prosperous age

"Six years after Emperor Wen's death, the Xiongnu invaded the border in large numbers.

He appointed Liu Li, the head of the clan, as general, to station his troops at Bashang; Xu Li, the Marquis of Zhuzi, as general, to station his troops at Jimen; and Yafu, the governor of Henei, as general, to station his troops at Xiliu, in order to guard against the Hu.

From entertaining the troops.

When they reached Bashang and Jimen, they rode straight in, and the generals and their cavalrymen escorted them.

In the Wenhua Hall in the capital of the Ming Dynasty, Wei Guangde and the young Emperor Wanli sat facing each other. The book was open in front of the little emperor, and Wei Guangde was lecturing on today's lesson based on the "Imperial Mirror Illustrated Book" compiled by Zhang Juzheng.

The part we are talking about now is the one where Emperor Wen of Han visited his troops at Xiuli Camp.

After all, Zhang Juzheng was a military officer, so he did not regard military affairs as something only done by crude warriors like other civil officials. Therefore, some ancient military allusions were included in the book to teach the young Emperor Wanli.

It should be admitted that the victory of Wanli's three major expeditions was inseparable from Zhang Juzheng's education of him, that is, once it is confirmed that war is inevitable, one must do everything possible to win, no matter how great the investment.

As long as we win, all problems can be solved.

"When they arrived at the camp, General Yafu held up his weapon and saluted, saying, 'Men in armor do not bow. Please greet me with military salute.'"

When the emperor moves, he changes the appearance of the chariot.

To make people express their gratitude: "The Emperor respects the general for his hard work."

The ceremony was completed and they left. "

Wei Guangde was still reciting this passage from "Records of the Grand Historian" in a rhythmic manner, and the book in front of Zhu Yijun contained this excerpt.

When explaining a book, one must first read the book in its entirety. After all, ancient learning emphasized "recognizing words" and "interpreting characters". Without a teacher, it would be difficult to judge how to interpret the characters for the students.

After all, there were no punctuation marks in the Ming Dynasty at that time.

The punctuation marks familiar to Chinese people in later generations originated in the West. In 1919, Hu Shi and others proposed the "Proposal to Issue New Punctuation Marks", which was passed at the first meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Unification of the National Language.

On February 1920, 2, the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang Government officially promulgated new punctuation marks, marking the birth of China's first set of legal new punctuation marks.

Since then, the new punctuation marks have gradually been widely used in China and have become an indispensable part of modern Chinese writing.

However, it is wrong to think that there were no punctuation marks in ancient China. In fact, the development was definitely not late and not slow.

Of course, this development process did not continue after the Qing Dynasty, because in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, China had already been exposed to Western punctuation marks. Some scholars thought they were very useful and introduced them, and also annotated ancient books in detail.

The proposal of Hu Shi and others was simply to formalize it and make it part of the official document.

Chinese characters are written symbols that record the Chinese language, but there were no punctuation marks in ancient written materials.

Due to the lack of punctuation marks, the same text can be understood differently, and even with opposite results. Due to the need for language expression, some special marks gradually emerged, which can be understood as the predecessor of punctuation marks.

During the Han Dynasty, some people used the method of "leaving the classics" to separate the characters.

Lijing means writing one or two words between two sentences, or using a vertical line or short horizontal line to indicate the end of a sentence, but it is not widely used.

The "Book of Rites" compiled by Dai Sheng of the Western Han Dynasty said, "Enter school at the same age, take examinations in the middle age, and review the classics and clarify the will of the students in one year." However, Zheng Xuan's commentary said, "Departing from the classics means breaking off sentences."

At that time, people often drew a "し" mark next to a sentence as a reading aid, which was the beginning of punctuation marks.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were two symbols for punctuation: “↓” and “、”.

In Shuowen Jiezi written by Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty, “↓” is explained as “a hook to identify, pronounced as Juyue”, and “、” means “a stop to identify, pronounced as Zhuyu”.

That is to say, wherever there is a place at the end of the text where you can stop, use “↓” to mark it, and wherever there is a place in the text where you can punctuate, use “、” to mark it, which is roughly equivalent to today's period and comma.

If we take into account the deviation from the classics, "、" can actually be seen as very similar to modern writing.

In the Song Dynasty, the hook mark became a circle, and the shape of the mark was like "○", which came in large, medium and small sizes. People used circles and dots to mark the reading of words.

In fact, the "○" mark is already quite common in ancient books from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. It can even be seen in every chapter, but most people in later generations do not understand its meaning.

When Zhu Xi was writing "Collected Commentaries on the Four Books", he used a large "○" before each chapter and a "." after each sentence.

This is called punctuation, that is, at the end of a sentence, you need to put a "," to mark the end, which functions like the comma we have today. At the end of the sentence, put a ".", which functions like the period we have today.

During this period, paragraph numbers also appeared, represented by "∨" or "∧", drawn in the lower right corner of the last word of each paragraph. There were even dense circles and dots such as "..." and "..." added to the right side of the word to emphasize the wonderful part of the sentence.

This usage was still in use until the 20s.

In the Ming Dynasty, with the emergence of printed novels, two more special symbols were added, namely, one was a single straight line “│” next to a person’s name, and the other was two straight lines “‖” next to a place name.

The book in front of Emperor Wanli naturally had the above-mentioned marks, which was also to prevent the little emperor from making mistakes when reading in the harem.

"In the sixth year of Emperor Wen's reign, the Xiongnu invaded. The Han army gathered to fight. Zhou Yafu led his troops to station at Xiuliu. Emperor Wen went to visit him. Unexpectedly, the gate captain of the barracks did not open the gate. Emperor Wen did not blame Zhou Yafu for this, but praised him as a "real general."

After the original classical text was told, Wei Guangde briefly recounted the story in vernacular Chinese, which helped Zhu Yijun understand the whole story.

According to Zhang Juzheng's original intention, this paragraph was included to, firstly, give the young emperor a preliminary understanding of military affairs, and secondly, to let the young emperor understand the importance of justice and the importance of knowing people and assigning them to the right positions, and to understand the value of institutional beliefs.

This is very important for the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty. After all, in an era when imperial power was supreme, civil servants exercised the imperial power granted by the emperor. Without the emperor's trust, civil servants would not be far from retirement.

  "Zhou Yafu was able to strictly abide by military discipline, even when facing the emperor, which shows the importance of discipline and rules in maintaining military order and ensuring the completion of tasks.

Emperor Wen of Han recognized Zhou Yafu's talent and loyalty through this incident, which shows that leaders should be good at discovering and appointing talented people, even if it means facing some challenges.

  At the same time, this also reminds superiors to respect and understand their subordinates' working methods and rules when communicating with them in order to establish a good working relationship.

Zhou Yafu's behavior also reflects his loyalty to the court and the emperor. Those in power should encourage their subordinates to cultivate this loyalty and sense of responsibility."

After further explanation, the little emperor was able to understand the deeper meaning behind the story.

If it had not been said by the general, the little emperor might not have been able to figure it out even after waiting for several years if he had only relied on himself to figure it out.

Now, through the imperial lectures, the little emperor can easily understand the truth through the stories, which is the original intention of "teaching and educating, and resolving doubts."

After finishing the lesson, Wei Guangde asked the little emperor to go back and write an expression of his feelings and then copy "Entertaining the Troops at Xiuli Camp" three times. This was today's homework.

After saying that, Wei Guangde picked up the teacup and took a big gulp. The feeling of dry mouth and tongue was immediately relieved.

"Teacher, I remember that Zhou Yafu's ending didn't seem very good?"

During the next small talk, the little emperor spoke. Wei Guangde nodded. There was nothing much to say about this. Zhou Yafu was suspected of treason and eventually died of hunger strike.

"Then your majesty, if you were Emperor Jing, how would you treat him?"

Wei Guangde asked calmly with a smile on his face.

"Imprison him in the palace to preserve his dignity. After all, he did make great contributions during the 'Seven Kingdoms Rebellion'."

The little emperor said after thinking about it.

"Your Majesty, do you think Zhou Yafu is guilty?"

Wei Guangde asked with a smile.

“Although I also think that Zhou Yafu might have bought armor for burial, so what? The imperial court has a clear decree prohibiting the private possession of armor.

As the prime minister, he certainly knew that this was the law, but he still kept it in his palace, so he is naturally guilty."

The young emperor Zhu Yijun said with a serious face.

Wei Guangde stared at Zhu Yijun for a long while, which made the little emperor feel a little embarrassed. But perhaps more when he wondered if he had said something wrong, Wei Guangde burst into laughter.

"Your Majesty is right. Zhou Yafu's secret storage of armor is indeed a crime according to the law, even if he claims that it was his son who did it and he was not aware of it."

In fact, in ancient times, armor has always been regarded as strategic equipment, and it is absolutely not allowed to be collected in private homes.

Even for military households in the Ming Dynasty, their families could only preserve the armor left by their ancestors, that is, the mandarin duck battle jackets or the armor that had been used as a souvenir.

In this case, even if the military general's family could preserve only a few sets of armor, not much.

Of course, this was nothing for the Ming Dynasty. After all, the armor rate of Ming soldiers was the highest in history.

Yes, even the worst garrison in the Ming Dynasty had an armor rate of nearly 50%, while the armor rate of the elite border troops could be as high as over 80%.

Don’t think that the reason why Ming soldiers used cotton armor in large quantities and only generals used iron armor is that cotton armor has poor defensive capabilities. In fact, cotton armor has quite good defensive capabilities.

Of course, this refers to the kind that ensures quality and quantity, and cutting corners does not count.

More than a decade later, in the Korean War, tens of thousands of Ming troops were able to repel hundreds of thousands of Japanese pirates. This was not only due to the excellent firearms of the Ming army, but also the high armor rate of the elite Ming border troops that enabled the Ming army to defeat a hundred with one.

In fact, during the Sino-Japanese War, the Ming army had the advantage in artillery, while the Japanese army had the advantage in numbers of iron cannons.

However, the iron cannons that the Japanese army relied on during the "Warring States Period" were greatly reduced in power when facing the armored soldiers of the Ming army. In the words of the Japanese, "bullets and arrows could not break them." There are even records that "arrows could not stand up, and knives could not cut."

Not only could the Japanese swords not penetrate the armor of the Ming army, but the more powerful bamboo spears could not penetrate it either. This was not made up by later joke tellers, but was recorded in some private notes in Japan.

Of course, you can just look at the official Japanese historical materials, such as "Taikoki Volume 15, Tachibana Military Exploits Record", "Kato Family Chronicle", and "Kyukoku Miscellaneous Stories": The great victory of Bi-ti defeated a million Ming troops and beheaded more than 3 people.

Well, it means that in this battle all the Ming troops coming to aid Korea were killed.

In fact, the Wanli War to Aid Korea was fought twice. The Ming Dynasty sent 40,000 troops in the first war and nearly 100,000 troops in the second war, totaling about 140,000 troops.

Japan sent out 150,000 troops the first time and increased the number to 300,000 the second time. Toyotomi Hideyoshi also deployed 100,000 reserve troops and 60,000 guards.

As for the most famous Battle of Pyeongchang, the Ming Dynasty had more than 5,000 troops participating in the battle, and was besieged by 30,000 to 40,000 Japanese troops. After the war, the Ming army suffered more than 2,000 casualties, including more than 200 killed on the spot, and the Japanese army suffered more than 5,000 casualties, and the number of casualties is unknown.

The most obvious thing about this battle was that the Japanese weapons had limited lethality against the Ming army, and the Ming army could win by directly attacking the numerically superior Japanese army.

It can be seen that the value of armor on ancient battlefields was very great.

Zhou Yafu was convicted because of his armor, which was not actually unfair, even though he had his own explanation.

However, in their subsequent conversation, Wei Guangde began to bring up his own agenda.

“As the ancients said: “Even if the world is at peace, forgetting war will lead to danger.”

Nowadays, the country has been at peace for a long time, military preparations have been neglected, and generals and officers are controlled by civil officials and are no better than slaves.

If a man cannot maintain his sharp spirit on a normal day, how can he be expected to have the courage to fight against the enemy?

From now on, I hope that the emperor will pay attention to military preparations, and give some authority to loyal and brave officers who can be used, so that they can display their talents, so that when facing the enemy, the orders can be strict and the soldiers can obey orders. "

Wei Guangde spoke eloquently: "Today, all the knowledgeable scholars and officials say: 'The world that our ancestors won with the tip of the sword has been destroyed by the tip of the pen. Moreover, the combination of civil and military power is the long-term strategy.'

This is what the saying goes, 'Civil officials use their pens to bring peace to the country, and military generals use their weapons to bring peace to the country.'"

Hearing what Wei Guangde said, the little emperor still nodded seriously, as if he understood.

"Teacher, does this mean that we should be good at discovering capable generals?"

After a moment, the little emperor asked, "Just like you recommended Ma Fang, who was still a guerrilla general, and later you took a fancy to Yu Dayou and Qi Jiguang, and now you are trying to use Li Chengliang."

Hearing this, Wei Guangde nodded and smiled, "Ma Fang was promoted from a small soldier through military exploits, which in itself proves his ability. It's just that we're not sure where his upper limit is, so we can try to use him.

Yu Dayou was different. He was promoted to general for his meritorious service as a centurion. Qi Jiguang also made outstanding achievements in the battle against the Japanese pirates, and Li Chengliang was similar.

The difference is that Yu and Qi both have actual combat achievements in the north and south to prove their abilities, while Li Chengliang only has achievements in Liaodong, so this trip to the southwest is also a test of his abilities.

What I want to tell Your Majesty is to discover useful military talents among the documents of the Ministry of War, and try to use them and give them opportunities to perform.

Once it is confirmed that he is available, Your Majesty must protect him well.

After all, the court must always have generals who can lead troops into battle in order to ensure long-term stability, and civil officials alone are not enough."

In fact, the Ming Dynasty was not without military generals. Even during the Chongzhen period, there were many brilliant generals. It was just that they were not taken seriously and they declined one after another. In the end, the country was doomed to be destroyed and the Han people were enslaved by foreign races for three hundred years.

  Emperor Wanli certainly understood the meaning of Wei Guangde’s reminder, “Protect the people well”, wasn’t it aimed at civil servants?

However, he still didn't quite understand, so after Wei Guangde returned to the cabinet, he asked his attendants, "Master Wei, do you think that in order to govern, we should use both civil and military means?"

"Sir, you are also a civil servant, but you don't protect others. You want to protect the military commanders and improve the military equipment for the court. You can be said to be a loyal patriot."

Chen Ju, who was on duty today, immediately laughed. (End of this chapter)