After reading the rise and fall of Bansheng City, you will understand why the Ming Dynasty abandoned Monan?

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, after several years of peasant wars, in 1368 Zhu Yuanzhang led a rebel army to capture Beijing, the capital of the Yuan Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty regime was established. During the Ming Dynasty, when the climate was relatively cold, whether the Monan area was suitable for farming and reclamation, and whether it was appropriate for the Ming Dynasty to abandon its garrison on the Mongolian grasslands, are still debated today.

By the late Ming Dynasty, Bansheng City in Fengzhou, now Hohhot, under the rule of Anda Khan of the Mongolian Tumote tribe, had a complete agricultural system relying on Han refugees. Some people blamed the Ming Dynasty for Short-sighted, they gave up control of the Monan region, believing that it was only because of the Ming Dynasty that poor people fled to Mongolia.

There has always been a saying that "the Yellow River has all kinds of harms, but only one thing is rich." Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, people have dug ditches in the Hetao and introduced water from the Yellow River for irrigation for farming. Excessive agricultural development in the Hetao area has resulted in serious vegetation damage, massive water and soil loss, and turned large areas of land into deserts.

Although the Dongsheng Guard was established in the early Ming Dynasty in Tuoketuo County, Hohhot City, it soon moved inland. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was no military garrison in the Hetao area. When the Ming Dynasty was strong, it used force to drive away the Mongols in the Hetao area by searching for and burning wasteland to maintain control of the front and back areas.

In the sixth year of Longqing, Anda Khan built Kukuhatun City (now Hohhot). In order to strengthen the relationship between Ming and Mongolia, Anda Khan specially asked Emperor Huang of the Ming Dynasty to name it. The Ming court gave it the name "Guihua". ". Although the agricultural economy around Bansheng City in Fengzhou was fragile, the large number of Han people who settled here in the late Ming Dynasty proved that it was feasible to expand Han agriculture to Inner Mongolia.

As a Han dynasty, the Ming Dynasty had to farm in the Fengzhou area. There was no danger to defend it and there would be a risk of being attacked from both sides. It was very difficult for the army to shoulder the responsibilities of farming and defense at the same time. As for whether the Ming Dynasty was wrong to give up control of Monan, that is "the benevolent has a different opinion."