There were many arguments about the demise of the Ming Dynasty, such as the Chongzhen issue, the three salaries issue, the Li Zicheng issue and the late Jin issue. In fact, they are all wrong. The most fundamental issues are finance and strategy.
The so-called strategic issues are mainly the strategic issues of the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong battlefield.
At that time, regarding the Liaodong issue, the Ming Dynasty adopted a long-term consumption strategy, that is, building large-scale construction outside the customs, building cities in Ningyuan, Jinzhou and other places, creating the so-called "Guanningjin" defense line, and vigorously promoting the so-called "Liao people guarding Liao soil" to defend the capital from the threat of the late Jin Dynasty.
The leader of this strategy is Sun Chengzong. The following is his understanding and strategy for establishing the whole defense line:
"So, with the convenience of the Liao people, they were placed between the two guards and three houses and twenty-seven castles, and cultivated with soil. It is said that if the Liao people keep Liao soil and raise Liao people, so that the preparation outside the customs is slightly adequate, the defense inside the customs will be slightly reduced. If the situation is kept in the pass, it will be shallow. If you keep Ningyuan, mountains and seas overlap, and the well is thousands of miles away. Today, I also considered this. " However, this strategy is completely wrong, and this fatal mistake led to the collapse of the Ming Dynasty. The root of this mistake is that Sun Chengzong knows nothing about military and economy. First of all, I don't know anything about military affairs. Sun Chengzong's strategy is a common sense mistake in the military.
At that time, the prerequisite for the demise of the late Jin Dynasty was that the Jin Army could be defeated on the battlefield. This condition has not been met. Without this condition, it is meaningless to gather more troops. We can only take the defensive, but Sun Chengzong began to clamor for attack and go to war:
"University student Sun Chengzong, the slave has not yet arrived in Zhenwu, and I have burned it in front of Qian Ning ... I would like to live in vain, and I would like to make its spirit, so that everyone can fight and everything can fight. Don't do it within 16, but it's good to be able to guard it. Gai can't fight and defend, but he can't fight and surrender, and he can't forget the war. "
At this time, Sun Chengzong could not fully understand why Wang Zaijin only kept Shanhaiguan's strategy, so he was very bookish and clamored for war, even "everyone was fighting, everything was fighting", but the situation at that time was that more than 50,000 routed troops could keep Shanhaiguan.
Later, after Wang Zaijin was driven away, Sun's adult, who was clamoring for war, never went up again, but his strength remained undiminished, which made people puzzled.
Go out and fight if you want, so that you can have fun. If you want to keep it, you must be prepared according to the long-term situation. Then you must save money, reduce your daily expenses to a minimum, and give the court finances, which are already very difficult, a breathing space. This breathing space has two meanings. One is to keep the government finances from collapsing, and the other is to preserve the strength after annihilation.
However, Sun Chengzong did the opposite. Instead of going to war, he built a big building and spent money at both ends, which must be outrageous and eventually exhausted the fragile finances of the Ming Dynasty.
The following is a summary of Lao Sun by Ming officials:
"War division to Li Lusheng said, since ancient times in the territory for several years, also didn't go, the enemy is far from the imagination of more than ten people eat from the trap, there is a garrison, the people is not so much an enterprising journey. How dare I stay away from the outside world? But in the war, there is a way to fight, and the horse is ready. Simple chess pieces, timely events. Even if it costs a lot, it can be kept forever. Rules include abiding by the law, remonstrating from afar, setting up solid camps, setting up high cities and deep pools, and accumulating grain for farming. No more soldiers, no more horses, and last forever. Today, with a population of140,000 and an annual expenditure of 6 million, Pepsi won't do it, although it is said that it is an enemy. If you don't fight hard, you will be ashamed to say that you are defending yourself. If you have a strong vanity, you will not worry about the future. All I do is wander around in the middle of the night, which is for nothing. Shufu should assess the situation, know yourself and measure yourself. If you can fight, you can use tactics, but you can use rules to obey the law. Strengthen the imperial court, cherish the people's livelihood materials, take training as the service, give priority to animal husbandry, and do not pretend to restore, but only repeat the facts. Defend the people with soldiers. Today, we are talking about Jin and Yi, but before Ning, there was news of death, so we don't worry about losing food. At first, I planned to focus on Juehua and Shoushan. Now, my shoulders are outside, but my eyes are in the middle, so I was blindsided. In my humble opinion, since mountains and seas are the gates of god's well, we should first increase the number of shovels, rebuild its shape, set up platforms to hold its key points, and set up a wide number of ground nets and bridges to prevent its conflict. Shu Ren's thought is firm, but the enemy is arrogant. That is, if a chess piece is unfavorable and does not shake at all, it is an out-and-out teacher's ear. If you advance with unparalleled sharpness, you will retreat without relying on danger, with thunder as the spear and house as the solid base. Mu Zhantu's false reputation, but baiting the enemy's real disaster is what I fear. " 【 History Institute of Jilin Academy of Social Sciences 《 History of Northeast China in Ming Dynasty (Ⅱ) 》 Xizong 55/5-6 】
Here, Sun Chengzong made a big mistake, and made it very clear that, on the premise of not winning in the field, Chen Bing stayed on his own border for hundreds of years, saying it was an attack but did not dare to go, saying it was a defense and felt ashamed. This is so tangled that no one has ever been so funny.
Sun Chengzong spends at least five million and two thousand dollars a year, extending from 1622 to 1644, and wasting hundreds of millions in Liaodong, but the end result is that the late Jin often comes to the customs to plunder, which is completely contrary to Sun Chengzong's original intention of "keeping Ningyuan, mountains and seas are already in heavy customs, and Shen Jing is thousands of miles away":
"So, with the convenience of the Liao people, they were placed between the two guards and three houses and twenty-seven castles, and cultivated with soil. It is said that if the Liao people keep Liao soil and raise Liao people, so that the preparation outside the customs is slightly adequate, the defense inside the customs will be slightly reduced. If the situation is kept in the pass, it will be shallow. If you keep Ningyuan, mountains and seas overlap, and the well is thousands of miles away. Today, I also considered this. "
Therefore, it can be considered that Sun Chengzong's strategy of building and expanding the army is a complete failure. This failure is not only a tactical failure, but also a strategic failure. It lost the last glimmer of hope in the Ming Dynasty, and hundreds of millions of silver were destroyed here in vain, but the defense line failed to meet the designer's promise. It can be said that this is the real ancient version of the Maginot line.
With the annual swallowing of maginot line, Chongzhen naturally faces the situation that a clever woman can't cook without rice, and has to pay again and again, but it still can't make up for the bottomless pit in Liaodong.
Because Liaodong was too expensive, the court had to rob Peter to pay Paul, so the salaries of the towns in the northwest were in arrears for a long time, which led to the large-scale mutiny of soldiers and Li Zicheng. Although Li Zicheng was able to enter Beijing under the financial collapse of the imperial court, he was unable to integrate the financial collapse, so he was taken by the late Jin Dynasty and eventually turned into a tragedy that ruined the world.
After understanding Sun Chengzong's terrible mistake, Wang Zaijin's foresight was immediately revealed. Wang Zaijin went to Liaodong in 1622 as the governor of Liaodong. As soon as he arrived in Liaodong, he adopted a defensive strategy, strengthened Shanhaiguan, reduced all kinds of expenses, and joined forces with nearby Mongolian tribes to first turn Shanhaiguan into a moat.
Wang Zaijin had such understanding and measures because he was in charge of military supplies in Liaodong before he took office, and his official position was "assistant minister of the Prime Minister's Ministry and ordnance worker". During his tenure, he found that Liaodong swallowed up a lot of government revenue, like a bottomless pit, so he decided that once he became the manager of Liaodong, he must cut the expenses of Liaodong:
"Running the king in Zou Jin in ... years, Liao Xing hundreds of millions of numerous hao, even in Sichuan Monsieur beaucaire sin ... the emperor to restore the people's Liao Zuo musquash, must be made from scratch, straw, weapons must be handled from scratch, there is no chance for future funding. That is, guarding mountains and seas, building cities, castles, platforms, piers, soldiers, horses, equipment and machinery are expensive. If you want to join Xilu, the annual fee is particularly difficult to predict, and it must be beyond the reach of the four farmers. In Yan's spare time, your majesty must closely check the court's money. If Qionglin has a large surplus, it will be easily exhausted, and everything will be supplied and rewarded by the court to help the army. I should do what I can and not be at a loss, so as to avoid the danger of losing my tail. "
In addition, Wang Zaijin is also an expert in military affairs, and he is very aware of the relationship between military affairs and economy. In the use of manpower and funds, he is much better than Sun Chengzong.
Sun Chengzong's most famous strategy is the so-called "defending Liao soil with Liao people". Now it seems that it is based on local materials, which seems reasonable, but this is the view of scholars, and the Liaodong problem can never be solved by such a strategy.
At that time, there were two options to fight Liaodong. One is to fight with foreign soldiers, that is, soldiers recruited from other places, and the other is to fight with local soldiers. The difference between the two is that the soldiers can only defend, not attack, and the guest soldiers attack.
Sun Chengzong mustered hundreds of troops, assumed an offensive posture (seeking a large scale), but used the principle of "keeping the Liao soil with the Liao people", which is self-contradictory. The biggest problem of soldiers is land reclamation, which is bound to be scattered, but dispersed nature cannot gather, thus posing a situation of being surrounded by divisions at any time. Therefore, whether it is the battle of Ningyuan or the battle of Ningjin, the mutual support between the Ming troops outside the customs has not achieved results. Basically, they are fighting in their own way, being passively beaten everywhere, and they have to beg for support from other military towns.
At that time, the expenditure of Liaodong Town had exceeded the sum of the military expenditure of Jiubian Town in the north, but it needed other military towns to support it at the beginning, which was a joke in itself.
In addition, soldiers have another problem, that is, they may settle down on the spot after they settle down, and once they settle down, they can't leave their wives, children and pots and pans at home, and the expeditionary force will go to the hinterland of Houjin, so they can only attack with guest soldiers.
Sun Chengzong's fundamental mistake was to expand Liaodong's army to hundreds of thousands, but he advocated using troops. This made a joke just now. Chen Bing has hundreds of thousands of people on the border, and he didn't dare to attack for years. He was ashamed to say that he just made some defenses.
Wang Zaijin's strategy is to keep only a small number of troops and only hold the Shanhaiguan area. In this way, millions of dollars are saved every year, waiting for opportunities. Once the time is right, they will suddenly increase a large number of guest soldiers and annihilate the latter gold in one fell swoop. Therefore, Wang's strategy in the Jin Dynasty was the only one that could solve the problem, while Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan's thought of protecting Liao soil with Liao people could never destroy the later Jin Dynasty.
If we use Wang Zaijin's strategy, we can first ensure that the finance of the Ming Dynasty will not collapse, and will not lead to the rout and mutiny like Li Zicheng, and other problems, which will calm the country a lot and save the driver's strength for solving the Liaodong problem.
Knowing this, we will find that Wang Zaijin was actually the only person who could save the Ming Dynasty. If Sun Chengzong hadn't been kicked out and continued to be the coach in Liaodong, the whole history would have been rewritten. It's a pity that the Ming Dynasty was unlucky and greedy for a servant like Sun Chengzong.
Of course, although Wang Zaijin lost his position as the coach of Liaodong during the Apocalypse Dynasty and had no chance to change history, in the early days of Chongzhen Dynasty, he had another chance to solve the Liaodong problem as a minister of war.
During the Chongzhen period, although the situation in Liaodong was already very bad and the financial losses in Ming Dynasty were serious, there was still a glimmer of hope if the policies were adjusted in time. There are two things that must be grasped at this time. First, do a good job in liaison between North Korea and Mongolian tribes near Yuji Town, support Dongjiang Town, and jointly do a good job in containing the latter. The other is to gradually shrink the Liaodong defense line and stop construction.
To do a good job of liaison with all parties, the first task is to make peace with Houjin, because once the Ming Dynasty makes peace with Houjin, the Mongolian tribes and North Korea around Yuji Town will certainly be hit hard, because they have always stood on the side of the Ming Dynasty and have much friction with Houjin. Once the Ming Dynasty made peace with the latter Jin Dynasty, it was naturally unnecessary for them to remain hostile to the latter Jin Dynasty, and the blockade of the latter Jin Dynasty was completely disintegrated. Once it collapses, it is likely to be destroyed.