In Datong, Shanxi, Liu Jin, Zhu Houzhao and his party were not in a hurry to return to the capital.
After finally coming out once, Zhu Houzhao didn't want to go back at all for a while. As for Liu Jin, of course he came out with a purpose. Now only half of the matter has been completed, and the remaining half has not been completed, so naturally he is not in a hurry to go back.
Rewarding the three armies was only a superficial thing for Liu Jin. This time, Liu Jin and Zhu Houzhao came out, and their real purpose was to cause trouble.
The military power has always been in the hands of the civilian group, and the civilian group has been constantly suppressing the generals and noble group. They are not at all concerned about the construction of all aspects of the Ming army, and even continue to suppress it.
Over time, the Ming army, which could have been crying at the Tatars, turned into sheep that could only rely on tall city walls to guard it. It can almost be said that it lost most of its combat effectiveness.
Finding a way to take back military power from the civil service group to the emperor's hands is the most important step.
If the military power is not taken back, no matter how powerful the army is, it will soon be spoiled by the civil servants. The civil servants do not want the Ming Dynasty to have a strong military, and they do not like the emperor to expand his territory.
In their view, the emperor should rule from the top down, hand over power to ministers like them, and rule the world together with the scholar-bureaucrats. This is the most ideal state.
As for foreign enemies, there is nothing to worry about. They just want money, food, and women, and they can just give them away. Of course, the Ming Dynasty is relatively strong-minded in this regard.
Pay tribute as a vassal.
Therefore, naturally these civil servant groups do not have the characteristics of opening up territories and are only suitable for internal fighting. Externally, they are weak, and many times they hope to use their so-called benevolence and righteousness to explain each other.
But facts have proven that this approach is absolutely unworkable.
To deal with foreign enemies, only fists and powerful force can make the other party understand your strength and obey you. This has been the case since ancient times, both at home and abroad.
The only way to expand territory is on horseback. It has never been said that one can expand territory just by opening one's mouth.
If it wanted to colonize the world and start the Age of Discovery, the Ming Dynasty must have strong force. How could it conquer the indigenous people without strong force?
Without strong force, how could we defeat the European colonial robbers?
Without strong force, how can we protect our achievements?
Therefore, we must take action against the Ming Dynasty's army, wrest the general power from the hands of the civil servant group, and then build a strong army that can fight in all directions.
Of course, taking back military power is only the first step. What is really important is reforming the Ming Dynasty's military system.
The current military system of the Ming Dynasty is linked to the household service system. A military household will always be a military household and will be a military household from generation to generation.
At the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Comrade Zhu Yuanzhang was a man of great talent and strategy, and came up with a policy that could raise millions of soldiers without spending any money, and that was the military household system.
He divided the Ming Dynasty's army into many guard posts, each guard post was stationed in a place, and then divided a large area of land for this guard post, allowing the soldiers of these guard posts to cultivate the land themselves, so that the court did not need to spend a penny.
You can raise these millions of heroes.
The advantage of this system is that as Comrade Zhu Yuanzhang saw it, because of the land, the military households in these guard posts can be self-sufficient, and there is no need for the court to allocate additional food to feed these military households.
But Comrade Zhu Yuanzhang came from a humble background and lacked a long-term vision in doing things.
Regarding this point, some people may object, but Comrade Zhu Yuanzhang is indeed a comrade who lacks long-term vision. Regarding this point, the military household system is one, and the other is the enfeoffment system.
In the enfeoffment system, Comrade Zhu Yuanzhang enfeoffed each of his sons to various places, and each one became a vassal king with local and military power. This also laid the groundwork for Zhu Di to later seize the throne of Emperor Jianwen.
Comrade Zhu Yuanzhang only saw that this power was always in the hands of his old Zhu family, and he thought wishfully that his chosen successor would be at the center, and other feudal princes and kings would wholeheartedly submit to his chosen successor.
However, they did not see the danger of the country being divided at all. Historically, the Rebellion of the Eight Kings of the Jin Dynasty was due to the fact that the princes and kings had too much power and had the power to have soldiers. In the end, the entire northern Han people were involved in the Rebellion of the Eight Kings because of the internal affairs of their Sima family.
Fighting and almost perishing.
In the Han Dynasty in history, it was also because Liu Bang enfeoffed too many princes and kings, and the princes and kings were so powerful that generations of emperors of the Liu family were worried about dealing with these princes and kings.
Comrade Zhu Yuanzhang was short-sighted and wanted to enfeoff princes and kings. When he was here, his sons were naturally honest and honest, and no one dared to say "no" to him.
However, as soon as Comrade Lao Zhu died, his grandson was immediately taken away from his country by his son. This is enough to show that the enfeoffment system was a very failed system.
This also shows that Comrade Lao Zhu's vision is very short-sighted.
Returning to the military household system, according to the system set by Comrade Lao Zhu, he could indeed feed an army of millions without spending any money. Even the border troops were fed by the salt introduction system, which was a huge savings.
financial burden.
But times are changing and everything is constantly changing.
Because of the military household system, all the heroes who were good at fighting and conquering the world became peasants. At first, it was nothing, but after one or two generations, these heroes who could defeat the Northern Yuan Dynasty completely became honest and honest soldiers.
, a farmer who only knows how to farm.
And because of the military household system, these military households cannot engage in other industries and can only serve as soldiers. The population and number of these military households are constantly expanding, but there is always only so much land for military households.
This will lead to the life of military households becoming increasingly poor. Gradually by the time of the Hongzhi Dynasty, the military household system has basically been corrupted. Military households can't even eat, so why do you expect them to go to war?
In addition, because they are hereditary, these military households also have to endure the exploitation of hundreds or thousands of households. These thousands of households, hundreds of households, etc. not only occupy the fields belonging to the guards, but also enslave and exploit these military households. These military households will
Treat the household as his own slave.
Zhu Yuanzhang was able to fight powerful troops from all over the world. Because of this system, his combat power plummeted. When it came to the Tumubao Incident, the Ming army was defeated. In addition to being blindly commanded by eunuch Wang Zhen, it was very important.
One reason is that under the military household system at that time, the combat effectiveness of the Ming army was already pitifully low.
It is no longer Zhu Yuanzhang and Comrade Zhu Di's powerful army fighting in all directions, but a group of peasants who have temporarily armed themselves with weapons. It is simply ridiculous to expect them to defeat the Tatars.
From these two aspects, we can see that Comrade Lao Zhu actually has a poor vision. He sees very short-term and cannot see the long-term.
In addition, Comrade Lao Zhu was really mean to officials. The salary of officials in the Ming Dynasty was the lowest in all dynasties. Officials did not have enough to eat, but they expected the people below to have enough.
Therefore, corruption was common in the Ming Dynasty, and even Comrade Zhu Yuanzhang could not prevent this phenomenon from happening, because officials are also human beings and they also need to eat well.
Take back military power from the civilian clique and reform the military system of the Ming Dynasty.
The garrison system had been completely corrupted and had no value in continuing to exist. In fact, in the late Ming Dynasty, in order to deal with border troubles, the Ming Dynasty had to reform the military household system and slowly cultivated some professional soldiers.
Therefore, in Liu Jin's plan, in the future, the Ming Dynasty will still have to gather professional soldiers and future generations of conscripts. When you are a soldier, you can be a soldier with peace of mind and train when you need to train, instead of becoming a soldier and a farmer at the same time.
And with the emergence of capitalism, technology will slowly develop, and the weapons and equipment used will also be constantly innovated. By then, it will no longer be a fight with swords, but a confrontation between giant ships and cannons.
The traditional military household system simply cannot meet this point. Professional soldiers and compulsory soldiers must be combined to cultivate a strong army that adapts to the requirements of the times.
Of course, this is Liu Jin's long-term plan, but now he has a huge headache. It is definitely not an easy task to take back the military power from the civilian group.
The civil service group will not give away military power easily. This is the power that they finally seized from the Tumu Fort Incident. How can they easily take away more power?
Therefore, Liu Jin and Zhu Houzhao were patrolling the border army at this time. The most important thing was to make trouble. No matter whether there was something or not, they had to find out something. Only in this way could they have excuses and reasons.