Chapter 967 1056 Jiaozhi

Li Chengliang was still confused, so Wei Guangde took out the intelligence handed over by the Jinyiwei and handed it to Li Chengliang.

"Take a look. The court had doubts before, but it was not sure about the real situation there, so it kept you in the capital.

Now the news has been confirmed, and the Right Army Governor's Office should also take action."

Taking the note handed over by Wei Guangde, Li Chengliang read it carefully.

Although the civil official group of the Ming Dynasty said that military officers were vulgar warriors, in fact, the families of hereditary military positions were not vulgar. Many of them were literate and had good academic knowledge.

Because the Ming Dynasty suppressed the military with civil service, the families of military officers would often try to let them take the imperial examination to become civil officials when they were still young. Only when they really didn't have that IQ would they seek a military position.

Not to mention Yu Dayou, the scholar, Li Chengliang also took the imperial examination and was also a scholar, but the culture in Liaodong was not prosperous, and he had not taken the imperial examination at the age of 40.

As for why he couldn't pass the provincial examination and couldn't become a juren, what does this have to do with the lack of local culture?

Isn't it true that exams all rely on peer comparison, and you can stand out as long as you are better than your fellow countrymen?

This is true for candidates from other provinces, but it does not apply to Liaodong.

In the Ming Dynasty, the "three-office" system was implemented in the local area, namely the Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office, the Provincial Inspection Commissioner's Office and the Provincial Military Commissioner's Office, which were responsible for civil affairs, justice and military affairs.

However, Liaodong, located in the border area, was located on the military front line, and most of the residents were military households in the garrison, so only the Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office was set up, not the Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office.

Although the Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office could manage money and grain matters together, the imperial examination affairs could only be affiliated with other provinces.

Shandong and Liaodong are across the sea from each other. The troops that attacked Liaodong in the early Ming Dynasty set out from Dengzhou on the Jiaodong Peninsula to Lushun. Because of this origin, the provincial examinations in Liaodong were affiliated with Shandong in the middle and early Ming Dynasty.

The so-called middle and early period refers to when, in fact, it was the tenth year of Jiajing.

Before the tenth year of Jiajing, Liaodong scholars who wanted to take the provincial examinations could either take a boat across the sea to Shandong to take the provincial examinations, or take the land route, passing through the Liaoxi Corridor through Shuntian Prefecture to Shandong to take the examinations.

The sea route was not to mention the risks, and many Liaodong candidates also encountered shipwrecks.

The land route was safer than the sea route, but the distance was too far.

Many candidates could not bear the long journey to Shandong to take the examinations, so they naturally did not do well in the examinations.

Moreover, they were on the same stage with Shandong candidates. Although Shandong was not a major province in the imperial examinations, it was also considered to be in the upper-middle level in the north, and Liaodong candidates had almost no chance.

The academy examination gave scholars fame, and although it was also a unified examination for the whole province, it was ultimately divided according to the local area, and even the worst prefectures and counties had a few quotas.

There was no saying that each prefecture and county had to allocate quotas for juren in the provincial examinations. It was really based on strength to compete for the opportunity to be on the list.

The changes in the examinations for Liaodong candidates occurred in the tenth year of Jiajing.

The Complete Liao Chronicle states: "According to the records, the Confucian scholars from Liaodong used to go to the Shandong Provincial Administration Office to take the exam. In the 10th year of Jiajing, Xu Chao and other students repeatedly requested to go to the nearby area, and the Jiawu exam was changed to Shuntian Prefecture."

According to the records of "Dushi Fangyu Jiyao", Xu Chao, a student, was a rear guard of Dingliao, and was a subordinate guard of Liaodong Dusi. The seat of Liaodong Dusi was in Liaoyang City, so Xu Chao can be regarded as a native of Liaoyang.

He was not special. History said that he was "gentle by nature", went to school very early, and was very filial. After losing his parents, he built a hut to guard the tomb for three years.

But unfortunately, Xu Chao's road to the imperial examination was not smooth. He went south to Shandong many times to participate in the provincial examination, but "repeatedly failed".

When encountering repeated failures, no matter who you are, you will feel depressed. This dissatisfaction accumulated over time and finally broke out in the 10th year of Jiajing.

The provincial examinations in the Ming and Qing dynasties were also called "Autumn Examinations" because they were held in the eighth month of the lunar calendar. In ancient times, transportation conditions were limited, and candidates from far away places usually had to set off one or two months in advance.

In June of the tenth year of Jiajing, Liaodong students including Xu Chao set out on a journey to Shandong for the Xinmao Provincial Examination.

Unexpectedly, the weather in that summer was not suitable for long-distance travel. Sometimes it rained heavily, and sometimes it was hot. Xu Chao and others trudged through the heat and mud for nearly two months, and arrived in Jinan in July. At this time, there was less than a month before the exam.

Due to the fatigue of the journey and the unfamiliarity with the climate and water, the Liaodong scholars who entered the examination room did not perform well. Many of them dropped out halfway, and those who persisted until the end did not pass the exam.

When the results were announced, among the dozens of admitted candidates, there was only one candidate from Liaodong, his name was Han Wei.

Before this, although the admission rate of Liaodong candidates was not as good as that of Shandong inland, at least three or four people could be admitted each time. For example, in the last provincial examination, An Yongqing, Fu Zhi and Feng Weijian passed the examination.

This time, only one person was admitted, which made the Liaodong candidates, especially Xu Chao, who had already traveled a long distance, exhausted and complained.

After returning to Liaoyang, Xu Chao contacted a group of scholars to come to the capital to submit a petition, saying that the main reason why Liaodong candidates did not perform well in the provincial examination was that the journey to Shandong was too long, not that their own level was not high. They asked to take the examination nearby and no longer participate in the Shandong imperial examination, but to take the examination in Shuntian Prefecture.

The actions of the Liaodong scholars finally alarmed the court.

The imperial examination was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Rites in the Ming Dynasty, and the petitions of the scholars should have been submitted to the Ministry of Rites.

In the tenth year of Jiajing, the then Minister of Rites was Xia Yan from Guixi, Jiangxi.

Xia Yan supported the request of Liaodong candidates in his memorial "A memorial on changing the imperial examination to suit people's needs". "At that time, Liaozuo and Shandong had the convenience of sea routes", so it was fine for Liaodong scholars to go to Shandong for the examination; now, when "the sea route is blocked", they have to go to Shandong by land through Shuntian Prefecture, which is far away instead of near, "the situation seems to be unfair".

After the memorial was submitted, the court approved it, and Liaodong candidates changed to Shuntian Prefecture to take the provincial examination.

However, the provincial examination in Shuntian Prefecture is actually about the same difficulty as Shandong, but it takes less time. This is also the reason why many historical allusions and novels say that Li Chengliang once stayed in the capital for a long time.

Li Chengliang is a scholar anyway, so he naturally has to stay in the capital to prepare for the provincial examination.

The frontier army is very different from the inland in terms of succession.

When a military position in a border town is vacant, if there is no suitable person to take over the position in the family, other people will often be arranged to take over immediately.

Li Chengliang decided to give up the imperial examination and prepare for the succession, which was also delayed for a long time and took a lot of effort.

Therefore, it was not difficult for Li Chengliang to read the documents of the Ming Dynasty.

After he finished reading the intelligence of the Jinyiwei, he already understood his mission.

"Wei Gelao, how many people and soldiers did the Toungoo Dynasty mentioned in the document have, and how many troops were able to defeat the surrounding forces in just over 20 years."

Li Chengliang looked up at Wei Guangde and asked.

"All these have to wait for the Jinyiwei's spies to send back intelligence, but from the current intelligence, I expect that they will soon turn their attention to Mengyang.

Then you should be able to guess that there is no land left to invade, so their eyes will naturally turn to Yunnan."

Wei Guangde said.

"The court wants me to prepare to send troops immediately?"

Li Chengliang asked carefully.

He had to ask, what was the situation of the Ming army, he knew it well, if he was not fully prepared, it would be like a sheep walking into the tiger's mouth.

Wei Guangde glanced at him and said, "Not so fast.

The decision of the cabinet today has just been reported to the palace and approved.

The court will issue a letter to Yunnan. First, it will order the Burmese Xuanwei Office to stop attacking the Laotian Xuanwei Office, and at the same time investigate the matter of the Six Consolations in detail. After that, it should order Mang Yinglong to go to Kunming to be punished."

Wei Guangde said.

"Hiss, this..."

Li Chengliang widened his eyes and felt completely unbelievable.

"It doesn't matter whether he comes or not. If he comes, he can avoid the suffering of war in the southwest. If he doesn't come, the court needs you to go there to pacify the mess left by the Toungoo Dynasty."

Wei Guangde said.

"Wei Ge Lao, for the affairs of the southwest, the court used to let the Duke of Qian go to war. I..."

Li Chengliang said with some embarrassment.

Going to Yunnan, there are local tigers there. The Mu family has been deeply rooted in Yunnan for hundreds of years, with a strong power and huge influence.

If he runs there, he will offend the Mu family.

Later generations all said that the Mu Palace was the Prince's Mansion, but in fact the Mu family inherited the titles of Pingxi Hou and Qian Guogong.

The first generation of the head of the family was Zhu Yuanzhang's adopted son, and he inherited the title of Pingxi Hou. After his death, he was posthumously named Qianning Wang. The next two generations of the head of the family also inherited the title of Pingxi Hou.

During the Yongle period, Pingxi Hou Mu Sheng was promoted from Xiping Hou to Qian Guogong, and then he got his current title.

It is worth mentioning that the ninth generation of Qian Guogong Mu Chaobi seized his brother's land and house, was disrespectful to his sister-in-law, and was eventually stripped of his title and imprisoned for his crimes. His son Mu Changzuo inherited the title in the fifth year of Longqing.

Wei Guangde was naturally worried about letting Mu Changzuo handle the Burmese affairs.

Wei Guangde did not just want to keep Yunnan, but to completely take over the territory outside Yunnan and expand the Ming Dynasty's out-of-control area to the Indian Ocean.

Even if Mang Yinglong did not rebel and did not lead troops to attack Yunnan, Wei Guangde would force him to rebel.

Otherwise, the original system of three procuratorial and six consolation still existed, and the Ming Dynasty had no way to reach out to the local area.

History has also proved that Mu Changzuo seemed to have only the strength to keep Yunnan, and had no ability to bring the land of Myanmar under the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

"His father is still in prison. Even if he has this ability, the court dare not trust him to hand over the troops of the southwestern provinces."

Wei Guangde said casually.

This is actually a lame excuse, because Mu Changzuo, as a son, strongly opposed what Mu Chaobi did.

Seeing Li Chengliang's reaction, Wei Guangde felt it necessary to explain it to him clearly, although it was a bit difficult to say.

So, Wei Guangde glanced at the gate of the duty room casually, and then lowered his voice and said: "Mu Changzuo has the ability to guard Yunnan, but he has no long-term vision. Otherwise, I don't believe he would be unaware of such a big commotion outside the region.

It can only be said that he did not consider the court at all, and let the three Xuans and six Weis get out of control without reporting to the court. He may even have connections with Myanmar and got benefits.

When you return to the Governor's Office, the first thing you should do is to count the southwestern guards and order them to train and prepare the troops.

Wait two months, the court will let you go to the southwest to reorganize the troops in the name of patrolling the border. The court wants to restore control over there."

After listening to Wei Guangde's words, Li Chengliang had some guesses in his heart that the court was planning to directly seize this area, and no longer planned to let the local chieftains continue to manage it.

Maybe there will be chieftains who will stay, but the Ming Dynasty will send officials and garrisons there, just like the southwestern provinces.

The big city is controlled by officials and troops sent by the court, while the remote areas are handed over to the chieftains.

Whether this approach is good or not actually depends on the times.

Although feudal dynasties were formed in various parts of Myanmar at this time, the degree of development was very low and not at all like that in the Central Plains.

The Ming Dynasty was now unable to effectively control even the southwest and other surrounding border areas, so it had no choice but to imitate the system of envoys in Yunnan and Guangxi.

Controlling important cities, radiating surrounding areas, and gradually changing the level of local development is the necessary process for effective occupation.

"Mr. Wei Ge, does the imperial court want to control Myanmar for a long time?"

Li Chengliang asked tentatively.

Wei Guangde looked at Li Chengliang and asked meaningfully: "Is it difficult?"

"Mr. Wei Ge, this."

Li Chengliang looked confused at this time, and he didn't know what he thought of to do this.

“Whatever you have in mind, it’s okay to say it.”

Wei Guangde said in a seemingly carefree manner.

It seemed easy to say that, but Wei Guangde also murmured in his heart, maybe Li Chengliang was afraid when he heard that he was going to attack Burma.

Nowadays, the story of "Three Kingdoms" has been left in the Ming Dynasty. The story about Zhuge Liang's pacification of the southwest has made many people think that the southwest has complex terrain and heavy miasma, so it is difficult to fight.

Wei Guangde is now worried that Li Chengliang will be affected by this, and he is afraid of going there.

If he hadn't listened to Yu Dayou's words, Wei Guangde would actually have thought so in his heart.

However, Yu Dayou told him that the environment in the southwest war was indeed very harsh, but it was not completely impossible to deploy the army. Otherwise, how would Mang Yinglong rise?

When fighting there, guides are indispensable.

As long as you find a good guide, understand the terrain there, and mobilize the army, it will actually be the same as usual.

As for jungle ambush, in fact, any terrain can be ambushed, it is not unique to the southwest.

Generally, when marching, you should try to avoid the jungle.

In a word, it is not as evil as what is said in the book. After all, it is a novel, a made-up story.

In fact, this is also true. Li Chengliang is not afraid of the complex terrain and environment in the southwest, and he also understands the benefits of finding a guide. When he fought in Liaodong, he was not familiar with the terrain at all, so he just wanted to find someone who was familiar with the terrain to understand the situation.

"Mr. Wei Ge, do you still remember that Jiaozhi was appointed as the Chief Envoy?"

Contrary to Wei Guangde's expectation, Li Chengliang said another name.

"Cochin."

Hearing Li Chengliang's words, Wei Guangde somewhat understood his worries.

Most people of later generations don't know that northern Vietnam has been directly ruled by China since the Qin and Han Dynasties.

However, this place is remote, has inconvenient transportation, and has a large number of native people. It is difficult for the Central Plains dynasty to control assimilation, so the foundation of its rule has always been unstable.

In 939 AD, the local forces in Annan took advantage of the civil strife in the Central Plains to defeat the Southern Han Dynasty and gain independence, called Annan Kingdom.

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, although there were conflicts from time to time, China and Vietnam generally maintained a relatively stable suzerain-vassal relationship.

In the first year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang swept away the heroes and established the Ming Dynasty. The geopolitical situation of the new dynasty was quite severe. There were still a large number of residual Yuan forces in the north and Yunnan, and Japanese pirates also began to harass the southeast coast.

As a result, Zhu Yuanzhang gave up the previous national policy of conquering the east and west, and turned his attitude toward surrounding areas to be gentle. In the "Ancestors of the Emperor Ming" edited by him, he listed 15 "countries that cannot be conquered" and warned his descendants not to use weapons indiscriminately. , and Annan is one of them.