Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

"How about reducing the number of hereditary officials?"

"Your Majesty's statement that ordinary garrisons have 135 and frontier garrisons have 150 is the maximum limit. It is not necessary to reach this number."

"The number of hereditary officials in the capital's garrisons can be reduced."

Xiong Mingyu, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of War.

However, as soon as he put forward this opinion, Border Defense Minister Liu Zunxian said:
"After adding 50 trial centurions, if we only calculate the number of commanders and thousand centurions according to the quota, we will need 122 hereditary officials."

"The limit of 135 is not too many. If there are more casualties among the officers, we won't be able to fill them up."

"If you ask me, we should just calculate it based on the 150 limit to make it easier to arrange for hereditary officials."

Obviously, as the Minister of Border Defense, he supports an appropriate increase in the number of hereditary officers.

In this way, when a war breaks out on the border and causes casualties, the number of military officers can be quickly replenished.

However, most of the Privy Council and Ministry of War officials present were of civil service origin, and at this time they looked at things more from a civil service perspective.

They did not agree with increasing the limit and believed that the number of hereditary officials in ordinary garrisons should still be limited to 135.

In this way, if one wants to reduce the amount of land needed by the hereditary officials of the Capital Guard, they can only start by reducing the allocated land.

Regarding this matter that would offend the hereditary officials of the capital, the officials present were silent for a while, and it was Yuan Keli who took the initiative to speak:
"Su Qin, a native of Luoyang in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, once said: If I had two hectares of farmland outside the city of Luoyang, how could I bear the seals of the six kingdoms?"

"The land around the capital is as valuable as the 'two hectares of land in Luoyang' in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty."

"Yuan thought that each hereditary official could be given two hectares of land, unlike the five to ten hectares allocated in Zhuolu District."

This proposal made the officials present nod their heads, and they thought that about two hectares was very suitable.

Chief of Staff Yang Sichang said:

"Yang believes that hereditary officials can be roughly divided into three levels: commander, thousand households, and hundred households."

"The hereditary commander has three hectares of land, the hereditary commander has two hectares of land, and the hereditary commander has one hectare of land."

"It fits the 100-acre limit set by Your Majesty, but doesn't exceed it by too much."

A land tax will be levied on land with an area of ​​more than 100 mu, which is a policy formulated previously.

Although the hereditary land of hereditary officials is only taxed at 11%, the figure of 100 acres can also be used as a reference.

Yu Anxing, the Minister of the Navy who was more familiar with the new system and had not spoken before, said:

"In the Zhou Dynasty, one mu of land was only equivalent to about 3 or 4 fen today, and two hectares of land was equivalent to 70 or 80 mu of land."

"One hundred acres of land in the capital is more than two hectares of land in Luoyang, enough to support a hereditary official."

They all agreed to distribute land to hereditary officials according to this number.

Min Mengde, the Minister of Logistics, even calculated that according to this allocation method, 135 hereditary officials would need 180 hectares of land. If 20 hectares were reserved, that would be 200 hectares.

Adding the 300 hectares needed for the 500 hereditary soldiers mentioned above, a simple guard in the capital requires hectares of land.

Someone else also mentioned that if each hundred households were only given one hundred mu of land, then fifty mu for each level of soldier would be too much. It would be better to use fifty mu as the base, and then only increase by five mu for each promotion.

In this way, the amount of land reserved for soldiers would not be so large. A garrison only needed about 430 hectares of land to accommodate a simple garrison.

The officials present all agreed with this. Some even thought that it should be promoted as a general policy everywhere. They were very dissatisfied with the fact that soldiers could own hundreds of acres of land, and they planned to limit it to less than 100 acres.

However, Yuan Keli disagreed with this, believing that the land policy for soldiers in the capital was the same as the land policy for hereditary officials, and both were special treatments. Other places should still follow the example of Zhuolu District, with 50 mu of land per level. Even in some barren areas, the land should be calculated by mu.

If hereditary officers and soldiers in the capital wanted to be allocated more land, they could apply for transfer to other places.

Calculating the land that can be cultivated around the capital, Yuan Keli said:
"The capital's garrison has about 5,500 hectares of land for farming." "And if we repair the river courses and dig lakes to reclaim land as Your Majesty said, we can probably get another 2,000 hectares."

"All of them were moved to the vicinity of the Third Ring Road, about 7,500 hectares."

"If each guard has 500 hectares, it can be allocated to 15 simple guards."

This number is certainly not enough for the twenty-seven guards in the capital.

Yuan Keli looked at Li Fengxiang, the seal holder of the Imperial Horse Administration, and said:
"The capital has twenty-seven guards, fifteen of which belong to the Five Cities Army and the remaining twelve belong to the imperial army."

"Did your majesty mention the arrangements for these twelve guards?"

When Li Fengxiang heard that these civil officials only planned to arrange the fifteen guards of the Wucheng Bingma Division, he was furious and said with a fake smile:
"You have a good plan. Just hand over these twelve guards to His Majesty for arrangement."

"If that's the case, let's incorporate these guards into the Imperial Horse Administration. What do you think of this?"

Apparently, he had learned about the previous debate in the court.

These civil servants had obstructed the emperor from incorporating his personal guards into the inner court, but now they are asking the inner court to arrange their whereabouts.

This made him feel really shameless and he didn't want to pay any attention to it.

Yuan Keli was a little embarrassed when he heard this, because he didn't expect that even if they were reduced to 500 soldiers, they could only arrange 15 guards.

If he had figured this out earlier, he would have been more decisive and handed over all thirty-six guards of his personal army to the emperor for disposal.

But now he could only hold on and said:
"Even if the Imperial Guards are not assigned to the Imperial Horse Administration, they still need to be placed in the inner court."

"Among the twelve guards in the capital, aren't there the Four Jinwu Guards belonging to the Jinyiwei?"

From what he said, he still wanted the inner court to arrange them.

After saying some angry words, Li Fengxiang did not continue to pester. He knew that the emperor valued Yuan Keli, so the reform of the guards was handed over to this person.

So he bowed towards the direction of the palace and said:
"I am here just to represent His Majesty and listen. Your Majesty will make the decision."

"If you all think that the imperial guards should be stationed in the inner court, we will report it to you truthfully."

This made the civil servants stop forcing him to answer.

Because they knew that Li Fengxiang's decision would not count, and only the emperor could decide the outcome of this matter.

However, based on Yuan Keli's understanding of the current emperor, he felt that the emperor would most likely agree.

Because of how the inner court allocated land to the imperial guards, they would undoubtedly be more loyal to the emperor in the future.

The emperor would be so happy about this that he would definitely find a way to accommodate them.
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Zhu Youjian was indeed trying to find a way to relocate the guards in the capital. After hearing the minutes of the first day's meeting brought back by Li Fengxiang, he sneered and said:
"I thought these civil servants would have many ways to deal with this, but I didn't expect that they could only arrange 15 simple guards."

"It seems that the placement of the capital's guards still needs my decision."

Having anticipated this matter, Zhu Youjian looked at the map hanging on the screen next to him, pointed to the original location of the Daning Dusi, and said to Li Fengxiang and other inner court officials:

"What do you think of placing the imperial guard station on the north side of the Great Wall?"

"Give them pastures and land near rivers that can be cultivated."

This was an idea Zhu Youjian had long had, to bring all the grasslands near the Great Wall under the management of the Ming Dynasty.

Previously, he had planned to enfeoff Man Gui, Hu Dawei and others in this area. Now, after the re-establishment of the five Daning guards in the reform of the capital's guards, he decided to go a step further and re-establish the Daning Dusi, or the Daning Protectorate.

The areas near the Great Wall were allocated to the guards and managed as military and civilian offices directly under the Ming Dynasty. (End of this chapter)