In the early morning, Wu Shigong came to the gate of Xue Mansion. All the people at the door had organized their teams and were waiting for him, including Wu Mian leading the thirty soldiers from the Bingma Division. Wu Shigong looked at Xue Qiang and Xue Yong.
The two faces that were swollen like pig heads made me feel a little funny. It seemed that Xue Yongli's attack yesterday was quite severe. Yesterday, after Xue Lian called the two of them to the study room, he punished them with both kindness and punishment. Although because of
The negligence of these two pig heads deprived them of their monthly salary for two months, but they still made Xue Yong the captain of Wu Shigong's personal bodyguard, and Xue Qiang the deputy. Because after all, they were Xue Lian's personal bodyguards, and they were Xue Lian's personal bodyguards.
Lian's confidant.
The guards were all equipped with horses. They were very thoughtful and brought an empty horse to Shumo. But Shumo couldn't ride a horse. Besides, the horses in Xue's mansion were all military horses and they were all very tall. Shumo didn't know how to ride a horse.
Mo was so anxious that he circled around the horse. Looking at Shu Mo's funny look, bursts of laughter came from all around. Wu Shigong shouted: "Shu Mo, don't make a fool of yourself. Just take the horse to the Yamen today."
After arriving at the Yamen, I will practice horse riding on the school grounds today, so as not to embarrass me in the future."
So, a group of people started to set off. They were not walking very fast, because except for Wu Mian who brought a horse himself, the other soldiers in the Bingma Division were all on foot, not to mention Shu Mo, who was holding the horse with a sad face. Suddenly
, a black shadow appeared in front of him, and a group of people knelt down in front of their horses. Everyone reined in their horses and stopped their horses. But Wu Shigong was not skilled in riding horses after all, and he almost fell down in panic.
The horse dismounted. In this situation, Wu Shigong was covered in cold sweat, and he was a little lucky in his heart: Fortunately, he didn't fall off the horse, and there was no traffic accident in the Ming Dynasty. But then, he felt angry, and he didn't know who it was.
Standing in front of the horse life and death?
Wu Shigong sat firmly on his horse and took a closer look. He saw a big black man kneeling in front of their horses. He kept kowtowing and shouting: "Master, master, the younger one is He Fei, the younger one is He Fei..."
The fire in Wu Shigong's heart became even greater. After being influenced by so many modern costume TV dramas, Wu Shigong took it for granted that the black man was the one who stopped the horse to complain. But the TV series told us that the people who stopped the horse to complain were all cute.
Pretty little widow, what are you doing with this black muscular man jumping out?
What's even more confusing is that the black muscular man's name for himself is simply too strange. After Wu Shigong traveled to the Ming Dynasty, he never heard any slave call his master "Master".
If Wu Shigong hadn't noticed that the person next to him didn't have that big shiny braid on the back of his head, he would have thought he had traveled back in time to the Qing Dynasty again. This made Wu Shigong's heart even more inflamed.
"He must be a psychopath!" Wu Shigong immediately made a decision in his heart.
So, Wu Shigong immediately gave an order to drag the black muscular man aside. Unexpectedly, the black muscular man struggled while being dragged by the soldiers and shouted loudly: "Master, you can't treat the little one like this.
.The young one and the master are the same family! Ah——! The young marquis!"
"Little Marquis!?" Wu Shigong felt that the guards of the Xue Mansion were sizing him up secretly. Wu Shigong understood that the title "Little Marquis" should not be used indiscriminately. Generally, it can only be used by the eldest son of the Marquis. Of course, if
If the son of a certain marquis (not the crown prince) is outside and is called this by others as a compliment, then no one will care about it. But now he is a wife-in-law in the Xue Mansion, so the guards of the Xue Mansion are not interested in anyone calling him that.
The young Marquis must be very sensitive.
Wu Shigong also pretended to be confused and ignored the looks of these guards. Instead, he became interested in the words of the one named "He Fei": "The young man and the master are the same family!". Could it be that his father Wu Weizhong was outside again?
What wild species are there?
"Drag him over here." Wu Shigong ordered. When the soldiers dragged the black muscular man in front of Wu Shigong's horse, Wu Shigong bowed his head and asked: "Quickly tell me, how come you and I are a family member?" Wu Shigong thought in his heart.
: If you kid can't tell me one, two, three, four, five, even if your name is Yue Fei, I will beat you until even your mother can't recognize you.
Unexpectedly, after Na Hefei introduced himself, although he and Wu Shigong were not related, they could barely be said to be a family.
Do you still remember? At that time, Wu Shigong's ancestor, Wu Yuncheng, took refuge with Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty. Wu Yuncheng took his Mongolian tribe to the Ming Dynasty. Most of the people in this tribe still stayed in the border areas.
After more than two hundred years after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, no one knows where the shadows of these people have gone. And a small number of them, as the guards and slaves of the Wu family, accompanied the Wu family
Moved to the capital.
In the Gongshun Hou Wu family, the first children were selected from these tribes and their descendants. But as generations passed, the number of these Mongolian descendants became more and more, because here in the Ming Dynasty
There are no old ladies wearing red armbands to manage family planning. But the total number of guards and servants the Wu Mansion needs is so much. In addition, through marriages between nobles, the daughters-in-law who marry into the Wu family are always
Bringing some slaves, these people also became the children of the Wu family. And the children of this group of people surpassed the children of these Mongolian descendants in terms of work ability and appearance. Didn’t the Wu family transform into a scholarly family? So I like it more
The former type of family-born children were used as guards and servants of the Wu family (including embroidering bamboo and calligraphy and ink), which resulted in the employment scope of children of Mongolian descent becoming increasingly narrow. Although the Wu family still considered the family members,
Some relief was given to these Mongolian descendants, but on the whole, the lives of these Mongolian descendants were becoming more and more embarrassing. A small number of them broke away from the Wu family, started their own businesses, and completely Chineseized themselves into the common people of the Ming Dynasty.
But the vast majority of people are still struggling, hoping that there will be some opportunity in the Wu Mansion so that they can join the house and become domestic slaves. The same is true for He Fei.
Na Hefei, despite his muscular appearance, he was just doing odd jobs outside and didn’t have much money. He was almost thirty and had not found a wife yet. But this time, he inquired about Nancheng’s military commander
The company wants to recruit soldiers, and the going price offered outside is seventy taels of silver per person. He Fei really wants to be a soldier, but his family has no money, so even if he takes all the valuable things at home to the pawn shop, the most he can do is to pawn them.
He could only scrape together a few dozen taels of silver. But the black muscular man's brain was not slow at all. Yesterday, he just found out that the new commander of the Nancheng Army and Horse Command Department was married into the Xue family from the Wu family.
The fourteenth young master of the Wu family. Didn't he come from his master's house? So, He Fei waited for Wu Shigong at the door of Xue's house this morning, wanting to try his luck in building friendship.
That's it. No wonder Na Hefei called himself "Master", it turned out to be the name of the Mongolians. Only now did Wu Shigong realize that his ethnic identity was still a minority. Now that he met someone of the same ethnic group, plus
He is from the same tribe as him. Although he doesn’t know where that tribe is, he can help if he can. Anyway, yesterday, the official Xu told him that there were dozens of places to recruit soldiers. He didn’t know yet.
Where to recruit these soldiers?
So Wu Shigong asked He Fei how much silver he could bring with him. He Fei hesitated and said: He probably had fifteen to twenty taels of silver with him. Wu Shigong simply decided to recruit He Fei to command the army and horses in Nancheng.
Si. He asked He Fei to bring fifteen taels of silver tomorrow and meet him at the gate of Xue Mansion. The remaining thirty-five taels of silver were lent to him by Wu Shigong and did not count as much interest. He Fei could have some money in the future.
Pay him back the money slowly. After hearing the good news, He Fei happily kowtowed and thanked him. Wu Shigong ignored him and continued on his way.
Wu Shigong decided to collect money from He Fei. The main purpose was not to disrupt the recruitment of soldiers by the Bingma Division, otherwise it would easily cause conflicts with other leaders who collected money. Besides, He Fei didn't have any friendship with him, so why bother?
What about the fifty taels of silver that I lost? Being able to lend him thirty-five taels of silver, without interest, was already a great honor.
However, Wu Shigong had a curiosity in his heart, how much money could the soldiers of the Military and Horse Division earn in a year? So that outsiders would be willing to spend seventy taels of silver to buy this position. He called Wu Mian to his side and asked
He raised the question in his mind. Wu Mian answered him: In the capital, although the soldiers of the Bingma Division are also soldiers, they can only get 50% of the military salary every year. The monthly military salary of a soldier in the Ming Dynasty is: one tael
Five silver coins, one stone and a half meters, so in total, you should get about twenty-five taels of silver every year, but the soldiers of the Bingma Division can only have more than ten taels each at most. Moreover, the military pay issued by the Ming Dynasty was also quite stingy. Among these military pay,
It includes weapons equipment fees and military uniform fees. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, you can often see soldiers wearing tattered mandarin duck war jackets and holding tattered weapons. What is even more exaggerated is that as long as they are not fighting, they will be on duty during normal times.
In the war, the soldiers had to pay for their own meals. Therefore, in reality, the soldiers of the Bingma Division could not even receive a military salary of ten taels of silver in a year.
But the Soldiers and Horses Division has a lot of extra money. Including the extra money, each soldier can get less than forty taels of silver a year on average. Of course, some soldiers who don't do well may just get a dead soldier's pay, while those who do well may get a dead soldier's pay.
You can get a lot more soldiers. But there are two advantages to being a soldier in the Military and Horse Division: one is that as long as you don't make any mistakes, you can basically do this job for a lifetime, and there is no retirement in the Ming Dynasty. The second is to wait until you are old.
When you get old, you can leave the position of soldier to your son to inherit.
Wu Shigong understood, isn't this a modern civil servant? And what's even better than a civil servant is that this position can be replaced. So these seventy taels of silver are really not much. Think about it: a modern civil servant can earn 100,000 yuan a year
An annual salary of RMB 100,000. If it is open for sale and there is no need to take the civil service examination, then selling it for 200,000 yuan is simply a low price. The person who robbed it will not break his head. Not to mention that it can be replaced.
While chatting with Wu Mian, I felt that time passed quickly. Before I knew it, Wu Shigong and his party arrived at the Yamen of the Nancheng Military and Horse Command Department.