The change of Tumu Fort, Ming Yingzong Zhu Qizhen Imperial Driving Pro-Conquest was captured by the Wallachians, becoming the only emperor in the history of ancient Chinese warfare who was captured by foreign races, the key is that he led hundreds of thousands of troops, which made people embarrassed, with the impact of this matter, many people feel that the military strength and army estimation ability of the Ming Dynasty are average.
In fact, this understanding is very wrong, because before the change of Tumu Fort, even at the time of the change of Tumu Fort, those armies were absolutely first-class armies in history, especially those in the peak period of the Ming Dynasty, their strength was so powerful that it felt terrible, and it is no exaggeration to say that the Ming Army at that time was invincible.
The peak of the Ming dynasty army
When it comes to the army of the Ming Dynasty, we generally think of three more powerful stages, the first stage is the entrepreneurial team in Zhu Yuanzhang's period, the army in this period can be said to be very strong, they can continue to win the war in the case of serious lack of equipment and facilities, and finally assist Zhu Yuanzhang to lay the world and establish the Ming Dynasty.
During this period, many well-known generals emerged, such as Tang He, Xu Da and others, who were among the best military generals at that time, but unfortunately, after the death of Zhu Yuanzhang's son Zhu Biao in his later years, Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to clear the way to the throne for his grandson Zhu Yunjiao, vigorously rectified those well-known military generals and troops at that time, only Tang He and Xu Da and others were able to die well, such as the blue jade, and the like died a more miserable death.
After Zhu Yuanzhang's purges, by the time Zhu Yuanzhang died and Zhu Yunzhang ascended the throne, in fact, Zhu Yuanzhang only left Zhu Yunzhang an experienced military general, Geng Bingwen, and another was Li Jinglong, a person who was not worthy of the use of paper soldiers, and the strength of the Ming Army in this period was far from the strength when the Ming Dynasty was established, so Zhu Yunjiao would only lose to Zhu Di in the Battle of Jingnan.
It can be said that the military strength of the Ming Dynasty in the Hongwu period was mainly supported by the military talents of the older generation, and if you want to talk about development, it is still too little, with the death of the outstanding military generals of the older generation, the military strength of the Ming Dynasty has dropped significantly, and the military strength of this period has a more obvious feature that it mainly relies on strategy and military general leadership, and the quality of the army itself is average.
Judging from Zhu Yunjiao's defeat in the Battle of Jingnan, we can roughly understand a truth, the military strength of this period and the generals who led troops to fight were inferior to Zhu Di's, so after Zhu Di ascended the throne, that is, during the Yongle period, the military strength of the Ming Dynasty began to rise sharply, and finally reached a peak state.
This peak state lasted for a long time, until zhu qizhen's imperial conquest was defeated by the Wallachians, the military strength of the Ming Dynasty began to decline, but even the Ming dynasty army, which had already gone downhill, was still able to win many battles in the case of the 34th year of the Wanli Dynasty, indicating that the military strength of the Ming Dynasty during this period was not weak.
Of course, after the Wanli Calendar, the Ming army was obviously getting weaker and weaker, so that it finally seemed helpless in the face of the Qing army and Li Zicheng's rebel army, and this result was caused by many reasons, and we will not study it today.
Judging from the above analysis, the peak period of the Ming Dynasty army must have been at this stage during the years of Zhu DiYongle, and as for how terrifying the strength of the Ming army was at this stage, we will continue to analyze it in detail.
At its peak, the ming dynasty's army was terrifying
Of course, Zhu Di pushed the strength of the Ming Dynasty's army to the peak state, but also through a certain process, after all, the strength of the Ming Army during the zhu yuanzhang and Zhu Yunjiao periods has declined, so in the Zhu Di period, the difficulty of wanting to improve this army that has declined in strength is still obvious.
However, Zhu Di's talent in military affairs can indeed be said to be very high, under the leadership and command of Zhu Di, the Ming Dynasty army has undergone earth-shaking changes, mainly reflected in three levels, on the one hand, Zhu Di learned the tactics of blue jade leading troops to fight, and adopted cavalry to raid cavalry.
In order to achieve such an effect, after Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing, he began to build Yuan Sima throughout the country, selecting more sophisticated warhorses, as the basis for the formation of cavalry, under Zhu Di's continuous efforts, in the twenty-second year of Yongle, Zhu Di incorporated the three thousand surrendered cavalry outside the border into his own cavalry battalion, combined with the previous warhorse foundation, and finally created a fierce three thousand battalion.
When the cavalry battalion achieved some success, Zhu Di launched the second step of the strength of the powerful Ming Dynasty army, that is, the equipment of the army was greatly improved, the previous army mainly used some cold weapons and less lethal artillery and the like, under the improvement of Zhu Di, a lot of powerful firearms were promoted to his own army, imitating the size of the three thousand battalions, Zhu Di established the Shenji Battalion, which is the world's earliest firearms unit.
With the development of the first two stages, the strength of the Ming army has been very strong, but Zhu Di does not seem to be satisfied with the status quo, so Zhu Di continued to build on this basis, combined with the historical background and facilities of the time to improve a powerful five-army camp.
With the support of these three teams, the strength of the Ming Dynasty army completely reached its peak state, the Ming Dynasty army at that time, can be said to be invincible, invincible, whether it is in the war with Mongolia, or again and again to fight Japan full of teeth, the Ming Dynasty is invincible, beaten the surrounding countries have come to worship, at most, a total of more than 60 countries around the world to worship the Ming Dynasty, enough to see how terrible the strength of the army at this time.
According to some historical records, after the improvement of Zhu Di, the Ming Dynasty army exceeded two million at the highest number, and it was equipped with an average of 400 muskets per 10,000 people, the musket equipment rate was as high as 4%, and the artillery was 50.
In view of such military strength, Zhu Di was never soft on the provocations of the surrounding countries, he personally led troops to suppress the remnants of the Northern Yuan, and while forcing the Tatars to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, he easily destroyed the Hu Dynasty in Annam, and finally Zhu Di actually controlled Vietnam, basically fighting the Japanese army once at a time, and was invincible and rarely defeated.
In addition to the army has such a strong strength, the navy in the Yongle years, the same as the world's best, when Zheng He went to the West, the size of the fleet was huge, all the way was basically invincible, no country dared to compete with it, from this situation point of view, the strength of the Ming Dynasty navy at that time should also be among the best in the world, otherwise it would be replaced by the rest of the relatively weak dynasties or periods, it would be impossible for Zheng He to go to the West.
epilogue
The peak period of the Ming Dynasty army was the Yongle period led by Zhu Di, Zhu Di made overall improvements to the army during this period, established three thousand battalions, the Shenji battalion and the five military camps, prompting the army to be invincible in the war at that time, at the same time, Zhu Di did not slack off on the development of the navy, from the spectacular scene of Zheng He's voyage to the West, it is enough to see that it is such a powerful strength that prompted the Ming Dynasty at that time to obtain the worship of more than 60 countries around, in the Asian region, it is absolutely the same existence as the king. Even if it was placed in the whole world at that time, the strength of the Ming Dynasty army was not vain at all!
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