The results of historical development seem inevitable, but the process is often full of accidents. The Battle of Jingnan of the Ming Dynasty was like this, from the perspective of strength, morality and other factors, Zhu Yunjiao had an absolute advantage, and Zhu Di, who was in the name of a chaotic thief and had limited strength, did not have a great probability of success. What is the reason why the final result is unexpected?
First of all, let's be clear: the reason why the Battle of Jingnan broke out was because Zhu Yunjiao cut down the domain and strengthened the centralization of power. Of course, this decision was 100% correct, after all, after Zhu Di became emperor, the first thing he did was also to cut the domain.
When it comes to cutting the domain, we have to mention the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms" of the Western Han Dynasty. At that time, a series of operations by the Han Jing Emperor could be described as thought-provoking.
In 154 BC, emperor Jing of Han adopted the chaotic "Cutting The Strategy" to drastically reduce the fiefdoms of several major feudal states. Subsequently, Liu Tao, the king of Wu, immediately joined forces with the kings of Chu, Zhao, Jinan, Zichuan, Jiaoxi, and Jiaodong to openly rebel.
At that time, the rebel forces were strong, and Liu Hao alone gathered more than 200,000 people and contacted the Xiongnu externally; and because these feudal states had made significant contributions to stabilizing the political situation and developing the economy, they were now suppressed for no reason, and they also aroused the understanding and sympathy of many people inside and outside the imperial court.
So, in the face of a once unfavorable situation, how did the Han Jing Emperor cope?
First of all, because the reason for the Seven Kingdoms to raise troops is "Chao Chao, Qing Jun's side", that is, we are not going to rebel, but we want to eliminate the bad people around the emperor.
Emperor Jingdi of Han quickly responded with action: Well, I will get rid of the chao mistake myself. He asked the lieutenant of the imperial court to deceive Chao into going to the East Market and beheading him on the spot in the name of patrolling the market. Shi Zai, at that time, Chao Waswolf was not mentally prepared, and was still wearing imperial clothes when he was killed.
Emperor Jingdi's move can be described as cold-blooded to the extreme. It should be known that especially since Emperor Wen of Han, the Western Han Dynasty has always given great courtesy to high-ranking officials, and even if they are sentenced to capital punishment for crimes, they are mostly made to commit suicide to preserve their dignity; moreover, when Emperor Jingdi of Han was still the crown prince, Chao Que was his concubine's cronies, and although the two were monarchs, they were like teachers and friends. Now, in order to block the mouth of the Seven Kingdoms and win back the support of public opinion, Emperor Jingdi of Hanjing almost did not hesitate in the slightest way, and executed his right and left arm in the most ruthless way, and the brutality of the Emperor's Heart Technique was terrifying.
Subsequently, when the Seven Kingdoms were still not good enough to give up, the Han Jing Emperor had enough morality to quell the rebellion. However, even when led by the famous general Zhou Yafu, the imperial army at that time still occupied a disadvantage: "The Chu soldiers were light and difficult to fight."
In this regard, Zhou Yafu put forward a plan: "I would like to entrust it with Liang and cut off his esophagus, but it can be controlled." This "commission" means to abandon, that is, to let Liang Guo serve as cannon fodder and attract the main force of the rebels, and the imperial army will take advantage of the void to enter and encircle its grain routes.
What is the origin of Liang Guo? He was the fiefdom of Liu Wu, the younger brother of Emperor Jing of Han and the Prince of Liang. Because it was between the rebels and Guanzhong, Liang guo was regarded by the rebels as a nail that had to be removed, and under the repeated siege of the Wu and Chu armies, it had suffered heavy casualties and lost tens of thousands of people, and the king of Liang at that time was leading the rest of the army to hold Suiyang and wait for the imperial court to come and save himself from the water and fire.
However, Emperor Jingdi of Han agreed to Zhou Yafu's plan. Subsequently, the imperial army bypassed Suiyang and avoided the main rebel force. Liu Wu, the king of Liang, was so beaten that he sent people to ask Zhou Yafu to rescue him many times, but he was always refused, and then he had to file a complaint with his brother; Emperor Jingdi of Hanjing's reaction was to "make the Marquis of Liang save Liang", that is, to have people tell Zhou Yafu to save his brother, but "Yafu did not obey the edict, and the wall could not come out". Subsequently, the Han Jing Emperor did not make any statement, which meant that there was no need to say more.
Liu Wu had no choice, as the emperor's younger brother, he could not surrender to the rebels, so he had to give up his life and resist to the death, and even stubbornly supported under the fierce attack. When the rebels were exhausted, Zhou Yafu took advantage of the situation and successfully defeated them in one fell swoop.
It can be seen that in order to quell the rebels, the Han Jing Emperor did not hesitate to make up his mind and carry it out to the end at the cost of his number one cronies and brothers. In terms of circumstances, this method is difficult to accept, but combined with reality, it seems quite reasonable and effective. Perhaps this is the so-called "mercy does not control the soldiers, righteousness does not control the wealth."
Now let's look at the Battle of Jingnan. When Zhu Yuanzhang was in power, in order to resist the remnants of the Mongol invasion, nine feudal states were set up on the northern border, and they were all majestic and strong. Among them, Zhu Di, who had outstanding military achievements, was particularly prominent, and history said that he had 100,000 troops and was ordered by Zhu Yuanzhang to "restrain the horses along the border".
When he was still the crown prince, Zhu Yunjiao had anticipated the crisis of the king of the clan supporting the army and not being able to lose his tail; and he also had a lot of contempt for his young emperor's grandson and the uncles of the clan. In this regard, Huang Zicheng, who accompanied the Reading of the Eastern Palace, was full of confidence, and he took the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms of the Western Han Dynasty as an example, and concluded that the kings of the clan "only had to protect the soldiers, and could only defend themselves", and then the suppression of the rebellion by the imperial court would be based on strong blows and weak blows, and Taishan would be crushed, which was not worrying.
It can be seen that Zhu Yunjiao's staff do know a lot about history, but these great Confucians are obviously blind and blind to Mount Tai. With the help of these people, Zhu Yunjiao's plan to cut the domain was wrong again and again.
In 1398, Zhu Yuanzhang died. At this time, it was the best time for Zhu Yunjiao to eliminate political enemies and weaken the king of the domain, and he could have put Zhu Di, who had the strongest military force and the greatest ambition, under house arrest and execution when the kings entered the capital for mourning; unfortunately, he was full of poetry and books, and he was benevolent, he disdained/could not bear to do so, but let the kings cry and mourn in their fiefdoms, without coming to Nanjing.
Later, Zhu Yunjiao was seduced and credulously believed the lie that Zhu Di was seriously ill, and sent his three sons in Nanjing back to the Yan kingdom. In this way, Zhu Di no longer had any worries and rebelled with an iron heart.
Compared with the iron-blooded approach of the Han Jing Emperor at the beginning, Zhu Yunjiao appeared to be too benevolent and kind. In the face of the ruthless uncle Zhu Di, his precious character has become a fatal weakness.
After letting go of the best opportunity to clean up the king of the clan and blackmail Zhu Di, Zhu Yunjiao cut the clan step by step and slowly. This is equivalent to ignoring the opportunity of a sword to seal the throat and dealing with the enemy instead of cutting the flesh with a knife, which is purely to add to one's own blockage.
Moreover, the plan formulated by Huang Zicheng was to first cut off other clan kings and make it difficult for the Yan king to be lonely, that is, first weak and then strong. This was equivalent to hurting those unambitious clan kings in the first place, invisibly artificially expanding the scope of the attack, hurting the innocent and making enemies extensively, and further strengthening Zhu Di's determination to make a desperate bet. If we concentrate our firepower, the party fights against the differences, and seizes the Yan king Zhu Di to ignore the difference between kings and subjects, and to pursue and attack with many acts of trespassing, I believe that the situation will be very different.
In August 1399, Zhu Di officially raised an army, and his reasons were nothing new, the same "Qing Jun's side", the target was Huang Zicheng and Qi Tai, who advocated cutting the domain; and he claimed that his goal was to quell the scourge of the imperial court, that is, "JingNan", so when he succeeded later, this blatant act of rebellion turned out to be the "Battle of Jingnan" with a strong sense of justice.
However, Zhu Yunxiong could not have chopped off Huang Zicheng and Qi Tai with a knife like the original Han Jing Emperor, on the contrary, he almost obeyed Huang Zicheng's words.
At first, Zhu Yunxiong used the veteran general Geng Bingwen to lead the rebellion, but after suffering a defeat, on the recommendation of Huang Zicheng, Li Jinglong, the son of Li Wenzhong, was replaced by Li Jinglong as commander-in-chief. This action seems to be familiar, and I can't help but think of the fact that King Xiaocheng of Zhao replaced Lian po with Zhao Kuo during the Warring States period.
Subsequently, Li Jinglong led hundreds of thousands of troops to attack Beiping, during which the governor Qu Neng once led thousands of cavalry into Zhangye Gate, but Li Jinglong ordered him to wait for the large troops in order to seize the military merit, and as a result, he lost the fighter in vain. Subsequently, Zhu Di held King Ning's army hostage and attacked, and Li Jinglong was attacked by the enemy on his stomach and fled in panic.
In 1400, Li Jinglong, Guo Ying, Wu Jie and others gathered their 600,000 troops to fight a major battle with Zhu Di's more than 100,000 people at baigou River, and in the case of a once dominant position, because Li Jinglong was unable to coordinate the various departments, it was impossible to make further progress, but the Yan army seized the opportunity to win back the situation.
After Li Jinglong's consecutive defeats, Zhu Yunjiao was reappointed to Sheng Yong. In December 1400, the two sides broke out in Dongchang in a main duel, and the Yan army with the idea of a light enemy was defeated for two consecutive days, and Zhu Di was once under siege and his close confidant Zhang Yu died on the battlefield, causing a great ideological impact on him.
This tug-of-war situation was extremely unfavorable to Zhu Di. Although he won more and lost less, as a rebel, his name was not right, the number of troops was limited, and he could not replenish it in time, so he could lay down the city, but he could not occupy it for a long time, and the only thing that could be firmly in his hands was Beiping, Baoding, and Yongping, and if he was consumed, he would undoubtedly lose.
Therefore, in the first month of 1402 AD, after finding out that the Nanjing army was empty, Zhu Di made a desperate bet and led the elite to go south and go straight to the Beijing Division. However, the ideal is very impressive, the reality is very cruel, in Qi Meishan, he was strongly blocked by Xu Huizu, Ping An, and He Fu, and suffered a heavy defeat, the army was scattered, and his life was hanging in the balance.
At that time, if the imperial army had been angry, Zhu Di might have to be reimbursed on the spot. Unfortunately, Zhu Yunjiao actually listened to the ideas of some ministers, believing that the capital should not be without good generals, and recalled Xu Huizu from the front. Subsequently, Zhu Di took the opportunity to counterattack, Ping'an and He Fu were powerless to resist, the Ming army was defeated, hundreds of generals were captured, and the balance of victory was from then on to the rebels. Zhu Yunjiao, who once had the advantage, could only swallow the bitter fruit of defeat.
Comparing the Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms and the Battle of Jingnan, we can find that compared with the Han Jing Emperor, Zhu Yunjiao originally occupied a greater advantage: the Seven Kingdoms of the Western Han Dynasty formed gangs, had a huge momentum and had a certain support group, and Zhu Di was undoubtedly a lone army carrying the name of rebellion. The rebels of the Western Han Dynasty had long been prepared and strong, and the strength of the imperial court was impressive; and Zhu Yunjiao's male divisions amounted to hundreds of thousands, crushing Zhu Di. Although the Han Jing Emperor had Zhou Yafu, Zhu Yunjiao was not without generals.
However, compared with the calm, resolute, stoic and even cold-blooded Emperor Jing of Han, Zhu Yunjiao, who was accompanied by Confucianism, was too benevolent, not only repeatedly missed the opportunity to pinch Zhu Di, but also committed the problems of credulity, fickleness, and blind command, and missed the opportunity to win in vain. If he had not been overthrown, the scene of the "reign of renxuan" might have come earlier.