Some people once said that the Ming Dynasty had no sages, but in fact, in the hundreds of years of history of the Ming Dynasty, countless capable generals were born, even in the Chongzhen period at the end of the Ming Dynasty, they were also able to produce people.
Tang Shunzhi, this name is not famous, but in the history of the Ming Dynasty, he left a strong mark.
Tang Shunzhi was a genius, in the field of literature, he was on a par with Xu Wei, Tang Bohu and others; in the military field, he learned martial arts in middle age, but he was a master of martial arts, and even Qi Jiguang's marksmanship was taught by him. Such a person is difficult to produce in a thousand years.
The personality of genius is often proud, and Tang Shunzhi is no exception, in the examination, Yang Yiqing, a member of the Cabinet University, appreciates Tang Shunzhi very much and is ready to admit him as the first in the palace examination. The opportunity that others dreamed of was placed in front of Tang Shunzhi, but he dismissed it and rejected Yang Yiqing five times in succession.
According to the custom, only the first few examination papers could get the emperor's royal approval, but Tang Shunzhi's examination papers were answered too well, so even if they were put into the second class by Yang Yiqing, they were still favored by the Jiajing Emperor, and the imperial approval was "exhaustive and detailed".
The chief examiner, Shangshu Zhang Xuan, admired Tang Shunzhi very much and wanted to promote him to the Hanlin Academy as an official and return him to his wing, but Tang Shunzhi still refused, which made Zhang Xuan very unhappy.
In the official arena, Tang Shunzhi was a thorn in the head, he was upright, he was not afraid of the powerful, he was honest and honest, and he was incompatible with other colleagues, so he was excluded. Later, Zhang Xuan found an opportunity to let Tang Shunzhi return to his hometown and never hire him. Later, Sejong reinstated Tang Shunzhi's officials, but soon after Tang Shunzhi was stripped of his title for persuading Jiajing to worry about state affairs.
The frustration of the officialdom did not crush Tang Shunzhi, as the third generation of Wang Yangming's xinxue, Tang Shunzhi returned to Changzhou, moved to a deserted remote place, closed the door, and immersed himself in research alone.
Tang Shunzhi was an all-rounder, in addition to studying the Six Classics like other Confucians, he also studied archery, arithmetic, astronomical calendars, mountains and rivers, military tactics, and small skills of soldiers, etc., and all of them had deep attainments, such as "Pythagorean Arc Arrow Theory" and "Pythagorean Six Theory", and was also good at abacus, and was the first person in the Ming Dynasty to plan the plan.
Tang Shunzhi did not practice martial arts in his early years, and when he returned to his hometown to see Wukou invading his hometown and killing the people, he felt powerless and learned marksmanship from Yang Song, a native of Henan. Generally speaking, martial arts masters are teenagers who have learned martial arts, have decades of foundation, and few can succeed in halfway, but Yang Shun is not only a literary genius, but also a martial arts genius, he learned martial arts at the age of thirty-six, but became the number one master of gun skills in the Jiajing Dynasty, and was called "Tang Gun Yu Stick" with Yu Dayu's stick technique.
Qi Jiguang recorded in the "New Book of Ji Xiao" that he had learned marksmanship from Tang Shunzhi and deeply felt the subtlety of Tang Shunzhi's marksmanship.
If it is only a martial arts master, it is exaggerated that Tang Shunzhi is still a military master. Tang Shunzhi's military thinking encompassed almost all aspects of the anti-Wu Dynasty, and in his book "Compilation of Charts for the Sea," Tang Shunzhi proposed to "fix the temple," "real army," "elite coach," "foot soldier salary," "collect map books," "drum up military morale," "public rewards and punishments," "royal oceans," "solid coasts," "scattered thieves party," "strict city defense," "lowering propaganda," "using spies," "paying tribute," "opening household cities," and so on, which can be called the encyclopedia of resistance against the Wu.
Moreover, Tang Shunzhi also studied specific tactics and formations, and a large number of tactics were recorded in his "Wubian", in which the "Mandarin Duck Wu" greatly shocked Qi Jiguang, and he had a stroke of inspiration and improved it into the "Mandarin Duck Array". The Qi family army killed countless enemies in the anti-Wu army with the Mandarin Duck Array, which made the Wu Kou feel frightened.
Therefore, Tang Shunzhi was not only Qi Jiguang's master, the head of qi family's gun skills, but also the tactical guidance of all anti-Wu armies.
It was precisely because Tang Shunzhi had such great talent that many people in the imperial court still valued him very much, including Zhao Wenhua, who was responsible for resisting the Wu and supervising the military affairs of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Zhao Wenhua and Tang Shunzhi were jinshi in the same year, and he knew Tang Shunzhi's talents very well, so as soon as he arrived in Jiangnan, he visited him to ask him for advice on anti-Wu strategies and invited Tang Shunzhi out of the mountains.
Tang Shunzhi knew everything about his anti-Wu strategy, but he refused Zhao Guanghua's invitation, because Zhao Guanghua was Yan Song's minions and he did not want to attach himself to Yan Dang.
However, Zhao Guanghua was very serious about Tang Shunzhi, and in order to force him out of the mountain, he informed Yan Song of the matter and asked Yan Song to give Tang Shun an ultimatum.
Under duress, Tang Shunzhi visited Luo Hongxian, and Luo Hongxian said that your body belonged to Daming, so that Tang Shunzhi resolutely decided to go out of the mountain to resist the Wu.
Tang Shunzhi not only guided the army with military ideology, but also personally went into battle to resist and kill the enemy. As soon as he arrived in Zhejiang, Tang Shunzhi personally went to the sea to inspect and drew a map of the dangerous sentry in preparation for battle.
In the past, the Ming army was unfavorable in water warfare, and only dared to passively defend, so that the Wukou ran rampant and slaughtered a large number of jiangsu and Zhejiang people. After Tang Shun took office, he proposed to resist the Wokou at sea to avoid disasters for the people, and he took the initiative to attack the Base Camp of the Wokou in Sansha and sank more than thirty Wokou thief ships in world war I. This battle made Tang Shun's name famous overseas, and it was said that "since Su Song used his troops, there has been no such victory". (Jingchuan Tang Gongxing)
After that, Tang Shunzhi turned to many places, killed countless enemies, and beat the Wokou to the point of being frightened, and the situation in which jiajing was rampant in the Wokou dynasty was greatly improved.
However, at that time, Tang Shunzhi was already old, and the long-term naval battle made him seriously ill and his health deteriorated, and Tang Shunzhi insisted on leading his troops to resist the Wo, regardless of his physical condition.
In March of the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing (1560), Tang Shunzhi inspected the sea situation, and his illness recurred, and he summoned the generals to arrange the posthumous affairs, none of which were about family affairs.
In April, when Tang Shunzhi was critically ill, he dragged his seriously ill body across the sea and said to the generals: "In my life, I only hope for three ways to die, either to die on the battlefield, or to be captured by the enemy, to die loyal to the imperial court, or to die at sea." I can die here today, and I will die without regrets."
Tang Shun ordered the sergeant to take the chair, sit on it himself, sort out his clothes, and sit upright.
Since Tang Shunzhi was recommended by Zhao Guanghua, and Zhao Guanghua was a pawn of Yan Song, everyone in the world believed that Tang Shunzhi was a member of the Yan Party and was at a loss for his own virtue and discipline. However, these clear streams of empty talk and discipline forgot that it was Tang Shunzhi who died at sea for the sake of the world and for the sake of the heavens, not them who sat in the high gate compound all day and talked about it.
Resources:
"Jingchuan Tang Gongxing"
History of the Ming Dynasty