structures, it can never keep up with the mechanization of later generations. It is even more terrible than the horse-drawn cannons of World War I and even modern wars. If we really want to engage in a The Ming Army's large corps was circling in the ravine with hundreds of cannons, which was really a big problem.
Relatively speaking, although the cavalry has a saying of "don't enter the forest", as long as there is a road, they can still walk anyway. And North Korea has official rules and will not let them maneuver through the woods, which is better than the artillery unit. manage.
However, Ma Gui laughed after hearing this and said: "There is no need to worry too much about this point in Jingtai. First of all, even if the Japanese army wants to hold on to Hamgyong Road, the number of troops it can station must be limited; secondly, our army does not have to go there in person. Dealing with Japanese troops in Hamgyong Province.
According to the general's plan, the main force of our army only needs to move southward from the western front just like General Li did last time. There is no need to worry about the affairs of Xianjing Road. The war there can be left to the Jurchen coalition. "
"Jurchen coalition?" Song Yingchang took a deep breath and hesitated: "Really let them be responsible for the battle alone? Not to mention that North Korea has always opposed the Jurchens sending troops to rescue. Even if North Korea does not object, I think the leader of this Jurchen coalition must be Nurhachi, I’m afraid this is... Admiral Ma, you should know that the Marquis is very wary of this person."
"Yes, everything the Jingtai said is reasonable." Ma Gui confirmed Song Yingchang first, and then said: "But the Marquis also said that he just wanted to see the result of the war between the Jurchens and Japan. In addition, although the Marquis I didn’t say it, but I always feel that...the Marquis may not want Nurhachi to be idle and have nothing to do."
"Don't you want Nurhachi to be idle with nothing to do?" Song Yingxing savored the meaning of this sentence carefully, nodded slowly and said: "I understand, Li Rusong's troops are quite depleted, and Xiao Ruxun's troops have a large part now. As a result, Liaodong's military strength has dropped to its lowest level in recent years. If Nurhaci leads his troops south to fight in Xianjing Road, he will not have the opportunity to pose a threat to our Liaodong homeland. "
Ma Gui said happily: "Jingtai has a high opinion, and the general will also think so."
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends “Dr.
PS: I was temporarily notified to do nucleic acid tests in the community at night, which almost delayed the update.
