The first undercover agent of the Ming Dynasty helped Zhu Di seize the throne, but he almost starved to death
The vassal king rebelled against the country, and Zhu Di was the first case in ancient and modern times. There are many reasons for Zhu Di's success, but there are only two cores: first, Zhu Di is indeed brave; The second is that the imperial court at that time, whether it was a civil servant or a military general, was too mediocre.
These two are cause and effect of each other and complement each other, and this kind of performance is almost all concentrated in one person, that is, Li Jinglong, who is known as the "first undercover agent of the Ming Dynasty".
Li Jinglong has attracted attention since he was a child. His father, Li Wenzhong, was not only the founder of the Ming Dynasty, but also the nephew and righteous son of Zhu Yuanzhang.
Li Wenzhong's both civil and military skills deeply influenced Li Jinglong. After Li Wenzhong's death, Li Jinglong inherited the title of Duke of Cao Guo, but he was not just a rich and noble son. He has studied military books since he was a child, and he is deeply loved by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty.
As the son of Jiangmen, Li Jinglong has participated in many "monster upgrades", he has gone to Huguang, Shaanxi and other places to train troops, and participated in the Ming army's Northern Expedition to the Northern Yuan, showing his talent and courage.
After Zhu Yuanzhang's death, Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen's trust in Li Jinglong reached its peak, and he appointed Li Jinglong to carry out the first step in the plan to reduce the feudal domain. Emperor Jianwen believed that the most difficult thing to deal with was Zhu Di, the king of Yan, and Zhu Hu, the king of Zhou, was the brother of the king of Yan, and taking the king of Zhou first was equivalent to cutting off the hands and feet of the king of Yan.
Therefore, Emperor Jianwen sent Li Jinglong to Kaifeng on the pretext of preparing for the border, and then escorted the entire family of the king of Zhou back to Nanjing on the charge of plotting rebellion, deposed as a concubine, and exiled to Yunnan.
After Emperor Jianwen successfully won the five vassal kings of Zhou, Qi, Xiang, Dai and Min, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, finally could not bear the panic and anger in his heart, and he launched the "Jingnan" campaign in July of the first year of Jianwen (1399) under the banner of cleaning up the rebels of the royal family.
In the Ming Dynasty, the world laid down by Zhu Yuanzhang is like a cloud. However, after the baptism of the years, those once world-famous generals are now only the two remaining Changxing Marquis Geng Bingwen and Wuding Marquis Guo Ying.
In order to rebel, Emperor Jianwen appointed Geng Bingwen as the general of the conquest and mobilized 300,000 troops to the north. However, the young Emperor Jianwen didn't realize that although Geng Bingwen was a veteran with outstanding achievements, what he was best at was defense.
He once held on to Changxing for ten years, making it impossible for Zhang Shicheng's army to advance. However, when it comes to field combat capabilities, Geng Bingwen is still far behind Zhu Di. As a result, Geng Bingwen's vanguard was wiped out in the first encounter with the Yan army.
Subsequently, Geng Bingwen led the army to retreat into Zhending City, while Zhu Di clearly knew that defense was Geng Bingwen's forte, so he took the initiative to withdraw after only three days of siege. Although Geng Bingwen resisted Zhu Di's offensive with defense, for Emperor Jianwen, his goal was to eliminate Zhu Di, and simple defense was not enough.
Therefore, Emperor Jianwen adopted Huang Zicheng's suggestion and recalled Geng Bingwen and replaced Li Jinglong with Li Jinglong as the general.
In 1399, Li Jinglong led 500,000 troops of the Northern Expedition to the expedition, and Zhu Yunwen personally practiced for him by the riverside, performing the gift of "holding the hub and pushing the wheel", and gave him the power to "act cheaply".
However, when the news spread in Beiping, Zhu Di smiled from ear to ear, and he pointed out Li Jinglong's five major weaknesses: untidy military discipline and disagreement from top to bottom; Winter is approaching in the north, and the soldiers are not adapted to the cold climate, and the military resources are insufficient; Anxious to win, rash to march into the army; Greed is not cured, and intelligence, prestige, righteousness, and courage are not enough to convince the people; The department is a rabble, and trusts traitors who like to flatter.
Therefore, Zhu Di asserted that Li Jinglong would undoubtedly be defeated.
Zhu Di's shrewdness and vision not only lie in knowing people, but also in governing the army. In the face of Li Jinglong's Northern Expedition strategy, he calmly analyzed and was unmoved. He only left 10,000 soldiers and horses for his son Zhu Gaochi, and he led elite soldiers and horses to rescue Yongping and seek Zhu Quan's help.
Zhu Gaochi, with the assistance of Princess Xu and Yao Guangxiao, successfully defended the city of Beiping, so that Li Jinglong's hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses attacked the city for a month but failed to break it. However, Li Jinglong's greed for merit and the delay of the fighter plane caused him to lose his last chance.
As the temperature in the north dropped, Li Jinglong's southern soldiers greatly reduced their combat effectiveness, while the defenders of Beiping City took the opportunity to water, turning the entire Beiping City into an impregnable ice city.
In the end, Li Jinglong's Northern Expedition plan failed.
Zhu Di borrowed elite soldiers from Zhu Quan, the king of Ning, and successfully galloped to Beiping. Li Jinglong's attack on Beiping was hopeless, so he wanted to compete with Zhu Di, set up a formation, and was ready to go.
However, Zhu Di did not seem to be in a hurry to fight, and the journey that originally took only five days was originally taken, but he walked for more than 20 days, making the Ming army wait for more than half a month in the bitter cold. What was originally planned to be a leisurely and tiresome experience turned into physical and mental exhaustion.
In the end, the two sides started a fierce battle at Zhengcunba, the battle lasted from noon to dusk, the Yan army broke seven battalions in a row, and beheaded tens of thousands, but after all, the Yan army was small, and the victory or defeat was unpredictable. Zhu Di gritted his teeth and decided to fight again tomorrow, but the next day, when he regrouped and prepared to fight again, he was surprised to find that the Ming army camp opposite was empty, and it turned out that Li Jinglong had fled last night.
In order to escape, he chose to retreat lightly, leaving behind a lot of baggage and supplies. What's even more unbelievable is that Li Jinglong did not notify the soldiers of the Ming army besieging Beiping to evacuate together, resulting in the Ming army being completely unaware of it.
How could Zhu Di let go of this opportunity, and immediately led a large army to encircle and suppress, so that the Ming army suffered from the enemy, and finally fled in defeat.
On the battlefield, Li Jinglong led an army of 500,000, but was beaten by Zhu Di and fled, and only had an army of 600,000 to fight Zhu Di. Although the Ming army had the advantage in numbers and had famous generals such as Ping An and Guo Ying, Zhu Di skillfully used the sound of artillery and mines to successfully destroy Ping'an's ambush, and at the same time stepped on the mines laid by Guo Ying when retreating, resulting in a serious situation.
Although Zhu Di personally made the palace, the Ming army still could not resist the attack of the Yan army and was finally defeated.
The next day, the two armies fought fiercely again, and Ping'an and Qu Neng led the army to successfully attack Zhu Di's rear army, which put the Yan army in a crisis. Zhu Di personally led the army to attack Li Jinglong's Chinese army, hoping to save the war.
However, the tragedy of the war was beyond their imagination, Zhu Di changed three war horses in a row, shot three arrows, and the sword in his hand was also cut off, but he still couldn't turn the tide of the battle.
In desperation, Zhu Di rode his horse to the river embankment, raised his horsewhip, and pretended to be calling for reinforcements. Seeing this, Li Jinglong really had doubts, worried that Zhu Di would have an ambush under the river embankment, so he ordered to slow down the offensive and gave Zhu Di a chance to breathe.
However, this opportunity was fleeting. Just when the Ming army was hesitating, Zhu Di's second son Zhu Gaoxu led the cavalry to support. However, the Ming general Qu Neng was extremely brave, he led the iron cavalry to fight bravely, shouting: "King Yan is already at the end of the strong crossbow, don't take advantage of this time to capture it, let alone when!" ”
This sentence greatly boosted the morale of the Ming army, and they fought bravely to kill the enemy, and successfully killed several Yan generals and more than 100 cavalry under the river embankment. Zhu Di was so shocked that he couldn't stop it, so he had to ride his horse around the embankment and escape.
Unexpectedly, at this moment, the sky suddenly changed, a gust of wind blew, and Li Jinglong's handsome flag was broken. When the soldiers of the Ming army saw that the handsome banner had fallen, they were immediately in turmoil.
Zhu Di took the opportunity to go around to the rear of the Ming army with Zhu Gaoxu, set fire to the Ming army, and then with the help of the fire, successfully repelled the Ming army, causing it to collapse and flee in all directions.
In the first battle of Baigou River, although Zhu Di was defeated first and then won, he successfully killed tens of thousands of Ming troops and captured more than 100,000 Ming troops. This battle was a complete victory for Zhu Di's army, and it also enabled him to achieve an important military victory.
Zhu Di took advantage of Li Jinglong's defeat and fled back to Dezhou, and personally led his army to Dezhou in May. Li Jinglong was frightened, abandoned the city and fled to Jinan, leaving behind the rich baggage and supplies of Texas.
The Yan army took the opportunity to capture Texas and obtained these supplies. On May 16, Zhu Di led the army to besiege Jinan, although Li Jinglong had more than 100,000 soldiers and horses, but his morale was low, he had no fighting spirit, and was defeated by Zhu Di again.
In this Northern Expedition, Li Jinglong lost 600,000 troops, and the imperial court could no longer conduct large-scale conquests, so Zhu Di began to go on the defensive. Huang Zicheng and other ministers suggested killing Li Jinglong, but Zhu Yunwen did not accept it.
In the fourth year of Jianwen, Zhu Di followed Yao Guangxiao's advice, avoided the Central Plains battlefield, and went all the way south to Nanjing. He successively captured Yangzhou, Gaoyou, Tongzhou, Taizhou, and in early June, the army had arrived in Longtan, only a few dozen miles from Nanjing.
Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen asked the minister Fang Xiaoru for advice in a panic. Fang Xiaoru suggested that more than 100,000 soldiers and horses in the capital should be used to stand by for help, and at the same time send ministers to go out to recruit troops and serve the king.
In order to stabilize the situation, it is possible to put forward the division of the river as a condition for negotiations. Although Fang Xiaoru's suggestion is not clever, it is still feasible. Nanjing City was built by Shen Wansan, a wealthy businessman, during the period of "building high walls, accumulating grain, and slowly becoming kings", and the city walls were strong.
Although Zhu Di's army has strong field capabilities, its siege ability is limited, and it has repeatedly attacked Jinan City, let alone Nanjing City. Zhu Yunwen finally adopted Fang Xiaoru's suggestion, and at the same time sent personnel to recruit troops and negotiate peace to delay time.
What is puzzling is that he once again appointed Li Jinglong to be in charge of negotiating peace. According to Fang Xiaoru's plan, the main purpose of the peace negotiations was to delay time. However, Li Jinglong did not have the upper hand in the contest with Zhu Di.
Zhu Di saw through the imperial court's plan at a glance, and said to Li Jinglong, who came to negotiate peace, that he only wanted to get rid of the traitors around the emperor, not to cut the land.
Li Jinglong originally expected Zhu Di to bargain over the land cession, but Zhu Di did"The righteousness is awe-inspiring"'s words dispelled his thoughts, although Li Jinglong understood that Zhu Di was lying, he couldn't refute it, so he could only return in vain.
In fact, this negotiation only delayed Li Jinglong's time. At this moment, Li Jinglong's heart had collapsed, and in the face of Zhu Di, he was overwhelmed in all directions, and he couldn't beat it, so he finally chose a shortcut.
On June 13 of the fourth year of Jianwen, Li Jinglong and Zhu Yuanzhang's nineteenth brother Zhu Lu, the king of Zhou, saw the banner of King Yan under the city, and immediately opened the Jinchuan Gate of Nanjing, and the Yan army was led by Zhu Di and swaggered into Nanjing, and finally ascended the throne and became the emperor, known as Ming Chengzu in history.
After Ming Chengzu ascended the throne, he named Yao Guangxiao"The first contributor to the martyrdom", but he knew in his heart that the real contribution was Li Jinglong. Therefore, he awarded Li Jinglong Fengtian Fuyun to push Cheng Xuanli Wuchen, Doctor Guanglu, and Zuo Zhuguo, crowned the crown prince and prince, and increased the year of Lu by 1,000 stones, ranking at the head of the ministers.
Although Li Jinglong was in power because of his undercover status, what he did was difficult to convince the public. The ministers of the king of Yan thought that their bloody battles were unexpectedly inferior to a mediocre talent who had been defeated repeatedly, while the ministers of the imperial court were disgusted by Li Jinglong's actions.
Although Zhu Hu, the king of Zhou, sued him, and Zheng Ci, the secretary of the Criminal Department, he harbored evil intentions, raised outlaws, and plotted against him, but Zhu Di ignored it. However, Zhu Neng, the Duke of Chengguo, Jianyi, and others once again ** Li Jinglong, saying that he and his younger brother Li Zengzhi conspired to rebel.
Zhu Di knew that Li Jinglong did not have the courage and ability to rebel, but he was extremely sensitive to the word rebellion, so he cut off Li Jinglong's meritorious title and did not allow him to go to the court to face the monarch, and only used the title of Duke of Cao Guo to stay at home.
However, not long after, Li Zhigang, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, said: "Li Jinglong accepted the kneeling of his family at home, as if he was a monarch and a minister, and it was a great rebellion. And his younger brother Li Zengzhi raised hundreds of slaves, with ill intentions. ”
Zhu Di was very angry about this, so he stripped Li Jinglong of his title, put him under house arrest with Li Zengzhi, his wife and dozens of sons, and confiscated his family property.
Although Li Jinglong went on a hunger strike to protest, he did not have the determination and courage to die after all, and did not die until the last years of Yongle.
Zhu Yunwen's defeat in the Battle of Jingyan was largely attributed to his lack of a way to employ people. He relied too much on the advice of Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng, which led to the hasty implementation of the decision to cut the feudal domain, and trusting Li Jinglong pushed himself into a desperate situation.
Therefore, from the perspective of knowing and employing people, there is a significant gap between Zhu Yunwen and Zhu Di. Even if he was kind at heart, it is difficult to say that he was a brilliant emperor.