Ming Dynasty: Domination of the World from the Imperial Examination

Chapter 138 A dying Bei Yuan is a good Bei Yuan! (The third update)
It was quiet all around.

Xia Zhibai's words were beyond everyone's expectations.

He did not speak for just one side, but proposed a two-way standard.

The imperial court must do what the imperial court should do, and these "soldiers" who come from military households must also do what soldiers should do.

But for now.

Neither the imperial court nor the military households did it.

Zhang Yu, who had been beaten with a military stick, was supported by others and walked around.

Listening to Xia Zhibai's words, Zhang Yu had a deeper understanding of Xia Zhibai. He now finally understood that Xia Zhibai was not taking the opportunity to make things difficult for him on the street just now, but he really thought so and really believed that their military discipline was corrupt.

Xia Zhibai had very high demands on Ming Dynasty’s military discipline.

Higher requirements are placed on generals.

Zhang Yu finally understood why the Yuan court suffered repeated defeats.

Even a crushing defeat.

It is because there are people like Xia Zhibai in the Ming Dynasty court.

Xia Zhibai said in a deep voice: "The Ming Dynasty was founded eighteen years ago. During these eighteen years, the Ming Dynasty launched three northern expeditions, with some victories and some defeats. Overall, the Ming Dynasty's situation was relatively positive, but as the world became more peaceful, the Ming Dynasty's military combat effectiveness was constantly weakening."

"Of course there are reasons for this."

"But more problems still lie with the imperial court. Some officials and generals in the imperial court have been out of touch with reality for too long."

“We have been separated from the people for too long.”

"In their eyes, the casualties in war are just a string of numbers."

“As long as the goal is achieved, it’s worth it.”

"But soldiers are human beings, not animals. You are all people with flesh and blood and emotions. All people are afraid of death. You are afraid, and so am I, Xia Zhibai."

"But some officials in the imperial court are not afraid, because they are not the ones fighting in the front, and the war has nothing to do with them. They sit hundreds of miles away from the battlefield, pointing fingers at the war, counting how much military supplies are spent, and how much money the imperial court has allocated to the military."

"They all thought that the Ming soldiers were made of steel."

“Not afraid of pain, not afraid of injury, not afraid of death.”

"But you are not."

“It’s just that no one will care.”

"Even the generals of the Ming Dynasty don't care."

"And this is my biggest puzzlement. The generals in the army are with you day and night, and they should know your actual situation best. But the fact is that they know very little about your actual situation. They only have their eyes on the so-called "achievements on the battlefield" and their own "grand ambitions."

"This proves that there are problems with the Ming Dynasty's military system."

"Many people, once they have made military achievements and have been promoted, immediately forget what they were like before and start to abuse their power. How can such an army be called elite? It is just picking the tallest among the short ones, selecting a relatively good one when the whole world is rotten."

"But this is not what the Ming army should look like."

"The Ming Dynasty is now rotten here and there. It won't be long before the whole Ming Dynasty is rotten."

"Did they still expect the Ming soldiers to fight with a pile of scrap metal? Did they still expect to win with that pile of junk?"

"I can tell you one thing for sure."

"The Northern Expedition will not stop!"

"And the intervals between the Northern Expeditions will become shorter and shorter."

"Because not only I have noticed this phenomenon, but also His Majesty. The more His Majesty realizes this situation, the more anxious he becomes. He only wants to achieve success in one battle and completely wipe out the Northern Yuan Dynasty while the Ming army still has enough combat power."

"Let the world have lasting peace."

"I am a man of letters. I have read many more books than you."

"I can tell you very clearly that this peace will not last long."

"Historically, the Han Dynasty launched several northern expeditions, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties launched many expeditions. The results were indeed very good, but it would not take many years for the nomadic tribes in the north to recover. Even if the Han and Tang Dynasties were as powerful as they were and completely defeated the nomadic tribes in the north, they would still come back in a short time."

"Because the Central Plains is so rich."

"There is so much gold and silver, so many jewels, so many treasures here."

"Everyone will be jealous and covetous."

"Dignity is only above the edge of the sword, and truth is only within the range of the cannon."

"If you fall behind, you will be beaten."

"When you are not strong enough, you are doomed to be bullied by others. You understand this principle better than anyone else. This is true in the civilian world and in the world as well."

"If you don't want to be bullied, you have to be strong enough."

"So strong that others dare not have any evil thoughts."

"To a certain extent."

“I don’t want war in the world.”

"But if there really is a war, my thoughts are pure."

"It is to end the problem once and for all, to completely subdue the north and completely cut off the ambitions of the nomads, so that the nomads who could have made a comeback dare not think of going south again. They can only sing and dance in front of the people of the Ming Dynasty, and dare not think of using swords and weapons again."

"even."

"The Ming Dynasty should recover the old Yuan territory."

"Completely annex the entire North."

“To achieve unity of the world.”

Hearing Xia Zhibai's words, not only the soldiers below, but even Zhu Di, Zhang Yu and others, all had their eyelids twitched. This ambition and idea was even wilder than they had imagined. How dare they think about it? They only dared to think about defeating the Northern Yuan Dynasty, or even destroying the Northern Yuan regime, and then fighting for decades or even hundreds of years of stability in the north.

But Xia Zhibai is not.

He wanted to do it once and for all.

Since the North has always been a hidden danger to the Central Plains since ancient times, let's be straightforward and ruthless and annex the entire North.

In that way, there is no distinction between each other and there will be no other situation.

But this idea is too fantastic.

It's totally unrealistic.

The grassland is huge.

It’s so big that even a large army could easily get lost if they entered.

Moreover, how could the nomadic peoples of the grasslands be willing to be ruled by the Ming Dynasty?

They only had to flee further north or west, and the imperial court would be out of reach.

Moreover, the north is different from the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun. There, people are more engaged in grazing rather than farming. That means that these are a group of people who live in a place without a fixed place to stay, following the water and grass. How can the imperial court manage such a tribe?

The price is too high, the cost is too high.

Xia Zhibai's face was calm.

He knew how crazy and unrealistic his words were in modern times.

But he also knew that it could all be done.

Xia Zhibai looked indifferently at the agitated soldiers below and said calmly: "Do you think it's impossible?" Someone among the soldiers spoke up.

"impossible."

"The North is too big to occupy."

"There are only a few cities, and one land a day, how can we manage this?"

"impossible."

"."

Xia Zhibai smiled and nodded, saying, "I think it is possible, and it can do a lot. In fact, in my opinion, the court's current offensive against the Northern Yuan Dynasty is wrong to a certain extent. A dead Northern Yuan Dynasty is not a good thing for the Ming Dynasty. A half-dead Northern Yuan Dynasty is what the Ming Dynasty wants."

“Of course it’s just a difference in strategic perspective.”

"In the eyes of many officials in the court, only the dead Northern Yuan Dynasty is a good Northern Yuan Dynasty."

"Because without the Northern Yuan regime, the nomads in the north would be a mess and would not pose much of a threat to the Ming Dynasty. Even if they could pose a threat, it would be far less than the threat posed by the Northern Yuan. Therefore, the imperial court has been committed to this in the Northern Expedition over the years."

“I have a different take on that.”

"I don't want the Northern Yuan Dynasty to be destroyed, but it's not that I'm loyal to the Northern Yuan Dynasty."

"But in my opinion, the dying Northern Yuan Dynasty is in the best interests of the Ming Dynasty."

"There are many people in the court who are well-read in history and are well aware of the treatment of nomadic peoples by successive dynasties in history. They all agree that it is best for the Ming Dynasty to completely defeat the Northern Yuan Dynasty, or even to break it apart. However, many people only focus on the benefits of defeating it, but ignore the other side."

"It is the existence of the Northern Yuan Khanate that suppresses other forces within the Northern Yuan."

"There are many tribes in the Northern Yuan Dynasty. It is only by relying on this 'Khan' that it has been able to control the vast area north of the Great Wall, east to the Jurchens, west to Hami, and the Yuldus River basin west of Hami, and north to the Yenisei River. The existence of the Northern Yuan Dynasty actually caused great internal friction for the grassland, because the monarch of the Northern Yuan Dynasty did not want other tribes to become too powerful, and would definitely suppress them secretly."

"As long as the Northern Yuan regime exists, this kind of suppression will continue."

"If there is no Northern Yuan regime."

"Many nomadic tribes will completely lose their restraints and their strength will be greatly improved. In the past, they had to fight against other Northern Yuan tribes on their own. But after the Northern Yuan regime was destroyed, the resistance they faced was greatly reduced. In this case, many brave and warlike nomadic tribes will gradually become stronger, further threatening the stability of the Ming Dynasty's borders."

"That's one of them."

"Second."

"The Northern Yuan regime fled back from the Central Plains."

"They have long been accustomed to the luxurious life in the Central Plains."

"Many of them are not used to living near water and grass again."

"After nearly a hundred years, many nomadic tribes have become more and more 'agricultural', especially the Jurchens and Manchus in the northeast, or the areas close to the Great Wall. The Northern Yuan Dynasty is still collecting agricultural taxes as it did in the Central Plains. As long as the Northern Yuan regime exists, many nomadic peoples, no matter how unwilling or dissatisfied they are, will still be forced to do 'half fishing and half farming'."

"If the Northern Yuan regime is gone."

"Farming will be completely abandoned, and nomadic tribes will completely turn to fishing and hunting."

"This completely nomadic tribe is a real problem for the Ming Dynasty."

"The threat from the Northern Yuan Dynasty is something that the Ming Dynasty can foresee, but the threat after the Northern Yuan Dynasty disappears is something that the Ming Dynasty cannot foresee. So, comparatively speaking, it is more beneficial for the Ming Dynasty to let the Northern Yuan Dynasty exist, but be half-dead."

"even"

"When the Northern Yuan monarch is unable to suppress his subordinates, the imperial court should help him suppress them."

"The longer the Northern Yuan exists, the longer it can suppress other forces below it, and the more time the Ming Dynasty will have to grow stronger."

"Of course, all this is only temporary."

"As the Ming army continues to improve and the Northern Yuan is constantly being won over, we will eventually completely annex the Northern Yuan and bring the entire north into the Ming territory. At that time, we will clean up all the tribes that are hostile to the Ming."

"Decades of peace is not what the Ming Dynasty should pursue."

"The complete stability of the northern border is what the Ming Dynasty and even the soldiers in the army should pursue."

"One battle will determine the northern border!"

Listening to Xia Zhibai's bold words, Zhu Di was completely stunned.

My mind is completely blank.

He had no idea how Xia Zhibai could think of all this, because at first listen, he thought it was nonsense, but when he listened again, it seemed to make sense, but he couldn't tell where the reason was, he just felt that it was indeed the case.

Decades of peace and complete peace.

"Keep" the Northern Yuan Dynasty, let the Northern Yuan regime suppress internal nomadism, and let the Northern Yuan maintain traces of "farming". This will be beneficial to the Ming Dynasty's future annexation and rule of the north. If the Northern Yuan Dynasty is really destroyed, internal nomadism will be completely unrestricted, and "farming" will be completely abandoned.

Savagery and civilization.

No matter how weak the Northern Yuan Dynasty was, it still had the shadow of the Central Plains.

But other nomads don't have that.

Compared to facing a group of barbaric nomadic tribes, it is obvious that the now well-behaved Northern Yuan Dynasty is more suitable for the Ming Dynasty to deal with.

Think of this.

Zhu Di's mind was suddenly confused.

Yao Guangxiao, Zhang Yu and others also felt their scalps tingling.

The look he gave Xia Zhibai was filled with fear and solemnity.

They have gradually figured it out.

Xia Zhibai just wanted to "raise" Bei Yuan, just like raising his own "chickens", relying on the "chickens" to clean up the bugs in the backyard by themselves, and when the "chickens" were almost grown, he would slaughter Bei Yuan and use it to feed himself.

Yao Guangxiao and Zhang Yu looked at each other, their eyes showing a bit of depth.

Zhang Yu had worked in the Yuan court and knew the internal situation of the court. It was true that various forces were constantly fighting against each other and tripping each other up. Precisely because of this, the Northern Yuan Dynasty clearly occupied a vast land and had a large population, but could never get together.

If the Ming Dynasty really does what Xia Zhibai said, there will be great potential.

The Northern Yuan Dynasty was very corrupt internally.

If the Ming Dynasty had not clamored for a northern expedition from time to time, the Northern Yuan Dynasty would have almost fought among itself.

Once there is no external threat, the power struggle within the Northern Yuan Dynasty will undoubtedly develop in a more brutal direction, but the result is also unpredictable. If one side can really unite the entire Northern Yuan Dynasty, it will be very unfavorable to the Ming Dynasty. But if the two sides can always be deadlocked, that is what the Ming Dynasty would like to see.

Blacksmith need its own hardware.

Xia Zhibai's plans will ultimately depend on one thing to be realized.

Even the Ming Dynasty will continue to grow stronger.

And it was much stronger than the Northern Yuan Dynasty.

otherwise
This is letting the tiger return to the mountains.

However, Zhang Yu had to admit that if this strategy could really succeed, it would be of great benefit to the entire world, the northern border would also achieve long-term stability, and the buffer zone in the northern border would also expand hundreds of miles outside the Great Wall.

Yao Guangxiao stroked his beard, and his mind was also difficult to calm down.

He calculated secretly in his mind, just counting it over and over again.

He really didn't want to admit it, but he had to admit that this crazy idea was indeed possible.

"madman."

"Complete lunatic."

Yao Guangxiao couldn't help but curse a few words in his heart.

(End of this chapter)