Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

As soon as Zhai Ruwen took over as Prime Minister, he encountered the army establishment plan submitted by the Ministry of War.

His head was blown by the sight!

Zhai Ruwen found the military expenditure-related files of the former Song Dynasty, dug into the pile of papers and checked them for two days, and then convened a meeting of cabinet members: "Have you all read the documents from the Ministry of War?"

Li Bangyan covered his mouth and yawned, looking like he was overworked last night and couldn't wait to catch up on his sleep.

Who cares about matters related to the military? Li Bangyan will not interfere anyway.

At the founding of the People's Republic of China, Li Bangyan ranked third in the cabinet.

After Zhang Gen and Gao Jingshan retreated and died, it stands to reason that Li Bangyan should take over as prime minister. He was secretly excited for a few days, but it was Zhai Ruwen who succeeded Gao Jingshan, which resulted in Li Bangyan completely lying flat.

"The annual military pay is more than 7 million guan, which is much less than in the previous Song Dynasty." Liu Yao's attitude was a bit vague, but he preferred not to quarrel with the prince.

Zhongshi Dao said: "It's not much."

Xiao Chu said: "After destroying the Jin Kingdom and Xixia, Shaanxi, Hebei, and Shanxi will no longer need to garrison so many troops. By then, military expenditures should be able to be reduced."

Huang Shang, like Xiao Chu, was brought into the cabinet by Zhu Guoxiang for balance last time when the Five Elements of Virtue was discussed.

Huang Shang is more like a soy sauce person: "I know only a little about military affairs, so I won't express my opinion."

After Zhang Gen resigned and returned home, another person was appointed as a cabinet minister, and his promotion path was particularly strange. He actually entered the cabinet as the chief envoy of Zuobu, Hebei Province.

He is... Zongze!

In addition, Zhang Chunxiao, who had led weak soldiers to defend Taiyuan for two and a half years as the prefect of Taiyuan and the envoy to the left of Shaanxi Province, was also transferred back to the central government this time to serve as the left minister of the Ministry of War.

Zongze said: "The Ministry of War's instructions are realistic and not random. If the Prime Minister believes that military spending is too much, he must not reduce the soldiers' military pay. The right way is to reduce the number of troops somewhere."

Among the seven cabinet ministers, he is the only one who opposes the Ministry of War plan?

Zhai Ruwen felt that it was very outrageous. He took out a set of actual data from the file: "More than seven million guan is not much, but it is just military pay. Taking the Yingzong years of the previous dynasty as an example, the military pay this year was about 9.94 million guan. , but also spent 7.42 million pieces of cloth, 23.17 million shi of military rations, and 24.98 million bundles of grass!"

"So many?" Li Bangyan was stunned.

Zhong Shidao explained: "During the reign of Emperor Yingzong of the previous dynasty, although there were no major battles, they continued to build military fortresses on the northwest border, and many of them were used to build cities on the Song and Xia border. Building cities not only requires military protection, but also recruitment A lot of people, earth, stone and wood. Can this annual fee be less?"

After saying that, Zhong Shidao added: "Of course, there is definitely no need for the 23.17 million stone grain every year. No one can explain how to use it. Even during the Xuanhe period (Huizong Dynasty), after the war, it was not so outrageous. Yingzong Someone in the DPRK must be embezzling and misappropriating it."

Zhai Ruwen added: "Last year, we first destroyed Zhong Xiang, then fought against the Jin Kingdom, and made countless weapons, armor, and firearms. Although the military pay last year was only more than 4 million guan, the total military expenditure reached 28 million guan, and more than 4 million pieces of cloth, More than 12 million stones of grain and more than 13 million bunches of grass!"

Zongze reminded: "I don't know about other places. A lot of the military rations in Hebei were used to resettle the refugees after the war. When the Jin people evacuated, they burned, killed and looted everywhere, and countless people needed help."

"Nearly half of the military rations in Hunan were used to relieve the hungry people after the war." Zhong Shidao said.

Seeing that the direction of the cabinet had become clear, Li Bangyan also said: "Last year, more than 28 million yuan was spent on building a large number of armor, firearms, and warships. After these things are built, they will not require much annual maintenance and repair. Just like the common people Repairing and building a house will definitely cost a lot of money at the beginning. It is worth a lot of money to repair the house and put it there, but it is not like throwing money into the water and hearing the noise. Especially building warships, reorganizing several shipyards in the old Song Dynasty, and only restoring the ships The cost of building a shipyard is already quite high, and these shipyards will be able to build tankers and merchant ships in the future."

Zhai Ruwen looked at everyone and finally realized a serious problem.

He is not Zhang Gen, he is not the prince's father-in-law.

He did not join the Ming Dynasty very early, and his qualifications and prestige were completely insufficient.

The only thing he can offer is his identity as Prince Master!

Even Li Bangyan, a sycophant, could not abandon him based on his merits, because Li Bangyan had the credit for conspiring to capture Tokyo.

Among the remaining people, Liu Yao had taken refuge with Zhu Guoxiang in Sichuan, and he was also Zhang Dun's grandson-in-law. With his qualifications and connections, he could overpower Zhai Ruwen.

Zhong Shidao has a background in the Western Army, and he has the support of the army. Zhong's daughter even married the prince as a concubine.

Zongze insisted on resisting the Jin in Hebei, and the soldiers of the Hebei department were his reliance.

As for Xiao Chu, he was a popular figure in front of the emperor and the prince. He made an exception and took charge of the Hanlin Academy as a commoner, and then joined the cabinet from the Hanlin Academy.

After much calculation, Zhai Ruwen suddenly realized that as the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, he could only suppress Huang Shang!

Li Bangyan also realized this situation at this time, and felt ecstatic for no reason. He was glad that he was not excluded from taking over as prime minister, and he began to covet the position of prime minister again. His cabinet ranking was already second. So, is it possible to win over other cabinet ministers, remove Zhai Ruwen, and then replace him himself?

"Why don't we vote?" Li Bangyan couldn't wait to take the lead.

Cabinet voting was initiated by Zhu Guoxiang and is only conducted when the cabinet is unable to make a decision.

It appears to be democratic and fair, but it actually contains huge hidden dangers. In another time and space, during the party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty, the cabinet vote took the blame, and the cabinet ministers formed cliques to squeeze out the chief ministers. As a result, the cabinet became a tool of party struggle and could not function normally for a long time.

Zongze looked at Zhai Ruwen, then looked at Li Bangyan, and suddenly understood what was going on.

He neither wanted to help Li Bangyan slander the Prime Minister, but also agreed with the Ministry of War's proposal. He didn't know what to choose for a while.

Liu Yao also disliked Li Bangyan and reminded: "Prime Minister Li, you are just the deputy prime minister. The initiative to initiate a cabinet vote should be made by the prime minister. Please don't overstep your authority."

These words made Li Bangyan look extremely ugly. He subconsciously glanced at everyone and found that everyone looked disgusted.

The attitude of the cabinet ministers made Li Bangyan feel cold. It turned out that his popularity in the cabinet was so poor. Even if Zhai Ruwen is pulled off the horse, he, Li Bangyan, can't get up. Alas... he should just lie down and live his life from now on.

Li Bangyan began to yawn again, and seemed to fall asleep even while sitting.

Whoever you love, I won’t serve you anymore!

Zhai Ruwen did not force a vote, but said softly: "Since everyone agrees, I will no longer insist. But are the 330,000 garrison troops and 180,000 cavalry troops too many? Zhejiang is rich, and No mountains and rivers are prosperous, and as long as there is no excessive levy, there will never be giant bandits. And in Henan, several surrounding provinces are heavily garrisoned, so where is the need for 20,000 garrison troops?"

In order to show that he was not deliberately going against the Prime Minister, Zhong Shidao nodded and said: "That's true. The garrison in Zhejiang should be reduced from 10,000 to 8,000. The garrison in Henan should be reduced from 20,000 to 10,000. And in Hubei, Even if the prince resettles the people to cultivate wasteland, the population will still be relatively small, and the garrison should be reduced from 10,000 to 8,000."

Huang Shang also said: "In the previous dynasty, the post houses were managed by civilian officials, and the expenses of the post houses were paid by the state and county governments. The prince merged the post houses and delivery shops into the control of the Cajun Army, which allowed the local officials to It saves money, but the court has to increase an extra amount of expenditure every year. It is better for the dipu to belong to the Cao Army and the posthouse to the local government."

Liu Yao said: "The food and salary of the Cao army is indeed a bit high. They don't fight, they only provide courier and transportation, so why do they need to pay such a high military salary?"

While Li Bangyan was yawning, the cabinet ministers discussed and put forward cabinet opinions on the Ministry of War plan, and then submitted it to Zhu Guoxiang for approval.

When Zhu Guoxiang saw that it was a major military proposal, he immediately said: "Forward it to the Generalissimo's Office."

The proposal that Prince Zhu asked the Privy Council and the Ministry of War to submit came full circle and returned to Prince Zhu's hands...

After carefully reading the cabinet opinions, Ju Ming decided to give him some face, but he couldn't give it all.

He agreed to reduce the number of garrison troops in Henan, Zhejiang, and Hubei, but he did not agree to hand over the country's posthouses to local governments, nor did he agree to reduce the food and salary benefits of the Cao army.

In addition, some provinces have also re-districted this year.

Hanzhong was completely assigned to Shaanxi.

The entire Han River line starting from Jinzhou (Ankang) is assigned to the jurisdiction of Hubei.

Chizhou was separated from Zhejiang and placed under the jurisdiction of Jiangxi.

Officials in Chuzhou and Wenzhou made fierce quarrels, but the court ignored them, and these two places all belonged to Fujian.

After Ju Ming gave his instructions, he forwarded his opinions to the emperor.

Zhu Guoxiang took a casual look and expressed his agreement with Zhu Pi: "Report it to the cabinet."

Seven cabinet ministers gathered around to read.

The emperor's words "transferred to the Generalissimo's Mansion" made them silent for a while.

Although Zhu Guoxiang said he would not intervene in the military, he did so too obviously this time, and he seemed to indicate his attitude to the cabinet.

Zhai Ruwen was a little frustrated, but he still smiled and said: "If you can make His Highness the Crown Prince make changes and reduce the number of garrison troops of 14,000, our cabinet ministers will also be useful to the country."

Ju Ming made the military system more comprehensive and formal this time. One of the reasons was to place military generals.

Those generals who were injured and disabled in battle, but did not affect their daily operations. Those officers who were promoted purely based on their seniority but had poor combat performance in the past two years. There are also some older generals. As well as some southern rebel leaders... they were all separated and arranged to be stationed in the defense army and Cao army systems.

Then select some outstanding officers and generals and convert them to the field army system.

And by changing the military system, the former Imperial Forbidden Army, Xiang Army and the late Song Dynasty Rebel Army were completely digested.

For example, the Yao family army was divided into three this time and completely belonged to the imperial court——

The old, weak, sick and disabled will all be eliminated.

Ordinary sergeants, organized into the Shaanxi Garrison Army.

The elite troops were organized into the Ming Dynasty Field Army, with generals including Yao Pingzhong, Wu Jie, Wu Lin, Wang De and others. The two brothers Liu Qi were also incorporated into Yao Pingzhong's army.

The troops under the command of Hebei generals such as Yue Fei, Wang Yan, Li Cheng, Li Qiong, and Zhang Di were also expanded and reorganized. From now on, regardless of region or seniority, they will all be members of the Ming Dynasty Field Army.

Only through this military reform can Ju Ming truly control the national army.

Including the Zhejia Army and Liu Jiajun, they were all divided, reorganized, and annexed!