Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 14 Qi Family Army White Rod Army

In the hands of Zhu Youjian, this is a financial report from the Ministry of Households on the salary of the Liaodong Army, but the content is jaw-dropping.

From April in the forty-sixth year of Wanli to September in the first year of Taichang, the expenditure was 1051 taels.

Calculated, it is 30 months, with an average monthly expenditure of 35 taels.

Based on the fact that one member of the frontier army is 12 taels old, and those who are homeless in the Beijing Guards only receive 5.6 taels of military pay, the monthly military salary of just one town in Liaodong can support 35 troops.

Of course, military pay cannot be calculated in this way. After all, various equipment for training new troops is very expensive.

According to the "Ji Xiao New Book", it takes 10 taels of silver to cultivate three car camps. One car camp has [-] people and three car camps has [-] people. The annual expenditure of [-] taels is not high.

35 taels per month is 420 million taels a year. Even if inflation is taken into account and the price doubles, 420 million taels is enough to support 21 car battalions, that is, 63000 new troops.

This is still a new army trained by Qi Jiguang's standards.

If such an army appears on the Liaodong battlefield, let alone whether it can hold Liaodong, even the ancestral grave of Jiannu can be raised for him!
After spending tens of millions of taels of silver, but cultivating an army that could not fight Hou Jin head-on, Zhu Youjian didn't know what to say.

Of course he knew why he spent so much money, the reason was only two words "food".

Since the Gaohuai chaos in Liaodong, the Liao people generally did not trust the Ming Dynasty. They would rather seek refuge in Mongolia and Jurchen than settle in Liaodong.

This is the pot left by Wanli. This incident caused the Liao people to flee north. Three million Liao people could not support Liaodong Town, which had a fixed army of only [-].

Liaodong does not have enough local finances to support the army, so it can only rely on transfer payments from other places, and this goal is placed on the emperor's internal funds, that is, the internal transport warehouse.

Since Nurhachi raised troops, the Ming Dynasty invested in Liaodong Town equal to the sum of the other eight towns plus the Jingying.

The gap of four million taels can only be filled by the emperor's internal funds.

The annual income of the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was six million taels, accounting for 30% of the Ming Dynasty's finances.

However, the internal treasury needs to subsidize the imperial court most of the time. For example, Zhu Youjian's father, Zhu Changluo, allocated two million taels from the internal funds to fill the Nine Sides' military pay as soon as he came to power.

But after this operation, the Ministry of Household and the Ministry of War need to spend another sum of money to buy grain, just because of the low temperature period in the late Ming Dynasty, and the grain production capacity in the north was insufficient.

At the same time, there was one tael of grain per stone in Liaodong, perhaps four to five hundred wen in the southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, and only more than three hundred wen in Huguang.

The grain was transported by water, and officials and petty officials stopped them from eating kana. The grain worth more than three hundred coins was transported to the north, and the price soared.

Liaodong Town under Xiong Tingbi's command spends 420 million taels a year, nearly one-third of which is spent on food.

There is also a solution, that is to buy grain directly from Huguang, and take the sea along the Yangtze River to Liaodong directly.

But no one will do it, and no one dares to do it.

On the surface, the officials said that millions of people on both sides of the strait need water transportation to make a living.

In fact, the money that can be embezzled here is in the millions every year.

During the Chongzhen period, there was a Shen Tingyang who advocated shipping by sea, and saved hundreds of thousands of taels for the north in the early stage, but that was when Chongzhen had already killed officials.

And even so, Shen Tingyang was threatened by officials from Tianjin Wei, Shandong and other places.

Zhu Youjian knew how to do this, but he couldn't do it himself, and he didn't have any trusted officials to do it.

Shen Tingyang is just a student who is still studying hard at home, and Zhu Youjian has no way to let him do this.

It was impossible for him to watch Zhu Youxiao post money to do this, and the Ministry of Household Affairs asked Zhu Youxiao to reward him, but in fact, he hurriedly paid back.

But it's easy to send out this short sound, but it's hard to say whether it can reach the hands of the soldiers on the nine sides.

So after Zhu Youjian thought about it, he opened his mouth and said:

"Your brother thinks that it is right to make noises to announce to the world and the border guards, and convey the importance that the emperor attaches to them, and it cannot be less, only more."

"But how to make it sound, this is something that needs to be discussed."

"During the Yongle period, there were only [-] to [-] garrisons in Liaodong Town, but now there are [-] Liao soldiers, [-] guest troops, and [-] civilian laborers, totaling [-]."

"Although there are a large number of these troops, their combat effectiveness is very poor, and many soldiers are on empty pay. When they really encounter a war, they will encounter the embarrassing situation of having no soldiers to use."

"My brother's suggestion is that there are not many good soldiers, and Liao people who join the army will often flee north in less than a month, so they can transfer guest troops to garrison. Presumably Xiong Tingbi also thinks so."

"I heard that Qin Liangyu, chieftain of Shizhu, sent his brothers Qin Bangping and Qin Minping to Liaodong for support, and they have already marched to Luoyang."

"Although there are only [-] soldiers of Shizhu chieftain, they are very powerful. You should urge them to go to Liaodong and station in Shenyang."

"In this way, the [-] troops originally stationed in Shenyang can be eliminated, leaving only [-] troops and saving [-] taels a year."

"The [-] taels saved can be allocated [-] taels, with the Shizhu native soldiers as the guest army, and each soldier will be stationed in Shenyang with a military salary of [-] taels a year."

"In addition, the tribute that needs to be paid for the stone pillar will be exempted, and the tax will be exempted for three years."

"In this way, this measure can save the court at least [-] taels of silver."

"Okay!" Zhu Youxiao heard about the military affairs at the frontier. At noon, Fang Congzhe and the others talked about various things, and they moved to Qianqing Palace impatiently.

The reason is that a group of officials only know how to quarrel, but they can't come up with any way to reduce the salary of the Liaodong army.

But he didn't expect that this matter, which was quarreled by the ministers and workers in the court, could be solved so easily by his younger brother.

From this, he couldn't help seeing Zhu Youjian more pleasing to the eye, and asked in his heart:
"The method my brother said is good, but is there any other method to exchange the soldiers and horses in Liaodong Town?"

"Of course there are..." Zhu Youjian smiled wryly. He felt that after he said these things, the local military sect in Liaodong would hate him to the bone.

Most of the [-] Liaodong soldiers and horses were shortfalls, which were used by the local Liaodong generals to make money.

Zhu Youjian's words immediately made them lose two hundred thousand taels of taels, and no one would be happy.

But facing Zhu Youxiao's words, Zhu Youjian continued to say:

"Among the soldiers dispatched by the Ministry of War to support Liaodong, there is also a Zhejiang soldier. It is a new army trained by Qi Shaobao's nephew Qi Jin when he heard that Saarhu was going to war."

"Although it is a new army, its combat strength is not weaker than that of the Shizhu native soldiers, and there are even four thousand soldiers."

"They are good at defense as well as offense. If they can be transferred to Liaoyang, then the [-] local soldiers and horses in Liaoyang can be abolished."

"The military pay of the [-] soldiers and horses can save the court [-] taels."

"Even if the Zhejiang soldiers cost [-] taels per person, including the generals and supplies, the expenditure can be at most [-] taels, so it can save [-] taels of silver for the court."

(End of this chapter)