In the summer of 1449, Ye Yexian, the leader of the Wallachian tribe of Northern Mongolia, led tens of thousands of elite cavalry south, killing and plundering all the way, and approaching Datong in Shanxi, and Wu Hao, the general who guarded the city, was unfortunately killed in this war. The war report spread to the city of Beijing a hundred miles away, and Zhu Qizhen, the sixth emperor of the Ming Empire, looked at the gold leaf folded on the table, and the urgent military situation of eight hundred miles made him sit still.
Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court has never encountered such a big scene, and decades of living and working in peace and contentment have long for the Ming Dynasty monarchs and courtiers forgotten that there is such a thing as war. The noisy and noisy arguments of the Wen and Wu officials poured into Zhu Qizhen's ears, and he glared at the twittering minister in front of him, and just as he was about to give a loud drink, the eunuch teacher Wang Zhen on the side came to his ear and whispered something. Suddenly, a light cough broke the noise, and in the quiet environment, Zhu Qizhen's loud voice resounded throughout the hall: "I want to ride the royal conquest." As soon as the words fell, the voices that were still confused just now became consistent: The emperor must not do anything. Zhu Qizhen, who was interested, was willing to listen to the words of these Mingchen, not to mention that the suggestion of the imperial driving pro-conquest was put forward by the respected teacher Wang Zhen.
Zhu Qizhen was only twenty-two years old this year, and unlike his ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang in the southern conquest and northern war, Zhu Qizhen had never personally been on the battlefield and was a veritable prince of Shoucheng. But this does not mean that Zhu Qizhen does not want to personally command the army on the battlefield and have a big battle, and the Zhu family has a restless martial gene.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was born a civilian, and with his superior military ability and alert military strategy, he successfully counterattacked and became the master of the Wanli Mountains. The second generation of emperors (officially recognized by the Ming Dynasty) Zhu Di was born in the war-torn battlefield since childhood, and the Five Expeditions to Mongolia is the proudest achievement of Zhu Di's life, and more than half of Zhu Di's life was spent on horseback.
Zhu Qizhen worshipped these two ancestors, and he also wanted to establish the Immortal Qigong, which could record the war in the history books, and his name would shine with it. The emperor wanted to march in person, and the wen and wu ministers had to go out with the army, and ten days later Zhu Qizhen embarked on the journey with a large number of civil and military ministers and 500,000 troops.
Even if the ministers should not be reluctant to do so, they still failed to stop the wayward young emperor, who made the emperor the biggest in feudal society! On the way, the Minister of Culture and Military Affairs began to educate Zhu Qizhen for the second time, and Hubu Shangshu Wang Zuo repeatedly persuaded Zhu Qizhen to return to Beijing, and it was not fun to march in person, but Zhu Qizhen was just a look of oil and salt. Ming Chen's characteristic was his backbone, and When Wang Zuo saw that Zhu Qizhen was still moving forward, he immediately knelt down in the grass and could not get up. In the end, the eunuch Wang Zhen, who could not see past, sent several eunuchs to help him onto the horse, and Wang Zuo's knees could not stand up, and it was difficult to sit firmly. As soon as Wang Shangshu's front foot was mounted, Bingbu Shangshu accidentally fell off his horse due to fatigue during the journey, and this was not the first time.
The most ridiculous thing is that the half-hundred-thousand-strong army, just because of the words of a twenty-year-old child, is bustling together, starting from the Beijing Division all the way to the west, and when it is still half a mile away from Datong, the grain and grass are empty. On the first day of August, Zhu Qizhen successfully arrived in Datong, and after two days of playing in Datong, he heard that the front line had lost several battles, and he was once again frightened and uninjured, and quickly ordered the whole army to return to the dynasty. Two days later, Zhu Qizhen left Datong with the rest of the army, and Wang Zhen, who was accompanying him, hoped out of some ostentatious psychology that Zhu Qizhen could go from his hometown of Wei County, in order to tell his villagers that even the emperor was friends with him.
However, when the army had traveled tens of miles to the south, Wang Zhen was worried that the soldiers were trampling on his family's crops, so he ordered the army to return the same way and then go all the way to the east, and a few days later the Ming army reached the tumu fort, which was only twenty miles away from the destination Huailai. At this time, Wang Zhen made another moth, and he complained to Zhu Qizhen, saying that if he went any further, his spine would be broken, so Zhu Qizhen ordered the whole army to spend the night at Tumu Fort. In fact, Wang Zhen's spine did not have a problem, and the reason why he said this was because the more than a thousand private carriages he carried on this trip did not follow.
Unexpectedly, the next day, the leader of the Walla also quickly chased after him, surrounded the Ming army stationed and rested, and cut off the only water source nearby. Two days later, Wang Zhen could not sit still, and he suggested to Zhu Qizhen: We should not sit still, but should strike decisively to break through. Zhu Qizhen had always been obedient to Wang Zhen's words, and he immediately ordered the whole army to break through, even if the morale of the Ming army at this time was low, and the morale of the opposing Mongol army was high. At the first order of those watching from the other side, well-trained Mongol elites rushed into the inhuman Ming army and easily captured zhuqi town.
The Ming Dynasty's 500,000 regular troops were completely destroyed, dozens of ministers of culture and military affairs were killed in the battle, and Zhu Qizhen was imprisoned as a victory. It is not uncommon for the emperor to be captured alive in history, but it is all the king of the country who surrendered out of the city, and had to do it, at this time the Ming Dynasty was in the period of rising national strength, just like a person's prime, but the emperor was captured alive, which is really a rare miracle in history for a thousand years. In fact, the leader of the Walla did not expect to be able to capture the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty at first, because at this time the Walla was only a Mongol tribe, and the number of troops was less than one-tenth of the Ming army.
Even the Mongol ancestors were driven back to the grasslands by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, a hundred years after occupying the Central Plains, and they would never have dreamed that one day they could capture the Ming Emperor alive. Excited, he also first regarded Zhu Qizhen as an opportunity to annihilate the Ming Dynasty, and the worst was to be able to blackmail the Ming Dynasty's ace chip, referring to the history of the Song Dynasty, and first of all, it was the same as the situation of the Jin Emperor at the time of the shame of Jing Kang. The difference is that the Ming Dynasty, which is known for its "Son of Heaven guarding the gate of the country, the king's death society", is not the rich and weak Song Dynasty, and it is right to pick soft persimmons, but the Ming Dynasty is by no means a soft persimmon.
Wang Zhen, who had luckily escaped from the siege, was still unable to escape death, and Fan Zhong, the guard general of Zhu Qizhen, failed to protect the emperor, and was originally accused of losing his head, at this time, Wang Zhen, who saw the emperor fleeing for his life, was even more angry, and he picked up the hammer and smashed it towards Wang Zhen's head, and suddenly the brain plasma burst and the blood flowed.
The news of The capture of Zhu Qizhen by Emperor Mingying had just reached the capital, and at the same time, the news that he was about to attack the capital from the south first came, and the group of ministers was anxious like ants on a hot pot- tuan tuan. Zhu Qizhen transferred the main force of the Ming army, and the rest were old, weak, sick and disabled, and defending the city of Beijing was like a child's play. It seems that a jingkang shame similar to that of Emperor Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty and Emperor Qinzong of song will be staged again in the Ming Dynasty.
Just when the group of ministers was in a mess, a soldier waiter stood firmly, and after that, this soldier waiter would turn the tide and defend the easy and difficult city of Beijing, thus changing the national fortunes of the Ming Dynasty in one fell swoop. The name of this soldier waiter is well known, he is Yu Qian, who wrote "I am not afraid of crushing my body and bones, and I want to stay innocent in the human world", not the one who said cross-talk in deyunshe, but Yu Qian, who was at the head of the ten famous ministers of the Ming Dynasty.
References: History of the Ming Dynasty