In fact, for the problems in Jingying, the above-mentioned solutions are all superficial symptoms, and none of them involve the root cause.
There is no shortage of smart people in any dynasty, and the same applies to the Ming Dynasty. Is it difficult to see the root of the problems in the capital? It's not difficult. For many officials, the root cause is not difficult to find, but they can't explain it or solve it.
Everyone knows that during the Zhengtong period of the Ming Dynasty, the Yingzong blindly went out to the fortress, leading to the Tumubao Incident. In this battle, all the elite Ming troops in Beijing were lost, which became a turning point in the Ming Dynasty's military power from prosperity to decline. After Yingzong, the strength of the Ming army gradually declined from its peak in the Taizu and Chengzu eras. Although there were many reforms and innovations, the trend of decline was never reversed.
Many people of later generations regard this incident as the source of the decline of the Beijing camp, and believe that from then on, the Xungui group was suppressed by the civilian group, which led to the decline of the Ming Dynasty's military power.
Nonsense.
For example, the Tang Dynasty at its peak was not the Tang Dynasty during the reign of Zhenguan, but the Tang Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Gaozong and Li Zhi. At that time, the Tang Dynasty had entered the civil service era, but it had reached the limit of the expansion of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and even the subsequent After Wuzhou, Zhongzong, etc., until the early and middle periods of Xuanzong, the strength of the Tang Dynasty did not decline significantly. Wasn't the Tang Dynasty in that period already an era of civil servants?
Some people don’t believe the domestic examples, so let’s talk about foreign countries. The Netherlands at its peak was an era of merchants, which could also be considered an era of civil servants; in the UK at its peak, I have never heard of any awesome general who dared not listen to the orders of No. 10 Downing Street, right? That was also the era of civil servants; the United States at its peak... Did Roosevelt not come from a "civilian family" but from a "military family"?
Some people say that these are useless. How can we break the example of the Song Dynasty? Isn't it because the civil servants were weak and suppressed the generals that led to the emergence of the "weak Song Dynasty"?
This can be said in two aspects. Firstly, the Song Dynasty was not actually weak. The strength depends on the enemy. The so-called "weak Song Dynasty" withstood the Liao Dynasty, which was basically still in its period of strength; with half of the country At the cost of withstanding the Jurchen Jin Kingdom, which was known as "invincible" at its peak; and using half of the country to withstand the Mongols that swept across Europe and Asia for 44 years... Is this very weak?
Take Mongolia as an example. Let us first take a look at the speed at which the Mongols destroyed the country: in 1206, the Gaochang Uighur Kingdom was destroyed; in 1206, the Western Haruru Khanate was destroyed; in 1206, the Eastern Haruru Khanate was destroyed; in 1218 , destroyed the Western Liao Empire; 1220, destroyed the Later Liao Empire; 1222, destroyed the Khwarizimo Khanate; 1227, destroyed the Xixia Empire; 1231, destroyed the Goryeo Kingdom; 1233, destroyed the Eastern Xia Empire; 1234, destroyed The Golden Empire; in 1236, the Kipchak Khanate was destroyed; in 1239, the Sultanate of Rum was destroyed; in 1240, the Principality of Kievan Rus was destroyed; in 1241, the Principality of Poland was destroyed; in 1241, the Grand Duchy of Hungary was destroyed; in 1241, Bohemia was destroyed In 1241, the Kingdom of Armenia was destroyed; in 1241, the Kingdom of Georgia was destroyed; in 1241, the Grand Duchy of Austria was destroyed; in 1241, Bulgaria was destroyed; in 1241, Modavia was destroyed; in 1241, the Republic of Venice was destroyed; in 1253, the Republic of Venice was destroyed The Kingdom of Dali; in 1258, the Abbasid Dynasty of the Arab Empire was destroyed; in 1269, the Eastern Liao Empire was destroyed; in 1279, the Southern Song Empire was destroyed.
How long did it take for the Mongolian Western Expedition to drink the Danube and reach the Mediterranean? How many years did the Jin Kingdom, which destroyed the Liao and annexed the Song Dynasty, stand in front of the Mongols? The "weak Song Dynasty" who only accounted for half of the country lasted for forty-four years and even killed the Mongol Khan. Is this very weak?
No, this just means that Mongolia at that time was indeed the most glorious moment for the nomads, which was almost like cheating. And if the Mongols hadn't discovered the Arab engineering equipment and artillery during the Western Expedition, they might not have been able to capture half of the "weak Song Dynasty".
On the other hand, the style of civil servants in the Song Dynasty was fundamentally different from that of the Ming Dynasty. Although everyone practiced Neo-Confucianism, the Song Dynasty was taught a lesson by the Prairie Dynasty during the founding of the country, so the civil service group as a whole was more afraid of the Prairie Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty was just the opposite. It was built on the corpse of the Mongolian and Yuan Empire! Its great ancestor Taizong suppressed the Mongols and chased them like dogs for decades! So even if there was a civil war and the emperor was lost, he would still start to think about how much benefit he would get. What would be the result?
As a result, the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty didn't take it seriously at all. Isn't it just that they lost an emperor? What a big deal? One more objection and it's over. Lao Zhu's family has no other advantage, just the fact that they can have children...
So I first discovered that this was not a sweet potato in my hands, but a hot potato!
So after the Civil War, the Mongols actually didn't get any benefits at all. Who took the lead in this matter? The civil service group headed by Yu Qian!
Now it is clear that the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty are not afraid of war at all! To a certain extent, this civil service group is probably the most bellicose civil service group in Chinese history!
Then the question turns back. Since this civil servant group is so belligerent and staunch, even negotiating peace with others is regarded as an intolerable shame, then why does the Ming Dynasty's military strength continue to decline?
Even the Ming Dynasty carried out several military reforms, but it failed to curb this downward trend. At most, it was temporarily delayed?
Because the roots are crooked.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu who knew nothing about economics, formulated a guard system that was bound to collapse quickly as the fundamental system of the Ming army. He also particularly liked to engage in "ancestral precepts" and required future generations not to violate them. This was what happened later. The real reason why so many famous ministers and generals could not save Ming Dynasty.
It is undeniable that the guard system created by Zhu Yuanzhang was indeed able to provide the Ming army with ample soldiers and food during the war years of the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. However, with the stability of the country and the development of the economy and society, land annexation will naturally occur, and the land on which the guard system depends for survival will definitely be occupied by gradually solidified classes. Therefore, this system is fundamentally destroyed.
In the 10th year of Zhengtong, the general of the border defense, Jiang Gui, said: "Under the fortresses of Datong and Xuanfu, there are hundreds of thousands of fertile fields, all of which are occupied by Haoyou." Even the military fields in important military towns such as Datong and Xuanfu, The phenomenon of occupation is so serious that it is conceivable that it will be even worse in other areas.
Sure enough, more than ten years later, instead of improving, the situation has worsened. In the 22nd year of Zhengtong's reign, "Huang Fu went out and saw the soldiers' wives with naked clothes. He sighed and said: 'The healthy boy's family is so poor, how can he look at him?'"
As a soldier who defended his family and country, his wife even went so far as to leave her naked, which shows how low the status of sergeants was in the middle Ming Dynasty and how difficult their life was.
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, when "Yan'an was in the sea", the border troops from all over the country had nothing to do, so the imperial court frequently mobilized foreign garrison soldiers from all over the country to garrison in Beijing. Unexpectedly, the Ming soldiers who entered the capital found that they had become slaves of the imperial yamen and nobles. Hard work requires them to do everything, especially various projects. Instead of hiring craftsmen, they let the soldiers do it.
Therefore, the soldiers were reluctant to go to Beijing for defensive rounds, and the deadline was often delayed. However, the court still punished them severely regardless of the military situation. Some of them were sent to the border fortress for several months, and some of them were punished for more than a year. Under this extremely harsh military system, the status of soldiers fell to the lowest point. Therefore, large numbers of soldiers fled and even mutinies inevitably occurred in various guard posts.
During the Hongzhi period, Zhu Youtang, Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty, realized that the country was entering decline, so he carried out reforms in various aspects such as the economy, people's livelihood, and court politics. Xiaozong was quite a good person, generous and benevolent, diligent and hands-on, and worked hard to govern. The whole court was clean, and it was called "Hongzhi Zhongxing" in history.
However, military reforms are hard to come back. In the first year of Hongzhi, Ma Wensheng, the then Secretary of the Ministry of War, said, "Although we were released to the guard station, eighty-nine percent of them fled with us." Even after cleaning up the generals and retainers, only 23% were cleared. Compared with In view of the large shortage of soldiers, this is only a drop in the bucket.
In the fifth and eighth years of Hongzhi, Zhang Tai, the censor of the imperial censor, wrote one after another: Many fertile fields in Ganzhou were occupied by the general soldiers and eunuchs. The garrison officers and soldiers were not enough in food and clothing, and people were starving to death at every turn. It's freezing to the point of death!
In addition, not only the soldiers who came to Beijing for defense were enslaved, but also the soldiers of the "Twelve Regiment Camps" in the capital could not escape the pain of corvée. As many as 20,000 of the 120,000 elite soldiers in the regiment are drawn out to work every year, and they stay there for two to three years. Therefore, there are also many soldiers in the Beijing camp who are treated "better" than other frontier troops. There was an escape.
Therefore, Gao Jingshi has long believed that if the guard system is not changed and the system of returning soldiers is not changed, this military reform will be useless no matter who replaces it. Even if Gao Jingshi rolls up his sleeves and goes up, he will not be able to accomplish anything. Most of them are just like Li Hongzhang's self-deprecation back then, just being a "paper maker".
But the work of a paper maker can only scare people, and it’s not like he didn’t do it. For example, the Jinghua Musket Factory and the Jinghua Artillery Factory are typical work of a paper maker—not for his Jinghua Group, but certainly for Daming!
According to his understanding, Jinghua has provided more than 110,000 Longqing II muskets to the armies of the Nine Borders, and provided more than 4,000 artillery pieces of various sizes, but no one can guarantee how useful they will be.
These things are definitely useful in the hands of servant troops such as Qi Jiajun, Li Jiajun, and Ma Jiajun, but if they are given to guardsmen, they might still be just fire sticks.
Why? People can't even eat, so they have to fight and sell their lives! Do you think you are a Red Army soldier?
Take a look at the memorials of these two science and technology officials, "Please stop the work of the squadron and order the officers and soldiers of each capital to take the equipment and drill together with the original camp. If there is a project, I will listen to the Ministry of Works to recruit husbands and taels of silver." Collect the rations, salt, and silver of each army, and even if you are a distinguished minister, you must not violate the ban and ask for it without permission."
This is talking about the issue of the imperial court, nobles and border ministers using the army to do work at will. It can be seen that these two brothers are quite brave and dare to point this matter out.
But it's useless. This matter is now an endless cycle: the guardsmen are short of money and are unwilling to work hard to train and fight - the court feels that the guardsmen are incompetent and can only do official work - the guardsmen are even more short of money and can only work. Not even willing to train hard and fight——
It’s endless, getting worse and worse.
Gao Pragmatic had previously asked Zhu Yijun to investigate Xungui's land. Zhu Yijun had been doing this for nearly a year. The results were somewhat but not great, and he even caused a little trouble.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that any nobleman dared to rebel after eating a leopard, but that the officers and soldiers below made several commotions.
It sounds amazing, right? The emperor took back the occupied military land and gave it to you, and you actually made a commotion. Is there something wrong with your brain?
Not really.
Because the land has been assigned to you, you may not have to do the work, farming, etc. that you were supposed to do before, but you still have to go when you need to train and fight. However, these people's ancestors have not practiced or fought for many generations, and have completely become farmers and handymen. Now if they are asked to fight, they will naturally neither know nor be willing to do so.
What's more, those working and farming matters may be returned even harder by the "hemorrhaging" nobles.
What the hell is this? It would be strange if there was no commotion.
But this makes things difficult to handle. It is impossible to eradicate the nobles. If the nobles are really eradicated, how can the emperor, a lonely man, not be bullied to death by the civil service group?
So now this matter has reached a deadlock. If the father-in-law and his wife are cleared, the next work of clearing the father-in-law will be impossible. If the father-in-law and his wife are cleared, these guard soldiers, who don’t know whether they are pitiful or hateful, are going to make trouble again. .
Therefore, the two science and technology officials who inspected the Beijing camp this time did not dare to have any suggestions for "making a big news". Although they mentioned seven things, in fact, to put it bluntly, they were focusing on two things: money, food and discipline.
But since they did not dare to take the guard system as an example, Gao Pragmatic could only give this evaluation:
Everything you say is right, but it’s useless.
However, Guo Pu was not asking him to give advice on the reform of the Ming Dynasty's military system, but was just telling him about the Great Review, so Gao Pragmatic could only suppress his dissatisfaction, put down the memorial, and said: "Should the imperial court agree? "
Guo Pu raised his eyebrows slightly and said, "Of course."
Gao pragmatically smiled meaninglessly and said: "I'm afraid these things won't have any effect for a while. How can we do this parade just based on these?"
Guo Pu sighed sadly and said: "When Su Qing was here, the purge of the border troops was quite effective, but he didn't have time to do much in the capital camp. When it came time to serve as a teacher and administer the government, the situation in the DPRK changed again. If the fluctuations occur, it is not easy to be able to follow Cao Cao. Let alone attack the Beijing camp easily. Looking at the current situation, it is not easy for the Beijing camp to even mobilize 10,000 capable troops. This But how can it be good..."
It’s not that my third uncle doesn’t have time to take care of Jingying, it’s that he can’t even do anything about it!
Gao Pingshi sighed inwardly and thought to himself: In the final analysis, the issue of the Beijing camp is an issue of the guard station, and the issue of the guard station is ultimately a matter of money, not just an issue of nobles. To be honest, I have a way to solve it, but it requires a lot of money - no, a huge amount of money to back it up, and then deal with it in batches and by region. You keep telling me now, I'm not a god, and I can't solve it!
However, Guo Pu is his mentor after all, and the last major issue before he steps down must be solved. Even if it cannot be completely solved, at least it must be able to be deceived at the time.
In fact, although the Beijing camp is rubbish, it is not that they can't even mobilize ten thousand men and horses who can see through it. The key is that the nobles have been checking their fields for the past year, and they have resentments in their hearts, so they will definitely not take the initiative to cooperate. .
Even the emperor doesn't have the face to ask them to actively cooperate. After all, Qingzhang and their fields were ordered by the emperor.
There is only one person in the world who can give them face: I am highly pragmatic.
"If Yuanfu can trust Xiaguan, Yuanfu will not have to ask about this matter. He only asks Yuanfu to give Xiaguan three days of leave. After three days, Xiaguan will definitely give Yuanfu an explanation."
Gao pragmatic changed his tone and made a guarantee.
----------
Thanks to book friends "andychen236", "Chukochi", "Lu Senah", "Frost Treasure Vase", "Xuanyou Ming", "ASolaF", and "Long Disrepairnn" for their monthly support. It is said that yesterday the third update exceeded 10,000, I wrote it wrong. It's probably the third update today.
