prosperous age

Chapter 463 Chapter 462
For Wei Guangde's curiosity, it is naturally impossible to get the answer from Zhang Juzheng.

This matter was a secret, Xu Jie did not tell Zhang Juzheng the arrangement for him, so although Zhang Juzheng had a smile on his face at this time, he was actually very puzzled in his heart, even though he was not jealous.

With teacher Xu Jie in the pavilion, of course Zhang Juzheng would not suspect that Wei Guangde took his chance, but he could only say that there might be something he didn't know about it, so he could only ask the teacher in time.

In the next two days, Wei Guangde entertained Tongnian and fellow countrymen at home, after all, it was a happy event for promotion.

When the fellow villagers get together, the most talked about is naturally the things about their hometown in Jiangxi.

"Yesterday I saw the book handed over by the Secretary of the General Administration. Governor Hu Songhu went to the siege. Jiangxi was spread by Fujian-Guangzhou thieves. The distance between the two provinces is thousands of miles. Although they were ordered to encircle them, they still joined forces The situation is inconsistent, and Zhangnan, Wuping, and Jianning are all evasive, and I don’t know what these officials from other places are thinking. At this time, they are not fighting against the enemy.”

"I've read the memorabilia. The main thing is that those who have made meritorious service from now on should be rewarded in accordance with the rules of catching Japanese in Fujian and Zhejiang. If there is no clear reward and punishment, the Jiangxi government and army may not be willing to put their heart into suppressing thieves."

"That's natural. The bandits in Fujian and Zhejiang are rewarded according to the routine for catching Japanese, and the Jiangxi government army will not get much rewards even if they kill the bandits. They will definitely feel dissatisfied."

"In my opinion, it's mainly about the distribution of bounties. Now Jiangxi is suppressing thieves. The bounty comes from Jiangxi Chief Envoy, while the Fujian and Zhejiang Army comes from Governor Hu Xingyuan. Jiangxi asked for instructions to temporarily detain and send additional taxes to suppress thieves. It was opposed by Governor Hu, and it was also delivered within a time limit."

All the officials here are Jiangxi natives, so they naturally talk about Jiangxi.

Jiangxi is also on the list of Hu Zongxian's suppression of the Japanese, but now the fujian thieves are fleeing to Jiangxi, and their lives are in dire straits.

Even Hu Song, the governor of Jiangxi, felt that it was very unfair, so while reporting the truth about Jiangxi, he also asked Hu Zongxian to pay the bounty for suppressing bandits.

"Shan Loan, what do you say?"

At this time, Lao Kan asked Wei Guangde.

Wei Guangde glanced at Lao Kan, and then at the fellow countrymen, he knew in his heart that these people might have been linked together before they entered the door, and maybe they wanted to jointly play together to support Hu Song's memorial.

"Although I haven't heard the court's opinion on this matter, I think it will be discussed in detail by the Ministry of War, and the regulations will be drafted and then approved by His Majesty."

After thinking about it, Wei Guangde said: "Therefore, we can actually do a lot. We can talk more about the injustice with the adults of the Ministry of War. The Ministry of War will naturally take care of it when it considers it."

Within two days, Wei Guangde heard the news in Prince Yu's mansion, but the memorial was transferred to the Ministry of War, and after the Ministry of War deliberated, Yang Bo presented the solution.

"Shangshu Yang Bo of the Ministry of War and others oversaw Jiangxi Fuyong's official announcement of the four provincial capitals' military suppression of bandits. Please strictly arrest the leader of the villain and his followers, and let them capture each other and surrender. They will report to the army for [-] times. Reward; Erting, Shao Jianning and other places are the main roads for the thieves to enter Jiangxi. It is advisable to order all the guards to meet the thieves to attack together so that they will not run away; ; Fourth, please borrow the Nanxiong and Huzhou salt taxes and leave the troops in Guangdong, Guangxi, Nanjiang and Jiangxi as supplementary expenses."

"Yang Shangshu's memorandum should be approved soon."

While Wei Guangde was watching Yang Bo's memorabilia carefully, Zhang Juzheng said with a smile.

"Yes, but Yang Shangshu seems to be able to join the Qin Tianjian as a supervisor."

Wei Guangde also replied with a smile. Under the strange eyes of Zhang Juzheng, Yu Wang and others, Wei Guangde said again: "Yang Shangshu said that the recent north-south sandstorms and earthquakes have reported disasters one after another. He thought it was all soldiers, ha ha."

"Shandai, Yang Shangshu's intention is just to remind the court not to focus all their attention on the southeast, as captives in the northwest are more harmful."

Zhang Juzheng said to Wei Guangde with a smile: "Xuanda Ji Town has Ida Xin'ai Badu'er Tuman, Liaodong has Hulaha Chizhan Xijineng and the small chieftains Lao Satutuo, etc., and Shanxi Yangu's three towns border The wall is crumbling, it should be repaired in time, hey”

When Wei Guangde and Zhang Juzheng were talking, Yu Wang sat at the head but was silent, just listening to their conversation quietly.

In the afternoon, Wei Guangde was suddenly invited by Li Fang to a wing room. When he entered the room, he saw that King Yu was already waiting in the room.

"Shan Loan, sit down and chat for a while."

King Yu got up to greet him, let Wei Guangde sit down and sat beside him, and said, "Before you said that if you want to eradicate the pirates in the southeast, you should take the bottom line and give the sea people a way to make a living. The people of my Ming Dynasty have become pirates, and I think so.

Today the enemy in the northwest is staring at us. Although we have built nine border military towns in the Ming Dynasty, they are separated by thousands of miles, and there should be no response. Is there a way to eradicate the border troubles once and for all? "

Hearing what King Yu said, Wei Guangde understood what he was asked to do.

Thinking of the matter discussed with Zhang Juzheng in the morning, Yang Bo's memorial was deployed in the southeast, but the military department focused on the northwest. In dealing with the Tatars, he wanted to resonate with King Yu and asked if there was a solution.

However, for the northern grasslands, Wei Guangde really has no good solution.

In fact, for thousands of years, the northern grassland peoples have been eyeing the Central Plains, and this is not an easy solution.

Moreover, Wei Guangde's family is a military household. If he really messes up the military household, it seems that he put shackles around his neck.

It is of course impossible to say that Wei Guangde does not understand the current situation of the Ming army.

The problems that the Ming Dynasty is currently encountering are, in fact, in essence, the officials in the court and the central government are well aware that the officials are not governed properly.

In the final analysis, almost all the problems encountered by the Ming Dynasty were caused by problems in the administration of officials, but there were various reasons for the problems in the administration of officials.

Gao Gong discovered this problem a long time ago, so he is also the official who is most unequivocal to rectify the administration of officials, and his thoughts have even deeply influenced King Yu.

Chen Yiqin, Yin Shizhen and others are also aware of it, but they may still have concerns, or think that rectifying the administration of officials is just one of them, and eliminating bad governance is the top priority.

As for Zhang Juzheng, he is similar to Gao Gong in that he is aware of the problem of official administration, but perhaps because he has seen many reasons for bad governance, he has to grasp it with both hands and be tough with both hands.

The biggest difference between Zhang Juzheng's thoughts at this time and Gao Gong's is that Gao Gong insisted on cracking down on severe punishments and laws to prevent official corruption, while Zhang Juzheng knew very well the truth that when water is clear, there will be no fish. Solve this matter in a gentle way, which may be the reason why he came up with the "examination method" in later generations.

As for eliminating malpractices, Zhang Juzheng previously realized that the biggest malpractice was the complexity of the government’s collection of taxes and services. Even many officials themselves did not know how to collect according to the national law, and they took it for granted from the common people.

During the discussion with Wei Guangde, Wei Guangde also gradually realized that Zhang Juzheng actually just wanted to find a set of easy-to-understand collection methods to let the government know how much to collect and let the taxpayers know how much to pay, instead of listening to the following The official said how much to charge.

However, up to now, he and Zhang Juzheng only thought of merging quantitative taxes and services, but they have never found out how to collect them, because at this time, the Ming Dynasty implemented collections in coins and in kind, as well as corvees, and it was really difficult to find a unified solution.

Thinking of what Zhang Juzheng said at the beginning, "the common people are forced to work hard", Wei Guangde felt the same way.

In fact, many of the people who forced the people of Ming Dynasty to break up their homes were not taxes but corvees.

What needs to be explained is that it’s not that Wei Guangde didn’t know how to reform the tax collection model of the Ming Dynasty, and directly adjusted the past physical objects, currency, and labor services to silver collection. It’s really the current Ming Dynasty, not to mention silver, even copper coins are actually lacking. .

Thinking back to the time when his uncle and father worked hard to replace the copper cannons issued by Jiujiangwei in the early Ming Dynasty with iron cannons, it is conceivable that all the copper materials they got were directly minted into coins.

The government does not have enough copper material to make money, so what will the currency in circulation among the people be like.

As for silver, it is even more in short supply. It is not a problem to ask for hundreds or thousands of taels normally, but it is another matter to collect taxes.

The Ming Dynasty now collects about 300 million taels of tax per year, many of which are copper coins. Silver is only exchanged for the convenience of escorting. It is not a currency recognized by the court and belongs to the category of precious metals.

During the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties, silver was expropriated and used by the government as currency, but not in Ming Dynasty.

Wei Guangde thought a lot, and his thoughts drifted unconsciously.

But in King Yu's eyes, it was Wei Guangde who was thinking and deliberating, so he sat quietly and waited.

The decline of the Ming army's military strength was not a matter of one dynasty or two dynasties. Although it is said that Yingzong defeated all the elite Ming army in Tumubao, the real situation is that the Ming army's military strength has been declining before that.

Before being surrounded by Tumu Fortress, Yingzong sent several soldiers and horses, especially the cavalry of the Jingying, who were defeated in the battle with Wala, so they had to shrink their troops and gather together, and finally they were all taken over by others.

And now, the situation in Daming Border Town is even worse.

Daming Kong has millions of troops, but they are all scattered in the frontier fortresses. The number of soldiers in each fortress ranges from a thousand to a few hundred. However, the original design of a tactic of supporting the surrounding army fortress when it was attacked did not I can't fight anymore.

In the end, the border forts were often destroyed, and the people and resources were plundered by the Tartars, and they walked away.

On the side of the Ming Dynasty, there will be endless mutual accusations.

Are the governors and governors responsible, and are the general soldiers and guards responsible?
If the quarrel was a little serious, it would turn into a civil and military dispute, and emperors like Emperor Jiajing, who played courtiers in the palm of their hands, were helpless about it.

This is the status quo of the Ming Dynasty. When some border towns were defeated, all parties shifted responsibility from each other. The original intention of setting up so many officials was to prevent problems before they happened, but in the end it became like this. No one should be dealt with or responsible.

In the end, it is often the emperor who picks out a few unlucky people to top the vat according to his own preferences, and dismisses him from office.

However, these involve the administration of officials, no matter whether they are civil servants or military generals, there is actually a very complicated background behind it, and the fastest effective method is nothing more than "selecting generals" and "training soldiers."

The current frontier generals of Ming Dynasty are different from what most people in the later generations understand. They are not all wine bags and rice bags. Many of them are actually generals who dare to fight. After all, they are all from the generals. .

However, Wei Guangde is well aware that these people have a lot of scruples. If they win, they can say, if they lose, they will get compensation if they die on the battlefield.

It is inevitable that commanders will be injured on the battlefield, but not many will die in battle.

It is precisely because of this that more and more generals, especially older generals, have gradually developed the habit of fearing war, always trying to find reasons to avoid war before going to war.

In fact, they lead the soldiers of the imperial court, so there is no need to preserve their strength, they just don't want to be thrown out as scapegoats.

In this era, there are no communication tools such as mobile phones and radio stations, and they can only rely on messengers to send orders around. The backward communication methods give them sufficient reasons-not to dare to act rashly without receiving military orders.

As a result, the battle that should have been supported by the four parties gradually turned into a battle of trapped beasts. The Tartars besieged the Ming army's border fort, while the surrounding Ming army watched the fire from the other side, euphemistically waiting for orders.

King Yu has been waiting for a long time. Although there is no impatient expression on his face at this time, Wei Guangde also knows that he can't continue to delay, and he still has to give some explanations today.

"Your Highness, in fact, there are many ways to solve the border disease, but to truly eradicate it, the only way is to become stronger yourself."

At this time, Wei Guangde simply sorted out his thoughts, looked at King Yu and talked eloquently: "At the beginning of the founding of my Ming Dynasty, how powerful was the army, and I chased the Mongolian Yuan to the north and restored China."

Wei Guangde did not directly talk about the selection of generals and military training, but first explained the glorious history of the army. Although he meant to put gold on his own face, it was also Wei Guangde's discovery of one of King Yu's hobbies, that is, to brag about the past of the old Zhu family Yu Wang's great achievements often make Yu Wang very happy.

Sure enough, when Wei Guangde said that Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di had repeatedly conquered Mongolia in the north, and the Mongolians could not lift their heads, King Yu had a warm smile on his face.

"It's just that up to now, the system of our Great Ming Guard has become dilapidated and decayed, and most of the guard soldiers are unfit for battle, all because the guard soldiers can only farm and can't kill people.

At the beginning, I told His Highness that the Jiujiang Guard had achieved outstanding results in several expeditions, but the actual situation of the guard was no different from other guards. Not crowded.

If the enemy is outnumbered, or even evenly matched, the battle situation will be unpredictable. "

Wei Guangde was self-deprecating again. Although he was telling the truth, it was self-effacement in King Yu's ears.

At least according to the news that King Yu knew, Jiujiangwei defeated the Japanese pirates several times, and fought several consecutive battles with the Japanese pirates in Zhejiang.

"To stabilize the northern frontier defense, it is actually simple to say, it is nothing more than selecting generals and training troops, selecting generals who can fight well, such as Ma Fang and Yu Dayou, and letting them train troops according to their own combat habits, but this is very difficult.

Once the general is transferred, half of the trained soldiers will be useless, but if the soldiers leave with the general, it will be very easy to change in the long run. At the beginning, I sought to have Ma Fang transferred to Ji Town, but the Ministry of War has never approved it. "

Wei Guangde's words made King Yu nod slightly, "The generals you recommended are all good. Although Ma Fang suffered several defeats on Xuanfu West Road, she is also the most dazzling general in Xuanda."

Speaking of this, King Yu couldn't help but hesitate, as if thinking of something, he murmured: "It turns out that Shandai recommends those virtuous people to Gu for this reason."

(End of this chapter)