Ma Fang's incident gave Gao Pingshi a flash of inspiration: Since the commander-in-chief of Xuanfu is Ma Fang, it can also explain why Cao Gan and his gang of thieves were able to move freely through Xuanfu.
You know, when the Nine-Border Ming Army fought against Mongolia, they almost always insisted on playing defense, or, surprisingly, they used defensive counterattacks like Qi Jiguang. Only Ma Fang insisted on "using cavalry to control cavalry", desperately strengthening the strength of the cavalry under his command, and confronting the Mongolian cavalry face to face, and the effect was actually quite good. Since such a person is in the position of the chief soldier of the Xuanfu, it makes perfect sense for the Xuanfu to try every means to buy horses, even indulging the horse thieves in Bailixia.
However, there is one problem that Gao Pragmatic has not yet figured out: Ma Fang actually has three thousand servants under his command, and they are all elite cavalry. How can he afford to support them? A few decades later, the so-called Guan Ning cavalry seemed to be less than ten thousand, and the money was spent like water. Could it be that Ma Fang's family is also very rich, or is she greedy and has become a big rat through massive corruption?
He asked tentatively. After hearing this, the little Loli looked at Gao Pragmatic with a caring look: "Ma Zongrong comes from a humble background. No matter how greedy he is, he can't afford three thousand fine knights. His three thousand Among the thousands of servants, there are only about two to three hundred who are his own servants. He is required to pay part of the money, and the rest are paid by the court."
Gao pragmatic was stunned for a moment: "The imperial court will provide money for the generals to support their families?"
"Is it weird?" Little Loli looked impatient: "If the court doesn't provide money, how can Bianjiang afford to support so many people? I can't say what other people's families are like, so I just say that our Liu family is doing well. My father said After so many years of fighting, my family has quite a lot of land, and the number of private servants it can afford is only more than 300, including less than 100 cavalry. But before my father left his post, the number of servants he could drag out to fight was There are more than 2,000 people, where do you think these people came from? If my father were to raise those 2,000 people by himself, our Liu family would be drinking from the northwest wind in three months!"
Gao Jingshi said a long "Oh" and asked again: "Now that your father has been dismissed from his post and is awaiting appointment, what will happen to the previous servants? Those people should be able to fight, and they won't take advantage of others, right?"
Little Loli said: "If we directly dismiss them, those people will either be taken away by the new commander-in-chief, or they will disperse on their own. Fortunately, my father is only waiting for inspection, so for the time being, he still has the royal court's salary to maintain him." She paused. After a pause, he frowned and said: "But of course this situation is very dangerous, so even though my father has no connections in the court, he still has to come to the capital for activities. He is just afraid that the group of people he finally brought out will break up, and everything in the court will be ruined in the future. Once he is used again, no one will be able to use him. Who will he turn to if he is defeated?"
That’s what happened! I said that Liu Xian should obviously be under the management of the Nanjing Ministry of War, so why did he come all the way to Beijing? It seems that he offended the Nanjing garrison officials and he thought that he could not settle the matter in Nanjing, so he had to come to Beijing to find a way out... What a great opportunity!
Gao pragmatic thought for a while and asked: "Where did your father's servants come from? Were they originally from military households who cultivated Liantian, or were they recruited by themselves?"
"The people following us north this time are all military households in my family's farm, that is, private servants. Most of the rest were recruited from various groups who surrendered to the barbarians, including many of the original Japanese pirates." Little Lolita He seemed to be very familiar with his military situation, and he answered without any hesitation.
Gao Pingshi was overjoyed: "You can also recruit at will to surrender to the barbarians, even Japanese pirates?" What he didn't say was that he was thinking of Cao Gan's way out.
In fact, this is really a pragmatic thing that didn’t know enough before traveling through time, that’s why I was so surprised. In fact, during the Longwan period, "the generals in each town recruited many barbarians to serve as servants."
For example, Denglai guard Shen Yourong "recruited many surrendered bandits and gathered men who dared to die"; Mangui and You Shilu "each had his own Yi Han Ding who were very capable"; Liu Wei also had his own "Japanese and Yi Ding"; Jizhen Governor You Jixian "adopted more than 800 surrendered barbarians as elites"; Li Chengliang even adopted many surrendered barbarians as servants. Among them, Li Xing, Li Ning, Li Pinghu and others who later became deputy commander-in-chief were originally all They were the descendants who "came from the captives", and among them was Nurhachi, the ancestor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.
By the way, most of the three thousand servants and cavalry under Ma Fang are Mongolians.
As for worrying about the loyalty of these people, it is really too much to worry about - things like nationalism and nationalism are not very fashionable these days. Whoever provides the food is the master. This is the last word.
The reason why in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, wars basically depended on servants. A big reason is that servants are the boss's private soldiers, similar to the boss's servants. It is a completely mutual relationship where one will be prosperous and one will suffer.
Some of these servants are the coach's relatives and have a blood relationship with the coach. Many coaches also use these relatives to serve as the leaders and backbones of their servants. While other servants are not the coach's relatives, but the coach treats them like family. , "A person who wants to gain his life force and be as friendly as a member of his family."
The servants also serve the coach as family members. Some servants have followed the coach for more than ten or even decades. "In large and small battles, Mi is not responsible for life and death." foot". The long-term career of servants has formed a close relationship between these people and the coach as a "father, son and family". They and even the whole family depend on the coach for their food, clothing and life, so they have a strong attachment relationship with the coach.
Let’s not talk about the distant ones. Isn’t Gao Mo a typical example? He was a servant recruited by Gao Jie, Gao Jie's uncle, when he was supervising Cao Jiang. He followed Gao Jie for a long time. After Gao Jie resigned and became an official, he still followed Gao Jie to his hometown in Xinzheng. Even after Gao Jie passed away, he was willing to continue to be a servant of the Gao family. This is the reason for staying in the Gao family.
"Miss Liu, since you are so familiar with the business here, can you tell me whether there will be any problems if I take Bailixia Thief as my servant this time?" Gao Pragmatic suddenly became shameless and asked. .
The little Lolita was very satisfied with Gao's pragmatic attitude, and her eyes narrowed into crescent moons: "Because you are so polite, I will reluctantly give you some advice: If you are the only one who can tell me, By the way, although you have a special status, there are some hidden dangers. But my father is involved here, so it will be a piece of cake for you to recruit them. Do you know why? "
Gao Pinggong said sincerely: It turns out that you, a little girl, likes to wear high hats, so that's easy to handle.
At that moment, he said politely: "I am stupid, please give me some advice."
The little Loli became more and more satisfied and puffed out her small chest: "Because my father is one of the famous generals in the world. He said that the other party was afraid of his power and took the initiative to submit. The court was too late to be happy and did not care about his selection among these people. Some people who can fight have come out. As for why my father didn’t choose this time and left it all to you, it’s because after all, father borrowed your servants to overwhelm them... and with your family’s status in the court, there is no Who would be so full that they would pursue such a trivial matter?"
That makes sense, girl!
Gao Pingshi laughed, cupped his hands and said, "Thank you for the advice, I'm very grateful." Then the conversation changed: "But we have been talking for a long time, and you still haven't told me why you came to me?"
The little Loli said "Yeah" and complained: "It's all your fault for interrupting!" But her eyes flashed: "Did you write the training methods of your servants?"
