The sky is filled with red clouds and the evening breeze is gentle.
Lao Zhu was summoning Wu Kai to discuss the handover of Haimen City Defense to the Yongwei 1st Battalion, when he suddenly heard loud noises outside the general's residence.
"What's the fuss about?"
Wang Chuang reported loudly outside, "When I return to your Highness, I don't know who leaked the news of His Highness's arrival. There are also thieves who deliberately spread rumors to create chaos and instigated many Haimen guards and soldiers from the auxiliary camp to come and claim rewards."
.Please rest assured, Your Highness, the Yongwei Battalion has guarded the General's Mansion and they cannot cause trouble."
When Lao Zhu heard this, he was silent for a moment and did not panic.
The entire Haimen Association Camp only has 120 soldiers capable of fighting. Although the Haimen Guards originally had 5,600 soldiers, how many real soldiers are there now?
It is estimated that Mr. Zhao Qian was dissatisfied after being kicked out just now and wanted to stir up trouble. He even wanted to capture Zhu Yihai so that he could be surrendered to the Qing Dynasty for merit.
Wu Kai also clearly thought about it, and there was an uneasy look on his face. He knelt down directly to Lao Zhu and apologized, "It is the general who is unable to discipline me. Please allow me to go out and clean up these bastards."
Lao Zhu just smiled and said, "What is supposed to come will come. I originally wanted to clean up these bad things later, but since it has caused trouble, let's clean it up first. You can rest assured and wait here. Wang Youyi is
A brave general of the Yongwei camp, the adopted son of Lord Jingguo, not to mention a three-hundred-franc machine musketeer."
Lao Zhu poured Wu Kai a cup of tea and pushed it over.
Wu Kai was sweating. He had just received a reward from General Kaiyuan and General Huangyan, but something like this happened to his subordinates.
After drinking a cup of tea, the commotion over there has basically subsided.
Wang Chuang came in carrying a tied-up officer, who turned out to be Mr. Zhao Qian, Wu Kai's brother-in-law.
"Zhao Jin, you are so brave!" Wu Kai stepped forward angrily and slapped him with a few big-eared melon seeds.
Zhao Jin had several teeth knocked out. He knew that there was no way to survive, but he just spat at him, "Bah, Wu Kai, you are blinded by lard. You insist on taking a dead end, but you don't care about the lives of your brothers."
Do you have a future? Who doesn’t have a family to support, and who doesn’t have parents, wife and children?”
As he spoke, he even yelled at Lao Zhu, "Do you think this is still the old Ming Dynasty? Do you think that just because you have the title of King of Lu, you can really become a prisoner or even an emperor? You are just dreaming, this Ming Dynasty is rotten to the core.
, there is no way to save him. It’s time to change his dynasty and surname!”
Lao Zhu just looked at him coldly, "Everyone has his own ambitions, and you can't force him. Earlier, you wanted to surrender to the Tatars. For the sake of General Wu, I let you go. But instead, you repaid kindness with hatred and wanted to cause trouble.
You are seeking your own death."
Wu Kai gritted his teeth and said, "This type of thief is unreasonable. Please, Your Highness, Xu Zuichen, please kill this thief with your own hands!"
Lao Zhu asked Wang Chuang, "How many people are following this Zhao to cause trouble?"
"There are a dozen or so people taking the lead, followed by about a hundred or two hundred people who are messing around, and many people who don't know the situation are also coming here. But don't worry, Your Highness, we have completely controlled the gates of Haimen Guard City and the General's Mansion.
, In addition, the cooperative camp at the City God's Temple has also been controlled by us."
Lao Zhu found this boring.
The daring Mr. Zhao Qian is just a fool.
"Behead the thieves who are determined to surrender. As for the dozen guys, let them go, dismiss them from the army, and let them go."
"Your Highness?" Wang Chuangzi was surprised.
"Just kill the first culprit and forget about the rest." Lao Zhu didn't want to deal with these idiots.
"However, since they are making trouble in the name of asking for pay, it means that this is the case. General Wu, what about the unpaid wages of Haimen Xieying and Haimen Guard Station?"
Wu Kai lowered his head and said, "It's very serious."
How serious is the situation? In name, the troops at the Shanghai Guard Station have monthly rations, and the soldiers in the Taizhou General and Co-camp have military pay, but in fact, the arrears are serious.
Since the establishment of the Haimen Guards, military camps have also been opened, but in fact the military camps are not enough to supply monthly rations. The Haimen Guards' rated monthly rations are about 61,596 dan, but the military garrison only accounts for the monthly ration supply.
Of the 40%, the remaining 60% needs to be supplied by Linhai, Huangyan, Tiantai and other counties in Taizhou Prefecture.
Later, the Wei Station was reformed, and the monthly rations for the Wei Station were no longer distributed by the Wei warehouse, but were managed and distributed by the Taizhou Prefecture. Later, after the establishment of the Military Preparation Road, the distribution was uniformly managed and distributed by the Military Preparation Road.
Theoretically, for the Ming Dynasty Guards, the cavalry was given a monthly ration of two dan, the ordinary sergeants were given a monthly ration of 1 dan, those with families were given two kilograms of salt, and those without families were given one kilogram of salt. The army horses were also given three liters of beans and fifteen fodder per day.
catty.
In addition, for military operations such as combat, preparation, border repair, autumn prevention, etc., additional provisions will be provided and the payment will be calculated according to the itinerary.
Roughly speaking, one guard is equivalent to four or five coins of silver per month.
However, this is only theoretical. In fact, the guard system has collapsed. Not only have most of the guard land been occupied by military officers, but the burden on local states and counties has also become increasingly heavy. Their finances have collapsed and they are unable to supply the monthly ration shortage of the guard.
, so I can only keep issuing IOUs.
The 3,000 troops in Taizhou's general-assisted camp were recruited from the camp after the collapse of the garrison.
At first, camp soldiers were recruited from the military households of the guard station, and were given two taels of silver and two pieces of cloth as rewards. Later, those who volunteered were given five taels of silver as settlement expenses, and their families were exempted from five shi of tax and grain.
The two members of the family are freed from corvee service.
Later, when the volunteers were not enough, they were recruited again, and each soldier was given three taels and five coins of silver, and one additional member of the family was exempted from the corvee.
All voluntary and drafted camp soldiers are not given monthly or line rations, only four buckets of rations per person per month.
Later, Anjia's silver continued to decline, down to about three taels, but his rations increased to a standard of one meter per stone.
Later, when wars became more frequent, the standards for recruiting soldiers were raised. Each recruit was given three taels of housing money and two taels of grain money. After joining the army, he also received a monthly ration of one to five taels.
At the time of the apocalypse, the Liao army's monthly military pay was about two taels, while the border troops from Guizhou, Sichuan and other places who entered Liaodong to fight, the monthly military pay standard was close to three taels.
At that time, Qi Jiguang's Qi family army's daily military pay standard was three cents and three cents for rations and one cent and two cents for line rations. The standard military pay for a year was about eighteen taels of silver.
On the surface, the salary is still quite high, but in reality, the benefits are greatly reduced.
The guards at Haimen Guard Station have not received their monthly rations for a long time. Even among the soldiers from the Taizhou Co-camp, only the 120 soldiers can get paid, and the rest can only fend for themselves.
Even if they go to make a living on their own, they still have to pay General Wu Kai a sum of money every month, which is equivalent to paying the money so they don't have to stay in the military camp and make money to support their families.
Lao Zhu knew that the finances collapsed at the end of the Ming Dynasty, but wars continued in the Central Plains and outside the customs. Therefore, the court finally had to impose an additional three rates in addition to the regular taxes, more than 7 million in Liao rates, more than 2 million in suppression rates, and more than 700 percent.
Training pay, this huge three-pay levy has brought suffering to countless people, but it still cannot solve the needs of military expenses.
The normal annual income of the imperial court at the end of the Ming Dynasty was more than 14 million taels, but in the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the additional three rates were actually as high as more than 21,100,000 taels. What's even more terrible is that not all of these increased rates can go into the imperial treasury, and
Countless corrupt officials took advantage of the opportunity to commit more corruption.
Eastern Zhejiang was originally a prosperous land, and Haimen was very prosperous because of its ports and docks, where merchants gathered. However, it was still affected by these problems. The most direct one was that the Haimen guards could not receive their monthly rations, and Taizhou Xieying was seriously in arrears with pay.
Today, some people are using arrears to cause trouble, which has a strong mass base and will ignite at a moment's notice, just like dry wood encountering a raging fire.
Zhao Qianzong can be killed, but since the issue of salary and food debt has been raised, it is not easy to calm down.
Lao Zhu stood up.
"Go meet everyone outside and discuss how to solve this problem."
"Your Highness, the situation outside is fierce. You must not go out."
"You are already in charge of supervising the country, why don't you dare to see your own people and soldiers?"