Chapter 350
The soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were very hard-working. The loyal and brave soldiers who fought for the country should have enough food and clothing and good soldiers and armor, but they lived like beggars. Just like the Qi Family Army founded by Qi Jiguang, after Qi Jiguang was dismissed from his official position and died in depression, almost all the last three thousand Qi Family Army led by Qi Jin died on the banks of the Hun River.
However, this group has not received a penny of food and salary for thirteen months. Even so, there has been no mutiny and they can be dragged out to fight. The ability of Lao Zhu's family is actually really extraordinary. Of course, Lao Zhu's family is even more ordinary. The ability of the officials in the family.
The military households in the guards are hereditary. The descendants of the big-head soldiers can only be the big-head soldiers. The descendants of the thousand households are all the thousand households. The descendants of the commanders are commanders from generation to generation. ,
In fact, it was not that the Ming Dynasty did not attach importance to soldiers. For example, the rank of a hundred households was the sixth rank, the general banner was the seventh rank, the thousand households were the fifth rank, and the commander was the third rank. In later generations, they would be provincial-level senior officials. The problem is, these days, armed forces are automatically inferior to civil servants by three levels. A fifth-grade Qianhu, let alone a fourth-grade command official, can be subdued by even a county magistrate. Stick to sticker.
To put it bluntly, the real official in the Ming Dynasty was not the county magistrate, but the Qianhu. As for the hundreds of households and the chief officials, they don't even count as sesame officials.
Soon, more than 30 generals in Yanqing County and six Ning Navy generals at the level of 1,000 generals gathered together to hold a meeting without a theme.
At the meeting, Meng En said: "Everyone..."
Just when Meng En opened his mouth, Cheng Shijie appeared behind Meng En. If Meng En suddenly summoned Officer Ning Haijun from Yanqing, the Supervisor of the Military Supervision Department immediately reported to Cheng Shijie.
Cheng Shijie had nothing to do, so he decided to sit in on the meeting.
When Cheng Shijie entered the conference room, some of the officers saw Cheng Shijie. They wanted to salute Cheng Shijie, but Cheng Shijie told them not to salute and not to explain to Meng En.
Meng En was not aware of the problem. He said excitedly: "Brothers, you must have heard about the series of things that happened during this period. Those damn civil servants did not hesitate to push this country down for their own selfish interests. Toward the bottomless abyss!”
The generals did not answer Meng En's words. He just continued: "For their own interests, they ordered the generals guarding the border passes to let go of their defenses and let the Mongolian Tatars break through. This is the case for Jingan Fort and Yanmen Pass. It was lost in this way, the Piantou Pass was lost in this way, and the Taiyuan Prefecture was lost in this way. Why do their civil servants selfishly think that this country is their private property and they can squander it wantonly, just because they have read a few shabby books. Book?"
Although Cheng Shijie was present, Admiral Ning was also very angry. Because they had received too much similar intelligence during this period. If Gansu Governor Tang Daoheng concentrated Gansu troops to confront the Jungar army in Weiwu City, of course there was nothing wrong with the confrontation in Weiwu. He should never have done so at the most critical moment. Escape at any time and sacrifice the main force of Gansu in the wild.
If the Gansu army resists the city and defends it, allowing the Jungar army to attack one city after another, I am afraid that the Jungar army will still be attacking the state and the government in the Hexi Corridor.
It is impossible to easily break through the Sixteenth City of Hexi and directly reach the city of Lanzhou. As for Taiyuan Town, it is even more difficult. Taiyuan Town governs three passes, nineteen mouths, and thirty-nine forts. Each pass city is not easy to defend but difficult to attack. ? Which pass does not require a large number of human lives to fill it?
But the problem is, from Qiao Zhaolin to He Sui, if Cheng Shijie hadn't sent people to patrol the nine sides with Qiao Zhaolin riding a wooden donkey, and in this way frightened many half-hearted Ming army generals, it would have been more than 3,000 miles. The nine-border defense line is full of loopholes.
If Cheng Shijie hadn't sent Shen Mingyu to lead Ning Haijun to patrol the nine sides in time, I'm afraid the nine sides of defense would have collapsed long ago.
"This general doesn't want to go on like this. I've had enough for a long time. This damn civil servant!"
Meng En raised his arms and shouted: "We want to control our own destiny. Now we have an opportunity. This opportunity allows you to show your talents, fight side by side with countless heroes who are as brave and capable as you, and open up new territories. You no longer have to worry about your great achievements, you no longer have to worry about the constraints of civil servants, and you no longer have to worry about your clan being exterminated on an unfounded charge after your death. Are you willing to seize it?"
One of the generals, Li Junhu, said: "This... how is this possible? Even the Han and Tang Dynasties couldn't do it!"
Meng En's eyes flashed with two sharp rays of light, and he said in a deep voice: "Now there is an opportunity. We can do better than the soldiers in the Han and Tang Dynasties. It depends on whether you dare to seize it!"
Li Junhu gritted his teeth and said, "I'm not a bitch. I like to be kneaded repeatedly like dough!"
"If there is such an opportunity, I will definitely seize it!"
"I'm not afraid of death, I'm just afraid that they will settle accounts with us!"
"I can't even sleep well!"
Hearing this, Cheng Shijie already understood what Meng En wanted to do, and he angrily shouted: "Aren't you afraid of killing the Nine Clans?"
"Humph, I only have a wife, and I don't even have a son, but I can't bring together the nine clans for them to kill..."
At this point, he heard Cheng Shijie's voice, and then he reacted: "Commander!"
Cheng Shijie stared at Meng En and said, "Shut up!"
Meng En was so frightened that he broke into cold sweat.
Cheng Shijie heard what Meng En meant and knew what Meng En wanted to do, but the problem was that he really didn't have the time yet, because Cheng Shijie knew that these civil servants still controlled public opinion, and ordinary people did not have the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Civil servants and They believe whatever the scholar-bureaucrats say. This is cognitive inertia.
What Cheng Shijie was really afraid of was that once he fell out with the court, the court would not hesitate to let go of the beast in the cage in order to deal with Cheng Shijie, the traitor.
Are the scholar-bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty powerful? Yes, and their power is not small. They control a large amount of land and have a large number of tenants. Once the ban on landlords training military generals is lifted, in the current Ming Dynasty, landlords' tenants will pay attention to the court and will fight with the court at all costs. Ning Haijun fought bloody battles.
At that time, Ning Haijun was the real enemy of the whole world, unless Cheng Shijie could directly wipe out the Ming Dynasty's population of nearly 100 million like the Manchu Qing Dynasty did. According to the "Population History of China" compiled by Ge Jianxiong, after the Qing army entered the customs, the population of the entire country decreased by about 90 million. In other words, nearly 100 million people lost their lives in this catastrophe of dynasty change.
According to statistics, the population of the Ming Dynasty during the Wanli Period was nearly 200 million. Why did the population of the Ming Dynasty increase significantly compared with the previous feudal dynasties? In addition to the long period of peace and not many wars, crops such as sweet potatoes introduced from South America during the Ming Dynasty also played a very important role. These crops had high yields and were suitable for growing on Chinese soil and fed a large number of people. . Therefore, the population of the Ming Dynasty increased significantly compared with the previous feudal dynasties. Although there were times of peace and prosperity in the previous feudal dynasties, none could reach a scale of nearly 200 million people.
According to statistics during the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, the country's population was only 10 million. Even if a family had six people, there were only 60 million people. The losses to this population of more than 100 million are not small.
But how could Cheng Shijie do it?
Would you really like to learn that the Manchus killed mountains of corpses and seas of blood, with white bones exposed in the wild, thousands of miles of bare ground, and vast lakes and rivers filled with rivers?
Cheng Shijie is really not that cruel, nor does he want to kill so many people. To solve this problem, what is needed is to break the ideological system established by Confucianism. Confucianism stipulates five role relationships, namely monarch and minister, father and son, husband and wife, brothers and friends.
Among these five ethics, the natural relationship between family members accounts for the majority, and the relationship between monarch and minister and friends is essentially an extension of the relationship between father, son and brother. Among them, father and son represent all vertical relationships, brothers represent horizontal relationships, and husband and wife represent the relationship between the sexes. Traditional Chinese families focus on the father-son relationship rather than the husband-wife relationship. Chinese culture developed based on this father-son family relationship.
From the family, the country, and the world, the family is first the main axis, the small family develops into the family, and the family develops into the clan. A clan is a small country, and a clan in Europe is the size of a country.
Now Cheng Shijie was actually corroding this system when he was in Liaodong. He originally wanted to moisturize things and solve this ideological system silently.
In Liaodong, land, homesteads, including taxes, have never been allocated based on headcount, but based on household registration. Whether a family has nine people or more than ten people, the number of homesteads allocated is the same. From this point on, It forces those big families to separate.
If you want homestead and farmland, then separate your family and limit the number of household registrations to three to five people in a family. Just like pushing the grace order, as long as you become the head of the household, the family will be dispersed, and for the sake of profit, it cannot be done locally. It has become a huge force like a clan. Without the land to maintain the clan's power, Confucianism will collapse.
In particular, allowing women to work, earn money, and control the economy means that they have the say in the family. Reversing two thousand years of feudal thinking cannot be accomplished overnight.
In addition to this, there is also the need to destroy the authority of Confucianism. Just like Jiannu used his victory after victory to establish the myth and authority that "the Jurchens are not equal to ten thousand, and they are invincible". This method broke the myth of Jiannu, and Jiannu began to decline.
Of course, Cheng Shijie has more to do. He has already put forward the "pot lid" theory to explain the causes of rain, weather and drought in the most superficial way, breaking the so-called "sensation between heaven and man" in Confucianism. Now the weather in Little Glacier , just enough to break the Confucian connection between heaven and man.
When the Confucians can no longer play this trick, their authority and prestige will disappear. At that time, if they want to respond to everything, they will not have so many followers.
But the problem is, now that Meng En has exposed this problem and put it directly on the table, Cheng Shijie must unify the thinking of Ning Haijun's group to achieve long-term strategic goals.
Cheng Shijie coughed and summoned the entire army to hold a meeting immediately.
The problem is obvious, but for Cheng Shijie, it is not a bad thing. The more the arguments are made, the clearer the truth becomes. Some things must be faced head-on.
The Ning navy soldiers stood in line in the cold wind. Following the officer's order to stand at attention, more than 6,000 Ning navy soldiers stood upright, looking like a straight line horizontally and vertically.
When Cheng Shijie ascended the general commanding platform, all the soldiers said in unison: "Greetings to the commander-in-chief!"
"Take a break!"
Cheng Shijie took the microphone and used the speaker to transmit his voice to the ears of every Ning Haijun officer.
"Everyone, so many things have happened during this period, and you have also experienced a lot. I don't want to tell you some big truths that you won't understand. What I want to ask you is, what is your original intention? ? Do you still remember? What are the duties and responsibilities of soldiers?"
Cheng Shijie's voice made all Ning Haijun officers start thinking.
"What is your original intention?"
"What are your responsibilities?"
When Cheng Shijie changed his explanation, Zhong Ning, a naval officer, shouted: "A soldier's duty is to fight. Soldier Ning only does two things, fight and prepare for war."
"So you still remember, is this your original intention now?"
Cheng Shijie continued: "Soldiers have only one duty, and that is to fight to the end. Only fight. Only the flesh and blood of us iron-blooded men can block the iron hoofs of the Tatars. Only the faith and will of us warriors can build a barrier of flesh and blood." The Great Wall, only if we use our swords and guns to stop the Jiannu and the Tatars who wantonly kill our relatives, only by stopping those beasts and beasts can we protect our wives, daughters and sisters from being raped and humiliated, and can we protect our property. Only in this way can we protect our home, our houses, and everything we have!”
Cheng Shijie's words caused everyone present to think deeply.
One thing that Ning Navy officers are very proud of is that they have dignity.
Other Ming soldiers were shunned by the people like snakes and scorpions, like savage beasts. No matter where they went, they were disliked everywhere. Why did they encounter countless unfair treatments?
Why are they so ignored and ignored?
The answer is that they are not soldiers, they are not qualified soldiers, and they have not fulfilled their obligations as soldiers.
Cheng Shijie did not mention Meng En's name, nor did he mention Zhou Ning, but in fact the two of them were blushing with shame, because now that they thought about it, they had forgotten their original intentions and their responsibilities.
Cheng Shijie continued: "Zhao Wencai is still in Lanzhou, using their flesh and blood to stop the Mongols in Jungar, and Shen Mingyu is still in Yanmen Pass to stop the Mongolian Tatars. They are still doing their jobs. What about you? You are worthy of what you have suffered. Military uniform?”
However, at this time, Meng En held his head and said: "Report, I will have something to say!"
"speak!"
"In just two months, hundreds of thousands of people, tens of thousands of soldiers, hundreds of thousands of lives, and countless outstanding officers and generals were ruined like this! And what ruined them was just a ridiculous idea. It’s also a stumbling block for the commander-in-chief, the selfish desires of a small group of people!”
Meng En knelt in front of Cheng Shijie: "Commander, even if you want to kill my head, wait until I finish!"
Cheng Shijie opened his mouth and wanted to refute, but he didn't know how to refute. It can be seen that those civil servants had a huge blow to Ning Haijun.
Meng En looked sad and said: "Now the Mongols and Junggars have invaded one after another, there is turmoil in the south of the Yangtze River, and the war is raging in the northwest. There is a strong tendency for China to sink. However, three months ago, we were still victorious in various battlefields. From several The directions were advancing at the same time, and the pressure was so great that Jiannu couldn't breathe! Just a confused idea by someone, these advantages that were exchanged for the blood of countless soldiers were ruined."
At this point, Meng En became excited and said loudly: "This time, the commander-in-chief stepped forward to turn the tide. What about next time? If someone makes such a ridiculous decision next time, and someone wants to do it for their own selfish interests, Pushing the entire country into the abyss of destruction, Marshal, do you dare to guarantee that there will be others like you who will stand up and hold up this fallen sky?"
Cheng Shijie continued: "As long as I don't die, I will still come forward!"
"Commander, you know how, but the problem is, their lives are lives, and the lives of our brothers in the Ninghai Navy are not lives, right? In order to wipe the butts of those sons of bitches, we lost one of our lives in Jingan Fort. Of the more than a thousand people, more than two thousand were killed in Pingding Prefecture, and among the more than 20,000 brothers in Lanzhou, I don’t know how many of them can come back alive!”
Cheng Shijie's brows tightened: "What exactly do you want to say?"
Meng En yelled: "I've had enough. Why do they stand so high? They look down on all living beings. Why can they decide the fate of tens of millions of people with just one sentence? Why do they know that it is wrong to do so in order to show their own power?" You have to do it with dignity, even if you sacrifice millions of lives for it!"
(End of chapter)
