prosperous age

Chapter 527 526 news enters Beijing
In Liaodong in August, the sky was already bright at Maoshi, and it was also the time when the soldiers on duty at night were the most tired.

After a night, the soldiers were already hungry and drowsy, but the shift changer had not yet arrived to replace them.

At this time, the torches and bonfires that had been burning all night on the top of the city had been extinguished, and faint green smoke was still emitting. The soldiers on duty at night could only brace themselves and lean against the wall of the pier to rest for a while.

These are all the treatment of the soldiers who are responsible for the Ye Ming army. For the generals and soldiers, they are naturally assigned a good job, so they go to find a place to sleep by themselves. Who would really foolishly guard the city wall overnight.

"Da da da"

A messy sound of horseshoes came from outside the side wall, which made the soldiers standing guard on the battlements nervous for a while, lying on the wall, trying to open their eyes and look out through the battlements.

There were dozens of war horses, but it seemed that the riders on the horses were not in good condition, and many of them were lying on their horses at this time.

And the horses under their crotch did not have the steeds, they just ran towards the city wall at an unpleasant speed.

"Can you see who it is?"

On the city wall, adjacent soldiers were already chatting with each other.

Although the sky was bright, the distance was still far after all, and the people on the horse were lying on their stomachs, so it was really difficult to tell where they came from.

The sound of horseshoes approached, and the soldiers in the pier also woke up reflexively. Looking out through the lookout, someone had already rushed to find their boss.

"It seems to be one of our own."

"It looks a bit like wearing it."

Although it is still not very clear, but as it approaches, the clothes of the man on horseback can still be seen gradually.

When these war horses finally ran down the mountain road to the bottom of the city tower, the weak shouts of the knights on the horses finally reached the ears of the Ming army guarding the city wall.

Yang Zhao, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong outside the Great Wall, led guerrilla Lang Degong and others to attack outside the Great Wall, and was ambushed. The news that the entire army was almost wiped out was sent back to Guangning. Lu Yebu took the risk of going out of the side wall to search for the fleeing Ming army and to inquire about the movement of the Tartar army.

But at this time, the news of the defeat of the Ming army in Liaodong had not yet reached the capital, and the news of King Yu's birth had already spread throughout the court.

That day and night, when Feng Bao rushed to Xiyuan, the imperial confinement had already been locked and martial law was imposed.

That is to say, Feng Bao was familiar with the people in the palace, and after the palace people reported it many times, the word reached Huang Jin's ears, and then Huang Jin went to the palace gate to check and put it in the palace until the next morning Only then did he leave Xiyuan and return to Prince Yu's Mansion, accompanied by eunuchs who delivered decrees and a large number of rewards from the emperor.

Hundreds of officials in the imperial court, those who now have King Jing's heart, have already changed their course. The royal family once again has a grandson, and countless officials flocked to Prince Yu's mansion to congratulate him.

King Yu's mansion has heirs, which of course makes King Yu's position more stable.

Wei Guangde and Zhang Juzheng often went to Yuwang Mansion these days to help Yin Shizhen welcome and send him there.

However, when the Liaodong battle report was delivered to the capital, the atmosphere in the court immediately changed.

Previously, after Yang Xuan took the son of Tong Han as a hostage, he vowed in his report to the capital that there would be no war in Ji Liao since then.

The words were still in my ears, but I was slapped in the face by the Tartars.

Liaodong's army suffered a major defeat, how could Yang Xuan dare to hide it, you know, the one who died was the second-rank general soldier, and there were [-] cavalrymen, who were already the main force of the Liaodong frontier army.

Even if he was worried about his official career, he didn't dare to waste time.

Obviously, the memorials he gave to the imperial court before will probably become the reason for the censor's criticism in the future.

Of course, there was nothing he could do about it, he could only send his cronies and family members to hurriedly send the cabinet Xu Jie and Yuan Wei a heavy gift, hoping that they could help him say a word when the court appealed for his impeachment.

As for Yang Bo, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, based on Yang Xuan's understanding of him, he should also speak a fair word for him.

In fact, this battle also showed that the information he collected years ago was correct. The Mongol Tartars' attack target should be to turn to Liaodong, intending to capture Liaodong.

At that time, the quarrel between him and Yang Bo about this matter was also known throughout the court.

However, Yang Zhao's defeat this time was too miserable.

However, Yang Zhao had already died in battle, although he could push all the responsibility to him, but he would offend all the generals in Ji Liao because of this.

Everyone died fighting for the country, so should they be punished?
If so, who would want to fight in the future.

Therefore, even if Yang Zhao was scolded to death in his heart, he still had to bear some responsibilities.

Fortunately, Liaodong governor Wang Zhigao also had to share, otherwise Yang Xuan really didn't know what to do.

However, Yang Xuan thought so, but the courtiers didn't think so.

They knew from the beginning that Liaodong had suffered a big defeat, and they knew that they would definitely lose their troops.

But after the details of the loss of the Ming army in the Ministry of War came out, the ruling and opposition parties were shaken.

The mobile force of the Ming army in Liaodong, that is, the cavalry unit, was less than [-] in total. The loss of [-] cavalry directly caused Liaodong to lose more than [-]% of its troops.

If you want to rely on infantry to fight the Mongolian Tartars in the field, you can, but you have to gather a large army to form a formation, and you can also fight.

However, Liaodong has a vast territory and seemingly strong troops. After the garrison is dispersed, it is naturally impossible to gather a large army.

In fact, after this war, as long as the Mongolian Tartars did not attack Liaoyang, Shenyang, Guangning and other cities that were heavily guarded by the Ming army, other places were basically undefended.

Because even if they attacked those places, the surrounding Ming army could not gather enough troops to rescue them.

Isolation and helplessness, what news is even more damaging to morale.

Although Yang Xuan has sent people to call on Liaodong, Jizhen will dispatch a troop to Liaoyang urgently to supplement the troops of Liaodong.

But how many cavalry can Jizhen mobilize to go there?
Two thousand or three thousand?

No one believed that Jizhen would mobilize [-] cavalry to enrich Liaoyang and restore the Liaodong army's combat power.

It is true that this battle shattered the Liaodong government and army.

As for Yang Zhao's death, I sincerely say that not many people care about it, and it's just that someone has been promoted.

"Taipu Temple will increase the purchase of war horses this year."

Yin Shizhen took out the document in his hand and handed it to Wei Guangde and said.

When the news spread to the capital, King Yu, who already claimed to be the prince, would naturally call his staff to hold a meeting to analyze and analyze.

In fact, Prince Yu's Mansion arranged for people to lurk in various yamen to collect information, and Dongchang had already reported it to Emperor Jiajing.

It's just that they are mostly inquiring about news, rather than interfering with the affairs of various yamen, so the palace just turned a blind eye.

This news was brought back from the palace by Feng Bao this time.

It can only be said that his contacts and eyeliner in the palace are still there, not to mention that he went to Prince Yu's Mansion, but no one came to talk about it.

Undoubtedly, after a hundred years from the current emperor, Feng Bao will turn himself into the master again and return to the palace as the new emperor's favored servant.

Of course, if Feng Bao had been the eunuch guarding the mausoleum, no one in the palace would have paid any attention to him.

None of them are blind. They know what people don't care about and what they can't offend.

Perhaps, Emperor Jiajing also wanted to exercise King Yu's mind, after all, it was a matter of time.

After fainting last year, Emperor Jiajing could feel it in his body, so he hurriedly made arrangements in the court, and he didn't want any accidents to happen.

However, from great joy to little sorrow in a short period of time, he still felt a bit overwhelmed by his body.

Of course he doesn't feel sorry for the loss of [-] cavalry in Liaodong. What he feels sorry for is money, and the court has to spend money to buy back [-] war horses, and the troublesome things in front of him.

Yang Bo did not agree with Yang Xuan's move to deploy Jizhen's army to support Liaoyang, and insisted on not allocating a single soldier to Liaodong.

In the memorandum of the Ministry of War, Yang Bo bluntly stated that Liaodong would be able to recover in two years at most.

During this period of time, the Liaodong armies only need to be careful.

In a word, Yang Bo's first consideration was Ji Town and the safety of the capital.

He felt very uneasy because there were no strong enough troops around the capital, and this may be the first responsibility that he should consider as the minister of the Ministry of War.

Naturally, Wei Guangde and Zhang Juzheng already knew the news, so they just took the note from Yin Shizhen and looked at it.

This is the procurement task that the cabinet handed over to the Ministry of War and Taipu Temple today.

"Shan Loan, you said earlier that Yang Xuan's plan might fail, and you really got it right. Tartar didn't care about that prince at all."

King Yu spoke from above.

"Yang Xuanna is just a little clever. A national war like this can never be avoided with a hostage in hand. Unless it is the prince selected by Altan Khan, he may have some scruples."

Wei Guangde said a long time ago that the player Yang is holding is just the son of the chief of one of the many tribes on the grassland, and he is not considered a big man at all.

Maybe this tribe can change its attitude towards Daming, but for the whole Mongolia, there are too many tribes like this.

Moreover, the Mongolian tribes themselves are not monolithic, and they are also full of various contradictions within them.

Perhaps, it was for a pasture, or perhaps, it was the historical grievances between the tribes, or it was just that the chiefs of the tribes did not like each other.

If Yang Xuan had caught Altan Khan's most valued son Xin Aitaiji, a war between the two countries should have been avoided, but small-scale conflicts are also inevitable.

"People who are close to Yang Xuan are now lobbying that the information Yang Bo sent to the capital at the beginning of the year is accurate, and Altan Khan may start to attack the Liaodong area with all his strength starting this year, hoping to completely occupy it.

Otherwise, if the Jizhen army had entered Liaodong in the first place, it would not have been defeated today. "

Yin Shizheng said.

After entering Prince Yu's Mansion today, Yin Shizhen and Wei Guangde were the main people talking in the room, but Zhang Juzheng was very quiet.

But everyone also knew why, in order to be promoted to Liaodong Commander-in-Chief, Yang Zhao sent many people to give gifts, and asked Zhang Juzheng to talk to Xu Jie.

Now because of Yang Zhao's reckless recklessness, Zhang Juzheng is naturally very uncomfortable, worried that he will leave an unknown impression in King Yu's heart.

"According to that, perhaps the Tartars would not go to Liaodong to fight this battle, but directly attacked the side wall of Ji Town."

Wei Guangde shook his head and said with a smile, "I don't know the truth of avoiding the truth and attacking the false. If you want to win a battle, you have to grasp the soft persimmons to ensure victory. The morale of the army will also increase."

To be honest, it is really difficult to judge the direction of the Mongols' attack.

Unlike fighting with the Han army, in order to attack a certain direction, it is necessary to reserve food and grass in the area in advance for the consumption of the army, but the Mongols are different.

The main force of their army is mainly cavalry, and the logistics are tribal people driving sheep.

The soldiers fought in the front, and the tribesmen were responsible for driving the flocks and carrying the looted supplies. The mobility was indeed much stronger than that of the Han army.

Today you see him gathering to go to Liaodong, he may turn around and go south to attack Jizhen at some point, it is really impossible to guard against.

Therefore, from Yang Bo's point of view, guarding the side walls and defending the city to the core are also more appropriate tactics in terms of the current combat power of the Ming army.

It is extremely delusional to complete all their achievements in one battle, let's save it, the Tartars will not give the Ming army time to dispatch troops, nor will they gather their main force and wait for the Ming army to attack.

Although the construction of the Ming Great Wall seemed to protect the safety of the Han people and allow people to live and work in peace and contentment, it did affect the imperial court and the army, whether it was because of the city wall that they did not want to make progress, or that there were loopholes in the fortifications everywhere.

In the middle and late stages of the Ming army, the overall combat power declined seriously. Although they were not completely invincible, they couldn't find a suitable method of warfare, so they always seemed to be very passive.

Wei Guangde actually didn't know how to deal with the prairie cavalry, he really felt that they were not slippery, unless they wanted to, they wouldn't fight you at all, but ran away directly.

Think about the period of Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, the several northern expeditions to the grasslands consumed a lot of national power. Although there were gratifying records, they did not fundamentally eliminate the main force of the Mongols.

"Lord Yang Bo is right to seek stability."

Finally, Zhang Juzheng, who had been silent for a long time, also spoke up, supporting Wei Guangde's opinion.

He has some responsibility for Yang Zhao's matter, but it's all under the table.

The imperial court wanted to hold him accountable, but he really couldn't be found.

But after Zhang Juzheng got the news of Liaodong's defeat, he still blamed himself because he felt that he was very responsible.

Thinking of Wei Guangde's repeated advice before, but in the end he didn't listen to it, not only killing thousands of innocent lives, but also putting the court in crisis.

Perhaps, at that time, other generals would have chased them out of the pass, but they would never have chased them so far. Naturally, the Tartars would not have been able to set up an ambush, and they would not have died miserably because of this.

Hearing Zhang Juzheng's words, Wei Guangde nodded with a smile, not knowing whether he was approving or thanking him for his support.

"Just like Yang Shangshu's vision, it doesn't matter if I have a few more losses like this in Ming Dynasty. Our Celestial Kingdom has a large population, a vast land and abundant resources, so it's easy to replenish and restore our strength, and it only takes a few years.

As long as the border cities are strictly guarded, the Tartars will have to withdraw their troops because they have nothing to gain. If they dare to bypass the border cities and go deep into the inland, it is just a dead end, and that is the time to plan how to eliminate them.

But for these, the other party must first make a mistake. "

Wei Guangde answered.

King Yu interjected at this moment: "You also support Yang Bo, and are worried that Jizhen's elite soldiers will go to Liaodong, and the Tartars will take this opportunity to attack Jizhen?"

"It's entirely possible. As I said before, the biggest advantage of the Tartars is that they come and go like the wind. They are still in Liaodong today, but they may appear outside the border wall of Ji Town tomorrow."

Wei Guangde replied, but thought that King Yu might still be in the stage of exploring the government at this time, so he added: "No matter how bad the Liaodong war is, the safety of the capital is the most important thing, and it is a major issue related to the world. If you are careful, the whole country may be shaken."

(End of this chapter)