June and July of the eleventh year of Wanli can be said to be quite restless.
First, the cabinet debated over the construction of the Praetorian Guard Fort, and finally it was handed over to the emperor for final decision. However, after two days in a row, the memorial never received the emperor's approval. If it was said that he was retained, it didn't look like it. It seemed that he was simply put aside temporarily. I don't know what the emperor was weighing.
Next came Zhou Yongshangshu, the governor of Jiliao, who believed that Nurhaci in Jianzhou had been very active recently and put a certain amount of pressure on the border defense of eastern Liaoning, and requested that Qi Jin, the guerrilla at Gubei Road in Jizhen, and his troops be transferred to garrison in eastern Liaodong.
The Ministry of War responded to this memorial, expressed appreciation for the border minister's proposal to strengthen Liaodong border defense, and further proposed that Qi Jin be transferred to Shenyang guerrillas.
Zhu's approval of this essay and the ministry's reply was quickly received, and the emperor expressed his agreement the next day. Because Qi Jin's transfer would cause chain changes in key positions in the border defense in eastern Liaodong, he asked the Ministry of War to mobilize the entire eastern Liaodong. Make a summary report.
This kind of behavior is not very common, but it is enough to show that the emperor is now very concerned about the military affairs of Liaodong. The reason is obvious to everyone. This is to prepare for the final "Eastern system" of Western Huaihuai.
Following the order, the Ministry of War immediately held a meeting between the ministers and the four ministers.
There is no need to describe the process of the meeting in detail. In short, the final ministry meeting submitted to Mr. Wu Ge for review was arranged as follows:
The position of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Liaodong Cao Yu remains unchanged; he is assigned to guard Haigai, the right general Ma Dong; he is assigned to guard Kaiyuan and Ma Chengen; Shenyang guerrilla Qi Jin; Tieling guerrilla Cao Jian (Cao Yu's younger brother); Jin Fu is the new guerrilla general. Zhang Wanbang accepted it.
At this point, the only important position Li Chengliang still holds in the eastern Liaodong region is Kuandian General. But it's not a big deal. After all, he is still the commander-in-chief, and Li Chengliang's main force has already been concentrated in the western Liaoning area.
Wu Dui did not make any changes to this ministry proposal and presented it directly to Shen Shixing for review. Shen Shixing thought for a while and submitted it directly without making any changes.
The reason why Shen Shixing did not express any objection was because he felt that as long as western Liaoning was in Li Chengliang's hands, there would be no problem. After all, once a war against Tumen Khan was launched, troops would definitely be sent from western Liaoning, not Liaodong.
The best Liaodong can do is to attack, it doesn't matter, you can't eat the meat yourself, and don't leave any soup for others, then it can't be done - the Ministry of War is in the hands of the Real School after all, if there is a hurry If you eat them, maybe everyone won’t be able to eat.
The emperor received the memorial from the Ministry of War and quickly approved it. Immediately afterwards, an unexpected event happened, which was neither big nor small: on Xinchou day, the Taibai star was visible in the daytime.
As an atheist, Gao Pragmatic is famous even in today's Ming Dynasty political circles for not agreeing with the theory of interaction between heaven and man. Of course, he never takes this phenomenon seriously. But he doesn't care, there are still many people who care, such as Shen Shixing, who expressed his opinion on this.
It doesn’t matter what the details are. Anyway, the final result was that the emperor sent him, Duke Dingguo Xu Wenbi, and eunuch Zhang Cheng to review the longevity palace selected by Tianshou Mountain. Although Zhu Yijun was still very young, he had always been It is such a rule that no matter how young you are, you must investigate your future longevity palace in the underworld in advance. Zhu Yijun's longevity palace has been surveyed and determined a few years ago, but the construction has not started yet.
As a result, Shen Shixing, the chief assistant, temporarily left Beijing.
Tianshou Mountain is not far away. Generally speaking, checking the longevity palace like this time is not a big deal. As long as there is no big accident, everyone will basically say everything is fine when they come back. It will take at most five days. . If Shen Shixing is in a hurry, he can even go back and forth in three days.
But whether it was three days or five days, this time was enough - Shen Shixing had just left Beijing, and the next day the emperor announced that he was pragmatic and entered the palace to "call for the right".
The so-called platform call is basically equivalent to the state of the nation consultation, that is, the emperor consults the ministers on certain government affairs. Generally speaking, he mainly consults local feudal officials and calls for government affairs. On rare occasions, he will also ask important officials in the court.
The so-called "platform" here is of course specific. The Jianji Hall is in the middle and toward the back, high above the Sanlin white jade railing. Opposite the Qianqing Gate is the Yuntai Gate, with its two sides facing the latter. The east is the rear left gate, and the west is the rear right gate, which are the left and right gates of the Yuntai. Also known as "platform".
Whenever summoning cabinet ministers and other officials, it is usually on the platform, which is the back left door. The rules at that time were that the ministers (or a certain minister) stood in awe, and the emperor sat there. When he encountered a question, he would call the official's name. The official would go forward and kneel there to answer. When the emperor gave permission, he could stand there and say, "Yes" Call for support for the platform.
In the past, when the emperor came to talk to Gao Jingshi, he would usually go directly to the Wenhua Hall. This kind of summons was relatively ordinary and cordial, and of course it could be said to be less formal.
Compared with the Wenhua Palace summons, the platform call is much more formal. Generally speaking, it only occurs when there are major state affairs that require serious inquiry.
This is strange. Building a large military camp is considered a major state affairs? Even if this military camp is fortress-like and the investment scale is relatively large, the "big" is only a relative concept - for the Ming Dynasty's financial level, building such a super-large fortress plus various housing, warehouses and other comprehensive military camps , the pressure is not small.
However, in fact, according to highly pragmatic preliminary calculations, the absolute value of the "total construction cost" simply speaking of the construction project cost is not large: only about 70,000 to 80,000 taels.
This... is not as good as the cost of building a large ship. How can it be considered a major state affairs?
Gao pragmatic entered the palace with doubts. It was not until he met the emperor that he realized that what Zhu Yijun wanted to ask was not just about the establishment of the Beijing North Camp.
What Zhu Yijun asked was that Taizu 'raised millions of soldiers without wasting a grain of rice for the people'. Why now, nearly 70% of the world's expenditures are spent on the army?
He also asked, if so much money is spent, the army is extremely powerful, so that's it. However, there are very few truly good fighting armies. If the military leaders do not bring their servants, almost most of the armies will have no combat effectiveness. Why?
He was able to answer this question with high pragmatism and confidence, but he was surprised why Zhu Yijun suddenly had this doubt.
More importantly, does this matter have something to do with the last time Shen Shixing expressed his opposition to the construction of the Beijing Guards Fort now? Did Shen Shixing say something to the emperor that made the emperor temporarily shelve the proposal in the memorial?
Of course, doubts are doubts, and the emperor's question still needs to be answered first. After all, is it "the platform calls for the right one"?
This problem actually has historical roots, and looking back, it doesn’t just start with Zhu Yuanzhang.
After the late Tang Dynasty, especially in the late Southern Song Dynasty, the status of the regular army has continued to decline, while the auxiliary troops have achieved remarkable development. The so-called auxiliary troops are an armed force that is inferior to the regular army or main combat troops in terms of military organization or status, occupying a secondary position, or is outside the regular army establishment, but has a certain official and legal color - such as the Yue Family Army, Another example is the current armed servants.
The reason is that since the Northern Song Dynasty, society has valued culture over military affairs, and the central government has reduced the army, resulting in the decline of the status of soldiers. The corresponding benefits for soldiers have also been declining, because military households are not allowed to engage in side jobs, and officers use shortfalls as a source of income, which undoubtedly greatly reduces the combat effectiveness of the regular army.
Soldiers, who used to have a higher status in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, have now not only become a class below farmers, but have even become a negative image of not doing their jobs properly. The continuous decline of the status of soldiers has led to an increasingly low morale of the regular army, and the composition of the army has become increasingly complex and unusable.
When the Ming Dynasty's garrison military system was first established, it solved the problem of logistical supplies and reduced the financial burden. It was characterized by integrating troops with farmers and garrisoning. Camping became one of the important responsibilities of military commanders at all levels. According to the regulations at the time, the proportion of border guards' garrisoning was one-third for city defense and seventy-seven for farming. This saved a lot of military expenditures.
Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang once proudly declared: "I raise millions of soldiers without costing the country a cent." However, in fact, the combat effectiveness and training level of the army have been gradually weakened due to the large number of reclamation tasks.
The reason why the army during the Zhu Yuanzhang period and even the Zhu Di period still maintained strong combat effectiveness was mainly because the military meritorious groups at that time were still relatively strong, and the surrounding country was not peaceful. There were opportunities for "actual combat training" from time to time, so the military at that time The army relies on this inertia to maintain a certain combat effectiveness.
In fact, it can be seen from the Battle of Jingnan that the combat effectiveness of the troops around Nanjing at that time had declined. When the unit strength is roughly the same, Nanjing's army is obviously unable to defeat Zhu Di's troops. The reason is that the south has been at peace for some years, but Zhu Di's side is still at war with Bei Yuan.
In addition, the strict separation of military and civilian status is also a big problem. There are two types of people with military status: officers and soldiers. Both types of people have military land, and both are hereditary. Officers became hereditary nobles, and soldiers became serfs hereditary. This is fucked up.
Soldiers are hereditary, and if they join the army, they will always be a military household and will never mix with civilian households. Although the advantage is that the supply of soldiers is guaranteed and the life of soldiers is relatively stable, as the life of officers as hereditary nobles is too secure, and they are lazy generation after generation, they will eventually become worse and worse as time goes by.
As hereditary serfs, soldiers were driven by others for life and had no hope for the future. Those who were slightly motivated would flee spontaneously. And the constant escaping has weakened the combat effectiveness of the guard soldiers to a great extent - after all, the rest are just scum.
Furthermore, in the Ming Dynasty, the emphasis on literature over martial arts was more prevalent than in the past, and the prosperity of the imperial examinations was also greater than that of the previous dynasty. Entering the imperial court through the imperial examination has become the most desirable and smooth path for all classes. The martial arts industry has become even more despicable. The morale and status of the guardsmen have become increasingly low, and their combat effectiveness has become more uneven.
As the saying goes, "The emperor values heroes, and articles teach you. Everything is inferior, but reading is the only one that is superior." Why is Gao Pragmatic’s position so unique? In addition to his background and experience as a prince's companion, the most fundamental reason is that his status as the "sixth number one scholar" is too mythical in this era.
In this social atmosphere, the social status of the children of military households who were excluded from the imperial examination and official career appeared to be low. In the Ming Dynasty, there was the so-called "enjun" system of consigning criminals to the army, which invisibly made the social image of military households even worse. . Commerce began to develop in the Ming Dynasty. Although merchants were not in the upper class, they were looked at differently because of their prosperous life.
Only the military households were strictly bound to the camp and were not allowed to do business. This made the morale and living conditions of the military households always low. They lived like dogs. Of course, they had little enthusiasm for normal training and war. .
Of course, there are also military households who took the imperial examination. For example, Zhang Juzheng was born in the military. But you must know that Zhang Juzheng's military status is not that of a soldier. He has the status of an officer, so he can be admitted to the Jinshi. People with soldier's status should not think about such a good thing.
Another point is that the military system of the Ming Dynasty stipulated that during wartime, the imperial court would temporarily assign generals to form a wartime military leadership organization, and then transfer troops from the garrison to their command. When going to war, the original establishment of each garrison was often dismantled. , regroup them and assign them to various generals. This causes inconvenience in command, coordination, management and other aspects.
In fact, when Gao Pragmatic set up the Imperial Guard, he quietly bypassed this issue, but he didn't say it explicitly.
In addition, there was a terminal illness in the politics of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the eunuchs had a hand in almost everything. In the Ming Dynasty, in addition to using civil servants as commanders during the war, there was also a system of eunuchs to supervise the army, the so-called "eunuchs who supervise the army". Most of these eunuchs only knew about corruption and amassing money. From this, the combat effectiveness and discipline of the army could be improved. You know it. Even if there are a few good ones occasionally, but if calculated on a proportional basis...it's just a drop in the bucket and it won't change the overall situation.
Gao Pangshi had told the emperor before that the supervisors of the Imperial Guard must strictly define their scope of authority. This was also considered from this aspect. Otherwise, if the eunuch was favored by the Holy Spirit and liked to interfere in military affairs at will, then this forbidden eunuch would be Sooner or later, the guards will be played to death and crippled by him.
Gao Pragmatic talked and analyzed these situations one by one, and Zhu Yijun's expression became more and more serious.
As he said himself, only Gao Pragmatic in the world dared to speak the truth frankly in front of him, even if the truth sounded heartbreaking.
What Zhu Yijun was particularly shocked and even admired was that Gao Pragmatic actually thought that it was wrong for the nobles to be noble and the military to be cheap. Of course, Gao Pragmatic was saying that it was wrong for the nobles to be noble and the military to be cheap to this point, but that was enough to shock Zhu Yijun.
However, Gao Pingshi's words were truly true. He was indeed dissatisfied with the current social trend of the Ming Dynasty, and the status of military officials was too low.
According to Gao's pragmatic view, it is not surprising that culture is more valuable than military force. Any normal country in later generations will value culture more than military force at the national policy level, because once military force is valued more than culture, it will most likely fall into a vicious cycle of corruption, which is not conducive to Social stability and development.
But this disparity between civil and military forces should not be too great. A situation like the Ming Dynasty should never be the case - you do not give military personnel a reasonable social status and economic treatment, but when the time comes to fight, you ask them to fight to the death. How is it possible?
After a long while, Zhu Yijun gradually came back to his senses, looked at Gao Pragmatic with complex eyes, opened his mouth and sighed again.
"To be honest, do you know what Mr. Shen said in the draft when the Ministry of War's memorandum came up a few days ago?"
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