Chapter 54: Tongguan

Guan Shengyun's army marched along the Luoshui land and water, with Juzhou (now Fu County), Luochuan, Central (into Huangling), and Baishui...... Everywhere I went, the local prefectures and counties had already prepared hot food for the labor army and waited for a long time. Even in the central and central regions, because the city is close to Luoshui, the magistrates are afraid that the army will find fault with the city and play for a while, so they have organized the people to build a camp for the army to be stationed in advance!

Under the professional guidance of the Toshi Mansion, the camp was built impeccably. Not only are tents, stables and other facilities available, but even the beacon towers and watchtowers outside the camp are exemplary - each location is carefully selected, everything in the front seven or eight miles can be seen, and the road leading to the camp behind is smooth and unobstructed! The subtext is self-evident: you can rest assured, our every move cannot be concealed from the sharp eyes of your soldiers, and if something happens, the hopefuls will sound the alarm and ensure that they will have time to run back to the camp safely!

Well, this is called a gentleman's frankness!

At first, Guan Shengyun was really not suitable for this kind of warm and thoughtful service, lest the other party dig a trap for himself, and there was no Luo Yonghao around him to help him get an idea, so he didn't dare to drive directly into the camp. Chai Junju, the governor of Juzhou, had expected this layer earlier, so he personally greeted him. Chai Zhizhou led Guan Shengyun around the camp, and when he saw the neatly stacked copper and iron materials, the hill-like shovels, shovels, pickaxes and other materials, as well as the more than 100 pigs and sheep, and the big silver box with the lid open in the handsome tent, Guan Dashuai, who wanted to find fault in the eggs and extort some more things, was speechless! Subsequently, the Gu brothers surveyed the early warning facilities outside the camp and came to a unanimous conclusion: If we build it ourselves, we will never find a more suitable location, let alone build it so solidly!

Guan Shengyun smiled happily and sincerely invited Chai Zhizhou to dinner. Unexpectedly, Chai Zhizhou misunderstood, thinking that Guan Dashuai was going to detain him, so he whispered a few words to his family, and his family ran back to the city with a smoke. After a while, another box was delivered, which contained seven or eight hundred taels of silver ingots, as well as a bunch of gold hairpin earrings and other things. Chai Zhizhou told Guan Shengyun with a bitter face: "This is all the belongings of the lower officials, even the clumsy Jing and the concubine are wearing them here." If the handsome man still wants to keep them, then he can only take off their clothes and send them over......" Guan Shengyun was really embarrassed - embarrassed, embarrassed, excused himself, and kept half of the things.

All this was seen by Lord Wang Ziyu, who was "accompanied", and at the moment, Lord Wang patted his chest and assured Lord Chai that the three divisions of the provincial government would not turn a blind eye to Lord Chai's high demeanor, and Lord Chai's "righteous deeds" would definitely be rewarded as they deserved. Everyone was happy.

Don't look at the local officials along the way who entertained Guan Shengyun meticulously, but they all had a different face to the real officials and soldiers.

For example, in the second year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji broke the side wall and entered the Kou, and even trapped Zunhua, Yutian, Sanhe, Xianghe, Shunyi, and the soldiers went straight to the city of Beijing, and Wang Yuanya, the governor of Zunhua, committed suicide, and Zhao Shuojiao, the chief soldier of Shanhaiguan, was killed. Gyeonggi was shaken, and the imperial court ordered all localities to supervise the king of Huoxian. Shanxi Governor Geng Ruqi volunteered, personally led more than 3,000 people from the Governor's Standard Battalion and Taiyuan Battalion, and Zhang Honggong, the chief soldier of Shanxi, also led 5,000 elite Jin soldiers to rush thousands of miles to help.

When this elite brigade came to save its life arrived in the Gyeonggi area, the order of the military headquarters was changed three times in three days: the first day was stationed in Tongzhou, the next day was transferred to Changping, and the third day was guarded in Liangxiang. Tongzhou to Changping eighty or ninety miles, Changping to Liangxiang one hundred and forty or fifty miles, two legs walking!

This is nothing, the most immoral and brainless scene happened: the local officials in the three places are all in the mouth: ancestral system, the army is not allowed to open food on the day it arrives in the flood land! Thousands of miles to aid the Beijing Division, three days of forced march of nearly 300 miles, three days without food! It was really going to kill someone, so the hungry soldiers rushed to grab food nearby.

When such an incident occurred, with such bad consequences and impacts, how could the imperial court tolerate it? It must be investigated in-depth and dealt with seriously!

Findings: The fact that the soldiers grabbed food is irrefutable!

Handling opinions: Geng Ruqi and Zhang Honggong have no way to command the army, military discipline is lax, and they will be sentenced to prison!

The GIs went to rob without food? Fart! "Freeze to death without demolishing the house, starve to death without plundering", have you ever heard of it? Why don't you starve to death honestly!

Don't feed the GIs? The adults are doing the right thing! This is the ancestral system! Adhere to the principle and should be commended! What's wrong?

Not only do you have to obey blind commands and run around like headless flies, but you also have to be ready to fight for your life at any time, what should you do if you don't have food? Hehe, I'm sorry: I don't care about this, I deserve it!

The soldiers who came from afar were angry: Fuck you, whoever works for you again is stupid 13, Lao Tzu won't play! Scattered in a hurry. Zhang Honggong's 5,000 elite Jin soldiers all ran back to Shanxi, and Geng Ruqi's standard camp and Taiyuan battalion also ran nearly 1,000 people!

Learn from the pain and make amends.

The lesson is profound, Chongzhen finally understood the inappropriateness of his handling of the problem, and hurriedly corrected it: behead Geng Ruqi and Zhang Honggong!

Seeing this, I believe readers can understand why the powerful officials and military leaders everywhere have the attitude of watching Chongzhen die when Li Zicheng or Dolgon swept the Ming Dynasty in the future, right?

If there is anything you don't understand, not long after, Zhu Youzhen gave everyone another lesson. In the ninth year of Chongzhen, Dolgon entered the Kou and threatened Jingshi again. Zhu Yujian, the Tang king of the Zhu family, personally commanded more than a thousand royal palace guards and went north to the king of Qin!

Along the way, he was full of ups and downs, and he also fought a few battles with the rogue peasant army in the hinterland. Needless to say, the royal palace guard army is the elite of the elite, although the number is small, the combat power is overwhelming, and in the face of several groups of peasant armies with absolute superiority, they have all won!

When the news reached Jingshi, Chongzhen was deeply moved. Decisively ordered: Ancestral system, vassal kings are not allowed to enter Beijing! The king of Tang, who led the army to help, was deposed as a commoner and imprisoned Fengyang for life!

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Therefore, Guan Shengyun, who enjoys such meticulous care from the magistrate, can't help but be unhappy!

Mighty and comfortable drove to Tongzhou (now Dali), sent Guan Jianlin with a hundred soldiers, accompanied by Wang Ziyu, deputy envoy of the Shaanxi Procuratorial Department, to Weinan to pick up Luo Yonghao and his son, and the army continued to march towards Chaoyi.

Tongguan is the last stop of the east out of Yu Province, in order to wait for the Luo military division, but also in order to finally knock a bamboo pole, Guan Shengyun stationed here.

Tongguan is located in the eastern part of the Guanzhong Plain, and is located in the three provinces of Qin, Jin and Henan. The Qinling Mountains in the south, Weishui and Luoshui in the north converge into the Yellow River and go down. The surrounding valley is deep and precipitous, the mountain is high and the road is narrow, there is a narrow road in the middle, and only one car and one horse can be allowed to come and go before the Ming Dynasty. Du Fu once left "the father-in-law sees the important place, narrow and narrow for bicycles." Hardship and hard work, eternal use of a husband" verses to describe the majesty of its terrain.

In the ninth year of Hongwu, Tongguanwei carried out a large-scale expansion, expanding from a checkpoint to a city. However, because it was a military stronghold, there were few ordinary people in the city. Most of them are military households, and the residents are either active soldiers or family members of non-commissioned officers.

Because of the tacit agreement reached with Shaanxi Province, Guan Shengyun's department did not openly play the banner of identity, but only used the battalion generals of each battalion to guide the troops into a formation march, and the armor, weapons, and golden drum flags were all robbed or swindled from the officials and soldiers, coupled with the mediation and cover-up of the commander Bao Zhicai, this large army stationed nearby not only did not arouse the vigilance of the Henan side at this time, but even the defenders of Tongguan Wei mistakenly thought that they were friendly troops mobilized by the order of the Shaanxi Metropolitan Governor, so they missed Xiangyu Province. Even the last chance for the Kyoshi to issue an emergency alert.

On the contrary, the good news jointly issued by the three divisions of Shaanxi, as well as the two hundred and sixty-nine "Liukou Heads" pickled in lime, have already galloped on the official road leading to the Beijing Division.

Tongguanwei was originally under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi Metropolitan Division, and after the expansion of Hongwu in nine years, it was assigned to the Henan Metropolitan Division. In the Yongle period, Tongguanwei was placed under the direct jurisdiction of the Chinese Military Governor's Office - since it did not belong to the military management system of Shaanxi Province, the transfer of troops and horses of the Shaanxi Metropolitan Government was not notified to them, although it was a little far-fetched, but it was also reasonable.

The status of Tongguanwei is extremely special: administratively it belongs to Shaanxi, but it is not under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi Metropolitan Government, not only that, but even a small area of Shanxi!

The reason for this strange phenomenon is the unique military guard system of the Ming Dynasty.

We know that the administrative system of the Ming Dynasty was that there were six ministries in the central government, and the following were the provincial government envoys, that is, the provincial government, and then the prefecture, prefecture and county.

The military management system is the central government is the governor's office of the five armies in the front and back, the provincial level below is the command of the embassy, and then there is the guard, and then there are thousands of households under the guard, and then there are hundreds of households.

In this way, the two lines of administrative management and military management of the Ming court are relatively clear: corresponding to the six administrative departments of the central government, the five military governors of the military department, the provincial level of the political envoy corresponding to the command of the embassy, the government corresponding to the guard, and the prefecture and county corresponding to the thousand households - the main management system of the Ming Empire is composed of two parts: administrative and military.

Because of its important geographical location, Tongguan set up a thousand households in the seventh year of Hongwu. There are all the essential differences between the defense of the thousand households and the ordinary preparation of the thousand households: the former is under the vertical management of the command of the capital, and the latter is managed by the guard - it can be understood that the defense of the thousand households is an independent brigade directly under the jurisdiction of the provincial military district, and the preparation of the thousand households is a field regiment under the division system.

Only two years later, Zhu Yuanzhang felt that the level of guarding the Thousand Households was not enough to reflect the importance of Tongguan, so he simply upgraded the administrative level to another level: from the Guarding the Thousand Households to the guard. The corresponding administrative unit of the military unit is the prefecture, and there are prefectures and counties under the prefecture, and there should be a thousand households under the guard. As a result, the Puzhou Shouyu Thousand Households on the north bank of the Yellow River were assigned to the jurisdiction of Tongguanwei.

Puzhou is located in Shanxi. In fact, this setting has two meanings: On the one hand, the military deployment on both sides of the Yellow River is convenient for unified command, and on the other hand, the military administration areas of the provincial command and the administrative areas of the political envoys are deliberately and artificially staggered, and they are entangled with the neighboring provinces, so that the neighboring provinces can manage the border areas of their own provinces, so that the administrative divisions and military divisions at the provincial level are intertwined and mutually restricted, which is conducive to centralized rule.

A simple example is clear. In the administrative area of province A, there is a place (wei) that is under the administration of the military department of province B (the metropolitan office), and the military department of province B (wei) is embedded in the administrative area of province C.

Lao Zhu, the chicken thief, only thought that if there was a rebellion in any province, the neighboring province would have already wedged a nail in, and you couldn't hide it, so you could give early warning; But he didn't expect that by the time the shortcomings accumulated in the middle and late stages had been deep in the wolf smoke, in addition to mutual restraint, the guards would have become wastewood.

In the Yongle period, Zhu Di considered that Tongguan was not only a pass to choke the danger of three provinces, but also an east-west transportation artery, so he simply upgraded it again: it was directly under the jurisdiction of the Governor's Office of the Five Armies, similar to the concept of a municipality directly under the central government in the military field. The soldiers of the guard need to rely on the military cantonment to feed, and Tongguanwei is no exception, but it has been directly under the jurisdiction of the "Ministry of National Defense" and does not belong to any province, so in addition to the 1,000 acres of land in the city circle (it can be seen that Zhu Yuanzhang has already prepared for this aspect when he expanded), and then a piece of the surrounding three provinces is used for the military cantonment.

When Luo Junshi returned to the camp and Guan Shengyun got the last supply and went east, the defenders of Tongguan Wei realized that something was wrong: how could there be no news about such a large-scale cross-provincial military transfer? However, the day before, several generals such as Sheng Zhiyong, the commander of Wei, and Xu Chao, the commander of the department, were dragged to Huayin County to drink by Bao Daren of the Shaanxi Metropolitan Mansion. If you don't go to this kind of thing, it will be a bit shameless - since the change of Tumubao, the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies has gradually been reduced to a dispensable supporting role, and everything is decided by the Ministry of War. Besides, after all, many military tuns in Tongguanwei are still administratively under the rule of Huayin County, and there will never be any harm in establishing a good relationship.

Doubts are doubts, but the defenders are illiterate soldiers, just talk a few words, and people don't attack you, no matter the height of the general flag, or the size of the troops, there is at least one general commander two or three deputy marshals six or seven generals (whether it is Gao Tengdou or Gu Baihua Gong Derun, they are all poor and rich nouveau riche mentality, since Guan Luo and the two do not speak, they all invariably make their generals a level higher), who is full of food to find himself sick - whichever one, Hacking a mouthy bastard to death isn't like crushing an ant.

Tong Guan Wei commander Sheng Zhiyong and commander Xu Chao brought a lot of things when they came back, and several porters carried boxes and baggage boxes directly to the mansion of the two, and the two generals led the guards to go straight to the Tongguan East City Tower, and looked at the endless stream of troops under their feet.

This is the rearguard of Guan Shengyun's army. Further on, there is a long snake with no end in sight, winding its way along the narrow mountain road. To the south is the cliffs, and to the north is the surging Yellow River, on which hundreds of boats and rafts are carefully moving along the shore. Neither of the two adults spoke, and General Sheng's personal guard captain Sheng Li was speechless: "Forehead, where did this army come from, what are you going to do?" ”

There was a crisp sound of "pop", and Master Sheng turned around and pumped it with a big mouth: "Dog material!" Shut your dog's mouth! Chew your tongue again, Lao Tzu will throw you into the Yellow River and feed the turtles! ”

Lord Sheng stared at Sheng Li viciously, and then his eyes met the gaze cast by Lord Xu, and the two adults exchanged a meaningful look, and invariably turned their eyes to the team under their feet again. When the soldiers on the city tower saw this, they were all frightened, and no one dared to talk to each other.

Seeing that the back of the last rider had left the land of a stone's throw away, and the last big ship that pressed the formation sailed away, Commander Sheng suddenly shouted: "Close the city gate"!

This was followed by General Xu's roar: "Go to the wall, go to the wall!" Everybody, roll up and be on guard against the wall! ”

Tong Guanwei's two heavy doors closed with a bang.

Under the scolding of the two adults, the thousands of generals gathered up the soldiers and rushed to the city wall, and the ploughing oxen working in the fields were put on carts, transported boulders, and blocked the gate tightly.

With the closing of the gate behind him, Guan Shengyun, a seemingly harmless army of humans and animals, tore off his camouflage under the eyes of the defenders of Tongguan, showed his hideous fangs and rushed to Yu Province, and captured Ruxiang on the same day.