"You guys go and have a rest. I will spend the night in the study today. Don't worry, I won't stay up too long."
Zhu Pingan coaxed Li Shu and others to go back to rest, while he stayed alone in the study and read the reports from various places over and over again.
"Alas" seeing so many civilian casualties, Zhu Pingan sighed deeply with guilt and self-blame.
As the governor of Zhejiang, tens of thousands of people in the territory were massacred by Japanese pirates. As a governor, I cannot absolve myself of the blame.
Even though I just took office less than a week ago.
Japanese pirates!
How to solve this biggest disaster in Zhejiang and even Jiangnan?!
The guard station is useless. Although Xiangyong is stronger than the guard station, it is not a regular army after all. It cannot guarantee food, wages, weapons, and training. Facing the Japanese pirates, it is far from an opponent. It just struggles a few more times than the guard station.
In fact, the imperial court also knew that the guard post was unavailable, otherwise why would it have allowed Zhang Jing to mobilize troops all the way from Guangxi?
In Zhu Pingan's view, wolf soldiers are not a good strategy to wipe out Japanese pirates. Historically, Japanese pirates were not wiped out by wolf soldiers.
To exterminate the Japanese pirates, we can only recruit troops and train a new army.
Recruiting soldiers, food and pay are the first issues that need to be solved.
The guard system created by Emperor Hongwu indeed did not cost much money from the court. The guard troops farmed their own fields and used them as military food and salary. Most people farmed, and a small number of people farmed, which basically covered the food and salary. They picked up hoes and planted food.
Put down the hoe and fight.
This is also what Emperor Hongwu is most proud of. I raise millions of soldiers without costing the people a grain of rice.
However, now that the guardhouse has rotted away, even though you don't consume much of the court's food and salary, you are of little use.
Recruiting soldiers requires food and salary, and the food and salary must be allocated by the court.
However, the imperial court is too poor now. The food and salary in Beizhen has made the court tighten its belt again and again. The food and salary needed to recruit soldiers in Jiangnan will never be less than that in Beizhen. How can the court afford it?!
If the imperial court bears the burden, it can only transfer the responsibility to the common people. How to pass it on? How simple is it, just increase taxes on the common people.
As much as there is a shortage, we will increase taxes on the people. This year, we will add 3.5 cents per acre of land, and next year we will add 3.5 cents.
The more soldiers are recruited, the heavier the taxes on the people will be.
Finally, the people were taxed too heavily and couldn't survive, so they had no choice but to make food.
This has become a paradox of the Ming Dynasty: there is a war, the defense is unbearable, soldiers are recruited, the people have to raise taxes, and the people cannot survive, the people revolt, and there is a need to fight again, and the soldiers have to be recruited, and the people have to be taxed again.
If taxes are imposed, the people will no longer be able to survive, and the people will revolt again, creating an endless cycle with no solution.
Once the Ming Dynasty enters this cycle of death, it will inevitably enter a nightmare of peasant uprisings.
Then the Ming Dynasty is not far away from extinction.
Even, from a certain perspective, it can be said that the recruitment system was the first straw that broke the Ming Dynasty.
Historically, during the three major campaigns of Wanli, recruiting soldiers was already the main force of the Ming army, and food and salary expenditures accounted for half of the total annual taxes of the Ming Dynasty at that time.
With such a huge expenditure on food and salary, how much money does the imperial court have left to build weapons, pay salaries to officials, build rivers, provide relief to the people, and develop the economy?!
The peasant uprising alone had seriously injured the Ming Dynasty. When the powerful enemies in the black mountains and white waters launched a charge against the empire, the empire's demise became inevitable.
From this point of view, it is not without reason and basis to say that the military recruitment system was the first straw that broke the Ming Dynasty.
However, the Japanese invasion in Jiangnan is so serious now that it is impossible not to recruit troops.
What should I do?
How to recruit soldiers without increasing the burden of food and salary on the court.
??????????.??????
Zhu Ping'an frowned and pondered for a long time, but he couldn't think of an answer that would give him the best of both worlds.
"What should we do?" Zhu Pingan said to himself, and wrote the three words "guard station", "recruitment" and "food and salary" on the rice paper. He looked at these three words over and over again and pondered.
stand up.
again and again
again and again
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration flashed through Zhu Pingan's mind. Zhu Pingan quickly took a pen and wrote it down on rice paper, and drew a line on the words "recruitment" and "guard station" to connect them.
Since the guard station is unfit and must recruit soldiers, why not reduce the number of military households in the guard station accordingly according to the number of soldiers recruited? Anyway, the guard station is now unusable, and convert them from military households into ordinary people, and convert part of the farmland into
Ordinary farmland, let these military households be converted into civilian households to cultivate these lands, and the taxes paid will be used to make up for the food and salary for recruiting soldiers.
Although, under the current guard system, military households also have to pay for grain, and the proportion is even as much as half, but due to the corruption of the guard house, most of the grain paid by military households goes into the pockets of the officers, and the military households have become the property of the guard officers.
slave.
It would be better for the imperial court to issue an order to directly convert the corresponding military households into civilian households, otherwise they would be exploited by the guards officers.
As for how many soldiers can be converted into civilians by recruiting soldiers?
Of course, the smaller the ratio between the two, the lighter the burden on the common people; according to ancient productivity estimates, it takes about twenty common people to support one soldier. With this ratio, the common people will not rise up.
In other words, if you recruit one soldier, the guard station can convert twenty military households into ordinary civilian households, and convert the corresponding military villages into civilian fields, and use their taxes and handymen to support the recruited soldiers, so as to reduce the financial pressure on the court, and at the same time also
Reduce the tax pressure on ordinary people.
It is not to abolish the guard station system, but to combine the guard station and recruiting soldiers, and adjust the proportion and structure of the two.
The more Zhu Pingan thought about it, the more he realized that this idea was worthy of research.
However, the Ming Dynasty's guard system stipulated that if a military household wanted to be converted into a civilian household, it must receive a special gift from the emperor.
How to obtain the emperor's special gift?
During the Xuande period, the Ming Dynasty promulgated the "Military Administration Regulations", which stipulated that "there should be only one person under the military household to fill in the military personnel, and the Ministry of War should be mobilized, and the Hanlin Academy should take the exam. If there are results, the army will be opened as usual. If not, the army will be opened as usual."
As a result, the army was still sent to prison."
Zhu Ping'an does not have the power to convert military households into civilian households.
So, Zhu Pingan laid out a new piece of rice paper and wrote his thoughts on the rice paper in detail.
"The humble minister is frightened. I have immature views regarding the recruitment of troops. Please forgive me for my sins."
Finally, Zhu Ping'an added a sentence at the end, asking him to recruit eight thousand troops to wipe out the Japanese pirates in Zhejiang.
After checking it was correct, Zhu Pingan copied it on the secret folder, sealed it, and gave it to Liu Daqiang, asking him to take someone to deliver it to Xiyuan.
Counting the time, Liu Mu and others were also on their way back.
The next day, just as Liu Daqiang and the others set out, Zhu Ping'an issued an official document in the name of the governor of Zhejiang, ordering Liu Daqiang to go to Yiwu again to recruit eight thousand troops, no, to recruit young men, and ordered the Jinhua government to cooperate.
These eight thousand people are not all recruited in Yiwu. Dongyang County, Yongkang County, and Wuyi County adjacent to Yiwu County are all recruiting areas. If all the soldiers are recruited in Yiwu, recruiting so many people will have a great impact on the people's livelihood in Yiwu.
Of course, this is not Zhu Ping'an's decision to kill first and play later.
Zhu Ping'an's plan this time was not to recruit soldiers in name, but to recruit young men and women, and then turn them into soldiers after the decree came down.
It's just a matter of doing the work in advance.
Emperor Jiajing may not necessarily agree with the suggestion of combining military recruitment with guard posts, adjusting the ratio, and converting military households into civilian households, but he will definitely agree with the recruitment of troops.