Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 244: It is urgent to rectify the Beijing camp

"Zuo Zhuan" says: "The great affairs of the country lie in sacrifice and military affairs."

"Sacrifice" means offering sacrifices to honor heaven, earth, ghosts and gods, and to gather people's faith.

"Rong" means military, leading troops to conquer and defend the country.

In the late Hongwu period, a general guarding the border sent a memorial to Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang. In the memorial, the general suggested that the court increase the number and strength of the Imperial Guards and strengthen weak branches so that soldiers and horses from all over the world could not defeat the Imperial Guards.

Zhu Yuanzhang was overjoyed after reading it and appreciated it very much, and then began to set up the Beijing camp.

However, he did not get everything done in Beijing.

According to Zhu Gaoxu's speculation, Lao Zhu's idea at that time should be to recruit half of the best soldiers from all over the world to defend the capital, and the other half to guard the northern border fortress to prevent the grassland cavalry from going south.

At that time, a group of Sai kings who were entrusted to the north by Lao Zhu, headed by Qin Wang Zhu Fang, Jin Wang Zhu Fan, and Yan Wang Zhu Di, all held heavy troops to jointly resist the enemies from the north.

If Zhu Gaoxu remembers correctly, in the 30th year of Hongwu, the total number of troops in the hands of the northern fortress kings reached 30, which was only slightly less than the Beijing camp.

Even so, for the sake of peace in the world and to prevent the King of Sai from becoming powerful, Lao Zhu stipulated that the northern frontier army would only be under the control of the King of Sai during wartime. At other times, the two sides had nothing to do with each other, and even used local yamen and garrison troops to restrain the King of Sai.

Zhu Gaoxu specifically consulted historical materials and found that the actual number of combatable soldiers in the Beijing camp in the 31st year of Hongwu was 50!
Lao Zhu's idea of ​​​​creating the Beijing Camp was to "gather soldiers from all over the world to the capital to train, select and retain the best."

In the early years, when the Ming Dynasty had not yet unified the world, in order to facilitate the use of troops for foreign conquests, Lao Zhu established the Metropolitan Governor's Office to oversee all armies.

Later, Lao Zhu considered that the power of the Metropolitan Governor's Office was too great and should be decentralized, so he abolished the Metropolitan Governor's Office and established the Five Army Governor's Office to govern the armies respectively, that is, "there are two large and small fields inside and outside, and 48 guards are divided." .

Since the Beijing camp was responsible for defending the capital and serving as the main force during battles, it had many soldiers, many generals, and elite equipment. Even the horses, ordnance, food and grass used were of the highest quality.

Zhu Gaoxu could see that Lao Zhu had tried his best to maintain the combat effectiveness of the soldiers in the Beijing Camp when he founded the Beijing Camp.

King Zhu Di of Yan followed the imperial edict of Lao Zhu and succeeded the great unification as a vassal king. In order to demonstrate his civil and military skills, it was natural to use foreign troops.

Therefore, the system of the Beijing Camp was gradually improved in Zhu Di's hands. Later, the emergence of the three major camps marked the formal formation of the Beijing Camp system.

There are three major camps, namely the Fifth Military Camp, the Three Thousand Battalion and the Shenji Battalion.

The fifth military camp is composed of five parts: the Central Army, the Left Ye Army, the Right Ye Army, the Left Sentinel Army, and the Right Sentinel Army, and has the largest number of people.

In addition to the sergeants coming from the capital guard, they also transferred the horse infantry officers and soldiers from the central capital's left-behind department and the guards of Shandong, Henan and Daning to take turns to stay in the capital and train, called the squad army.

Affiliated to the fifth military camp are the [-]th Battalion, which is responsible for the officers and soldiers of the cavalry team, the Weizishou Battalion, which is responsible for the officers and soldiers of the Zhicha Knife Hands and the Jingwei Troops, and the Young Officials and Sheren's Zhongzhong and Xiaoyi Battalions.

The first center commander of the Fifth Army Camp will be Zhang Yu, the first left commander will be Zhu Neng, the first right commander will be Li Bin, the first former commander will be Xu Zhong, and the first rear commander will be Fang Kuan.

After Zhang Yu died in the battle, Zhu Di appointed Qiu Fu as the chief military officer of the fifth military camp, and Qiu Fu became the first chief military officer of the fifth military camp.

Therefore, in Zhu Gaoxu's eyes, the actual first commander-in-chief of the Fifth Army Camp was Zhu Di himself.

During the Yongle period, Zhu Di temporarily mobilized elites from all provinces in the Ming Dynasty to form the fifth military camp after training.

For example, when Zhu Di personally conquered Mobei for the first time in the fifth year of Yongle, he used the formed southern expeditionary army, supplemented by young local Tu people recruited from Jiaozhi and the Western Regions as auxiliary troops.

The elite troops he had mobilized before were trained by Zhang Fu, and they would join the majority of them after they formed an army.

Compared with Qiu Fu, the first chief military officer of the Fifth Army Camp, Zhang Fu, the second chief military officer, began to truly have the power of chief military officer.

As the ace army of the Ming Dynasty, the Fifth Military Battalion was founded in the third year of Yongle and was customized in the fifth year of Yongle. It has gone through many large-scale battles of the Ming army, such as the pacification of the Western Regions, the Three Conquests of the Desert, the Battle of Yanran Mountain in the Desert West, and the Battle of Luchuan. etc.

The Three Thousand Battalion was composed entirely of cavalry. The initial core strength was three thousand Mongolian cavalry who had defected to the Ming Dynasty. With continuous development, the actual strength of the battalion was far more than three thousand. At its peak, it had more than [-] cavalry.

The Three Thousand Battalion has the same organization as the Fifth Army Battalion, and is also divided into the Central Army, the Left Ye Army, the Right Ye Army, the Left Sentinel Army, and the Right Sentinel Army.

Before the Shenji Battalion had yet to shine, the cavalry had a huge advantage. At that time, although the Fifth Army Battalion was the main force of the three major battalions, the Three Thousand Battalion was the real elite.However, with the strong rise of the Shenji Battalion later, the Three Thousand Battalions were divided into five divisions by Zhu Di, who were respectively in charge of the imperial flags, uniforms, military battles, golden drums, imperial treasures, etc. used during the emperor's personal campaign.

The Shenji Battalion specializes in muskets, cannons and other firearms, and is also divided into five armies: the central army, the left and right tucks, and the left and right outposts.

The three major battalions were not established at the same time, but were established sequentially and gradually.

In the third year of Yongle, before Zhu Di decided to regain the Western Regions, he gradually added 32 guards to the capital and set up five military camps, which formed the main force of the army to aid the west.

In the fifth year of Yongle, Zhu Di personally conquered the desert for the first time, upgraded the Shenji Corps to the Shenji Battalion, and expanded it to the Fifth Army.

In the 13th year of Yongle reign, after Zhu Di officially moved the capital to Beijing, he added forty more guards to the capital and set up three thousand battalions, so that the three major battalions were complete.

Each of the three camps is led by an admiral, a military minister, and a chief officer.

Each army and each division is divided into a battalion officer, a commander-in-chief, a commander-in-chief, a gun supervisor, a commander-in-chief, and a commander-in-chief.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Beijing camp, Zhu Di made it clear that its three main responsibilities were to defend the capital, go out to fight, and resist the invasion of powerful enemies.

In normal times, the Fifth Military Battalion practices camp formations, the Three Thousand Battalion practices patrolling, and the Shenji Battalion practices firearms.

When the emperor personally marched, three battalions surrounded the emperor's camp. Usually, the Shenji battalion was on the outside, the three thousand cavalry battalions were in the middle, and the five military battalions of infantry were in the inside.

As of the 13th year of Yongle, the Beijing camp had a total of 72 guards, with a strength of approximately 35 to 40.

Every spring and autumn, soldiers from Shandong, Henan and other places are ordered to come to the capital campus to practice and garrison with the three major battalions and the Beijing Guard.

By the 15th year of Yongle, the strength of the Beijing camp reached its peak, and the military strength of the Ming Dynasty also reached its strongest moment since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

The following year, that is, the 16th year of Yongle, Zhu Di personally conquered the desert for the third time, pacifying Mobei in one fell swoop, and advanced all the way to Yanran Mountain in the Han Dynasty. The three major battalions helped Zhu Di establish the miraculous feat of sealing the wolf to Xu!

As the saying goes, "Everything has its own ups and downs." Nothing prospers forever. After its peak, it begins to decline.

The same is true for Jingying.

Zhu Gaoxu knew very well that with the decline of the Beijing camp, the imperial power in his hands had weakened from a micro perspective.

If the imperial power is strong, the ministerial power is weak.

On the contrary, if the ministerial power is strong, the imperial power is weak.

The decline of Jingying was a problem that began to arise after the ministers took control of Jingying.

Since the 16th year of Yongle, when Zhu Di returned triumphantly from the northern expedition to the desert, the Ming Dynasty has been at peace. There has been no war outside for ten years, and the people inside have lived and worked in peace and contentment. Civil and military officials inevitably pursue pleasure, write ink, and feel slack.

In particular, the nobles of the Yongle Dynasty, who started out with military exploits, quickly became corrupted and degenerated. Most of them were addicted to pleasure, causing the combat effectiveness of the Beijing camp under the leadership of the noble officials to decline day by day.

The Beijing camp, which originally had amazing fighting power, quickly entered decay and decline.

After Zhu Gaoxu sent Zhang Fu to investigate carefully, he found that the main reasons for the decline of the Beijing camp's combat power were the following four points.

First, a large number of soldiers from the Beijing camp were transferred to be responsible for building mausoleums, dredging rivers and other tasks. The heavy and tiring construction tasks fell on all officers and soldiers, leaving them no time to practice.

Second, the civil and military officials who directly manage the Beijing camp are very corrupt. They use a large number of Beijing soldiers to do private work, occupy the fields and playgrounds of the soldiers in the Beijing camp, and withhold food and wages. As a result, many soldiers cannot even receive basic food and wages. I can work part-time selling things to make ends meet, but I still have plenty of food, my horses are skinny and skinny, and soldiers are fleeing every year.

Third, there are many people who take advantage of the situation. Generals, nobles, powerful men, relatives, eunuchs and other domestic servants and servants join the army to receive food and wages.

Fourth, more than half of today's soldiers in the Beijing camp are old, weak, sick and disabled, and less than [-]% of the elite can actually fight.

These four reasons have resulted in the current capital camp being unable to shoulder its responsibilities of guarding the capital and attacking foreign enemies.

All in all, it is urgent to rectify the Beijing camp!
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(End of this chapter)