Zhu Di: My fourth son is a great emperor of all time?

Chapter 77 It wasn't Esen who ambushed Zhu Qizhen.
Southern civil service group?

Zhu Di frowned, and he quickly pieced together all the clues.

Yang Shiqi was from the South.

Moreover, his hometown was near the Battle of Luchuan.

Just now, Tianmu said that a sudden riot broke out in the southeastern coastal area, forcing Zhu Qizhen to send troops to suppress it.

Whose territory is that?

In retrospect, it turns out that the rebellion was actually orchestrated by the cabinet.

To be precise, it was the civil service group that was behind this.

The civil service group is not the cabinet.

Zhu Di understood this point; the abilities of the cabinet members were not enough to threaten the emperor.

The cabinet represents nothing more than the bureaucratic party within the civil service.

Not only Zhu Di, but even Zhu Gaochi suddenly understood why, when the reform was exposed, the fourth prince, who was so smart, actually risked his life to offend the officials and gentry.

It turns out that they had no choice but to kill all these officials, gentry, and noble families.

With these factors in place, the fate of the Ming Dynasty will only grow weaker.

They were acting entirely out of self-interest.

There are too many things in the History of Ming that are difficult to explain, because they are simply inexplicable, and because they were written by shameless people.

【Today I'm going to overturn all of your claims!】

Many people say that uprisings broke out in various places during Zhu Qizhen's reign, which is a joke. What has peasant uprising been for since ancient times? To overthrow local tyrants and distribute land.

However, the rebels at the time had only one target: the government troops. They only attacked the government troops and didn't plunder anything. Everyone can imagine what kind of people these were!

Zhu Qizhen was a young man, full of vigor and ambition. When faced with an uprising in the southeastern coastal region, he did not tolerate it at all and immediately dispatched 100,000 troops to suppress it.

This battle lasted for more than half a year with no results. The 100,000 Ming troops could not even organize a decent battle and were completely bogged down in the quagmire. They could not find the enemy. The reason was simple: the local officers had long been colluding with the civil officials. The coastal areas were major smuggling hubs, and these people had already made a fortune. Naturally, they would no longer obey the emperor's orders.

Zhu Qizhen was furious and immediately dispatched 25,000 troops from the capital. In just three months, the unrest along the southeast coast was quelled.

After a prolonged siege by 100,000 men, the enemy was easily subdued by 20,000 troops!
After the rebellion was suppressed, the army remained in place, and Zhu Qizhen planned to investigate the cause of the rebellion.

This was in March of the fourteenth year of the Zhengtong reign (1444), four months before the Tumu Crisis!

"Arrogant, so incredibly arrogant! These intellectuals are too arrogant!"

Even Zhu Gaosui understood the simple truth behind this.

This is clearly someone secretly plotting something.

Having dealt with the military for many years, he was well aware of the Ming army's strength.

"Father, let me take men and kill those old bastards right now!"

He couldn't hold back any longer and got up to confront the cabinet.

"Keep reading!"

Zhu Di's eyes were filled with murderous intent. If Zhu Qizhen were truly incompetent, then so be it.

However, judging from the words spoken by the heavens this time, this is not the case.

If Zhu Qizhen could really accomplish all this, how could such a person be a tyrant?

He also noticed the last sentence.

We are now very close to the Tumu Crisis.

In other words, the Tumu Crisis was very likely a conspiracy.

Zhu Di was furious; he was determined to kill someone tonight, no matter what.

[Just a few years after Zhu Qizhen regained power, two major wars broke out.]

[Especially this rebellion along the southeast coast solidified his determination to investigate its cause. It happened in June; those familiar with this period of history will know what occurred!]

"what happened?"

Zhu Di carefully recalled Tianmu's words. After all, so much time had passed that it was normal to forget some things. However, there were eunuchs in the palace who were responsible for recording them, so it wasn't a big deal. He just wanted to send someone to retrieve them.

But Zhu Gaoshuo provided the answer.

"At the same time, military reports came from Datong, Xuanfu, and Liaodong, where there had been peace for twenty-five years: the Mongols had invaded the border!"

"And the Tumu Crisis must have happened in July!"

Zhu Gaoshuo's two sentences pierced Zhu Di's heart like a sharp blade.

If he still doesn't know what's happening by now, then he's truly wasted his life.

The unrest in the north was clearly an attempt to cover up the rebellion along the southeast coast.

Zhu Di hurriedly looked at Zhu Gaoshuo: "Fourth Prince, do you mean they deliberately wanted Zhu Qizhen to personally lead the army? And then betray him to Esen?"

This time, Zhu Gaoshuo remained silent.

It's not that he doesn't want to talk about it.

However, he himself was also unclear about the actual situation.

This only shows that the historical record of the Tumu Fortress incident is indeed very one-sided and covers up many things.

The only thing Zhu Gaoshuo was certain of was that the civil service group was no good.

Everyone knows that Zhu Qizhen led an army of 500,000 to conquer Tumu Fortress, but there is no record of it in the two official histories of the Ming Dynasty, the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty and the History of the Ming Dynasty. Not a single word was written about the soldiers who died!

No one knows how many people died at Tumu Fortress. It is said that the main forces of the three major battalions were all taken away. But if the three major battalions in the capital were wiped out, what kind of people did Yu Qian later reorganize into the Eighth Battalion?

[The only documented list of fallen generals!]

Tumu Fortress was the place where the final incident occurred, but according to records, Esen's cavalry had already fought several battles with Zhu Qizhen before that, and won all of them.

It's laughable to recount such a history of the Ming Dynasty. All of these battles took place within the Great Wall, within the borders of the Ming Dynasty.

There is no list of casualties because it is impossible to count them. The actual losses of the Ming army were very small, perhaps less than you can imagine.

Zhu Qizhen was captured alive, and all the high-ranking generals of the army were killed in action, yet the soldiers suffered few casualties. Isn't the situation quite clear?

The entire process and purpose of the Tumu Fortress attack were actually aimed at Zhu Qizhen and his group of officers.

"coup!"

Zhu Di blurted it out.

They deliberately wanted to lure Zhu Qizhen out so they could kill all the military officers.

The balance between civil and military affairs has always been a top priority for emperors.

The emperor suppressed civil officials by relying on military generals.

As a result, all the military generals were killed in this battle.

If Zhu Di remembered correctly, the military was later taken over by civil officials.

"Yu Qian!"

Zhu Di felt his head buzzing.

Could this matter have something to do with Yu Qian?

In the previous TV series "Sky Screen," Yu Qian was a national hero. What role did he play in the Tumu Crisis?

"No, the Battle of Tumu Fortress was attacked by Esen's troops, and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the civil service group."

Zhu Di pondered for a moment and suddenly discovered a loophole in the sky.

If the Tumu Crisis was indeed launched by the civil service group to kill their political enemies.

That doesn't make sense regarding the Oirat and Esen's relationship.

The only possibility is that the civil service group colluded with the Mongols.

The Tumu Crisis is indeed very interesting. Before reconstructing this history, we need to clarify one thing: it was not Esen who launched the surprise attack on the Ming army camp.

(End of this chapter)