Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 201 Uncover the fig leaf

Yanzhou.

At the foot of Wulong Mountain, beside the Tongjiang River.

Xin'an River and Dongyang River converge at the foot of Wulong Mountain, and it was called Tongjiang River at first. It goes through Tongcheng to Fuyang, also known as Fuchun River, and its downstream is called Qiantang River.

Zhu Yihai rode a horse and came to Yanzhou Prefecture to rule Jiande. This is where Xin'anjiang Reservoir is located in later generations. Zhu Yihai has been here before. Xin'anjiang Reservoir is also called Qiandao Lake. The lake and mountains are very beautiful. The fat head fish here is also very delicious. It is very good to rent a room and be able to write a book while vacationing quietly.

But come here again at this time, there is no Xin'anjiang Reservoir here, and there are still many rice fields here.

The purpose of Zhu Yihai's trip was not to come here for vacation and leisure, but to go to Yanzhou to defend the Thousand Households.The guards in Zhejiang were basically set up in the coastal areas, and Hangzhou only set up Hangzhou left and right guards in Fuguo, and there were no guards in other places.In the entire Yanzhou Mansion to the west, only a thousand households guarding the city was set up in Zhicheng.

This is also related to the military situation in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty. The southeast coast was mainly used to defend against Japanese pirates from the early Ming to the late Ming. Therefore, the guards focused on the coastal areas and did not have to undertake tasks such as water transportation.

There are very few guards in the mountainous area of ​​eastern Zhejiang.

Going up the river, you can see Yanzhou Fucheng from a distance.

"Your Highness, Yanzhou has been established for thousands of years since the establishment of Yanzhou in the reign of Wude in the Tang Dynasty and the construction of Yanzhou City on the top of Fanjia Mountain. Yanzhou City has also been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The city in front of us was rebuilt in the early years of Hongwu. It was rebuilt over the years."

The terrain of Yanzhou is hilly and mountainous, and there are only a few small basins and plains in the middle. However, because of the convenient transportation, it is connected to Hangzhou, Quzhou, Huizhou and other places, so it has been very important throughout the ages. Therefore, Ming Dynasty set up a garrison of thousands of households in Yanzhou. .

The difference between the Shouyu Qianhusuo and the general Qianhusuo is that it is not affiliated to the Wei, but directly attached to the commander of the capital. It has one Qianhu, two deputy Qianhus, and two Zhenfu. It has ten hundred households under its jurisdiction. , There are 160 and [-] soldiers on the roster.

However, Yanzhou Shouyu Qianhusuo did not have its own separate city, but was directly located in the southeast of Jiande City, Yanzhou Fucheng, with a separate square wall, which is equivalent to an inner city.

"The Thousand Households Guardhouse in Yanzhou is similar to other guardhouses in the Ming Dynasty. It was completely abandoned, and many military households fled, but the number of soldiers on the roster receiving monthly rations has not decreased but increased every year."

Liu Mu, who was stationed in Yanzhou, accompanied Zhu Yihai and introduced to him the situation of the Guarding Thousand Households.

"Now the monthly grain payment of the Yanzhou Institute is seriously in arrears."

Zhu Yihai specially came to Yanzhou this time because he wanted to use Yanzhou as a pilot to carry out the reform of the guards after Fang Guoan had just been wiped out.Yanzhou has only one garrison of thousands of households, the guards can be said to be very weak, Fang Guoan has just been pacified, and the imperial battalion is stationed, this is a good time.

Before coming, he collected a lot of information and did a lot of homework.

I have also been mentally prepared for the corruption of the Thousand Households in Yanzhou, "Tell me about the specific situation."

After all, Liu Mu was also a serious deputy commander in the past, and he was originally a hereditary military officer of the guard. Later, he won the champion of martial arts in the martial arts examination, so he knew the situation of the guard.

Under normal circumstances in the Ming Dynasty, the guards were three-point guarding the city and seven-point farming. Of course, depending on the specific situation, depending on the geographical location and the needs of the situation, this number varies, such as two-eight, four-six, and so on.

But in most cases, there are fewer soldiers defending the city and more soldiers stationed in the fields.

However, basically, whether it is the Nine Borders or the Southeast Mainland, the grain and grain handed over by the guards' own fields are actually not enough to supply the monthly rations of the guards, let alone what they have to give in case there is an action. food.

The city guards were responsible for defending the city, training, and fighting when they were not farming. The guards distributed monthly rations, while the field soldiers did not need to train and fight. They were only responsible for farming and handing over the grain on time. Land, set up guards, set aside fields, set up special military households, part of the field and part of the city, and then self-sufficient, no need for additional supplies, which is the so-called support of millions of troops without spending the food of the people.

But in fact, most of the guards’ farms are unable to provide their own monthly food, so they usually have to provide part of the monthly food from the nearby prefectures and counties. This ratio is generally [-]% for the self-sufficiency of the guards, and [-]% for the local supply.

And any system, after nearly 300 years, has long been abandoned, and various loopholes have been researched and exploited.

In the Ming Dynasty, household registration was divided into three classes: civil and military craftsmen, civilian registrations such as Confucianism, medicine, and yin and yang;Craftsmen include cooks, tailors, and horse boats.

Register by occupation, and apply for service according to your nationality.

A military family is a military household, and military households undertake military service. Military registration is hereditary.

Three points for city guards, seven points for farming.

The Ming Dynasty also invented the system of guarding the soldiers from the south to the north, and the soldiers from the north to the south. This caused the soldiers to be unaccustomed to the environment and exacerbated their flight. Later, although many ministers suggested that the army should be cleared out, and everyone should stay nearby.But in reality, not much has changed.

The sergeant was stationed in the north and south, and the distance between his hometown and the garrison was thousands of miles. The road was difficult, and he had to bring his wife and children with him.

These foreign soldiers came to the garrison to garrison, but they had to endure the exploitation of the military officers of the guard. During the Hongwu period, a large number of soldiers garrisoned by the guard starved to death more than once.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Weisuo garrisoned the fields, and each sergeant was given a portion of the garrison field, ranging from [-] mu to [-] mu to [-] mu. The sergeant in the garrison field had to pay grain grains. .The regular food was used by the sergeants themselves, and the remaining food was handed over as the salary of the guards.

But for more than 200 years, the system of garrison farms has been badly broken. All the honored kings, dignitaries, bureaucrats, and military officers of the guards are frantically occupying the farmlands of the guards and other fields. A large number of farmlands have been lost. Garrison.

Most of the good fields and fertile land have been invaded, and there are not many barren lands left.

Later, the burden on the military households became heavier and heavier. Not only did the farmland decrease, but more importantly, there were more and more labor allocations. As a result, military households fled more and more, and those farmlands became less and less cultivated.

During the reign of Hongzhi, it was reported that the powerful military and civilians in the official banner of the Weisuo invaded and robbed and sold them.

In the reign of Zhengde, Guo Tundi was attached to it, and every return was important.

By the end of Jiajing, the farmland had lost seven to eight out of ten.

The garrison army lost its garrison fields, but still had to pay grains and grains, and all kinds of labor and labor were apportioned.

The garrison army could not survive, and they fled in large numbers. The grain and food were not paid, and the city guards had no monthly food.

In the later period, the part of the monthly rations borne by the local government was also often in arrears, and the city guards had been in arrears of monthly rations for many years, so they fled one after another.

Therefore, the guard system collapsed, and the guard soldiers could not fight. The most important thing was that the farming system collapsed, so the whole thing collapsed.

The imperial court cleared up the army every year and arrested the fugitive military households, but it was basically a temporary solution, not a cure.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the military households in the guards lived like beggars, with low status and no guarantee of life. Most of them were reduced to the tenants of those honored relatives, military officials, etc., and those city guards also fled. Can support a small number of servants to maintain.

"Now how many military households, city guards, field soldiers, and guards are there in the Thousand Households of Yanzhou?"

Liu Mu sighed, "It's a muddled account, and the accounts are all fake. Now the actual situation is that the garrison fields of the thousand households are basically gone, and there is only a little barren land left, and there are not many city guards. As for the garrison soldiers It’s almost like fleeing.”

(End of this chapter)