Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 196 Four Dos and Four Don'ts

They stayed in the courtyard until the evening and asked Lu Yishen to prepare some wine and food. Zhu Shenzhu personally accompanied Lao Jin and the other two for a drink to show his sincerity.

That night Zhu Shencui stayed at the Hundred Households Residence. Although he had drunk some wine, Zhu Shencui's mind was very clear. He was not drunk at all, but rather a little excited.

The arrival of Lao Jin and the other two made Zhu Shenzui's idea of ​​training troops possible. Although it is still a long way to see the results, from his conversations with Lao Jin and the other two, Zhu Shenzui believed that the three of them would not let him down.

Once the army is formed, it will be Zhu Shenzhui's backing and guarantee in the future, and it is also his confidence. But then again, according to what Lao Jin and others said, it is not so easy to truly build a strong army, and it takes a lot of time.

Zhu Shencui could afford to wait, after all, it was only the second year of the Tianqi reign, and the Ming Dynasty had not yet reached a point of true decay. After waiting for a few years, when the army was formed, Zhu Shencui would no longer have to worry.

But then again, after listening to Lao Jin's explanation of the organization and military system of Qi's army, including military pay and the system of military merit, Zhu Shenzhui agreed without hesitation but was secretly shocked. He did not expect that the establishment of Qi's army would cost so much. No wonder Qi's army had always been small in scale. During its heyday, when it was fighting against Japanese pirates during the Jiajing period, its military strength reached its peak, but it had only 6,000 people.

Later, the imperial court transferred Qi Jiguang and the Qi Family Army to the north. Qi Jiguang was in charge of the border and the army he could command was as high as 100,000 people, but in reality, the real Qi Family Army had only 4,000 people.

With these 4,000 soldiers, Qi's army fought all over the country without a single defeat, and thus established a reputation as the strongest army in the world. Even in the battle of Hunhe last year, Qi's army was completely annihilated, but judging from the battle situation and the extent of the losses on both sides, it can be said that Qi's army was not really defeated.

Zhu Shenzhu had always thought that the imperial court was afraid that Qi's army would become too powerful, so they kept the number of Qi's army under control. But after listening to the detailed explanations of Lao Jin and others, Zhu Shenzhu realized that there was a reason why Qi's army had always maintained a size of around 4,000 people.

The factor of the imperial court was one aspect, but the more important aspect was that the system of Qi's army was different, including the fact that the Qi's army's military pay and military merit system were different from those of all the armies of the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming army was divided into two categories according to the system: one was the garrison troops and the other was the border troops. The Qi Family Army was different from these two types of armies. The Qi Family Army was a conscription system, which was different in nature. The military positions within the Qi Family Army were also very different from those of the garrison troops and border troops.

The Qi Family Army was unique, relying on strict training, generous military pay, very attractive rewards for military exploits, sophisticated weapons, and a strong fighting consciousness. In terms of military pay alone, the Qi Family Army had always implemented a double pay system, which did not include pay increases and military exploits during wars.

The border troops have the highest salary in the Ming army. According to the system, the annual salary of ordinary border troops is 18 taels, but this annual salary is just talk. In fact, although the border troops are much better than the garrison soldiers, there are many border troops who do not receive salaries or even delay or owe salaries. Now, it is very good for the border troops to get 20% to 30% of the 18 taels of salary a year. In some places, some soldiers have been owed salaries for several years.

From this point of view, the annual military salary of the Qi family army with double pay is thirty-six taels, which is really not a low amount. You have to know that with Zhu Shenzhu's status as a royal family member, if the court did not owe him the actual salary after deducting the original amount, the annual salary would be about the same.

In the court, the annual salary of a first-rank official was only 150 taels of silver, and the annual salary of a soldier in the Qi family army was 36 taels of silver, which was almost the same as that of a sixth-rank official. In addition, food and drink in the army were free, which was another expense. Calculated in this way, it would cost at least 50 taels of silver to support a soldier a year.

This does not include the soldiers' expenses on weapons and other aspects. If included, it is roughly eighty taels of silver a year. Calculated based on a team of twelve people, and the team leader's salary is higher than that of the soldiers, then it would be one thousand taels of silver.

There are four teams and one sentry. The annual military expenditure for this sentry alone is as high as more than 4,000 taels. This is not a small amount. If you don't calculate it, you will be shocked. If you count one battalion with 800 people, it will take 65,000 taels of military expenditure to maintain it.

From this point of view, maintaining an army of 4,000 people would require an annual military expenditure of 325,000 taels, which is an astronomical figure nowadays. Even though Zhu Shenzhui has been selling private salt and running a pawnshop in the past two years, and has taken risks in engaging in smuggling trade with Mongolia, his net profit in a year is far from this level.

If a formal war breaks out, the situation will be even more serious. The military expenditure may even double. The rewards for military merits will be even more terrifying. The reward for beheading one person is thirty taels of silver. If a thousand enemies are killed, the reward will be as high as thirty thousand taels of silver, which is another huge sum of money.

I don't know, I was taken aback.

Originally, Zhu Shencui was planning to train more soldiers, but after calculations, he found that he simply couldn't afford to support them.

Fortunately, Lao Jin suggested training a sentry first, otherwise he would not know where to find such a large amount of money. Zhu Shenzhui did not have the support of the court to train troops, and it was even more impossible to get military pay from the court. Even if Wang Rong helped in the garrison, at best, it could only solve some food and other problems.

The bulk of the military expenditure, even including the manufacture of military equipment, had to be borne by Zhu Shencui himself. After much calculation, Zhu Shencui felt that it was already a great achievement for him to be able to support a battalion of soldiers. As for supporting more, it was simply impossible for him to do so now and he could not come up with so much money.

Only when you manage a household do you know how expensive firewood and rice are. Zhu Shenzhui finally understood what it meant when a cannon shot was worth a fortune. He had thought too simply before. Training soldiers was not just a small-scale battle like he had done in Wangjia Village and Yangtou Mountain. It was true that the army was a money-eating beast. It was impossible to train strong soldiers without an economic foundation. Getting some people to simply arm themselves and train them was not an army at all. At best, it was just a militia.

Zhu Shenzhu had heard about the border army generals raising servants before. Zhu Shenzhu had always felt strange. Since these border army generals knew that using their heart and soul to build servants and giving servants the best treatment and weapons was the basis for their own control of the army and the guarantee of the army's combat effectiveness, why didn't they train more soldiers according to this model, and even treat the soldiers under their control equally to build a strong army? But now he has figured it out. There are no fools in this world. Those generals are very smart. It's not that they don't want to do this, but they simply can't do it. The overall military expenditure is limited, and it is impossible to use limited military expenditure to build a strong army anyway.

In this case, it is better to save the limited military funds by eating empty salaries, and use the money obtained from empty salaries to concentrate on major tasks, and build a team of hundreds of elite soldiers in the name of family servants. And this elite soldier is the capital of their lives. As long as they have such an elite soldier, they can play the greatest role at the critical moment on the battlefield and save their lives.

As for those other armies, they are nothing more than cannon fodder at best. It is good if they can win, but it doesn’t matter if they cannot. Cannon fodder is nothing more than consumption. As long as the key elite troops are in hand, there is a possibility of making a comeback anytime and anywhere.

From this point of view, Zhu Shenzhui's current approach is not much different from those generals. The soldiers he is training now are actually his "house servants". From military pay to equipment to other things, all are provided by Zhu Shenzhui personally, so naturally these soldiers can only listen to his command.

With this army, it will be no problem to expand it or develop it as a basis in the future. This is what the Ming army did, and the peasant army in history also operated in this way. Of course, the peasant army was not called family servants, but was renamed "Laoying".

The next day, Lao Jin and the other two prepared to start selecting soldiers and begin preparations before training.

Wang Jinwu and Lu Yisheng are now their assistants, assisting the three veterans in their training. Not only do they have to assist, but according to Zhu Shenzhu's request, Wang Jinwu and Lu Yisheng also have to personally participate in the training, treating themselves as ordinary soldiers during the training and training with others, because only in this way can they truly feel how these elite soldiers are trained and grow together with the training soldiers.

There were about 200 young and strong men in the entire Hundred Households Office who could be trained as soldiers. Later, Zhu Shenzui asked Lu Yisheng to recruit some miners and landless military households from other places. Now there are nearly 400 young and strong men in total. This is because the time is too short. According to Zhu Shenzui's plan, another 300 people of labor will be needed in the mines alone.

Lao Jin and the other two looked at these people one by one, and it took them two full days just to select from them.

While they were selecting people, Zhu Shenzui learned with great interest. Not only him, but also Wang Jinwu and Lu Yishen helped out and carefully studied their experience in selecting people.

The way Lao Jin and his team selected people seemed simple, they would first scan them, delete some people, and then select them carefully. But in fact, their selection method was very particular, and there were certain theories about what kind of people were good soldiers, or what kind of people were worth looking at.

The Qi Family Army's selection criteria are divided into four do's and four don'ts.

The first of the four requirements is to give priority to farmers working in the fields, because they are not afraid of hardship and have rich life experience and combat capabilities.

The second type is those with dark appearance, strong arms and well-developed muscles. Such people are brave and good at fighting.

The third type is people with sharp eyes. Such soldiers are suitable to be scouts or officers leading troops.

Fourth, those who are afraid of the government may be braver when facing life and death.

As for the four don'ts, the first is that city residents shouldn't do this because they live in a comfortable environment, lack the experience of hard life, and may be lazy.

Second, don’t marry men with fair skin, as these people usually have a privileged life, are timid, and are prone to running away from a battle.

Third, people who have served as officials should not be selected, because they may have become accustomed to the game of power and find it difficult to obey orders.

Fourth, do not have soldiers who are too courageous or too timid. The former are too bold and may lose control, while the latter are too timid and may not dare to go to the battlefield.

This experience was passed down by General Qi Jiguang and has always been the key to selecting soldiers for the Qi Family Army.

It sounds very simple, but it has a very profound meaning if you think about it carefully. When Zhu Shenzhui heard Lao Jin's explanation, he could not help but admire it. At the same time, he also thought of another famous figure in history, that is, Zeng Guofan, who founded the Hunan Army and was known as Zeng the Barber. When Zeng Guofan first established the Hunan Army, his selection criteria were exactly the same as those of the Qi Family Army.

(End of this chapter)