prosperous age

"General, Elder Wei sent someone to deliver a letter."

Ma Fang was only in his fifties, which was not considered old in the eyes of the market, but don't forget that this was during the Ming Dynasty when the average age of men was less than fifty years old.

Moreover, Ma Fang had lived in the north for a long time, having lived as a slave in his early years and having been engaged in constant wars in the middle and late stages. His physical fitness was not good to begin with, and he also had some hidden injuries.

Having lived in the open air for many years in the border town, Ma Fang now looked like a 70-year-old man in later generations. His skin was not only old, but also wrinkled.

However, despite this body, his eyes were still bright.

After hearing the letter from the capital, Ma Fang instantly perked up, stood up from his chair, walked down directly to take the letter delivered by his personal soldier, and asked casually, "Where is the person assigned?"

"Someone has been sent to take him to the General's Mansion to rest."

The soldier answered immediately.

"Ah."

Ma Fang had his own general's residence in Datong, but his favorite place to stay was the military camp. He liked to watch his soldiers go out for training every morning.

Yes, all generals who are capable of fighting have always attached great importance to the training of their soldiers.

In order to make the soldiers willing to train, they must be provided with sufficient basic food and wages.

The reason why those generals who were often defeated suffered repeated defeats was, to put it bluntly, because they were greedy and unwilling to provide more food and wages to their soldiers.

Without food and wages, training will naturally be very sparse. If the training is too harsh but no food and wages are given, won't it force people to cause trouble and create a mutiny?

Of course, social order is still there now, but the military leaders in the late Ming Dynasty were even more ruthless. Not only did they not have food and wages, they also sent their subordinates out to plunder money and food, keeping some for themselves and handing over some. They completely treated the army as a no-cost business.

Therefore, in fact, those generals who were slightly famous and capable in fighting in the late Ming Dynasty were actually just a little more conscientious than their colleagues and were willing to give some money and food to their soldiers, so they could become famous generals.

After all, wars are fought by soldiers. This is no longer the era when military generals fight alone and plunder the enemy.

In folk storytelling and historical novels, the most popular way of fighting on the ancient battlefield was not for thousands of troops to rush forward at once, but for the generals of the two armies to fight on horseback to decide the outcome of the war. This way of fighting was called "fighting generals."

Anyone who has read Romance of the Three Kingdoms will definitely be impressed by the phenomenon of "fighting between generals" before a battle.

Because every time two armies were fighting, there would always be a general wearing a golden helmet and silver armor, riding his horse to fight with the enemy generals, and fighting for dozens of rounds. The soldiers would stand aside and watch the generals fight alone.

In their words or writings, the winning side in a duel usually has its morale boosted by the victory of the main general in a one-on-one duel, thus gaining a crushing advantage on the battlefield and defeating the opponent.

Also because of those wonderful stories, people often have a feeling, that is, before the two armies confront each other, there will inevitably be a challenge, and then there will definitely be a fight between the generals, and then there will be a melee between the two armies.

It can only be said that "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has done great harm to people, especially after the book was circulated abroad.

There was once a joke that during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Japan's Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea and encountered the Liaodong Cavalry of Li Rusong of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, there was a general in the Japanese army who went crazy after reading the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He admired the generals who fought one-on-one in the stories very much, so he jumped out and shouted, "Who will fight me in a one-on-one fight?" The Ming army thought he was crazy and shot him into a sieve with their muskets.

When the two armies were fighting, the soldiers lined up in battle formations. The generals of both sides, riding white or red horses, holding spears or broadswords, wearing silver helmets or golden armor, rode out of the ranks, rushed to the most dangerous front line, and shouted loudly: "Who of you rats dares to come out and fight me?"

At this time, in the enemy's camp, there was no need to shoot him with arrows or beat him up. Instead, a brave general flashed out, rushed to the most dangerous front line, and shouted loudly: "Who are you? Tell me your name quickly, no one will die under my gun!"

Next, it was a duel between the two men. After one, three, five, or even dozens of rounds, the general of one side was knocked off his horse.

The soldiers did not launch any counterattack, but immediately surrendered, and the war ended.

It is full of the romantic spirit of personal heroism, which really satisfies the preferences of readers and listeners and gives them a sense of immersion.

The feeling it gives people is that as long as the main general wins, the entire army wins, and as long as the main general loses, the entire army loses.

The outcome of the entire war actually depended entirely on the martial arts skills of the two main generals. The soldiers only served as decoration and had no practical value.

Of course, this does not deny that there have been duels between generals in history. The duels recorded in official history are often not considered "wars" in the true sense. At most, they are just "duels" between main generals. However, they have rarely occurred since the Tang and Song dynasties.

In fact, during the Qin and Han dynasties, which represent the highest level of ancient Chinese military warfare, there are far fewer examples of "fighting and fighting against generals" in the official history of these stages compared with other war periods.

This is because there were more large-scale wars during the Qin and Han dynasties. For example, the Qin's conquest of the six kingdoms and the Han's attack on the Huns were not accomplished overnight.

To win in such an arduous battle, group combat methods and the general's strategies and tactics are the important factors for winning the battle.

This is the law of war. After all, generals are the treasures of the army and the commanders of the war.

The ancients often said, "If the commander is lost, the whole army will be defeated", so the generals in ancient times would not be stupid enough to put themselves in danger.

As for the Three Kingdoms period, although the novel is well written, there were not many fighting generals during this period in real history.

For example, Lu Bu's duel with Guo Si and Sun Ce's duel with Taishi Ci are all based on historical records.

As for other dynasties, some of the more famous ones include Wang Yanzhang, the iron spear general of the Five Dynasties, who was addicted to single combat.

There were also cases where the main general was captured and the entire army was defeated. For example, in the Battle of Hulao Pass in the Tang Dynasty, Dou Jiande led a light cavalry expedition but was wounded and captured, and the 150,000-strong army suddenly collapsed.

He had been operating in Hebei for many years, imposing light taxes and levies, and was considered a person who could compete with Li Yuan and Wang Shichong for the world. However, he was destroyed in one battle.

Dou Jiande did not come out to fight with the generals, he just wanted to debate with Li Shimin, but he was surrounded and captured alive by Li Tang's light cavalry.

In fact, by the time of the Song Dynasty, strategic and tactical command capabilities had been highly valued by military generals.

Strategy, naturally, is about the court's deployment of troops, while tactics is about the arrangement of opposing military formations. Different military formations have different ways of fighting.

However, the Song Dynasty used it very rigidly, and the court even chose the tactics and arranged the military formations. As a result, due to its inflexibility, it was targeted by the enemy and often suffered defeat.

However, even so, the ministers of the Song Dynasty still enjoyed it and liked to plan and win battles thousands of miles away.

Ma Fang is not a pretentious person. Perhaps he may not be that strong in a one-on-one fight, so he cares more about the training of his soldiers.

In fact, among the generals of the same generation, perhaps only Yu Dayou had the ability when he was young to fight alone without fear of the enemy generals, but Yu Dayou had never done so on the battlefield in his entire life.

Well, it is said that Yu Dayou's most successful battle was when he challenged the Shaolin Temple.

People like Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang were obviously not good enough in single combat, so they were all good at training soldiers.

Here, Ma Fang had already read Wei Guangde's letter, and his frown immediately relaxed. In fact, Ma Fang had been frowning these days because the Governor-General Huo Yi was persuaded by the Pingyang merchants to report to the court to open a horse market in Datong.

Well, the tribute market can no longer satisfy the merchants’ appetite, so they want more.

However, having lived in Mongolia for a long time when he was young, he certainly knew that there were Shanxi merchants who were smuggling and secretly bringing contraband into the grasslands to engage in illegal transactions with the Mongolians.

He was promoted from the general of Xuanfu to the general of Datong, which was intended to strengthen border defense and prevent merchants from smuggling.

Now that the merchants' smuggling routes have been blocked by him, some people are secretly taking the upper-level route in order to increase the horse market.

It can only be said that the appetites of businessmen can never be satisfied. After getting a little, they still want more.

Marx once said that when profits reach 10%, some people will begin to get restless; when profits reach 50%, some people will dare to take risks; when profits reach 100%, they will dare to trample on all human laws; and when profits reach 300%, they will not even be afraid of going to the gallows.

This was fully demonstrated in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. In order to obtain excessive profits, Shanxi merchants were willing to take risks, even if it meant committing the crime of genocide.

If Ma Fang was still worried about the horse market a few days ago, now after reading Wei Guangde's letter, all his worries disappeared.

The development of the horse market might make the Shanxi merchants, who had been quiet, active again. They might even infiltrate the border towns and secretly smuggle goods out.

You know, smuggling is not a one-way action, it requires someone outside to support it.

When Shanxi merchants smuggle across the border, they need someone on the Mongolian side to help take care of them, otherwise they might be robbed by that tribe once they enter the grassland.

Now, with the support of the capital, he naturally knows what to do.

If it were in the past, he would have been somewhat constrained in doing so, after all, Huo Yi was his direct superior, and as the saying goes, a higher-ranking official can crush a lower-ranking official. Although his rank was higher than that of the governor, the real power was in charge of him.

Ma Fang naturally has a way to obstruct the selection of the transaction site.

Didn’t you say that we should choose the trading town?

It's simple. Ma Fang directly selected a dozen or so places that could be used as trading towns. However, each place had more or less defects. The only place that was truly suitable as a trading location was one with convenient transportation and tight defense. There was no one recommended.

When the time comes to discuss the site selection, someone will naturally come out to point out these shortcomings, and then he can propose to visit the site to understand the actual situation.

There really aren't too many ways to delay time.

You know, Ming Dynasty officials had another big shortcoming, which was that they were unwilling to take responsibility on their own initiative and liked to shirk responsibility as much as possible.

Of course, the credit will not be pushed away.

As long as he pointed out those shortcomings at the critical moment, if Huo Yi wanted to force the matter through, he could not only report it to the emperor, but also hold him fully responsible if anything went wrong.

With such rhetoric, no one dared to act recklessly anymore.

As for the purpose of doing this, it was not mentioned in the letter, so Ma Fang naturally didn't know, and she didn't even intend to reply to tell him her plan.

Wei Guangde did not mention the situation in the capital to Ma Fang in detail, but he knew that Ma Fang would do so after reading the letter.

Of course, perhaps the new Minister of the Ministry of Revenue will still support the opening of a horse market in Datong, but after all, there is always a buffer period for new officials to take office, and they will not push for the issuance of this decree immediately and hastily.

Wei Guangde did this in order to carefully sort out the pros and cons of opening the Datong switch.

To be honest, if it is eventually discovered that opening Datong might bring more benefits than disadvantages, Wei Guangde might support it, even if it might lead to large-scale smuggling of contraband by Shanxi merchants.

As I said before, when it comes to the cabinet of the Ming Dynasty, we cannot abandon some policies out of fear. We must look at it dialectically.

For example, to combat smuggling by Shanxi merchants, we can eliminate it by strengthening customs defense and strictly investigating by the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Censorate.

We cannot ignore the lives of the people in the northwest and kill them with one blow just because we are worried about their smuggling.

In fact, Wei Guangde quite agrees with a point of view put forward by someone in later generations, that is, the essence of the nomadic people's migration to the south is to survive rather than plunder.

Plundering people and materials was only to protect the Huns' survival needs in the harsh natural environment of the north.

Qin Shihuang's achievements not only included standardizing the writing system, wheel gauges, weights and measures, and customs, but also wiped out the six kingdoms, ended the chaos that had lasted for hundreds of years on the Chinese land, and started the development process of China as a unified multi-ethnic country. He also defeated the Huns in the north and drew the dividing line between farming and pasturage.

This farming and pastoral boundary zone is roughly from Yanshan Mountain in northern Hebei to Yinshan Mountain, and then turns south to Lintao in Gansu Province, roughly coinciding with the 400 mm isohyet.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were both agricultural civilizations and nomadic civilizations in the Central Plains, and both sides were intertwined.

However, as the agricultural forces in the Central Plains gradually grew stronger, the nomadic forces were forced to migrate far away, and the Central Plains gradually became a purely agricultural world.

However, agricultural production methods cannot be expanded indefinitely due to factors such as rainfall.

Therefore, this formed a boundary zone between farming and grazing. Once you cross this zone, farming is no longer possible and you can only engage in nomadic life.

This middle area is the battleground for both farming and nomadic forces.

For nomadic peoples, their greatest advantage is that they possess a large number of high-quality war horses. They often rely on their elite soldiers and horses to go south to plunder survival resources, and this dividing area is the only way for them to enter the Central Plains.

When natural disasters occur in the north, the people in the north cannot obtain the resources necessary for survival through nomadic life, so they can only turn their attention to the south and obtain survival resources from farming areas.

Therefore, a protracted war broke out between the two tribes on this dividing line. The Han army was desperately defending the Great Wall, while the northern nomadic peoples were attacking desperately, hoping to obtain survival supplies by going south.

As for whether the nomadic peoples have the idea of ​​unifying China, perhaps they do, but after all, they are nomadic people, so they are not very interested in the farming areas in the south.

For example, the Yuan Dynasty, although it destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty and unified China, its ruling base was still in the north.

Moreover, with the advent of the era of hot weapons, the advantages of the northern nomadic peoples have actually declined significantly, so Wei Guangde is naturally not too worried.

Well, just like what was said on the Internet in later generations, the period between the Ming and Qing dynasties was essentially a competition to see who was worse.

The final result was naturally that the Ming Dynasty was rotten to the core, so it was destroyed.

Wei Guangde believes that if you do your best, no one can destroy you. (End of this chapter)