Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 54: Fortify the Wall and Clear the Fields + Group Training
In Prince Xiang's Mansion, Chongzhen, who was preparing to read a book after dinner, couldn't help but shudder when he heard Zhu Changgan's words.

Chongzhen deeply agreed with the strategy designated by Yang Sichang.

He even grabbed Yang Sichang's hand and said in grief: "It's a pity that I hired you too late!"
How could I fail after having a long conversation with Yang Sichang the whole evening?
Theoretically speaking, by adopting such a strategy, the refugee army would not be able to operate in one place, would not be able to obtain resources, would not be able to rob money and food for military pay, and would not be able to coerce civilians. If they were trapped in a small area, even if the Ming army did not take action, they would be defeated on their own!

"No... If this strategy doesn't work, what other methods are there?"

……

Yang Sichang also looked confused. The reason he came to see the emperor this time was actually largely to say goodbye. He was preparing to go south to lead his troops.

But after hearing what the emperor said, his head suddenly started buzzing and he felt dizzy.

Zhu Changgan shook his head and pointed out two of the points. He said, "To realize your grand strategy, it is necessary to expand the army. But according to the current financial situation of the Ming Dynasty, let alone expand the army, the court can't even pay the salaries of the existing Ming army."

"His Majesty……"

Yang Sichang opened his mouth but was interrupted by Zhu Changgan, "I know the bad idea you gave me. The court should increase the suppression and training fees!"

"But have you ever thought about why the people rebel? Only those who can't survive rebel."

"You continue to impose additional taxes. Your so-called 'equalized taxation' is just forcing those who could have survived to become bandits, isn't it?"

"If you kill Gao Yingxiang today, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong will pop up tomorrow, and Zhang Er and Liu San will pop up the day after tomorrow... By then, there will be too many hungry people to kill them all, and there will never be peace!"

"I don't think it's a good idea to suppress one problem and raise the other."

"..." Yang Sichang's brows were wrinkled into the shape of a "川" character. He and the court were well aware of this.

Lu Xiangsheng, who was in charge of military affairs in seven provinces, including Nanzhili, Henan, Shandong, Huguang, Sichuan, Shanxi and Shaanxi, openly opposed this and proposed a better solution of "paying military salaries based on grain".

That is, taxes would only be imposed on officials, gentry and wealthy households. However, the entire court was aware of the resistance involved. More importantly, the emperor was unwilling to come forward to resist the pressure and make the final decision.

……

Chongzhen clenched his fingers, his face grim, "It's better than doing nothing, right?"

In his opinion, between dying of thirst on the spur of the moment and drinking poison to quench his thirst, Yang Sichang chose the latter, and would rather stay alive first.

Chongzhen also hoped that Yang Sichang's strategy would succeed quickly so as to cancel the salary increase and reduce the harm.

Zhu Changgan shook his head. "It's like drinking poison to quench thirst. If the thirst is not quenched, your intestines will rot and you will lose the chance to live forever."

The rapid snowballing of the refugee army in the Ming Dynasty was closely related to the Three Taxes in the late Ming Dynasty.

Yang Sichang's strategic concept was based on "gambling", gambling not only on the rapid success of suppressing the rebellion without interference, but also on the emperor and the court's will and attitude to squeeze out all the money and grain.

But the chance of failure in this kind of gamble is too high.

The peasant uprising army fought a guerrilla war. The more troops the Ming Dynasty allocated, the easier it was for local loopholes to occur. Moreover, the more troops there were, the lower the efficiency.

The fact that Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong escaped from encirclement many times also illustrates this problem.

Just as Zhang Xianzhong later thought, as long as the refugee troops in the encirclement joined forces to attack one place, if that place was broken, the whole network would be broken.

Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai joined forces to attack one enemy group and easily broke through the encirclement from Bazhou and entered Sichuan.

When Yang Sichang deployed troops to rebuild the encirclement and a large number of Ming troops were diverted to Sichuan and Hanzhong, Zhang Xianzhong broke through the blockade from Bazhong and returned to Huguang, which was already "out of the net".

Zhang Xianzhong even wrote a doggerel poem mocking Yang Sichang, "What a great Yang Gebu, he is only three days away from me."

The encirclement and suppression strategy of "four sides and six corners, with a net spread out in ten directions" also failed.

"Your Majesty, don't you have some money in your treasury..." Yang Sichang said in a low voice, meaning that he wanted to advance some money from the emperor's treasury.

Zhu Changgan raised his eyebrows and refused, "I have no money in my treasury. I am just keeping it for the national treasury temporarily. Right now, the Ming Dynasty has many places to spend money."

The corner of Yang Sichang's mouth twitched, and he thought to himself: "Then you should give the money to the Ministry of Revenue. Once the Ministry of Revenue has the money, I can go there to transfer the money."

Zhu Changgan took Lu Xiangsheng's memorial again, pointed at it and said, "I think the money should come from officials, gentry and wealthy families."

Yang Sichang looked unhappy, "But..."

Taking money from officials, gentry and wealthy people is tantamount to killing them. This has been discussed in the court before, and few civil and military officials in the court agreed.

"I understand your concerns, but it is impossible to ask them to pay the money. However, I have a way to make them voluntarily pay the money to suppress the bandits."

Zhu Changgan continued: "This will not only reduce the banditry of the Ming Dynasty, but also reduce military expenditures."

Yang Sichang couldn't help but raise his head and look at the emperor with burning eyes, "Your Majesty, why did you let them voluntarily pay to suppress the bandits?"

Zhu Changgan was shocked, "I want to organize a group training."

Seeing Yang Sichang's puzzled look,

"The so-called militia is the local militia. The purpose of training soldiers is to protect the local area. Moreover, most soldiers in the militia are related to each other. They may be brothers, friends, or even fathers and sons. Therefore, they don't have to worry about unity when fighting..."

Zhu Changgan explained the definition of militia to Yang Sichang.

He continued, "Although the combat effectiveness of each militia is not high, they are numerous. When there are militias everywhere in the world, the entire Ming Dynasty will be divided into grids."

"It coincides with your 'four sides and six corners, ten sides of the net'. This way, the bandits' living space will be extremely compressed. At that time, the Ming Dynasty's officers and soldiers will only need to check for loopholes and fill in the gaps, and those bandits will naturally be unable to move."

Simply put, it is a policy of fortifying the city and clearing the countryside + militia training.
Confine the peasant uprising to small grids.

Yang Sichang frowned. The emperor's method was very feasible. Li Zicheng proposed the slogan of "equal distribution of land and exemption of taxes".

This slogan expressed the hope that common people all over the world would be able to obtain land and not have to pay rent or taxes to the gentry and the imperial court.

It can be said that Li Zicheng called for this in order to absorb refugees. It represented the voice of this group of people and their strong appeal, which made his refugee army roll up quickly.

But the officials, gentry and wealthy families were firmly opposed to this, because the land in the world was mainly owned by powerful landlords.

They were certainly unwilling to open their granaries to provide relief food, and did not want their land to be divided up by the refugees, so they opposed this slogan and regarded Li Zicheng as a bandit.

Wherever Li Zicheng went, he killed officials, gentry and wealthy people. Now that the emperor asked them to form a group of people to protect themselves, they generally would not object.

……

Prince Xiang's Mansion,
"Hiss~" Chongzhen's body shook violently, and he stood there in a daze, thinking about this proposal in his mind. The benefits are indeed huge, and it can share the energy and financial burden of the Ming Dynasty to a large extent.

"This is a double-edged sword, and it also has huge disadvantages!"

According to Zhu Changgan, the militia was a local private militia, and their food and wages were provided by the local officials, gods and wealthy families, so they naturally listened to the local officials, gods and wealthy families.

Now that the Ming Dynasty's combat power has collapsed, it might be fine if used well, but if used poorly, it will be a deadly poison arrow, even worse than the Three Salaries.

Don’t wait until the time comes that the local militia will retaliate and, instead of resolving the problem of refugees and bandits, will directly accelerate the sinking of the Ming Dynasty.

……

"Your Majesty, please think twice. If the military power is in the hands of officials, gentry and wealthy families, there will be endless troubles!" Yang Sichang knelt down immediately and advised at the top of his voice.

"I understand your concerns!" Zhu Changgan's eyes flashed, "I will only set up militia ministers in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Huguang provinces, and the number of people in each militia shall not exceed 3000."

Zhu Changgan knew very well that militia training was a double-edged sword, but this method could prolong the Ming Dynasty.

So he only allowed militias to be trained in those areas where the refugees were causing the most trouble.

Militia training was not allowed in wealthy areas such as Jiangnan and Nanzhili.

He wanted to both buy time for the Ming Dynasty through militia training and shorten the time before the backlash from the militia training would occur.

This is also why he wanted to control the number of militia members to within three thousand, and use this time difference to turn the Ming Dynasty into a giant dragon again.

"I intend to appoint 100 of the first batch of militia ministers."

Decentralize power...directly appoint more than 100 militia ministers and let them get started.

Yang Sichang stared at the emperor blankly, "Since Your Majesty has made up his mind, I will go to the Ministry of War to draft an order."

"Don't go!" Zhu Changgan waved his hand to let a eunuch in, "Go and invite Lord Sun over."

Zhu Changgan glanced at Yang Sichang and said, "Minister Yang, you don't have to go this time."

"Ah?" Yang Sichang was speechless and blushed. "Your Majesty, did I do something wrong?"

"It's not that I did anything wrong, but I hope you stay in Beijing. The peace talks with the Qing Dynasty are still ongoing. How can a senior official like you be absent?" Zhu Changgan laughed.

One of the main reasons why Chongzhen liked Yang Sichang was that Yang Sichang was "non-partisan", but the biggest reason for his "non-partisanship", apart from his own reasons, was that he was not good at building relationships.

Yang Sichang messed up both times when he went south to lead the army. A big reason for this was that he did not know how to handle relationships and had many conflicts with his generals and local governors.

He first recommended Zuo Liangyu to be given the seal of "General Suppressing Bandits", and then trained He Renlong to check and balance Zuo Liangyu, and recommended He Renlong to replace Zuo Liangyu. However, after Chongzhen agreed, Yang Sichang was worried that He Renlong's military strength and achievements could not suppress Zuo Liangyu, so he wrote a petition to the emperor to withdraw the order.

As a result of this operation, he offended both Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong, who pretended to obey his orders but actually disobeyed them, and deliberately pursued but did not suppress Zhang Xianzhong's troops.

At the same time, Yang Sichang also had a very bad relationship with the Governor-General of the Three Borders Zheng Chongjian and the Governor of Sichuan Shao Jiechun. In addition, they had differences and conflicts in some specific strategies and judgments, and the two of them also had various reasons for not executing Yang Sichang's deployment orders.

He already had a candidate in mind for the executor of the strategy of fortifying the city and training militia.

Sun Chuanting!
On the one hand, he was chosen because of Sun Chuanting's military achievements. He came out of retirement in the eighth year of Chongzhen and became a provincial governor in the ninth year of Chongzhen.

As soon as he took office, he beheaded a general of the peasant army, Fatty Zhang, the King of Qixi. "The leader of the bandits, King of Qixi, occupied Shang and Luo, and the other generals did not dare to attack. So I ordered the deputy general Luo Shangwen to attack and behead him."

Then he dealt with the two strongest men in the peasant army—King Gao Yingxiang and Scorpion Block Tuo Yangkun…

These achievements all demonstrate Sun Chuanting's command ability, and his strategic vision is also very far-sighted.

Sun Chuanting publicly expressed his disagreement with Yang Sichang's plan of "four in the front and six in the corner, three in the cavalry and seven in the infantry, a total of 120,000 soldiers, increase to 2.8 million, and aim to quell the rebellion within 100 days."

It was believed that it would be impossible to achieve except to increase the financial burden of the Ming Dynasty.

He advocated training elite troops, not wasting food and money, and using a limited number of elite troops to focus on attacking the enemy's main force.

This is particularly in line with Zhu Changgan's philosophy.

We need elite soldiers and strong generals to win battles and fight with confidence!

In addition to Sun Chuanting's ability to train troops, his fundamental ability was his ability to manage the economy. The Ming Dynasty treasury no longer had the money to support the training of elite troops in various places.

Sun Chuanting, however, trained his own troops. As there was a shortage of military households in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, and the military farms were abandoned or annexed, it was impossible to provide sufficient manpower, material and financial resources for the troops.

However, he was able to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, collecting more than 145,000 taels of silver in military taxes and more than 13,500 dan of rice and wheat each year.

In the project of clearing up the military treasuries alone, a total of more than 45 taels of silver were obtained in three years, and 5 shi of rice, wheat and beans were obtained.

In addition, what Zhu Changgan valued was Sun Chuanting's decisiveness and ruthlessness. One of the records shows that in the 16th year of Chongzhen, Sun Chuanting advanced his troops to Baofeng. After breaking through the city, "the troops swarmed in, the city was in an uproar, and the fire was as bright as day." He said that the people in the city were thieves who were defending the city, so he massacred the people.

"The situation of the Ming Dynasty requires both good medicine and strong medicine!" Zhu Changgan said in a voice that only he could hear.

Militia training has a certain backlash effect, and appointing Sun Chuanting as the commander-in-chief may have been a consideration for this reason!
……

"One hundred militia ministers all at once? Such a big momentum?"

In Prince Xiang's Mansion, Chongzhen just stood there blankly, his tongue stiff, his chest heaving, and his arms trembling slightly.

a long time,

He swallowed hard and said, "You are too brave...you are taking too big a step. If you take a wrong step, there will be no recovery!"

At this moment, Chongzhen suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe.

There were surprises and joys, but more surprises.

Tuanlian is a local militia organization. In fact, it has existed for a long time. As early as the Tang Dynasty, Tuanlian appeared in various places.

Therefore, Chongzhen did have the concept of militia.

Chongzhen clenched his fingers tightly and said to himself: "According to his way of doing things, the Ming Dynasty will either get better faster, or... collapse faster."

……

ps: The two chapters are inseparable, so they are combined together. Thank you all for your reading and voting.

(End of this chapter)