There is a reason why Gao Pragmatic believes that after he made troubles in the Ministry of War, the reform of economics and practical studies has entered a new stage. The main reason is that the Beijing Camp was divided into the Imperial Guard and the Production and Construction Corps. , the nature of the Fifth Military Governor's Mansion has changed, and to some extent it can be said that even the "military status" system established by Zhu Yuanzhang was quietly shaken by him.
As we all know, the military and civilians in the Ming Dynasty were separated. The so-called separation of military and civilian registration means dividing the common people into two types. One is "military": every family must have one person serving as a soldier or officer for generations. The other is "people": they are exempted from military service for generations, unless they voluntarily surrender to the army.
Therefore, there were two sets of household registration in the imperial court, one for military households and one for civilian households.
This is a unique system created by Lai Yuanzhang. Generally speaking, it combines the Han's farming, the Tang's soldiers, and the Song's rulers. Zhu Yuanzhang himself was very proud of this separation of military and civilian affiliations. He said: "I raise millions of troops without costing the country a single cent."
Zhu Yuanzhang began to experiment with sergeant farming as early as when he occupied Hezhou. After he captured Nanjing and its surrounding areas, he paid even more attention to this. His army never lacked food and pay, so he could do no harm to the people and be popular wherever he went.
In the first year of Hongwu, the affairs of the world had been decided, and he began to consider how to arrange a large number of officers and soldiers after victory.
Downsizing, redeployment, and demobilization are not good options.
Who to cut? Who will not be laid off? Compiled by whom? Who to send? Demobilized, where to go? Returning to the countryside will be difficult for the countryside; "veterans" have no land, no cattle, no farm tools, and no seeds, and will never return to the countryside! If I really want to go, it will all be due to local instability.
Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang came up with this method of separating the military and civilians, which not only settled the soldiers and paid the officers, but also preserved a huge military force for himself and his descendants, which was the national defense force that maintained long-term peace and stability for the Ming Empire.
Zhu Yuanzhang's method at that time was roughly as follows: each soldier would be rewarded with fifty acres of official land. The condition is that one must serve as a soldier until old age (sixty years old); after old age or death, one's sons and grandsons will inherit it from generation to generation. Only the eldest son in each generation must serve, and the second son and below serve as "remnants", that is, soldiers to fill the vacancies. However, these fifty acres of land were also subject to tax (called grain), at two dou and four liters per mu, but they were not transported to the central court or local government. Instead, they were stored centrally and reserved as military rations and wages in the event of a possible war.
Officers are each awarded a "official": the highest is the commander, who is in charge of a guard, followed by "qianhu" and "hundreds of households", who are in charge of thousands of households and hundreds of households, and the youngest is the governor, who is qualified Take charge of a general flag or a small flag. Thousands of households have their own ups and downs, and under one hundred households there is the so-called "trial one hundred households". Between the commanding envoys and the regular households, there are the so-called commanding colleagues, commanding officials, and guards and governors.
All in all, it is divided into nine levels.
As for the senior military officers who have made great contributions, and being granted the title of commander is not enough, then they can be granted the title of Duke, Marquis, Uncle, Son, or Nan. These fifth-level titles did not belong to the "guardian system" (later, the two levels of titles were no longer for sons and men).
The officers and soldiers of the garrison live in designated areas throughout the country. In the 13th year of Hongwu's reign, there were a total of 493 guard posts across the country, and there were several thousand-household posts and hundreds-household posts under each guard. There are 359 independent households.
In addition, there are more than 400 border guard stations of a restrictive nature. The total number of "officials" in the 23rd year of Hongwu was about 16,500. The total number of "world soldiers" is about 1.2 million.
At that time, the total population of the Ming Dynasty, according to the statistics of the 26th year of Hongwu, was 60,545,812 people (Note: It is not sure whether the "population" in this data only refers to Dingkou) .
Military status is listed separately from civilian status (in fact, there is also craftsman status, which is managed by the Ministry of Industry), which laid a solid foundation for the early strength of the "Grand Governor's Office-Fifth Army Governor's Office".
Due to space limitations, we will not go into the past events of the Governor's Mansion here, but only talk about the Governor's Mansion of the Fifth Army. The establishment of the Five Prefectures began in the thirteenth year of Hongwu. Zhu Yuanzhang thought that the governor's office had too much power, so he divided the governor's office into five parts. "In the 13th year, the capital governor's office was changed to the governor's office of the central, left, front, and rear five armies, and each guard post in Beijing and the guard post of the capital commander outside were divided."
Although the purpose of setting up the Five Prefectures is to divide military power, this is only an internal adjustment of the military system, and the Five Prefectures of the imperial court are still in charge of a strong and capable guard army. The period of the Metropolitan Governor's Office did not change, so the Five Prefectures still inherited some of the powers of the Metropolitan Governor's Office, but the specific powers at the hands of senior generals were divided accordingly.
However, the decentralization of power among the five governments did not completely dispel Zhu Yuanzhang's concerns about excessive military power. The most important method used to divide military power is to use the Ministry of War in the civil service system to check and balance the five government affairs.
In fact, this method of controlling the state had already been implemented before the Zhongshu Province and the Metropolitan Governor's Office were abolished. At that time, the Ministry of War of Mingshu Province decided to issue imperial edicts to military attachés. In terms of procedures, it is not only necessary for the Metropolitan Governor to transfer military attaché information to the Ministry of War, but also for examination of qualifications by the merit examination supervisor, and then transfer it to the Hanlin Academy for writing, the secretary of the literary supervisor for collation, and the Zhongshu Sheren to write and then hand it over to the imperial examiner and the merit examiner. Second prisoner, etc., after a series of complicated transfer procedures, the Ministry of War can grant promotion. During the entire process, neither the Ministry of War nor the Governor's Office could specialize in the selection of military attaches.
The most important thing is that after the establishment of the Ministry of War, it has the power to mobilize troops according to orders but not to command them. The five government offices have the power to command troops but not to deploy troops. "Whenever the military system maintains internal and external relations, military attachés are not allowed to go to the imperial court to recruit troops." In the event of a war, the emperor would order the general to be in command, and the Ministry of War would dispatch troops according to the order, and the troops from the guard posts under the jurisdiction of the five prefectures would be dispatched to go out for battle. When the army returns, it will be returned to the imperial court and the troops will return to the guard post.
Under this model, the court avoided the possibility of military commanders' monopoly to the greatest extent, and also established the principle of the system of civil and military affairs at the level of the national system and court.
Generally speaking, the Five Prefectures still had a certain degree of power and status during the Hongwu period. Since the officials of the Five Prefectures were all elected by the princes, and the main officials who controlled the operation of the Five Prefectures' institutions were all military ministers, to a certain extent, the Five Prefectures had It is the representative of the military power in the center.
The Five Prefectures represent the status of the military ministers in the country. Their rank is higher than that of the Six Ministries. They have political participation and can command the main military forces of the Ming Dynasty at that time. This was also recognized by Zhu Yuanzhang and established as a system.
However, after the well-known massacre of heroes, the power of the Five Palaces was greatly weakened. For example, the Marquis of Yan'an, Tang Shengzong, the Marquis of Pingliang, Fei Ju, and the Marquis of Ji'an, Lu Zhongheng, who were executed in Hu Weiyong's prison, all served as magistrates and ministers of the governor's office. As well as Lan Yu himself, who was killed in the Lan Yu Party case, as well as Zhang Yi, the Marquis of Heshou, Zhu Shou, the Marquis of Bolu, and Wang Bi, the Marquis of Dingyuan, all served as senior officers (Tongzhi, Qianshi) of the Metropolitan Governor's Office.
Therefore, it can also be said that one of the reasons behind Zhu Yuanzhang's mass killing of military ministers was his control of the military power of the Five Prefectures.
Then, with the Yingzong civil war and the death of Zhang Fu, the power of the Five Prefectures was almost wiped out in the center of the imperial court. At the same time, the importance of the military department in the center, which was controlled by civilian officials, began to rise since Yu Qian set up regiments and camps, which further made the status of the Five Prefectures fall into ruin. These two points have been discussed earlier in this book, so I won’t go into detail here.
However, the decline of the Five Prefectures is not only due to the suppression or death of its leaders, but also to more profound internal factors, and this internal factor is the focus of Gao Pragmatic's current attention.
What are the intrinsic factors? It is the decline of the guard station, the flight of the military households, and the inability to fight.
According to Gao's pragmatic understanding, although the Ming Dynasty's policy of using civil society to control military forces restricted and weakened the status and power of the Five Prefectures to a great extent, for the military system of the guards represented by the Five Prefectures, it could only be regarded as a relative external effects, and its internal factors also have a profound impact.
In the early Ming Dynasty, the guard military system established by "Five Prefectures - Dusi - Guards" assumed the most important military functions from the Hongwu to the Zhengtong period. From the beginning of Zhu Yuanzhang's unification war to the numerous military operations during the Zhengtong period, all military operations were The guard troops were the main force.
Until the 14th year of Zhengtong, when Wang Zhen led Yingzong to conquer Oara, the 500,000 Beijing troops commanded were still based on the garrison military system. Therefore, under such circumstances, as the main leading organization of the garrison army, the power of the Five Governments must not be underestimated.
However, after the Civil War, the central decision-making core was completely concentrated on the cabinet, which was dominated by civil servants, and the ministers, who were the chief ministers, and the military officials no longer interfered with national policies.
In addition to the emperor's policy of using civil society to control military force, a major internal reason for the occurrence of this phenomenon was the continuous disintegration of the garrison system. The officers and soldiers of the garrison were gradually unable to serve as the main force in national operations and were replaced by the recruitment system, causing the five government offices to lose their power base in the process.
Why did the Ming Dynasty never stop reforming the capital, but it never produced any results? That's why.
The guard posts directly under your control in the five prefectures are themselves in a state of decay. How can you expect the Beijing camp selected from these guard posts to have combat effectiveness?
Moreover, the imperial court has long used the military households and craftsmen of the five commander-in-chiefs to do things at will. Especially for any projects near the capital, military households are almost always used. This makes the combat attributes of the Gyeonggi Guard Station less and less obvious, and it looks more and more like a slave army.
But that's different now.
The first difference is that the Imperial Guard does not need military households at all, but directly recruits soldiers from the private sector. Its approach is no different from that of various border generals recruiting armed servants - the only difference is that the soldiers and horses recruited by the Imperial Guard do not belong to the generals themselves. .
The second difference is that the "Old Beijing Camp" with military status no longer cares about the war and concentrates on land reclamation and other work, effectively becoming the "Logistics Department".
The Fifth Army Governor's Office became a mere "Logistics Department". Doesn't this essentially shake the system established by Zhu Yuanzhang?
However, Gao Pragmatic knew very well that he had only just made preliminary changes to the military system, and this was not the end.
In fact, he did not have a great dislike for these nobles in the capital. His main feeling was that he was "angry at their inability to fight" and at the same time a certain amount of "sorrow for their misfortune".
There is no need to explain why we are angry that we are not fighting; we are sad because it is indeed the trend of the times to use civil servants to control military forces, even in the era before Gao Pragmatic time traveled.
But this does not mean that the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion deserves to be just a decoration. It still needs to play some role - logistics also plays a role. It is better than accomplishing nothing, right?
What's more, with the coming of the era of hot weapons, the role of logistics will only increase day by day. Even if the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion can only provide one Imperial Guard after "waste utilization", its role will be obvious.
Gao pragmatism has always believed that the Ming Dynasty suppressed the military officials too harshly, but his empty talk alone cannot improve the status of the military officials. Only by gradually restoring the role of the military officials will their status be improved accordingly.
Just imagine, when a Imperial Guard capable of conquering and fighting relies on the Five Army Governor's Mansion, can the Five Army Governor's Mansion still be regarded as a mere decoration?
Of course, the reform of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion is only at the current stage, and there will be corresponding changes in the frontier army in the future, but that is all in the future. Gao Pragmatic's current authority is only limited to the Beijing Camp. Of course, he must first do a good job Let’s talk about the work at hand.
The Jingying Production and Construction Corps began to cooperate with Jinghua to mine various minerals, and the money earned began to be supplied to the Imperial Guards in accordance with the ratio previously agreed between Gao Pragmatic and Zhu Yingzhen and others. As a result, the Imperial Guards gradually stabilized. Under the auspices of Qi Jiguang, Recruit training began.
Two months later, at the end of the year, Qi Jiguang stated in his report to Gao Pragmatic that the current Imperial Guard finally looked like an army.
The implication is not that the Imperial Guard is "worthy of fighting", but it probably means "able to be seen".
This news made Gao Pragmatic somewhat gratified. After spending so much effort and walking on a tightrope to carry out these reforms, it finally had some effect. He and Qi Jiguang discussed that since the queue, discipline and other issues have been basically resolved, they should enter combat training as soon as possible so that when the final blow against Tumen is launched in the future, the Imperial Guards can be pulled out to see the battle.
Qi Jiguang asked Gao Pragmatic, when did the imperial court plan to send troops to Tumen? He needs a relatively clear time to make targeted adjustments to the Guards' training plan.
But Gao Pragmatic cannot answer this question.
Gao Pragmatic smiled bitterly and said: "Nantang Gong, let me tell you the truth, as for when we can go to Chahar, the real trouble at present is not the strength of troops and combat power, but when the Ministry of Revenue can come up with the money. "
Qi Jiguang frowned and asked: "I heard that Taicang is about to bottom out. If we expect the Ministry of Revenue to save enough money to start a war...it seems a bit difficult."
Gao pragmatic sighed, nodded and said, "Who says it's not the case, but there's nothing we can do about it."
Qi Jiguang was a little surprised and asked: "Young Sima turns stone into gold, and you actually say there is no way?"
"I do..." Gao pragmatic opened his mouth, shook his head, and sighed: "After all, I am a minister of the Ministry of War, not the Ministry of Household Affairs. Besides, the biggest problem at the moment is the court's relief for civilian disasters. They started to pay attention. Not only were they exempting and reducing taxes, but they were also arbitrarily diverting money, which put a lot of pressure on the household department; secondly, King Lu..."
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