jdhmnovel Chapter 997 Emperor Zhu Feels a Headache Again
Chapter 997 Emperor Zhu Feels a Headache Again
Emperor Zhu had long felt that something was wrong with the garrison system.
On the surface, the garrison system was indeed quite impressive.
When the Ming Dynasty had only over 50 million people, the garrison system enabled the Ming Dynasty to have nearly 2 million soldiers, and it did not require the court to support them separately.
However, the phenomena of drawing salaries without working and using soldiers as slaves do exist and are difficult to eradicate.
Xiang Fei, the commander of Lingshan Guard who was beheaded, is a prime example of this negative situation.
Similar cases are rarer closer to the border and more common closer to the south of the Yangtze River.
This situation has nothing to do with the gentry of Jiangnan.
Because the border garrisons were mainly responsible for fighting, the commanders of a thousand and a hundred households still needed to rely on the soldiers in the garrisons to fight. Even if the Grand Commander's Office did not investigate, the officers of the thousand and a hundred households and other ranks still had to guard against the soldiers stabbing them in the back.
The closer the garrison was to the south of the Yangtze River, the more it was devoted to reclamation and farming, and the less likely it was to be drawn into battle, which made the officers bolder.
In addition, the composition of the garrison soldiers was quite complex.
There were civilians who had come to join the army on their own, good families who were recruited later, Yuan soldiers and Mongols who had surrendered, and criminals who were exiled to the army.
After becoming soldiers themselves, ordinary people who later became soldiers through recruitment, and then ordinary people from good families who spent a long time in the army, would always have the idea of being a "military lord" who was superior to ordinary people.
The surrendered Yuan soldiers and Mongols, as well as the criminals exiled to the army, always felt that they were inferior to the thieves and convicts.
Moreover, some of these people were loyal to the Ming Dynasty, while others outwardly appeared to be loyal to the Ming Dynasty but in reality still missed the Yuan Dynasty. They all held the idea of "serving as soldiers to earn the emperor's salary and risking their lives for the emperor."
Emperor Zhu didn't feel there was anything wrong with the idea of "serving the emperor as a soldier and risking one's life for him".
However, the ideas of "military lord" and "thief paired with a soldier" are completely wrong.
Sir?
Hu Yuan's army was also composed of military officers.
However, Hu Yuan's army was utterly defeated by the Ming army.
As an emperor who had risen from humble beginnings as a beggar monk, Emperor Zhu instinctively sensed that something was amiss with the general's thinking.
If Zhu Yuanzhang hadn't been the emperor, would he have had to address the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty as "soldier"? Would he have had to swallow his anger and endure being beaten, scolded, or bullied by these "soldiers"?
If our old Zhu (Zhu Xi) is unwilling, do you think the ordinary people are?
As for the phrase "thieves conscripted into the army," that's even more absurd.
The army during the Song Dynasty also considered itself a bandit conscript.
Then, the Song army was attacked by the Liao, the Western Xia, the Jin, and the Mongols.
The Ming army, which aimed to "expel the Tartars and restore China," was able to defeat Hu Yuan's army.
Even Wang Baobao, the "extraordinary man of the world," was mostly beaten to a pulp by Xu Da.
Therefore, the idea of "bandits being conscripted into the army" is definitely problematic.
Then the problem is coming.
Although Emperor Zhu had long recognized the shortcomings of the garrison system, he could not find a solution for the time being.
Abolish the agricultural function of the garrisons and make the garrison soldiers solely responsible for fighting.
The Ming Dynasty's finances simply could not support the supply of two million troops.
If the government is forced to shoulder the supply problem for two million troops, it will not be able to free up funds for other purposes.
For example, river dredging, road repair, and city construction.
Not to mention the continuous wars during the Song-Yuan and Yuan-Ming transitions, which severely damaged the nation's vitality. The imperial court also had to solve all sorts of problems for the people, such as seeds, oxen, and farming tools, in order to allow them to recuperate and rebuild.
Therefore, even though he had long recognized the shortcomings of the garrison system, Emperor Zhu did not dare to easily make changes.
The only thought was to wait, to wait a little longer, until the threat of Hu Yuan was completely eliminated before studying the issue of the garrison system.
It wasn't until I saw the Ningyang Thousand Household Garrison with my own eyes that I understood.
The soldiers in Ningyang Thousand Household Garrison had neither "military lords" nor "bandit convicts".
The soldiers in the Ningyang Thousand Household Garrison would help the people of Ningyang County harvest wheat and fetch water.
The people of Ningyang County would also look at the soldiers of the Ningyang Thousand-Household Garrison with more respect.
Unlike ordinary people in other places who would avoid the soldiers, they would always try to get closer to them, and if they had any good food at home, they would often think of the soldiers in the garrison.
Sometimes Emperor Zhu felt fortunate that he had impulsively placed the Ningyang Thousand-Household Garrison under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Son-in-Law's Mansion.
Although that scoundrel kept instilling ideas like "loyalty to the Ming Dynasty and loyalty to the people" in the soldiers of the Thousand Households, without ever mentioning "loyalty to the Emperor," what is the difference between being loyal to the Ming Dynasty and being loyal to the Emperor?
Although that scoundrel kept instilling ideas like "serving the people," "coming from the people and going back to the people," and "the Ming army is the people's own army" in the soldiers of the Thousand Households, there's nothing wrong with the Ming Dynasty being good only when the people are doing well, and the Ming Dynasty being good only when the emperor is doing well.
Xu Da and Chang Yuchun, who had personally witnessed the Ningyang Thousand-Household Garrison, both remarked that compared to Jin Wuzhu's saying, "It is easier to shake a mountain than to shake Yue Fei's army," it was probably easier to "shake Yue Fei's army."
After all, once Yue Fei's army was wiped out, that was that.
However, the Ningyang Thousand Household Office simply could not completely destroy it.
To put it bluntly, it's easy to kill all the soldiers in Ningyang Thousand-Household Garrison, but there's no way to completely destroy Ningyang Thousand-Household Garrison.
If Ningyang County is turned into a battlefield, whoever attacks Ningyang Qianhu Garrison must carry out a complete massacre of the city and villages, killing everyone without leaving a single one alive.
Otherwise, Ningyang Thousand Household Garrison would have an almost inexhaustible supply of soldiers.
Even if only a few survivors are left, the Ningyang Thousand Household Garrison could potentially rise from the ashes again.
Emperor Zhu still remembered Xu Da's pained expression as he scratched his head and frowned.
"Mahjong?"
Guerrilla warfare?
"Base?"
"Damn it, anyone who fights this army is going to have a headache."
Of course, the most crucial point is that although this thousand-household unit was assigned to the Prince Consort's residence, this army did not belong to the Prince Consort's residence at all.
Then, Emperor Zhu became particularly envious of the Ningyang Thousand-Household Garrison and wished he could remodel all the garrisons in the Ming Dynasty according to the Ningyang Thousand-Household Garrison model.
The only thing that made Emperor Zhu give up this idea was the empty national treasury of the Ming Dynasty—the soldiers of the Ningyang Thousand Household Garrison received a military salary called a subsidy, regardless of whether they were engaged in land reclamation or not.
Not high. In the first three years, the new recruits only received a daily allowance of three coins, which was less than half of what the barbarians who came to the Ming Dynasty to do hard labor received.
It wasn't until the fourth year that the subsidy increased from three coins to twenty coins, which was only twice as much as the wages of the barbarian laborers.
But how many people does the Ningyang Thousand Household Garrison have?
How many people were in the entire Ming Dynasty army?
When the number of people increases from 1,112 to nearly two million, even a subsidy of three coins per day would amount to six thousand strings of cash, which would amount to more than two million strings of cash per year.
Moreover, the food, clothing, and lodging of the soldiers of the Ningyang Thousand Households were all paid for by the Ningyang County Treasury, and the food, clothing, and lodging of all soldiers in the Ming army were also covered by the national treasury...
Emperor Zhu felt a headache coming on once again.