Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

"The number of the 26 guards has already been determined, and I think it should not be changed at will."

"Your Majesty, you can give the Daxing Zuowei and Tongzhouwei to the Crown Prince to make up the six guards."

Listening to Yuan Keli's statement, Zhu Youjian shook his head and said:
"otherwise!"

"The fixed number of twenty-six guards no longer exists after the three guards of Zhuolu and the five guards of Dongning were adjusted in their affiliations."

"There are now a total of thirty-four personal guards. I plan to add two more, one for the crown prince, and one for the crown prince together with the Daxing Left Guard."

"What do you think of this distribution plan?"

Upon hearing the emperor's plan, the ministers were silent for a moment.

The Crown Prince was short of one guard, the Crown Prince was short of two guards, but there were only two guards left among the personal guards.

This means that at least one guard must be sent from the capital's garrisons under the jurisdiction of the Five Military Commanderies.

Now that the emperor wanted to allocate two guards to make up the thirty-six guards of his personal army, they really could not think of any reason to object.

Do we have to argue with the emperor over a garrison so that his personal army can only have 35 guards?
Not only did the emperor think it sounded bad, even they thought that "three-five" was not a good number.

Also, after the Three Yulin Guards, the Three Yanshan Guards, and the Daxing Left Guard were assigned to the Crown Prince and the Grandson, they would all be transferred out of the capital.

They felt that there was no need to argue with the emperor over the ownership of a Wei, so they just acquiesced to the matter.

However, Yuan Keli still said:
"Thirty-six is ​​exactly the number of Tiangang. The twelve guards of the inner court, ten guards of the crown prince, and six guards of the crown prince's grandson have also been determined."

"I think the number of guards should be set at this number and cannot be changed at will."

Obviously, he was afraid that the emperor would act on his own will and continue to ask for an increase in his personal guards.

Zhu Youjian really didn't have this idea, because he felt it was difficult to fully control the current thirty-six guards, so he nodded and said:
"The Shangzhi Qinjun will be assigned to the Thirty-Six Guards from now on."

"Those guards that have not been established should be established, and those that need to be renamed should also be renamed."

"I want to change the name of Daxing Zuowei to Xiaoqi Zuowei, and give it to the Crown Prince together with Xiaoqi Youwei. What do you think?"

After the name change and allocation, the crown prince had the Palace Army Vanguard, the Cavalry Left and Right Guards, and the Three Guards of Yanshan, a total of six personal guards.

Except for the vanguard of the government army, all others would be transferred out of the capital and dispersed in Haidian, Chaoyang and other places.

The ministers approved of this adjustment, but they had different opinions on how to manage the six guards of the crown prince.

The Crown Prince is only about one year old now, and there is still no sign of a Crown Prince. It is estimated that we can only consider this matter after twenty years.

So the question is how to manage the six guards of the Crown Prince.

Minister of Rites Cheng Ji ordered:

"The Crown Prince already has six guards, and he will also be granted territory in the future."

"I think we should set up an office for the Crown Prince in the same way as the Crown Prince's Eastern Palace."

Zhu Youjian nodded slightly and said:
"Most of the officials in the Eastern Palace are concurrently ministers of the imperial court."

"The same will be true for the Crown Prince's office in the future."

"The six guards of the crown prince are set up as guard headquarters. Before the crown prince is appointed, they are managed by the Imperial Horse Administration."

In this way, there were twelve guards directly under the Imperial Stables. The ministers were furious and felt that so many troops could not be given to eunuchs.

They all expressed that it should be managed by civilian and military officers, just like the Prince's Guard Headquarters.

Even if the crown prince would not be appointed until 20 years later, these officials should be appointed first. Their resistance this time was so fierce that Zhu Youjian, after consideration, finally had to give in and decided to hand over the six guards of the crown prince to the officials of the court who were also the crown prince's subordinates.

However, he still made it clear that the Six Guards of the Crown Prince did not belong to the Five Ministries, but were managed by the Inner Court as the Imperial Guards.

The ministers then remembered that the Imperial Guards had not yet been established. Yuan Keli said:
"In addition to the six guards of the Imperial Horse Guard, the six guards of the Imperial Uniform Guard, the ten guards of the Crown Prince, and the six guards of the Crown Prince's grandson, there are still eight guards in the imperial army."

"These eight guards should establish a personal army protectorate, which should be managed by the commander-in-chief and the military protector."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Youjian smiled and said:

"There is no need to establish a Royal Army Protectorate!"

"These eight guards are all under the Five City Military Command and the Garrison District, and are jointly managed by the military commanders and guards."

"It is redundant to establish another Royal Guards Protectorate. There is no need to duplicate it."

Yuan Keli and others thought about it carefully and realized that the remaining four guards of the palace army belonged to the Zhongcheng Bingmasi, the Huben Zuowei and Jiyangwei belonged to the Dongcheng Bingmasi, the Jizhouwei belonged to the Xicheng Bingmasi, and the Tongzhouwei belonged to the Tongzhou garrison area.

Each of them already has a military commander involved in management, so there is really no need to set up a personal military protectorate.

In addition, they were also worried that after the establishment of the Imperial Guards, the Imperial Guards Commander would take advantage of the emperor's favor and do whatever he wanted. They did not mention the matter again, and the Imperial Guards Command was not established in the end.

Zhu Youjian did not intend to set up a Protectorate of the Imperial Guards, because he knew that compared with civil officials, military generals who held great power needed to be guarded against more carefully.

Especially after the establishment of the Protectorate of the Imperial Guards, they would instinctively expand their power and want to place all the Imperial Guards under the Protectorate of the Imperial Guards.

Rather than creating a dispute, it is better not to establish it at all. Divide the thirty-six guards into several sections so that no one can control them all at once.

The disadvantage also lies here, even the emperor cannot control all the guards at once.

However, compared to the previous situation where they could only control the Jinyiwei and Tengxiang Four Guards, it must be much better. If they relax a little, most of the personal guards will be taken away by the civil officials.

It can be said that all the systems set up by Zhu Youjian were preparations for laziness:
He would not be like Emperor Taizu, who wanted to take charge of all matters, and the systems he established also required the emperor to be extremely diligent.

The previous emperors of the Ming Dynasty have proved that most emperors are lazy.

How to ensure that power would not be arbitrarily seized in the event that the emperor was lazy was one of his core considerations for this reform.

He wanted to ensure that the emperor, even though he was only an average person, could still effectively control the court and govern the Ming Dynasty.
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After determining the affiliation of the Imperial Guards, there was only one last question left for the adjustment of the Imperial Guards:
Choose which guard to use as the rear guard.

Zhu Youjian originally planned to choose one from the Longxiang Guard and Yingyang Guard, but after seeing the guard post of the Nanjing Five Military Commandery, he decided:
"The Henghai Guards were transferred to Songjiang Prefecture to serve as the imperial guards."

"From now on, the prince must go to Dongning without support."

"The Henghai Guard's transport vessels and bannermen moved to the sea and selected a place to cultivate land in the area of ​​Shanghai County, Songjiang Prefecture."

It can be said that he chose a good place for the prince's imperial guards.

In the future, the prince will be able to use this bond to establish good relations with the officials and people of Jiangnan.

As for the Beijing-Tianjin corridor in the north, three guards are enough, and the subordinate thousand households can be dispersed and resettled.

After hearing the emperor's arrangement, all the ministers agreed and approved.

Although the Yulin guards were placed a bit far away in Songjiang Prefecture, they felt more at ease compared to placing them in Shuntian Prefecture.

The officials in Jiangnan, in particular, thought that this was a good idea as they thought that the prince would send officials to Songjiang Prefecture to manage the imperial guards.

The five guards of Yulin and the five guards of Dongning were finally determined as the ten guards of the crown prince. (End of this chapter)