The author | cold research author team - Pi Lan read history
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Editor's note: Regarding the change of the Ming Dynasty's Tumu Fort, because the development of the matter is really shocking at home and abroad, it has been given various conspiracy theories. There are even civil servants who have even made changes to the civil burgers, and even some people have the theory that humility is the culprit. Its logic is that the emperor of Tumubao was defeated so badly, but the defense war of Beijing was won, there must be someone who cannot contribute to the work, this article will talk about, how did the Ming court, who was beheaded in the civil change, win the defense war of Beijing?
In 1449, Emperor Mingying's Zhu Qizhen tried to emulate the story of his ancestors' expedition to Wuliangha, leading an army of more than 200,000 to personally conquer Wala. However, due to insufficient preparation and miscommunication, the Ming army was besieged by the Wallachian army at Tumu Fort in northern Jingbei. Under the lack of people and horses, the morale of the Ming army was low, and under the offensive of The Walla, the entire army was destroyed, and 66 ministers such as Shangshu Kuang Ye and Hubu Shangshu Wang Zuo who accompanied the army were killed in battle, and even Ming Yingzong himself was captured first, and this battle also made the originally clear Mingmeng offensive and defensive posture change again. For the Ming Dynasty, the most realistic problem is even more in front of the eyes, the great defeat of the civil change, so that the ming army elite suffered heavy losses, and the Ming Dynasty's command center was almost paralyzed because of the death of heavy subjects and the capture of the emperor, and The Vala, who had just won a great victory, had the ambition to attack Beijing and continue to expand the results.
The Ming Dynasty was facing the biggest crisis since the founding of the People's Republic of China under the strong enemy on the side, the dragons were leaderless, and the internal and external troubles were the biggest crisis since the founding of the People's Republic of China, but we all know that the first attack on the city of Beijing was not successful, and the defense of the Beijing Division ended with the victory of the Ming Dynasty.
Just as described in "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty", the reason why the jingshi defense war was successful could not be avoided by the merits of Yu Qian, the prime minister of the time, and the words of Zhu Jianshen, the grandson of Emperor Yingzong of Ming, were very fair: "When the emperor's ancestor hunted in the north, the country was in danger, (Yu Qian) was able to exhaust his heart, protect his family state, select generals to train troops, destroy the enemy, rely on peace at home and abroad, and the people's hearts were calm." It can be said that without this humble shaobao's step forward, it is difficult to say whether the Ming Dynasty can survive this crisis.
Judging from the records at that time, unlike the haste when Emperor Yingzong temporarily raised his intention to march on the imperial conquest, during the jingshi defense war, the Ming Dynasty was quite thorough in preparing for the invasion of The Wallachians. The use of defeated generals, the deployment of supplies, the training of the Beijing division garrison, and the dispatch of troops from all over the country to Beijing were carried out in an orderly manner, ensuring the victory of the beijing division's defense war. In order to enrich the troops in Beijing, the Ming Dynasty dispatched the Beicao army of the two capitals and Henan, the coastal Beiwu army, the grain transportation army of Jiangbei and Beijing provinces, and the Zhejiang soldiers to Beijing to come to Beijing to help, a move that expanded the strength of the Beijing Division from the original tens of thousands to 220,000.
In addition, after the Civil Mu Rebellion, Empress Sun ordered Zhu Qiyu (later Emperor Jingtai) to oversee the state and consult with the courtiers on the strategy of defending the war, but due to the impact of the news that the main force of the Ming Dynasty was completely destroyed, many ministers suggested abandoning Beijing and moving the capital to Nanjing to avoid disaster. Later, Xu Heng (later renamed Xu Youzhen), the promoter of the Nangong Revolution, even more brazenly declared that "the Mandate of Heaven has gone, but the southward migration can alleviate the difficulties", and it was at this time that Yu Qian said the sentence "Those who move south can be cut off". It should be noted that although the wen and military ministers in the center of the Ming Dynasty had already suffered heavy casualties due to the change of civil engineering, Yu Qian was only a left attendant of the military department at that time, and the official status of the dprk was higher than that of him, but he was the only one who dared to rebuke and suggest those who moved south. In addition to Yu Qian's own personality characteristics, his origin as a Daoist official is also one of the reasons.
The civil change was a great blow to the center of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the aforementioned Shangshu KuangYe and Hubu Shangshu Wang Zuo, the official Left Attendant Cao Nai, the Punishment Department Attendant Ding Xuan, the Gongbu Right Attendant Wang Yong and the second-in-command of these departments also died in the incident, but the supervision system that was outside the six departments was well preserved. The supervision system of the Ming Dynasty was more complicated, and the supervision system such as the Metropolitan Inspection Yuan, the Thirteen Dao Supervision Imperial History, the According To Cha Division, and the Six Branches all belonged to the category of supervision system. Zhu Yuanzhang, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, attached great importance to the selection of such officials, and once ordered them to be "sent by the eyes and ears, and to eliminate the hundred divisions." In the future, we will carefully select people who are good and virtuous, and use them as vice-minded." Since then, the selection of supervisory officials has become more and more stringent and even strict. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there was no too rigid requirement for the transfer of officials, and some officials could even break through the rules if they performed well, but the supervision system was an exception, not only did not allow such a promotion to exist, but even the jinshi who were admitted to the orthodox examination who wanted to enter the science and road must also go through layers of selection and "manage the sentence for half a year, and the examination is removed."
This emphasis on the officials of the supervision system was not weakened by zhu Yuanzhang's death, on the contrary, due to the existence of the ruler's practical need to supervise hundreds of officials, successive emperors of the Ming Dynasty began to increase the selection of officials and imperial history. As a result, the personal qualities and status of the officials of these inspection systems are far from being comparable to those of ordinary officials. The so-called "mouth containing Tianxian, the choice of Qinghua", such as Yu Qian, is the origin of the imperial history, and in addition to him, after the change of civil engineering, the Rebbe Shangshu Hu (that is, the legendary one who visited Emperor Jianwen in the name of Zhu Di) also served as a soldier and a household clerk, and belonged to the same old man of the branch.
After the civil change, the ming dynasty supervision system losses were not serious, therefore, also became the most active and important political force at that time, in addition to quelling the discussion of moving south, in the eradication of Wang Zhenyu's party, the Ming Dynasty's supervision officials also contributed a lot, Wang Zhen's fellow party Jinyi Wei commanded Ma Shun, in the Noon gate blood case because of trying to disperse the ministers who asked for orders were beaten to death, it is said that the first angry to attack (mouth) is also a speech official: Huke to Wang Zhen in the matter.
The "History of Ming" records that Jinyi commanded Ma Shun, Zhen Dang also, and those who spoke loudly went. Furious, he raised his arms and shouted, "If Cao treacherously commits the party, he will be punished for his sins, and now he will dare to do so!" "And he cursed and gnawed at his face, and all struck at him, and he was killed."
If it is said that the epic achievement of "biting and killing the commander of the Jinyi Guard" is the highest moment of Wang Hu's life, then it is a bit too small to look at this minister, after the Noon Gate Bloody Case, Wang Zhen's party was purged, and Wang Zhen was awarded the post of Right Governor Yushi, and when he also attacked the capital first, he and Wang Tong and Yang Shan guarded the imperial capital, and then stationed at Juyongguan, making great contributions to the Ming dynasty.
Judging from the records at that time, in addition to Yu Qian, Hu Qi, Wang Hu, and other famous courtiers with kuangfu merits, a large number of officials in the central system of the Ming Dynasty did not fall silent.
As we mentioned earlier, the civil change caused chaos in the center of the Ming Dynasty, on the one hand, this was naturally related to the capture of Ming Yingzong, and on the other hand, the death of a large number of middle and high-ranking officials was also an important reason. In particular, the two ministries of soldiers and households, which are in charge of military and money and food supply, are even more crucial to the defense of Gyeonggi, and once they fail, the consequences are unimaginable. After the civil change, the Ming Dynasty, in addition to establishing a new emperor, also carried out a large number of personnel promotions.
The most conspicuous, of course, is that Yu Qian was promoted from Bingbu Shilang to Bingbu Shangshu, in addition, Hubu Shangshu was replaced by Zuo Shilang of the Ministry of Works, and the positions of Hubu, Bingbu and even the remaining four departments of Shilang, Langzhong, and Yuanwailang were also supplemented from bottom to top, in the "History of Ming" and other documents, we can often see Yu Qian and other ministers mention "Jingkang's change" or "Song's southern crossing", it can be said that the various chaos when the Song Dynasty guarded Beijing almost provided a perfect "wrong answer" for the Ming Dynasty Wenwu. For example, the chaotic life issued by Emperor Huizong of Song in the rear after his abdication and self-preservation, Song Qinzong's vacillation of war and peace in the face of the Jin Kingdom, and the various strange operations of the wenchen generals when defending the Beijing Division, all became a big pit for the Ming Dynasty to avoid.
However, unlike the northern Song Dynasty's military strength and national strength at the time of the Jing Kang Revolution, which had just suffered a major defeat, the "elite and exhausted" Ming Dynasty could still rely on a thick family foundation to stabilize the situation. Because most of the heavy weapons were drawn into the main army during the Yingzong personal conquest, the weapons and armor of the defenders of the capital at that time were seriously insufficient, and at the most serious time, the armor rate of soldiers was even less than ten percent, but relying on the support of the Ying Tianfu (Nanjing) Armory, the Ming Dynasty replenished 1.26 million pieces of various weapons in a short period of time, and the accumulation of the Ming Dynasty can be imagined. Similar to the replenishment of weapons, the supplement of the Ming army's military resources is also full of a sense of wealth and willfulness, in order to stimulate the morale of the soldiers guarding the city and guarding the pass, the Ming Dynasty ordered "the craftsmen who guard the city, the shoukou army, the firefighters, and the four internal and external officers and soldiers of the imperial city, and the people give two horses." Even the common people, only with the ability and courage, can also be selected through the selection of "giving crowns, rewarding silver three or two", and "giving instruments kurama horses, monthly grain and a stone", this kryptonite Dafa also allowed the originally seriously injured Beijing division defenders to get a certain supplement.
At the same time, as mentioned above, the Ming Dynasty also relied on reserve forces such as the Liangjing Beicao Army and the Southern Beiwu Army to retrain and enrich the army. Prior to this, the capital defense force was mainly dominated by the Beijing camp, although it was named "battalion", but in fact, the composition of personnel and affiliations were extremely complicated, in addition to the guards belonging to the Governor's Palace of the Five Armies and the guards guarding the imperial city, there were even some so-called force guards responsible for miscellaneous services and even the Imperial Tomb Guards. It is conceivable how complicated the dispatch of the personnel of an army thus pieced together can be imagined, and the "Ming Tongjian" has an unceremonious evaluation of this: "Although each has a general army, it is not unified, and it is not uniform in the time of dispatch, the soldiers will not be familiar with it, and when they suddenly encounter enemy soldiers, they will have a call, and even if they do not know it, their names are not reporters." I can't even remember my name, so what cooperation and support do I talk about? The Battle of Tumu showed that these large and inappropriate and different armies would greatly slow down the command and operation ability of the Ming Army, and it would be difficult to effectively improve the combat effectiveness of the army.
Therefore, before the defense of the Beijing Division, in order to coordinate and unify and reduce the command problems caused by the lack of subordination of each other, the Ming Dynasty almost abandoned the Beijing battalion, which had already existed in name only, and instead reorganized the three major battalions, including the elite regimental battalions. Unlike the three battalions, the newly built regimental battalion was supervised by Shangshu of the Bingbu Department, and there were three general soldiers and commanders under it, and this organizational structure of the stacked bed frame house was also the key to the victory of the Beijing Division's defense war.
Unlike the Northern Song Dynasty Jingkang's change, although the Ming Dynasty experienced a fiasco in the civil engineering change, as far as the national strength at that time was concerned, whether it was heavy reserves, reserve troops or reserve talents, there was still a deep foundation, and because of this, the Ming Dynasty, after quelling the internal chaos caused by the northern hunting of Emperor Yingzong, re-established a stable administrative and military center, so that Wala had no opportunity to take advantage of, and finally could only return in vain.
bibliography:
1. Fang Xiang's "Temptation of the Regimental Camp System in the Ming Dynasty" 2.Zhu Baiwen,"The Functional Evolution of the Ming Dynasty Supervision System Before and After the "Change of Tumu Fort"" 3.Zhang Liansong's "Logistical Strategy for the Defense of Beijing" 4.Pu Zhangxia's "Analysis of Several Problems in the "Change of Civil Engineering""
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