Guo Shoujing was a man of the early Yuan Dynasty whose profession was that of a court official, but his passions were engineering, technology development, and scientific research. Xiong Tingbi was a man at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and he was also an important courtier of the imperial court, although he was a civilian official, he devoted his life to the battlefield, like a professional soldier, and Nurhaci's Later Jin army bitterly tore up half his life.
Guo Shoujing
Guo Shoujing was born in 1231 AD, a native of Xingzhou, Hebei Province, xiong Tingbi was born in 1569 AD, a native of Huguangjiangxia, they are not in the same era, a difference of more than three hundred years. But they were all hot core figures in the imperial court, and they devoted their lives to the imperial court and their respective times.
However, no matter how big the platform is, there will always be a day of collapse, sometimes it will stimulate your unlimited creativity and help you soar, and sometimes it is full of thorns and extremely sinister, instantly throwing you to hell. The former is Guo Shoujing, and the latter is Xiong Tingbi.
When he was twenty years old, his grandfather sent Guo Shoujing to Liu Bingzhong's door. Who is Liu Bingzhong? He was the most important Han Chinese counselor of Kublai Khan, the founding emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, and Guo Shoujing followed Liu Bingzhong and embarked on his career from then on.
Guo Shoujing did not love the officialdom, he was only interested in rivers and channels, after joining the company, he followed the local officials around the river ditch for many years, collected a large amount of basic information, and conceived a very mature water conservancy project plan. After several years of kung fu, Guo Shoujing was good at water conservancy fortifications, which everyone knew, and it was a sensation in the court. Kublai Khan summoned Guo Shoujing, and the young Guo Shoujing was confident and made six suggestions to the emperor in one breath. Kublai Khan listened intently, nodded his head and said yes, and immediately appointed Guo Shoujing as the deputy envoy of the river canal to carry out water conservancy fortifications full-time.
Monument to Guo Shoujing
Guo Shoujing's main achievements in his life were that he organized the construction of water conservancy fortifications in the Western Xia region, controlled the flooding of the Yellow River, and excavated the Tonghui Canal in Beijing. The research has developed a new calendar, astronomical measuring instrument, and has a deep exploration and research in the fields of mathematics, optics, geography and so on. He has made great achievements in water control, measurement, instrument manufacturing and so on.
Guo Shoujing eventually served in the Taishiyuan, when the official reached the age of seventy and could return to his hometown for the elderly, Guo Shoujing was rejected by the imperial court and was not allowed to leave his post, he worked until the day of his death, he made a rule for the future, and the officials of the Taishiyuan were not allowed to leave their posts and return to their hometowns.
In the third year of Emperor Yuanrenzong's reign, In 1316, Guo Shoujing died at the age of eighty-six. His life, sixty years in politics, was highly praised by the imperial court, loved by the common people, and after his death, the people of his hometown held a solemn funeral for him.
Let's look at Xiong Tingbi again.
Like Guo Shoujing, Xiong Tingbi attached great importance to the duties entrusted to him by the imperial court, and regarded loyalty to the imperial court and doing things for the emperor as his lifelong pursuit. This is the traditional etiquette, Confucianism shaped the ancient literati general outlook on life, values, there is nothing wrong with it. Xiong Tingbi also took the road of "learning and excelling" to change his identity, which is the positive result of the historical inheritance of "cultivating and reading heirlooms". At the age of twenty-nine, one of his jinshi successfully stepped into the Daming official field.
Xiong Tingbi is born with a straight nature, has a strong concept of right and wrong, and when encountering things, he only talks about right and wrong, and does not pay much attention to details and methods. The first thing he did in politics was to release the tax-resisters who had been wrongly arrested by his predecessors and to evacuate the mines to the imperial court, and his competence and positive attitude were recognized by the imperial court, and he was soon promoted to inspector of the imperial history.
The situation in Liaodong
First time to Liao. Due to the rise of the Later Jin, the Liaodong region has become the most sensitive nerve in the late Ming Dynasty. In the thirty-sixth year of the Wanli Calendar (1608), Xiong Tingbi went to Liao for the first time and was ordered to verify the merits of Zhao Hui, the inspector of Liaodong, and Li Chengliang, the chief military officer. This was by no means a good errand, because this was the first time in thirty years that Li Chengliang, the commander-in-chief of the Liaodong Province, had suffered a defeat in the battle, and he withdrew his troops and 60,000 border people to Guannei. The imperial court was originally dissatisfied and wanted to hold the two responsible, but the imperial court had a force to support the two, believing that the two of them had made meritorious contributions to the long-term defense of Liao, and deserved to be rewarded, and submitted a detailed reward plan. The Wanli Emperor was dimwitted and incompetent, and the imperial court could not make up his mind for a while, so he sent Xiong Tingbi to patrol Liaodong to re-examine the merits and demerits of the two men.
In Xiong Tingbi's style, he quickly found out the fact that these two people gave up their territory and drove the people inland, and Xiong Tingbi listed the crimes of impeaching Zhao Kai and Li Chengliang. However, the Wanli Emperor did not accept it, and Xiong Tingbi took on the responsibility for the first time, which offended the two members of the imperial court alive. At this time, Xiong Tingbi was young and vigorous, full of passion, and he regarded the fate of the imperial court as a sacred duty, without the slightest consideration of his own interests and situation.
The second time I went to Liao, it was ten years later. After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Salhu, the Ming court was already terrified of the situation in Liaodong, and no one could come up with a good strategy for the situation in Liaodong, only Xiong Tingbi dared to stand up and serve as the economic strategist of Liaodong and assume the heavy responsibility of guarding Liaodong. Xiong Tingbi set an example by setting an example, rectifying the chaos, boosting morale, starting from the most basic defensive details, tactically insisting on defending the city and holding the enemy, and quickly stabilizing the situation in Liaodong.
The two armies faced each other, and Xiong Tingbi was fearless. Just after arriving in Liaodi, Xiong Tingbi wanted to send people through the area controlled by the Houjin army to Shenyang to pacify the army and people, playing a role in echoing back and forth. However, a company sent two soldiers to go, both afraid to go, and one of them cried as soon as he went out. Xiong Tingbi decided to go to the inspection himself, and he led a small number of people and horses to play drums and music all the way into Fushun City, paying tribute to the fallen soldiers, recruiting fugitives and displaced people, renovating the fortifications, and stabilizing the military's morale.
The Ming army was defeated
Unbeatable righteousness was a disease that the Ming court had always been unable to overcome. Xiong Tingbi had just gained a foothold in Liaodong, and a group of former courtiers who hated him in the imperial court began to talk about it one after another, repeatedly complaining to the emperor, fabricating facts, slandering Xiong Tingbi, and the Wanli Emperor, who had no opinion, immediately sent officials to inspect the defense of Liaodong. Not long after, the Emperor of the Apocalypse sent officials to re-check for the second time. The two verification reports contradicted themselves, with the former holding that Xiong Tingbi's deployment was unreasonable and passive defensive, and that Xiong Tingbi's indiscriminate use of power should be punished. The latter verification held that Xiong Tingbi had made meritorious contributions to defense, and the situation in Eastern Liaoning was stable, ensuring the safety of the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. However, the later Emperor Tianqi was at the mercy of the castrated party, or dismissed Xiong Tingbi from his post and let him return to his hometown to idle.
Third trip to Liao. After Xiong Bi left his post, the situation in Liaodong was once again precarious, the position was lost, the generals rebelled, the new Jingjing committed suicide in fear of crime, and the defense of Liaodong was chaotic. In desperation, the imperial court sent Xiong Tingbi to Liao for the third time, still as a strategy, and newly promoted Wang Huazhen as an inspector. Wang Huazhen has always been at odds with Xiong Tingbi, and as an inspector, he did not take the initiative to consult with Jingluo, often made up his own mind, and fought many defeats, which eventually led to the fiasco at the Battle of Quang Ninh, the collapse of the last barrier of the Ming Dynasty's Liaodong defense, and the complete failure of the Liaodong defense.
Xiong Tingbi Monument
Wang Huazhen seemed to have been prepared, and after returning to the imperial court, he colluded up and down to push all the responsibility for the loss of Liaodong to Xiong Tingbi, so both of them were arrested by the imperial court and sentenced to beheading and paraded to public. Three years later, Xiong Tingbi was executed, and the torture of the Ming Dynasty was chilling, there was once blue jade being skinned and grazed, Fang Xiaoru was condemned to the Ten Tribes, and later Yuan Chonghuan was Ling Chi. After Xiong Tingbi was beheaded, he carried out the Nine-Sided Transmission, and took turns to display his head in the nine military defensive towns in the north to intimidate the defenders. It is said that Yuan Chonghuan, who succeeded Xiong Tingbi, had not yet arrived in Liaodong, and the head of his master Xiong Tingbi had already arrived in Liaodong to greet Yuan Chonghuan. That kind of scene is terrifying, how tragic and tragic it is for Daming to defend the country! Whether such a cruel act can inspire the soldiers' responsibility and courage, or whether it will scare off the soldiers' courage and pride, is really unknown. From the perspective of human nature, there may be more chilling ingredients, I wonder how many points can the helmsman of Daming understand?