It can be said that through this military household registration reform, the status of Ming soldiers will be greatly improved.
First, when soldiers join the army, they no longer have to worry about their children and grandchildren being forced to become military households. The hereditary military household system at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China was completely changed to a recruitment system;
Second, soldiers who served in the army and served for a long time, or who had been in the army for a long time, could still get money when they reached their age after retirement. This was the first of its kind in the Ming Dynasty.
You know, even if a civil servant retires and returns to his hometown, he will not receive a salary. In contrast, even if a soldier reaches old age after retirement and receives a small amount of retirement money, it will definitely attract many people.
From this point of view, joining the army will become a choice for many farmers.
Third, in today's imperial court, military pay is paid out in a timely manner and through the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty. If there is a deduction in military pay, you can go directly to the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Jinyiwei Yamen or Dongchang in the capital to complain. If you can go directly to Tianting, there is basically no problem. The military pay was withheld or owed.
This provides soldiers with a layer of assurance that they can fight with peace of mind.
As for whether you can withdraw money from the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty, the people of the capital have already seen it in these months, and there is absolutely no problem.
In addition, the new coins have been issued for a period of time, and the court has really done it. When collecting taxes, the new coins will be collected according to the prescribed ratio without any discounts, thus ensuring that the new coins will not depreciate in value.
After this situation reassured the people of the capital, the benefits of the new coins were also reflected. Coins have a face value, so daily transactions can be done directly based on the currency value, which is very convenient.
And because it is a copper coin, it feels similar to the previous copper coins, which reduces the resistance of the people in the capital to the new currency. Of course, if you switch to banknotes, you will definitely feel conflicted in your heart, and you will not be able to accept the new currency so quickly.
Once the people in the capital accepted the new currency, many merchants liked to accept the new currency because it was convenient, no need to weigh it, and no need to worry about the quality. As a result, because the production of the new currency is limited, many people who want to exchange the new currency at the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty encounter a situation where they are unable to exchange.
The occurrence of this situation corresponds to the common saying: rare things are valuable. In private natural transactions, when buying and selling things with new currencies, it is more favorable. From another perspective, the actual value of new currencies is higher.
Back to the military, because the military pay for the Beijing camp was issued by the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty. As long as you open a bank account and withdraw money, you are guaranteed to get the new currency. This allows military personnel or military family members to always have the guarantee of using new currencies.
Don't underestimate this, it reflects the superiority of soldiers to some extent. In private transactions, some preferential treatment for military personnel or military family members also emerged, giving them more recognition of their military status.
All these are definitely helpful for improving the status of military personnel.
Of course, some of these measures have only begun to be implemented in the Beijing camp. When conditions are ripe, it will be promoted to the army across the country.
Emperor Chongzhen knew very well that after the Ming Dynasty put down the civil strife, it would strive for global hegemony.
Not to mention lies, so many minerals alone are definitely worth what he does: improve the treatment of soldiers, let the army expand territory and find wealth!
Not to mention, it is related to the stability of the Ming Dynasty. Those vassal kings must be sealed off, and this can only be guaranteed by the army.
Under the leadership of Zhang Mingwei, Emperor Chongzhen, the cabinet, the Supervisor of Ceremonies, and the six ministries determined the details of the military household reform, and then issued an imperial edict to officially announce it.
Are there any objections to this matter? There must be some. As for the retirement pension for soldiers, they encountered opposition from many civilian officials, and Emperor Chongzhen hesitated whether to cancel it, but Zhang Mingwei insisted.
Under his strength, no one dared to confront him. More importantly, Zhang Mingwei believes that this system should be popularized in the future so that officials can also have pensions.
As for the reason given to Emperor Chongzhen, it is much simpler: Only when you have someone to rely on when you are old can you have peace of mind. Only Ming soldiers and Ming officials can serve the emperor with peace of mind!
This matter of military household innovation had been rumored before. Although it caused a great response after the shoes landed, it did not have such a huge shock.
However, there is an unexpected impact that Zhang Mingwei must face.
Involving the account opening of tens of thousands of soldiers, and in this era, only manual operations, not batch processing by computers, made the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty in urgent need of manpower.
In fact, the central bank of Ming Dynasty is still short of manpower even if it does not have this problem. Not to mention it was founded from scratch. As the Ming Central Bank was accepted by the people, it was already getting busier and busier.
This made Zhang Mingwei consider whether he should separate public and private business. Otherwise, things will be delayed and the feasibility of establishing a second bank will have to be considered.
However, no matter what, the most important thing now is to train bank employees in large numbers.
This matter cannot be done by others, and Zhang Mingwei needs to participate in the whole process. In order to have suitable manpower available as soon as possible, the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty had to recruit shopkeepers and clerks from banks, banks, and even ordinary accountants. After providing them with specialized training, they continued to strengthen the training while taking up their posts.
In addition, the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty can no longer share the same yamen with the Ministry of Accounts. Otherwise, it would not be enough if the entire Hubu Yamen was owned by the Central Bank of Ming Dynasty.
To this end, the new Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty began to be built, just under the imperial city, and it was very large.
Many people in the capital speculated on the possibility that the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty would become independent from the Ministry of Accounts in the future just because of the size of the yamen.
………………
Emperor Chongzhen also gave Zhang Mingwei some good news.
The field army, which was originally transformed from ordinary bandits, has achieved extraordinary results. In addition to the ordinary grain fields, the yield of sweet potatoes and potatoes grown in addition to the ordinary grain fields has caught up with the grain yield after two years of exploration.
This unexpected blessing also means that no one will starve to death in the Central Plains, even if there are still natural disasters from time to time.
Zhang Mingwei was actually aware of this, because the army already distributed potatoes and sweet potatoes as food.
Otherwise, Ming Dynasty would not have recovered from famine so quickly.
Of course, there is another big factor that is also related, that is, by this time, the population of Ming Dynasty is estimated to have been reduced by about half, which also eased the demand for food.
If possible, Zhang Mingwei really doesn't want this factor. Now that the country is basically stable, the Ming Dynasty is about to expand externally and needs the support of the population and court policies to encourage childbirth.
Of course, you don’t really need any encouragement at this time. Because in the eyes of the Chinese, having more children means more blessings, and a prosperous family is a symbol of a prosperous family. Even if the court does not encourage it, the people will not stop creating people.
However, there are actually a lot of things that need to be done at the court level for this.
It was related to the Ming Dynasty's expansion of territory and global hegemony, and to Emperor Chongzhen's ambition for hegemony. Naturally, he was very concerned about it, and immediately discussed this matter with Zhang Mingwei.
Just listen to Zhang Mingwei say to Emperor Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, if we want to ensure the reproduction and prosperity of our Ming Dynasty population, one of the biggest measures is to reduce the mortality rate of children."
"Sir, you are absolutely right!" Emperor Chongzhen immediately agreed with deep feeling upon hearing this.
Even among his princes and daughters, several died young, let alone ordinary people.
After hearing this, Du Yinxi, the chief minister of the cabinet, sighed and said: "This is easier said than done! Just one smallpox can kill so many children! Alas..."
After finishing speaking, he sighed heavily.
Zhang Mingwei immediately smiled and said: "Smallpox is not difficult, vaccination can solve it!"
Du Yinxi was overjoyed when he heard what he said, but after he finished listening, he looked dumbfounded and said: "The Duke is joking, vaccination is actually very dangerous, and it does not reduce the risk of many children dying from smallpox. "
At first, when he heard Duke Xingguo say that smallpox was not difficult, he was overjoyed.
In fact, Duke Xingguo can often do things that others cannot. If he says it is not difficult, then it must not be difficult. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be vaccination.
In fact, at this time in the late Ming Dynasty, vaccination was already available. But it's variola, so the risk is still very high. Therefore, only a handful of people will try it.
According to legend, Kang Mazi was able to inherit the throne because he had already suffered from smallpox. Although his face was pockmarked, he would never get smallpox again.
Emperor Chongzhen obviously knew what Du Yinxi said. He nodded immediately and was about to speak when he heard Zhang Mingwei say in surprise: "What, is vaccination dangerous?"
As soon as he asked the question, he came back to his senses and immediately laughed and said: "This pimple is not that pimple. What I said is not dangerous!"
He wrote about the history of the late Ming Dynasty and had checked a lot of information. Of course he understood that at this time in the late Ming Dynasty, variolation was actually caused by variolation, which was very toxic and of course dangerous.
Du Yinxi was stunned after hearing this, why is this acne not that other acne? However, he immediately came back to his senses and was overjoyed. He immediately jumped over, grabbed Zhang Mingwei's hand, and asked excitedly with a look of longing and expectation: "Does the Duke really mean that he can solve the smallpox disaster? "
Smallpox has been a major killer that has plagued mankind since ancient times because it is easily contagious. Once you get infected, you have to rely on God.
Moreover, smallpox is basically treated the same regardless of whether you have money or not, whether you have power or not. It was during the eleventh year of Chongzhen's reign that the slave chief Yue Tuo contracted smallpox and died in Shandong when he entered the customs for plunder.
Therefore, after hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen and others were as excited as Du Yinxi and looked at Zhang Mingwei with expectation.
