In the fourth year of Longqing (1570), under the planning of the cabinet ministers Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng and others, the Ming Dynasty and the Mongols reached an agreement on the kingship, tribute, and mutual market of Uttar Khan. Under the timely operation of Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong, the central cabinet officers of the Ming Dynasty and the central cabinet ministers of the Ming Dynasty, together with the local Governor of Xuanda, Wang Chonggu, and the Inspector of Datong, they successfully seized the opportunity to demote Han Naji and his grandfather, the Tatar chieftain Li Da, due to family disputes, and reached a tribute and mutual market. The Ming Dynasty made him the King of Shunyi and opened eleven border trade ports so that the Mongols could obtain Chinese resources through trade.
The Longqing Peace Conference ended nearly two hundred years of hostility between the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia. The Ming Dynasty also weakened the internal organization of the Tatars by eliminating Zhao Quan and other traitors, and from then until the fall of the Ming Dynasty, there were few large-scale wars between the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia.
In the fifth year of the Wanli Calendar (1577), Uttar Khan began to stir up trouble again, wanting to invade Daming in the south. At this time, the Ming Dynasty used a 61-year-old veteran general named Ma Fang, and the Mazi Battle Flag was erected at the border, and the Shunyi King Li Da Khan immediately went to the table to plead guilty, saying: "Matthew Shi Guiye."
What kind of ability did this general named Ma Fang have that could make the Uttar Khan, who commanded hundreds of thousands of Mongolian iron horses, feel frightened? The reason is very simple, Ma Fang and Li Da Khan have actually known each other for a long time, and they have been enemies for many years, ma Fang relies on his Ma family army to fight Li Da Khan.
Ma Fang (1517–1581), courtesy name Dexin, was a native of Weizhou (蔚州, in modern Zhangjiakou, Shanxi). A famous general in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.
Ma Fang came from a farming family and was abducted by the Tartars at the age of eight. He later fled back to Datong and served under The Commander-in-Chief of Datong, Zhou Shangwen. Ma Fangli Jiajing, Longqing, and Wanli three dynasties, in the war against the Tatars, repeatedly made meritorious achievements, gradually promoted, successively served as the commander of Xuanfu, the commander of the capital, the governor of Zuo. In the seventh year of the Wanli Calendar (1579), he returned to his hometown due to illness. In the ninth year of the Wanli Calendar (1581), Ma Fang died at the age of sixty-four.
Among the famous generals who guarded the border in the Ming Dynasty, Ma Fang was a legendary figure, and at that time there was a saying that "brave but Ma Fang", and the poet Yin Geng had a poem of "The prestige of the General Wanlima, the white-haired Dan heart of the world". The "History of Ming" said that it was "a hundred and ten in size, and its body was wounded by dozens of times, so as to hit the crowd with less, it was not a big success." Dozens of people were captured, and the slashing was not calculated, and the prestige shocked the frontier, and it was a crown for a time."
During the Jiajing period, the defenders of the Ming Dynasty border can be said to be very afraid of the Mongol military might, and when they heard that the Mongols were coming, they did not dare to go to war, so they encouraged the arrogance of the Khan of Uttar Khan. At this time, Ma Fang decided to fight back.
In the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (1555), The old trick of Aletan was repeated, bypassing the Xuanda Defensive Line, leading the cavalry to once again blitz to the Huairou area on the outskirts of the Ming Dynasty capital, and for a time the Beijing Division was a large policeman, and tens of thousands of reinforcements were afraid of the Altan army, and they all waited and did not dare to fight. In a critical situation, Ma Fang, who was still a general, attacked in anger and led his two thousand elite horsemen to fight a bloody battle with the Aletan army at Bao'an (hebei chasing deer), and it was Ma Fang's army that "jumped bravely and dared to fight", killing the Aletan army and retreating more than ten miles. Aletan, who had been hit hard, did not know the reality of the Ming army and immediately ordered the whole army to retreat north. In this battle, Ma Fang suffered five knife wounds and his mount was also shot, which can be described as a fight for his life, and Emperor Mingshizong Zhu Houxi sighed after hearing this: "Brave but Ma Fang." And the Mongol army was also well aware of Ma Fangwei's name, and honored him as "Matthew Master". Ma Fangzhi was brave and fierce, and since then he became famous in the first battle and was promoted to deputy commander-in-chief of Jizhen.
After Ma Fang took charge of the army, he completely changed the face of the border defenders. When he was serving as a guerrilla in Xuanfu, he re-established the "Law of Sitting in a Company in Military Battles," stipulating that the enemy was not afraid of the former in battle, the rear team should behead the front, the generals would fear the enemy, and the soldiers would behead the generals, and in each battle they would still take the lead in rushing to kill the enemy position, which would lead his subordinates to die and serve them.
But this alone could not change the problem of the border army, so Ma Fang put forward three more suggestions and a strategy of defeating the enemy!
First, in 1552, Ma Fang proposed, "Send the Xuanfu guest soldiers, with the townspeople to defend the countryside, you can get the tiger division", because the guest soldiers lack the heart to fight to the death, and behind the local soldiers are the fathers and fellow villagers.
Second, Ma Fang believes that "the superiority and inferiority of soldiers depends on the effectiveness of selection and training"; in the military, strict regulations on the management and training of rewards and punishments have been formulated, and more often "pro-armed demonstration and killing" in training; in short, the soldiers have been trained fiercely, and Qi Jiguang has also attached great importance to military training.
Third, in view of the phenomenon of withholding military salaries, military food, mistreatment of soldiers and soldiers, and unauthorized transfer of soldiers by powerful magnates to become slaves in the Ming army, Ma Fang vigorously rectified it, and once discovered, he would never spare it lightly, and even "drew his sword and angered" at the shanxi magnates. After rectification, for a time "military discipline was greatly encouraged" and won the support of soldiers.
These three were mainly the whole army, but how to defeat the Mongol Iron Horse? Ma Fang gave eight characters, namely, "riding by riding, and using fast to make fast," and the so-called riding by riding was to give play to the ming army's superiority in firearms technology and use musketeers to cooperate with cavalry and knife soldiers to fight; the so-called fast control was not only the use of small detachments to raid the Mongolian pastures in autumn and winter to destroy their war potential, but also the purpose of long-distance raids, cutting off the back roads of the Mongol army, and gathering and annihilating the living forces of the Mongol army, just as Huo Fuyi did in those years.
In the forty years of Jiajing (1561), Ma Fang moved to Xuanfu and once again confronted Aletan. Ma Fang went out of the blockade, rushed to attack, broke the enemy, pursued and killed, and fought to the death, seven battles and seven victories, and won one victory after another. From Xuanfu to Datong, from Datong to Huai'an, Ma Fangjun's attack distance was as long as a thousand miles in this battle. The good news came frequently, and Daming was shocked up and down, and the government and the public were ecstatic. Sejong fu jia ma fang as the governor of Zuo Du and was promoted to the position of chief military officer of Xuanfu.
In order to reverse the situation, in the forty-fifth year of Jiajing (1566), Uttar Khan gathered 100,000 cavalry and launched a large-scale attack on the Ming Dynasty's border town of Wanquan Right Guard (present-day Wanquan Town, Hebei), and Ma Fang also ushered in the most dangerous battle of his life, the Battle of Marienburg.
Once this ruined Marienburg falls, Uttar Khan will have no worries and will be able to wreak havoc on Gyeonggi. Ma Fang led the reinforcements of Ten Thousand Horsemen, and just halfway there was a siege of More than 100,000 Mongolian Iron Horses in Malian Fort, and Ma Fang fell into the Jedi.
In the attack and defense of the city, Ma Fang was in danger many times, and even the wall of Malian Fort collapsed and the door opening was opened, but this Ma Fang was calm and self-assured, which made the Mongolian Iron Horse uncertain. At the crack of dawn, Ma Fang suddenly attacked, and a spectacle appeared on the battlefield, that is, more than 10,000 Ming Dynasty cavalry, chasing more than 100,000 Tatar cavalry, slashing and killing all the way, but the latter had no resistance! This miraculous victory is the Marienburg Victory!
However, this rare victory in the world of desperate counterattacks was brushed over in the "History of Ming". Of course, although the history of the Ming Dynasty is not discussed, it is widely praised in the folk, such as the Peking Opera "Ma Fang Trapped City", which is about the great victory of Malianbao.
Four years after Longqing, four months after Ma Fang's long-distance surprise attack, Sun Tzu fled to the Ming Dynasty, and Li Da Khan could not hold on, so he accepted the Ming Dynasty's peace agreement, which is the famous "Longqing Peace Agreement" in history, and since then Ming and Mongolia have generally had more than 60 years of peace. And the key to the arrival of this peace is Ma Fang, who has struck out with one knife after another. After the appearance of the so-called guns, the Mongols became singing and dancing; after Ma Fang's repeated victories, the effect was the same.
In September of the sixth year of the Wanli Dynasty (1578), Aletan asked the imperial court for a reward and threatened to meet with the soldiers, and the imperial court immediately ordered Ma Fang to hang up his seal and serve as the chief military officer of Xuanfu. After Ma Fang arrived at his post, he rectified the soldiers and horses, and led the cavalry to hold several "safaris" on the outskirts of Xuanfu, and the Mongol departments were shocked after hearing the news: "Ma Taishi returned to the army." Aletan hurried to the imperial court to "apologize for his sins and repent of his past." "The original war disaster that was about to erupt was dissolved.