Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 29 Military Households and Military Service

Although he was extremely moved, Li Zunzu was not carried away. After thinking about the current situation of the health center, Li Zunzu found helplessly that the difficulty of establishing a new health center was far higher than imagined.

Carefully choosing his words, Li Zunzu said to the emperor:
"Your Majesty, military households are needed to build a garrison."

"With the current situation, it is difficult for Weichen to recruit military households and build new guards."

Zhu Youjian frowned when he heard this and asked:
"Tell me carefully, why is it so difficult to recruit military households?"

"A hundred households are of the sixth rank, but you still can't find anyone to be an official?"

Li Zunzu smiled bitterly and said:
"Of course some people are willing to recruit military officers, but no one is willing to recruit military households."

"His Majesty should have heard about the military households fleeing. If it wasn't too painful, why would they flee?"

"Now when we recruit military households, we can't find anyone at all."

When Zhu Youjian heard this, he suddenly realized that what was lacking was not officers, but low-level military households. Asked:

"When Taizu Chengzu established a garrison, how did he recruit military households?"

Li Zunzu didn't know that it happened so long ago. Kong Zhenyun, who was writing an imperial edict next to him, took advantage of a break and replied:

"Your Majesty, at that time military households were not as miserable as they are now, and many people did not know that they had to be military households for generations."

"Even so, Taizu also arrested people to join the army at that time. When he was checking household registration records in the third year of Hongwu, Taizu issued an edict:"

"'Those who compare with each other are good people, and those who cannot compare with each other are used as soldiers. Whenever the people avoid others, they will punish the sins according to the law and use them as soldiers.'"

"These guilty and relegated military households account for a large part. In addition, there are soldiers who followed the generals and surrendered soldiers, all of whom became military households. If the number of military households is still insufficient, then they can register civilians as soldiers and call them soldiers. For the purpose of gathering, we must recruit enough military households."

"These military households have to bear military service, so that others can enjoy peace and harmony. Taizu once said, 'Raising a million soldiers does not cost the people a grain of rice.' Now, although the poverty in Jiubian requires money and food relief, the people do not need to bear military service."

"In the former Han Dynasty, there was a saying that 'you will serve in the army at the age of fifteen and return home at the age of eighty'. Most people in this dynasty did not suffer this kind of hardship. At most, they did corvee labor during wartime and transported supplies to the front line."

Listening to Kong Zhenyun's explanation, Zhu Youjian finally understood that although they were all hereditary, hereditary officers were rewards for meritorious generals, while hereditary military households were completely punishments.

Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang himself knew very well that joining the army was a hard job. But if there are no military households to bear military service, the military service of the imperial court must be borne by all the people. Taizu chose to suffer as a military household, so that the people would lessen the pain of military service.

Now that the guard system has been in effect for more than 200 years, there is no one in the Ming Dynasty who does not know the secrets involved. Trying to recruit people to become military households is a complete dream.

On the contrary, it should be easy to recruit people to become officers. After all, this is a newly established guard station. He is likely to become a hereditary officer in the future and seek wealth for generations.

This made Zhu Youjian feel that Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was really powerful. Both officers and military households under the guard system were hereditary, but their status was completely different:
If military officers want to seize profits, they must seek it from military households. They will help the court suppress military households and let them serve as soldiers.

Most military households have no ability to resist. Even if their descendants have talents, once they are rewarded for meritorious service and become hereditary officers, they will also oppress the military households in turn.

Therefore, although the Ming Dynasty's Wei system collapsed into disarray, it still existed tenaciously.

The imperial court knew that the guard station was incompetent more than a hundred years ago, but no one was willing to abolish the guard station. A country as big as the Ming Dynasty usually needs one to two million troops even if there is no war. If the guards were abolished, not only would the hereditary officers need to be supported by the court, but the garrison in various parts of the Ming Dynasty would also need to collect military service. For the people of the Ming Dynasty, this was a more fatal matter. They would rather suffer as a military household they didn't know than recruit soldiers from the imperial court.

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty's guard system was not only the foundation of the Ming Dynasty's military, but also related to the interests of everyone except the low-level military households. Even the emperor Zhu Youjian could not abolish the guard system.

The difficulty of abolishing the guard station is too terrifying. Fortunately, Zhu Youjian has not thought about it yet and avoided a big pit.

But it was also extremely difficult for him to use the Wei system to open up frontiers like Taizu.

After understanding the nature of the Wei system, Zhu Youjian had no hope at all in recruiting military households. Those military households would rather become refugees than flee. How could anyone still be willing to become a military household?

Even if he forcibly recruits refugees to serve as military households, those refugees are likely to immediately become thieves and rebel against the court with arms.

The refugees are unwilling to go, and it is impossible to recruit a few people through active recruitment. So in addition to banishing criminals, can we also use the method of gathering people to directly recruit people as soldiers?

Zhu Youjian just thought for a moment and shook his head. Given the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, doing so would force the people to rebel. Maybe when the military households who were recruited were walking on the road, someone who knew something about history suddenly woke up, pretended to be a ghost, and said to others:
"It is worse to live as a soldier than to die, to flee is to die, to make great plans is to die, to wait for death, how can a country die?"

Then they cut down the trees to make soldiers and raised poles to make flags. The whole world gathered to respond. They won food and scenery, and the Ming Dynasty was overthrown.

Thinking about the consequences, Zhu Youjian felt terrible. Therefore, he decisively gave up the idea of ​​conscription and decided to focus on recruiting soldiers, and promised the recruited soldiers that they would not become military households.

But in this way, the cost of raising troops will be high, which is inconsistent with the idea of ​​using the guard system to reduce the consumption of money and food. With the Ming Dynasty's current finances, it is impossible to raise many recruited soldiers, let alone send them to the Golden Corner Guards, and the court must be responsible for the logistics and supplies.

So after much deliberation, Zhu Youjian decided to adopt the guard system. He just reduced the number of military households that needed to be recruited and replaced them with civilian households.

"If we recruit civilian households to replace military households, who will be asked to serve as soldiers in the garrison?"

After hearing the emperor's thoughts, Li Zunzu asked.

Zhu Youjian thought about the compulsory military service system in later generations and said:
"Didn't the Ming Dynasty have a Military and Civilian Office and a Military and Civilian Department? You can refer to those places where the military and civilians are mixed to manage military households and civilian households."

"I have decided to designate the Golden Corner Guard as a new form of military and civilian command department, or it can be referred to as the military and civilian guard. We will implement a universal compulsory military service system, so that the civilian households managed by the guard will also serve as soldiers."

Still not understanding this, Li Zunzu said:
"If a civilian household needs to serve as a soldier, isn't it still a military household?"

Zhu Youjian shook his head and explained:

"Military households need to serve as soldiers for generations, and there are always people serving in the military."

"Military service for private households is that as long as men reach adulthood, they are obligated to perform military service. After three years of service, they can retire from active service. In addition to registering with the militia reserve and receiving a period of training every year, he has no other differences from mainland civilian households in other respects. Any difference.”

"In this way, with officers and military households as the backbone and military service from civilian households as supplements, the strength of the guard post should be guaranteed."

"You can figure out exactly how many military households and civilian households a guard needs."

(End of this chapter)