The Prosperous Era of Longwan

In fact, Ma Fang is a "returner". He passively went outside the Great Wall and then found an opportunity to escape back to the Ming Dynasty.

But that's not the case with the White Lotus cultists that Ma Fang talks about.

In the 30th year of Jiajing's reign, more than a thousand people from the White Lotus Sect led by Lu Laozu, Xiao Qin, Qiao Yuan and others prepared to revolt. They decided to join forces with Anda Khan at midnight on May 13th to seize the left guard city behind Datong.

Later, it failed due to leaks. As a last resort, most members of the White Lotus Sect left the Ninglu Fort and defected to Anda Khan.

Because these people were relatively familiar with the situation in the Datong area, they played the role of advisers, guides, and spies in the subsequent battles between Amada Khan and Datong Town, which led to the repeated defeats of the Ming army. The White Lotus disciples Qiu Fu, Qiao Yuan, and Lu Ming Zhen, Zhao Quan and others were therefore reused by Anda.

Wei Guangde already knew these things when he read the Di newspaper. When he heard Ma Fang mention "walking back people", he naturally thought of the White Lotus cultists who had only been out of the country for a few years.

If other people of the Ming Dynasty had the opportunity to return to the Ming Dynasty, they would probably look for a job to live and work in peace and contentment, and would never work as internal agents for the Tatars again.

However, accepting these people is the national policy of the Ming Dynasty. It has been since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Although the admission policy will be adjusted in various periods, the overall policy is still based on acceptance, and naturally it cannot be interrupted just because of this.

"The insufficient grain, grass and weapons stored in the border town military fort were also an important reason why the military fort was destroyed."

But then Ma Fang mentioned military funding. In fact, the military funding allocated by the imperial court to border towns every year was sufficient, provided there was no corruption.

However, the current Ming Dynasty is different from that at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Military weapons, food and wages have been deducted from the beginning, which directly leads to the fact that only 10% of the military equipment and soldiers at the bottom are left, and more than 70% of them are "drifted away" by the officials above. ".

There is no doubt that not having enough to eat and not having qualified weapons had a huge impact on the combat effectiveness of the Ming army.

After hearing this, Wei Guangde knew that this could not be changed. At least at this stage, the officialdom was like this. Who dared to block the opportunities for officials to make a fortune?

"If the Xuanfu doesn't concentrate the entire town's elite combat power, it won't be able to fight the Anda tribe in a decisive battle?"

Wei Guangde suddenly thought that since the internal problems cannot be solved, then he should seek to directly solve the external troubles and directly defeat the Mongolian Anta tribe. Will the border crisis be solved soon?

"We can win, but we can't annihilate them. We will reorganize our troops and fight back again."

Ma Fang could understand Wei Guangde's thoughts. In fact, he had considered encircling and annihilating the main force of Andaji more than once, even if it was just the main force of Huang Taiji or Qingtaiji.

However, after careful analysis, Ma Fang knew that the possibility of a successful encirclement and annihilation was too low.

Mongolia has a small population, but there are a lot of horses. As long as the Mongols are mounted, it will be difficult for the Ming army to engage the Mongols.

If we go in formation, how many troops are needed to encircle them?

Ma Fang could not imagine that at this stage, the imperial court could devote a lot of resources to such a war. The key was to invest resources, but the result was unknown.

Tell Wei Guangde, maybe he will be interested, but at this stage, Wei Guangde does not have the strength to have such a significant influence in the court.

Last time Wanquan's left and right guards had military pay issues, Ma Fang asked Wei Guangde for help, and everyone was happy with the result.

The delivery of military pay made Wanquan's left and right guards look at Ma Fang in a different light. These days, the only people who can carry knives in Bian Town are people with backgrounds in the imperial court. To get promoted and make a fortune, you need someone above him.

What does it mean for a person to attain the Tao of chicken and dog ascending to heaven? That is, as long as he is valued by Ma Fang, and Ma Fang is promoted in the future, his subordinates will naturally have the opportunity to take over.

For a time, Ma Fang's reputation in the area reached its peak. Everyone admired the new deputy commander-in-chief and were willing to serve him.

Taking this opportunity, Ma Fang explained her original thoughts to Wei Guangde in detail. Although he knew that Wei Guangde was definitely powerless, this consciousness entered Wei Guangde's mind first, and it might take more than ten years for Wei Guangde to truly enter the court. When he was at the top of the church, Ma Fang still had a chance to realize this idea.

There was no news about Shen Xiang at the moment, but Wei Guangde was willing to hear Ma Fang's views on the situation in the border town, or on the war plan.

"If we want to concentrate our forces to surround and annihilate Qingtaiji or Huangtaiji's men, how many people will be needed?"

Wei Guangde didn't expect to fight Anda Khan. He had 30,000 to 40,000 troops. If other reserve troops were mobilized, it would probably be more than 70,000 to 80,000. It was simply unrealistic to eliminate such a tribe.

However, Wei Guangde remembered that Ma Fang said that Huang Taiji and Qingtai Ji both had ten thousand households, and their main combat strength was only ten thousand people. This made it much easier to fight, at least the scale would not be very large.

Moreover, they can take advantage of the opportunity to attack Xuanfu or Datong to take action, surround and annihilate them.

Hearing what Wei Guangde said, Ma Fang knew that Wei Guangde was a little tempted, but he would not lie about anything, but told the truth: "At least 30,000 elite soldiers."

"Thirty thousand? Three times the force to encircle and annihilate?"

Wei Guangde pondered slightly when he heard the numbers reported by Ma Fang.

"More than that, 30,000 troops are at least five or six times more powerful than the Tatars. We have every chance of annihilating them."

When Ma Fang heard Wei Guangde's words, he immediately explained: "Sir, the Tatars will not attack the border town in full force. They usually only use about half of their troops, which is actually only five or six thousand people.

If they all come out, the war will be huge. Other Tatar tribes will often launch attacks at different locations. In that case, we will not be able to concentrate our elites to launch encirclement and annihilation tactics. "

After listening to Ma Fang's explanation, Wei Guangde naturally understood what it meant.

It was only because he didn't react immediately that he made the judgment he did before. In fact, if you sit down and think about it carefully, you will understand the reason.

"Has there been any new news from the north recently? Are there no tribes close to Anda Khan's power on the grassland?"

At this time, Mongolia seems to be the dominant tribe in Anda. Wei Guangde naturally hopes that new and powerful tribes will appear on the vast grasslands. They will inevitably fight against each other to gain living space, which is internal friction.

"No, the three left-wing tribes that are slightly stronger in the northern grassland are now. However, after they chose to move eastward to avoid being annexed by the Anda Khan tribe, there will no longer be any tribe that can compete with the Anda Khan tribe."

Ma Fang shook his head and said.

"Where did the three leftist groups move eastward, and who is their great khan now?"

Wei Guangde couldn't help but think of the previous discussion in the Hanlin Academy. In fact, before he entered the Hanlin Academy, most of the Hanlin officials thought that Mongolia was one. It was not until he came back from the Xuanfu war the year before last that the Hanlin officials knew The battles between the Mongolian tribes were also fierce.

Of course, Wei Guangde heard these things from Ma Fang.

However, the Hanlin Academy collected a lot of documents and materials, so everyone went to the library to search and found a lot of information about various Mongolian tribes. However, things have changed with the passage of time.

Reading those books can only study the history of the Mongolian tribes, but it is meaningless for the present. Therefore, when Wei Guangde met Ma Fang this time, he naturally planned to learn more.

"I heard that some of the Chahar and Khalkha tribes of the left wing chose to move eastward. It is said that it was in the Liaohe Hetao area. The current recognized great khan of the left wing is Dalaxun Kuden Khan. He certainly cannot compete with Altan in terms of ability. Than, otherwise I wouldn’t have chosen to escape, just because I was afraid of being annexed by Altan.”

Ma Fang frowned and thought for a while before saying, he has been back to the Ming Dynasty for many years, and the news about Mongolia is only obtained through the mouths of returnees and prisoners, and the information is very scattered.

He needed to piece together these scattered pieces of information, so he naturally needed to use his brain.

Until now, the Ming Dynasty has not actually formed a complete military intelligence system. The use of spies in border towns to spy on military intelligence is more often the dispatch of scouts than spies.

Of course, some generals may have an idea of ​​​​this during the battle and send people to work in this area, but it is obvious that a complete system has not been formed.

The Jinyiwei may have undertaken such a task, but they only serve the top level of the empire, which means that only Emperor Jiajing may know this information about foreign vassals.

Of course Wei Guangde didn't know where the Liaohe River Loop was, but he estimated it was near Liaodong.

"What tribes are the three left wing tribes called?"

Wei Guangde suddenly felt something in his heart and asked.

"The most powerful of the three left-wing tribes are Chahar, Khalkha and Ulyanha, and the right-wing tribes of Ordos, Mongoljin, and Yongshebu were all enfeoffed by Dayan Khan at that time. Tan is the leader of the Ordos tribe and the co-leader of the three right wing tribes."

After hearing Ma Fang's answer, Wei Guangde nodded. He was somewhat impressed by Wu Liangha and Chahar. As for Ordos, Wei Guangde didn't know that tribe, but he knew that place. There was coal under his feet.

However, among these six tribes, there was no Horqin that Wei Guangde was familiar with. He was a little confused. Could it be that Horqin was one of the six tribes that later changed its name.

It's just that for Ming officials in this era, it was too troublesome to distinguish the various Mongolian tribes. They usually only identified the tribal leaders.

For example, the Anda Khan's tribe was uniformly called the Anda tribe in the Ming Dynasty.

Although Wei Guangde felt that something was wrong with the confused understanding of Mongolia by the prime ministers of the Ming Dynasty, he could not change anything because he could not tell what the various Mongolian ministries were and what their relationship was.

He just subconsciously realized that if he did not understand the history and relationships between the various Mongolian tribes, he might not get twice the result with half the effort in trying to divide and win over the various Mongolian tribes, but would get twice the result with half the effort.

What Wei Guangde didn't know was that the eastward migration of Left-wing Mongolia in Ma Fang's mouth was historically known as the "Southern Migration of Left-wing Mongolia". The impact of this migration was actually very great, and it directly affected the Ming Dynasty in the following decades. towards.

In fact, before the left-wing Mongols moved eastward, although the Mongols occasionally appeared in the southeastern part of the Greater Khingan Mountains, their size and stay were not very long.

With the migration of the left-wing Mongolia, it was inevitable that they began to interact with the Jurchen tribe in the north. At the same time, their arrival also increased the military pressure on the Ming army in Liaodong, and they were ultimately defeated by the combined attack of the Jurchen and Mongolian forces.

While Wei Guangde and Ma Fang were chatting about the relationship between the Mongolian tribes in the north, the scout horse sent by the southeast to check the direction of Huailai had already started running back, and it seemed that he had discovered the target.

If people are still behind them, they have more room to maneuver.

Sure enough, two guards rushed to Wei Guangde, reined in his mount, and reported to Wei Guangde: "About half a day's journey ahead, a Zhejiang official team and a prison car were discovered."

"Why did it take so long to report back?"

Wei Guangde was surprised and said that they had not been sent out just now, but had been sent out to search for them before. They had been searching for two days, but they were half a day's journey behind them.

"Sir, it's not our fault. The officials like it because the sun is bad during the day, so they don't rush much. They only go on the road in the morning and evening when it's a little cooler, so we missed it, but we heard it mentioned by the shopkeeper while eating. We just found out."

One of them answered hurriedly.

"The Zhejiang officials also seemed to know that they were afraid that they would be doomed if they sent the prisoners to the place where they were sent, and they seemed to be deliberately delaying the time."

The person who spoke before spoke again.

Wei Guangde was not interested in these, but after thinking about it, he knew that no matter what happened to the Shen family in Zhejiang, they would still have some relatives and friends. Seeing the Shen family in trouble, even though he obviously couldn't help, he would still take care of it privately. At least Shen Xiang wouldn't be too ugly along the way.

"Sir, are you planning to save this person?"

When the two people were called to rest by Wei Guangde, Ma Fang asked doubtfully.

Wei Guangde stayed here just to wait for someone. After hearing the words of the two guards, Ma Fang naturally understood who they were waiting for. Who else could be in the prison van from Zhejiang, it could only be Shen Lian's son.

However, he had strong objections to Wei Guangde's attempt to rob the prison van. The prison van was easily robbed, but the outcome was not good. This was a serious crime.

However, Wei Guangde shook his head, "What's the difference between robbing the prison car and rebelling? As an official of the imperial court, how can we do such a thing."

After listening to Wei Guangde's words, Ma Fang's heart, which was still beating violently, calmed down.

"I came to Xuan Mansion to serve an order and understand the current situation here. As for Shen Xiang, we can only depend on his fate."

Wei Guangde explained to Ma Fang: "Of the letters you gave me, I have sent the important ones to the capital. I think the court will make a decision soon.

However, no matter what, now that I know what happened to the Shen family, I don't want to stand by and watch. I can't directly block it. It's okay to find a way to delay it. As long as we drag it to the capital to get new orders, we will be considered successful and retreat.

Besides, my errands haven't been discharged yet. Now that the matter here is over, I have to go back and follow Mr. Tang to inspect Jizhen. "

"When Mr. Yang Bo was here, the border fort could still get supplies in time, but now Mr. Yang Shun Yang, how can he eat like this?"

Ma Fang couldn't help but shake his head when he said this, "My Wanquan left and right guards should have been paid their military salaries long ago, but they have been suppressed. I heard that the military salaries have been turned into silver rewards, and we have not won the battle. Where did the silver rewards come from? It's just that they were greedy for ink.

I have no choice. When I was a guerrilla, I could think of something to do if my men had few meals to eat. Now I have two guard stations with tens of thousands of people needing to eat. I have no choice but to ask you to come here. "

"If you have any trouble, just come to me."

Wei Guangde replied lightly, "Do you have any smart people under your command?"