Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

This adjustment of the garrisons was another weakening of the Five Military Commanderies.

The nobles had realized by now that even though the garrisons directly under the Five Prefectures still belonged to the Five Prefectures in name, they were actually assigned to the Five Cities Military Command.

Even if the Bingmasi commander will select the governors of the five prefectures to serve concurrently, it will still be somewhat inconvenient compared to the previous direct jurisdiction of the garrisons.

What's more, each of the five city military divisions will have a military guard division, which is another constraint for them.

In the future, it will be difficult for the Five Military Governors' Office to interfere in these garrisons.

This made them look at the emperor with extremely resentful eyes:
Previously, I thought that the emperor let the five ministries take charge of the five military camps in order to expand their power, but I didn't expect that they would be weakened in the back. There were only eight guards and two guards left under their direct jurisdiction.

Under the gaze of all the nobles, Duke of England Zhang Weixian had to stand up and say:

"Your Majesty, in the future, what else will the Five Military Command Office do besides directly managing the Eight Guards and Two Stations?"

"We, your Majesty, sincerely wish to serve you!"

Zhang Weixian emphasized the word "Your Majesty".

It shows that no matter what their abilities, the nobles will be loyal to the emperor.

Unlike those civil servants, even if they are obedient for a while, there will inevitably be someone who jumps out to fight for power and restrict the emperor's power in the future.

Zhu Youjian still believed in this point. As long as the Ming Dynasty was not on the verge of collapse, the nobles would basically remain loyal.

But loyalty alone is useless because their abilities are too poor and often they play a negative role.

For example, under their control, the Beijing Camp now only has 24,000 combat-ready soldiers.

This was after Li Banghua reorganized it. Before, there were fewer available soldiers, and they were scattered across various camps, so they could not exert their combat effectiveness.

In addition, the military farms of the capital's garrisons were often occupied by nobles and hereditary officials. If Zhu Youjian wanted to reorganize the garrisons, he had to touch them first.

So he said to Zhang Weixian:
"I know your loyalty."

"For those who are loyal to the Ming Dynasty, I have never been stingy with titles and territories."

"You all can go overseas to establish fiefdoms and have one to three guards."

"Those who are capable and willing to serve in the Five Prefectures will be transferred back by order of the Emperor."

"You can also bring one hundred to five hundred soldiers as personal guards."

These words showed his generosity, but were also a warning to the nobles:
You already have vassal states and guards, and you still want to control more guards in the five prefectures. What do you want to do?
If you want to lead troops, go to the vassal state, there are plenty of wars to fight there.

Whether or not one has the ability to lead troops will also be revealed.

When all the nobles heard the emperor's words, they were speechless for a moment.

Except for nobles like Zhang Weixian who wanted to establish their own fiefdoms, most of them just wanted to stay in the capital and enjoy wealth and luxury.

The Five Military Commanderies and the Beijing Camp were the guarantees for them to enjoy wealth and luxury besides their titles. They could embezzle money and food from them and also make the soldiers do private work for them.

Over the past two hundred years, they have accumulated countless wealth. They just want to stay like this and don't want to establish a feudal domain.

However, the emperor was obviously dissatisfied with this. He had previously restricted the number of their farms and fields, and now he has begun to take action against the Five Military Commanderies and the Beijing Camp.

In the future, even if the generals of the Beijing Camp and the Five Cities Military Command were selected from the five prefectures, the emperor would only select capable ones. Those who were incompetent but occupied high positions would just be left alone.

What's more, the five governors are not only nobles, but also local generals, those talented people who have fought on the battlefield.

This made them feel the urgency and realize that the emperor was using various policies to force them to establish a vassal state. Zhang Weixian and other nobles who had already made up their minds to establish a vassal state did not say a word. After hearing the emperor's words, they felt more at ease.

They knew that even if there were vassal states in the future, the emperor would still trust them and would transfer capable people to Beijing to control the military forces in the capital.

The nobles who did not want to establish their own fiefdoms felt as if they had lost their parents. They didn't know how they could maintain their wealth and status if they continued like this.

Even if the emperor retained their titles, it would only be an honorary title, wouldn't everyone bully them?

By then, their fields and wealth in the capital will be like death warrants, and the civil servants who have been granted titles and the newly-conferred nobles will scramble to share them.

The nobles, with different thoughts in their minds, were speechless for a while.

When the ministers saw how the emperor subdued the nobles, they were also full of admiration.

There were not many emperors who dared to take action against the nobles, and more often than not, the emperors simply did not want to touch the nobles.

The current emperor is aware of the harm of the nobles and has imposed various restrictions on their power, making them feel that the emperor is determined to reform the system. Zhang Fujing and Zhang Juzheng are not as good as him.

As ministers, those two men were far less bold than the emperor.

Encouraged by this, Yuan Keli, the Privy Councilor, said:
"According to the regulations, each guard should have one fifth-rank thousand-household officer, two fifth-rank deputy thousand-household officers, ten sixth-rank hundred-household officers, and two sixth-rank pacification officers, for a total of fifteen military officers."

"Each guard has five divisions, with 75 military officers. There is also one third-rank commander, two third-rank deputy commanders, four fourth-rank assistant commanders, and two fifth-rank guard pacifiers. The quota for military officers is 84."

"At the beginning of the country, there was still a shortage of military officers in the garrisons. In the sixth year of Hongwu, there were only 12980. It was not until later that the number increased to 28754 to meet the needs of 329 garrisons and 65 garrisons at that time."

"During the Yongle reign, the number of ceremonies increased, but it was not yet excessive."

"After Xuande and Zhengtong, the court replaced rewards with promotions. It was easy for officers and soldiers to be promoted, but the rewards they received were few."

"Though it may save money for a short time, it may sow the seeds of disaster for a hundred years."

"Now, the number of military officers in each guard is several times the quota."

"The 493 guards and 359 institutes require approximately 46797 military attachés, but the actual number of military attachés is over ."

This long speech made Zhu Youjian realize what Yuan Keli was going to do, and he said seriously:
"Replacing rewards with promotions is indeed a disaster!"

"When Emperor Chengzu pacified Jiaozhi, he asked the Minister of Revenue Xia Yuanji whether to increase or decrease the reward. Xia Yuanji said, 'Rewards are limited at the moment, but increases are unlimited in the future. More increases are not as good as heavy rewards.'"

"It's a pity that the king and his ministers after him didn't have this responsibility, so the number of military officers accumulated to a huge number of 100,000."

This number of military officers was the reason why Zhu Youjian reformed the garrisons to find a way out for them.

Previously, he had planned to change the commander to viscount, the thousand households to baron, and the hundred households to knight, and to banish them all at once.

But after calculating the number of existing military attachés, he quickly realized that this idea was not feasible:

Because there were too many military officers in the Ming Dynasty, there were not enough overseas lands to grant them.

Therefore, he established the Dongning and Nanyang Guards and tried to transfer the military officers of the guards there. On the other hand, he reformed the inland guard system to allow hereditary officials who did not want to go overseas to continue to serve the country. The guards were retained as a source of soldiers for the camps.

Although there was a policy to encourage hereditary officials of the guards to open up territories, the force was not strong. He needed to give priority to granting land to the royal family and nobles.

Now, Yuan Keli mentioned this issue, which made Zhu Youjian realize that this old minister intended to start from the root and reduce the number of military officers in the garrisons.

This could lead to your death or even bring harm to your family.

Zhu Youjian thought of the time when Ma Wensheng dismissed more than 30 officers and officers, Yang Tinghe cut down the guards and established 140,000 redundant officials, and was threatened with weapons. He could not help but respect Yuan Keli, the old minister:
This is what he needs, a responsible minister! (End of this chapter)