The author | our author Zhang Lan
"Asahisha" (formerly "We Love History") is the headline number signed group media
Word count: 2693, Reading time: 7 minutes
History asks questions
What would have happened if Nurhaci had invaded daming during the reign of the Yongle Emperor?
Answer: A major turning point in the historical process of the "Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty" is the "rise of Nurhaci". Since the establishment of the "Thirteen Pieces of Armor" in the Wanli Years, Nurhaci and his Eight Banners Army, as the future "Taizu of the Qing Dynasty", have surged all the way, first hanging the Ming Dynasty's 100,000 troops in the Battle of Salhu, and then sweeping through strategic places such as Shenyang, Liaoyang, and Guangning, not only pocketing Liaodong, one of the "nine sides" of the Ming Dynasty, but also sounding the death knell of the Ming Dynasty's demise. Such a scene also made some Ming history lovers indignant: What is your ability to bully "Lazy Wanli" in Nurhaci? Have the ability to compete with the Yongle Emperor?
However, if in the future, if there is really a high-tech of "overhead history" and nurhaci and his Eight Banners army are "carried" to the Ming Dynasty Yongle period, it is still an expansion of power centered on Hetuala, then can this group of powerful legions that seem to descend from the sky face the Ming Dynasty Yongle era of the "distant Han and Tang Dynasties" and the "Immediate Emperor" Yongle Emperor Zhu Di, as in the late Ming Dynasty, play the amazing performance of "full of invincibles"?
First of all, it is worth analyzing the comparison of the combat effectiveness of the two sides.
Placed on the side of Nurhaci's Eight Banner Army, many "military enthusiasts" in later generations often called it "archery and archery on a bow horse", and it seems that they only relied on bravery and good fighting, holding cold weapons in their hands to defeat the "advancedly equipped" Ming army. The fact is that the strength of the Eight Banner Army comes first of all from advanced tactics and equipment. Nurhaci's old rival, the late Ming dynasty military warrior Xiong Tingbi, described it as follows: "Slave thieves have tactics, dead soldiers are in front, and sharp soldiers are in the back." The dead soldiers put on heavy armor and rode forward on two horses, although the former died and then the front was restored, they did not dare to retreat, and when they retreated, the sharp soldiers killed them from behind, waiting for their impulses to attack us, and then the sharp soldiers began to take advantage of their victory. ”
Such a powerful impact, placed in the field like a huge wave, is a cruel test for the "tiger division" of any era.
It is also worth mentioning the firearms equipment of the Eight Banner Army during the Nurhaci period. Although Noshiri often relished the "bow and horse riding and shooting" of the Eight Banner Army, Nurhaci tried to introduce firearms and equipment with the help of the developed steppe Silk Road before "creating a rebellion against the Ming Dynasty". The early Eight Banner Army had a special "black battalion" equipped with various field guns. Historical materials such as the "Manchurian Record" tell us that whenever the Eight Banner Army launched a charge against the Ming Army under the cover of a huge shield vehicle, the Bird Wrench of the Eight Banner Army used the shield car as a cover to launch a bombardment on the Ming Army's defense line. Equipment such as the "Bird Hammer" alone was more advanced than the firearms of the Ming Army in the Yongle Period.
Even compared with the late Ming army, which was known as "equipped with advanced firearms," the "black battalion" of the Eight Banner Army in the Nurhaci period not only had complete firearms, but also had advanced field equipment such as bird guns and Flange machines, but also had extremely high tactical literacy. For example, in the battle of Nurhaci to conquer Liaoyang, the firearms troops of the Eight Banners Army launched a confrontation with the firearms troops of the Liaoyang Ming Army, helping the Eight Banners Army to conquer the small west gate of Liaoyang City.
In this sense, the Eight Banners Army, which has both fierce cold weapons and advanced firearms, and has strong tactical execution, is incomparably powerful in any era before the Industrial Revolution. But is it really powerful enough to be "invincible"? In fact, there is no need to compare with the Ming army in the Yongle era, even if it is compared with the elite Ming army of Nurhaci's contemporaries, this "full of invincible" is obviously exaggerated.
For example, in the Battle of Salhu, known as the "first battle of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty", although the Nurhaci army that "broke through each one" was destroyed when attacking the Ming army such as the Malin Department, it was like destroying the Ming army, but when it encountered the well-equipped and well-trained Ming army Pan Zongyanbu, it bumped into a hard stubble. Nurhaci concentrated several times the strength of Pan Zongyan's troops to fight hard, and the battle was fought from morning to noon, and although Pan Zongyan's army was completely destroyed, it also caused the Eight Banner Army to pay thousands of casualties, almost disrupting Nurhaci's plan of "quick battle and quick decision".
In the "Battle of Hunhe", which can be called the "first bloody battle of Liaozuo troops", the Ming Dynasty Sichuan and Zhejiang Legion, which numbered less than 10,000, still faced tens of thousands of elite soldiers of the Eight Banners, and still fought to the death. At one point, the Eight Banners Army was "killed by two or three thousand people", the entire battle was "killed by thousands of people" by the Ming Army, and many famous Eight Banners generals such as Yaba Hai and Buha died in the melee. If every Ming army fighting against Nurhaci could play such a performance, the "invincible" Nurhaci army would have been destroyed long ago.
But the problem is that when Nurhaci rebelled, the late Ming Dynasty was a time of extreme decay, and due to the years of Wen Tianwu, except for a few elites, most of the Ming army troops had already been corrupt. In the 100,000 Ming army in the Battle of Salhu, many soldiers were extremely inferior in armor, and many firearms soldiers actually touched firearms for the first time. Soon after, when Xiong Tingbi took office as the governor of Liaodong, many Ming troops in Liaodong deliberately starved their horses to avoid fighting in order to avoid fighting. Moreover, due to the corruption of the military and government in Liaodong Province, Nurhaci relied on bribery and other means to attack the Ming Dynasty's fortified city again and again.
Therefore, a major direct reason for the prestige of the Eight Banner Army as "invincible" is that the army of the late Ming Dynasty was too wasteful.
So in the Yongle era, did the Ming Army have such a waste? Although the firearms equipment of the Ming army at that time was far inferior to that of the late Ming Dynasty. However, at this time, the Ming Dynasty was in full swing when the Weisuo system was in full swing, relying on a powerful military tun, and the Ming Dynasty not only had a standing army of 2.8 million at that time, but also had a strong mobilization ability. In the Yongle Emperor's "Conquest of the Desert North" and "Lower Annan" and other major battles, the Ming Dynasty was able to efficiently mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops. The combat quality of the troops was also extremely high, and in the campaign of "conquest of the desert north", the Ming army repeatedly overcame unfavorable factors such as fatigue and hunger under the condition of long-distance marching, and severely damaged opponents such as The Valar Tatars.
Moreover, the reign of the Yongle Emperor was the era of the formation of liaodong town in the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty at that time not only had already formed developed land and water transportation along the coast of Liaodong, established a powerful navy, but also successively set up twenty-five guards, and the entire defense line was already very complete. Moreover, in the Ming Dynasty at this time, political affairs were much clearer than those of the late Ming Dynasty. Nurhaci's repeated attempts in the late Ming Dynasty to "bribe the traitors" and other routines are difficult to work in the Ming Dynasty at this time.
Therefore, even if the Ming army in the Yongle era would suffer some losses in the field battle with the Eight Banner Army, it would rely on a complete defense line and a strong mobilization ability. The well-trained Ming army was soon able to establish an advantage on the battlefield and form a solid defensive line. The scene of the Eight Banner Army rapidly "sweeping through Liaodong" in the late next year is basically difficult to appear.
What determines success or failure is also factors such as money and food logistics. The Yongle era was precisely a period of abundant grain and grass in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, the Ming Dynasty had an annual tax and grain income of more than 32 million stones, and the military tun was more developed than ever. So much so that "Tun Tian Rice often overflows one of the three" "Rice millet has been exported from millions of stones outside the Beijing Division... Uchi is rich", far from the appearance of the late Ming army being corrupt and lacking in money and food. Once this battle is really fought in the "alternate historical period", Ming Chengzu's "pocket" is no problem.
On the contrary, Nurhaci's side, not to mention in the overhead time and space, that is, in the real late next year, houjin at that time was also extremely short of grain production capacity, and daily grain was mainly exchanged for "horse market trade". After the Battle of Salhu, although the Eight Banners Army won a great victory, it also fell into the predicament of lack of grain for a time, and even "salt sauce is extremely expensive". The Eight Banners Army, which was short of grain, mainly relied on plundering Ming cities and ponds and smuggling trade in exchange for grain in the Nurhaci era. But if the opponent is replaced by the Liaodong Ming Army of the Yongle Era, as mentioned earlier, this method is difficult to work.
Therefore, combined with a variety of factors, Nurhaci's battle in "overhead history" has almost no chance of winning, and even defeat is only a matter of time. Moreover, this speculation is also verified in the history of the late Ming Dynasty: After the Battle of Salhu, xiong Tingbi, a famous minister, once shouldered the heavy burden of liaodong's defense, and through various means such as "economic blockade," "military training," "joint defense," and "execution of traitors," he quickly reversed the situation in a short period of time, repelled a new round of attacks by Nurhaci, and let the war situation develop in a good direction. If he had not been "thrown out of class" by the impact of the late Ming party struggle, the war between the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin Eight Banners would probably have been another direction.
In this sense, the historical process of the so-called "Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty" is by no means a question of "whether the Ming Dynasty can fight or not"; in the root, it is still a question of "whether the Ming Dynasty can do politics or not". The success or failure of history has become a thing of the past, but the lesson of "politics does not work" will never go out of style.
References: "Manchurian Records", "Ming Records", "Late Ming on the Fold", "Research on Ming Dynasty Chariots", "Ming Dynasty Ancestral Traditions"
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