At the beginning of the establishment of Daming, Zhu Yuanzhang learned the lessons of the Tang Dynasty Shangwu leading to the division of the feudal towns, and the Song Dynasty's heavy literature leading to the weakness of the military, and the attitude towards the military generals and civilian officials was to attach equal importance to civil and military affairs and be impartial, but because the military generals shed blood and sacrifice in the process of the establishment of Daming and the continuous large-scale wars,
As a result, the actual status of military generals in the Hongwu, Jianwen, and Yongle periods was higher than that of civilian officials.
During the years of Hong Xi and Xuande,
It is marked by the cessation of the voyage to the West and the abolition of the Ministry of Political Envoys
, Daming entered a period of strategic contraction. During this period, as large-scale wars gradually stopped, the empire ushered in a relatively peaceful situation, and under the impetus of the ancient adage of "winning the world immediately, not ruling the world immediately", the status of civilian officials began to rise, the power began to increase, and the power of military generals was constantly weakened and the status was constantly suppressed.
During the orthodox years, the Sanyang Cabinet, which was famous all over the world and famous all over the world, took advantage of Ming Yingzong's young age to continuously increase the power of civilian officials: in the first year of orthodoxy, the imperial court successively sent inspectors to the nine border towns, and the tentacles of civilian officials' power extended to the military field. In the second year of orthodoxy, the generals of the Bingbu Shangshu Wang Ji Yugan and Liang fronts both commanded An Jing to behead, and for the first time, civilian officials overtook the military generals. In the third year of orthodoxy (1438), Wang Ji led the governor Jiang Gui and others to defeat Duo'er Only Bo, and the civilian officials were exposed to military command for the first time;
In the sixth year of orthodoxy, Emperor Mingying appointed Wang Ji as the viceroy of the military affairs and was responsible for commanding the Battle of Luchuan, after which it became customary for the military affairs of the civilian governors when the military generals went out on expeditions.
Thanks to Wang Ji's good performance in the Battle of Luchuan and the Pingding Miao Rebellion, civilian officials' control of military power was only the only obstacle left by the military general Xun Gui clique. In this case,
The change in Tumu Fort cleared the way for civilian officials to control the military.
After the change of Tumu fort, the power of the Governor's Office of the Five Armies led by the military general was transferred to the military department led by civilian officials, and the military department replaced the governor's office of the five armed forces as the new military center of Daming, and the general soldiers who originally controlled the local military power and were equal to the rank of the inspector became the subordinate of the inspector, and the local military and civil affairs power was vested in the civilian officials.
To some extent,
The fact that the military department became the military center and the military and political and civil affairs power of the inspectors controlled the localities prevented the monopoly of military generals and the division of warlords, and was conducive to the maintenance of great unity in the late Ming Dynasty
However, the resulting low status of military generals and excessive civilian power had a very serious negative impact on the military situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
During the orthodox and Jingtai periods, when the power of civilian officials expanded sharply, the struggle between military generals and civilian officials continued to intensify, which eventually led to a change in the seizure of the door with the military general Shi Heng as the main support force, and in the two Guangdong regions where the military and political and civil affairs powers were first implemented,
"Weng Xin, deputy commander-in-chief of the town guard in Guangdong, and The Inspector Shilang revealed that they could not reconcile, and repeatedly quarreled with each other."
Although Ming Yingzong, who had successfully restored through the rebellion of the gate, with the support of Shi Heng, once curbed the expansion of the power of civilian officials by recalling inspectors, etc., as Shi Heng was imprisoned by the civilian official Li Xian for plotting misconduct, and the inspectors were reassigned to various places, the power of civilian officials began to expand again.
During the Chenghua years, the battle to conquer the Jurchens of Jianzhou was won under the command of the military general Zhao Fu, which can be regarded as the last glory of the Ming Dynasty military generals, but the price of Ming Xianzong's support for the military generals was described by the civilian officials as quite unbearable.
During the Zhengde period, Emperor Mingwuzong elevated the status of military generals and weakened the power of civilian officials by favoring the military general Jiang Bin and setting up two official halls, but with the mysterious death of Emperor Mingwuzong after falling into the water, the low status of military generals was no longer irreparable.
During the Wanli Period,
The warlord finally confessed his fate
In a letter to Zhang Juzheng, the first assistant to the cabinet, Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang both called themselves "a certain Wan of Mu Enxiao under the door prostrating his head and kneeling.".
Qi Jiguang was ranked as the Third Orphan and Li Chengliang was named the hereditary Ning Yuanbo, both of whom were the highest-ranking and most influential military generals, even when they faced civilian officials, not to mention other military generals.
In this case, a military general with too low status could only choose to rely on a civilian official with too much power, and once this dependence relationship was established, it would be more difficult for other civilian officials to command and move this military general, for example, Zuo Liangyu at the end of Chongzhen only obeyed the command of Hou Qian.
In addition, the power of killing and killing and promoting personnel in the military is under the control of civilian officials.
This makes it difficult for military generals to have no prestige and difficult to fight jointly, which in turn leads to the Ming army led by different military generals being easily broken by the enemy.
This was also the main reason why the Ming army was difficult to win in strategic decisive battles such as the Battle of Songjin and the Battle of ZhuxianZhen.
War was not originally a stage for civilian officials, they only needed to play a good role in balancing the military generals and preventing the dictatorship of military generals, but the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty had to make themselves the protagonists of the war, and the result was that the military generals at the end of Chongzhen were difficult to command and could not fight jointly. In this way, the repeated defeats of the Ming army became an inevitability.
Therefore, the low status of military generals and the excessive power of civilian officials became the fourth straw that crushed Daming.
[The Forty-seventh Lecture on the History of the Late Ming Dynasty in the Spring and Autumn Period, References: "History of Ming", "Chronicle of the Ming Dynasty", "Ming HuiDian", "Records of Ming Taizu", "Records of Emperor Ming Yingzong", "Records of Ming Tongjian", "Compilation of Wan Liye", etc. 】