Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 706 Southwest Strategy
In February of the 14th year of Chongzhen, Li Jing went to Shanghai to offer sacrifices to Xu Guangqi. After commemorating the achievements of Xu Guangqi's life, Li Jing praised Xu Guangqi's sons a lot, saying that they did their best during Xu Guangqi's lifetime, and sorted out some of Xu Guangqi's manuscripts after his death. What Xu Guangqi has learned in his life will not be lost, he can be called a true filial son.

Then Li Jing handed over the edict he had obtained from Zhu Youjian's office to Xu Ji, and announced in public that Xu Ji's eldest son was the son of Rong Guogong, and asked Xu Ji to choose a brother to serve as an official in the court, and then asked Xu Ji to follow Xu Ji's appointment. The family selects a young student and sends him to the Imperial College to study late.

Li Jing's move made the accompanying officials unclear for a while, so it is really impossible to imagine why Li Jing would praise Xu Guangqi's descendants in this way when he sacrificed to Xu Guangqi.You know, even Yuan Keli's descendant Li Jing didn't give him such a big favor.

Just when everyone was secretly guessing Li Jing's intentions, Daming Minsheng Daily suddenly published an article: "On Filial Piety".

The content of the article is almost exactly the same as Li Jing's comment on Xu Guangqi's son's filial piety. The general meaning is to advocate people to be filial in life, and to mourn after death, as long as they feel it.

As soon as this article was published, it immediately aroused thousands of waves, and those literati who advocated the need to guard after death wrote articles criticizing the article.

The person who wrote this article did not republish a rebuttal until half a month later.This article lists a large number of facts to prove that Ding You has delayed many promising officials in the past three years, and also lists a large number of facts to prove that most people did not really guard the system during Ding You's three years, and many of the people listed are Those who write bashing articles.

After being exposed suddenly, those literati suddenly lost their temper and dared not write articles to criticize.

Seeing that the voice of opposition gradually weakened, Li Jing seized the opportunity to issue a decree, announcing that the time for reforming the system would be 49 days, and that officials would be allowed to take leave to go home to worship on the [-]th day, anniversary and other memorial days.

Obviously, Li Jing's approach was more humane and immediately won the support of many officials.

However, Li Jing then promulgated the retirement system, that is, officials must retire when they are over 70 years old. If they are in poor health at the age of 60, they can also return home. No further promotion will be given.

The reason why the age limit is 70 years old is because many 60-year-old officials are still sharp in mind and strong in body, and such officials can still continue to work.

The retirement system has broken the original lifelong tenure of officials. Hai Rui's 70-year-old can still come out to be an official, and Yan Song's 80-year-old still serves as the chief assistant of the cabinet will never happen again.

The promulgation of the retirement system is undoubtedly a boon for young officials. Originally, these people opposed changing Ding You's time, because they were afraid that those old officials would occupy their positions. They would lose many opportunities for promotion. Now that there is a retirement system, it means that they You don't need to wait for an opportunity like Ding You's to get promoted.At this time, the low-level officials who originally opposed the change of the time of keeping the system not only no longer opposed it, but strongly supported the new system.

This restructuring turmoil has been raging for nearly half a year, and it was finally implemented smoothly.

Of course, implementation is implementation, not to say that all people support it, and quite a few people oppose it.It's just that as more and more people support the new system, the voices of these people have been suppressed.

But at this time, Li Jing no longer had the energy to waste his words with these people.At this time, Li Jing's eyes were already set in the southwest direction.

When Li Jing entered Beijing in the ninth year of Chongzhen, he began to lay out the Southwest strategy. After more than five years, Zhang Chu basically found out the topography of Myanmar, Laos and Annan, and built three roads to provide supplies for the army. , and built a number of supply points along the way.

After years of training, the tens of thousands of soldiers transferred to Yunnan have fully adapted to the climate in the southwest. With Qin Liangyu's careful training, these people have also adapted to mountain warfare.It can be said that the Southwest Army already has the conditions to recover Burma and Laos and Annan's invasion of Ming territory.

In fact, in the past two years, Zhang Chu and Qin Liangyu have called for battle many times, but in the past two years, Ming Dynasty still suffered from natural disasters. Although the treasury is richer than before, it is still constrained by the food problem.

In fact, if Li Jing hadn't attached great importance to water conservancy in recent years, built water conservancy facilities in various places, and vigorously promoted various high-yielding and drought-resistant and flood-resistant crops, the natural disasters in recent years may not have been so easy to overcome.

Of course, after occupying the Hetao area and opening up the two major granaries in the Liaohe Plain, the imperial court still stockpiled some military supplies, but these military supplies could not support several armies to fight at the same time.

Now Lu Xiangsheng's tribe has completely occupied the Duogan area, and Hong Chengchou's tribe has also completely controlled the territory originally occupied by the Tumed tribe.

At this time, Li Jing had to make a choice, whether to fully support Lu Xiangsheng's capture of the Wusi Tibetan area, or fully support Hong Chengchou's march to the northwest, or support Cao Wenzhao to pacify Mobei, or support Zhang Chu to pacify Burma.

When Li Jing was in a dilemma, Gao Qi's words played a decisive role. Gao Qi suggested using troops against Burma.

The reason is that the ministries of Cao Wenzhao, Lu Xiangsheng, and Hong Chengchou have been in a state of combat in the past few years. Although the ministries are invincible, there is no doubt that the soldiers are very tired and should rest for a while.

However, the southwest court has invested so much in these years, but has not launched military operations. Seeing that other brother troops are expanding their territories, only the Southwest Army has not made any achievements, which will inevitably hurt the morale of the soldiers.

Li Jing naturally had to carefully consider Gao Qi's suggestion. After weighing it over and over again, Li Jing finally decided that Lu Xiangsheng and Hong Chengchou should suspend their military operations, stabilize the occupied territory, and go all out for production.As for Cao Wenzhao's department, it was reorganized, integrating the troops originally subordinate to Zu Dashou and Wu Sangui and Cao Wenzhao's troops, and then reorganized and dispatched, so that the infantry combat capabilities of Zu Dashou and Wu Sangui were greatly improved.

After finishing the ideological work of the three, Li Jing asked Gao Qi to remove General Fuyuan and become General Zhengnan. The passers-by drove directly to Annan, and Gao Qi led the central passers-by to Laos, while supporting the left and right walks.

In October of the 14th year of Chongzhen, Gao Qi arrived in Yunnan, and then issued a military order. The Ming Dynasty began to wage war against Myanmar, Laos, Annan and other countries.

It should be said that after understanding the local terrain and providing logistical supplies, the battle between the Ming army and these three countries can only be described as devastating.

No matter how many tricks these barbarians use, they will only suffer a crushing defeat in the face of Ming's artillery fire.Even the elephant soldiers who made the Ming army suffer a lot back then were vulnerable. Under the bombardment of the Ming army's artillery, those elephants fled in all directions. There are many people under the cannon.

In fact, it was not the armies of these countries, or even the treacherous local terrain, that troubled the advancing speed of the Ming army, but the local climate.

Myanmar, Laos, and Annam belong to the tropical monsoon climate, with an annual average temperature of around 27°C, and these countries are mostly forests, which can be described as unbearably hot and humid.It is extremely difficult for the army to march under such conditions.It can be said that the time spent by the Ming army marching was more than ten times the time spent fighting.

Fortunately, for this battle, Da Ming prepared for five years, and basically prepared all kinds of needs. Therefore, although this trip was difficult, it was ultimately safe and secure.

At this time, it was the Toungoo Dynasty that ruled Burma. After a series of defeats, the Toungoo Dynasty immediately sent envoys to sue for peace. Unfortunately, Li Jing did not intend to negotiate peace with the Toungoo Dynasty at all.

Are you kidding me? When Daming was weak, you took the opportunity to occupy my territory. Now that Daming is strong, you want to seek peace. What is Daming?
Li Jing has only one goal, to destroy the Toungoo Dynasty, completely bring Burma into the territory of Ming Dynasty, and kill all those who are not subject to Ming Dynasty.

This is the policy towards Myanmar, and Li Jing also has the same policy towards Laos and Annan.

But just as Gao Qi's troops were gradually advancing southward, discordant voices appeared in the court again.

Some ministers believe that since these countries have surrendered and demanded peace talks, Ming should sit down and negotiate with them. Conquering these countries with Ming's benevolence through diplomatic means is not much better than conquering them by force?
Regarding the proposal of some ministers in the DPRK, Li Jing really couldn't laugh or cry.

Li Jing really didn't understand what these people were thinking. The current situation was obviously ended in a war, but these people had the rotten idea of ​​convincing others with virtue.

These people don't understand at all, if Myanmar is really a poor place, is it worth Li Jinghua's effort to occupy this country?
Myanmar is suitable for growing rice, wheat, corn, cotton, and sugar cane. Later generations have the reputation of rice country. In addition, Myanmar also produces teak, which is the country that produces the most teak in the world.

What is teak?Teak was the best shipbuilding material before steel was used in shipbuilding. If the Ming Dynasty wanted to develop its navy, it could not do without the teak produced in Burma.

In addition, Myanmar is also rich in jade, and the jade in Myanmar is jadeite jade, and its quality is much higher than that of jadeite elsewhere.Emerald alone can bring countless wealth to the country.

Occupying such a country has unimaginable benefits, but some people in Ming Dynasty can't see it at all.

For those pedantic people, now Li Jing is unwilling to explain to them. It is impossible to explain to these people. At the beginning, Li Jing opposed the use of troops in Taiwan, and they also opposed the use of troops in Luzon. They still oppose the benefits brought by Ming Dynasty.

The Confucianism of these people has long been ingrained, and it is impossible for them to change their inherent thoughts.

If it were someone else, they might have taken these people down long ago, but Li Jing didn't do that. Li Jing believed that being pedantic had its benefits, at least they had a firm stand, and they were much stronger than those scumbags.

Moreover, not all the ideas put forward by these people are wrong. Many of them are the way to long-term stability, or these people's ideas of governing the country are more stable.

(End of this chapter)