Spoiling History: Starting from the Three Kingdoms

"Even eating puffer fish can prolong life?"

In the Ganlu Hall, Li Shimin's sigh was mixed with layers of emotions, making people around him laugh.

After all, whether it was Empress Changsun and the Crown Prince, or the former Qin Wangfu's old ministers, who didn't know how much His Majesty loved fat sheep?

Now, although it is said that the sweet and sour fish in the palace has caused Sun Yaowang to be shocked, it is enough to prove that His Majesty is not as fond of fish as Cao Cao.

The meaning of the sigh is not difficult to guess.

The "Classic of Mountains and Seas" says that puffer fish is poisonous and eating it will kill you.

But from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Sui Dynasty, there was still an endless stream of people eating puffer fish, especially the romantic people in the Southern Dynasty regarded eating puffer fish as an elegant thing, and they were not afraid of death.

And looking at the example of the Ming Dynasty, eating puffer fish even made the long-lived Emperor Hongwu.

Compared with that, the life span of His Majesty, who loves lamb the most, is...

As if he knew what these old ministers were thinking, Li Shimin looked around with a warning in his eyes.

However, this attitude did not scare the ministers, and Du Ruhui even smiled and said:

"Your Majesty, why don't you send an order to summon the chefs in the southeast who are good at cooking fish? Maybe you can change your taste."

Li Shimin shook his head and felt that it was not realistic, but he immediately had an idea:

Otherwise, find someone in Chang'an who is good at cooking puffer fish and see how delicious this thing is?

[This version rollback in the Ming Dynasty is relatively complicated.

As a man who is determined to restore China, Zhu Yuanzhang will naturally support the imperial examination system. In the third year of Hongwu, he officially announced to the world that the imperial examination would be used to select talents.

But Zhu Yuanzhang, who was still a novice emperor, soon discovered that the talents selected by the imperial examination were completely different from his expectations.

"The officials selected many young people, and tried them out if their writing was promising. Few of them could put what they learned into practice."

In fact, this is not surprising. After all, it was a common problem that the scholars in the imperial examinations were overconfident and incompetent, which had been discovered in the Song Dynasty. The three times of promoting education in the Northern Song Dynasty over a hundred years did not have a good way to improve it. Even when it developed to the point that the imperial examinations were forcibly abolished during the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, it was useless.

In theory, this was not a big deal, but a failed northern expedition made Zhu Yuanzhang change his mind.

After announcing the matter to the world in the first month of the fifth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang officially launched the second northern expedition, which lasted for eleven months and ended with the defeat of Xu Da in the middle, the defeat of Li Wenzhong in the east, and the victory of Feng Sheng in the west.

Because of the taboo of ancient history for the respected, the description of this battle in the "Records of Ming Taizu" only had nine words: "failed in the battle with the enemy, and withdrew the troops to defend the frontier."

However, according to the records of this battle in "Guoqie" written by Tan Qian of the Ming Dynasty and "Yanzhou Historical Materials" compiled by Dong Fu, combined with the records in "The Golden History of Mongolia", the course of this battle can be initially restored.

The Central Army was undoubtedly the real main force, and facing the fierce momentum of the Ming army, Kuokuo Timur (Wang Baobao) had been deliberately luring the enemy deep into the depths.

The vanguard army led by Lan Yu was constantly defeated and retreated, and Lan Yu was eager to make merit and continued to pursue without stopping. From the battle report he sent back, he had just defeated the Yuan army in Yemachuan at the end of February, and in mid-March, he had received news of the vanguard army's victory in Tula River.

The two battlefields were 500 kilometers apart. Even if the time for the messenger to send the letter was subtracted, it can be concluded that Lan Yu pursued 500 kilometers in just 20 days.

Even without considering the fatigue caused by the rapid march, it was too early to reach the Tula River in mid-March. The river is now called the West Tula River, located near the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. The average temperature in March is about minus five to eight degrees.

This luring of the enemy continued to the north of the ridge, and the follow-up troops of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, led by He Zongzhe, had been waiting here for a long time.

Under the sleepless advancement of Lan Yu, the big fool, the Central Army of the Ming Dynasty stretched the supply line to an unprecedented length. Not only did it lose contact with the reinforcements from the east and west routes, but it also led Xu Da's Central Army into the ambush circle of the Northern Yuan Dynasty.

But even in the face of such an unfavorable situation, the Tiger Soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were still fearless and did not collapse. However, according to the "Golden History of Mongolia", because of Lan Yu's reckless advance, the Central Army arrived in the north of the ridge earlier than expected, and unfortunately, a blizzard destroyed the fragile supply line of the Ming Army, causing a collapse.

Later generations speculated that the Ming Dynasty suffered a large number of shortages of war horses and a considerable number of elite losses due to this defeat, which greatly damaged the national strength and forced it to rest and recuperate. Even in the face of the successive deaths of Wang Baobao and the ruler of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty held back and did not attack until fifteen years later when it launched another northern expedition.

The figures in the "Records of Ming Taizu" can also support this speculation. According to records, there were 28,754 military officers in the guards inside and outside the capital in the early years of Hongwu. Five years later, the number dropped sharply to 12,980. Until the 25th year of Hongwu, the total number of military officers in the guards inside and outside the capital was 16,489. The military officers of the Ming Dynasty have always been mainly supplemented by hereditary succession, which is enough to glimpse the great losses in Lingbei.

In addition, the "Records of Ming Taizu" and "Records of Taizu" contain letters written by Zhu Yuanzhang to Jin Wang Zhu Yu, which summarize the gains and losses of this battle, and can also see Zhu Yuanzhang's change of mentality.

"I have been a military commander all my life, commanding generals, and never lost a battle" is a glorious past, "I tired out my troops in Helin, trusted them without any strategy, and caused tens of thousands of casualties" is a helpless reality.

Therefore, the failure of the second Northern Expedition to Lingbei was a great blow to Zhu Yuanzhang, so it is no wonder that when Zhu saw Wang Guangyang drinking heavily in the Secretariat, he was so angry that he directly threw him to Guangdong.

The defeat in this battle also made Zhu Yuanzhang lose the space to slowly deal with the drawbacks of the imperial examination.

After all, this was the early Ming Dynasty, and when the news of Xu Da's defeat was reported back to Hebei, it was probably "some were happy and some were sad".

Whether it was to supplement the officials who worked hard or to quickly extract the unstable factors in Hebei and incorporate them into the rule of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang needed a way to gather talents faster and more directly than the imperial examination.

So it was natural that Zhu Yuanzhang issued an order at the beginning of the sixth year of Hongwu:

The imperial examinations in various places should be suspended and cancelled, and officials should be ordered to select talents... Knowing where to go, scholars will return to the basics. 】

Zhao Dezhao saw the undisguised envy on his father's face, so he asked directly:

"Dad, do you also want my Song Dynasty's imperial army to whip the horses outside the Great Wall like this?"

This was not the first time he had seen the light curtain, and with the tutoring his father gave him in his spare time, Zhao Dezhao could understand about 70% of the map, so he felt his heart fluttering when he saw the three armies of the Ming Dynasty marching deep into the northern desert.

For him, since he got married, all he had seen and known was that the Song Dynasty's imperial army was invincible and its territory was constantly expanding. It seemed that his father's dream of restoring the world was not empty talk.

So when he saw the marching map of the Ming Dynasty and imagined the brave warriors flying their flags on the grassland like the Han and Tang Dynasties, Zhao Dezhao felt particularly unbearable.

My father's Song Dynasty's imperial army was also strong and brave. They could go to Han, Tang, and Ming, so why couldn't my Song Dynasty go in?

Zhao Kuangyin's expression on his face was particularly intriguing when Zhao Dezhao asked him. He glanced at his brother slowly as usual, and then patted his son's shoulder.

He seemed to see the elite soldiers sleeping in the river, and the brave general with scars on his body bent by the ridicule and criticism. He also seemed to see a Confucian general holding a gold medal and looking north, his eyes full of unwillingness.

"It's not what I thought, but it must be the future of the Song Dynasty."

Zhao Kuangyin's voice was not loud, but it seemed to have an inexplicable persuasiveness, which made Zhao Dezhao's face jump a little, and also made Zhao Guangyi's head droop a little.

As a close minister of Zhao Kuangyin who founded the Song Dynasty, Zhao Pu was a little disappointed when he saw the grand scene of the three armies of the Ming Dynasty marching out together:

"The unfinished achievements of the Song Dynasty have made it very difficult for the Ming Dynasty."

"In order to stabilize Hebei, we were forced to resort to this bad policy."

Zhao Kuangyin shook his head and said:

"If what the younger generation said is true, then the people of Hebei are loyal to the Song Dynasty, the Han people of Hebei are loyal to the Song Dynasty, and the old Chinese land of Hebei is also handed over to the Hu people. It also depends on the Song Dynasty."

"So it is more than an unfinished achievement? As the younger generation said, the Ming Dynasty is cleaning up the mess of the Song Dynasty."

The words of the king of the Song Dynasty were somewhat frivolous, so the expressions of the people in the Guangzheng Hall were different. For example, Zhao Pu and Cao Bin looked a little unhappy, and they all patted their chests and promised that they would not abandon their old land.

Qian Chu and Li Yu, one of them wanted to donate money to support the army and restore the unification, and the other wanted to learn from the descendant Xin Qiji to write a heroic poem to reward the army.

The most impatient one was Zhao Dezhao:

"Father, the cause of conquering the Northern Han has been decided. Please send me to join the army to resist the enemy when you attack the Khitan later!"

"Since I died because I asked for rewards for the warriors when I attacked the Khitan, I should go to Hebei now! And father is in good health, I will definitely do my best to exchange for rewards!"

Ignoring the look of his brother on the other side, Zhao Kuangyin laughed out loud and finally answered with only one word "good".

Unlike the enthusiastic look in Guangzheng Hall, Zhu Yuanzhang's face in Huagai Hall was more sad.

Even Li Wenzhong, who was originally smiling, sighed:

"Lingbei... it would be great if we won, then the warriors..."

Recalling the mourning period after the defeat, Li Wenzhong was speechless, and could only say bitterly:

"Lan Yu, the big fool, returned with his whole army!"

Xu Da pursed his lips and said nothing, but the regret in his eyes was about to overflow. After hearing Li Wenzhong's complaints, he stood up and said:

"The vanguard failed to do his duty, and I am also guilty. I only hope that this guilty body can be used to destroy the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty."

"When we return victoriously to pay tribute to our comrades, we will tell the heroic souls about my guilt in Lingbei!"