Liu Xin's words made Gao Pragmatic speechless for a moment, and he couldn't answer for a long time.
Gao Pragmatic is indeed a principled person, but being principled does not mean being stubborn, nor does it mean being so paranoid that he does not accept reality. He knew that although Liu Xin's words were just an inference, this inference was reasonable. If it really develops like this, the final result will not be exactly the same, at least it will be very similar.
The most worrying thing about this inference is that if one day his descendants go north to crusade against the Ming Dynasty, the chaos they may cause will be far greater than if he rebels now. This means that the killings will inevitably become more severe, causing greater losses to the Chinese nation.
The reason is simple. Even if he really rebels one day due to his high pragmatism, he will definitely find ways to use the gentlest but fastest method to complete the reform because he himself is extremely unhappy to see the war in China. Ways to minimize civil war losses.
However, what if all this was not accomplished by his high pragmatism? Just as Liu Xin assumed, this matter will eventually be completed by a certain generation of his grandchildren. Will they have such pragmatic concerns for their compatriots?
Obviously not, because they, who have become the ruling family of Southern Xinjiang by then, should have been born and raised in Southern Xinjiang, and their yearning for the "Central Plains" was only brought about by the knowledge conveyed in the book. At the same time, their most urgent thought about the Central Plains is to seize it by force with the power they have - to regain the land of their ancestors.
Therefore, war may be inevitable.
At this moment, Gao Pragmatic suddenly felt a little sad. Sometimes the ancestral system does not necessarily limit what the children and grandchildren will do, just as many of the ancestral systems set by Zhu Yuanzhang have actually been destroyed long ago.
When children and grandchildren face problems that cannot be solved, and at the same time find that they can be solved by breaking the ancestral system, many people will often strongly push them to break the constraints of these ancestral systems.
Speaking of which, isn't it true that his pragmatic approach to "following the will of the ancestors rather than following the system" that he has been advocating for these years is also true?
In the final analysis, the key still depends on whether it is more cost-effective to follow the ancestral system or to abolish it. After all, the root of everything lies in interests.
As for Liu Xin's hypothesis just now, he said that if he continues to explain in the name of the ancestral system in the future and stipulates that the system of southern Xinjiang is to give equal weight to workers, farmers, commerce, students, and soldiers, it can change the situation of the Ming Dynasty where the civil servants are dominated by one family...
It can only be said that Liu Xin has made rapid progress on political issues, but there is still room for improvement.
Gao Pragmatic knew very well that it was impossible to achieve this effect with just one ancestral rule, but it was indeed possible to achieve such a goal through more clever methods.
How to do it? In short, it is necessary to cultivate an interest group among workers, farmers, businessmen, scholars, and soldiers, and at the same time give them a platform at the court or government level where everyone can sit down and discuss. The Gao family Descendants act as referees and final decision-makers, trying to find the greatest common denominator among the conflicts between several major classes and achieve mutual compromise between various interest groups.
This is not a dream, but it is feasible.
Some people may say that these parties are said to be several major strata, but in fact the number of people is very different, and the power in their hands is also unequal. It may be difficult for some of them to find representative figures to participate in upper-level politics. How can they sit down and talk? ?
actually not. There are relatively mature methods for later generations to refer to. For example, "workers" can form a national industrial association, "farmers" can form a national agricultural association, "business" can form a national business association, and "study" can form a national school association. "Bing" can... Well, "Bing" is special, so it cannot form an association. This force must be directly controlled by the Gao family.
Wouldn't it be enough to set up national associations at all levels, and then set up a system to allow them to elect or vote within them, and finally select a group of people who represent their interests to participate in the above-mentioned platform? As for how many years these national associations will be in office, that is a trivial matter and should be determined by comprehensively considering the actual situation at the time.
Next is the issue of strength. Generally speaking, the "soldier" is definitely the most threatening. After all, no one can withstand its rampage. In addition, it is a basic market that must be directly controlled by the Gao family, so its basic interests can definitely be protected.
"Soldiers" are the army. If the interests of the army can be basically protected, it means that the violent foundation of national rule will not be shaken, at least it will not happen like the situation in the late Ming Dynasty in original history.
What was the original situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty? Let’s just talk about the military: First, the military in various places experienced significant salary cuts, and then there was a large-scale arrears of pay, and it was not just a small arrears, but a large-scale and long-term arrears of pay.
For example, since the Liao Dynasty's increase in wages, which started in the 46th year of Wanli, could not fundamentally solve the internal and external troubles of the Ming Dynasty, the millions of arrears in wages caused by the embezzlement of military pay by Wei eunuchs in the seventh year of the Apocalypse could not be compensated. Therefore, when he arrived at Chongzhen, in order to solve the financial crisis, the holy king adopted two methods: first, to reduce the military pay of ordinary soldiers; second, to send more troops to civilians.
The main increases in the Chongzhen Dynasty were the Liao rate increase and the additional suppression rate and training rate. Due to limited space, we will skip it here. Focus on how Chongzhen passed on the financial crisis caused by the millions of Zhu Ming royal family to ordinary soldiers. Since the first year of Chongzhen, Chongzhen has issued an order to reduce the military pay of all border armies.
For example: Dongjiang's salary quota was cut from 1 million taels to 240,000 taels, which triggered Mao Wenlong's two convicts; the Ji, Mi, and Yong three alliances eliminated the new army, triggering a mutiny by the Ji army in March of the second year of Chongzhen. This was the second time after Chongzhen came to power. After the Jizhou Mutiny, the annual fee of Guanning Jindengjin was reduced from more than 6 million to 4.8 million. Due to Yuan Chonghuan's proper handling of this situation and the relatively large base of the Liaodong Army's military salary base, a second mutiny did not occur. It was fortunate that there was no second mutiny.
Just take the Ji Miyong Sanxie incident of eliminating troops and cutting wages as an example. Due to the shortage of money and food at that time, Chongzhen ordered all towns to eliminate their troops. The governor of Shuntian, Wang Yingzizun, aimed to reduce the army in Jimiyong and reduce the pay by 500,000, which resulted in a mutiny. Chongzhen imprisoned Wang Yingzhi, beheaded him as a scapegoat, replaced him with Wang Yuanya, and continued to reduce the army and pay.
There is a detailed record of this in "Mountain Wen Jian Lu": "The imperial court was worried about the high salary, so it blamed the towns for clearing and eliminating them. The king of Shunfu obeyed the internal edict, and the first report was to clear the nuclear and pay 500,000 yuan. The soldiers of the three camps made a noise and went down to the beacon tower. With the salary, Fu Zhixian was determined. Ying Zhi was imprisoned and replaced by Wang Yuanya. In the town of Fushun Tian Yuanya, the master reduced the salary and discussed it as before, reduced the amount and joined the army. There were sharp whistles at each pass, and all the systems left by Qi Jiguang were lost. "
It should be said that this document uses concise language to describe the reasons and process of the Ji Mi Mi Yong Sanxie's reduction of troops and pay. However, since "Records of Hearings and Seeings in the Mountains" was written in Nanming, it is not a memoir of the person involved. If you want to understand the causes and consequences of the entire Ji Miyong three-pay disarmament incident, you still have to check the original archives of the late Ming Dynasty.
In fact, according to the "Records of Ming Xi Zong", the idea of disbanding Ji Miyong's new army did not come up after Chongzhen came to power. It was proposed by the Ministry of Household Affairs at the end of December in the fifth year of Tianqi. The Minister of Household Affairs at that time was Li Qiyuan. But Wang Zhichen, the governor of Jiliao at the time, made it clear that this was a bad idea.
The king's minister, Shangshu, reprimanded the household plan with a sullen face. What he meant was that Jimen was a very critical place, so it would be fine not to increase the number of troops, but to withdraw the new troops with combat effectiveness, which was completely nonsense.
Due to the opposition of the ministers of the Liaodong Economic Strategy King, the disarmament plan of Ji Mi Yong San Xie in the fifth year of Tianqi was abandoned.
However, after Chongzhen came to power, Ji Miyong Sanxie's disarmament plan was implemented. This time, there were also people who opposed it. The opponent was the new governor Yuan Chonghuan. However the objection is invalid.
Chongzhen wanted to save money and could not hear any objections, so he vetoed Yuan Chonghuan's plan to increase troops in Ji Miyong. There are clear records in the "Dengda Fangguanyuan Ji Miyong Sanxie Military Rating Shu" in "Du Zhi Memorial" and the six volumes of the Xin Rating Division "Fu Du Shi Ti Ti Each Town Soldiers, Horses, Money and Food Management System".
There are many records, so I won’t excerpt them here. In short, the original documents record the causes of Ji Miyong’s disarmament very clearly, and those responsible for the reduction of Ji Miyong’s recruits were the governor (Jiliao) and the governor (Zunhua). They were Complied with Chongzhen's imperial edict.
Considering that "Dengda Fangguanyuan Ji Miyong Sanxie Bingshu" was written in July of the second year of Chongzhen, the "governor" here is Liu Ce, and the "fu" is Wang Yuanya, which is consistent with the records in "Mountain Hearing and Seeing Records" The coincidence is not an isolated evidence.
Ji Miyong's three associated troops totaled 106,000 troops. The annual fee for this army of nearly 110,000 is 910,000 yuan. What Chongzhen ordered to lay off were 33,300 recruits out of the 106,000 Ji Army. After laying off more than 30,000 recruits, the annual fee of Ji Miyong Sanxie was reduced from 910,000 to 750,000.
Moreover, not only the annual fee for the Ji Army in the second year of Chongzhen was calculated and allocated based on 750,000, but the annual fee for the first year of Chongzhen was also settled based on the new amount revised in the second year. In other words, the 750,000 received in the second year of Chongzhen will be deducted from the so-called 160,000 extra received in the first year of Chongzhen, and only 590,000 can be received.
Is that all? No. For Ji Miyong, cutting the annual salary from 910,000 to 750,000 is just the first step. There is also the issue of placement of the 33,300 soldiers who were laid off.
The Ministry of War asked Yuan Chonghuan to claim 18,000 of the soldiers, but Yuan Chonghuan was only willing to accept 12,000. What's going on? By continuing to look at the original documents, it turns out that Guan Ning's annual fee is only 4.8 million, which is already stretched.
After Ji Miyong eliminated recruits, 12,190 eliminated recruits were indeed placed in the Guan Ning establishment by Yuan Chonghuan, and Yuan Chonghuan paid them out of the Guan Ning quota of 4.8 million. This incident also led to Bi Ziyan's suspicion, saying that you are already stretched thin with the 4.8 million. If you accept another 7,810 people from the Western Association, you will have to increase the salary by 130,000 to 140,000.
Therefore, Bi Ziyan discussed with Liu Ce that Yuan Chonghuan should no longer be burdened with the 7,800 members stationed in Tashi. The reply to Chongzhen's imperial edict was that the placement of the 7,810 people in the Western Association was left to the governors (that is, Liu Ce and Wang Yuanya) to discuss.
As a result, the result of the disarmament of Ji Miyong's 33,300 new soldiers was that 12,000 of them were paid by Liao Town and stayed in Jimen to continue serving, and 7,810 of them were paid by Ji Town and stayed in Xixie to continue serving.
Although 12,000 of Ji Miyong's new army were still in Jimen, they were paid out of Guanning's quota of 4.8 million and became part of Guanning's 160,000 army. Therefore, the disarmament process of Ji Miyong has been clearly explained. Chongzhen cut the cost of 33,300 soldiers, but only 13,300 soldiers were actually laid off, because 20,000 of them were taken over by Guan Ning and Ji Miyong respectively.
Therefore, in fact, in the second year of Chongzhen, Ji Miyong's soldiers and pay should be like this: the number of soldiers was reduced from 105,968 to 105,968-33,300+7810=80,478. Military pay was reduced from 910,000 to 590,000.
As we all know, Ji Mi Yong's reduction of troops and pay resulted in an unprecedented tragedy, which directly affected the war situation in the late Ming Dynasty. This was the consequence of the shaking of the military's foundation for national violence.
The reason why Gao Pragmatic believes that the military interests of Southern Xinjiang must be directly represented by the Gao family can certainly be said to be based on the security of rule, but why not also because he is not considering Southern Xinjiang from following the old path of the late Ming Dynasty in history?
As for other classes, it is often difficult to separate the industrial and commercial families. Especially before "big industrialization", many businessmen were originally owners of large and small factories. However, the two companies can still be forcibly separated. The way is to distinguish them by "production type" or "trade type". If they are both production and trade, then they must make their own choice, or implement the "Anti-Monopoly Law" in advance. , forcing them to choose their main business.
In short, by then, except for Jinghua, which may exist as a "state-owned enterprise" to some extent, other chaebols that may be suspected of monopoly will be disbanded in advance, and at the same time, they will be allowed to specialize in a certain direction instead of pursuing full industry coverage - - That can only be done by Jinghua as a state-owned enterprise. Otherwise, wouldn’t you have become an independent kingdom, just like the current Jinghua?
The current Jinghua is a completely independent kingdom, with commerce, industry, agriculture, and the military. If it is as Liu Xin envisions, in the future Jinghua will establish an independent country, or take a step back to establish the Southern Xinjiang Protectorate. So first of all the army must be separated from it.
The point about "having agriculture" here may not be obvious to readers, but some readers may remember that when Gao Pragmatic first captured Annan, Jinghua gave himself the Red River Delta. It will be similar in the future. After taking a certain place, a group of die-hards will inevitably be eliminated, and the land they leave behind will naturally be taken over by Jinghua.
This is true for southern Xinjiang, and it is more convenient for Nanyang islands including Luzon. There are many unowned wastelands there, which are actually suitable for development. Jinghua takes all these lands according to the orders.
Then, through a large number of immigrants from the Ming Dynasty, Jinghua transferred part of the land to them based on the provisions of the "Naturalized Household Registration System" and the "Colonization Law", and began to collect taxes after the tax holiday ended. This is what is mentioned above. agriculture".
Of course, it's more than that. Jinghua still has a large amount of land in its hands - perhaps it should be said to be a huge amount - which is directly leased to local people as landlords for farming. Jinghua only needs to collect the rent.
Oh, by the way, the 80,000 hectares of land previously "tributed" to the emperor also came from here, and... 80,000 hectares of land does not account for a high proportion of the total land held by Jinghua.
All in all, Jinghua - or Gao pragmatism - is the largest landowner in southern Xinjiang, and there is absolutely no "one".
Of course, if one day Southern Xinjiang will establish a state or become a protectorate, many assets in "Jinghua" will be confiscated.
In the highly pragmatic plan, Jinghua will then be divided into two. In principle, the part related to the national economy and people's livelihood will directly become "state-owned assets", while the remaining part will become the private assets of the Gao family, which may also be called "royal assets."
That's a long way off. In short, if Southern Xinjiang is established or becomes a protectorate in the future, the Gao family will definitely move from Xinzheng to Dingnan. In the future, the Gao family will gradually "localize in Southern Xinjiang", but the family memory of the Gao family will always remain. Remember that they are from the Central Plains, which will arouse their yearning for the Central Plains and intend to obtain the "ancestral land".
The yearning for the "land of ancestors" may be, as Liu Xin said, one of the underlying thoughts of the Chinese people.
In this way, once the Ming Dynasty is weak, even if Gao Pragmatic sets the ancestral system and requires future generations not to invade the Ming Dynasty, it is probably useless. The ministers of the Gao family who also have ambitions to go north will find a way to overturn the agreement and find " "reasonable" reasons to make the decision to move north.
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ps: I originally promised to update this chapter last night, but I fell asleep while checking the information in the middle of coding. I'm very sorry. No, I took the time to post it this morning, so it’s a supplementary update from yesterday.
