The Jiannu in Liaodong... that shadow which the Great Ming Dynasty could never quite shake.
If only the strike had been harder during the Chenghua Plowings, perhaps the Great Ming would have been spared these troubles in Liaodong over a hundred years later. Of course, that was merely Monday-morning quarterbacking; Emperor Xianzong had done all that was reasonably possible at the time. Those two plowings had kept the Jianzhou Jurchen docile for over a century, so much so that when the Qing Dynasty compiled the History of Ming, they maliciously smeared Emperor Xianzong, forcing him into the image of a "doltish emperor."
If the Jiannu were truly as the Emperor said, waiting to besiege the capital once the rebel bandits withdrew, what was to be done?
Chapter 90