At that time, it had been more than 100 years since the "Battle of Jingyan", but Yao Guangxiao's name was still circulating in the world. It's just that the market and the countryside have been passed down from generation to generation, adding a lot of absurd legends.

Before Li Qiufeng entered Jinyiwei, he had heard the name of this person, and knew that Yao Guangxiao was a monk with the Dharma name Daoyan. Although this person is in the Buddha's Gate, he has a thorough understanding of the three religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, and is a great monk. After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Taizu selected senior monks to serve the kings. At that time, all the monks went to the palace in the Central Plains, in order to enjoy themselves in peace. The unique Yao Guangxiao got acquainted with Zhu Di, the king of Yan, in the name of "serving the king in white hats", presided over Qingshou Temple, and became Zhu Di's great strategist. In the third year of the Battle of Jingyan, Emperor Jianwen sent a large army to the north, and the front approached Beiping. The Yan army was weak and the situation was critical. Yao Guangxiao stayed in Beiping, gave advice to Zhu Di, and advocated using light cavalry to bypass the main force of Emperor Jianwen's army and take Nanjing directly. King Yan adopted his strategy, and all the way was like a bamboo, successfully captured Nanjing, and ascended the throne as emperor. With a mere Beiping side of the land and the enemy of the Ming Dynasty, and finally won, Yao Guangxiao should be the first in merit.

When Li Qiufeng was on an errand in Jinyiwei, he was quite interested in the secret files in the archives of Jinyiwei, and often went inside to read them, and he also deliberately inquired about Yao Guangxiao's records. It's just that there are very few records about this person, and the content is very different from folklore, which is quite regrettable in my heart. The legend of raising a goose to avoid people's ears mentioned by Murong Danyan is one of the many folk legends about Yao Guangxiao.

Li Qiufeng heard Zhu Sanjia mention Yao Guangxiao's name, and he paid attention to it. But I heard Zhu Sanjia say: "Since the death of the crown prince Zhu Biao, King Yan has the heart to win the heir. It's just that Taizu is still there, and he doesn't dare to make a slight move. When Emperor Jianwen ascended the throne, King Yan had many plans with Yao Guangxiao and other henchmen. At that time, Yao Guangxiao set three strategies for the king of Yan, the best strategy was to pretend to attack Meng Yuan in the name of obtaining military power, and after leading the troops out of the Great Wall, all the generals loyal to Emperor Jianwen were killed, replaced by the generals of the king of Yan's cronies, and then commanded the army to go south to take Nanjing. This ploy is modeled after the story of the Song Taizu, Zhao Kuangyin, and Chen Qiao's mutiny. The middle strategy is to unite the kings of the north, meet the alliance in Beiping, and then call on the kings from all over the country to raise troops in the name of 'Qing Jun's side', fight together in Nanjing, and then cut off the kings and seize the throne. The next strategy is to send martial arts masters to infiltrate Nanjing, assassinate Emperor Jianwen and the ministers of the court, and inherit the unification as the emperor's uncle.

King Yan and a group of advisers consulted for three days and three nights, and finally adopted Yao Guangxiao's best strategy, first sent hundreds of pro-soldiers to the north of the Great Wall, pretending to be Tartar soldiers, and looting the property of the border people. All of a sudden, the nine sides shook, and smoke rose inside and outside the Great Wall. The secret reports of the military intelligence of the commanders of the Yanwang Mansion and the Beiping garrison were sent to the imperial front of Emperor Jianwen in Nanjing one after another.

"Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the first Lanyu expedition to the north defeated the main force of the Tartars in the Sea of Fish, so that its troops did not dare to go south. At that time, the commander of the Mengyuan Dynasty, Kuangku Timur, had died of illness, and the Tartar soldiers no longer had outstanding generals. By the time Emperor Jianwen ascended the throne, there had been no war on the northern border for many years. It was with the beacon smoke, and Emperor Jianwen's ministers panicked.

At that time, most of the founding generals of the Ming Dynasty had withered, and it was impossible to find a famous general who would lead the northern expedition. Since Lan Yu was killed, it was the 'Three Kings of the North' who were in charge of the war in the north, especially Zhu Di, the king of Yan. It's just that Emperor Jianwen's ministers were already suspicious of King Yan, so they naturally refused to grant military power to this person again. After the secret discussion of Emperor Jianwen's monarchs and ministers, Zhang Hao, the squire of the Ministry of Works, was the political envoy of Beiping, and Xie Gui and Zhang Xin were the commanders of Beiping. Subsequently, he ordered the governor Song Zhongtun to garrison Kaiping, monitor Beiping, and transfer the troops under the jurisdiction of King Yan in the Northern Plain. ”

When Zhu Sanjia said this, he paused slightly, and then said: "The guards sent by King Yan to pretend to be Tartar soldiers outside the Saiwai are naturally his henchmen. The ancestor of the Sha family is the leader of these hundreds of guards and pro-army, and my ancestor of the Zhu family is one of his most powerful assistants. The Yan army's pretending to be a Tartar soldier is the most secret thing. Before this team set off, King Yan set up a banquet in the palace, and said to everyone at that time that once he stepped out of the palace of King Yan, he would no longer be allowed to recognize himself as the guard of King Yan's mansion, and even if he was put on the neck by the enemy's sword and axe, he would never betray King Yan. It is because after they came out of the fortress, they plundered the border people everywhere and cut off contact with the Yanwang Mansion. As soon as King Yan gained military power, he took off his Tartar military uniform and returned to King Yan. They wandered outside the fortress for two or three months, but they never saw the shadow of King Yan's army.

"Although this small army pretended to be Tartar soldiers and plundered the border people everywhere, it was after all an elite soldier under the command of King Yan, and the military discipline was extremely strict. If they want to make their big swords and spears cut at the people of the Ming Dynasty, it is extremely difficult to do it. After rushing into the village, they often kicked in the door, and all they snatched were pillows, quilts, rags, and some miscellaneous items, and rarely robbed property, let alone killed people. It's just that they are alone, and the dry food they bring is limited, but they eat it in a few days. Later, they relied on some steamed buns and pickles and the beasts they shot to survive, and when they arrived, the hares and wolves on the grassland were eaten cleanly by them, and even the rats fled with their families.

"The ancestors of the Sha family saw that there was no trace of King Yan's army, and the army had run out of grain and grass. People can still endure hardship, but the mount under the crotch can no longer survive. However, the house leaked and rained overnight. A group of Tartar cavalry of several thousand men suddenly appeared and surrounded the small force.

"It turned out that after this army left the fortress, it was immediately noticed by the Tartar soldiers. It's just that the Tartar soldiers have been frightened by the Ming army, and at first they thought that the Ming army was going to march north again, so they fled far away to Mobei. The spies who stayed behind reported that the troops, dressed in the armor of the Tartars and mounted on Mongolian horses, roamed the vicinity of the Great Wall every day, occasionally plundering the villages. The leader of the Tartars was surprised and sent a large number of spies to closely monitor the movements of this force. These spies disguised themselves as herdsmen followed this small Ming army from afar. After more than two months, seeing that these hundreds of people were already swaying on their horses with hunger, the spies immediately reported to the leader of the Tartar soldiers. The leader of the Tartar soldiers judged that this force was not a regular unit of the Ming army, and it was likely that the rebels of the Ming army had fled to the outside of the fortress, and it was a good time to capture and kill it in one fell swoop. It was immediately led by his troops to the south and surrounded this small army.

At that time, these hundreds of people were so hungry that only half of their lives were left, and the Tartar soldiers suddenly appeared, first a rain of arrows, and immediately shot more than 100 Ming soldiers. It's just that these hundreds of people are the elite of King Yan's army, and they have accompanied King Yan on many expeditions to the north, and they are extremely fierce. Although all of them were hungry and yellow-skinned, they only saw the appearance of the Tartar soldiers, but their morale was greatly boosted, and they even repelled seven attacks by the Tartar soldiers, and although they killed more than 100 people, they also killed 5 or 600 Tartar soldiers.

The leader of the Tartars did not expect these hundreds of enemies to be so fierce, and the more they fought, the more frightened they became, and when the seventh charge was repulsed, they began to retreat. Who would have expected that at this time, another army appeared outside the battlefield, but it was the regular army of the Ming army. The leader of the Tartar soldiers was shocked, thinking that these small troops of several hundred people were the bait cast by the Ming army, and lured himself here in order to gather and annihilate them in one go. When he wanted to lead the army to flee away, he never expected that the regular army of the Ming army who rushed to the battlefield did not attack him, but killed the small army with only more than 100 people left between the two armies.

He didn't know that the Ming army that rushed to the army was the Ming army commanded by Zhang Xin, the commander of the Beiping capital. After Zhang Xin received the holy decree of Emperor Jianwen, he first sent a scout horse out of the fortress to reconnoiter the movement of the Tartar soldiers, and at the same time transferred troops and generals in Beiping, prepared soldiers and horses, and attacked the Tartar soldiers at any time. Tanma reported that it was only a Tatar army of several hundred men who plundered the border people, not a Tatar army marching south. Zhang Xin was worried that this small army was a decoy sent by the Tartar soldiers, and wanted to lure the Ming army deep into the outside of the fortress, and then gather a large army to annihilate himself in one go. In the past, Timur, the commander of the Yuan army, was the best at using this strategy. For example, in the first year of Hongwu, after the Ming army captured Dadu, it marched westward in two ways, intending to attack together and encircle and annihilate Timur in Shanxi. General Chang Yuchun is the North Route Army, south to Baoding, Zhongshan, Zhending, the Ming Army commander Xu Daqin led the main force for the South Route Army, stationed in the Zhangde area, sent the general Tang He as the vanguard, from Huaiqing to take Zezhou. Timur first met Tang He with a small force, and was defeated in successive battles, teasing Tang and his troops. Tang He didn't know what the plan was, and the light army rushed forward. When Tang He entered Handian, it was far away from the main force of the Ming army, and the main force of the Yuan army led by Timur suddenly appeared, defeating the Ming army, and the main general Tang He almost died on the battlefield, but fortunately, the soldiers desperately rescued each other, and then fled from Handian.

"The founding generals of the Ming Dynasty were originally very jealous of Timur, and after the first battle of Handian, Xu Da and others were even more frightened of this person. It's just that Emperor Yuan Shun was at odds with Timur, and he was bound at every turn. If Timur had a lot of strength, he could only take out five points of strength to deal with the Ming army, and the other five points of strength should be kept on guard against the Yuan army.

Later, Timur led the army to besiege Lanzhou, and the Ming general Zhang Wen defended the city. He wanted to use Lanzhou as a bait to lure the Ming army reinforcements to the preset encirclement outside Lanzhou to annihilate them, and then take Lanzhou. The Ming army really hit the plan and sent reinforcements under the command of General Guang, but as a result, they were ambushed by Timur outside Lanzhou. At that time, the Ming army came from afar to help, and it was exhausted. Expanding Timur waited for work, annihilated all the reinforcements of the Ming army, and the commander Yu Guang died in battle.

At that time, the Ming Dynasty had just established the country, and the world was shaken by this defeat. Emperor Taizu was furious and mobilized a large army to the north. It was only when formulating the Northern Expedition strategy that all the generals, including Xu Da, unanimously suggested that the army should go straight to Yingchang and force Timur to withdraw his troops from Lanzhou and not confront him head-on. It can be seen that Xu Da and other generals did not dare to directly confront the division of Timur. These people are all veteran founding generals, but I am afraid that the word 'timid' has never been in their heads. It's just that he was frightened by Timur's strategy to lure the enemy deep and gather annihilation in one drum, and he didn't want to confront him head-on. Emperor Taizu adopted Liu Bowen's suggestion and ordered the Ming army to divide into two routes. The western route of the general Xu Da from Tongguan passed through Xi'an to save Lanzhou, waiting for an opportunity to annihilate Timur. The eastern route to the left deputy general Li Wenzhong attacked Yingchang and induced the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty to order Timur to divide his troops to rescue. This is the strategy formulated by Liu Bowen for Emperor Taizu to make the Yuan Dynasty 'save each other and have no time to help'. The emperor of the Yuan Dynasty really hit the plan and forced Timur to divide his troops. The Yuan army was short of troops and was defeated by the Ming army. ”

When Zhu Sanjia said this, he sighed and said: "Since ancient times, famous generals have been like beauties, and they are not allowed to see white heads in the world. If it weren't for the civil strife in Mengyuan and the feudal bonds, the Ming Dynasty would defeat the Tartars and restore the Han people, but I am afraid that it would not be easy!"

(End of chapter)