The Gao family has a large number of armed servants, and over the years, they have not only relied on the accumulation of qualifications to promote talents. In addition to the various wars in southern Xinjiang, the suppression of mountain bandits, horse-killing bandits, etc. within the Ming Dynasty and when traveling outside the border, the armed servants of the Gao family had a "military academy".
Of course, Gao Pingshi was always cautious in this kind of matter, so it was absolutely impossible for him to directly call it "Military Academy" or "Martial Arts Hall". The "military academy" for the Gao family's armed servants is called the "Guardian Training Class".
As for the name, the more inconspicuous or even mean, the better, but in fact, this "Professor Training Class" is really more than just a low-level class. Every year, more than a thousand servants of the Gao family participate in the training class. .
The business protection training class is divided into two major "classes", namely, the "onshore business protection training class" and the "offshore business protection training class". Both categories can be understood as the names suggest without explanation.
There is also a type of special training class, which is a land-sea type with a relatively small number of people. Gao Pragmatic's original intention was to provide training like a Marine Corps military academy. However, since there are not many landing operations currently, most of the armed servants trained were sent to the inland river routes for "training", and a small number of them were sent to southern Xinjiang as reserve talents.
Gao Yimin, who was originally assigned to Meng Gebulu but was now assigned to serve as a staff member under Cao Yu, graduated from the special training class in the 13th year of Wanli. His assessment results were very good: first in the theory written test, second in the war game deduction, and comprehensive practical combat. Drill first.
Originally, Gao Pragmatic sent him to Menggebulu instead of southern Xinjiang. Considering that Hada, where Menggebulu was located, was in an important position, and Menggebulu himself was relatively weak, he specially selected him. The best military staff.
Who knew that as the old saying goes, thin mud cannot hold up a wall. Gao Yimin's suggestions were obviously correct, but Meng Gebulu refused to listen. The only time he listened, he made a bad move.
You can still live if you do evil by God, but you can't live if you do evil on your own. Facing such an "employer", Gao Yimin had no choice but to run away before Meng Gebulu was bound to be defeated.
Gao Yimin was very worried that his master would be angry because of Menggebulu's defeat and escape, so he used his emergency liaison rights as a foreign military staff officer and wrote a very humble apology. The letter was sent to Gao Pragmatic.
But Gao Pragmatic is not an unreasonable person. He knows that a strong Jurchen chief like Menggebulu, especially a guy who has not received any reliable education, obviously only expects him to know how to treat Gao Yimin's existence. It's a luxury to hope.
To put it bluntly, the senior leaders of the kingdom in southern Xinjiang are much smarter than Meng Gebulu. At least they all know that Gao Pragmatic’s staff officers stationed around them - whether they are political staff or military staff - are all them. A person who cannot be offended, his words and deeds must be judged by the faces of these staff officers.
To them, these people were equivalent to the emperor's envoys. They were all "imperial envoys". How could they dare to offend them? Nor dare to disobey orders. People say they are "suggestions", but in fact every word is a command. However, Meng Gebulu did not understand this.
Of course, Gao Pragmatic's authority in southern Xinjiang must be far greater than his authority in Liaodong, and the difference in strength is also very large. This is another reason why Meng Gebulu did not regard Gao Yimin's suggestions as orders.
All in all, Gao Pragmatic did not think that Gao Yimin was responsible for Meng Gebulu's defeat, so he still reused this person.
It only took more than three days for the urgent news of Liubaili to reach Cao Yun. After reading Gao Pragmatic's handwritten letter, Cao Yun's expression remained normal. After thinking for a moment, he sent people to contact various generals, including Kaiyuan Shen. Jiang Ma Chengxun, Shenyang guerrilla Qi Jin and others, as well as pragmatic "old subordinates" such as Zhang Wanbang, Pu Yuanyi and his own brother Cao Jian.
This kind of contact is not a military order, because the emperor's imperial edict has not yet arrived, and the mobilization of troops must obtain the approval of Li Song, the governor of Liaodong, and even needs the approval of the military preparation department, which is quite troublesome.
However, now that Gao Pragmatic's letter has arrived, Cao Yan certainly knows that the holy will is definitely on the way. He notified it privately just to let everyone prepare in advance to avoid wasting time again.
Gao pragmatically limited the approximate number of troops he would send out this time, and bluntly said that in this battle, "skilled troops are more valuable than more troops." He asked him to carefully count the number of troops. Although he could not exceed the quota, he could not fake his name, and it must be full.
So Cao Yu thought about it, and simply mobilized 3,000 servants himself, and explicitly requisitioned Ma Chengxun's 2,000 Majia soldiers, Qi Jin's 2,000 Qijiajun, Zhang Wanbang and other generals for a total of 3,000 servants. That's enough for ten thousand servants.
The remaining 10,000 people were also carefully selected from various garrison posts. They were all elites who could be drawn out to fight in the field in the defense area east of the Liaohe River.
Cao Yan felt that this kind of combat effectiveness was completely sufficient, because servants were different from ordinary soldiers. The same number of servants could not only defeat three or even five times the number of ordinary guardsmen, but they were not afraid at all even when faced with Mongolian soldiers, and even in many cases Being able to force the Mongols to withdraw voluntarily when one thousand against two thousand (at this time, the Mongols were very unwilling to fight a tough battle with large losses).
However, the servant system that made Cao Yun so confident actually had hidden worries. Gao Jingzhi was aware of it before he resigned as Minister of Rongzheng. This worry does not mean that the current generals have begun to show signs of disobeying orders - this is really not the case in the current fifteenth year of Wanli.
The hidden worry is that Gao Jingshi discovered that the phenomenon of wage fraud has begun to appear among the generals' servants. This is also the root cause of Gao Jingshi's explicit request for Cao Yan to carefully count the number of people.
During the Jiajing period, the imperial court officially recognized the establishment of servants and assumed the responsibility of paying their salaries. Generally speaking, servants should eat double rations. For example, when the monthly salary of ordinary soldiers was two cents and five cents, servants could "eat double rations and five cents." In the fifteenth year of Wanli in history, the monthly salary of ordinary soldiers increased to four qian, and the monthly salary of servants rose to 9 qian. By the middle and late Wanli period, the monthly salary of the servants had increased to one tael, one cent and five cents, and the treatment was not generous.
What's more, because of Gao Pragmatic's butterfly wings, the trade flow in the north has been greatly strengthened compared to the same period in history, which indirectly led to a slight decrease in prices. And because Gao Pragmatic obtained a large amount of silver from sea trade exchanges with Spain and the Portuguese, It also slightly improved private deflation.
So now, the food and salary of the servants of the border army generals have reached the level of one or two yuan in advance (only refers to the court salary, not counting other benefits, subsidies issued by the generals themselves, and "dividends" of spoils, etc.).
Since the reform of the military system was still in its infancy, and the government's finances had been tight, the overall situation of the court relying on servants to fight had not fundamentally improved. As a result, thousands of servants were mobilized for various large-scale battles.
For example, in the northwest rebellion, Li Rusong brought thousands of his Liaodong servants to participate in the battle. It was precisely because of this that he dared to directly launch the attack when his footing was not stable, and opened the curtain of a great victory.
The situation in the original history was even more unbearable than it is now, and the reliance on servants was even more serious. For example, in order to deal with the rising Manchu forces, a large number of servants gathered in Liaodong. In the 47th year of Wanli, Liaodong was in emergency, and the imperial court allocated 6,500 servants from other towns at once. Go to war.
In later wars such as Saarhu, the imperial court often ordered generals to "let them lead generals who are accustomed to fighting, and bring thousands or hundreds of servants with them." Based on this calculation, plus the servants of the generals in the Liaodong region, the Ming Dynasty may have gathered tens of thousands of servants to fight at most.
So the question is, if the combat effectiveness of the Jia Ding at this time is still the same as that of Ma Fang's Ma cavalry, Liu Xian's surrender to the Japanese, or even the Liaodong Army in Li Chengliang's heyday, then the Ming Dynasty, which had so many elite soldiers, Why can’t I still win Houjin? It doesn’t make sense!
Gao Pragmatic believes that from the perspective of a servant, this servant is no longer that servant.
In the middle and early stages of the development of the Jia Ding, due to the informal establishment, the salary of the Jia Ding was almost entirely borne by the generals themselves. The generals had no room for empty pay, let alone the need. Under such circumstances, the selection of servants is naturally extremely strict. After all, no general is willing to cheat himself on the battlefield. Therefore, the fighting power of the servants at this time is really strong, and the winning rate is really high.
During this period, the servants of the Ma family, such as the Ma family cavalry, the Ma family's soldiers, and the Japanese surrendered Ding, etc., as long as their generals feel that this battle must be fought and let them fight, let alone one against two or one against three, it will be counted as one dozen. There are many records of five. For example, when Liu Xian was fighting rebellions in the mainland, since his opponents were much weaker than Mongolia and Japanese pirates, it was not uncommon to even fight one against ten.
But in the middle and late period, the imperial court officially recognized the national establishment of servants, and various cases of empty pay began to appear among the servants. Although the imperial court has not conducted an investigation, Gao Pingshi listened to Liang Menglong and three of his colleagues counting the numbers during the "Five Officials Meeting" of the Ministry of War, and found that there were nearly 200,000 paid servants in the country at this time.
How can this be!
Gao pragmatism personally commanded the armies of Xuanda and Jiliao towns, which were the largest in strength. He could tell almost exactly how many servants the generals of these powerful towns had. For the seven towns in the "Seven Towns Strategy" that he had been named for some time, the total number of servants of the main generals would definitely not exceed one hundred thousand.
But the problem is that they have nearly 150,000 servants registered in the Ministry of War.
The vacancy for servants is already one-third full!
A thousand-mile embankment collapsed in an ant's nest. Reminiscent of the original history, towards the end of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court discovered that "the servants everywhere were originally called elites, but now all the child servants have to pay for their food", and the generals "mostly paid for themselves with their families." The name invades pay."
For example, an investigation report in the thirty-seventh year of Wanli showed that "General Dong Yiyuan and others took advantage of excessive pay by deposing bean, and various servants took over 7,770 names."
What is the nature of this? The nearly ten thousand servants are all unqualified, which shows that the quality of the servants at this time has long been inferior to before.
During the Chongzhen period, Xiong Tingbi conducted an investigation and came to an even worse and pessimistic conclusion: "There are more than 80,000 troops in the Liao Dynasty, but less than 8,000 servants can fight." This shows how powerful the tens of thousands of servants the Ming Dynasty theoretically had .
This time when he went to Beiguan to rescue Ye He and attack the Tumen war, the reason why Gao Pragmatic not only said in private that firearms, clothing, clothing and food expenses could be "open", but also personally wrote to Cao Yu to ask Cao Yu to carefully count the personnel and not to impersonate, It is out of such concerns.
The only thing Gao Pragmatic is struggling with now is whether to retain the servant system. If it is retained, how can it be reformed so that it can maintain its excellent combat effectiveness without being robbed of pay? And if it is abolished, how can it be ensured that other armies can be used and that the generals in each town will not strongly object or even resist.
This matter involves both strategic security factors at the national level and various concerns about ensuring the stability of rule. Even though Gao Pragmatic could influence the Ministry of War through factional factors and influence the Holy Will through his personal relationship with the emperor, he himself was in a dilemma.
Soldiers are important matters of the country, the place of life and death, and the path to survival. They must be observed.
But... we can't mess around. What if we accidentally cause Wang Mang's restructuring?
Not to mention Gao's pragmatic worries, it is said that in the afternoon of the next day after Cao Yun sent people to inform the generals in various places to prepare for sending troops in advance, the imperial edict and the order from the Ministry of War arrived. Li Song, the governor of the Liao Dynasty, invited Cao Yu to the Fu Yuan to discuss matters - it was actually not a big deal. The imperial edict stated that Li Song was asked to effectively dispatch food, grass and military resources and "plan the overall situation in northern Liaoning", while Cao Yu was directly responsible for related operations.
There is no clear statement on "related operations" in the imperial edict, but there is an order from the Ministry of War. Cao Yan took a look at the Fuyuan, and sure enough, the Ministry of War's statement was basically consistent with Gao Pragmatic's request. It was even just a simplified version of Gao Pragmatic's personal letter, with just a few more clichés.
In addition, the Ministry of War's order also mentioned something else: Governor Zhou Yong of Jiliao was about to come to inspect the defense of Liaodong, and this matter "has nothing to do with the general, and there is no need to delay the fighter plane for this."
The general is Cao Yu. What the Ministry of War means is: Zhou Zhitai is coming, but you don't have to worry about it, just fight.
The problem is that Zhou Yong can't fly. By the time he comes to Liaodong, Cao Yu will have already gone on an expedition. He can't control him even if he wants to, right?
This sentence obviously implies something, and Gao Situ did not mention it in his letter. Cao Yu didn't realize until he was leaving that Zhou Zitai probably had nothing else to do here, and inspecting Liaodong's defense was just an excuse. His real purpose was one: to suppress Li Song.
Cao Yan took a deep breath and was a little moved.
He knew that the reason why Zhou Yong, the master of Taiwanese production, could make a trip to Liaodong in person was definitely not because of how much face he, Cao, had. The person with this face was Gao Situ, and only Gao Situ would care about him, Cao. Will you be held back by others?
Even if I risk my life, I have to win this battle for Gao Situ!
Having made up his mind, Cao Yun acted faster and ordered his own troops. The next day he led an army of 7,000 people, including 3,000 full-time servants and 4,000 full-time guard elites.
Within two days, Cao Yu joined Shenyang guerrilla general Qi Jin in Shenyang. Qi Jin selected and mobilized 2,000 Qi family troops and 1,000 Shenyang Guard elites, and went north to Kaiyuan with Cao Yu.
At the same time, Ma Chengxun from Kaiyuan is also preparing for the army. He not only needs to select and deploy elites, but also inspect various armaments. The base camp for this expedition is Kaiyuan, and most of the required materials are directly from Kaiyuan. Only a small amount needs to be transferred from Liaoyang.
Other generals such as Zhang Wanbang and Pu Yuanyi are also on their way to Kaiyuan.
An early winter war is about to begin.
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