Chapter 529 The Tax Audit Team That Never Backs Down
For officials in the Ming Dynasty, they had many scruples about surrendering to the Tang Dynasty. This was not only due to the traditional loyalty to the emperor that bound them on a moral level, but more importantly, once they surrendered to the traitors, their families would be
All the teachers and friends will be implicated.
This situation is especially obvious among civil servants, so so far, although there are many senior officials of the Ming army, even Zhong Guangjun, who have commanded their ministers to surrender to the Tang Dynasty, they all have one thing in common, that is, they
Most of them are military commanders.
However, there are only a very small number of civil servants, especially those who were born as serious Jinshi scholars, and they are also limited to middle and low-level officials.
There were some prisoners, but most of them were smelly and stubborn old stubborns. Although they were afraid of death and did not dare to commit suicide, they still did not have the courage to surrender to the thieves.
It would be okay if Li Xuan forced them to change their ways with swords and guns, but this is not necessary. Since Li Xuan doesn't pay much attention to their official talents, and their official positions are low and they have no important political influence,
So it doesn't make much sense to force them to surrender.
But if they are senior civil servants such as the chief envoy or even the governor of a province, I am afraid that Li Xuan will try his best to get them to surrender, including coercion and inducement.
It is a pity that so far, the Tang Dynasty has still not been able to capture such high-ranking officials. It has harvested several corpses, but the corpses are of little use. The publicity has helped to clear the names of these high-ranking officials who committed suicide.
It's hard to deal with demoted officials, but it's much easier to deal with ordinary soldiers. Anyway, for these ordinary soldiers, they are serving as soldiers to feed themselves. To work for the Zhu family dynasty is to work hard, and to work for the Li family dynasty is also to work hard!
And a very important point is that they are garrison soldiers, and the garrison soldiers are basically field soldiers, which means that their families are all in Guizhou or Guangdong and Guangxi areas. If they turn into traitors, they don't have to worry about their families being persecuted by the Ming Dynasty.
Even if the families of these soldiers are still in the areas controlled by the Ming Dynasty, the safety of their families can be guaranteed. Even if the Ming Dynasty goes crazy, it is impossible to massacre the families of these soldiers who surrendered to the traitors. That is not a few thousand.
Ten thousand people, but more than 100,000 or more people.
Besides, the Ming Dynasty had no way to tell who died in battle and who surrendered to the traitors!
In addition to the above two conditions, the temptation offered by the Puppet Tang Bandit Army was too great. They promised that as long as they joined the garrison and served the Tang Dynasty, they would be guaranteed three meals a day, at least two of which would be dry food. Although
It is still a coarse grain, but it can definitely fill your stomach.
At the same time, there is also salary available. Although the salary is not much, it can still provide some subsidies to the family!
In addition, if you have skills, such as cavalry, gunners, archers, sword and shield bearers, etc., and after being selected, you can join the regular army of the Tang Dynasty King's Division, but the treatment of the regular army of the Tang Dynasty is hard to say.
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The only thing about food is: you have enough to eat! As long as you can eat as much as you want, and it's all high-quality white rice, you can still have a meal of meat every three to five days.
This food alone is enough to make countless Ming troops drool. To put it bluntly, this food standard has surpassed the average level of contemporary small landowners!
In other words, even the small landowners in the countryside did not have as much food as the regular soldiers of the Tang Dynasty King's Division.
Regarding these food standards, the soldiers who surrendered from the Ming army had only one word to say: surrender!
Even when the officials in the Ming Dynasty heard about the food standards of the Puppet Tang rebels, most of them thought that the Puppet Tang rebels were bragging. A few knew that this was true, but they were also puzzled that the Puppet Tang rebels had no brains.
What a joke, why do you want to feed those soldiers so well? Just give them some food to keep them from starving to death. If you sell these grains, it would be great to share the money with everyone!
No one is wondering where the Tang Dynasty got so much food from. It was not easy, they were all stolen from the Ming army!
During the Battle of Wuzhou, several large warehouses were filled with the grain captured, which was enough for the existing Tang Dynasty king to eat with all his heart. As for what to do after eating, continue to plunder. Anyway, don’t expect the Tang Dynasty to have its own food.
The land can produce so much food.
What to do if you can’t get it! You’re hungry, what else can you do? Do you still want food to fall from the sky?
In short, if there is food, eat it; if there is no food, grab it; if you can’t grab it, endure it!
In addition to food, joining the regular army can also divide the land. You don't have to do anything. As long as you can join the regular army, you can get a share of the land immediately. Well, as long as the Tang Dynasty does not fall, this land will always be yours and can be passed down.
Give it to future generations and will never take it back.
Li Xuan means what he says, and he will give you the land if he says it will!
Who is Li Xuan? He is a sage through the ages. He will divide the land when he says it will be divided. He will never do the thing of dividing the land first and then returning it to the state. He still wants this face.
But if the Ming Dynasty comes over and the field is taken back by the Ming Dynasty, there will be no way!
The combination of the two policies of high-standard food and land allocation is extremely lethal these days!
Not to mention that it was extremely attractive to the soldiers who surrendered to the Ming Army, the children from poor families also enthusiastically signed up to join the army for these two reasons.
Otherwise, the Tang Dynasty has gone through several wars, and the casualties are not small. But why can it maintain the replenishment of existing troops and continuously expand new troops? It is because there are so many people coming to serve as soldiers!
In other words, the regular army has relatively high quality requirements for its soldiers. If the requirements were lowered, the source of recruits in the Tang Dynasty could increase several times on the current basis.
Therefore, the recruitment and surrender of the 20,000 surrendered troops in Wuzhou went very smoothly. I dare not say all of them, but more than half of the surrendered troops expressed their willingness to join the Tang Dynasty King's Division and serve the eternal sage, the great and glorious Emperor Li Xuan.
, some elites will be selected from these people to join the regular army.
The remaining people were a little hesitant at first, but after hearing that if they didn’t join the Tang Dynasty King Master, they would have to work hard in mining and repairing the city, some people were willing to say that their previous decision was wrong and they had changed their minds and were willing to join.
The king of the Tang Dynasty became the master.
There are still a few people left who would rather work as coolies than go to the battlefield. We cannot be too coercive with these people. We can just arrange for them to work as coolies in mining. Anyway, the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty has a huge demand for free labor.
great.
After all this hard work, the existing garrison brigades were supplemented with strength, the sixth garrison brigade was newly built, and the seventh garrison brigade was also strengthened, with almost two thousand more troops.
Finally, we temporarily raided a garrison.
And while Li Xuan was torturing Wuzhou City in the rear, demoting officials and soldiers, etc., a new round of war started in Guilin Mansion.
Although the Fourth Army has not yet reached Guilin Prefecture, the previous temporary first regiment has been supplemented by a batch of equipment and soldiers. Although the current temporary first regiment is not as powerful as the regular army infantry regiment, it can still be regarded as
They are very powerful, and they also have cannons and a small group of cavalry.
By accepting surrenders from the Ming army along the way, and adding a number of new soldiers supplemented by the Operations Department, the first regiment now has two reserve battalions, three garrison battalions, in addition to an artillery team and a cavalry team.
The team, the first baggage battalion and other miscellaneous auxiliary troops were piled up, and the total strength reached about 3,000 people.
Although it is still too difficult to capture the city of Guilin with this small force, the temporary first regiment has successfully swept away many other prefectures and counties in Guilin, especially in the west and south.
Therefore, when the Fourth Army went north, they didn't encounter any Ming troops. Instead, they encountered support from some local bandit camps.
In Guilin Prefecture, a bandit-catching camp was naturally established like other places. However, the scale of bandit-catching camps in the Tang Dynasty has been greatly reduced compared to before.
Because the pressure on military expenditures is extremely high, and with the garrison serving as auxiliary troops, there is no need for the pirate battalion to participate in the second-line operations. Therefore, except for important areas, the scale of the pirate camp has been greatly reduced in other ordinary places!
According to the consultations between the Patrol Department, the Ministry of War, the Privy Council and other departments of the Tang Dynasty, it has been stipulated that the anti-theft team should be set up in the county, the anti-theft camp should be set up in the prefecture, the large county should set up the brigade, the small county should set up the small team, the big prefecture should set up the big camp, and the small prefecture should set up the small team.
Based on the principle of camp, we vigorously reduce the scale of the robbery camp.
Nowadays, basically an ordinary county has only a hundred people in its anti-robbery team. If it is a county with a large population, it will be increased to one hundred and fifty people. If it is a strategic location, the coordination government will dispatch several anti-robbery camps.
The number of troops deployed in the county was further reduced to 80 or even 50 in the small population counties.
If it is a county where a prefectural city is located, the county does not have an anti-robbery team, and the prefectural anti-robbery camp directly supervises the security of the county. For an ordinary prefecture, the standard number of people for the anti-robbery camp is 350, which is three
Team size.
If it is a special area such as a populous city, a large commercial city, or a strategic location, one or two teams will be added as appropriate, but in principle it will not exceed five teams.
If it is a small government, it will be reduced to one team and two teams will be under its jurisdiction.
After reducing the establishment in this way, the scale of the bandit camp was successfully controlled, allowing it to truly become a local security force without causing too much pressure on military expenditures.
Although the establishment of the robbery camp has been reduced, it is still enough to control the local area, because these days many counties only have a total population of tens of thousands, and county towns usually only have a few thousand people living there, so a robbery team of a hundred people is enough to intimidate the local area.
Not only did the scale of the robbery camp shrink, but as the control area of the Tang Dynasty gradually increased, the establishment of another armed force of the Tang Dynasty: the tax inspection team also began to shrink. In the past, one county might have
There are hundreds of people, but although this situation still exists, it is basically limited to the newly occupied areas.
Under normal circumstances, tax resistance incidents occur one after another in the newly occupied areas, so a strong tax inspection team is needed to carry out strong tax collection.
When the Tang Dynasty took more complete control over the occupied areas, the size of the tax inspection team would generally begin to decrease. Of course, the number of people was not reduced, but was transferred to other newly occupied areas. And those scum of the tax inspection team
We also extremely welcome this method, because in this way, they can move from a place that has been searched to a place that has not yet been searched. What does that mean? It means oil and water!
Therefore, the tax inspection team's battles have always followed the pace of the Tang Dynasty Army. They can proudly say: We are fighting side by side with the Army and have never flinched!