In the fourth year of Longqing (1570), the first Mongol force, Uttar Khan negotiated with the Ming Dynasty, and finally under the impetus of Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng, Wang Chonggu, etc., Mingmeng reached an agreement, which is the famous "Longqing Peace Conference" in history, since it is the border Xiuning Mingmeng mutual city, known in history as "Lida Fenggong", "border rest, east from Yanyong, west to Jiayu seven towns, thousands of miles of military and civilian pleasure, no military revolution, the province of Feishi Seven", Lida Khan was named the King of Shunyi.
In the fifth year of the Wanli Calendar (1577), the Khan of Uttar Wanted to invade Daming in the south, and the beacons of the frontier would be lit again. At this time, the Ming Dynasty used a 61-year-old veteran general named Ma Fang, and the Mazi War Banner was erected on the border, and the Shunyi King LiDa Khan immediately went to the table to plead guilty.
What kind of magic did this general named Ma Fang have that could make the Uttar Khan, who commanded hundreds of thousands of Mongolian iron horses, feel frightened? The reason is very simple, Ma Fang really subdued Li Da Khan, and the battle achievements left behind are unbelievable, the so-called South has Qi Jiguang, and there is Ma Fang in the north, which is a Ming Dynasty general whose battle achievements are no less than Qi Jiguang's, but unfortunately his major battle achievements have been taken by the "History of Ming", and what is more regrettable is that he is little known.
Ma Fang (1517–1581), courtesy name Dexin, was a native of Weizhou (蔚州, in modern Zhangjiakou, Shanxi). This is a real person with a tragic fate, but he has risen to the challenge.
Ma Fang came from a poor peasant family, was abused by his stepmother when he was young, ran away from home at the age of 8, and was then taken captive by the Invading Tatar cavalry in the south, and raised horses for Uttar Khan, in fact, a slave. Replaced by ordinary people, he may have confessed his fate, but Ma Fang practiced riding and shooting hard and always wanted to escape back to Daming.
In the sixteenth year of Jiajing (1537), the 21-year-old Ma Fang finally found an opportunity to take advantage of the opportunity of hunting outside Datong by taking advantage of the hunting opportunity of Thea Khan (also known as Altan Khan, see the picture below) to take advantage of the night horse thieves to escape to Datong.
Coincidentally, Zhou Shangwen, the commander-in-chief of Datong, was recruiting soldiers, and Ma Fang defected to Zhou Shangwen's command. The "History of Ming" records that "Zhou Shangwen zhen Datong, Qizhi, as the captain", Zhou Shangwen was extremely surprised by Ma Fang's ability, and immediately promoted him to captain.
Because Ma Fang was proficient in riding and shooting, and was familiar with the habits of border land and Mongolian iron riding, he was able to inflict heavy damage on the enemy in every battle, and because of his repeated achievements in battle, he was soon promoted to Qianzong.
During the Jiajing period, the Ming Dynasty border army can be described in one word, that is, "instigation", and it is instigated to go home, almost comparable to the end of the Ming Dynasty!
In the "Nine Yang Divine Gong", there is "he is strong by him, the breeze blows the mountains and hills, he crosses by him, and the bright moon shines on the river", so that the weak can read it with peace of mind, but for the Ming Dynasty, the instigation of the Ming Dynasty border army set off the strength of the Khan of Li Da, which is not a good thing. Therefore, I have a big appetite for Khan, and I invade several times a year, lacking food, clothing, and playing. All came and went, the Ming Dynasty border army simply fled, and the Qada Khan was even a tourist-style march.
The "Change of Gengshu" in 1550 was a great shame for the Ming Dynasty, but Ma Fang was glorious! At that time, The Khan led the army to Datong, and the chief officer Zhang Da and the deputy general Lin Chun were killed. Qiu Luan, the commander-in-chief of Xuanda, was so frightened that he could not do anything about it, and even bribed him with a heavy amount of money to make him move and not to offend Datong. The entire border army of the Ming Dynasty was rotten, but only the "stunned Qing" young general Ma Fang went on a rampage and won consecutive battles, and the losses of the soldiers suffered countless losses. In this year, Ma Fangxian was promoted to a guerrilla general in Xuanfu.
If you are not in his position, you will not seek his own government, and if you are in his position, you will seek his own government.
After Ma Fang took charge of the army, the first thing to do was to change the "instigation" of the Ming Army. When he was serving as a guerrilla in Xuanfu, he re-established the "Law of Sitting in a Company in Military Battles," stipulating that the enemy was not afraid of the former in battle, the rear team should behead the front, the generals would fear the enemy, and the soldiers would behead the generals, and in each battle they would still take the lead in rushing to kill the enemy position, which would lead his subordinates to die and serve them.
But this alone could not change the problem of the border army, so Ma Fang put forward three more suggestions and a strategy of defeating the enemy!
First, in 1552, Ma Fang proposed, "Send the Xuanfu guest soldiers, with the townspeople to defend the countryside, you can get the tiger division", because the guest soldiers lack the heart to fight to the death, and behind the local soldiers are the fathers and fellow villagers.
Second, Ma Fang believes that "the superiority and inferiority of soldiers depends on the effectiveness of selection and training"; in the military, strict regulations on the management and training of rewards and punishments have been formulated, and more often "pro-armed demonstration and killing" in training; in short, the soldiers have been trained fiercely, and Qi Jiguang has also attached great importance to military training.
Third, in view of the phenomenon of withholding military salaries, military food, mistreatment of soldiers and soldiers, and unauthorized transfer of soldiers by powerful magnates to become slaves in the Ming army, Ma Fang vigorously rectified it, and once discovered, he would never spare it lightly, and even "drew his sword and angered" at the shanxi magnates. After rectification, for a time "military discipline was greatly encouraged" and won the support of soldiers.
These three were mainly the whole army, but how to defeat the Mongol Iron Horse? Ma Fang gave eight characters, namely, "riding by riding, and using fast to make fast," and the so-called riding by riding was to give play to the ming army's superiority in firearms technology and use musketeers to cooperate with cavalry and knife soldiers to fight; the so-called fast control was not only the use of small detachments to raid the Mongolian pastures in autumn and winter to destroy their war potential, but also the purpose of long-distance raids, cutting off the back roads of the Mongol army, and gathering and annihilating the living forces of the Mongol army, just as Huo Fuyi did in those years.
After the rectification, the combat effectiveness of the "Ma Family Army" soared, almost to the point where the gods blocked the killing of the gods and Buddhas.
In 1555, the old trick of The Khan was repeated, bypassing the Xuanda defense line, directly attacking the Huairou area on the outskirts of the capital, for a while the imperial court was shaken, and the Ming Dynasty border troops watched and did not dare to fight, but Ma Fang, who was only a general, led 2,000 people to fight a bloody battle with the Aletan army, and it was Ma Fang's army that "jumped bravely and dared to fight", killing the withdrawal of the Altan army. When the Jiajing Emperor Zhu Houxi heard this, he sighed: "Brave but Ma Fang", Ma Fang became famous in the first battle, and the Mongols respected him as "Ma Taishi".
In 1557, Ma Fang was promoted to deputy commander-in-chief of Jizhen, and his opponent became the Mongol Barbarians. As soon as Ma Fang arrived, The Barbarians immediately launched 100,000 cavalry to invade the south and came to a dismount. During the interrogation of the Mongol captives, one of the Mongol captives stared at Ma Fang and said, "Master Matthew! When the Mongol Iron Horse learned that Ma Fang was at this time, more than 100,000 Native Barbarian cavalry immediately withdrew to the north. Relying on fame to scare off more than 100,000 Mongolian iron horses, Ma Fang is a god.
In 1561, forty years after Jiajing, Ma Fang was transferred to the post of deputy commander of Xuanfu, and what happened that year rewrote history. At that time, The Khan once again invaded the south, but Ma Fang, who was in Xuanfu, was determined to "preemptively attack" and decided to rush from Xuanfu to Shanxi, and rushed to datong city in the early morning of the 500-mile march to attack the army of the Khan of Ta tha Khan. In the following days, Ma Fang attacked continuously, even out of the jam, rushing, breaking the enemy, pursuing and killing, and fighting to the death, seven battles and seven victories, winning one big victory after another.
In the past wars, the Ming Dynasty was often defensive, but the war of 1561 was a preemptive and proactive attack. Most importantly, from then on, the Daming cavalry was revived with blood, and later even fought until the base camp of the Khan of Uttar Khan, Xinghe, swept through the Tatar army along the way.
Once a sheep, but now opened its fangs and mouth, Li Da Khan was naturally unhappy, so in the forty-fifth year of Jiajing, he once again launched a southern invasion.
In the forty-fifth year of Jiajing (1566), Uttar Khan gathered 100,000 cavalry and launched a large-scale attack on the Ming Dynasty's border town of Wanquan Right Guard (present-day Wanquan Town, Hebei), and Ma Fang ushered in the most dangerous battle of his life, the Battle of Marienburg.
Once this ruined Marienburg falls, Uttar Khan will have no worries and will be able to wreak havoc on Gyeonggi. Ma Fang led the reinforcements of Ten Thousand Horsemen, and just halfway there was a siege of More than 100,000 Mongolian Iron Horses in Malian Fort, and Ma Fang fell into the Jedi.
In the attack and defense of the city, Ma Fang was in danger many times, and even the wall of Malian Fort collapsed and the door opening was opened, but this Ma Fang was calm and self-assured, which made the Mongolian Iron Horse uncertain. At the crack of dawn, Ma Fang suddenly attacked, and a spectacle appeared on the battlefield, that is, more than 10,000 Ming Dynasty cavalry, chasing more than 100,000 Tatar cavalry, slashing and killing all the way, but the latter had no resistance! This miraculous victory is the Marienburg Victory!
However, this rare victory in the world of desperate counterattacks was brushed over in the "History of Ming". Of course, although the history of the Ming Dynasty is not discussed, it is widely praised in the folk, such as the Peking Opera "Ma Fang Trapped City", which is about the great victory of Malianbao.
Since then, "Matthew Master" has completely become a taboo among the Mongolian population, and it belongs to the title that can make children stop crying.
From the first year of Longqing (1567) to the fourth year of Longqing, Uttar Khan invaded the south many times, but each time he was severely attacked by Ma Fang. Among them, in the first year of Longqing, Ma Fang led an army to pursue and kill for two hundred miles, and broke the main force of the Khan in the Changshui Sea; in the fourth year of Longqing, Ma Fang made a long-distance surprise attack and was almost captured at Weining Haizi.
Four years after Longqing, four months after Ma Fang's long-distance surprise attack, Sun Tzu fled to the Ming Dynasty, and Li Da Khan could not hold on, so he accepted the Ming Dynasty's peace agreement, which is the famous "Longqing Peace Agreement" in history, and since then Ming and Mongolia have generally had more than 60 years of peace. And the key to the arrival of this peace is Ma Fang, who has struck out with one knife after another. After the appearance of the so-called guns, the Mongols became singing and dancing; after Ma Fang's repeated victories, the effect was the same.
It is worth mentioning that throughout the middle and early Ming Dynasty, the Mongol forces have always been very strong, but after more than 200 years of unremitting efforts of the Ming Dynasty, including Ma Fang and other bloody battles, it has gradually weakened Mongolia's strength. Because of this, later Nurhaci, Huang Taiji, etc. could easily balance Mongolia, and the Qing Dynasty just stood on the shoulders of the Ming Dynasty to pick fruit.