Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 664 It's all about money

There are 8000 soldiers in Nanning, which finally reassured Gao Wushi a little, but what he didn't expect was that the surprise was not over, because Ni Zhonghua said again: "These [-] people are all Han'er officers directly under the imperial court. In addition, if needed according to the station, we also have wolf soldiers to call."

Gao Wushi was startled when he heard that: "Wolf soldiers... Squad army?"

Ni Zhonghua thought: Gao Zhizhi really doesn't know much about our Guangxi, he doesn't know about the wolf soldiers?

But after thinking about it, he never dared to say that, and he said with a smile all over his face: "Yes, we in Guangxi, to be honest, the guards are not very useful for a long time. Usually, if there is any war that requires a large-scale deployment of troops, it is actually the squadron that is mainly mobilized, and the Guangxi squadron is divided into two categories."

Gao Wushi asked, "Which two types? Han soldiers and wolf soldiers?"

"According to Taiwan is wise!" Ni Zhonghua is also completely shameless, and this is actually "wise", but he is still serious, and said: "In Guangxi, at the beginning of the country, the Han army had three major sources, namely Huguang, Guizhou and Guangdong, but later there were many things in Guizhou, and the squadron was not sent over during the Xuande period, and now the Han troops in the Guangxi squadron mainly come from Huguang and Guangdong."

"How many people?" Gao Wushi asked.

Ni Zhonghua said: "I don't know according to the station. The number of squadrons is actually uncertain, or it is often adjusted. In the earliest days, the Huguang squadron usually had [-] people who came to Guangxi in turn. Later, it gradually decreased to [-]. But since Guangxi When the chaos broke out, the number of people began to increase again. Since the Eight Villages Rebellion was put down in Guangxi last year, there are still about [-] people in the Huguang Squadron in Guangxi."

"Oh... what about the Guangdong squad?" Gao Wushi asked again.

Ni Zhonghua said: "The Guangdong squadron has always been composed of ten or sixteen guards including the Guangzhou Four Guards, Nanhai Guards, Qingyuan Guards, Guanghai Guards, Huizhou Guards, Chaozhou Guards, Jieshi Guards, and Xiangshan Institute. At most, there were two There are more than 1 people in the squad. At the time of the fifth year of Longqing, Guangxi’s chaos broke out everywhere. There were more than 4600 members in each squad of the original Guangdong Guards. At present, this number is basically maintained... Maybe a little less, but There is probably another [-] or so."

Very good, two eight thousand, that is sixteen thousand regular field troops, which is barely worth a look.

Gao Wushi asked again: "Then what's the situation with the wolf soldiers?"

Ni Zhonghua said: "The situation of the Wolf Soldier Squad is very complicated, mainly because the strength of the chieftains varies greatly, so the imperial court has very different requirements for them to go to the squad, for example, for Sicheng Prefecture and Siming Mansion. For the big chieftains, the imperial court requires them to dispatch thousands of soldiers each time, and change every three years; for some small chieftains, the requirements are lowered as appropriate, such as... er, for example, in Xincheng County, only 150 people are sent out per shift, and every two years One round, and you can take a year off if you don’t have a shift. Anyway, this is quite complicated, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to explain it for a while.”

Oh, then it doesn't have to be so clear.

Gao Wushi said: "Then you can tell me the general situation. How many wolf soldiers are there in Guangxi now?"

Ni Zhonghua smiled wryly and said: "According to the table, the lowly position is only the general of Liu Qing. If you want to talk about the whole province, I'm afraid it's not very accurate, so I can only roughly calculate... there are about [-] to [-], at least there should be [-] regular shifts." .”

"Regular shift?" Gao Wushi asked, "That means there may be temporary recruitment?"

Ni Zhonghua suddenly raised his head and chest, and said proudly: "That's natural. If there is an order from the imperial court, they will naturally be recruited according to the order. The five thousand five thousand is just a rule."

Gao Wushi immediately thought about it: This is not bad, the Han soldiers plus the wolf soldiers, there are 2 field troops here. Although the guards in Guangxi are also corrupt, according to what Zhang Ren said before. Judging from the situation, it is estimated that more than [-] people or even [-] people can be used for one use, which is [-] to [-] available soldiers.

Although it is more than half less than the theoretically 10,000+ guards in Guangxi, but the book data does not matter, as long as the 5 to [-] field troops are used well, unless they are of the level of the Cen and Huang families Rebellion, otherwise it should be enough to solve the internal problems in Guangxi.

Then why do you have to go to great lengths to fight the Eight Villages Rebellion, and you have to gather an army of [-] to fight?What the hell is the reason for this? Don't you feel that you don't have enough momentum if you don't have an army of [-]?This is too ridiculous, right?
Anyway, there are only Jiang Xin and Ni Zhonghua at the moment, and Gao Yushi is not afraid of "family ugliness", so he directly raised this issue.

Unexpectedly, Ni Zhonghua, who was always willing to answer high-practical questions, kept silent this time and just looked at Jiang Xin.

Gao Wushi was a little surprised, but he still looked at Jiang Xin. Jiang Xin knew the reason why Ni Zhonghua didn't dare to say it. As a military officer, it was really inconvenient for him to say some things. Let’s start with the squadron system.”

Gao Wushi nodded: "You tell me, I'm supposed to be all ears."

"Although the squad's combat effectiveness is good, it's actually...not very useful." Jiang Xin set a tone first.

Gao Wushi didn't speak, just frowned slightly, and continued to look at him.

Jiang Xin coughed lightly and said, "That's what happened..."

He was really forced to have no choice but to tell the inside story.

It turns out that the squad army system has actually caused many disputes between Guangxi, Guizhou, Huguang and Guangdong, and the root cause is the conflict between the jurisdiction, use rights and military material supply system of the Ming army.

This must first start with the support of the squadron in the Ming Dynasty.In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang tried to solve the problem of army supplies by garrisoning fields, and stipulated that every banner army should have a garrison field of different sizes. One soldier, the land ranges from eighty to ninety mu to a hundred mu, and the guards are recorded in the book. The army is not allowed to sell it, and the people are not allowed to buy it." The food collected is used to support the officers and soldiers and their families.

But in fact, even in the Chengzu period when the grain collection was the highest in the Ming Dynasty, the Weisuo Army did not achieve self-sufficiency. If the border villages are included, then the actual role of the military camps in the early Ming Dynasty should be "enough to fill half of the army's food." Still smaller.

The effect of farming in Guangxi is particularly poor. In the 29th year of Hongwu, due to insufficient military pay for the newly established Nandan, Fengyi, Qingyuanwei and Fuchuan Qianhusuo, the imperial court ordered all soldiers to farm for military supplies. The primary task is to protect the home and defend the country. The elite banner troops will do their best to defend the city and defend against the enemy. The rest of the army (i.e., Ding Yu) can only farm the land. As the banner troops die in battle or flee, the rest of the army must replenish their troops to prepare for the defense. The labor force required for farming could no longer be guaranteed, and the fields in the guards were either abandoned, occupied by tyrants, or allowed to be rented out. The corruption of the government was inevitable.

The insufficient supply of the army has no choice but to be borne by prefectures, counties, etc.This is not only the case in Guangxi, but also in other capitals and chief secretaries.

As early as the tenth year of Xuande, the imperial court stipulated that "the warehouses of Weisuo all over the world belong to prefectures and counties, but Liaodong, Gansu, Ningxia, Wanquan, and coastal Weisuo have no prefectures and counties."

In the early years of Jiajing, the guards were corrupted to the point of being hopeless, and the military supplies of various armed forces across the country were basically borne by the administrative agencies.

For the squads in Guangxi, except for the wolf squads that are supported by the locals (in fact, it is not local, but the chieftain himself), the expenses of the Huguang, Guangdong and Guizhou squads are all borne by themselves.

The basic living supplies of the Weisuo Banner Army are provided by the military family themselves. This is a unified regulation in the Ming Dynasty, such as "Guangxi has a vast land, and there is no time to send troops. The Banner Army... is ready to be called, and the other two Ding are exempted from serving as envoys to help the main army."In other words, the imperial court actually only gave some other "preferences".

In the tenth year of orthodoxy, "the capitals of Guizhou and Huguang, in the nearby Guangxi Weisuo, dispatched Fu Shiyou Ding Guanjun to go to the police."

The rations needed by the [-] troops in Huguang every year are provided by the Chief Secretary of Huguang.

And Guangdong is even worse. Not only do they have to solve the military supplies and salaries of their own guards, but they also have to "help" Guangxi's food and salaries every year.For example, last year, "Let Guangdong Xieji Wu Township pay Wuzhou government. Since the Governor's Mansion was moved to Guangdong, the annual Wu salary was collected and stored in Zhaoqing Prefecture, and Guangxi Yingjie's annual military and food mission officer went to Zhaoqing Guanzhi. Governor Liu Yao instructed I thought it was inconvenient to use, so I asked the Chief Secretary of Guangdong Province to help Wu Town pay and silver, and the government of Wuzhou was released for dismantling. It will always be a rule."

In this way, since most of Guangxi's regular financial expenditures are still paid to Guangdong, the so-called "Guangxi's [-] regular supplies are sent out of the Eastern Province every year", not to mention the squad army's travel and monthly food.

Faced with this serious imbalance in the relationship between responsibility and power, officials in Guizhou, Huguang, and Guangdong were all unwilling (Guizhou can be ignored at this time).In addition, due to the harsh environment in Guangxi, the squad army is not acclimatized, and there are many fugitives, and the central government has repeatedly emphasized that the squad army "fulfills the original quota", this has brought huge difficulties to the clean-up work of the Huguang and Guangdong squadrons. .

Therefore, on the one hand, the officials of the two places hoped to reduce or withdraw their classes on the grounds that the guards had a large number of personnel reductions and it was difficult to make up shifts.

On the other hand, when Banjun was in Guangxi, he was not very willing to obey the orders of local civil and military officials in Guangxi. Although he dared not publicly disobey orders, it was commonplace to procrastinate and procrastinate.

When Jiang Xin said this, Gao Wushi immediately understood many things.For example, why did the governor of Guangxi not be able to handle the Eight Villages Rebellion by himself, so the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi had to go out? First of all, the Guangdong squadron refused to obey, and in addition, Guangxi had no money, and the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi did not come with a reward. Are you willing to show your strength?

If you say a thousand words and ten thousand, you still have no money to hurt!

Gao Wushi sighed, and thought to himself: Zhu Yuanzhang, an old farmer, what kind of broken system did he make...

Looking at the problem of this squad from a high level of pragmatism, in fact, as long as the financial system is changed, there will be no trouble at all.

For example, when there was a war in Guangxi, Guangxi would be responsible for the military pay and other expenses of the squadron. Of course, Guangxi has no money, but the center can allocate funds. The center directly allocates funds to Guangxi, and Guangxi uses the money to deal with the rebellion. , doesn't that mean nothing?

As for the money from the center... Huguang and Guangdong can just hand it over to the center.

What, you say it hasn't changed at all?Are Huguang and Guangdong still working hard?

That is of course, but the problem is, in this way, there will be no such conflicts in the local area. As for Huguang and Guangdong, will they be dissatisfied with the center... What can you do if you are dissatisfied?

The reason why the center is a center is that it should have financial jurisdiction over the localities, and it should have the power to distribute finances at any time. This is a symbol of the authority of the center, and it is a guarantee!

As a result, according to Zhu Yuanzhang's method, the center actually picked itself out, and let the following provinces wrangle.

If your administrative efficiency can be improved, it would be a hell of a thing! ——
The promised [-] will be settled first, and I will try my best to make up the remaining [-] today... I don't like being in debt.

(End of this chapter)