Why did Zhu Di personally conquer Mongolia five times? Helplessness after the scenery! There are no generals in the army
There are many prosperous times in Chinese history, such as the Great Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, but on the issue of dealing with the nomadic peoples in the north, the most comfortable is the Ming Dynasty, because only in this era, our attitude is the most distinct: no peace, no land, no compromise! Although the Ming Dynasty was a regime that seized power from the nomads and then died to the nomads, the Ming Empire was a tough guy in the process.
In our admiring eyes, there is the sound of Xu Da entering the capital of the Great Yuan, and there is also the sound of blue jade slamming into the sword of the Northern Yuan in the depths of the desert, but the most unforgettable thing is the figure of Zhu Di, a generation of male lords, in the Mongolian steppe, five in and five out!
Before him, no monarch would come to the desert to fight, and after him, his descendants followed suit because they admired him too much, and as a result, one almost buried the entire Daming, one was criticized for being too willful, and even the victory of the conquest was blackened by posterity.
But when we peel back the shell of the aura, brush away the smoke and dust of history, and return to the situation at that time, we may see another side that has not been our attention.
In the seventh year of Yongle, the Ming Dynasty ushered in a group of emissaries who returned from afar, they were emissaries sent by Zhu Yuanzhang to the Timurid Empire, originally the Mongol Timur wanted to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, but because of the long distance, when the mission arrived at the Timurid Empire, they were already strong enough to be unwilling to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, so they detained the mission, until Timur died, the successors sent them back in order to ease relations with the Ming Dynasty, there were 1500 people when they went, and only 17 people came back, but they were in the enemy camp for 13 years. Never gave in.
They had a leader named Guo Ji, who was proficient in Mongolian, and Zhu Di especially needed such a person, because Zhu Di was originally the king of the domain guarding the north, and since the Battle of Jingnan began, he had left behind the tasks given by his father Zhu Yuanzhang, and after the end of the Jingnan, there were many busy things, and the nomadic people in the north mainly adopted the method of appeasing and using the contradictions of various tribes to balance each other, and when he paid attention to this matter, the Mongol tribes that had been torn apart by blue jade had developed again, although they did not form a unified government. But there were also several powerful forces, such as the Tatars, the Wattles, and the Wuliangha, all of which were very powerful forces that often harassed the ming borders, and with Guo Ji's return, Zhu Di also remembered these old neighbors.
He sent Guo Ji on an envoy to Mongolia, and poor Guo Ji left home for 13 years, returning home for only a month, and embarked on a journey again.
Language is a sharp weapon for communication, plus the great power of the Ming Dynasty is flourishing, many tribes treat Guo Ji with courtesy, but when it comes to Tatarstan, their master Arutai feels that he is already very powerful, unwilling to make friends with the Ming Dynasty, he insults Guo Ji, Guo Ji has never insulted his country and dignity in 13 years in a foreign land, how can he tolerate the insult of Arutai? He resisted fiercely, and as a result, he was killed by Arutai, and when the other tribes learned of it, they immediately reported it to the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Di was furious, the two armies did not fight to make it, I just came to talk, convey the meaning of friendship, you are also too much, deceive me Daming no one.
There were not many people in Daming, but there were not many people, and in the Battle of Jingnan, Zhu Di also had many generals under him, but there were not many outstanding ones, and among the four marquises, Yao Guangxiao was a courtier, and it was okay to come up with ideas, and it was impossible to conquer the battlefield. Zhang Yu had already died in battle, and the children left behind were still young, Zhu could be busy in Annam, and Qiu Fu was left in the middle of the country.
There was no choice, just Qiu Fu, Zhu Di let him take a hundred thousand troops away, Zhu Di is not unaware of Qiu Fu's weakness, so he repeatedly instructed Qiu Fu to be careful not to take the enemy lightly, but it may be that Zhu Di knows too much and is afraid of what is coming, Qiu Fu finally because of self-righteousness, he went to Arutai and was ambushed, and 100,000 troops were killed in the desert, and even Qiu Fu himself could not escape.
Zhu Di was furious, this breath could not be swallowed no matter what, first kill one, then kill 100,000, do you really want to go to heaven?
Fighting must be fought, and it must be won, and there is no way back from the fight, and it will be destroyed in one fell swoop. With this in mind, Zhu Di greeted the other two Mongol tribes, the Wa thorns and Tuharang, and must not help the Tatars, otherwise I would not finish with you. Wa Thorn and Tuharang naturally agreed.
Cutting off the enemy's back road, it is still a question of selecting generals, this time we can no longer choose the kind of people who have problems, but looking at the DPRK, there were not many generals left by his father, and he originally kept Geng Bingwen and Peace, but in the second year of Yongle, Geng Bingwen was impeached and rebelled because he did not wear clothes, committed suicide, and even his children were killed. In the seventh year of Ping'an in Yongle, because Zhu Di said " 'Ping Bao'er An Zai', zhi qualmed suicide. Tie Hyun, who came out during the Jing Dynasty, was killed by himself, and Sheng Yong originally surrendered, and later resigned, but he was still impeached and committed suicide.
In a word, there are no generals in the army.
But what Zhu Di wants to do is to eliminate all difficulties.
No general, I'll do it myself!
In the eighth year of Yongle, Zhu Di marched to Mongolia with an army of 500,000.
The Tatars fled, and the leader Ben yakuri fled to the Watts, where he was assassinated and dedicated his head to the Ming Dynasty. Taishi Arutai fled to Wuliangha, was turned away, wandered around in the desert, evading the pursuit of the Ming army, but unfortunately the flow of unfavorable years, was actually encountered by the returning Ming army, a fight, a big defeat, if Zhu Di did not care that the military food was exhausted, Arutai would not be able to escape.
This was Zhu Di's first personal conquest of the Mongolian steppe, and he won.
But this time the pro-tassel left many troubles, before this, Zhu Di's policy towards the Mongols was a rule of differentiation, based on the mutual checks and balances of various tribes, but this time Zhu Di's blows against the Tatars broke this balance, and with the decline of the Tatars, the rapid rise of the Wallachians led to Zhu Di's second pro-conquest soon after.
In the second conquest, the Ming army won the victory at a great cost, the Walla was severely damaged, but the lost balance could not come back, with the decline of the Wallachian, the Tatars became strong again, and they also learned the way to deal with the Ming army, and the Ming Dynasty was a distant division, and could not delay too long, so they adopted the tactic of "I will hide when you come, and when you retreat I will come out and rob".
In this way, not only did Daming continue to work hard to mobilize the masses, but also to work without success, Zhu Di's subsequent three expeditions did not achieve the expected results, they all hid far away very early, and because the military expenditure to guard the border was too large, and later gave up some land control, so from the result point of view, Zhu Di's five pro-conquests of Mongolia did not have any practical benefits for Daming.
Let's carefully analyze the reasons for Zhu Di's pro-conquest.
The first was that Guo Ji was killed. This is certainly due to the hatred of the Golden Family for Daming, but it is also related to Zhu Di's usual practice of playing tricks between the various tribes of Mongolia. It must be said that consuming the enemy's strength with the contradictions of the enemy itself is a clever method, but the more advanced the method, the more it cannot be used as normalization, because even the most stupid people will see the doorway. But Zhu Di had been dealing with the affairs of the northern nomads in this way since he ascended the throne, and sooner or later something would go wrong.
The second is the death of Qiu Fu. Qiu Fu was a general who grew up in the Battle of Jingnan, and it should be said that Zhu Di should know him best, and it is really Zhu Di's sin to entrust the lives of a hundred thousand soldiers to a general who is not at ease with himself, this is not to say that a victory or defeat is a common affair of soldiers, on the one hand, it shows that Zhu Di is angry and anxious to go to war, otherwise he can wait for Zhang Fu to come back, on the other hand, it also shows that Zhu Di is holding a fluke mentality.
The third is that there are no generals in the army. This has a lot to do with Zhu Yuanzhang's previous massacres, but Zhu Di can't completely get rid of the relationship, just look at the ending of Ping'an, Geng Bingwen and Sheng Yong, you know that Zhu Di is a person who can't tolerate having a festival with himself, and all three of them have made Zhu Di ugly in the Battle of Jingnan, so even if they surrender, they will not die well. Geng Bingwen and Sheng Yong were impeached because of ministers, although it was common for the Ming Dynasty to impeach officials, but committing suicide as soon as they heard that they were impeached was enough to show That Zhu Di's usual attitude towards them did not make these generals feel at ease, and several of Geng Bingwen's children were killed by Zhu Di. Peace was even more miserable, Zhu Di was impatient to borrow the mouth of others, and said directly, how can you still be alive? What does this mean, are you impatient with me living, can peace not commit suicide?
If diplomatic mistakes are unavoidable, and it is Zhu Di's emotional and eager to get angry, it is Zhu Di's emotionalization that leads to the death of 100,000 troops, and even more, killing the generals in vain and shaking the country is the main reason for Zhu Di's personal conquest.
Let's think about it, if all three of them were alive, what would the situation be like for Daming?
Geng Bingwen was good at defending the city, and once set a record of defending the city for ten years, think of the later Li Chengliang, who used five thousand Liaodong iron horses to guard Daming for many years, as long as there are generals, why should he give up land because of the problem of funds.
Sheng Yong is a person who is particularly good at learning and thinking, he found a way to restrain Zhu Di in a short period of time, so as to turn defeat into victory, such a talent, as long as there is enough time, he can basically find a way to solve the problem, so, with him, even if there are any variables, there is no problem.
Ping'an had been fighting with Zhu Di for a long time before the Jing Disaster, and Zhu Di's military talent was clear to him, and he was Zhu Di's most troublesome opponent in the Jing Disaster. Therefore, if Zhu Di can handle it, he should have no problem.
With them there, why worry about Daming? But they were all killed by Zhu Di, just because they made Zhu Di unhappy! At this point, Zhu Di did not have the mind that an emperor should have. The royal driving is the march, the mighty is mighty, the brave is brave, but this is not the duty of the emperor, but also the helplessness after the scenery...
Sitting in the Dragon Garden, the four seas are peaceful, why bother with the conquest?
References: Yongle the Great, Ming Tongjian