Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang thirteen times northern expedition to the Northern Yuan, although the Ming army repeatedly hit the Northern Yuan, but the nomadic cavalry is like a distant weed on the grassland like the spring wind blowing again.
Zhu Yuanzhang, who was not available
Zhu Yuanzhang saw that the large army could not completely solve the Northern Yuan by going out to the Plough Court, so he changed his strategy and sealed his eldest sons as the King of Sai to stay in the northern border towns of the Ming Dynasty, and adopted the strategy of building a fortress for the Northern Yuan and encroaching on the Northern Yuan step by step.
This strategy worked so well that by the time of Zhu Yuanzhang's death, the Ming Dynasty had established a Mengnan defensive line from Liaodong to Longxi. This defensive line placed most of today's Inner Mongolia in the territory of the Ming Dynasty, and the Great Wall Defense Line became the strategic rear of the Mengnan Defense Line.
However, this strategy of building a fortification to the north, while achieving great success, also greatly depleted the Ming Dynasty's troops. For example, the Daning Wei of the King of Ning was outside the Xifeng Pass in guhui Prefecture, and the Daning Wei was connected to the east and west of Liaozuo to Xuanfu, which was a giant town in the early Ming Dynasty. King Ning was stuffed with ninety cities, with 80,000 armor and 6,000 leather cars, and his cavalry was the best in the world.
Therefore, the main reason why Zhu Yuanzhang did not send troops to the western region during the period was that Zhu Yuanzhang's attention was focused on the Northern Yuan, and the northern troops were used to maintain the Mengnan defense line. Moreover, Nanjing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty at that time, was far away from the Western Regions, and if the Beijing army in Nanjing was mobilized to expedition to the Western Regions, it was too far away and too great. In addition, from the Western Regions to the Middle East, they were occupied by the Mongol Khanates, and even if the Ming Dynasty occupied the Western Regions, there was no benefit to be gained.
Therefore, during Zhu Yuanzhang's period, there was no energy or motivation to march into the western region.
The Chagatai Khanate, which occupied the western region, forced the whole country to convert to Islam during the reign of the Great Khan of the Vulture Lutissar (1348-1363). After converting to Islam, the Chagatai Khanate continued to infiltrate the territory of the Eastern Uighurs who belonged to the Yuan Dynasty and lived in Buddhism between the Central Plains and the Western Regions in an attempt to spread Islam there, which made the local people and the Chagatai Khanate like water and fire.
So when the Ming army eliminated the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty in Lanzhou, in order to fight against the Chagatai Khanate in the west, these Buddhist Eastern Uighurs sought refuge from the Ming Dynasty. Ming Taizu incorporated these Eastern Uighur tribes into the Ming Dynasty's weishou system, and established the Weishou of Anding, Aduan, Quxian, Shazhou, Handong, Chijin, and Hami to exercise bondage rule.
The largest of these guards was Hamiwei, whose leader was directly given the highest military attaché, Zuo Dudu, by the Ming Dynasty, and awarded the title of King of Zhongshun County. This official position and title, the hamiwei chief hereditary resignation.
At this time, the Ming Dynasty had a small number of garrisons in the Eastern Uighurs outside Jiayu Pass, so the tightness of the bondage was still relatively high.
No time for the Ming Dynasty
After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he changed Zhu Yuanzhang's established strategy of encroaching on northern Yuan, dismissed the king of Sai and seized the military power of the king of the domain, concentrated his forces around Beijing, and continued to adopt Zhu Yuanzhang's early strategy of ploughing the court and sweeping the cave deep into the desert north, in an attempt to sweep away the northern Yuan's founding of the immortals. Of course, this is the consideration that Zhu Di wants to eliminate the stench of his own rebellion, but it is not that Zhu Di is not in the right position, so he concentrates the world's military power in his own hands to prevent changes.
The center of gravity of the Ming Dynasty during the Zhu Di period was still in the north, and the western region was really not taken care of.
The Ming Dynasty was a dynasty belonging to the middle reaches of the great unified dynasty in terms of expanding its territory and expanding its territory. Well, this is just a statement to save face for the Ming Dynasty, in the great unified dynasty of Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties that have lasted for more than a hundred years, the Ming Dynasty is undoubtedly the bottom one in terms of expanding the territory. Whether it is to sweep away the few people in the northern grasslands or to open up the western region, it is the worst.
The fundamental reason why the Ming Dynasty was far inferior to the Han, Tang, and Yuanqing dynasties in terms of territorial expansion was that the Ming Dynasty entered the contraction period too early. From 1368 to 1424, the Ming Dynasty was only in the expansion period of Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, the two ancestors, and the expansion period of the Han, Tang and Qing Dynasties exceeded one hundred years, and the Yuan Dynasty counted from Genghis Khan in the era of the Mongol Empire to the expansion period of Yuan Chengzong in just one hundred years.
Although the Renxuan era is called the ming dynasty, it is also the era of the great contraction of the Ming dynasty, which was achieved by greatly reducing the area of the territory and saving the cost of maintaining the garrison.
In the Zhu Di era, in order to concentrate troops to Launch the Northern Expedition in Beijing, many guards were abolished, including Dongshengwei, who controlled Hetao. During the Zhu Di period, Dongshengwei did not seem to have much influence because of the ming dynasty's military strength, but as the Ming dynasty adopted a policy of contraction, the negative effects of this decision began to appear.
Because Dongshengwei was abolished, which made Shaanxi and Gansu face the impact of the Wallachian cavalry in the south, the Ming Dynasty had to concentrate its northwest forces in the north of Shaanxi and Gansu Provinces, which allowed the Ming Dynasty to use the west out of Jiayu Pass, and the strength to support Hamiwei became stretched.
As the Mongols entered the Loop, the Influence of the Ming Dynasty on the Western Regions became more and more ethereal.
The impact of the Ming Dynasty's contraction on the northwest
In the fourteenth year of the ming dynasty (1449 AD), the Tumubao Incident broke out!
The Battle of Tumu fort caused huge losses to the three battalions, the most elite strategic mobile unit of the Ming Dynasty. The military strategy originally adopted by the Ming Dynasty declared bankruptcy, and in view of this helped Yu Qian, who supported the Jingtai Emperor to ascend the throne, a major decision was made, which made the Ming Dynasty and the Western Regions gradually drift apart from then on.
In order to prevent the Eastern Uighur tribes from being annexed by the same Tibetan Buddhist wa lai, Yu Qian ordered all the Uighur guards west of Jiayu Pass except Hami Wei to move inland to the area east of Jiayu Pass.
Although Yu Qian is a national hero of our Han nationality, his decision brought great disaster to the Buddhist people of the Eastern Uighurs. There are not many historical records of this eastward migration, the Eastern Uighurs who migrated inland are today's Yugur people, and their relatives who remain in the western region are today's Uyghurs. The Yugurs still believe in Buddhism today, and at the time of the 1953 census, there were only 3,860 Yugurs left! To this day, the population gap between the two ethnic groups is still thousands of times!
This internal relocation not only caused great damage to the vitality of the Eastern Uighurs, but also made Hami, the last turret of Buddhism in the Western Regions, an isolated island in the green ocean of the Western Regions.
Turpan's double-whining
In 1456, seven years after the Tumubao Rebellion, the eastern part of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate split into the Turpan Khanate. If Turpan, sandwiched between the Eastern Chagatai Khanate and Hami, wanted to expand abroad, the preferred target could only be Hami. In particular, Hami guarded the only way for the Western countries to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, and the huge wealth brought by this geographical advantage made Turpan particularly popular.
However, Hami was after all a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, and although the small country of Turpan was hungry, it did not dare to make a mistake easily.
However, the Ming Dynasty gave Turpan the opportunity to get involved in Hami!
When King Hami Zhongshun died in the early years of Emperor Mingxianzong's reign, Hami submitted a new heir to the Ming Dynasty. According to the ming dynasty's feudal system, only the lord of the ming dynasty who was officially canonized by the Ming government would be recognized by the Ming dynasty as the new lord. However, the Ming Dynasty was obviously not satisfied with Hami's proposal for a new lord, so it dragged its feet on not issuing the appointment of the new King Zhongshun.
This delaying measure of the Ming Dynasty dealt a heavy blow to the prestige of the new lord of Hami, causing serious civil unrest to break out within Hami!
In the ninth year of Chenghua (1473 AD), Turpan took advantage of the civil unrest in Hami to attack the city of Hami, and the remnants of Hami fled to Kuyu (southeast of present-day Anxi County, west of Yumen) in present-day Gansu.
The remnants of Hami who fled to Kuyu naturally sent a distress signal to the Ming Dynasty, and the small Turpan Khanate dared to move the subordinates of Daming.
Yugur traditional costumes
Hoping for the stars and the moon, the Hami people finally looked forward to Daming's reinforcements, but after seeing the reinforcement team, the Hami people were dumbfounded one by one. This army is not a small number of people, carrying not weapons but cattle, agricultural tools and other production materials, where is the reinforcement is to cultivate the land.
The Hami people were even more confused after learning about the situation from the leaders of the reinforcements, and it turned out that the Ming Dynasty wanted the Hami people to learn from the Yue King, gather ten years of lessons, and fight back to regain hami city.
Hey?!
Hami is Daming's vassal, and Turpan's capture of Hami City also hit Daming's face. How can this attitude of Daming seem to be like a person who has nothing to do?
In any case, the Hami people also have to eat, and since they have all the seeds and tools for cultivating cattle, let's learn to cultivate the land.
You don't have to say that the Hami people really learn to practice like that.
Exactly ten years later, in the eighteenth year of Chenghua (1482 AD), the Hami people really fought back and recovered the city of Hami!
However, after this battle, the Ming Dynasty's foreign power zhonggan has also completely fallen into the eyes of Turpan. Although this time Turpan only controlled Hami City for ten years, it knew that the face of the Ming Dynasty could smoke.
Emperor Chenghua didn't know which tendon was wrong, but he refused to formally recognize the status of the lord of Hami. Therefore, it was not until February of the first year of the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming (1488 AD) that the lord of hami was officially appointed by the Ming dynasty as the governor of Hami Weizuo and inherited the title of King Zhongshun.
However, the Zhongshun King Pi Ben crown on Han Shen's head had not yet been worn hot, and Turpan made a comeback. At this time, Emperor Mingxiaozong was only 13 or 4 years old, and the affairs of the DPRK and China had not yet been straightened out, so for a while and a half they would not be able to take care of the affairs of the Western Regions.
In the fourth year of Hongzhi (1491 AD), Emperor Mingxiaozong, who finally freed his hand, sent an edict to Turpan. The edict ordered Turpan to hand over the stolen Hami City Pool and the Golden Seal of king Zhongshun issued by the Ming Dynasty.
The tone of the edict was strong, which made Turpan feel that the Ming Dynasty was playing real this time. Although Turpan, who was small and widowed, was reluctant to spit out the fat meat in his mouth, he could only honestly evacuate hami city and hand over the golden seal of king Zhongshun to the envoy, and Hami once again restored the country.
In February of the fifth year of Hongzhi (1492 CE), Emperor Mingxiaozong appointed the Hami royal clan Ofanba as the new Zhongshun King at the request of the Hami people. Emperor Xiaozong of Ming's handling of the issue of the successor to the lord of Hami was far more active than his son, Emperor Mingxianzong. This also laid the groundwork for the Ming Dynasty's control of the Western Regions to reach an unprecedented peak during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming.
But will Turpan, who has tasted the sweetness, give up?
Less than two years later, in April of the sixth year of Hongzhi (1493), after Turpan's tribute team to the Ming Dynasty had just returned, Turpan once again made a comeback to occupy hami city, and the loyal king Shamba also became a prisoner of Turpan.
Looking at the history books, Turpan had an unusual attachment to tribute, the Ming Dynasty should have items it particularly cared about, and one of its main purposes in occupying Hami was to seize the right to pay tribute to Hami. Turpan attacked this time, most likely because the Ming Dynasty did not meet its request for tribute, so it took the risk to occupy Hami City twice.
Turpan's repeated provocations completely angered Emperor Ming, and he ordered his attendants Zhang Hai and The Governor of The Capital, Tongzhi (gōu), to make military preparations in the northwest to expel Turpan and retake Hami.
In December of the eighth year of Hongzhi (1495), Emperor Xiaozong of Ming ordered Xu Jin and Liu Ning, the commander-in-chief of the Gansu Dynasty, to lead an army out of Jiayuguan to retake hami.
Turpan is also a provocateur, and once he saw the Ming Dynasty playing really, he gave up Hami City to the west without even seeing the Ming army. The Ming army recaptured hami city without bloodshed and helped hami restore the country for the third time!
What is different from the past is that this time the Ming army left a small number of troops stationed in Hami City to prevent turpan from making a comeback, and the Ming garrison was stationed in the hinterland of the Western Regions for the first time, achieving direct control over Hami!
Extrapolating from Ming Xiaozong's move, he should have planned to open up and operate the Western Regions, but since Ming Yingzong, Mongolia has been recuperating for a long time, and once again becoming strong has become a major problem for the Ming Dynasty!
In the thirteenth year of Hongzhi (1482), the little prince (Dayan Khan) entered the Hetao and committed the Yansui Shenmu Fort; in December, the fire sieved Kou Datong, and plundered more than a hundred miles south!
Regardless of whether Emperor Xiaozong of Ming had the idea of opening up the Western Regions or not, the Ming Dynasty at this time had to concentrate its energy on the northern border and was no longer able to take care of the Western Regions. However, Turpan, who saw Ming Xiaozong's determination to maintain Hami, was very honest during this period, and did not dare to use any crooked brains more than anyone who paid tribute.
However, Lao Tzu's hero bastard, Ming Xiaozong is right about everything, but educating his son is too failed. What was even more unsuccessful was that Emperor Mingxiaozong was too short-lived, so his bastard son inherited his throne early.
The Zhengde Emperor's life was rich and colorful, especially in Mingyue's "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty" that year, he was greatly beautified, so that now everyone regards this thing that has harmed the country and the people as a model for my generation.
Seeing that the Ming Dynasty had produced such a naughty emperor, Turpan was very happy in his heart.
In the eighth year of Zhengde (1513 AD), the "History of Ming" recorded Hami's tribute, which was also the last tribute in Hami's history. After the autumn of the same year in August, Turpan occupied the city of Hami for the second time (ruò).
The Zhengde Emperor everyone knows that he is a master who treats war as a game, and Turpan sent him to the door, then he must be well entertained. In May of the ninth year of Zhengde (1514 AD), the Zhengde Emperor ordered Pengze to be the governor of Gansu, and was responsible for the manager Hami.
It should be said that the Zhengde Emperor still had some merits, such as a soldier who surrendered without fighting.
In May of the eleventh year of Zhengde (1516 AD), Turpan was forced by the strong pressure of the Ming Dynasty to spit out the city of Hami again. However, in September of the same year, Turpan's zhuó reoccupied the city of Hami!
Unlike before, Turpan did not stop at Hami City this time, and its army continued to march eastward, invading Suzhou (present-day Jiuquan City) to kill the Ming generals to guerrilla Attack Rening, plundering and returning with a full load.
What is the concept of Turpan's capture of Suzhou!?
Suzhou is 25 kilometers east of Jiayuguan!
This represents the first time in more than 150 years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty that forces from the Western Regions have invaded the east of Jiayuguan!
Little Turpan dared to ride to Daming's head and, and turned it on!
Ming Wuzong's attitude is very resolute, fight! Be sure to fight!
Therefore, in the twelfth year of Zhengde (1517 AD), in the summer and April, the deputy commander-in-chief Zheng Lian led an army to the west to defeat the Turpan army in Guazhou (more than 200 kilometers west of Jiayuguan). However, the record of the Ming army's western expedition came to an abrupt end in Guazhou, and it did not take advantage of the victory to retake Hami City.
Hami's fall
In the fifteenth year of Zhengde (1520 AD), suddenly the history books recorded that Turpan paid tribute!
In the past, as long as Turpan occupied hami city, the Ming Dynasty would forbid Turpan to pay tribute. However, Turpan still occupied the city of Hami in the fifteenth year of Zhengde, but the Ming Dynasty allowed Turpan to pay tribute, which marked the official recognition of Turpan's possession of Hami by the Ming Dynasty!
The kingdom of Hami, which has been rebuilt four times in 43 years, has finally not survived the subjugation of the country this time!
Why did the Ming Dynasty instigate it?
Don't look at the Zhengde Emperor shouting one day that he wants to fight, he is a bear bag.
In the sixth year of Zhengde (1513 AD), in July, Xuanfu and Yansui troops were transferred to reinforcements, and in September, Xuanfu and Liaodong Bing Yilu Guan (兵部侍郎) army were transferred.
In the seventh year of Zhengde (1514 AD), the thief committed a crime against Bazhou in the spring of the first month, and the Beijing division was martial law; in the same month, the thief fell to dacheng, and Zhang Ruzhou of Zhixian county and Li Quan, the chief bookkeeper, were killed in battle; in July, the thief Wen'an was imprisoned, and the beijing division was martial law.
These two records of the "History of Ming" show how unbearable the Zhengde Dynasty was, and the first record shows that the Ming courtiers knew the combat effectiveness of the Jingying camp and therefore transferred the border troops into the interior to aid the interior, so the most effective border troops of the Ming Dynasty could not be sent to the western region at all; the second record is a rehearsal of Li Zicheng's peasant army, and it was precisely at the beginning of the peasant uprising in the Zhengde Dynasty that it had the power to threaten the rule of the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty was already overwhelmed by the internal and northern Mongolia at this time, and it was really powerless for Hami, which was thousands of miles away from Beijing.
Hami, the last foothold of Buddhism in the Western Regions, thus fell, and the entire Western Regions became the territory of Islam, which had a profound impact on the situation in the northwest of China for hundreds of years to come.
Later, Turpan did not be honest because it obtained Hami, and during the Jiajing period, it repeatedly sent troops to attack the northwestern border towns of the Ming Dynasty, bringing deep disasters to the local Ming people. At this time, the Ming Dynasty was busy dealing with the Northern Uttar Khan and the SoutheastErn Wokou, and it was really lacking in skill and did not have the energy to pay attention to the 'small fights' in Turpan thousands of miles away, and could only be tossed by it in the northwest.
In the fourth year of Ming Muzong Longqing (1570 AD), the Turpan Khanate was destroyed by the Yarkand Khanate and withdrew from the stage of history.