Li Banghua, the Minister of War, was still reporting to Chongzhen to sort out the situation of the War Department's arsenal. The situation was simply shocking. After his inspection, he found that less than 30% of the materials and equipment in the ledger were in a state of decay.
At this time, the nobles and civil servants were arguing endlessly to shirk responsibility. The emperor's good mood just now was completely gone. At this time, he looked at them dog-eat-dog with a sullen expression.
Anyway, he won't give up until the equipment for the Beijing camp is in place today.
At this time, Yang Fan didn't care about their trivial matters, but frowned and thought about the current situation. At present, the drastic changes in the court have shown signs of deviating from the original historical development track. What changes will happen next must be seriously considered.
Yang Fan actually supported the plan to abolish the nine-border town. It's just that he doesn't want to express his opinion. At this time, he was more concerned about whether he would suffer losses in this change.
To be fair, there are some troops in Jiubian who are relatively capable of fighting.
For example, the Western Army in Shaanxi later fought more tenaciously in the Battle of Songjin.
If they could really build castles and fortified cities one by one on the land of Rehe, they could indeed blockade the slaves.
However, there are many variables here. The situation is like a tangled mess, which will remain messy if you keep cutting and sorting it out. Maybe something goes wrong there and things can't go on.
However, Donglin is the one who promotes this plan. Regardless of success or failure, they are the winners.
Now northern Shaanxi has begun to be in chaos, with many rebels. Can the soldiers and horses from Yulin Town and Guyuan Town be mobilized? These are all doubtful.
Yang Fan wondered in his heart whether His Majesty and Dong Lin were planning to trick him into going to the northwest.
After destroying Tumut and the Ordos people, he was allowed to stay in Shaanxi to exterminate those who rebelled. Only in this way can the nine general soldiers under the governors of the three sides be mobilized.
Rabbits don't poop in that shitty place in the northwest. Whoever wants to go can go, but Yang Fan has no interest at all. He will stay there to suppress bandits, and he will not go even if he is given the title of king.
The key is that the banditry cannot be eradicated no matter how hard it is eradicated. Press the gourd to float the scoop.
Although Shaanxi is not out of control yet, this situation will not last long. It is a trivial matter for the people to rebel when they have no food to eat. The key lies in the Shaanxi frontier army.
It has been a year since Duke Wei, His Majesty, has been on the throne. Except for Tu Shan, who paid military pay once when he went to Yulin Town to deal with the mutiny, he has never paid military pay again. The military pay and food for the trilateral governors mainly depended on the three provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Shanxi.
There is currently a war going on in Sichuan. Because of the forced reform of the country at the end of Wanli, the She'an Rebellion broke out. The chieftains in the southwest rebelled collectively. The war lasted from the first year of Tianqi to the tenth year of Chongzhen. Only then was he suppressed.
This chaos that corrupted Sichuan and Guizhou for 17 years cost the Ming Dynasty a huge amount of military and financial resources.
"Records of Ming Xi Zong" has statistics:
"Excluding war breaks, on average, the suppression of the She'an Rebellion in the first ten years should have consumed 5.6 million troops, 4.5 million transporters, 12,000 taels of silver per day, and 72 million shi of rice per day; the generals, the generals, and the governors should be concentrated. There are thousands of official seal officials according to the regulations."
Now Sichuan itself has become a war zone, and it still controls the life and death of the three governors there. This war will last ten more years, and there is no hope for money and food in the northwest.
The crux of the problem is that if the military pay arrears continue to be delayed, the border troops will no longer simply be soldiers during the day and turn into bandits at night.
Aren’t the staff at the inn not paid wages? The arrears have been too long, so we are not just opening a black shop. At this time, King Li Chuang is not unemployed yet, and is still looking forward to receiving back wages.
The situation in the northwest became out of control when the border troops began to become organized and surrendered to the peasant army.
If you don't pay me wages, I will find the money myself. Ask for money and food from anyone who has it.
Originally, thieves could not defeat soldiers. Lu Xiangsheng led 2,000 men and was able to hunt down 400,000 peasant troops.
However, in the repeated tug-of-war and protracted battles, the thief was fully trained. The level of training by officers and soldiers on the battlefield continues to improve.
In addition, the imperial court could not pay military salaries, so they simply
, after the officers and soldiers also openly turned into traitors, the situation completely got out of control.
In addition, Ningxia Town has already become a warlord.
At that time, the Jiajing Dynasty mutiny in Ningxia killed the governor and important ministers, but the incident was finally settled.
Since then, the Ming Dynasty's border troops have become a standard operating procedure. This experience has been promoted, and border towns all over have started the paste-copy mode. The Ningxia mutiny model became a model for border army mutinies in various places.
Yang Fan was very worried if he took Jingying to the northwest. I'm afraid it's not just as simple as destroying the Tumut and Ordos people.
The cabinet and the emperor are likely to ask him to solve the warlord problem in Ningxia Town and the civil uprising problem in northern Shaanxi.
In this way, Yang Fan will be trapped there. These problems cannot be solved by Yang Fan. The key to these problems is that Ming's economy has reached the brink of collapse.
Military means cannot solve political problems, let alone economic problems. Guns cannot defeat the laws of economics. The current economic collapse of the Ming Dynasty has profound historical accumulation and internal logic. Any repairs are of no use and can only be done from scratch.
In addition, there is another thorny problem in dealing with the Tumuts, and that is the issue of Xitao Mongolia.
Xitao refers to the west side of the Yellow River, which is a triangular desert area east of the Inner and Outer Hetao and Helan Mountain in Ningxia, north of the Great Wall of the Hexi Corridor, and south of the Mongolian Gobi.
This is the territory of the Mongolian Alxa Tribe.
At this time, Desert Mongolia was also Erut Mongolia. These Wala people were mainly composed of four large tribes. Heshuote, Durbot, Junggar, and Torhut were collectively called the Four Erut.
The Alashan people have a close relationship with the Turgut people (those people in the Legend of Heroes Returning to the East).
The Turgut people have a tent of 50,000 people and no less than 50,000 cavalry. They are a large tribe that can compete with the Dzungars for supremacy. Finally, they were forced by the Dzungars and moved westward to the Ukrainian steppes on the lower reaches of the Volga River in Tsarist Russia.
In order to eliminate the Tumuts, Yang Fan must conquer Guihua City, Jiuyuan City (today's Jiuyuan District of Baotou), and Linhe City (built by King Zhao Wuling, today's Bayannur City). It is likely that there will be a conflict with the Xitao Mongols, which will lead to an attack by the Alxa Mongols.
Especially the Linhe area, which is the jacket area.
The Yellow River is full of harm but only beneficial. There are a million acres of good, fertile land here. It was impossible for Yang Fan to give up. In particular, it is adjacent to the Yinshan Mountains and the Mongolian Gobi in the north. Facing the Yellow River to the south, its strategic location is extremely important.
By guarding this place, you will guard Mongolia's eastward passage.
Once Yang Fan's army is stationed here, it will cause tension in the entire northwest region. The ancient Mongols in Qinghai and Tibet, the Mongols in Xinjiang, and the Khalkhas in Outer Mongolia. All will be highly nervous.
"Yang Qing, most of the equipment in the Ministry of War warehouse is not in the inventory, and the rest is rotten and useless. See if there is anything you can do about the equipment."
"Ah!" Yang Fan was distracted and didn't listen carefully at all. At this time the emperor asked him, and he came back to his senses.
No more today, will be updated tomorrow.
