Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 251
"Mr. Hong, I've been here for more than three years, and I've gotten something out of it by watching with a cold eye. I think that the reason for the current situation in western Liaoning is nothing more than a word of profit, and the Ningjin officers and soldiers used it. The method is nothing more than raising the bandits’ ears. If the imperial court wants to end this matter, it will destroy the root of it. If the Jian barbarians are destroyed, both western and eastern Liaoning will be stable, that’s all!”

Li Zhiyuan sat behind his hands and talked freely.

Hong Chengchou nodded slightly in approval, while Shen Shiyu stood aside with a noncommittal expression.Although Li Zhiyuan's conclusion is in place, it is not very amazing, it can only be regarded as the consensus of people of insight in the ruling and opposition parties.

"Since the Hongwu and Yongle years the imperial court ordered to guard the frontiers in eastern Liaodong, to the Wanli and Tianqi years when our army withdrew to defend the western Liaoning, the entire land outside the pass gradually no longer belonged to the imperial court, and actually belonged to Zu, Wu, Ma, and Li. It is also the land of several families such as Liao, Ma and so on! The official has read the books and documents for more than a hundred years, and most of the more than [-] hectares of land in western Liaoning have fallen into the hands of the generals in various places. Only the barren and barren land is ordinary. It is owned by the military and civilians. The imperial court has no benefit from this. Instead, it has to allocate huge amounts of money and food every year to support a huge number of adopted sons and family members. All the households used their defense troops to farm for them, and all the money and food they received were transferred to sideline businesses such as business, mining, fishing, and wood mining, so as to rapidly increase their property. To tell the truth, a large number of Han people from military households in western Liaoning are currently fleeing , because it is unbearable to be exploited by it, because although the fields in western Liaoning are fertile, there is no place to settle down! If things go on like this, Daming will be burdened by western Liaoning, and the consequences will not be imagined by the lower officials!"

Li Zhiyuan then made a general analysis and summary of the causes and current situation of the generals in western Liaoning.

If Zhu Youjian was present, he would definitely applaud Li Zhiyuan's remarks.As an insider at the time, Li Zhiyuan had a fairly long-term vision. These remarks are actually equivalent to looking at the problem from a height that jumps out of the overall situation, and his conclusions are more recognized by later generations.

Many views in later generations believe that long before the Donglin Party Group bankrupted the Ming Dynasty's finances, those governors, governors, governors, commanders, deputy commanders, and commanders of the western Liaoning, as well as those thousands of households, Baihu and other military officers at all levels have already divided up all the land allocated to the army by Lao Zhu's family. In other words, the main source of food and salaries for the army has been cut off.A large number of military households fled. To put it bluntly, they have lost their land and become serfs.At this time, the food and pay for raising the army became an unplanned expenditure of the old Zhu family's court, and this official army did not obey the court, and its combat effectiveness was not as strong as the legend said. The old Zhu family had raised a group of white-eyed wolves.

Hong Chengchou looked solemn, and Shen Shiyu also showed a thoughtful expression on his face.

Li Zhiyuan's words had a great impact on the two of them.Although the two knew that the situation in western Liaoning was complicated, they never thought that it would be corrupted to such an extent.

Although the emperor and his ministers knew that the situation in western Liaoning was not under the control of the imperial court, and that some of the huge military pay allocated every year would fall into the pockets of the generals, they did not expect that most of the soldiers did not receive the pay. Paying money to raise private soldiers for others, isn't that just Kaizi, silly X?
From the generals to the domestic slaves in the generals of western Liaoning, these people have neither national nor ethnic concepts.For the benefit of their own small groups, these people will do anything: when the Ming Dynasty’s finances collapsed, they continued to carve up the land, ate the empty quota, and drank the blood of soldiers; They even provided armaments to the enemy; when the capital was in critical condition, they stood still and let Jianlu bite and tear on Daming's body.

Are these people bad?In fact, the nature of these people may not be so bad.Others don't say it, but Wu Sangui is a very complicated character. He has become a traitor and strangled the last emperor of the old Zhu family with a bowstring, but he has never done anything against humanity such as massacring the city.During the Jingzhou War during the San Francisco Rebellion, Wu Sangui still refused to dig the dike for thousands of people despite the fierce battle and heavy casualties.

In terms of personal morality, Wu Sangui is very loyal.When Wu Sangui was young, he had a subordinate surnamed Wang. Because of his close relationship, Wu Sangui promised to marry his colleague's infant son Wang Yongning as soon as he had a daughter.Later, Wu Sangui gained power, while Wang Yongning's family was in decline, and his father had passed away. He was 30 years old and hadn't married a wife. He accidentally found the marriage letter written by Wu Sangui in his father's relics, so he bravely came to Yunnan to beg for food. , and did not dare to ask Wu Sangui to marry his daughter to him, but only asked Wu Sangui to help him a little bit.What Wang Yongning never imagined in his dreams was that after seeing the marriage certificate, Wu Sangui immediately married one of his daughters to him and gave him a large dowry. In addition, he bought the famous Humble Administrator's Garden in Wang Yongning's hometown Suzhou for his daughter. The son-in-law lived there, and Wang Yongning got rid of poverty and became rich by this, and became a tyrant in Suzhou.

"Using the Liao people to guard the Liao soil, and using the Liao soil to support the Liao people, in fact, only the generals in the west of Liao were raised. How can the millions of soldiers and civilians in Liaodong benefit from it? Dozens of fortresses were built along the road from Shanhaiguan to Jinzhou, which cost countless money and food. Asking for silver in the name of maintenance and repairs, who has tens of millions of taels of silver over the years? If you don’t garrison your troops, you will have nothing to live on. If you have no permanent property, how can you have perseverance? Looking at it now, it’s just a clever tongue in order to invade the power of the people!”

Li Zhiyuan sighed and pointed his finger at Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan who put forward the above theory and implemented it.

"How many soldiers does Ningyuan have now? What is the opinion of Generals He and Li? Are there any complaints from the soldiers? If the imperial court distributes food and salaries directly to the soldiers and rebuilds a new army in western Liaoning, what will Ning Si think?"

Hong Chengchou didn't pick up Li Zhiyuan's words, but changed the topic.

Now Yuan Chonghuan has long since died, but Sun Chengzong has been used again today, and it seems that the emperor speaks highly of him, so there is no need for him to judge him.The strategy he adopted when he was in charge of the Liaodong frontier affairs was also a helpless move due to the weak combat power of the officers and soldiers.As for the birth of a new feudal town because of this, this should not be what Sun Chengzong wanted to see.

"Report to Lord Hong, there are 800 soldiers in Ningyuan in name, but in fact most of them are no different from peasant households. All the farmland that Lord Hong saw along the way was reclaimed by soldiers, and what he gained was only for the whole family to live on. , Most of them were obtained by his superiors, but as for the food and salaries issued by the court, most of the soldiers have never seen it! General He Feng joined the army as a soldier of Zu Shaofu at the beginning, and he was able to become a general because he was single-handedly promoted, and he was domineering He is vulgar and courageous; Li Luzu was originally Li Rusong's servant, and it is said that he has some fighting skills, but he is much better than He Feng, at least he has a sense of superiority and inferiority. The two generals all keep servants, and He Qian has five hundred , although Li Lu is a guerrilla, he has [-] elite family members. As for complaints, He and Li family members are all men in armor, just to suppress all kinds of dissatisfaction, so what to do? If the court wants to form a new army, The food and salary are distributed according to the head, this is an act of taking food by the mouth of a tiger, unless there is strong suppression, the lower officials will not be optimistic about it!"

The food and salaries allocated by the imperial court for 5000 people were used to support only [-] family members, and the rest of the money fell into the pockets of the generals.

Although it is a common phenomenon in the Ming Dynasty to eat empty pay, the generals in the pass did not dare to treat the soldiers so harshly, and they would not excessively exploit the food and pay of the soldiers under their command.The imperial court allocates military salaries based on one or two taels of silver per person per month, and the generals in the pass have to pay more than [-]% to the soldiers. Unlike Liaoxi, they pack all of them directly into their arms, and only take out a small part to support the servants.

If, as Hong Chengchou said, the imperial court directly distributes the food and salaries to the soldiers, it is still a question of whether the military households, who have long been frightened by the generals at all levels, dare to ask for it.Even if they dared to ask for it, but the people in the imperial court left, and the generals dared to go door to door to collect food and salaries. Needless to say, the result of daring to resist.For the benefit of the group, this group of people can do anything, how can ordinary military households have the strength to resist?Besides, the court's move to divide soldiers and generals so clearly may cause unpredictable things in the absence of heavy suppression by the officers and soldiers.

(End of this chapter)