The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"It would be fine if Li Chengliang trained the soldiers of the guard station well in Liaodong, but he transferred elite soldiers from the guard station to his private army. This cannot be ignored.

Wei Guangde lowered his voice and explained the reason why he wanted to suppress Li Chengliang. In fact, it was not considered suppression, but a horizontal transfer.

"Qi Jiguang is training troops in Jizhen. I think my uncle must have heard about it. I plan to secretly go to Jizhen in the past two days to see the effectiveness of the training of the troops in Jizhen."

At this time, Wei Guangde revealed that he was going to Jizhen for inspection.

Zhang Juzheng finally nodded slowly after hearing this.

Since Li Chengliang took office as the chief military officer of Liaodong, he has gained increasing prestige among the Liaodong army because of his successive victories.

However, Wei Guangde still compared Li Chengliang and Qi Jiguang. After all, the two had already made some achievements after taking over the positions of commander-in-chief of Liaodong and Jizhen respectively.

Based on this, Wei Guangde also had certain views on the two people.

From what we can see now, Li Chengliang and Qi Jiguang have completely different characteristics. Li Chengliang is better at attacking, while Qi Jiguang is better at defending.

Of course, this is also different from the environment in which the two are located.

The Jimen area is mountainous, and the main task here is to prevent the Mongols from going south. After all, just across Jimen is Beijing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty.

The situation in Liaodong is another story. Once you cross the Liaoxi Corridor, you will find a great plain. This kind of terrain is more conducive to the offensive side, so Li Chengliang's main achievements are reflected in the offense.

The first thing Qi Jiguang did when he arrived at Ji Town was to train troops. At the same time, he reorganized the various military posts in Ji Town, renovated the entire Jimen defense, and established a chariot warfare camp.

This alone allowed Wei Guangde to move Qi Jiguang's position up a notch, surpassing that of Li Chengliang, who was still vigorously training his private army.

Wei Guangde also had a general understanding of Li Chengliang's victories over the years through the Ministry of War documents.

Li Chengliang's tactics were to use offense instead of defense. He would attack the enemy before they could get close. He used this tactic to defeat the Mongolian and Jurchen armies many times.

In Li Chengliang's battles, he usually first let the Liaodong Guard troops block the enemy's army, and then led a small number of elite attackers to break into the enemy's camp. Li Chengliang called this tactics "nest-breaking".

This approach can destroy the enemy's command system or burn the enemy's logistics materials to make them retreat, but it cannot completely eliminate the enemy's effective strength.

The most fundamental strength of nomads is people. If the opponent's population is not wiped out, just burning supplies can only temporarily make the opponent retreat.

All of Li Chengliang's battle results were small battles with less than 1,000 men, and lacked any eye-catching results. However, the enemy's strength was still there after retreating, and it was easy for them to make a comeback.

Of course, such tactics have certain rationality, that is, Liaodong is surrounded by enemies on both sides, and the Ming army lacks so-called elites.

Without elites, one can only use the cannon fodder in various garrison fortresses to delay and block the enemy's attack.

The private army he led, or the Liaodong Army, was not deployed at the border, so it could quickly assemble after receiving the alarm and set off to the border for support.

At this time, Li Chengliang would order the Ming troops on the front line to hold on, while he would lead his troops to find out the enemy's situation and directly bypass the enemy's front and attack the nest behind them.

Defeat the lair and kill the opponent's leader. Faced with a leaderless army and no logistical supplies, the enemy often has no choice but to retreat. He will follow, hunt and harvest the heads to gain credit.

Such tactics also led to an evaluation of him by later generations, that is, Li Chengliang was suspected of supporting the self-respect of the bandits.

Wei Guangde was not sure whether Li Chengliang's use of this tactic really meant that the bandits would respect themselves, but the result was obvious.

It is also for this reason that although Li Chengliang continued to achieve great victories in Liaodong, the forces in Liaodong did not suffer much damage. The final result was that the Jurchens in Jianzhou grew stronger and eventually became a serious problem for the Ming Dynasty.

The second reason that really makes Wei Guangde dissatisfied with Li Chengliang is that Li Chengliang has no overall perspective at all, or is very selfish and only puts his own interests first.

In fact, to achieve the position of chief military officer, it often requires someone with a certain overall view to achieve results.

However, Wei Guangde could not see any such temperament in Li Chengliang.

This point means that Li Chengliang made a serious mistake that Wei Guangde could not accept and gave up on the construction of the Ming Dynasty's army.

In the late Ming Dynasty, there were different levels of troops, which were roughly divided into two categories: private soldiers and official soldiers.

In fact, private soldiers are also divided into two levels. The first level is personal soldiers.

These personal soldiers are the bodyguards of the generals. They are very well-equipped and generously rewarded. They are usually responsible for guarding and conveying orders in the future, and their status is very high.

The second level is the servants, or the main combat force among the private soldiers. They have sufficient military pay and strong combat effectiveness, and are very loyal to the generals.

These servants are often the fingers of the generals on the battlefield. They are often sent to the grassroots to act as commanders and team officers, supervising the soldiers in the guard to fight. They will also serve as elites and be thrown into key battles by the generals as the main force to break the formation.

The generals in the south of the Yangtze River, because of the peace in the world, will only call in a small number of private soldiers. They are personal soldiers in peacetime and are sent out to control the army in wartime.

Only in the northern border towns can the generals divide their private soldiers so clearly.

As for the officers and soldiers, they are composed of governors and generals' standard battalions, battalion soldiers recruited through full pay, and a larger number of garrison troops.

Among these three types of officers and soldiers, the standard battalion has the best equipment, and the garrison army has the worst equipment, and most of the hard fighting or consumption is assigned to the battalion soldiers.

Camp soldiers are actually similar to mercenaries. They work hard to make money. The Qi Family Army formed by Qi Jiguang when he was in Zhejiang is actually a camp soldier. The pay and rewards are much higher than those of guards. They are often put into front-line operations and serve as The most dangerous mission.

In Li Chengliang's tactics, the role of the battalion soldiers and guard soldiers was to serve as cannon fodder.

Due to the consumption of blocks, the shortage is quite serious. In many cases, when a war comes, the remaining guards and even civilians need to be replenished.

Li Chengliang's tactics were to use these cannon fodder to contain the enemy, and then lead his servants to directly attack the opponent's camp to win the final victory. There was no problem with his tactics, but the problem was that he had not made any achievements in army construction.

Since Li Chengliang took over as the chief military officer of Liaodong, he has never properly trained the Liaodong soldiers and horses. He has only continued to draw elites from the Ming army to supplement his Li family army.

The result is obvious, that is, the combat power of the Ming army in Liaodong continues to decline, and it is impossible to stop the car at all.

Once these elite Li family troops were defeated and their strength was weakened, the entire Liaodong defense would become very empty.

Even if the Li Jiajun's combat strength remains strong, the entire Liaodong Army's combat strength is completely supported by the Li Jiajun, which is unacceptable to Wei Guangde.

In a dignified military town, the combat effectiveness of the official army is worrying, but as the chief military officer, Li Chengliang has a private armed force comparable to the entire Liaodong Army.

With him as the chief military officer, he has a unique advantage in selecting generals in Liaodong. If things go on like this, the consequences will be disastrous.

At that time, it is really unclear whether the one in Liaodong belongs to him, Li Chengliang, or to the imperial court.

After carefully analyzing Li Chengliang's actions in Liaodong, Wei Guangde had a vague premonition of the root cause of the Jurchens' rise from Liaodong in the late Ming Dynasty.

If Li Chengliang is left in Liaodong, perhaps in the next twenty or thirty years, Liaodong will continue to have great victories. Li Chengliang can stabilize the situation in Liaodong, but once something goes wrong, Liaodong will be beyond redemption.

It is too risky to keep Li Chengliang in Liaodong. Wei Guangde does not intend to raise tigers to cause trouble, so he plans to transfer people away early.

But in the future, in order to avoid being said to be unloading the grinding mill and killing the donkey, the bird is gone and the bow is hidden, so I plan to let Li Chengliang complete the war against the Jurchens and the Mongols in Liaodong, give him the title of Zuo Governor or even Sangong Sangu, and then transfer him to other armies. Go to town.

After receiving the highest honor as a military commander, Wei Guangde believed that he was worthy of Li Chengliang's contribution to the court.

As for why Liaodong and Jizhen weren't swapped, Wei Guangde really didn't dare to put Li Chengliang in Jizhen based on Li Chengliang's approach.

If we continue to use the method used in Liaodong, I am afraid that the entire Jizhen defense line will turn into mud, which makes the capital too dangerous.

If you go to Datong and switch to Ma Fang, you won't have such worries.

Even if Datong suffers a loss, Shanxi Town and the Xuanfu Army can still rescue them, at least the capital will not be put in danger.

Zhang Juzheng may know this, but he may not pay attention to it, because Zhang Juzheng is a person who only cares about the results and does not care about the process.

However, after Wei Guangde raised the issue of Li Chengliang's private army in Liaodong, Zhang Juzheng, as the chief assistant, had to give an attitude.

Mobilizing Li Chengliang is undoubtedly the best solution. At that time, his team of servants will be reduced by more than half in an instant, because not so many people are willing to leave their hometowns and follow the commander to make a living in other places.

Without much preparation, Wei Guangde contacted Tan Lun that night and arranged to set off in two days.

This time when they went to Ji Town, both of them traveled in simple carriages. Wei Guangde only had a dozen or so famous servants accompanying him as guards along the way.

Although Tan Lun was a civilian official, he had led soldiers for so many years, so he had many of the habits of a general, and he was capable in his work.

He only had seven or eight servants, fewer than Wei Guangde. They were all good men he had recruited from the Southern and Jizhen armies, and they were all people with actual combat experience.

Therefore, although he leads a small number of people, if there is a fight, even though Wei Guangde has a numerical advantage, he may not be able to win.

Of course, Wei Guangde thought about it this way. If he fights alone, he may not be the opponent as a whole, but if he really wants to distance himself and form a battle formation to fight, it seems that he may not be able to win.

More than 20 people means more than 20 horses. When such a horse team appears near Gyeonggi, it naturally attracts attention.

However, after Wei Guangde and others left the capital, they rode their horses to Ji Town without wasting any time. The government officials sent officials to explore the route of the horse team but in vain.

Wei Guangde's cavalry left from the east gate, first went through Tongzhou, crossed the river and went straight to Sanhe and Jizhou. By the next night, the cavalry had appeared outside Zunhua City.

He traveled hundreds of miles in two days and went directly from the capital to Zunhua.

When he arrived in Zunhua, Wei Guangde was originally going to rest one night at an off-site inn and continue his journey early the next morning. However, after running around for two consecutive days, Tan Lun was a little unbearable from being jostled on the horse.

"Brother Zili, I told you that you should stay in the capital to handle the affairs of the Ministry of War. It will make you tired if you come out to see me."

When they arrived at the inn, Wei Guangde helped Tan Lun go in to rest and said as he walked.

Wei Guangde did not intend to take Tan Lun with him at first, but he also wanted to secretly take a look at Qi Jiguang's training of soldiers and horses.

After all, the Ministry of War has already given the order to Bian Town to send generals to Jizhen to learn Qi Jiguang's military training methods.

"Well, getting old is not as good as when I was young."

Tan Lun just sighed and said.

"We will rest here for a day before setting off, and let the shopkeeper arrange an independent yard for us."

Wei Guangde ordered the servants around him.

More than twenty people suddenly occupied a large courtyard of the inn.

The innkeeper moved out the original residents in the courtyard before settling Wei Guangde and his party in.

After all, whether it is Wei Guangde or Tan Lun, they have noble status and cannot live in the same courtyard with other people.

Originally, this kind of thing was very troublesome, but the people brought out by Wei Guangde and Tan Lun were used to being arrogant and indulgent in the capital, and the habits they developed were not good.

The innkeeper had seen a lot of guests coming and going, and he knew at first glance that he was not someone to mess with, so he agreed to come down.

When Wei Guangde moved into the courtyard, the shopkeeper and the waiter brought two large baskets of white pears.

"Two gentlemen, these are white pears that have just been brought in from the shop. They are large, thin, crispy and tender, sweet and juicy. They are very delicious. The younger one has sent two baskets for you to try."

The innkeeper said cautiously.

Although Wei Guangde and Tan Lun looked tired, and Tan Lun looked sick, their official aura made the shopkeeper know to be careful.

"Oh, thank you so much, shopkeeper."

Wei Guangde laughed happily and picked up a white pear. As the shopkeeper said, the fruit was very big. Although he hadn't tasted it yet, the appearance of it was very appetizing.

"Well, it looks like it tastes good."

Wei Guangde just sniffed it with his nose and praised, "It's still very fresh. Take it and wash it. Don't waste your time on the shopkeeper."

"Haha, sir, these pears were just picked from the tree. Of course they are fresh, and they still have the fragrance of fruit."

The innkeeper answered.

"Does your inn also have an orchard?"

Wei Guangde smiled and said, "The shopkeeper is really good at making money. There are many customers here, so it should be easy to sell."

"It's all grown by military households nearby. I've entrusted my shop to help attract customers. Haha, it's fine if the master likes it."

The shopkeeper smiled.

"This military household in Ji Town still knows how to make money by growing fruit trees?"

Wei Guangde asked with a smile.

"Hey, how do they know this? It was the idea given by the Jizhen military clan, saying that these military households are too poor and they have to find a way to make money for them.

Along the Jingdong Great Wall, there are barren mountains and ridges everywhere, which is a good opportunity for these military households to plant some fruit trees. When they are mature, whether they eat them themselves or send them to the capital, they can make a living.

So I found people to buy tree seeds, distributed them to them for planting, and sent people to guide them.

It was a little more mature last year, but the quantity was small, so the General Military Office collected them all.

This year the quantity was a bit large, and the General Military Mansion couldn’t eat so much, so I found a small shop to help recommend it to customers, haha.”

The shopkeeper smiled and explained the matter, and then found an excuse to exit the yard.

"I didn't expect that Qi Yuanjing could still do business. He seems to be very familiar with business."

Wei Guangde smiled at Tan Lun.

"Yuan Jing is good at doing business, but he is even better at fighting."

Tan Lun raised the corner of his mouth and smiled.

When the servant washed the pears and brought them in, Wei Guangde picked one up and took a bite without peeling it, "Well, it's very sweet. Try it."

Tan Lun also picked up a pear and swallowed it directly like Wei Guangde.

"Many people impeached him at the beginning, saying that his hands and feet were dirty."

Suddenly, Wei Guangde said to Tan Lun. (End of chapter)