Author: Old History
Second, the strange fate of life and death with the mentor Zuo Guangdou
▲ Shi Kefa disguised himself as a private prisoner to visit the master
9. The inside story of the so-called Xiong Tingbi bribery case
Yang Ho and Xiong Tingbi [Xiong Tingbi, Zi Fei Bai, Zhigang, Huguang Jiangxia (present-day Jiangxia District, Wuhan, Hubei), 1569 ~1625] were all famous generals of the imperial court, who in recent years have been undertaking the garrison task of border defense in Eastern Liaoning, and for this reason have also produced a series of right and wrong, straight and straight stories, which are very long to say. However, what is the matter with this Xiong Tingbi bribery case? Why did yang lian, Zuo Guangdou and other ministers be implicated? This is the concern of this article. We have to go back and start from the beginning.
Liaodong is one of the nine sides of the Ming Dynasty, it is negative mountains and seas, as a barrier for the Beijing division, the geographical location is very important. This area has been the sphere of influence of various nomadic tribes in ancient times, from the south of the Qing River to the Yalu River estuary area, mainly ruled by the Jurchens, and in the middle of Yongle, it was submitted to the Ming Dynasty, and the imperial court set up Jianzhou Wei here. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the strong chiefs of the various tribes rose up, "fighting for the strength of the males, each lord and the other, attacking each other, even brothers hurting themselves, bullying the weak, the multitudes are tyrannical, and the struggle is selfless." As a result of the competition, the Jianzhou Ministry continued to grow and develop, and gradually unified the Jurchen ministries. During the Wanli Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty set up official positions such as general soldiers, inspectors, staff generals, and military armaments in Liaodong, and led heavy troops to guard against the internal crimes of tuman, Duoyan Sanwei, and Jianzhou. In March of the 36th year of the Wanli Calendar, there were 204 health centers and 58 town stations in the Jianzhou area, and they kept breaking up the territory and expanding their power, which finally posed a threat to the Ming Dynasty.
▲Statue of Xiong Tingbi
In the forty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar, Nurhaci, the Jurchen chief of Jianzhou, was proclaimed emperor, and after the founding of the State, a new nation rose up and became an unstoppable political force. In April of the 46th year of the Wanli Calendar, Nurhaci's troops attacked Fushun, a major town in Eastern Liaoning. Ming Ting was shocked, and only then did he realize that "the Liao left army was overthrown, the situation was strong, and the side affairs were critical." In the first month of the 47th year, Yang Hao was appointed as the military attendant of the Liaodong Province, and the soldiers were sent to attack Houjin in four ways, which was the famous Battle of Salhu in history. The war lasted five days from the first day of March to the fifth day of march. However, this battle was fought very badly, the Ming army went out of the division in four ways, lost the three roads, and killed more than 40,000 civilian and military generals, and Nurhaci won a decisive victory.
After this battle, Yang Ho would naturally be severely punished, and he would no longer be able to do this. After discussion, Xiong Tingbi replaced him as the Liaodong Jingluo. The reason why Xiong Tingbi was entrusted with a heavy responsibility at this time was because he had patrolled Liaodong in the thirty-sixth year of the Wanli Calendar and was familiar with the local situation. At that time, as soon as he arrived, he immediately conducted a field survey and traveled all over the mountains and rivers of Eastern Liaoning. After gaining a practical understanding of the geographical situation in Eastern Liaoning and the situation between the enemy and ourselves, a complete strategic plan and specific measures for defending Eastern Liaoning were put forward. However, as a result of his departure shortly after, these strategies and practices have not been further implemented.
At the time of his arrival, Liaoyang was already an empty city, some officials and gentry had left, and the generals were also preparing horses to escape, and the situation was very serious. Xiong Tingbi decisively took some measures, such as killing the fleeing generals and paying tribute to the martyred soldiers, thus stabilizing the hearts and minds of the army; then he supervised the construction of military weapons, repaired the castle, and dispatched troops to guard various important places; he also personally inspected Shenyang and Fushun, took the situation, summoned the displaced, and calmed the people's hearts; the strategy was mainly to defend, and to unite with the DPRK to contain Houjin. Ren Liaodong had been in charge for three years, the garrison was perfect, and the Jianzhou army did not dare to act rashly for a long time.
▲Map of the situation in Eastern Liaoning
However, in this very good situation, Yao Zongwen spread gossip in the imperial court and incited some people to attack Xiong Tingbi, and he was bound to go away quickly. The reason is said to be because Xiong Tingbi has a just personality and refuses to become inflamed and possesses the situation, which has offended some people. It just so happened that Yao Zongwen went to Liaodong for a military parade, and Xiong Tingbi probably did not entertain him well, and he came back with such a hand. When Yao Zongwen made such a fuss, some of the officials who had been offended by Xiong Tingbi also followed suit, and Yushi Guyu, Feng Sanyuan, Zhang Xiude, and Wei Yingjia also impeached Xiong Tingbi one after another, causing Xiong Tingbi to resign in a huff. In September of the first year of Taichang, he dismissed Xiong Ting's post and listened to the survey. In October, yuan yingtai was replaced.
In the first year of the Apocalypse, after the Jin Dynasty broke Shenyang, Yuan Yingtai committed suicide. Soon Liaoyang fell again, and more than 50 walled cities near Liaodong, as well as more than 70 cities large and small in Hedong, were occupied by Manchuria, and now only Jinzhou was a barrier. When the news came, it shook the Beijing Division, and only then did people realize that "Tingbi is in Liao, and it should not be here." On the sixth day of the first month of June, the Emperor of the Heavenly Revelation issued an edict praising Xiong Tingbi's achievements in "deterring the Yi and protecting the dangerous city" in liaodong in the past year. He also ordered Yao Zongwen and Feng Sanyuan to be punished, and personally washed away Xiong Tingbi's grievances, so that he could "reluctantly come out and plan for peace." Xiong Tingbi was very touched when he received the edict. He rose up from the sick, visited the ancestral graves, bid farewell to the officials and villagers, and embarked on a journey to Liaodong. In July, Xiong Tingbi went to Beijing, sealed the military department Shangshu and the right deputy capital Yushi, and once again passed through Liaodong. He also gave him the edict and the Shang Fang sword, and promised that those below his deputy commander who did not listen to the command could be cut first and played later. In addition, he was given a pint of official clothes, promised to distribute treasury silver to solve the problem of military supply, and arranged for the Beijing camp to select 5,000 soldiers and horses to accompany him. Before traveling, there is also a banquet outside the capital. The ministers of the imperial court came to accompany them on their travels.
▲ The Ming army was defeated in the Battle of Salhu
However, at this time, Xiong Tingbi was no longer xiong Tingbi at that time, and he did not lay the foundation for victory in one fell swoop like the last time he went to Liaodong. In less than half a year, Liaodong's defense was once again in crisis.
At that time, the imperial court simultaneously promoted Wang Huazhen to inspector. Wang Huazhen supported 140,000 troops to guard Guangning [present-day Beining City, Liaoning Province, which was then the highest military and political organ of the Ming Dynasty in the northeast], while Xiong Tingbi had only a few thousand non-commissioned officers in vain; Wang Huazhen did not understand the military, did not reorganize the army, and blindly fought the main battle, while Xiong Tingbi advocated perseverance; there was disagreement between Jingluo and the inspectors, and Zhang Heming and Shoufu Ye Xianggao of the military department actively supported Wang Huazhen and obeyed him. Therefore, Wang Huazhen was completely uncontrolled by Xiong Tingbi, and the reinforcements sent from the four sides did not send zhang Heming on his own through the passage; Xiong Tingbi inquired about the situation, and Zhang Heming ignored it and did not answer. Xiong Tingbi wanted no soldiers and no power, and he was very annoyed, and he was often indignant in his language, and he offended some bureaucrats in the imperial court, so they supported Wang Huazhen more, opposed Xiong Tingbi, and even wanted to remove him from his post as a strategist.
In the first month of the second year of the Apocalypse, Nurhaci mobilized 50,000 men and horses to attack Hexi in three ways. On the 20th, he crossed the Liao River and attacked Xiping Fort. The Ming general Luo Yigui stubbornly resisted, inflicting heavy casualties on the Houjin forces. However, in the end, due to the disparity between the masses and the lack of reparations, Luo Yigui was killed in the line of duty, and Xiping Fort fell into the hands of Hou Jin.
After Wang Huazhen heard that Xiping was besieged, he rashly dispatched the defenders of Quang Ninh and Luyang to reinforcements, and Nurhachi divided his troops to meet the reinforcements at Pingyang Bridge. At this time, the Ming general Sun Degong had actually surrendered to Houjin long ago, and as soon as the battle was fought, he shouted behind the battle: "The army is defeated!" "Take the lead in riding the horse to escape." After the battle, there was chaos, and more than 30,000 people of the Ming army were completely destroyed.
Sun Degong fled back to Quang Ninh, and immediately sealed the treasury and gunpowder storehouse, claiming to capture Wang Huazhen and surrender to Jin. Wang Huazhen fled Guangning and met Xiong Tingbi at the Daling River. He proposed to Xiong Tingbi to defend Ningyuan and Qiantun, but Xiong Tingbi said, "It's late, if you don't withdraw the guards of Quang Ninh, you won't be like today." After he handed over the five thousand people he had brought to Wang Huazhen as a temple, he retreated to Shanhaiguan himself. Two days later, Nurhaci entered Quang Ninh.
On the twenty-sixth day of the first month, Xiong Tingbi entered the customs, and then Wang Huazhen and others also retreated into the customs. The entire Liaodong outside shanhaiguan was abandoned to the enemy.
This time, Manchu Wenwu was shocked again.
Inside the Mandarin Palace, Colonel Zhu Yu sat on the throne with a frustrated face, listening to the indignant efforts of the ministers to hold the relevant personnel accountable.
The cabinet minister Shen Yuyi believed that Shenyang and Liaoyang were lost one after another, and Once Guangning was lost, almost all of shanhaiguan was ceded to Jianzhou. It is recommended that the imperial court severely punish those who are responsible, Xiong Tingbi and Wang Huazhen.
However, Wang Ji of Shangshu believed that the main responsibility for the fall of Liaodong lay with Wang Huazhen. He supported 140,000 troops to guard Guangning, but he actually abandoned the city to attack in a confused way, and then lost the city in a confused way, and he could not blame Xiong Tingbi, who was far away at Shanhaiguan. In addition, Zhang Heming, as the Shangshu of the Bingbu, and Ye Xianggao as the first assistant, have always supported Wang Huazhen's wrong attack policy, and it is difficult to escape responsibility.
The responsibility for the defeat of this war was argued endlessly among the ministers, some of whom were in Xiong Tingbi, and some of whom were in Wang Huazhen. In the end, Zhu Yu school each played fifty big boards, believing that these two people were guilty and should be locked up together for questioning.
In February of the second year of the Apocalypse, Wang Huazhen, the governor of Liaodong Province, was imprisoned pending trial, and after Xiong Tingbi was dismissed from his post, he was sent back to his original hometown to await treatment. In April, Wang Ji of shangshu of the Ministry of Punishment, Zou Yuanbiao of Zuo Du Yushi, and Zhou Yingqiu, secretary of Dali Temple, jointly tried the case. After three trials, the two were convicted and imprisoned and sentenced to death.
When he was about to be executed, Xiong Tingbi asked Wang Wenyan to come forward and promised to pay a bribe of 40,000 taels of silver to the inner court, hoping to suspend the execution. Things were discussed well, but I don't know whether Xiong Tingbi couldn't come up with this silver at all, or whether it was originally a delaying tactic, Wei Zhongxian had been looking forward to it for a long time, and he hadn't seen anyone send him silver, and he couldn't help but hate Xiong Tingbi to the bone, and vowed to put him to death immediately.
The object of this bribe was originally Wei Zhongxian, and he had nothing to do with Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou, and so on. But now Wei Zhongxian wants to beat a rake upside down, and instead buckle the pot on others, so as to frame political opponents, so that we can realize how shameless this great eunuch is.
Xu Xianchun, in accordance with Wei Zhongxian's will, severely tortured Wang Wenyan and asked him to plant yang lian, Zuo Guangdou, and others. But Wang Wenyan was a man, and although he was beaten to death, he still refused to admit it. When he couldn't stand being beaten, Wang Wenyan shouted from the sky:
"Is there a greedy Yang Dahong [Yang Lian, the word Dahong, a word of Literature]? If you use this kind of work to slander the incorruptible people, I will not admit it even if I die!"
Xu Xianchun saw that Wang Wenyan was so difficult to deal with, so he made up a confession and pressed his handprint when Wang Wenyan passed out. Unexpectedly, Wang Wenyan, who had passed out in the past, suddenly woke up with his eyes open and scolded in a loud voice:
"Let you make things up, and then I will confront you face to face!"
However, Wang Wenyan never had the opportunity to confront Xu Xianchun again, and that night, he was beaten to death in prison by a stick.
In Wang Wenyan's "confession", the six ministers were framed for accepting tens of thousands of taels of silver bribed by the former Bingbu Shangshu and Liaodong Jingluo Xiong Tingbi. They were Yang Lian, the left vice capital, Zuo Guangdou, The Imperial History of Youdu, Wei Dazhong, Yuan Huazhong, Zhou Chaorui, the Shaoqing of the Taibu Temple, and Gu Dazhang, the deputy envoy of Shaanxi. Among them, Yang Lian and Zuo Guangdou each received 20,000 taels, Wei Dazhong was 3,000 taels, Yuan Huazhong was 6,000 taels, Zhou Chaorui was 10,000 taels, and Gu Dazhang was the most, reaching 40,000 taels. In addition to the above six people, the "confession" also involved fifteen Donglin Party members, including Zhao Nanxing.
After the "confession" was presented to Emperor Xizong, Emperor Xizong was so angry that he immediately ordered that the persons involved be imprisoned and punished.
(Some of the pictures are from the Internet, thanks to the original author)
Editor: Mao Secret", "White Wave Love"