prosperous age

"Any news from Liaodong?"

Wei Guangde suddenly asked.

When he saw Liang Menglong, he thought it was news from Liaodong.

The Ministry of War has already sent a document to Qi Jiguang in Liaodong, urging him to take action as soon as possible.

Regardless of the circumstances, Qi Jiguang would have replied to the Ministry of War after receiving the order, explaining the situation.

Judging by the time, if things were going quickly, the troops should have already left the pass.

However, Wei Guangde did not see the palindrome.

Based on Wei Guangde's understanding of Qi Jiguang, he knew that once the battle began, he would send a battle report directly to the capital.

Well, perhaps the old Qi Jiguang wouldn't have dared to do that.

However, in recent years, the Ministry of War, the Cabinet, and Qi Jiguang's connections have been so strong that it doesn't seem like a big deal.

"No, there are no replies from Liaodong."

Liang Menglong answered without hesitation, and then he tentatively asked, "Grand Secretary Wei, should the Ministry of War issue a document to urge them to inquire?"

Upon hearing Liang Menglong's words, Wei Guangde decisively shook his head and said, "No need. A general in the field may not obey orders. Besides, Governor Li is still in Liaodong. He hasn't replied to the Ministry of War yet, so he must have a plan."

"Yes, then I'll return to the Ministry of War."

After finishing his business, Liang Menglong got up to take his leave without even drinking a sip of tea.

"Okay, I'll take you out."

Wei Guangde also got up and saw Liang Menglong to the door before saying, "If there is news from Liaodong, have someone send it to me immediately."

"Yes, Grand Secretary Wei."

Liang Menglong agreed and then bowed and left.

Meanwhile, on the Liaoxi grasslands, thousands of miles away from the capital, a large contingent of Ming cavalry was encircling a tribe that was fleeing westward from both sides.

Behind them, the Mongol tribe's force, sent out to buy time, was routed and thrown into chaos by the Ming army's gunfire.

Several infantry formations marched in orderly steps, with wheelbarrows equipped with tiger-squat cannons in front, three rows of musketeers behind, and then spearmen and shieldmen, stepping over the corpses of men and horses on the ground, and advancing in great strides.

"General, we've finally caught Su Ba Hai's men. They were among those who attacked Yizhou last year."

In the midst of the army formation, a deputy general laughed and said to Qi Jiguang, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong.

"The Taining tribe has always been opportunistic and ruthless, which is truly despicable. This time, we must severely damage Taining so that they will never dare to invade the territory of our Great Ming again."

Qi Jiguang also had a relaxed expression on his face, but his tiger-like eyes were fixed on the battlefield in front of him.

Once the cavalry completes the encirclement, the main force of the Taining tribe will have no chance of escape.

Although the Ministry of War's military order was to send troops to attack the Tuman tribe in Liaodong, which is known in later generations as the Khorchin, the grasslands of the Taining tribe were the closest to Liaodong.

To kill two birds with one stone, Qi Jiguang planned to wipe out the Taining tribe while leading his army north.

In this way, the Liaoxi Corridor will be safer.

Of course, compared to the Ministry of War's official document, this was somewhat disobeying orders, which is why Qi Jiguang and Governor Li decided not to report it for the time being.

Only those on the front lines know the specifics of their opponent.

In the capital, the cabinet and the Ministry of War focused more on the Tuman tribes that repeatedly provoked the borders of the Ming Dynasty, but in reality, the Doyan Three Guards had more or less harassed Liaodong and Jizhou.

In particular, the Taining tribe, thinking themselves in the dark, launched surprise attacks on border towns under the guise of the Tuman tribe, believing that the imperial court had been deceived.

Although their strength was the weakest among the three guards, they were the most vicious. Both Generals Qi Jiguang and Dong Yiyuan hated the Taining tribe to the core.

However, because of their weak power, the Taining tribe was also the most cunning and ruthless.

The Ministry of War's sudden relaxation of the border defenses, allowing the Liaodong Army to launch timely attacks, naturally gave Qi Jiguang the opportunity to sweep through the Taining region.

If it were a Mongol raid and the Ming army retaliated, even if they pursued the enemy beyond the Great Wall, it would not be considered an act of provocation on the border.

But this time was different. The Ming army launched a proactive sweep without any conflict. Without the imperial court's order, the army could not leave the pass.

There have been better opportunities in the past, and even if Qi Jiguang wanted to go to war, he would have been stopped by the governor of Liaodong.

This time, it was a rare opportunity for the imperial court to unleash a tiger from its cage, so Qi Jiguang naturally wanted to turn the eastern grasslands upside down.

Soon, on the battlefield, the two Ming cavalry battalions had completed the encirclement of the fleeing Mongol tribes, while the Taining tribe's elite soldiers, numbering two to three thousand, broke through to the north under the leadership of their chieftain.

To launch an encirclement and annihilation campaign against the Mongol cavalry on the grasslands, it would require a cavalry force several times larger than the enemy's.

Otherwise, if the enemy is determined to break out, it will be impossible to annihilate them unless they have a geographical advantage.

After all, once warhorses charge, it's impossible to stop them without several cavalry units intercepting them.

Qi Jiguang certainly wouldn't engage in a chaotic and entangled battle with a cornered beast; wasting troops here would be completely pointless.

Eliminating this Mongol tribe would be tantamount to severing their roots.

"General, what should we do with these several thousand people? We are still ordered by the imperial court to head north."

The general beside him asked.

The besieged Taining tribe probably numbered at least five or six thousand, but the able-bodied men had been lost, leaving only the elderly, women, and children.

"They surrendered."

Just then, someone else spoke up.

The tribe's elite troops fled; they refused to surrender, and only slaughter awaited them.

In such situations, Mongol tribes would generally choose to surrender.

In the event of a conflict between Mongol tribes, they would be annexed by the victorious tribe and become one of them.

However, now they are facing the Ming Dynasty, and the people on the other side are also uneasy, not knowing what awaits them.

Qi Jiguang certainly wouldn't do anything to them; he wouldn't slaughter the elderly, women, and children.

He said to a lieutenant general behind him, "Qi Guangzu, you take the infantry battalion and escort these people back to Yizhou for temporary resettlement."

"General, it's me."

Qi Guangzu hurriedly shouted, clearly unwilling to take on this task.

However, Qi Jiguang wouldn't listen to him and interrupted him directly, saying, "Military orders are absolute. Do you want to disobey orders?"

"I will obey your orders."

After a moment's hesitation, Qi Guangzu finally accepted the order. "Immediately lead your men to take over the tribe, clean up the battlefield, and have the other tribes regroup as soon as possible. Set up camp here and rest, and head north tomorrow."

Qi Jiguang immediately issued a series of orders, clearly not wanting to linger here any longer.

After setting up camp, he first had to send a message to the governor of Liaodong, and then Governor Li would naturally send a battle report to the capital.

The generals who received the orders rode off one after another, and Qi Jiguang sighed as he watched Qi Guangzu's departing figure.

Leaving Qi Guangzu behind was a suggestion made privately by Governor Li two days before his departure. He had previously served as governor of Datong and had some dealings with the Qi family.

As for Qi Guangzu, he was a member of the Qi family of Weizhou, specifically the lineage of Qi Mian. Strictly speaking, he was a member of the Qi family, specifically the lineage of Qi Xun, and was adopted by Qi Mian. This was because Qi Mian was the first member of this line of the Qi family to die in battle, and his adopted son was the same.

Well, that all happened during the Jiajing era. In order to ensure that this branch of the family would not be without descendants, Qi Guangzu was adopted into Qi Mian's branch.

During the transition from the Yuan to the Ming dynasty, the Ming dynasty inherited many of the Yuan dynasty's systems. Although it was a centralized system, it also retained some characteristics of the feudal system.

Zhu Yuanzhang did not trust his generals in the field, so he constantly restricted and weakened the power of senior generals.

At the same time, he successively enfeoffed his sons as princes in important border towns and various cities in the interior. In particular, he established nine princes, including Liao, Ning, and Yan, along the thousands of miles of defense line in the north, stationing troops in key locations, commanding generals, and hereditarily guarding them.

Zhu Yuanzhang's practice of enfeoffing his sons indicates his attempt to transfer military power from the hands of military nobles to princes of the imperial clan.

When Zhu Yuanzhang's grandson, Emperor Jianwen, was on the throne, he attempted to reduce the power of the princes. However, Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, launched the Jingnan Campaign in Beiping and succeeded.

During his reign, Zhu Di followed the policies of Emperor Jianwen, sending trusted generals to command troops in key border areas and abolishing the right of local princes to lead troops into battle, thus turning the princes who were stationed in their respective regions into landlords.

Therefore, military power was once again transferred from the hands of the royal princes to the hands of the military aristocracy.

After military nobles and high-ranking generals regained control of the military in key border areas, they quickly developed into a military clan that guarded the border for generations, commonly known as military families.

Of course, these military families had no direct connection with most of the famous generals during the founding period, although they may have had the shadow of these noble families behind them.

Yes, although the founding generals had guarded the border towns, they were all later transferred back to the central government and became nobles of the Ming Dynasty based on their merits.

The military families of the Ming Dynasty at this time mostly came from military households transferred to the border towns. They were either centurions, garrison commanders, or even junior officers.

By accumulating military merits, one can gradually rise from a junior officer to a senior officer.

Of the nine members of the Jiang family who served as generals, only one was a deputy general, three were vice commanders, and five were commanders. There were commanders in five generations.

The Wang Wei family, the largest military family in terms of size, has produced 11 generals and 4 deputy generals across three generations, with 3 of them being granted the title of Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent.

In addition, among the six members of the Du family, five became generals, and four members across three generations were posthumously awarded the titles of Left and Right Grand Commander. Among them, Du Tong, Du Wenhuan, and Du Hongyu were all appointed as Right Grand Commander, while Du Song was posthumously awarded the title of Left Grand Commander, demonstrating the family's great prestige.

Of the nine members of the You family, six were generals. You Shiwei was appointed Left Commander-in-Chief, a first-rank official; You Jixian was appointed Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent; and You Shilu was appointed Grand Tutor of the Heir Apparent, both of whom were second-rank officials.

Of the seven members of the Xiao family who served as generals, six held the rank of deputy commander-in-chief or higher, all of whom were of the second rank or above.

The Qi family is similar. The first generation of this family was named Qi Xiaogong, who was from Yunzhou at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, which is today's Datong, Shanxi.

In the early years of the Hongwu reign, the Northern Expedition brought Shanxi entirely into the territory of the Ming Dynasty. This young man, Qi Xiaogong, was not conscripted into the Ming army until the fifth year of the Hongwu reign. From then on, he became a military household of the Ming Dynasty and was incorporated into the Datong Garrison Thousand-Household Office.

Two years later, he was transferred to the Weizhou Guard Post. After serving for 32 years, in the second year of the Yongle reign, due to old age, his son Qi You took over.

Qi You had only been in the army for two years when he was promoted to junior officer in the fourth year of the Yongle reign for his meritorious service in the campaign against Gantan River.

In the twenty-first year of the Yongle reign, Qi You's son, Qi Neng, was awarded the rank of General Banner for his meritorious service in following the garrison commander Zhu Qian on patrols.

Afterwards, Qi Neng, Qi Sheng, and Qi Yue joined the army one after another, serving through the Chenghua, Hongzhi, and Zhengde reigns. The Qi family members gradually rose from the rank of general to deputy commander and garrison commander, becoming mid-level military officers of the imperial court in the northern border towns.

During the Jiajing reign, due to several victories in Xinhe, Wangbaotun and other places, Qi Yue was granted an imperial edict in the fifth year of Jiajing's reign, bestowing upon his family the title of "Three Generations of Imperial Consorts." He himself was a General of the Third Rank, and his wife, Lady Sun, was granted the title of "Lady of Virtue." His grandfather, Qi Neng, and father, Qi Sheng, were granted the title of General of the Third Rank, his grandmother, Lady Zhang, was granted the title of "Lady of Virtue," and his mother, Lady Wang, was granted the title of "Grand Lady of Virtue."

Thus, the Qi family, a prominent military family, finally began to take shape.

In the ninth year of the Jiajing reign, Qi Yue was promoted to Left Assistant General of Xuanfu and became the garrison commander of Ma Ying and Dushi. This was the position where Yang Hong rose to prominence in his early years. It was the most important military post in the northern route of Xuanfu in the Ming Dynasty and the front line of the war against the Tatars.

Qi Yue began his career in 1487 and worked his way up to the rank of senior military officer after 43 years of hard work.

However, his health probably failed him, and just one year later, he was transferred to Geyubao in Xuanfu Middle Road.

A year later, his nephew Qi Xun took over his position.

For a family to become a military family, the succession of real positions is very important. It was from this point on that the Qi family truly became a military family.

Currently, members of the Qi family still hold the position of deputy commander-in-chief in Datong and Yansui. One of the family's nephews has been transferred to Liaodong to learn the training and combat skills of the new recruits. Governor Li was entrusted by someone to ensure that the person was sent back safely.

Therefore, Qi Jiguang ordered Qi Guangzu to escort the prisoners back to Yizhou at this time.

In the past year or so, Qi Guangzu has learned the training and tactics of the new recruits. As for the most important practical experience for becoming a general, Qi Jiguang did not plan to take him with him.

After all, war is risky. If something goes wrong, he won't be able to explain it to Governor Li or the Qi family.

The Ming army began to set up camp, and the cavalry commander who had led the encirclement of the Mongol tribes also returned. The commander was none other than Liu Ting.

In Qi Jiguang's new army camp, Liu Ting chose the cavalry battalion, which was also the type of troop that most young generals preferred to lead.

"Well done. Go back and get some rest. Tomorrow morning, your unit will be the vanguard, heading north ahead of the main force to find the Tuman tribe's camp."

Qi Jiguang praised Liu Ting's performance and then issued new orders.

"I will obey my orders."

Liu Ting was very pleased, as he had led his troops into battle today and won a great victory.

And so, he landed another job as a vanguard officer, which made the proud man very excited. He felt that he was valued by Commander Qi, which was why he was being cultivated in this way.

After sending everyone away and setting up the camp, Qi Jiguang immediately entered the camp and began writing today's battle report, which was to be sent back to Guangning that night to be reported to the imperial court.

Speaking of which, given the current state of the Liu family, if Liu Ting does well, it could be the beginning of another military family.

Liu Ting's father, Liu Xian, participated in the military campaigns against Japanese pirates during the Jiajing reign. He accumulated merits as a general and was promoted to the positions of Vice Commander-in-Chief, Commander-in-Chief of the Left Army, and Grand Tutor of the Crown Prince.

With the foundation laid by his father and the favor he receives in the capital, Liu Ting is already a deputy general. After this victory, he is likely to be promoted to deputy commander-in-chief, and then the next step is commander-in-chief. Isn't he just a rising star among military families?

Moreover, although the Liu family were nominally Sichuan generals, Liu Xian was actually from Nanchang, Jiangxi, and had impersonated a Sichuan student to participate in the military examination.

This was already an open secret in the Ming Dynasty's officialdom.

However, military generals value military achievements, and minor flaws do not detract from their overall merit.

After finishing his work, Qi Jiguang took out the map sent by the Embroidered Uniform Guard to examine it, which marked the area where the Tuman tribe had long lived.

The Tuman tribe, also known as the Khorchin, was one of the three major tribes of the left wing of the Mongols, located at the forefront of the intersection of the Mongol, Ming, and Jurchen forces.

This geographical location has long placed it at the heart of geopolitical conflicts, resulting in frequent warfare.

The Mongols were skilled herders, and their tribes not only had a large number of cattle and sheep, but also a large number of warhorses.

Over the years, the Khorchin have reaped considerable profits through the trade of warhorses with the Jurchens.

Qi Jiguang's objective this time was naturally to suppress the expansion of the Khorchin tribe. (End of Chapter)