The Song Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, when the building was about to fall, yue Fei, Yuan Chonghuan and Zeng Guofan appeared respectively, and it is not an exaggeration to praise them as the backbone of the three dynasties.
I. Yue Fei: It is easy to shake the mountain, but it is difficult to shake the Yue family's army.
The 320-year history of the Song Dynasty is the history of being bullied by ethnic minorities, and the most direct reason for being bullied is because there is no border grassland in the northeast and northwest, and it is impossible to raise tough warhorses, so the Western Xia, Liao, and Jin cavalry wantonly drive straight into the burning and looting.
In 1005, the Northern Song Dynasty and the Liao State signed an alliance of Liaoyuan in exchange for 120 years of peace, and after the establishment of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty's fierce cavalry came again.
However, this time, they met an opponent who made them have nightmares, Yue Fei.
Facing the JinGuo Iron Horse, Yue Fei cut to the point and formulated a set of tactics, which were actually very simple, but very effective, that is, to form a large axe team and cut off the legs of the horse.
Cutting off the legs of the horse, of course, must wait for the Cavalry of the Golden Kingdom to come to his side before making any move, and with it came the spears of the Cavalry of the Golden Kingdom. Therefore, in order to use this tactic, the soldiers must have extraordinary courage, and the team has a will of steel.
Yue Fei did it, and in 1140, the Yue family army defeated Jin Wushu's three thousand ironclad heavy cavalry and fled, and in field battles, the Yue family army repeatedly defeated the Jin army and became the most effective unit in the Southern Song Dynasty.
The brave and warlike Jurchens then circulated a saying: Shake the mountain is easy, shake the Yue family army is difficult!
The people north of the Yellow River saw the hope of "Wang Shi Bei Ding Zhongyuan Day".
Just as Yue Jiajun was preparing to cross the Yellow River in the north, he was recalled by the Twelve Golden Medals and was subsequently killed.
2. Yuan Chonghuan: The pillar of the country that resisted the Manchu invasion, optimus prime.
In the last year of the Ming Dynasty, the Jurchen leader Nurhaci established the Houjin Empire, the Battle of Salhu, the Battle of Quang Ninh, and the Battle of Liaoshen, and the brave Jurchens, under the leadership of Nurhaci, won successive battles, completely regarded hundreds of thousands of Ming troops as nothing, and swept through more than 70 cities in Liaodong. Just when Nurhaci was full of pride, he was frustrated in a small city called Ningyuan.
Yuan Chonghuan led 20,000 defenders to repel 50,000 or 60,000 elite soldiers of the Eight Banners of Nurhaci with the help of Jiancheng cannons, and finally let the invincible Nurhaci retreat, and a few months later, the angry Nurhaci died of depression.
Next, Yuan Chonghuan's opponent was replaced by Nurhaci's son Huang Taiji, Huang Taiji led the main force of the Eight Banner Army to go out and fight hard for more than 20 days, and in the final decisive battle, facing Huang Taiji's elite division, Yuan Chonghuan led the defenders to engage with them, fought hard, and finally defeated Huang Taiji.
After the Emperor Taiji's army defeated Ning Yuan, he turned to attack Jinzhou, and finally returned with a feather.
Yuan Chonghuan's strategy and tactics were to fortify the walls and clear the wilderness, hold the fortified city, rely on the advanced Hongyi cannons, promote their own strengths and avoid their own weaknesses, and reduce as much as possible the advantages of the cavalry of the Later Jin Eight Banner Army who are good at rapid warfare. The weak Ming army was able to reverse the decline in one fell swoop and overcome the strong with a weak force.
In August 1630, the forty-six-year-old Yuan Chonghuan of the Ming Dynasty was sentenced to death, slashed with a thousand knives, and his brother and wife were also exiled for three thousand miles.
3. Zeng Guofan: Zhongxing famous minister, saving Daqing from danger.
During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, Zeng Guofan formed the Xiang Army to turn the tide and destroy the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom after many years of fighting.
In 1852, because of the death of his mother, Zeng Guofan was in his hometown of Dingyou, and the Taiping Army at this time marched all the way and controlled almost half of the country.
Zeng Guofan actively responded to the call of the imperial court and formed a Xiang army that had been dragging its feet and fighting badly. Zeng Guofan has never been a mighty god of war, repeated defeats and repeated battles are synonymous with Zeng Guofan and the Xiang army, repeated defeats, endless battles, in the end, Zeng Guofan led the Xiang army to survive from the losers, surrounded Nanjing, and won the final victory in one fell swoop.
Especially in the Battle of Tianjing, the Xiang army was at most about 120,000 people, and the morgue could gather 500,000 or 600,000 people at any time. Zeng Guofan adopted the most defensive tactics, camped, dug long trenches and besieged the Taiping Army in Nanjing for a long time, and in the end, the Taiping Army was defeated after running out of ammunition and food.
It can be said that without Zeng Guofan, the fall of the Qing Dynasty would have been decades ahead of schedule.
Yue Fei, Yuan Chonghuan and Zeng Guofan can be called the backbone of the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, but the fate is completely different, Yuan Chonghuan has the worst ending, Yue Fei is second, and Zeng Guofan can die well.
Why Zeng Guofan and Yue Fei and Yuan Chonghuan have a completely different ending and ending.
In fact, it can be summed up in one sentence, that is:
Accurately position yourself, not proud of your achievements!
In the feudal dynasty of "family world", no matter how loyal Yue Fei was to serve the country, he was fighting for the "Zhao" family dynasty, and no matter how brave Yuan Chonghuan was, he was also tossing and turning for the "Zhu" family.
However, Yue Fei and Yuan Chonghuan did not realize this, and the by-product of outstanding military achievements was to be proud of their achievements, and the two of them committed the same mistake, the greater the battle achievements, the more self-inflated, the colleagues were not in the eyes, the court ministers were not in the eyes, and even naively thought that they were indispensable, and the earth could not be turned without themselves.
Zeng Guofan did not have this mentality of Yue Fei and Yuan Chonghuan at all, and after the Xiang army captured Nanjing, it gave up its military power and completely handed over the Xiang army to the imperial court. At this time, Zeng Guofan was very sober, as the saying goes: birds are hidden with bows, rabbits and dogs are cooked, and they are at best tools of the Qing Dynasty.
Yue Fei, who thought that he had made outstanding achievements in battle, not only did not wait to see the imperial court ministers, but also took care of the emperor's family affairs, and even asked which son Emperor Gaozong of Song was going to choose as the heir. Therefore, Yue Fei is a military general who is good at fighting, but he is by no means a mature politician.
Yuan Chonghuan was even more so, after Ning Yuan's great victory, after Ning Jin's great victory, his self-swelled to the extreme, he was good at killing the border general Mao Wenlong, and turned his face to Wei Zhongxian, who had once supported himself. In the end, Yuan Chonghuan lost the basic trust of the emperor, and wei Zhongxian's back trickery, and finally ended up with Ling Chi's execution.
Zeng Guofan, Yue Fei and Yuan Chonghuan, at the same time, the court's important subjects, the backbone of the country, why only Zeng Guofan was able to die well? It seems that in dealing with fame and fortune, we must indeed have a clear understanding, and we must not expand and confuse at any time, otherwise, our lives may not be guaranteed.