To be honest, Gao Pragmatic didn't care at all whether the Marquis of Linhuai or the Duke of Wei would serve as Nanjing's garrison minister. Because of the three giants in Nanjing, the Nanjing Ministry of War Minister is really in charge, and it is the Nanjing garrison eunuch who supervises the Nanjing officials on behalf of the emperor. As for the Nanjing garrison ministers, in fact, most of the time they are just in name. After all, the nobles under the rule of Nanjing are only worse than the nobles in Beijing. This can be seen by looking at the performance of Nanjing and surrounding guardsmen when the Japanese pirates were raging. There is no need to have any doubts about their combat effectiveness. Little hope.
Of course, Nanjing's garrison ministers were not only able to manage a few garrison soldiers. In fact, they also had a certain ability to restrict the "guest troops". For example, when Liu Xian was guarding Langshan at that time, he was directly in charge of the Sichuan guest troops in Nanjing. He needs to rely on Nanjing for coordination, logistics, supplies, etc., so the Nanjing garrison minister is also his superior in name. If his supplies are deducted, he will also feel very uncomfortable. What is even worse is for people like Xu Pengju to directly complain to the Nanjing Military Department, saying that he does not listen to orders, does evil things, etc. Generally speaking, the Nanjing Military Department will give Nanjing garrison officials this face - after all, they are their superiors and their colleagues, right? ?
However, the usual "function" of the Nanjing garrison ministers only ends here. Unless Gao Wuzhi suddenly wants to go to the south to encircle the area, which involves the area under the jurisdiction of the garrison, then the Nanjing garrison ministers have the power to coordinate Even the final decision, otherwise he has no use for others - since there is no use value, of course he won't care.
However, since Li Zongcheng approached eagerly on behalf of Li Yanggong, Gao Pragmatic would not pretend to be aloof and turn away the door, pretending that my third uncle's work was completely business-like, and whoever served as a distinguished garrison minister in Nanjing would be followed by the imperial court. Think about the overall situation.
Don’t talk about benefits, just talk about justice? There is something wrong with his brain, and it is definitely not his demeanor as a high-ranking scholar.
Gao Shidu's style is that if there is no interest, he must strive for the interests he creates.
What benefits can the Nanjing garrison ministers create?
Well, it seems that short-term benefits are really hard to find, but long-term benefits can be carefully planned. For example, take the enclosure just mentioned - Nanjing, or more broadly the southeastern provinces - the health post covers a lot of land, of course there are a lot of fields, but most of it is actually a mess." Bad place". Those lands in the hands of a group of Qiu Ba uncles will not create any value or benefit at all, not to mention that these Qiu Ba uncles now have no soldiers, no farmers, no workers, and no craftsmen. They are simply a bunch of different things.
But actually? Many of these so-called bad lands are extremely valuable in the eyes of Gao Pragmatism.
Take two of the simplest examples: mines and seaports.
There are mines in many places under the jurisdiction of the Wei Province. Some of these mines have been or even been developed long ago, while many more have not been developed at all. Even for the developed parts, the level of development was extremely high. In Gao Shidu's eyes, there was only one word to describe that level of development: pulpy.
You can tell with your toes that these guardsmen don't know how to do business. The direct reason for mining in the early years was just to meet the needs of the guards for weapons and equipment - such as opening iron mines and smelting iron to make weapons and armor. Later, when the guard stations became worse and worse, there was no interest in weapons and equipment, and many mines were abandoned. Some mines with better transportation and mining conditions were dug up by them and sold directly for money, creating income for the guard stations. Of course, it is too lazy to say whether it creates benefits for the garrison as a whole or for some of the officers of the garrison.
This kind of piecemeal, low-level mining, in Gao Pragmatic's view, is a complete waste of natural resources. As a small cadre who was in charge of the economy of a place in later generations, although his management level in modern society was very low, he could not stand the thought of being hundreds of years ahead of his time. "Words like " are always deeply understood.
If he had enough power and wealth, he could turn Ma'anshan into a steel center in later generations, develop fashionable high-end clothing and fabric export industries in places like Suzhou, develop shipbuilding industries and international trade ports in Songjiang, and so on. foot.
But at the moment, these things are just extravagant hopes - it's better known as long-term planning, and there are no such conditions to support his actual operation.
The Ming Dynasty implemented a two-capital system in the north and south, with Nanjing as the remaining capital. In theory, it should even be regarded as the official capital. This is also one of the reasons why many civil servants of the Ming Dynasty refused to die in Beijing after being hanged on Meishan in Chongzhen. Instead, they went to Nanjing to die.
The capital of Nanjing has a complete set of court institutions except the emperor himself and the cabinet. The imperial palace, six ministries, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, etc. have always been preserved and actually used (of course, since there is no emperor, the imperial palace is only in a low-level state of maintenance). .
The reason why we always talk about the three giants in Nanjing is because of the characteristic garrison system of Nanjing as the capital, which is actually divided into internal garrison, external garrison and counselor maintenance.
The inner garrison is the Nanjing garrison eunuch, who is appointed by a middle official. The most famous Nanjing garrison eunuch is Zheng He.
One person is on guard outside, and one person is on guard in coordination. They are both military ministers.
As for the civil servant, he must be the Minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing, and add "Counsellor of Machinery Affairs".
According to this initial setting, the Nanjing Minister of War, who was just the "Counselor for Machinery Affairs", originally had the lowest status. However, like Beijing, after the status of civil servants was improved, the Minister of the Ministry of War of Nanjing, who was the Counselor for Machinery Affairs, became the most powerful person.
As usual, the external garrison and the coordinated garrison are all performed by honorable ministers. Speaking of which, we can explain why Li Yangong, the eldest son of the Marquis of Linhuai, came to the capital in a hurry as soon as something happened to Xu Pengju.
As early as the last years of Jiajing, Xu Pengju was the garrison outside Nanjing, and the co-garrison was Linhuai Marquis Li Tingzhu. In April of the 39th year of Jiajing, because of the mutiny in Nanjing Zhenwu Camp, the three giants (actually four people) in Nanjing were all punished: Xu Peng, the external garrison, was encouraged to serve, Li Tingzhu, the co-garrison, stayed idle, Zhang Hao, the minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing, became an official, and the internal garrison Zhang Hao became an official. The guard He Shou was demoted to level three and returned.
This time, the most unlucky person was Zhang Hao, who was directly ordered to retire; the second was the guard eunuch He Shou, who was demoted three levels in a row, was recalled to the Beijing palace, and lost his power; and the third was the co-guard Li Tingzhu, who was so-called "lived idle" , the full name is "Guandai Xianzhu", which means that the official position will not be removed, but he can only stay at home and reflect, and is not allowed to take care of things. In future generations, it is probably equivalent to suspension from office for self-reflection; the person who was punished the least was Xu Pengju, who continued to serve. Not to mention, I was encouraged.
Presumably at that time, Li Tingzhu was very dissatisfied with Xu Pengju - in the incident at Zhenwu Camp, Xu Pengju performed very poorly and was ridiculed as a fool by the mutinous soldiers. In the end, he, Li Tingzhu, was punished more than Xu Pengju. Gao pragmatically thought, Li Tingzhu may think that the imperial court is more tolerant of the post of Nanjing garrison minister. After all, although the honorary minister has no great use, he still represents the face of the court. Therefore, when Xu Pengju got into trouble this time, Li Tingzhu immediately jumped out, After all, in Nanjing, he is the one closest to the garrison ministers.
The cause and effect relationship was figured out, but how to get the maximum benefit from it? Gao Pragmatic was limited by his lack of status for a while and could not figure it out. In the end, he had to settle on one idea: see Li Zongcheng first. What are you going to do after killing yourself?
