Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 505
"After the extermination of the jumping beams outside the pass, the several major unstable factors that threatened the continuation of our Ming Dynasty have basically been eliminated, and the Ming Dynasty has no worries for the time being, and there is no need to keep an excessive number of troops!
In view of this, I intend to revise the military system and replace the old military system with an elite military system. It is imperative to reduce the number of personnel and strengthen the military!While reducing food expenses, this move can also retain several strong troops to deal with possible threats at home and abroad, and protect the people of the Emperor Ming and carry out production and life in a stable environment.

However, before that, the whereabouts of the western Liaoning army became the top priority!

As we all know, since the imperial court started to levy Liao pay during the Tianqi period, this huge expenditure has become an invisible evil hand that dragged Ming Dynasty into the bottomless abyss!
Now that the land of Liao has been stabilized, the number of troops stationed in the west of Liao is far less than before, and the expenditure required is not the same as that of Liao's salary. With the current annual income of the imperial court, it is not difficult to pay for its expenses. Therefore, it is inevitable to abolish the old army in western Liaoning.

Although the Liaoxi Frontier Army did not have many victories over the years, after all, it has been guarding the northeast gate of the Ming Dynasty for many years.

This matter is of great importance, and the policy cannot be ignored, but you can come up with a good policy if you have a good policy. After the strategic direction is determined, it will be implemented by the Secretary after refinement! "

After learning that Guan Ning's cavalry had been severely damaged, especially the death of a fierce general like Zu Kuan, Zhu Youjian felt regretful and relieved.

The strength of the Guanning Army has been greatly reduced, which has greatly reduced the obstacles to the subsequent abolition and restructuring of the frontier army. The cost of bargaining for generals in western Liaoning has been negligible, and the placement of Zu Dashou and others will be easier. Between one's own thoughts.

"My Majesty, I agree with the policy of abolishing the western Liao army. I believe that the most urgent task is to take advantage of the current Liaoxi army's elite troops to send troops out of the customs and go to Songjin immediately to check and clarify the number of troops stationed along the line. , and then calculate the number of frontier troops, then you can know the details, and then make a response based on this number."

After Zhu Youjian expressed his preliminary idea, everyone in the hall felt a little surprised at first, and then felt that it was a matter of course.

The natural hostile nature of civil servants and generals made them unwilling to see generals rise up after this war of annihilation. Now that the emperor seemed to have the intention of suppressing generals, everyone still agreed with them from the bottom of their hearts, especially the abolition as The Liaoxi frontier army, which has suffered for many years, has even attracted the unanimous approval of all the officials in the palace.

After thinking for a moment, Yang Sichang expressed his opinion first without hesitation.Although his strategy is suspected of taking advantage of others, it is indeed an inevitable strategy for abolition. Since the emperor has set the tone, as long as the goal can be achieved, the means can be used arbitrarily.

One of the root causes of Liao's salary, which was so overwhelming for Ming Dynasty, was that the imperial court knew nothing about the number of soldiers and their consumption in the west of Liao, and could only allocate money and food according to the figures they reported.

According to the data reported by Zu Dashou to the Ministry of War, the Liaoxi frontier army has 13 people, including 6000 cavalry, 4 horses, and the rest are infantry of various arms.

At first glance, an army of less than 14 soldiers would not spend much money on food for a year, but insiders know that the infantry does not matter, but the [-] cavalry are about to die.

Someone in later generations calculated that according to the situation at that time, a cavalry cost at least 76 taels of silver every year. For this alone, the 300 cavalry needed nearly [-] million taels of silver. If money and food are calculated on the basis of an average monthly rate of [-] qian per person, this is another expenditure of nearly one million taels.

Moreover, this has not taken into account the daily consumption of food, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, weapon wear, casualties, medical care and other messy consumption. If all these various things are included, it will cost at least 200 million taels .

In other words, the 13 people in the Liaoxi frontier army cost 600 million taels of silver every year just for normal expenses.

Coupled with the consumption of other items such as city wall repairs, battle rewards, etc., the entire Liaoxi side town consumes a frightening amount of money every year.

Over the years, Tianqi and Chongzhen have considered reducing Liao's salary, and have sent military officials out of the customs several times to check the number of troops in Liaoxi, but each time they ended in failure.

Every time he learned that the imperial court wanted to send personnel to check, the Liaoxi generals would stop them with various reasons and excuses, causing the officials of the Ministry of War to retreat before they left the customs.

The generals in western Liaoning have plenty of excuses. The most common one is that the elite sentry cavalry of Jiannu often cross Songjin and go deep into the Ningyuan area. The soldiers and civilians were killed by Jiannu, and the officers and soldiers were afraid that this was a tactic to lure the enemy, so they could only stick to the city and not come out, etc., in order to intimidate the civil officials of the court.

This simple and crude method of intimidation is very effective.

For the officials of the Ming Dynasty, if they sacrificed their own lives for the official business of the court, it would be an insanely stupid act.I have read a lot of poetry and books, and I firmly believe in the words of sages and sages that a gentleman does not stand under a dangerous wall. If he knows that his life is in danger and still handles official affairs, wouldn't he be the same as a fool in the village?
Now that this kind of thinking is in place, even if the emperor decrees and the officials scold them, these dispatched officials will find various ways to deal with their superiors. For example, after leaving Shanhaiguan, at most they will go to Ningyuan and die. , Just sent a few book office officials, escorted by the officers and soldiers, to go to Songjin to do errands.

And these officials and soldiers of the book office and guards are naturally not fools. After sending a few taels or dozens of taels of silver to the generals in western Liaoning, they randomly found a few fortresses to live in for a few days, and then took them with the seal of Jinzhou General Soldier. When the copywriting returned to Ningyuan, the above data was naturally still the original one, and it was this repeated inaction that made the court know that Liao's salary was a pit, but had to throw a lot of money and food into the pit.

After Yang Sichang took over the Ministry of War, he sent personnel out of the customs twice to check, one of which was even led by the left servant Wang Jiazhen to go out of the customs in person, thinking to find evidence that Liaoxi was paid for nothing.

But the Liaoxi generals have adopted the method that if you want to check Desheng Fort, I will gather the troops from Zhenlu Fort and Desheng Fort in advance. Eat nothing.

Otherwise, you will lie and claim that Jiannu is invading ahead, that Jinzhou has sent an army two hundred miles forward to meet the enemy, and you don't know when you will return. Under such a high-sounding reason, even your servant Shangshu will stare blankly.

These two inspections ended up being fruitless, which made Yang Sichang and the others feel ashamed, and their resentment toward Zu Dashou grew deeper and deeper in their hearts.

However, as the thieves were quickly wiped out, several officers and soldiers grew rapidly, and the court became more and more confident, Yang Sichang followed Zhu Youjian's instructions and rejected Liaoxi's usual big-mouthed salary requests one after another. After subtracting more than half of the allocated amount, it was only a little bit of anger in my heart.

"Yes, this matter should be handled by the Ministry of War as soon as possible. After the Western Liaoning Army is disbanded, how will Jinzhou General Soldier and others deal with it?"

After Zhu Youjian agreed to Yang Sichang's request for inspection, he immediately brought up the second topic.

(End of this chapter)