From the end of Jiajing to the Longqing period, there were many famous ministers and good generals in the Ming Dynasty, but in the Wanli period, especially in the early Wanli period, the most famous ones were Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang.

Qi Jiguang belongs to the son of Jiangmen Huzi, inherited his father's position at the age of seventeen and became a commander.

And Li Chengliang, in fact, is also the queen of the gate, is the hereditary commander of the Tielingwei, but it is a pity that in his generation, the family is sluggish, and he is so poor that he can't afford to go to Beijing to inherit the position, and in the end he reluctantly went to Beijing by scraping together.

At this time, there was nothing to do with the Jurchens, and the main problem on the border of the Ming Dynasty was the conflict with the Mongols. Everyone has been fighting for almost 200 years, today you rob me, tomorrow I will cut you, after snatching and cutting, each of them went home to wash and sleep, and no one has the ability to completely beat anyone down.

In the first year of Longqing, Li Chengliang finally returned to Liaodong, at this time he was already in his forties, but he started from scratch and lived a military career with a knife and a gun, and then he was promoted all the way up to the general, deputy chief soldier, and general soldier.

The position of Liaodong General Army is not easy to do, he has to face the Mongolian left wing and the Jurchens alone. For these two forces, the attitude of the imperial court was to fight one faction and pull the other, and the Jurchens were deliberately supported by the Ming Dynasty in order to fight against the Mongols.

However, the Jurchens and the Great Ming are separated, and in fact, they each take what they need, and many of Li Chengliang's predecessors died at the hands of the Mongols and some at the hands of the Jurchens.

Li Chengliang as a leader is actually a little similar to Gao Pragmatism, he led the troops and never instilled in his subordinates any such things as the Mandate of Heaven and the emperor's benevolence. His style is very simple and rude, as long as the soldiers kill the enemy bravely, what glory and wealth, eating, drinking, prostituting and gambling, he is all satisfied! So many Mongols and Jurchens came to serve him.

There are three Jurchens in Liaodong: the Jianzhou Jurchens, the Haixi Jurchens, and the East China Sea Jurchens, and these three tribes are also at war with each other.

Among them, the Jianzhou Jurchen is the most powerful, and it was originally the Jianzhou Sanwei established by the Ming Dynasty, but in this era, it basically changed from a defender to a robber.

Li Chengliang's strategy for dealing with Jurchen mainly has two: on the one hand, he uses razing to control razing, pulling one to fight another; On the other hand, he never rushes to kill everything, and always guarantees to leave the enemy behind, and at the same time makes war achievements, he guarantees that he can have the next battle.

As a result, the beacon fire outside the gate continued, but his military exploits were accumulated again and again, and he even won the title and became an indispensable pillar of the imperial court, especially in Liaodong, no one disrespected him.

Compared with Li Chengliang, who is "good at seeking a life", Qi Jiguang is much more "stupid", he is more inclined to solve the problem at one time, in his opinion, the stability of the frontier depends on a devastating blow to the enemy, if you can't devastate the enemy, then strengthen yourself, so that the enemy has no chance.

At that time, Qi Jiguang was transferred to the north to garrison the border after purging the southeast coast of the Japanese troubles to contain the threat from Mongolia. From the beginning, he always wanted to adopt a strategy once and for all, and strive to carry out a devastating purge, so that the enemy army would not dare to commit again, but because Mongolia was different from the Japanese invaders, the Japanese were basically infantry, Qi Jiguang relied on strict military discipline, mobility was stronger than the Japanese invaders, and devastating blows could be done, but it was not the case with the Mongolians, and they tried several times, but they could only be defeated and repulsed.

Coupled with the change of policy of the imperial court, it became the "West Huaidong System", so Qi Jiguang mainly turned to defense, began to repair the Great Wall, established a hollow enemy platform, and researched and developed various weapons and military tactics in order to consolidate the defense line for a long time.

Later, the Mongols saw that Jizhen couldn't get any benefits here, so they gradually stopped committing crimes here.

This is of course a good thing for a country, but not necessarily for Qi Jiguang personally. In the tenth year of Wanli in history, Zhang Juzheng died of illness, and Qi Jiguang, who lost his value because of the stability of the border, was quickly deposed as Zhang Juzheng's party, but the miraculous thing is that Li Chengliang, who was also Zhang Juzheng's cronies, continued to be reused because of the unextinguished war in Liaodong.

Qi Jiguang died depressed, and Li Chengliang was rich and noble for life. The contrasting ending told all the Ming generals the best way to make a living, so in the great turmoil in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the generals of the Ming Dynasty, who were responsible for defending the land, played the tricks of raising Kou and playing Kou to the extreme, and finally played the tragic ending of Emperor Chongzhen's hanging on the coal mountain.

Perhaps, raising Kou's self-respect is not the only reason for Ming's death, but it must also be one of the direct reasons. The most ridiculous thing is that when these people raised Kou, they used this beast as a beast in a cage, but they didn't expect that this beast would be able to tear open the cage and kill the hunter after raising it for a long time.

As for raising Kou, the first person in the Ming Dynasty to raise Kou was Li Chengliang in his later years.

Originally, Gao Pragmatic thought that Li Chengliang should have started to play with Yang Kou in his sixties, but unexpectedly, he fell earlier than he imagined, and he had already started to do it before he reached the age of sixty.

Forget it, Zhu Yijun actually found out.

Did the Wanli Emperor in history discover this? I'm afraid there is, after all, not all the people in the court are stupid, there have always been people impeaching Li Chengliang, it is impossible for Emperor Wanli not to see these notes - if he doesn't go to the court, it doesn't mean that he doesn't take care of the government, if he doesn't take care of the government, is it that the three major campaigns are commanded by ghosts?

But why did the Wanli Emperor in history only depose Li Chengliang for a while, but in the end he reinstated him and continued to control Liaodong?

If I remember correctly, it should be in the nineteenth year of Wanli, Li Chengliang was impeached by the Yanguan, and in November, Emperor Wanli dismissed Li Chengliang from his position in Liaodong and let him enter Beijing only as Ning Yuanbo.

In the twentieth year of Wanli, Bibai rebelled in Ningxia, and Yu Shi Mei Guozhen played, asking the imperial court to re-employ Li Chengliang, but Wang Dewan firmly believed that it was impossible, so the matter was shelved. In this way, Li Chengliang lost the opportunity to participate in the Battle of Ningxia.

However, Emperor Wanli sent his eldest son Li Rusong as the general soldier to participate in the pacification of the Bibai Rebellion, so that although Li Chengliang lost the opportunity to make meritorious contributions, Li Rusong became a new generation of famous generals. At the same time, the generals led by Li Chengliang's previous command have also been reused. His subordinates Li Pinghu, Li Ning, Li Xing, Qin Deyi, Sun Shoulian and others all gained wealth and became important generals who dominated a place.

Since Li Chengliang left Liaodong, Liaodong has changed its position to eight commanders in ten years, and Liaodong's border defense has been abolished step by step, providing objective conditions for Nurhachi's rise.

In August of the 29th year of Wanli, Ma Lin, the general soldier of Liaodong, was impeached because of a dispute with the tax envoy Gao Huai. Shen Chengliang, a university scholar, has always written that although Li Chengliang is old, he can continue to lead troops. So the imperial court ordered Li Chengliang to re-conquer Liaodong.

At this time, Li Chengliang was already seventy-six years old. However, at this time, the Tuman, Changang and Tu'er of the Mongolian left wing faced by Liaodong had all passed away, and there were very few Mongols in the army. Before Kaiyuan, Fushun, and Guangning, the cities of Ma and Mu were opened, and the Jurchen tribes were quite obedient and subservient in order to obtain profits.

This is a good thing for the imperial court, but it is a bad thing for Li Chengliang, because in his thinking, "the cunning rabbit dies, and the lackeys cook", if the border is stable, the Mongols and Jurchens will honestly kneel down and call Daming Dad, so what's the use of him as a lackey?

Therefore, in order to completely destroy the possibility of the alliance between the Ming Dynasty and other Mongols and Jurchens, he carried out violent conquests, first against the Taining Ministry, and then against the Yehe Jurchens and others. During this period, Nurhachi had unified the Jianzhou Jurchens and was encroaching on the Haixi Jurchens step by step, and their power was growing stronger, and Li Chengliang deliberately turned a blind eye in order to cultivate enemies.

In the early years of Wanli, Li Chengliang had suggested the establishment of Kuandian Six Forts, and in the middle and late Wanli periods, there were more than 64,000 households in the Six Forts, and the strength of the Ming Dynasty in the eastern part of Liaodong was significantly strengthened, and the Jianzhou Jurchens had enough deterrent power, which was the correct decision he made in the early years from the position of the Ming Dynasty.

But in the 34th year of Wanli, Li Chengliang in order to raise his own respect, even on the grounds that the six forts of Kuandian were lonely and difficult to hold, abandoned the six forts, and moved more than 64,000 households there to the interior, the local residents were attached to their families and did not want to leave, Li Chengliang drove them away with a large army, and even caused a lot of bloodshed, many casualties, for which he was again impeached by a large number of impeachments, and in the 36th year of Wanli, Li Chengliang was impeached again.

When Xiong Tingbi was guarding Liaodong, he once clearly said that Li Chengliang's crime could be to death. However, Zhu Yijun still did not kill him, but only "dismissed" him instead of taking his life.

Now Gao Pragmatic feels that the most important thing is to understand that the Wanli Emperor in history should also be able to see that Li Chengliang is raising his own respect, why didn't he kill him?

Even judging from what Zhu Yijun said to him today, he has long been aware of Li Chengliang's self-respect.

In this case, the question is even greater: why not kill him?

Li Chengliang is not his high pragmatism, with his reputation as high pragmatism now, if the emperor kills, it will definitely be "infamy", but Li Chengliang is a military general, to put it mildly, if he kills it, he will kill it, and really dare to rebel when the Liaodong Army dares to rebel?

What are you kidding, Liaodong at this time is not the "Northern Warehouse" of later generations, even if the Liaodong Army is really reversed, as long as the Central Plains runs out of food and salary, Liaodong itself will have to kill each other, and Shanhaiguan will not be able to enter.

Gao Pragmatic scratched his head a little, he really couldn't think of a perfect answer, so he could only estimate in his heart that there must be some situation that he couldn't grasp, and that or those circumstances seriously affected Wanli's decision.

So he asked tentatively: "If the emperor thinks that Li Chengliang has a negative grace and dismisses him, why should he be so entangled?" ”

"Who will be used for dismissal?" Zhu Yijun waved his hand and said: "I have carefully read the resumes of the generals in Liaodong, and now except for Li Chengliang, I am afraid that it is not safe to change anyone." Moreover, the situation on the Mongolian side is not convenient for the imperial court to replace Li Chengliang now. ”

"Why is that?" Gao asked pragmatically.

Zhu Yijun sighed and said: "I am going to die now, and even sent the eldest grandson to Chahar, it seems that there is no ambition anymore, but the Tumen are restless, I suspect that if I suddenly die now, I am afraid that the Tumen will have no worries, and at that time, whether he goes to seek the Mongolian right wing, or continues to 'go east' to seek my Liaodong, it will be a bad thing for the Ming Dynasty."

Although Li Chengliang's results have a lot of water, but they are deliberately coordinated and publicized by the imperial court, in order to deter Chahar and Jurchen, if Liaodong changes commanders at this time, and I answer that he died by chance, will something happen to Liaodong at that time? If something happens, how do you clean up the situation? How much does it cost to clean up this situation? These have to be considered...... To tell you the truth, this year I have reduced more than 700,000 taels of taxes across the country, and if there is chaos in Liaodong now, this money will become a hole. ”

"So," Zhu Yijun made a conclusion: "Li Chengliang can't be changed now, but I can't watch him mess around like this...... This matter, it was not easy to do before you came back, since you are back, I have some ideas, let Li Chengliang be lawless for a while, wait for me to die, see the situation, and I will take action again. ”

Gao was surprised and said: "Your Majesty, when will I die, this matter ...... Accurate? ”

Zhu Yijun smiled proudly: "That's right, I have inside information." ”

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