Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 34: Establish authority and impress the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Works!
"Defeated? How could I fail?"

Chongzhen looked at the urgent report in disbelief, his limbs were cold, and he collapsed on the throne.

At this moment, he looked at the "×" on Zhu Changgan's memorial again, which seemed extremely ironic.

"How could this be? He... his descendants are the golden rule?" Chongzhen murmured in a voice as low as a mosquito: "Does it mean that as long as I am in power, the Ming Dynasty will decline?"

"Only when he is in power can the Ming Dynasty improve?"

He gritted his teeth, the muscles on his cheeks bulged, and the veins on his forehead became visible. "Do I have to exchange with him?"

Unfortunately, no one answered him.

Because even if Zhu Changgan was present, he was confused.

It can only be said that this is a coincidence. Zhu Changgan did not remember the incident of Pi Island clearly. He only remembered that it was lost in March or April of the tenth year of Chongzhen.

He had no idea how it was lost. Plus, he had just taken over the Ming Dynasty and wanted to save it, but the emperor had no ability to intervene in Liaodong.

So, he drew an "×" on it, which just meant that he couldn't handle it for the time being.

……

For a long time,

Chongzhen finally recovered a little.

The voice was low and helpless as he said, "Wang Chengen, ask the Queen to speed up the selection."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Wang Chengen breathed a sigh of relief and thought to himself, "Fortunately I didn't go right away, otherwise the Queen would probably hate me to death."

Chongzhen looked at the memorials on the desk and the muscles on his face twitched several times.

His clenched fingers finally loosened and he sighed, "Forget it, I won't review the memorials anymore, I'll go to Kunning Palace."

A night of silence,
When the morning glow appeared again in the east the next day, Chongzhen came to the Prince Xiang's Mansion again after the morning court session.

Looking at the familiar environment in front of him, his face flushed.

Even though he had shouted so loudly yesterday and swore to refuse to exchange bodies with Zhu Changgan, he still did not refuse in the end.

He didn't know how long he was in a daze before a voice woke him up.

"Zhu Changgan requests to speak to you, please answer the call."

Chongzhen quickly answered the call, and a voice came over, "Chongzhen, how did we agree on three points? You will not interfere in any state affairs in the future. Are you the one who wrote these comments on the memorials?"

"I...I..." Chongzhen's face turned purple and he was choked and couldn't utter a word.

"I hope this is the last time. If there is a next time, the Ming Dynasty will be over. It has nothing to do with me."

"it is good!"

After Chongzhen said this, he wished there was a crack in the ground so he could dive into it.

"Prince, you haven't had breakfast yet." Outside the door, the maid Hongtao came in with the meal, which eased Chongzhen's embarrassment a little.

……

In the Qianqing Palace,

Zhu Changgan threw aside the memorials that Chongzhen had reviewed and focused on the battle report from Liaodong.

Pi Island was lost?

This made him look a little ugly. This strategic location at the hub of the Liaodong Peninsula and the Korean Peninsula had been a base for containing the Qing Dynasty since Mao Wenlong.

Not only that, Korea also surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, which was not a good thing for the Ming Dynasty.

However, all military power in the Ming Dynasty was controlled by civil servants. Take the Ministry of War for example, eight out of ten people in it were civil servants, and the emperor had no say in it at all.

Zhu Changgan angrily cursed: "These idiots in the Ministry of War."

"My next step is to deal with you bunch of bastards."

"Wang Chengen, Wang Chengen..."

"Your Majesty, the eunuch is here!" Zhu Changgan did not even look at the memorial. Military power was the most important thing at the moment. "Let's go, Jinyiwei. I want to see how Li Ruolian is doing."

"Your Majesty, the sedan chair is ready."

The Jinyiwei, as the emperor's personal guards, were not far from the palace and arrived there in a short while.

Before people even enter, they see crowds of people, shoulder to shoulder, with no end in sight.

However, when they saw the eunuch, everyone instantly guessed that it was a sedan chair from the palace, so they immediately made way for it.

Li Ruo Lian came out to greet him, sweating profusely, "I pay my respects to Your Majesty."

"Get up." Zhu Changgan couldn't help but laugh. "Yesterday I said your Jinyiwei had hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Now it seems that although it is weak, it is not that weak!"

"Your Majesty, you asked me to issue a notice to collect the salary, and these people all came..." Li Ruo Lian's face turned green, "But most of these people bought their Jinyiwei identities, they are all scoundrels in the market."

"Oh?" Zhu Changgan looked at him and motioned for him to continue.

"Your Majesty, the Jinyiwei in the capital are mostly these street rogues. Buying a "Tang Tie" from the Jinyiwei is equivalent to holding a position in the Jinyiwei..."

According to Li Ruolian, with only thirty taels of silver, one could buy an identity as a Jinyiwei and then extort money from outside. Previously, there was a blind man named Zhao who extorted two thousand taels of silver from merchants at one time. He did whatever he wanted and no one in the yamen dared to intervene.

Now, hearing that the Jinyiwei were counting the number of staff and distributing salaries, they all flocked over.

"Okay, register them all, no one can be left out." Zhu Changgan raised the corner of his mouth, "And those who are drawing salaries without doing anything, remember them all for me."

“It’s already been recorded.”

Zhu Changgan asked Wang Chengen to take the list and said, "Gao Yushun, go to the Military Equipment Bureau under the jurisdiction of the Yuheng Qingli Division of the Ministry of Works and bring all the firearms to me."

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

There were only two places in the Ming Dynasty that produced firearms. One was the Armory under the jurisdiction of the Emperor's Palace, and the other was the Military Equipment Bureau under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Works.

The firearms in the Armament Bureau already have serious problems with bursting, and the ones in the Military Equipment Bureau will be even worse.

No wonder later generations said that the “150,000 Jinyiwei” before the fall of the Ming Dynasty were basically composed of playboys who “ate empty salaries” at the top level, and a group of ruffians who “bought the tickets” at the bottom level.

Calling them a “rogue army” is an exaggeration. How can we expect such a group of people to save the country?
It's good enough if you don't bite back.

But they have one function, and that is to establish authority!
In addition, Zhu Changgan also had to curry favor with the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Works.

Zhu Changgan stood up and said, "Pass on my order. From now on, the Jinyiwei will enter a 30-day military training. Each person must fire a hundred muskets. The East Factory will be responsible for supervision. I will come to watch in person when I have time."

"No one is allowed to be absent. Anyone who is absent will be beaten with fifty military sticks and expelled from the Jinyiwei."

Fifty military sticks, that's enough to kill someone.

Outside the Jinyiwei Yamen, the ruffians who came to fill out the list were laughing and cursing, thinking that they could receive their salaries after pressing their fingerprints, but they found that they were being led to the martial arts field.

He was told to fire muskets and only receive his salary after he had completed the firing.

They had never fired a musket before, so after struggling for a long time, they finally loaded the gunpowder and bullets, aimed at the target and fired a shot, but the barrel exploded, and their faces were covered in blood.

Some people were killed on the spot, and many people even peed their pants in fear.

Not to mention these ruffians, even those who did real work in the Jinyiwei had their hearts beating "boom, bang, bang..." non-stop.

The scene was too bloody.

Almost no one can withstand three shots, otherwise the barrel will explode.

Fried into a bloody mess.

A few hooligans were so scared that they dropped their muskets and tried to run away, but they were caught by the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guards and had their heads chopped off. Fresh red blood flowed out from the severed heads, forming a pit.

After chopping down more than a dozen people in a row, no one dared to run away anymore.

Row after row of thugs were forced to fire their muskets, and the entire training ground was dyed red with blood.

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(End of this chapter)