Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 64: Recruitment of Soldiers
"This kid's method is not for the purpose of serving the guards..."

In the study room, when Zhu Gaoxu's voice sounded, Xu Huizu was immediately stunned and quickly thought of his idea.

He looked at Zhu Gaoxu in front of him and suddenly felt a strange feeling with his nephew.

Changing Zhu Yuanzhang's policy... Most of the people who have thought about this kind of thing have been buried in the ground. My nephew knew it clearly, but he still dared to bring it up.

For a moment, Xu Huizu's face looked uncertain. He raised his legs to leave, but Zhu Gaoxu continued:

"Grandpa's military defense system is still usable at the moment, but I see that the military military systems of many dynasties in the Northern and Southern Sui and Tang dynasties have declined in combat effectiveness 40 years after the founding of the country, and are no longer useful after 80 or [-] years."

"What the boy is doing is not for the present, but for the future."

"..." After hearing Zhu Gaoxu's words, Xu Huizu stopped walking.

At least judging from his words, he did not think there was anything wrong with Zhu Yuanzhang's system, but was making plans for the future.

If that's the case, then he can stay.

"The military systems of the Sui and Tang Dynasties in the Northern and Southern Sui Dynasties lasted for hundreds of years. How come the military systems of our Ming Dynasty Guards cannot last for hundreds of years?"

Xu Huizu asked Zhu Gaoxu, but Zhu Gaoxu asked: "How many dynasties has the government military system gone through?"

"This..." Xu Huizu understood the meaning of Zhu Gaoxu's words, that is, the military system of the Northern and Southern Sui and Tang Dynasties was not used by one dynasty, but by multiple dynasties.

But the same thing is that the time of each dynasty coincides with the seven to eighty years mentioned by Zhu Gaoxu.

"Even if what you say is reasonable, it is too fanciful to rely on more than [-] soldiers and horses to station in all directions."

"I know the situation of the country better than you do. To maintain the current territory, we need at least the 60 soldiers you mentioned, and this number is something the Governor's Mansion cannot afford."

"If the Ministry of Revenue is opened to invest money and food in the Governor's Mansion, the Ministry of Revenue will have no spare capacity to repair canals and dams, and the country will be brought down sooner or later."

Xu Huizu still felt that Zhu Gaoxu's recruitment system was unrealistic, but his words did hit on the reasons for the future downfall of the Ming Dynasty.

According to Zhu Gaoxu's understanding, during the Yingzong period of the Ming Dynasty, corruption in the Henan Guard Office was exposed. Under the auspices of Sanyang, the Sixth Ministry transferred the control of the military garrison to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Household Affairs.

From then on, the military household, which used to have a prosperous life, became a group of "begging for food" who began to look at Liu Bu's face when eating.

Against this background, coupled with the problems of population growth and land annexation of military households, military households who had no food to eat began to flee in large numbers.

After Emperor Yingzong came to power in the Ming Dynasty, he was unable to take back the financial rights of the military garrison and could only provide welfare to military households from other angles.

Under his auspices, the Ming Dynasty began to implement an imperfect military recruitment system.

At first, the imperial court gave [-] taels of silver and [-] pieces of cloth to military households who took the initiative to join the army. Later, it was changed to [-] taels of silver as settlement expenses, and the family was exempted from five shi of tax and grain, and an additional two members of the family were exempted from corvee service. .

As for the common people who were selected to serve as soldiers, the court paid three taels and five cents of silver and exempted one member of the family from corvee service. However, the recruited soldiers were not given monthly or line rations.

However, no matter how the system is changed, the Wei Institute, which cannot regain its financial power, will always be a beggar begging for food from the Six Ministries.

Although some of the financial rights of the health centers were once regained during the Chenghua period, this power was quickly lost during the Hongzhi period.

Therefore, during the Wuzong period of the Ming Dynasty, the recruitment standards changed, and the soldiers' Anjia silver dropped to three taels.

During the reign of Emperor Shizong of the Ming Dynasty, Jiajing issued an order to increase the benefits for recruiting soldiers, allowing ordinary soldiers to pay for rations, and the monthly rations were converted into silver and distributed.

During this period, ordinary sergeants of the Ming army had an extra "ration" benefit that they could withdraw every day, with the standard being three cents and three cents of silver.The most famous among them is the Qi Family Army. The daily military pay standard for its soldiers is three cents and three cents of rations and one cent and two cents of line rations. The annual military pay standard is about 18 taels of silver.

Later, during the period from Emperor Muzong of the Ming Dynasty to Emperor Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty, the benefits of recruiting soldiers in the Ming army under the auspices of Zhang Juzheng were again raised. Each recruit was given three taels of Anjia silver and two taels of grain. After joining the army, they could also receive one to five taels per month. Money’s monthly ration.

Of course, this is the standard on the surface, but it is difficult to say how many are actually distributed to soldiers...

It can be said that Zhu Qizhen's recruitment system, although patched by successive emperors, finally collapsed, and eventually brought down the Five Temples and Six Ministries.

The reason for the collapse is also very simple, which is what Xu Huizu said was the problem of people's livelihood projects.

In the late Ming Dynasty, many water conservancy projects in the country were not maintained for many years due to the financial constraints of the Ministry of Household Affairs. Finally, during the Tianqi and Chongzhen years, faced with climate problems caused by the Little Glacier, Jiangnan, a tax-rich area, suffered from seawater intrusion many times, and local water conservancy projects could not drain water. Silt, Susong, Changhang and other prefectures have not harvested grains for many years.

These problems, coupled with the eventual tax resistance of the gentry, official corruption, and inaction of the central government, directly resulted in the inability of Jiangnan to supply blood to the north normally.

What Xu Huizu said was correct, but he forgot one thing: perhaps the advanced military recruitment system would drag down the Ming Dynasty's finances.

But what he didn't expect was that the economy is not static.

"My uncle is right. If the army blindly relies on household support, it will indeed delay the local people's livelihood. But uncle, don't forget that the population and land of the Ming Dynasty are not static."

Faced with Xu Huizu's doubts, Zhu Gaoxu told what would happen in the future.

"People can reproduce. In the early Tang Dynasty, the population was only more than 30 million, and it reached 2000 million only [-] years later."

"If this were the case in the imperial dynasty, the population would probably be no less than 30 million in 9000 years, and the Ming Dynasty's annual income would also increase by [-] to [-]%, which would be enough to fill the deficit of the Ministry of Household Affairs."

Zhu Gaoxu's words were half true and half false, because he was talking about the situation during the 30 years of peace. But if the current situation continues, the Battle of Jingnan will definitely break out. Even if Zhu Di cannot afford to send troops, others will.

No matter who raises the army, it will deal a serious blow to the population of Ming Dynasty. It is difficult to reach 9000 million people.

But only he knows all this. It is impossible for Xu Huizu to know the future now, so he was speechless by Zhu Gaoxu.

"Therefore, I feel that there is nothing wrong with my opinion."

Zhu Gaoxu knew that Xu Huizu came to him today not just to appease himself. If it was just to appease himself, he would not have left just now when he heard that he was going to change the guard system.

With his character, if there were no outsiders, he would just scold himself and ask himself to change his unrealistic idea, but his first reaction just now was to run away.

Obviously, the conversation between the two was being listened to by others at this moment, rather than being surrounded by the servants of the Duke of Wei as Xu Huizu said.

Apparently, the reason why my uncle came here was probably Lao Zhu's instruction.

Zhu Yuanzhang was far from done with his own school examinations...

"All right……"

Sure enough, when Zhu Gaoxu said this, Xu Huizu's face didn't look good, but he still tried to make up for his nephew:

"According to what you said, is this guard system going to be banned?"

"Ban it?" Zhu Gaoxu was stunned for a moment and shook his head: "No, the Weisuo system will continue to exist in the long future because it still has many merits, such as..."

(End of this chapter)