Mingju Yongguan Great Wall North Road, more than twenty miles in front of the breakthrough there is a small village called Yang Jiayi, the unitary hour has passed, a group of Ming soldiers patrolling here are preparing to return, here let the war horses rest, drink salt mixed with water, soldiers eat dried meat, clean water. Suddenly, in the distance came the sudden sound of horses' hooves...
The sentry officer Lu Duo immediately got on his horse, and the sentry standing at the top of the slope hurriedly said, "There is an enemy, about ten horses"! Only to see a horse galloping forward, more than a dozen Tatar cavalry carrying machetes and tails in pursuit! The grassland after being "burned down" by the Ming army is full of dust and smoke! In a rain of arrows from the Ming army, the Tatar cavalry dropped five corpses, went in a circle, and disappeared into the depths of the vast grassland!
In September of the fourth year of Ming Longqing, Yang Mangui, the commander of the defenders of Juyongguan North Road, entered the Tartar territory for three hundred miles, obtained important intelligence, and beheaded two enemies, rewarded for their merits, Yang Mangui's other identity was a Ming Dynasty border pass "night does not receive".
First, the function and origin of "no night"
As the name suggests, it is a spy sent out at night to dress up as a military intelligence agent, a horse and the like, mainly used to spy on the enemy, obtain the deployment trend of the army, provide intelligence reference for their own combat plans, and provide guidance for military operations.
As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, in order to unify the world, Qin was widely distributed among the six kingdoms, and all military tuns, civilians, crops, terrain, and roads were the objects of their spying.
In ancient warfare, sending detailed reconnaissance was the only way to understand the enemy's situation, so since the Spring and Autumn Period, the army has paid attention to this reconnaissance method that can obtain first-hand information. "Choose many brave men and women in the army, and reward them with gold." However, Theoso appeared as an independent branch of the army and became an army in the Ming Dynasty. This is the spread of "no night".
The title of "night not to collect" was first seen in the text, which is the "Han Gao Emperor Mao Qi Yingbu" in the "Yuanqu Selection": "The poor road has been able to walk fast at night and not collect to inquire in front of the army, and as soon as he saw that he had won or lost, he came to report it." ”
The author of this play is the Yuan Dynasty opera writer Shang Zhongxian. The fact that a military post can appear in opera and let the common people understand what is going on shows that "no night" has been widely established in the military. At least during the reign of Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, the "night without harvest" has already revealed its unique role in the war of the Central Plains civilization against the nomads. When the famous general Qi Jiguang destroyed the Wokou, each battalion set up fifty soldiers to keep a night, in preparation for reconnaissance of enemy tracks. What really made "No Night Harvest" famous in the world was the Ming Dynasty's war with Mongolia and Later Jin.
During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the Mongol Tatars and Wuliangha tribes attacked the border towns from time to time, and they gave full play to their strong mobility and often resorted to surprise attacks, crossing the Great Wall to carry out looting, which brought deep disasters to the border people.
The most serious "Gengshu change" that occurred in Jiajing in the twenty-ninth year shocked the government and the opposition even more. In August of that year, the Tatar Tumut Khan broke through the Gubeikou and besieged the Beijing Division for eight days, and hundreds of people around them suffered heavy casualties in the burning and plundering, and since then the nomadic people have repeatedly violated the border. Sometimes there is a saying of "Southern Wokou and Northern Wokou", in fact, the harm of nomadic peoples is far greater than that of Wokou.
In this context, Tan Lun, who had made many military achievements, was appointed as the governor of Jiliao, responsible for the military defense of the northern capital such as the Beijing Division. Speaking of famous generals in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, everyone may be more familiar with Qi Jiguang and so on, but Tan Lun is not inferior. He was good at martial arts at an early age, and then entered Ren, when he was serving in Taizhou, tens of thousands of Wukou attacked, Tan Lun led his troops to several battles and victories, and beheaded the leader of the Wukou, famous for a while, he was a rare military generalist among civilian officials, and was called "Tan Qi" with Qi Jiguang.
After Tan Lun took office, with the strong support of the Longqing Emperor and the first assistant Zhang Juzheng, he rectified military affairs, repaired the Great Wall, and built a steel defense line north of the Beijing Division, and the situation in the northern towns was quickly stabilized, and the enemy did not dare to easily invade the border. In the process of organizing and training troops, "not receiving at night" is a branch of the army that Tan Lun attaches great importance to, and Yang Mangui is one of them.
Yang Mangui, who lived in Zhuozhou, his ancestors followed Chengzu "Jing Difficulty", and he was a military household for generations, and after Yang Mangui joined the army as an adult, he was originally a pawn. Because of his alertness and carefulness, he was chosen to stay at night and underwent "cruel" training.
In ancient times with horses as the main means of transportation, riding horses to run, rushing is the basic skill, night is not collected in training, often take off the harness, only to the legs of the horse to run arbitrarily without falling square as a qualification, a long time, Yang Mangui walking is a bit of a circle, of course, most cavalry also have this feature.
The main duty of the night is to spy on the situation, so it is necessary to learn the most basic geographical knowledge, mapping skills, and be able to record the enemy's camp situation in its original form to ensure the accuracy of the intelligence source. And if you don't take it at night, you have to go deep into the enemy territory, and you must also learn the daily Tatar language, at least interrogation and directions are not a problem.
Due to the particularity of the "no collection at night" branch, it is impossible for it to operate on a large scale and in an organized manner, and it is often infiltrated into groups of three or five, and it cannot wear armor, carry large weapons such as knives and guns, and pay more attention to training in training subjects such as short-term fighting, climbing, and concealment.
In order to enhance the physical strength of "not collecting at night", in the training, they also adopted methods such as "lifting giant trees and sandbags" so that they could adapt to continuous combat and long-distance attacks. Despite such rigorous training, "no night" still faces a life-and-death threat at all times. This time, Yang Mangui and four other people went out of Yongguan, encountered Tatar cavalry on the road, all three were killed in battle on the way to escape, Yang Mangui was also hit by an arrow, but fortunately he was spared before he could do the key.
It can be seen that the risk of "not receiving at night" is still quite high, and what is corresponding to this is that its income and rewards after meritorious service are also higher than those of ordinary soldiers. In the "No Harvest at Night" camp, Yang Mangui was able to eat a lamb liver soup every day to prevent them from suffering from night blindness.
In the third year of orthodoxy, Emperor Ming Yingzong also ordered that all sides should not be harvested at night, and the monthly grain should be increased by two buckets. In the eighth year of orthodoxy, he also ordered xuanfu not to collect at night, in addition to the three buckets of grain, another stone was given.
In addition to spying on intelligence, "night does not collect" also has to undertake special operations such as infiltration, raiding, burning, summoning, raiding and killing, and their existence provides strong intelligence support for the Ming Dynasty's operations against Mongolia and Houjin, and also makes the nomadic people hate them to the bone, and Houjin even set up "Karen" and "capture team" to deal with "night not to collect", and the special soldiers of both sides fought for life and death on the grasslands outside The Saiwai!
Second, a "failed" rescue witnessed the strength of "no night"
In fact, "night does not collect" is not the only special forces in the army, in addition, the army has also set up "walking, sentry, fast horses", etc., in terms of function and "night does not collect" overlaps, functional similarity, but "night does not collect" has always maintained its own unique status. A rescue during the Yingzong years showed his strong professional ability.
In the fourteenth year of orthodoxy, Under the deception of the eunuch Wang Zhen, Emperor Mingyingzong Zhu Qizhen personally marched on Vala, but suffered a crushing defeat at Tumu Fort, with heavy losses of 500,000 troops, the most elite "three battalions" of the Ming army were completely destroyed, Zhang Fu, Wang Zuo, Ding Ming and more than 50 other important ministers were killed, and Ming Yingzong also became a prisoner of The First Division of The Ming Army. The emperor was captured by the enemy, which is rare in history, and Taishi also first regarded Zhu Qizhen as "strange goods to live in", intending to use it as a "sharp weapon for breaking the city".
He also first coerced Emperor Yingzong to come to Datong City and ordered the guards to open the door and surrender. The guard general Guo Deng used a strategy to slow down the army, sending people to see Yingzong and offering wine and gold and silver, Guo Deng, while delaying time and paralyzing The Wallachians, secretly sent the secret faction to implement the infiltration and rescue plan at night. That night, he contacted Yuan Bin, who was able to meet with Yingzong, and told him about the rescue plan.
Yang Zongqi secretly told Yuan Bin that there were five nights tonight that he would not receive, so he secretly asked Grandpa to go to the Stone Buddha Temple, and when he could not find it, he took a ride into the city.
After the change of Tumu Fort, Yuan Bin has been with Yingzong and protected him with death, which has won the trust of Yingzong. From emperor to prisoner, Emperor Yingzong must have been in pain, but when Yuan Bin told him the rescue plan, he was afraid.
Yingzong's answer was: This dangerous matter cannot be done. I didn't die when I was in the earth, but my life is in heaven, and if I don't worry about it, how good is it?
The plan of not receiving the night is still quite thorough, Guo Deng must also arrange a backhand, the probability of success is still very large, even if the matter is defeated, it may not kill Yingzong first, but unfortunately, Yingzong lacks the courage to fight to the death, and his men can't do anything about it! The matter can only be abandoned. A few days later, he also came to Datong City again, and Guo Deng decided to rescue Yingzong again, but because of the leaking wind, he also led his troops to retreat, and Yingzong was also coerced.
Although this rescue operation failed, the strong infiltration combat ability of "No Night" still left a deep impression on Yingzong. After experiencing the "South Gate Change" to re-ascend the throne, Yingzong did not forget to give "no night" and "salary increase", which is likely to be the impact of that rescue.
Guo Deng, as a courtier, the emperor is related to his life, if there is any damage, only afraid that Guo Deng's entire family will not escape punishment, but he has such trust in "night does not receive", but also from another angle to prove the strength of night does not receive. We can imagine how difficult it is to infiltrate the enemy camp and accurately find the emperor's location in the midst of thousands of troops!
Third, how the strong "night without harvest" is decaying
As a very important branch of the army, "no harvest at night" played an extremely important role in the Ming Dynasty's foreign wars, and famous generals such as Tan Lun and Qi Jiguang attached great importance to it, but in the late Ming Dynasty, like other Ming armies, they embarked on the road of decay.
The crisis of the decline of the Ming army was actually buried during the Ming Dynasty's most prosperous Wanli years. In the sixth year of the Wanli Calendar, the Emperor issued an edict requesting the addition of 200,000 taels of gold and silver, and in the tenth year of the Wanli Calendar, a total of 300,000 taels of Silver from Taicang and Guanglu Temple were to be taken. In fact, gold, flowers, silver, etc. were all financial expenditures overdrawn by the imperial court, turning the state's money into the money of his own small treasury, which was taken for granted by the emperor, because this whole world belonged to his Zhu family. But from the perspective of national governance, isn't this just overt embezzlement?
At this time, the arrears of silver in the Wanli Dynasty had exceeded one million taels. In addition to the emperor's open embezzlement, his ministers were not inferior, and they withheld layer by layer, which inevitably affected the payment of military salaries in border towns. By the forty-eighth year of the Wanli Calendar, the military salaries of the border towns had reached a million. The border town defenders have already experienced a serious crisis, and the landmark event is the Qi Jiajun incident.
In 1595, more than 1,700 Qi family troops were "suppressed" by the newly appointed Jizhen commander Wang Baoji in the school yard, two years ago, this unit took the lead in climbing the city wall to break the city during the expedition to Korea, but after returning, not only did not get the reward for the first to climb the city wall, even the previous arrears of the salary were not cashed, there were many complaints in the army, and there were signs of mutiny. In the end, this army that made great achievements for the Ming Dynasty died out in the world. This incident is actually a sign of the decline of the Ming Dynasty's armament.
In fact, being a soldier in the Ming Dynasty was not only a profession, but also a job bowl on which to make a living, and the qi family's super combat effectiveness was not only trained in the law, but also because they received "double pay". The emperor is not bad for hungry soldiers! Qi Jiajun was like this, and then as Daming's internal and external troubles became more serious, the financial crisis became more prominent, and unpaid wages have become the norm, so the Ming Army in Bianzhen is like this, and "not collecting at night" will of course be affected.
In addition, the Ming Dynasty's border towns guarded the imperial strategy, mostly out of human rule. When Zhang Ju was in the dynasty, he was able to give support to the generals of Bianzhen, and after Zhang Juzheng's death, he was deposed by others! Many officials of the Ming Dynasty only competed for right and wrong, ignored the reality of border towns, were corrupt, and in addition to arrears, the salaries paid could not be paid in full, which eventually led to the gradual decline of the combat effectiveness of the border army!
And in the chongzhen years at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was a peasant uprising led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, besieging the city and trapping the village, and outside there were the rising Houjin tigers, repeatedly violating the border, and the territory was constantly plagued by natural disasters, the generals were repeatedly killed, the military affairs in the northern border towns had been eroded, even if Qi Shuai was reborn, there was no power to return to heaven, and finally the city of Beijing was destroyed by Li Zicheng, and then Wu Sangui opened the mountain customs, led to the Qing and entered the customs, and the Ming died! And the Ming Dynasty's repeated achievements in "no harvest at night" were also annihilated in the dust and smoke of history!
Photo and text shared from: Fat Story
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