Volume 1: Birth! Seven time travelers Chapter 56: Kuandian Must Not Be Abandoned
After Xu and Tian left, Zhu Youdong was about to ask the palace maid to come in and help him change his clothes, but he heard Li Shizhong's voice outside: "Your Highness, I have something to report."
"Oh, Shizhong, come in."
"Your Highness. Yesterday, I received two letters from my family in Liaodong at the same time. After reading them, I felt deeply confused. So, please make the decision, Your Highness!"
"A letter from home? Liaodong? Show it to me."
The first thing that was unfolded was the letter written by Li Chengliang to Li Shizhong. After reading just a short paragraph, Zhu Youdong couldn't help but slap his forehead: Oh no, how could I forget about this?
The two Li’s letters actually talked about the same thing: Kuandian Liubao.
In the first year of the Wanli reign (1572), the young Li Chengliang defeated the Jurchens who were entrenched on the west bank of the Yalu River, and then built six fortresses in this place in order to put a knife in the back of the Jurchen settlement. Among them, Kuandian Fort was the largest, so it was called Kuandian Six Forts.
To make a simple analogy, it might be like this:
On a straight line, there are four points, ABCD, from northwest to southeast. A is Li Chengliang's Liaodong Town, B is Nurhaci's Jianzhou Jurchen, C is Kuandian Liubao, and D is Korea. The importance of Kuandian Liubao is immediately apparent.
It was the year 1606, twenty-three years after Nurhaci started his rebellion with only thirteen sets of armor.
In the past 23 years, Nurhaci has unified the five tribes of Jianzhou Jurchen, conquered the Changbai Mountain Jurchens to the north, and severely damaged the Haixi Jurchen tribes, gradually becoming the overlord of the northeast region.
But no matter what, since Jianzhou was still at an absolute disadvantage compared to the Ming Dynasty at that time, and the Ula and Hada of the Haixi Jurchens had not yet perished, Yehe still retained considerable strength. More importantly, Li Chengliang was still stationed in Liaodong at that time. Therefore, no matter how many victories Nurhaci had won in the military at this time, he never dared to take action against the fortress flying the flag of the Ming Dynasty. On the contrary, the more victories he won in the military, the more humble he .
But this brought a problem: because the six forts of Kuandian were firmly stuck behind the Jianzhou Jurchens, the Jianzhou Jurchens were actually always under the strategic encirclement of the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, due to the existence of the six forts of Kuandian, the Jianzhou Jurchens could not effectively attack and bring the Donghai Jurchens under their rule. Not only that, the trade between Jianzhou and the Korean people was also greatly restricted.
In terms of military strength alone, it would not be too difficult for Jianzhou to capture Kuandian at this time. But if they attacked Kuandian, which was under the banner of the Ming Dynasty...
This put Nurhaci in a dead end: if he didn't attack Kuandian, he couldn't develop. If he didn't develop, he couldn't accumulate enough power to completely unify the entire Jurchens. If he didn't unify the entire Jurchens, he certainly wouldn't have the power to challenge the Ming Dynasty. But if he attacked Kuandian at this time, he would provoke the Ming Dynasty's anger in advance...
If only the Ming Dynasty could give up Kuandian on its own... This is probably what Nurhaci often said in his dreams at night in recent years.
But now Li Chengliang is really ready to give up Kuandian Liubao.
After all, the crown prince has shown great potential and has the potential to become a great leader. On the one hand, the Li family is making a lot of money by doing business with the crown prince. On the other hand, the future prosperity of the Li family depends on the crown prince. In addition, if he gives up Kuandian Liubao, it is conceivable that he will be impeached. Therefore, Li Chengliang, who has become more and more unruly in recent years, took the initiative to write a letter to Zhu Youdong (writing it to Li Shizhong in fact for Zhu Youdong to see), and elaborated on the reasons why he gave up Kuandian on his own initiative.
When people get old, they tend to talk too much. In the letter of more than ten pages, Li Chengliang repeated the same reasons over and over again for three reasons: First, the imperial court has no money, and Liaodong Town has no money! While being unable to provide more support to Kuandian Liubao, Liaodong's armaments cannot maintain the strength of its heyday. Second, the power of Jianzhou Jurchen has become stronger and stronger. Under the current premise that Liaodong Town is facing many difficulties, it is better to have a military conflict with Jianzhou later rather than earlier. Abandoning Kuandian Liubao, which is difficult to defend, and diverting the trouble to Jianzhou, let Jianzhou harm the Donghai Jurchen. Third, although Jianzhou is becoming increasingly powerful, its population is a hard flaw. Moving more than 100,000 people from Kuandian Liubao back to the inland of Liaodong not only protects the Han people, but also leaves Jianzhou with no population to develop...
Of course, Li Chengliang also said in the letter that he also knew that the best way for the Celestial Empire to govern the barbarians was to use the barbarians to control the barbarians. Therefore, as Nurhaci gradually became stronger, he also vigorously supported the Shuerhaci faction within the Jianzhou Jurchens, while also paying attention to protecting Yehe and Ula, in order to contain Nurhaci and so on...
After reading Lao Li's letter, Zhu Youdong's reaction was to jump up from his seat and angrily tear the letter into pieces!
As a time traveler, Zhu Youdong certainly knew what kind of giant beast the humble Jianzhou Jurchens would grow into in the future. But Zhu Youdong also knew that as long as Huang Taiji did not take the throne, the Jianzhou Jurchens would be nothing. And Huang Taiji wanted to take the throne? In this plane, that was absolutely impossible!
In the long-term plan of the time traveler, the Jianzhou Jurchens are really nothing: As long as I am here, there may not even be Sarhu, let alone my Qing Dynasty in the future?
But today, he finally experienced the malice that the wheel of history had towards him.
"Grandson?!"
"Your Highness, calm down."
Seeing Zhu Youdong's unusual loss of composure and rage, Li Shizhong and the eunuchs and palace maids in the corner were all frightened and knelt down.
Generally speaking, the eunuchs, palace maids and guards in the palace all like to follow the crown prince.
This gentleman has none of the childish willfulness and mischief, but only the rationality and stability of an adult. Moreover, the prince is not picky about food and clothing, and rarely loses his temper. In addition to having some requirements for everyone's work efficiency, he is generally easy to serve. The most important thing is that the prince does not treat everyone as servants like the emperor, the prince or the concubines, but treats them with an equal attitude. This feeling may seem common to modern people. But to the servants of this era, they feel extremely comfortable and grateful.
However, precisely because of this, when Zhu Youdong showed his unprecedented rage, everyone was really scared.
"Someone come!"
"Please give your orders, Grandson."
"Can you read?"
"Please forgive me, my lord. I have never been to the inner library and I cannot read."
"Fuck me, forget it, go get Wang Chengen for me."
…
"Grandson, what do you want me to do?"
"Just now, my hand slipped and I tore up the handwritten letter from Earl Ningyuan to Shizhong. Go pick it up for me and glue it back in order."
Did the scraps of paper on the ground really just slip? However, Wang Chengen didn't say anything. He just said yes and led people to collect the scraps of paper on the ground bit by bit, and then pasted them on the side.
"Hu~~" After repeatedly clenching and unclenching his fists and taking a few deep breaths, Zhu Youdong calmed down and picked up Li Rubai's letter again.
Li Rubai clearly expressed his opposition to the plan to abandon the six forts in Kuandian in his letter, and pointed out that if the six forts in Kuandian were abandoned, Liaodong Town would indeed be able to save a lot of military expenses, and Jianzhou Jurchen would not be able to get the 100,000 Han people in Kuandian. However, Jianzhou Jurchen would soon swallow up the remnants of the Dong'e and Wanyan tribes among the Jurchens, and would no longer have any scruples when annexing the Donghai Jurchen tribes, and they could even invade Korea... In short, their strength would be greatly enhanced. Moreover, without the thorn of Kuandian on Jianzhou's back, its strategic depth would be increased. Once there is a change in the future , it would be infinitely more difficult for the court to suppress it!
Alas, even a simple and brave general like Li Rubai could see such an obvious truth . How could Li Chengliang, who had been in charge of the overall situation in Liaodong for decades, not see it?
"Li Shizhong!"
"…Your Highness, I am here."
"Have you read both letters?"
"Yes, I have seen them all."
"Your attitude?"
"I... really don't know. To be honest, what Second Uncle said makes sense, but Grandfather has been guarding Liaodong for so many years, he must be more experienced and have a more far-sighted view, right?"
"So you are wrong! How old is your grandfather this year? He must be eighty this year, right? As the saying goes, old people think about the past, while young people think about the future. Your grandfather is old, and he only thinks about how to ensure the stability of the current situation in Liaodong. As for what will happen in the future, he can't see it! Therefore, thirty years ago, the Earl of Ningyuan would not be afraid of trouble to put a nail behind the Jianzhou Jurchens if he encountered such a thing. The current Earl of Ningyuan is only thinking about how to avoid problems during his tenure!"
"minister……"
"But I'm still young. Let alone me, my father, even my royal grandfather, is not very old either!"
"I am... terrified."
"Leave the capital at night and go to Liaodong in person, and tell Earl Ningyuan: Liaodong Town is short of money, I will find a way. But if he gives up Kuandian Liubao, you, Chunzhong, and all the people from your Li family who have participated in Honghe Manor, all get out!"
