The Prosperous Era of Longwan

In the Ming Dynasty, there was no fixed time for the court to end.

There was a fixed time for the morning roll call, but officials actually got up earlier than this, especially when they met those diligent emperors, and attending court in the morning was a chore.

Wei Guangde felt that he was lucky. Not to mention Emperor Jiajing, he never cared much about the affairs of the previous dynasty, and left them to Yan Song to help him.

The subsequent Emperor Longqing was diligent for more than a year, but then he became lazy, often canceled the morning court, and left government affairs to Xu Jie and Gao Gong to handle.

As for the current Emperor Wanli, he held court twice a month, which was tolerable.

The time for the court to end was generally when there was nothing to do in the government office, and officials could actually leave.

Of course, even if there was something, as long as it was not a military or national event, no one would say anything if it was delayed for a day or two.

At 3 p.m., the memorials sent to the cabinet had been processed. After spending some time in the prime minister's duty room, Wei Guangde chose to go back to the mansion directly after coming out.

"The master is back."

After the sedan stopped, someone reported inside.

Wei Guangde got out of the sedan chair and stepped directly into the mansion. Zhang Ji hurried over to greet him from the second gate.

"The message you brought in said that something happened in Yunnan?"

Wei Guangde kept walking inside and just asked in a low voice.

"Yes, Li Chengliang, the governor, sent someone from Yunnan to deliver a letter, saying that there is an important matter for the master to decide."

Zhang Ji trotted behind Wei Guangde and said with a flattering face.

"Go to the study."

The road was not a place to talk, so Wei Guangde took Zhang Ji to his study.

Soon, Wei Guangde saw the letter sent by Li Chengliang.

It must be said that the complexity of the situation in Yunnan exceeded Wei Guangde's expectations.

He knew that some chieftains in the southwest had been ready to move, and it seemed that one of the three major expeditions of Wanli was the rebellion of the chieftains in the southwest.

It can be listed as one of the three major expeditions, which shows how powerful this rebellion is.

However, the chieftains on the border had ill intentions and actually affected the deployment of the Ming official army. This was something Wei Guangde did not expect.

In his opinion, even if those chieftains had rebellious intentions, they would not dare to overstep the line when they saw the army coming.

But the situation is obviously different now. The Ming Dynasty mobilized 100,000 troops in the southwest, but it seems that it is still not as large as the army mobilized by Myanmar.

According to the figures reported by Li Chengliang now, the Burmese army should be around 300,000, and there are more than 200 war elephants.

More than half of the war elephants belong to the Burmese king Mang Yinglong, and the remaining dozens belong to other chieftains in Myanmar and nearby areas.

For this reason, Li Chengliang was waiting for the arrival of the army while collecting heavy firearms such as Portuguese cannons from all over Yunnan to deal with the Burmese elephant soldiers.

In the letter, Li Chengliang also complained about the excessive corruption of the Guangxi Dusi.

In the history of the Ming Dynasty or the Ming Dynasty's foreign wars, there was almost no Ming army elephant unit.

But in fact, the Ming Dynasty set up a large guard station in Guangxi to specialize in elephant training, that is, the elephant training guard.

The Elephant Taming Guard was first established in Fenghuang Mountain, Siming Prefecture. In the 20th year of Hongwu, it was moved along the river to Nanning Prefecture. It was later moved several times. Their establishment was originally to target the elephant soldiers of the Tusi in Luchuan and other places.

The Elephant Taming Guard initially had more than 20,000 officers and soldiers, specializing in capturing and training elephants and training elephant troops.

The 20,000-man guard was far larger than the size of the general Ming Army guard of more than 5,000 people. It can be seen how much attention Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, attached to this unit at that time.

It can be said that the stability of the southwest region, perhaps in Zhu's view, depends on this Elephant Taming Guard.

However, this time when Li Chengliang arrived in Guangxi, he went to the Elephant Taming Guard station and found that the Elephant Taming Guard, which once had 20,000 people, only had more than 300 flag soldiers and two war elephants.

The Elephant Taming Guard was already in name only.

There are naturally many reasons for the decline of the Elephant Taming Guard. The main one is the Annan Campaign in the early years of Xuande. The officers and soldiers of the Elephant Taming Guard "followed the expedition to Jiaozhi and lost most of it."

Although it was rebuilt later, it was not able to recover for various reasons, and was completely forgotten in the end.

Of course, there was more than one Elephant Taming Guard in the Ming Dynasty. In fact, there was also an Elephant Taming Thousand Households Office in Beijing, which was under the Jinyiwei and was one of the emperor's ceremonial guards.

During the grand court meeting, the elephants of the Elephant Taming Thousand Households Office would be brought out to show their strength. Even Emperor Jiajing once rode a dragon sedan pulled by an elephant to the south.

It must be very troublesome to raise elephants in Beijing. After all, elephants are not afraid of drought and cold. Under normal circumstances, there are no elephants in the north.

Wei Guangde really ignored the elephant soldiers of the Burmese army, but then he thought that the Ming army had artillery and should not be afraid of elephants.

Directly spreading rice paper on the desk, Wei Guangde picked up the pen and wrote two notes.

One was naturally to the Ministry of Works, and the other was to the Ministry of War. Both were notes to supplement large and medium-sized Portuguese cannons in the southwest.

It was definitely unrealistic to rebuild the Elephant Taming Guard at this time. There was not enough time, and the court did not have the financial resources to rebuild this gold-eating beast.

The Ming Dynasty created the two capitals system of the south and Beijing. It seemed that the institutions were overlapping, but in fact there were some advantages, that is, what Beijing had, Nanjing also had.

Nanjing's Ministry of War and Ministry of Industry also have arsenals and firearms bureaus. Of course, Beijing is definitely the largest in terms of scale and other aspects, but Nanjing's firearms production can also meet the needs of the southern soldiers.

Therefore, Wei Guangde wrote to the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of War to help Li Chengliang ask for the firearms he needed.

"Has the messenger been arranged to stay?"

After writing the note, Wei Guangde looked up at Zhang Ji and asked.

"He has settled down. He is still waiting for the master's reply so that he can take it back."

Zhang Ji replied respectfully on the side.

"Well, I'll write it right now."

Wei Guangde agreed, then took out the letter paper, picked up the pen and started writing on the paper.

If it were other civil servants, they would definitely sneer at Li Chengliang's plan to lure the enemy deep and encircle and annihilate them.

Why?

Because they would not think that a small country like Myanmar was worthy of the Ming Dynasty's efforts to destroy it.

In the view of these civilian officials, as soon as the Ming Dynasty army arrived, the Burmese army should surrender.

As for the disastrous defeat that the Ming army suffered in Annan, they had long been forgotten.

Just so confident.

However, Wei Guangde was able to accept Li Chengliang's strategy. After all, he knew that China had been fighting Myanmar on and off for many years, but they had never really conquered it.

One of the reasons is the complex mountainous terrain in northern Myanmar, and more importantly, the tropical rainforest there, making it very difficult for the army to move.

As long as Myanmar still has young and strong soldiers and the will to resist, it may not be impossible for the Ming army to encounter the second Annan Incident.

If according to Li Chengliang's plan, the young men of Myanmar are gathered in the Qianya and Luchuan areas to annihilate them, then subsequent military operations in Myanmar will be easy.

After all, the only people left there are the old, weak, sick and disabled, and their resistance is very low. Only then will the Ming Dynasty's rule there be strengthened.

As for immigration, that is inevitable.

It's just that the immigration strategy has not been brought up for the time being. If the immigration strategy is discussed before the war breaks out, wouldn't it mean that the war against Burma was actually deliberately planned by the imperial court? I don't know how it will be criticized by those old scholars.

Just in time, if they lured the Burmese troops into the country and gathered them together to annihilate them, they would have no reason to condemn them.

They've already broken into the country, why don't they take action to punish them?

It can only be said that Li Chengliang was not really familiar with the Ming Dynasty, otherwise he would not be afraid of impeachment and dismissal due to the entry of the Burmese army.

Of course, if he does not explain the situation to the capital in advance, no one in the capital will come forward to protect him, and if the court really gets into trouble, there is a real possibility that he, an official, will not be protected.

However, those in power in the cabinet now, whether Zhang Juzheng or Wei Guangde, actually know something about military matters.

Therefore, even if there are more impeachment memorials, they will choose to suppress them and see the situation.

If Li Chengliang cannot control the situation in Yunnan, then it will be possible to directly remove him.

Soon, the letter to Li Chengliang was written. Wei Guangde directly found an envelope, sealed it, and handed it to Zhang Ji along with the two previous notes.

"Reply to the letter and hand it over to the courier later. Send these two notes to Master Zhu and Master Tan immediately."

Wei Guangde gave instructions on how to use the things, then thought about it and said, "If you send someone to Zhang Shoufu's residence again, just tell me that I will come over later to discuss anything."

It would be unseemly to visit directly, so Wei Guangde asked Zhang Ji to send someone to inform him first, so that it would not be rude.

If something happened to Zhang Juzheng, he would either postpone or advance the meeting, or explain the situation and ask Wei Guangde to visit another day.

After all, both of them are in the cabinet and have many opportunities to meet each other on weekdays, so they don't have to worry about running out of time to talk.

However, Li Chengliang's letter almost confirmed that the war in Yunnan was likely to break out today, and Wei Guangde still planned to go over there overnight to explain the situation.

Military affairs are definitely not something to be taken lightly.

Wei Guangde put away Li Chengliang's letters and planned to take them to Zhang Juzheng for him to read.

Anyway, there is nothing invisible in this letter. It just describes the truth he learned after arriving in Yunnan.

And these are exactly what he and Zhang Juzheng, two people who have been in high positions for a long time, want to know most about the real situation in the local area.

After having dinner at home and talking to his family, Wei Guangde left the house in casual clothes.

The sedan chair was ready outside the mansion gate. After he got on the sedan chair, the sedan bearer gave a shout, and the sedan chair lifted off the ground and hurried toward Zhang's mansion.

These were all arranged by Zhang Ji in advance.

Zhang Juzheng's mansion has already received a reply, and the chief assistant is waiting at home for Boss Wei Ge to arrive.

After leaving the inner city, Wei Guangde and his party quickly arrived at the gate of Zhang's mansion, where You Qi was already waiting at the gate.

After picking up Wei Guangde, You Qi led the way and led him directly to Zhang Juzheng's study, where Zhang Juzheng was already waiting.

"Shaloan, you can sit wherever you want. When you get to my place, you can do whatever you want."

"Uncle, I feel like it's a big deal if I bother you so late. I'd better tell you as soon as possible."

The two exchanged brief greetings and sat down in the study.

Zhang Juzheng's study was quite large. It was actually a two-room layout, which in later generations terms was actually three large tile-roofed rooms.

The outer room is a small reception room, and the inner room is larger than the outer room and is also the real study.

The four walls of the room are covered with bookshelves, containing all kinds of books that Zhang Juzheng likes to read.

Unlike Wei Guangde, Wei Guangde has a small warehouse next to his study room to store the books he has read.

Because I have a good memory, I can remember most of them after reading them once, so there is no need to put them in the study and just turn them out and read them again when I have nothing to do.

The books Wei Guangde looked through also covered a wide range of topics, but they were all thrown into the small warehouse after reading, so as not to occupy the bookshelves in the study.

Most of the books in his study were Taoist books bought during the Jiajing Dynasty. They were all obscure and difficult to understand. Wei Guangde didn't understand them for a while, so he threw them on the bookshelf.

Later, the emperor also changed, and Wei Guangde didn't pay much attention to the Taoist classics he bought, so he just put them there as a facade.

After all, Taoist books are actually treasures of Chinese culture, inheriting Chinese culture. These books are actually very interesting.

Because it is obscure and difficult to understand, when he is really bored, Wei Guangde will read it for a while.

"I wonder what happened today?"

After chatting for a while, Zhang Juzheng directly introduced the topic.

Wei Guangde was also unambiguous. He took out Li Chengliang's letter from his sleeve, handed it to Zhang Juzheng and said, "Uncle, please read it first before speaking."

Zhang Juzheng took the letter and knew where it came from after reading the envelope.

He took out the letter and read it in front of the candlestick.

The light emitted by the five candles was enough for him to see clearly the handwriting on the letter.

These days, only families like them would be so extravagant to light five candles, even some landlords and gentry would not do so.

As expected by Wei Guangde, Zhang Juzheng soon began to frown.

Obviously, there is a big gap between the actual situation in Yunnan and what Zhang Juzheng knew, so he was shocked by Li Chengliang's report.

"Ruqi didn't know whether the imperial court knew about the situation in Yunnan, so he couldn't go directly to the Ministry of Civil Affairs and Military Affairs and chose to write me a letter to explain the matter. It's really shocking."

Wei Guangde still helped Li Chengliang to make up for it. It was somewhat unreasonable to report such a big matter in private letters instead of going official.

However, in fact, Zhang Juzheng often encounters similar situations. He naturally knows what is going on and will not delve into it.

"Shan Loan, what do you think?"

Zhang Juzheng was asking Wei Guangde about his plan against Li Chengliang, luring the Burmese army to Baoshan and Shidian to start fighting again, and also sending surprise troops to raid Mubang and Mengmi, blocking the Burmese army's westward escape route, killing the Burmese army as much as possible, and setting the stage for the subsequent march into Burma. Clear obstacles.

"I heard that there are high mountains and dense forests. I really want the Burmese army to flee back. It will be very troublesome for the army to enter Burma and clear it out.

Being able to severely damage most of the Burmese army in Baoshan and Shidian, even if the remaining Burmese army escapes, it will not cause much trouble to the army's attack.

However, just as Ru Qi was worried, if the news spread back to the capital, many people would be unable to sit still and initiate impeachment against him. "

Wei Guangde explained his considerations, and Zhang Juzheng nodded.

In fact, after reading Li Chengliang's letters, he felt proud of this policy.

By encircling and annihilating the Burmese army's effective forces on familiar terrain, the losses of the Ming army can be minimized.

The court will benefit from this kind of battle.

"Is there any news from Yu Dayou?"

Zhang Juzheng suddenly asked.

"In the vast sea, once the navy is dispatched, it is difficult to maintain contact.

But counting the time, the Ministry of War's draft should have been sent to Luzon. Maybe they have already sent troops to Jiugang. "

Wei Guangde said.

"I'm worried about a situation now, that is, before the war breaks out in Yunnan, Shisuke's side has already reached Myanmar."

Zhang Juzheng said.

Communication is really troublesome these days. On land, we rely on horses, and on water, we rely on boats. If we are not careful, there will be mistakes.

"Uncle, don't worry. Zhifu is not that stupid. He will definitely find out before sending troops."

Wei Guangde smiled.

"It's better to send him a message and let him pay attention to the situation in Myanmar."

Zhang Juzheng said softly.