From the late Jiajing period to the Longqing period, famous ministers and generals emerged in large numbers in the Ming Dynasty. However, in the Wanli period, especially in the early Wanli period, the most famous ones were Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang.
Qi Jiguang was a son of a general. He inherited his father's position at the age of seventeen and became a commander. Later generations have clearly concluded that he was a national hero.
And Li Chengliang was actually the Queen of the Generals and the hereditary commander of the Tieling Guards. Unfortunately, in his generation, his family was so poor that he could not afford the travel expenses to go to the capital to inherit the position. In the end, he had to scrape together here and there to survive.
Go to Beijing.
At this time, there was nothing happening with the Jurchens. The main problem on the border of the Ming Dynasty was still the conflict with the Mongols. We have been fighting for almost two hundred years. Today you rob me, and tomorrow I will kill you. After robbing and beheading, everyone goes home to wash and sleep.
No one can beat anyone down completely.
In the first year of Longqing, Li Chengliang finally returned to Liaodong. At this time, he was already in his forties, but he started from scratch and lived a military career with one sword and one gun. Later, he was promoted to senior general, deputy commander-in-chief, and commander-in-chief.
The position of Commander-in-Chief of Liaodong was not easy to fill. He had to face the Mongolian left wing and the Jurchens alone. Regarding these two forces, the court's attitude was to fight one faction after another. The Jurchens were deliberately supported by the Ming Dynasty for the purpose of fighting against the Mongols.
However, the Jurchens and the Ming Dynasty seem to be inseparable, but in fact they each have their own needs. Many of Li Chengliang's predecessors died at the hands of the Mongols, and some died at the hands of the Jurchens.
When Li Chengliang was a leader, he was actually somewhat similar to Gao Pragmatism. When he led the troops, he never instilled in his subordinates such things as the destiny of the Ming Dynasty and the benevolence of the emperor. His style was very simple and crude. As long as the soldiers killed the enemy bravely, there would be no glory, wealth, food or drink.
He was completely satisfied with whoring and gambling! So many Mongolians and Jurchens came to work for him.
There are three Jurchens in Liaodong: Jianzhou Jurchens, Haixi Jurchens, and Donghai Jurchens (Savage Jurchens). These three tribes are sometimes at war with each other.
Among them, Jianzhou Jurchens are the most powerful. They were originally the three guards of Jianzhou established by the Ming Dynasty. However, in this era, they basically changed from defenders to bandits.
Li Chengliang mainly had two strategies to deal with the Jurchens: on the one hand, he used the barbarians to control the barbarians, pulling one to defeat the other; on the other hand, he never killed them all and always ensured that the enemy had a way out. While making military achievements, he ensured that he could still have another chance.
Fight.
As a result, despite constant wars outside the Pass, his military exploits continued to accumulate, and he even won a title and became an indispensable pillar of the imperial court. Especially in Liaodong, no one disrespected him.
Compared with Li Chengliang, who is "good at planning", Qi Jiguang appears to be much "stupid". He prefers to solve the problem at once. In his view, stabilizing the border relies on devastating blows to the enemy. If it cannot be destroyed,
If you want to attack the enemy sexually, then strengthen yourself so that the enemy has no chance to take advantage of you.
At that time, Qi Jiguang was transferred to the north to guard the border after clearing the Japanese pirates along the southeast coast to curb the threat from Mongolia. From the beginning, he always wanted to adopt a once-and-for-all strategy and strive to carry out destructive clearing so that the enemy would not dare to do it again. However, due to the conflict between Mongolia and Japanese pirates,
The difference was that the Japanese pirates were basically infantry. Qi Jiguang relied on strict military discipline and was more mobile than the Japanese pirates. He could carry out devastating strikes, but this was not the case against the Mongols. He tried several times but could only defeat and repel them.
Coupled with the change in the imperial court's policy, it became "West Huai East System", so Qi Jiguang mainly turned to defense, began to repair the Great Wall, built hollow enemy towers, and researched and developed various weapons and military tactics in order to consolidate the defense line in the long term.
Later, when the Mongols saw that they could not get any benefits from Jizhen, they gradually stopped invading this area.
This is certainly a good thing for a country, but not necessarily for Qi Jiguang personally. In the tenth year of Wanli in history, Zhang Juzheng died of illness. Qi Jiguang, who lost value because of border stability, was quickly deposed as a member of Zhang Juzheng's party, but
Miraculously, Li Chengliang, who was also a confidant of Zhang Juzheng, continued to be reused because the war in Liaodong continued.
Qi Jiguang died in depression, while Li Chengliang lived a wealthy life. The huge contrast in the ending told all the Ming generals the best way to find a career. Therefore, in the great turmoil at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty generals who were responsible for defending the territory,
He took the tricks of raising the bandits and playing with them to the extreme, and finally had the tragic ending of Emperor Chongzhen being hanged on a coal mountain.
Perhaps self-respect in raising bandits is not the only reason for the death of Ming Dynasty, but it must be one of the direct reasons. The most ridiculous thing is that when these people raised bandits, they treated the bandits as beasts in cages, but they did not expect that the beasts could be raised
After a long time, he was able to tear open the cage and kill the hunter.
As for raising bandits, the first person to raise bandits in the Ming Dynasty was Li Chengliang in his later years.
Gao pragmatic originally thought that Li Chengliang should have started to play banditry when he was in his sixties, but unexpectedly, he degenerated earlier than he thought, and he had already started to do it before he was sixty years old.
Forget it, Zhu Yijun actually discovered it.
Did Emperor Wanli ever discover this in history? I'm afraid he did. After all, the court was not full of idiots. There were always people impeaching Li Chengliang. It was impossible that Emperor Wanli had not seen these memorials - he didn't go to court and he didn't
If the representatives do not manage politics, are the three major expeditions directed by ghosts?
But why did Emperor Wanli in history only remove Li Chengliang for a period of time, but eventually reinstated him and continued to control Liaodong?
If I remember correctly, it should have been in the 19th year of Wanli that Li Chengliang was impeached by the official. In November, Emperor Wanli dismissed Li Chengliang from his post in Liaodong and asked him to come to the capital only as Ning Yuanbo.
In the 20th year of Wanli, Kuaibai rebelled in Ningxia. The imperial censor Mei Guozhen petitioned the court to re-appoint Li Chengliang. However, Wang Dewan firmly believed that it was not possible, so the matter was shelved. In this way, Li Chengliang lost his chance to participate in Ningxia.
opportunity for battle.
However, Emperor Wanli sent his eldest son Li Rusong as the commander-in-chief to participate in pacifying the Kuaibai Rebellion. As a result, although Li Chengliang lost the opportunity to make a successful comeback, Li Rusong became a famous general of the new generation. At the same time, Li Chengliang's former subordinates led
His generals were also re-employed one after another. His subordinates Li Pinghu, Li Ning, Li Xing, Qin Deyi, Sun Shoulian and others all gained wealth and became important generals who dominated the region.
Since Li Chengliang left Liaodong, Liaodong has changed eight coaches in ten years. Liaodong's border defense has gradually weakened, providing objective conditions for Nurhachi's rise.
In August of the 29th year of Wanli, Ma Lin, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, was impeached and convicted because of a dispute with the tax envoy Gao Huai. University scholar Shen Guanyi wrote a letter saying that although Li Chengliang was old, he could continue to lead the army. So the court ordered Li Chengliang to control Liaodong again. .
At this time, Li Chengliang was already seventy-six years old. However, at this time, the Tumans on the Mongolian left wing faced by Liaodong, Chang'ang and Baitu'er, etc., had all passed away, and there were very few Mongolian invaders. Kaiyuan , Fushun, and Guangning also opened horse and wood markets before. In order to gain profits, all the Jurchen tribes were very respectful and submissive.
This is a good thing for the court, but a bad thing for Li Chengliang, because in his thinking, "the cunning rabbit dies, the lackey is cooked." If the border is stabilized and the Mongols and Jurchens all kneel down and call the Ming Dynasty daddy, then there will be more What's the use of his lackey?
So in order to completely destroy the possibility of the Ming Dynasty uniting with other Mongols and Jurchens, he carried out violent conquests. First, he attacked the Taining tribe quickly, and then Yehe and the Jurchens. During this period, Nurhaci had already unified Jianzhou. The Jurchens were encroaching on the Haixi Jurchens step by step, and their power continued to grow. In order to cultivate enemies, Li Chengliang deliberately turned a blind eye.
In the early years of Wanli, Li Chengliang suggested building six forts in Kuandian. By the middle and late period of Wanli, there were already more than 64,000 households in the six forts. The Ming Dynasty's strength in eastern Liaodong was significantly strengthened, and it had sufficient deterrent power against the Jurchens in Jianzhou. It was the correct decision he made from the standpoint of the Ming Dynasty in his early years.
But in the thirty-fourth year of Wanli, in order to support the bandits and respect themselves, Li Chengliang actually abandoned the Kuandian Six Forts and moved more than 64,000 households there to the interior on the grounds that they were isolated and difficult to defend. The local residents were attached to their families and did not want to leave, so Li Chengliang used a large army to drive them away, which even caused a lot of bloodshed and many casualties. For this reason, he was impeached again. In the thirty-sixth year of Wanli, Li Chengliang was impeached again.
When Xiong Tingbi was guarding Liaodong, he once clearly said that Li Chengliang's crime was punishable by death. However, Zhu Yijun still did not kill him. He only "dismissed" him from his post without taking his life.
Now Gao Jingshi feels that the most important thing for him is to understand. Logically speaking, Emperor Wanli in history should have seen that Li Chengliang was trying to support the bandits, so why didn't he kill him?
Judging from what Zhu Yijun said to him today, he already knew very well about Li Chengliang's respect for raising bandits.
In this case, the question becomes even bigger: Why not kill him?
Li Chengliang was not a pragmatic person. With his current reputation as a pragmatic person, if the emperor killed him, he would definitely be "infamous." Dare to rebel?
What a joke, Liaodong at this time was not the "Beidacang" of later generations. Even if the Liaodong army really rebelled, as long as the Central Plains was deprived of food and pay, Liaodong itself would kill each other, and even Shanhaiguan would not be able to enter.
Gao Pragmatic was scratching his head. He really couldn't think of a perfect answer. He could only estimate in his mind that there must be some situation that he couldn't control, and that or those situations seriously affected Wanli's decision.
So he asked tentatively: "If the emperor feels that Li Chengliang has betrayed the divine grace, he can just dismiss him. Why bother so much?"
"Who will be replaced after dismissal?" Zhu Yijun waved his hand and said: "I have carefully read the resumes of the generals in Liaodong. Now except Li Chengliang, I am afraid it is not safe to replace anyone. Besides, the situation in Mongolia is not convenient for the court to change now.
Replace Li Chengliang."
"Why is this?" Gao pragmatically asked.
Zhu Yijun sighed and said: "I'm going to die now. I even sent my eldest grandson to Chahar. It seems that I have no ambitions anymore, but the guy in Tumen is restless. I doubt if I'm going to die now."
If he dies suddenly, Tumen will probably have less to worry about. By then, whether he seeks to seize the right wing of Mongolia or continues his "Eastern Expedition" to plot against Liaodong, it will be a bad thing for the Ming Dynasty.
Although Li Chengliang's victory was not without merit, it was deliberately publicized by the imperial court in order to frighten Chahar and the Jurchens. If Liaodong changes commanders at this time, and An Da accidentally dies, Liaodong will
Will something happen? If something happens, how will we clean up the situation? How much will it cost to clean up the situation? These all have to be considered... To be honest with you, I have reduced taxes by more than 700,000 taels across the country this year. If Liaodong is now
If something goes wrong, the money will be drained."
"So," Zhu Yijun came to a conclusion: "Li Chengliang cannot be replaced now, but I can't watch him act like this... This matter was not easy to handle before you came back. Now that you are back, I have
I came up with some ideas, let Li Chengliang be lawless for a while, wait for me to die, and see the situation, then I will take action."
Gao Jingshi was surprised and said: "Your Majesty, when will I die? Can you tell me accurately?"
Zhu Yijun smiled proudly: "That's right, I have inside information."
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