Chapter 288 Economy and Party Struggle (Xì 3) Wavering
After the conversation ended, Gao Pangshi thought that the emperor had lost interest in the conversation, and perhaps it was time to drive back to Qianqing Palace. However, to his surprise, although Zhu Yijun looked solemn, he did not get up. Instead, he pondered for a long time, and suddenly said "Recently, someone has suggested to me that although our dynasty is far more powerful than the Han and Tang dynasties, its situation is very different from that of the Han and Tang dynasties. The capital of the Han and Tang dynasties was Chang'an, located in Guanzhong, so we had to take the western regions to defend it, just like our dynasty's capital was Beijing. , so we had to take Liaodong to defend it.
However, now our Liaodong is as solid as Mount Tai, and the Mongolian Tumut and Ordos have abandoned the dark and surrendered to the light, which is actually the barrier to the north and west of our capital. Looking at the overview, the capital's important areas are deeply solid and unshakable, and the pressure on national defense is nothing more than the remnants of the northwest. A corner.
They believe that under such circumstances, although the Western Regions cannot be said to be meaningless to our Ming Dynasty, they are at least far inferior to those of the Han and Tang Dynasties. If our court has spare power, it is natural to impose some punishment for leaving the country, but it is not necessarily necessary. Just like the Han and Tang dynasties, they used all their strength to bring peace and security... What do you think of this?"
Gao Pragmatic was a little surprised that the emperor suddenly wavered in retaking the Western Regions. According to his understanding of Zhu Yijun's current mentality, because of the imperial court's repeated victories in foreign wars, his majesty not only defeated the Can Yuan Khan tribe, the old enemy of the Ming Dynasty for two hundred years, but also He also won the annexation of North Korea through the war of aid and anti-Japanese war, so his self-confidence and self-esteem were very inflated, and he regarded himself as a sage king.
Under the influence of this mentality, he approved Shen Guangyuan's plan to Fengchan Taishan, but at the same time, in order to appear more justified, he approved the Western Expedition, intending to regain the Western Regions that the Central Plains Dynasty had lost for hundreds of years. It stands to reason that , at that time, Wang Zhizhen should have been unswerving in the Western Expedition no matter what.
So, now I am shaken, what is the reason? With a pragmatic mind, I think I can only be sure of one thing: the reasons cited by Yin Lunle just now should be in the near future - and I have come to do it behind closed doors. I was rejected more than ten days ago.
As for who is the person who retreated, it is difficult to say, but at most it is through formal communication. The reason is very complicated. Although Low Pragmatic is willing to take things seriously behind closed doors, it does not mean that I know the trends in the DPRK. At most, if no one reports important trends to me through various channels.
What is an important trend? At least, as the Western Expedition was a low-power, low-cost war, it didn’t matter if its trends were important trends. However, low pragmatics did not receive any notice of such important trends. Therefore, , what persuaded the emperor was definitely not formal communication, but came from secret reports or people around him.
The secret report is strange. Although Ming Chengzu, the commander-in-chief of the Jinyiwei, is half a native of the country with low pragmatism, Jinyiwei is a Jinyiwei after all, and I am a pure member of the civil service system. It must be really a matter of small importance, and Mingchengzu may not be able to do it. Notification.
I even came to make excuses for myself: "Ah, even though Brother Fool knew about this, he thought that His Majesty would be willing to listen, so he didn't know about it... Please take full responsibility for Brother Fool's fault!"
Whether it was the Han Dynasty or the Tang Dynasty, the main purpose of recovering the Western Regions was the strategic need to defend the Central Plains. The reason why the Tang Dynasty sent troops to the Western Regions in a small way was because the weakness of the Turkic Khanate at that time put huge pressure on the Tang Dynasty's borders. Before recovering the Western Regions, the power of the Turkic Khanate could not be disintegrated and the Tang Dynasty's northern border defense could be ensured.
However, what about the Ming Dynasty? Before Zhu Yijun and Zhu Di won the Northern Expedition, the Ming Dynasty's national power reached its peak. However, Nanjing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, was located on the southeast coast, far away from the Western Regions. Even if the capital was moved to Beijing, it would still be far away from the Western Regions.
The original intention of the Han and Tang dynasties to incorporate the Western Regions into their territory was to protect the Central Plains from intrusions by northern nomads such as the Xiongnu and Turks. During the Han Dynasty, the Huns were weak and went south to invade the Central Plains several times, and even besieged Chang'an, giving the Han Dynasty
North Korea posed a huge threat. As the Huns' power spanned thousands of territories, they could not exert pressure only in the direction directly north of the Central Plains Dynasty, and they could not do the same from the direction of the Western Regions.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he sent a small army to the west, which shows that I attach great importance to the Western Regions. The Han army left Hangu Pass, passed through the desert, and fought bloody battles with the Huns. In the end, the Han army won and occupied the fertile land, and all the countries in the Western Regions surrendered.
In this way, the prerequisite for the capital to be far away from the Western Regions made the Ming Dynasty court pay less attention to the Western Regions. The rulers also intended to use small-scale troops like the later dynasties, spending countless money on food and soldiers to regain an area that was close to the Central Plains.
A distant place with little strategic significance. The following cannot be regarded as political factors that determined whether the Ming Dynasty made little effort to "manage" the Western Regions.
With the emergence of differences in economic development, the Ming Dynasty court naturally paid more attention to the south than the north. Although the Western Regions were closer to the northern border, the economic contribution of the north to the Ming Dynasty was far more important than that of the south... or even close to it.
Ignoring the extent of the plan. Therefore, the Western Regions would inevitably be eclipsed in the minds of the rulers of the Ming Dynasty, and they would no longer be a must-win area.
However, during the Ming Dynasty, due to the remote geographical location of the Western Regions, thousands of miles away from Beijing, even if something unexpected happened, it would directly threaten the capital. Therefore, Yin Lunle would have to send out a small army on an expedition as worriedly as the later dynasties, in order to completely
Remove the threat from the Western Region.
Gao pragmatic knew that in order to convince the emperor to launch the Western Expedition, he had to start from those two aspects.
What can the low pragmatism do at this time? In fact, not much, because my theory makes sense on the surface at least. If the low pragmatism has a sufficient reason to move me, it may be really "responsible".
So... could it be Concubine Zheng? Gao Pragmatic really didn't believe it, but the incident happened suddenly and he had no evidence at all, so it would be useful to believe it now. The most important thing is to make Wang Zhizhen hesitate to take over the Western Region.
In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang established a capital and a center of power in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. That area originally had a small population and developed industry and commerce. Before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the prosperity of southern cities declined by leaps and bounds. In comparison, the northern region
The long-term war and economic decline cannot be compared with the prosperity of the south.
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Of course, if we have to dig deeper, the decline of Guanzhong itself is another small factor that caused the Ming Dynasty to lose interest in the Western Regions. But it would be a long story to talk about it, so I will stop here.
Of course, that means that the matter was not instigated by Ming Chengzu, but that the Jin Yiwei may have received a secret report, and then it was up to Ming Chengzu to decide whether to submit it to the emperor. In addition, Ming Chengzu must also have reported low pragmatism, but I
We can't delay talking for a while. At that time, the matter had not affected the emperor yet, and the notification from Ming Chengzu came belatedly. As for the reason, it can be found carefully, and if you are pragmatic, you may even say thank you.
In addition to political factors, there are also economic factors. There is a small trend in Chinese history. The economic center of gravity of the Central Plains Dynasty showed a trend of gradually moving southward. By the Ming Dynasty, this trend became more obvious.
Since Wang An's time, Chen Ju and Liu Ping's faction can be said to have "unified the inner court", and we obviously have no motive to benefit low pragmatism - the two sides have been solid allies for seventy years, and they are still a community of interests.
As we all know, the Han and Tang dynasties tried their best to bring the Western Regions into their territory. However, in the Ming Dynasty, that pattern was reversed. In the Ming Dynasty, especially in the early Ming Dynasty, the national power was indeed weak, and some of the founding generals also had great military exploits.
It stands to reason that we could have restored the glory of the Han and Tang Dynasties and unified the Western Regions.
All in all, political urgency and economic necessity cannot be regarded as the two reasons why the Ming Dynasty had almost no interest in the Western Regions.
To be honest, what Wang Zhizhen just quoted actually makes sense. There is indeed no difference in national conditions between Xiao Ming and Han and Tang Dynasties, so it is not difficult to make Wang Zhizhen's determination again.
At that time, cities such as Hangzhou and Suzhou in the Jiangnan region were not very prosperous at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. By the Ming Dynasty, those cities had reached their heyday. Zhu Yijun once praised Suzhou as the first district in the sky, which shows the extent of his work.
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In fact, the Ming Dynasty's campaign in the Western Regions was not a strong one, but a well-thought-out decision.
In order to resist the Xiongnu, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty paid the price of blood and finally drove the Xiongnu out of the Hetao area. The acquisition of the Hetao area provided a springboard for the Han Dynasty to retreat to the Western Regions.
In addition, at that time, the unity of the residual Yuan Dynasty was shattered. The two smallest forces were Tatar and Oara. For the Central Plains of the Ming Dynasty, the Western Regions did not pose a substantial threat. Therefore, Zhu Yijun was not like the Han Dynasty.
Tang Dynasty was so worried that the Western Regions would become a serious threat to the Central Plains.
It was certain that the Western Regions would fall into the hands of the Xiongnu, and the Central Plains would be threatened again at any time. Therefore, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty decided to go west to Hangu Pass to eliminate the countries in the Western Regions and ensure that the Western Regions were firmly under the rule of the Han Dynasty.
As for the other possibility, it is not the advice of people around the emperor, that is also very common. Of course, after several times of the inner court officials being defeated by Gao Yuanfu, it seems that there are people in the inner court who dare to do nothing to me, Gao Yuanfu, for the time being.
offended.
The northern region, where wars raged for a long time, was in dilapidated condition and all industries were in ruins. The Western Region, which was close to the northern border, was regarded as a symbol of poverty and backwardness in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty because it failed to obtain a small amount of resources from the prosperous Central Plains region.
During the Tang Dynasty, the marching commander Su Dingfang and other young generals led a small army of 100,000 to overcome obstacles and fight with the Gaochang Kingdom for eight days before finally conquering the city of Gaochang. Before that, the entire Western Regions gradually belonged to the Tang Dynasty. Those past events doubtfully show the influence of the Han and Tang Dynasties on the Western Regions.
The control also relieved the pressure on the northern border defense at that time.
The capital was far away in Beijing, the country's economic center of gravity moved southward, and the border defenses were stable at the time of the founding of the country. These were all factors that prompted the Ming Dynasty to abandon the use of troops in the Western Regions.
At the same time, the Ming Dynasty's shipbuilding industry was booming along the southern coast, and frequent voyages to the West opened a new chapter in undersea trade, which also opened up a new horizon for the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty turned its attention to the distant sea, and naturally
He also lost interest in regaining the Western Regions.
However, history has played a joke on the world. The Ming Dynasty did not confiscate and recover the homeland of the Western Regions. This historical turning point even triggered a lot of speculation in the era of low pragmatism.