In the final analysis, the reason for this situation has a lot to do with the current internal servant system of the Ming army.
Since the Ming Army's Beijing camp and local guards collapsed, the pressure to defend the Ming Dynasty has basically fallen on the frontier troops. They are not descendants of the Ming Dynasty Xungui Group, but former members of the Border Army Guards. Moreover, due to the Ming Army
Due to extremely low remuneration, the border troops could only improve their lives by relying on the merit-recording system of collecting enemy soldiers' heads and various trophies.
Except for the Walla Mongols, the opponents the frontier troops encountered earlier were not very strong. Most of the Oirat Mongols who moved south needed to be wary of the Kazakhs to the west, while the rest were relatively loose.
The small and medium-sized tribes generally have low combat effectiveness, so they have become the prey expected by the border troops.
Therefore, many capable generals will take the initiative to attack the Mongols grazing near the border on a regular basis. In order to achieve a quick victory, these generals need to rely on lightly armed and simple small-scale troops to perform tasks, which is similar to special forces.
existed, and the general's personal servant became the best choice at that time.
From this, the servant system began to appear on the stage of history. During the battle, they could receive rewards based on their merits, and even had the opportunity to be adopted as adopted sons. Therefore, even if their status and treatment were lower than those of the military households of the guards, they could
Because of their generous remuneration, they are able to earn an income that far exceeds that of ordinary military households.
Because the fighting power of the servants was very good, the generals of the Ming Dynasty also started to raise the craze of raising servants. The more famous one is "Dongli Xima", where Dongli refers to Li Chengliang and Xima refers to General Yansui.
Military officer Ma Gui, in addition to Ma Lin, Jun Song, Liu Wei and others, all have their own strong team of servants.
But the problem is that the cost of servants is very huge. In order to organize servants who can fight, the generals can only choose to concentrate the military expenditures that are not enough to allocate on servants. Therefore, the development of servants also means that the ordinary army
The households further fell into a state of hardship, which in turn further worsened the current combat effectiveness of the Ming army.
Zhou Yuji said: "At present, the soldiers recruited in Liaodong are only given about 2 taels of silver per month. These 2 taels of silver are not enough to support the sergeants. They are not enough to supply rice, grain and meat. Naturally, they will not use their lives in the face of war."
Speaking of this, Zhou Yuji sighed softly: "For those servants who can really fight, each of them earns more than four taels of silver every month. Plus war horses, armor, weapons, etc., the annual expenditure is at least as much as
It takes seventy or eighty taels of silver to support them, so the number of servants the generals can support is not large."
"In the old days of the Battle of Saarhu, although our Ming Dynasty had a vast territory and a large number of people, we selected a hundred thousand troops to conquer Liao, but most of them were unable to fight. In the end, we had to gather the generals' servants to get a few brave men.
Kedingle Lixiang 1 Yi August "But they are all soldiers who can fight. Naturally, our Ming Dynasty is no match."
Lin Jing finally realized it.
On the surface, there are many soldiers, but in fact there are very few who can fight. Then, the Jin army has few people on the surface, but there are many people fighting. This is not a problem in daily small-scale battles, but when it comes to large-scale battlefields
, problems naturally arise.
Thinking of this, Lin Jing pondered and said: "General Zhou, your Majesty has ordered me to establish the Yuwei Army. Naturally, I want to build a strong army by imitating the Yongwei Camp to avoid these problems encountered before. Can you
Are you confident?"
Zhou Yuji hesitated and said: "Your Highness, if we re-train a 30,000-strong Feather Guard Army according to the requirements of the Yongwei Battalion, the cost will probably not be a small sum of money. At present, the court...the court can still squeeze out this amount of money." Money?”
Lin Jing understood the other party's inner worries, and immediately said with a smile: "From the general's point of view, how much money does it cost to train such a 30,000-person feather guard army per year?"
Zhou Yuji had previously prepared to train troops in Shanxi, so these data were all in his mind, and he said without hesitation: "According to the previous standards of the Yongwei Battalion, the recruitment and training in the first year and the purchase of armor, weapons and horses are required. One and a half million taels of silver, plus the current year's salary of about one million taels, will require almost 2.5 million taels, and the subsequent annual needs will be about 1.8 million taels."
Lin Jing took a breath. The current financial situation is basically in a state of collapse. The annual income is less than 5 million taels. Even if three wages are included, it is only 156 million taels. Food and grass are about 1,600 taels. It can be said that spending two million taels of silver per year to raise 30,000 soldiers is not an easy decision to make.
Fortunately, with the Royal Chamber of Commerce, Lin Jing could still pay the military expenses for the time being. He said softly: "General Huang, General Zhou, don't worry about the salary for training the new army. I will definitely pay it on time and in quantity, but One thing is that money must be spent where it should be spent, and besides, can the New Army be completed before November?"
"Before November?"
Zhou Yuji carefully calculated and found that it was already early May, which meant that he only had five months to organize and train the new army. This was undoubtedly a very huge challenge.
Although Huang Degong on the side remained silent, he also understood the difficulty of leading troops to train. He hesitated and said: "Your Highness, can we extend the time for a little longer?"
Lin Jing shook his head. He knew that the Qing army would enter the fortress again in November, so the new army had to complete training before November no matter what. He mused: "Currently, the army trains every three days. If it is changed, If you train once a day, can you speed up your troop training?"
"If you practice every day, over time, the soldiers' bodies may not be able to bear it, and they will collapse..."
Zhou Yuji shook his head, obviously he had tried this before.
Lin Jing knew that the fundamental reason was that the soldiers did not receive adequate nutritional intake during long-term training, which resulted in their inability to practice every day, so he took the initiative and said: "I will give each soldier one tael more food every month." Use the money to buy fish and meat, so you only need to add 360,000 taels of silver, and you can practice once a day."
"Your Highness, if this is the case, I will train my troops with all my strength."
A hint of excitement flashed across Zhou Yuji's face. He had been looking forward to this day for a long time.
Lin Jing smiled and said: "In that case, I will let Li Jizhou arrange the first payment later. The two generals can recruit troops first, and the 30,000 people must be selected according to the best. As for other issues, you don't need to worry about it."
"Yes, thank you Your Highness!"
For Zhou Yuji and Huang Degong, they have gradually begun to see hope in Lin Jing, and naturally they will try their best to keep this hope and prevent it from being shattered. This chapter has been completed!