Chapter 27 Chapter 7 The Central Plains Dynasties in Retreat: The Ming Dynasty

In the northeast, the goal of the early Ming Dynasty was to restore the territory of the Yuan Dynasty.Especially because the Wang family Koryo on the Korean Peninsula is pro-Yuan, so Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang insisted on using Tieling as the boundary, and planned to set up guards and posts to garrison troops in the northwest of the Korean Peninsula. For this reason, there was a dispute with Koryo .But in the 25th year of Hongwu (1392 A.D.), the Li family of Korea replaced the Wang family and adopted a pro-Ming policy. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty no longer insisted on using Tieling as the boundary. Since then, the Yalu River has become the boundary river between the Ming Dynasty and Korea.

In the tribal areas such as Jurchen in the Northeast, the Ming Dynasty successively set up a group of guards and guards to rule or control the local ethnic groups.In the seventh year of Yongle (1409 A.D.), the Nuergan Dusi was set up to govern about 300 guards and offices.The capital is located in Takhta, the Khabarovsk border region of Russia in the lower reaches of Heilongjiang, 150 kilometers away from the river mouth.In the ninth year of Yongle, Kuwu was conquered again, and the jurisdiction was expanded to Sakhalin Island, and Nangharwei was set up on the island.The main officials of the Nuergan Dusi, such as Du Commander, Tongzhi, and Qianshi, all use Liuguan, that is, they are dispatched by the court, while the guards, commanders of the offices, and Qianhu are appointed native officials, that is, local tribes. head of the.The nature of the Nurgan Dusi is similar to that of the Protectorate in the Han and Tang Dynasties, and the tribes within the guards and offices also enjoy autonomy.But the jurisdiction of the Dusi is stricter than that of the Dufu, because the subordinate units no longer have countries like the Western Regions, and all guards and offices must completely obey the Dusi.Of course, due to the nature of detention, the degree of control of the subordinate units by the capitals varies greatly, and it cannot be generalized.

The establishment and existence of the capital are not only recorded in reliable documents, but also have conclusive evidence.After the establishment of the Nurgan Dusi, internal officials such as Yi Shiha were ordered to comfort the local tribes many times.In the eleventh year of Yongle (AD 1413), when Yishiha visited Nurgan Dusi for the third time, he built Yongning Temple in the southwest of Dusi City, on the opposite bank of the Henggun River Estuary in Heilongjiang, and erected a monument in front of the temple.When he visited the place for the tenth time in the seventh year of Xuande (1432 A.D.), he found that the temple had been destroyed. In the following year, he appointed officials to rebuild it and erected a monument to record the events.These two steles record in detail the process of setting up the Nurgan Dusi and the situation of Yishiha's repeated orders to appease the land.Although Yongning Temple has been buried for a long time [yin yi Yinyi], the two steles have always stood in place.In the eleventh year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (1885 A.D.), Cao Tingjie was ordered by the Qing Dynasty to investigate the areas occupied by Tsarist Russia, and brought back the inscriptions and disclosed them to the world.The original stele is still preserved in the museum of Khabarovsk (Khabarovsk), Russia.

In the tenth year of Xuande (AD 1435), the Nuergan Dusi was abolished, but the subordinate Weisuo continued to exist.However, due to the cancellation of the higher-level construction, the Ming Dynasty's control over these guards also weakened, especially after the Ming Dynasty's national power weakened.In order to prevent the tribes in the Jimi area and the Tatars in the west from entering its direct rule area - Liaodong Dusi, side walls were built successively starting from Yongle and Xuande.The side wall starts from the east side of the Yalu River in the northeast of Dandong City, Liaoning Province, passes through Kuandian East, Benxi West, turns east to Benxi North, and goes northward through Fushun East, Tieling East, Kaiyuan East, Changtu East, and turns east to Changtu Turn north and south to Changtu West and Kaiyuan West, and then roughly along the Liaohe River to the southwest to Sanchakou (northwest of Haicheng City, Liaoning), and then from Sanpenkou to the northwest, passing through Tai'an and Heishan, turning east, passing Fuxin South, and turning southwest Pass through Yixian West, Jinzhou West, Jinxi West, Suizhong West, and turn south to Shanhaiguan.This side wall is not the boundary of the Ming Dynasty, nor even the boundary of the direct ruling area, because the northeast of the side wall is under the jurisdiction of the Nurgan Dusi, and even after the abolition of the Dusi, it is still part of the territory of the Ming Dynasty.Moreover, due to the needs of military defense, the side wall was not completely built on the edge of Liaodong Capital, and part of its jurisdiction was outside the side wall.Since the Liaodong side wall is connected to another side wall (Great Wall) of the Ming Dynasty through Shanhaiguan, its starting point - the Yalu River in the northeast of Dandong City, is also the starting point of the Great Wall.