On the fourth day of July, Prince Shaobao, Zuo Shilang of the Ministry of War, and Assistant Manager Jingying Rongzheng Gao pragmatically came to the former Army Governor's Mansion as scheduled to meet with a group of distinguished officials.
Although it has always been referred to as the "Five Army Governor's Mansion", only in terms of Yamen, the "Five Armies" are separate and arranged from north to south on the west side of the main street between Chengtianmen and Damingmen.
Today's governor-general Jingying Rongzheng (previously called Prime Minister Jingying Rongzheng, changed during Zhao Zhenji's cabinet) is held by a military minister, but this military minister is neither Zhu Yingzhen, the Duke of Chengguo, nor Zhang Yuangong, the British Duke, nor is he Xu Wenbi, the Duke of Dingguo, was an old minister: Zhangwu Bo Yang Bing.
The title of Uncle Zhangwu does not belong to the Jingnan lineage, nor is it the founding lineage, but was conferred after the restoration of the Yingzong. The status of this line of earls is not prominent, and they do not have much say among the nobles of Shenjing. However, the funny thing is that it is precisely for this reason that the seal of Governor Jingying Rongzheng fell on his head - even he has been doing it for more than ten years.
There are probably two reasons for this: first, as the governor of the Jingying Rongzheng, a noble who has little say in the matter, is less likely to be suspected; secondly, even within the Xungui Group, the Jingying Rongzheng has already been He was considered to be hopeless, so the higher his status, the less he wanted to get involved with this unfortunate job.
But today's meeting made Gao pragmatically discover that perhaps a third point should be added: the governor-general of the Rongzheng in the Jingying camp himself has little say, so the status of the Minister of War Zuo Shilang as the assistant in charge of the Rongzheng in the Jingying camp in the Jingying camp This was unusually outstanding - anyway, as soon as Gao Pingshi entered the White Tiger Festival Hall of the Former Military Governor's Mansion, he found that all the nobles with positions in the Beijing camp had arrived, and as soon as they saw him entering the door, they all stood up and took the initiative to salute.
According to the system, the rank of meritorious officials in the Ming Dynasty is different from that of the clan. All of these honorable officials are "super-grade". Strictly speaking, one should not take the initiative to salute a minister of the Ministry of War, even if the minister has a prince. The additional title is of no use - the Crown Prince Shaobao himself is only a second-grade official, and he still holds the position of a first-grade official. How can he have a higher status than a superior official?
However, this is just a theory. In fact, the military officials (shangshu and ministers) of the Jialongwan period were the masters in front of all military ministers and generals. Except for the Jingjun directly under the jurisdiction of Yumajian, there were almost no military affairs that the military affairs department could not intervene in. intervening.
To say "intervention" may be an understatement. In fact, it should be said that almost any military affairs except the military affairs are under the management of the Ministry of War, and the nobles basically only need to name themselves.
If there is any special case, it is the household registration of military households. This thing was determined by Taizu. The hereditary noble governors in the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion are each in charge of a group. The Ministry of War has not been able to interfere until now.
However, it may be precisely because of this reason that the Ministry of War has not been able to assist in the military affairs of the Beijing camp for so many years. It is unclear how many soldiers there are in the Beijing camp.
Gao Pragmatic today was different from the past. He came to the meeting as a de facto Shangguan, so his face was very serious, so much so that Zhu Yingzhen and Zhang Yuangong, who had always been friends with him, did not dare to be presumptuous and gave up the plan of smiling and saying hello. He honestly followed Zhangwu Bo Yang Bing and came forward to see him.
Gao Pingshi's expression was indifferent. He bowed slightly in return and then said directly: "Everyone is here, right? Well, we'll have a meeting when you're all here."
Everyone did not expect Gao Jingshi to be so straightforward in his opening remarks. They looked at each other and asked Gao Jingshi to take a seat.
According to Gao Pragmatic's past style, he must be humble at this time, but this was not the case this time. He actually became the host without saying anything. Zhangwu Bo Yang Bing glanced at the top nobles around him - mainly the Dukes of the Three Kingdoms.
Zhu Yingzhen and Zhang Yuangong smiled, but did not react at all, that is, they had no instructions. Xu Wenbi, the oldest Duke of Dingguo, might be a little softer and nodded slightly towards him.
Yang Bing breathed a sigh of relief, followed Gao Pangshi step by step, and sat on the second seat. The three princes were divided into seats according to their age according to the usual rules, so Xu Wenbi was ranked first, followed by Zhu Yingzhen and Zhang Yuangong. After that, the marquis and earls also found their seats and sat down according to the traditional rules.
"Thank you for your patience." As expected, Gao Pragmatic has a unique style. He opened the meeting with just this sentence, and then went directly to the topic: "When I first took up the post of the Ministry of War, I was to assist in the military affairs of the Beijing camp. The major events of this country cannot be ignored. No matter how you look at it, the military affairs in Beijing have been going back and forth over the years, and it is still a mess.
To be honest, I spent half a month in the Ministry of War and reviewed countless files. In the end, I couldn't even find out the actual number of combat-ready soldiers in the Beijing camp. It's really weird! "
After these words were spoken, all the nobles from the three great princes onwards subconsciously lowered their heads.
Of course, they are not afraid of being pragmatic and pursuing accountability. After all, this bad thing did not start with them. If we want to hold people accountable, which generation of ancestors should we go after?
Bowing your head is just acknowledging that this is indeed the case, and at the same time avoiding being shot in the head. Of course, the top nobles will not die in this kind of thing, but there is no need for everyone to anger Gao Pragmatic and be severely ordered by the emperor in the end, right?
Of course, being sternly ordered by the emperor is not the most serious thing. After all, the emperor will at most remove them from their posts in the Governor's Office of the Fifth Army and receive a little less salary every year. It's no big deal.
But offending Gao Pragmatic is very serious. During the last wave of land inventory in the world, because the emperor took the lead in selling a large number of imperial estates to their tenants at a discount (the tenants approached Jinghua Bank for loans), in the end the nobles had no choice but to be kind. Reluctantly, I followed a few more steps and then joined the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance.
This was a terrible time. The nobles soon discovered that sea trade was much more cost-effective than farming. In the past, military families relied on farming to make money. It would take an average of thirty years to repay one acre of land, but sea trade is faster. At least ten times - there is no company that has not recovered its capital in three years. In fact, most of them have recovered their investment in two years, and almost all of them will be net profits in the future.
Even in some of the fastest businesses, one can directly repay the money with one trip, such as the Japanese fan business, which even caused the price of Japanese fans to drop in Ming Dynasty in two years.
Gao Jingshi is the initiator and de facto leader of the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance. Without his approval to hang the "Book and Sword" flag, he will not be able to go anywhere in the sea. Therefore, offending Gao Jingjing is equivalent to offending the God of Wealth. This is comparable to Disgrace is much more serious.
Gao Pragmatic didn't care what they thought, but asked directly: "Uncle Zhangwu, you are the governor, can you give me a real number - how many soldiers are there in the Beijing camp now?"
"Um..." Zhangwu Bo Yang Bing said awkwardly: "Gao Gongbao asked how many soldiers there are on the list?"
Gao Pragmatic waved his hand: "There are 412,368 people registered - what's the use of asking this?"
Yang Bing coughed lightly and said again: "Gao Gongbao, the Beijing camp is divided into two categories. In addition to the three major battalions, there are also squad troops..."
"Ignore the Ban Army for now, let's talk about the three major battalions first."
Yang Bing coughed again and hesitated: "Well, if we ignore the squadrons, the three battalions will probably... probably have more than 40,000 people..."
Hearing this, Gao pragmatic sneered: "In the early years, there were 410,000 registered, and in the 14th year of Zhengde, there were still 170,000. After civil engineering, Yu Zhongsu (Yu Qian, posthumous title) selected an elite regiment of 100,000. In the early years of Zhengde, there were more than 100,000. Editor, there were only 60,000 left, so we had no choice but to select the border troops to join the guard, known as the four outsiders... But now it's better, there are only 40,000 left - compared to the early days of the Kingdom, the number of personnel in the Beijing camp alone was already Nine out of ten!"
He paused for a moment before speaking, and then asked: "These are just positions. I would like to ask one more question: Can these 40,000 people go into battle? Who can answer me?"
Of course, no one could answer, so I just stayed silent. All the nobles suddenly realized that their boots were very beautiful, and they all lowered their heads to study their toes.
Gao pragmatic looked around and stood up slowly. Everyone kept looking at him from the corner of their eyes. When they saw him standing up, they all stood up too, including Xu Wenbi, who was already old among the three great princes. The appearance of meeting Shangguan.
Gao pragmatic walked down the center of the festival hall, walking slowly, while saying: "You and I are not new acquaintances. You should know my habits. There are some things I can turn a blind eye to, but I have to do it." Things...are never discounted."
Everyone was shocked by these words and raised their heads with high and pragmatic eyes.
Of course they knew that Gao Jingshi was not joking, but they were afraid that Gao Jingshi did not know the root cause of the troubles in Jingying. If he suddenly said: "I want to check the military registers one by one and restore the forty-one "Wan Dajun", then it will really kill you, even if Taizu is resurrected, it won't be possible!
After all, Yang Bing was the governor of the Jingying Rongzheng. On this July day, he suddenly broke out in a cold sweat and was about to speak. However, Zhu Yingzhen finally took advantage of his deepest friendship with Gao Pangshi to speak first. Finished.
"Seeking truth... Well, Gao Gongbao, the problem of staffing of these three major battalions has been around for a long time. The so-called freezing of three feet does not happen in a day. This matter has been accumulated for almost two hundred years. If you want to sort it out at once, I think it’s really troublesome…”
"Sixty thousand people." Gao Pragmatic stretched out his hand to interrupt Zhu Yingzhen's words, and said expressionlessly: "I will give you five months, whether you are raising funds or selecting from military households, in short, before the end of this year, I want to see 60,000 young people in the capital, but I have one thing to declare in advance: I don’t want those scoundrels found in the market."
"This..." Zhu Yingzhen looked bitter and didn't know what to say. The rest of the nobles also looked like they were being forced to eat shit.
The nobles looked unhappy but did not dare to joke about such a big business. It was like a collective constipation scene.
The power of money is as great as this.
In the end, it was Xu Wenbi, the well-informed old prince, who spoke slowly: "I think it is difficult to select young men as soldiers among the military households. The only way is to recruit soldiers. This has been the case for dozens of years." It has been used for years. The only thing I can worry about is, where does the money for recruiting soldiers come from?"
Gao pragmatic seemed to have already guessed this question, and asked Xu Wenbi in turn: "What can my husband teach me?"
"Don't dare, don't dare." Xu Wenbi had already experienced the power of being pragmatic as early as the Longqing period. Now more than ten years later, Xiaoge Laodu has become a real minister. How dare he take on the word "teaching", so naturally he hurriedly Modesty.
"In previous years, when checking military registers and personnel, if it was necessary to recruit soldiers, the imperial court would allocate extra money. This time, since Gao Gongbao needs to increase the quota by 20,000 people, the required expenses should be reported to the cabinet by Gao Gongbao. The votes are drafted, the emperor approves them, and then the Ministry of Household Affairs allocates the silver. Naturally, our Fifth Army Governor's Mansion will follow suit and must strictly select and recruit, so as not to miss the important task of palace protection. "
Gao pragmatic thought to himself: Xu Wenbi, this bad old man, is really bad. He dug a few pits for me to jump into.
This old guy first said that the "amount increase" was my personal request, and then asked me to go to the office to ask for the money. This is putting me aside from other related yamen.
Now the chief assistant has been replaced by Shen Shixing. Although I still call him "Mr. Shen" in name, we obviously can't urinate in the same pot. "Mr. Shen" will happily vote for me to make up a "such as Should the member discuss this?
Okay, even if other cabinet elders help, such as Senior Brother Wu Duiwu, who is now in charge of the Ministry of War, he helped submit the manuscript and expressed his approval on the draft, so what? Can Zhu Yijun still be able to withdraw such a sum of money from the Ministry of Household Affairs this year? Even if he is willing, the prerequisite is that the household department must have it!
The Ministry of Revenue itself is already in a deficit this year. If I hadn't come up with the Yunnan War treasure banknotes and helped in various ways to win Burma, I'm afraid the Ministry of Revenue would have been scolded by now.
But even though the Yunnan War Baobao has shared a large part of the pressure on the Ministry of Revenue, the income from this treasure banknote is not of much concern to the Ministry of Accounts - the Ministry of Accounts can only receive an annual compensation of 80,000 taels, but that We have to start counting from next year, because Myanmar itself has emptied its treasury this year. Should we let them pay back with their heads?
What's more, the Ministry of Household Affairs was originally the stronghold of the Practical School. The former Shangshu Zhang Xueyan was a little better. Now a newbie in finance, Shen Li, has taken up the post. It is estimated that he has just figured out the basic situation in more than half a month. I hope he will be like this. Under the tight financial situation, spending an extra sum of money to recruit soldiers for the Beijing camp would be almost the same as forcing him to hang himself.
But... Gao Pingshi sneered in his heart, you want to use money to kill me, I'm afraid you are overthinking. Although I definitely can't use my own money to spend on Jingying, can't Jingying find a way to make money in my hands and give away the money I have to recruit soldiers?
"I heard that one of the major drawbacks of the Beijing camp is that people from the Beijing camp are always used for the imperial court's projects. Yongding River water control, the construction of the imperial tombs, the maintenance of the Great Wall in Shuntian, the construction of hollow enemy towers, etc. all have to be carried out from the Jingying camp. Transferring people from Beijing camp?"
When Gao Pragmatic mentioned this matter, the nobles became energetic, and each one of them seemed to be filled with righteous indignation - mainly because when the Beijing camp undertakes these tasks, the project volume is often large, and the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of War and other yamen give The wages are extremely low. Although the military households in the Beijing Camp have long become their private property, the key point is that this "deal" is not cost-effective and the profit is meager.
Gao Pragmatic smiled slightly: "Let's see, I am here to find something to do for the Beijing camp, earn some money on the way, and handle the recruitment of soldiers myself, without bothering the court... What do you think?"
----------
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friend "System Crash" for your monthly ticket support, thank you!
