Near the east gate of Xinzheng County, there is a small courtyard with blue bricks and black tiles, which is simple and unpretentious. Although the small courtyard has a three-in-three-room style, its depth is limited and it does not look luxurious enough.
The rare bright spots in the entire courtyard are the plum blossoms planted scatteredly in the courtyard. It is the twelfth lunar month, and the plum blossoms are blooming just right, with sparse shadows and slanting shadows, and a faint fragrance floating around. If there is any shortcoming, it is
Probably just missing some snow.
This small courtyard, named Meiyuan, belongs to Gao Cai, the fifth uncle who is highly pragmatic.
Gao Cai, whose courtesy name was Deqing and whose name was Mei'an. He was born in March of the second year of Jiajing. He was born in Jiyouke Yayuan in the twenty-eighth year of Jiajing - that is, he ranked second in the provincial examination. In other words, he was the second-ranked candidate in Henan Province.
Logically speaking, the results are pretty good.
Unfortunately, this was his best result. After that, he took the Jinshi exam three times, but failed in all of them. At that time, he was already old and did not dare to waste time anymore, so he served as a candidate for the vacancy of the Governor's Mansion.
Afterwards, he was promoted to the former military governor's office, and was granted the title of Feng Zheng Dafu.
The former military governor's office experienced that this official's position was actually quite embarrassing.
First of all, he is a civilian official. Logically speaking, civilian officials usually have a higher status, but the problem is that in the experience of this governor's office, all his immediate superiors are military officials. It is conceivable that in an era when the status of civilian officials is much higher than that of military generals, a person who takes orders from military generals
How embarrassed the civil servant must be.
Secondly, the responsibility of this position is to "transfer the documents to the cashier", which in short is to handle all kinds of official documents. The status of the Fifth Military Governor's Office has been in decline since Yongle, and a large number of powers that originally belonged to the Governor's Office were usurped by the Ministry of War.
Especially the areas under the overlapping jurisdiction of the Ministry of War and the Governor's Mansion, the Ministry of War basically has the final say, and the Governor's Mansion has no say at all. When things happen, they can only transfer documents to the Ministry of War for approval as a matter of routine. Even the affairs of the garrison and farming are also handled by the Ministry of War and the Household.
The ministry and local governors took care of it.
Later, the only areas where the Governor's Office barely had any say were military registration management and ordnance manufacturing. Even the power of ordnance manufacturing had to be shared with the Imperial Household and the Ministry of War.
It is obvious that it would not be very pleasant for a highly qualified person to serve as an official in such a department and such a position.
But Gao Xie is an open-minded person. Since his career is a foregone conclusion, it is better to develop his personal hobbies than to work hard on paperwork or do nothing.
The hobby of the highly talented and experienced man is the study of firearms. This hobby was developed after he arrived at the Governor's Mansion: he was in charge of official documents and files. He sat in the public room with nothing to do every day, and could not read other books or do other things.
I had to look through the files to see if I could find anything interesting.
After going back and forth, Gao Cai found that the development of firearms in the Ming Dynasty was quite interesting, so he began to study it interestingly by taking advantage of his ability to check any files.
The development of firearms in the Ming Dynasty was based on the Song and Yuan dynasties. During the war to unify the country, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang "relyed on firearms to win" many times.
However, Gao Cai discovered that after entering the Ming Dynasty, the development of firearms accelerated greatly. Not only did they make surprising breakthroughs in quality, quantity and production technology, but they also absorbed some advanced foreign technologies and were widely used in actual combat.
The application has achieved remarkable results.
Gao Cai consulted the archives and found that during the Northern Song Dynasty, hot and cold weapons were used together, but only some incendiary and explosive firearms were used in the attack and defense of the city, which had little impact on tactics.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the situation was different. The Mongols, who were in the period of a powerful military empire, entered the Central Plains, especially Genghis Khan's western expedition and two attacks on Japan. They not only gave full play to the advantages of the nomadic cavalry, but also took the initiative to use gunpowder and
The power of iron artillery can defeat the enemy in siege battles.
From the overall tactical point of view, although the wars of the Yuan Dynasty were still limited to the military model of the past and were typical wars of the cold weapon era, there have been significant improvements in the application of firearms. Not only did they use explosive trebuchets, but also
The manufacture of metal tubular firearms began, which caused a fundamental change in the army's equipment, strategy, and tactics.
Although Gao Cai did not have the advantage of being a highly pragmatic time traveler, he also discovered in his research that the changes and development of firearms were achieved through war. The continuous border conflicts since the founding of the Ming Dynasty provided the basis for the extensive use of firearms.
Battlefields, and firearms are gradually improved and perfected in response to war needs in war after war.
From the day when Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, the conflict between the Ming Dynasty and the "barbarians" on the frontiers has been continuous, from the repeated provocations of Wala Yexian to the Civil War; from the worries of coastal Japanese pirates to the Qi family's army Xianyou breaking the siege.
Once there are no signs of firearms showing off their power, there are even more and more of them. In these large and small wars, the advantages of firearms in the use of firearms and their role in decisive victory are slowly reflected, and they are recognized, valued, and accepted by people.
.
Gao Cai also discovered that judging from the equipment of the entire Ming Dynasty army, the ratio of cold weapons to firearms is also constantly changing, with firearms increasingly replacing cold weapons. The Shenji Battalion established after the introduction of Shenji guns and cannons in the early Ming Dynasty became
The first pure artillery unit of the Chinese dynasty, it was not only used in city defense and fortification battles, but since the Yongle period, divine machine guns were also erected in ten border areas including Kaiping, Huailai, and Xuanfu to increase defense;
Up to now, "Beijing's army has a hundred thousand, and firearms rank among the sixth."
As a result, Gao Cai's interest greatly increased and he began to study firearms seriously. No one knew the extent of Gao Cai's research. Even his third brother Gao Gong only knew that his fifth brother was very interested in firearms and had been studying them for many years.
, but I don’t know what he really feels.
What is even more regrettable is that Gao Cai's health was not very good. In the middle of the third year of Longqing, he had to take the initiative to resign and return to his hometown. Of course, looking at this time point, you will know that there is actually another important thing here.
Reason: At that time, Gao Gong was forced to become an official. In order to please Xu Jie, some people impeached Gao Cai. They said that under his management, the military status of some guard posts was in chaos and there were many vacancies.
Well said, this is indeed a fact. But the question is, in the Ming Dynasty at this time, which guard station was not like this?
Besides, the military status of the Guard Institute is in chaos and there are many vacancies. Could this be caused by his highly talented person’s experience in managing official documents and files? If you have the ability, try a nationwide census to see if those hereditary nobles want to join you.
Work hard!
Not to mention the Governor's Mansion, even the Ministry of War and probably even the Cabinet will not be able to hold it back!
It's nothing more than a wall falling and everyone pushing it down - Gao Gong falls, how can his brother be safe and sound? That is to say, Gao Zai, Gao's pragmatic and cheap father, is lucky. He is an official in Fengyang, Zhongdu, which is far away, and he is not in the capital. , Xu Jie’s licking dogs didn’t think of him for a moment, otherwise they would definitely be impeached.
Later, after Gao Gong resurrected and overthrew the capital, Gao Cai also talked about the importance of firearms in a letter to his family, hoping that Gao Gong would not ignore it. This was even the time when Gao Gongshi expressed his intention to get involved in the production of firearms and military industry. There is no direct reason for rejection.