Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

After Wu Shigong went back, he wanted to know the actual situation of the soldiers' pay in the Ming Dynasty.However, few people know about it.Those Xue residence guards are all with generous monthly regulations in Xue residence.They don't care much about the military pay of the soldiers in the Beijing camp, let alone the military pay of the local soldiers.

Zhou Xun still knows something.Combined with the local situation introduced by Chang Meng, Wu Shigong finally had a basic understanding of the situation.

It turns out that although Henan is in the hinterland of the Central Plains and relatively affluent locally, this is all said to the upper class.The common people at the bottom can be said to be in a semi-starved state where they can't die of hunger, but they can't get enough to eat.

In Henan, there are eight vassal kings, all of whom have huge fiefdoms.In addition, there are a large number of official and gentry families, and the land of these people does not need to pay taxes.Moreover, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, land annexation was already very serious.In Henan, less than [-]% of the land is still in the hands of owner farmers.

However, these self-cultivating farmers have to bear the taxes and labor of the whole of Henan. Therefore, the burden of the people at the bottom has actually reached a critical point.

But the court didn't know, or to be precise, didn't want to know about this situation.The emperor and ministers still thought that Henan was a very rich place, so they paid close attention to the taxation here.This led to the bankruptcy of the self-cultivating farmers, and their land was annexed by the princes and officials and gentry who did not pay taxes.And the remaining self-cultivating farmers have to bear more taxes.

This vicious circle has made the lives of the people at the bottom more and more miserable.

And Wu Shigong's military salary, not to mention the one tael or five silver, just one and a half stones of grain per month can feed a family of three.In other words, just for the one and a half stones of food per month, it is absolutely attractive to those military households who are in a half-starved state.They will all come to Wu Shigong to sign up as soldiers.

After knowing this situation, Wu Shigong resolutely decided to expand the army.However, Chang Meng found Wu Shigong before Wu Shigong came up with the military expansion plan.Because, when it was known that Wu Shigong wanted to recruit soldiers, and these soldiers could still receive military pay, the whole town became a sensation.Moreover, the news spread to the county town.

Although, those big families in the small town basically thought that Wu Shigong's brain was burnt out.It is a lot of money and there is no place to spend it.The Ming Dynasty is still very stable. Why do you, a thousand households, spend money to recruit and train soldiers?

However, the ordinary people at the bottom don't care about this.As long as the whole family is fed, they can do whatever they want.Besides, the stability of the Ming Dynasty is only good for them.Who wouldn't want to do the good thing of not having to fight desperately and get paid by the army?

And these people have all sought Chang Meng who is the long-term follower by Wu Shigong's side.These days, Chang Meng's small benefits can be said to be soft.So, Chang Meng asked Wu Shigong.

Wu Shigong is now Han Xin's soldier, the more the better.Moreover, he could not recruit too many soldiers in Qianhusuo at one time.The Thousand Households still need a certain amount of labor to maintain the cultivation of the military fields.Therefore, he agreed to Chang Meng's request.

Unexpectedly, those military households of the Thousand Households Office quit.How can Mr. Qianhu turn his elbows outward when doing things?So, they also went to Wu Shigong's place to make a fuss.After some bargaining, finally, Wu Shigong came up with such a recruiting plan.

Among the people, one hundred soldiers are recruited, and they immediately start training.During training, they get [-]% of the military pay.

And in Qianhusuo, [-] soldiers will be recruited, and they will start training after building the Qianhusuo fortress.During the training period, they also get [-]% of the military pay.

After two or three months of joint training, there will be a unified assessment, and a hundred soldiers will be selected to be Wu Shigong's personal soldiers and receive full pay.The rest get [-]% of the salary.However, every month in the future, these soldiers who receive [-]% of the salary will have an opportunity to participate in the assessment.As long as you pass the assessment, you will also get full salary.However, those who fail the three assessments will be dismissed.

As for the remaining military households in Qianhu, Wu Shigong will form them into an auxiliary team.They will also participate in military training during the slack season.And Wu Shigong will pay them [-]% of the military salary.

After such generous conditions were offered, six to seven hundred local people came to Wu Shigong's place to sign up.In desperation, Wu Shigong had no choice but to continuously raise the admission standards, and finally recruited one hundred soldiers.Moreover, Wu Shigong also gave them 700 cash for hard work to all the ordinary people who came to participate in the assessment but were not admitted.

After recruiting these soldiers, Wu Shigong called Zhou Xun and Qian Qi over and asked them to be responsible for the training of these soldiers.During the training, Zhou Xun was the leader and Qian Qi was the deputy.

Wu Shigong told them: In addition to the necessary physical training, soldiers should train two things first.One is queue training.Wu Shigong also became cruel. The standards he proposed to Zhou Xun and Qian Qi were completely drawn up according to the standards of modern military parades.

Another item is to teach these soldiers how to shoot with firecrackers.Make sure everyone shoots twenty rounds with live ammunition.

Wu Shigong's request made both Zhou Xun and Qian Qi feel embarrassed.So, Wu Shigong threw another candied date at the two of them: "You two just need to do your best. I can see it. As long as you work hard. When this military training is over, except for the personal army led by me, The rest of the soldiers are divided into two teams, and each of you will be the captain."

Hearing Wu Shigong's promise, both Zhou Xun and Qian Qi were overjoyed.

In the process of recruiting soldiers, there is another tidbit.Hearing that Wu Shigong has such generous conditions, among the craftsmen who built the Qianhusuo fortress, some craftsmen and apprentices also wanted to be soldiers.

After they shared their ideas with Wu Shigong, Wu Shigong immediately decided to recruit them all.Moreover, these people all paid full military pay.

Both Xue Yongli and Zheng Zhen didn't understand Wu Shigong's move.However, when Wu Shigong answered them next, they couldn't understand even more.

Wu Shigong said: "Science and technology are the primary productive forces!"

After Wu Shigong finished all these tasks, he finally made a move to the merchants in the small town in order to develop financial resources.

One day, all the merchants in the town received a notice sent to them under the name of Qianhu Office.The main content of the notice is: because the land in this small town is owned by Qianhu.Therefore, starting from next year, all merchants in the town will have to pay 15 taels of silver to Qianhusuo every year for renting land.

As soon as this notice reached the hands of these merchants, it caused an uproar.They all gathered at Yao Yuanwai, the largest merchant in the town and the largest gentry nearby, to discuss a countermeasure together.

However, Yao Yuanwai told these merchants not to worry at all. He analyzed these merchants: They just need to refuse to pay the land lease fee.If Wu Shigong wants to file a lawsuit.The ownership of this land has been arguing for hundreds of years, how can you tell it clearly now?If Wu Shigong wants to compare power.How can Wu Shigong, a dragon crossing the river, compare to local snakes like them?

When some merchants worriedly pointed out: Wu Shigong originally had many guards, but now he recruited soldiers on a large scale.What if Wu Shigong used force against merchants like them?

Member Yao waved his hand and said disapprovingly: You don't have to worry about that.Wu Shigong is an official, if he used force against them, it would be an open rebellion.With only a few hundred people like Wu Shigong, isn't that courting death?

When it came to the end, member Yao wrote a reply letter to Wu Shigong out of interest.They sent someone to Wu Shigong.The content of the reply letter was written very bluntly, with only four big characters on it - "Whimsical!"

Wu Shigong laughed after seeing Yuanwai Yao's reply.Of course he knew that his act of collecting land rental fees would not go smoothly.However, I didn't expect the answers from these merchants to be so rude.Wu Shigong thought to himself: "It's time to show them some color."

But before Wu Shigong took any action, the Tao family led Tao Xin to find him again.

The Tao family came to look for Wu Shigong last time, thinking that Wu Shigong was intimidated by his sturdy appearance, so Wu Shigong would agree to her request.Therefore, she thought Wu Shigong was weak.So, this time she had to find it again.

Wu Shigong listened to Tao Shi's jokes patiently, and knew the reason for Tao Shi's visit.It turned out that the thousand households in the Qianhu Office would also get certain benefits from the money and food handed in every year.However, because Li Bingbei asked for too much money and food this year, the benefits obtained by the dead Qianqian households were not taken.

And when Tao knew that Wu Shigong spent a lot of money and recruited soldiers, he thought Wu Shigong was being taken advantage of.Today, she forced Wu Shigong to give her that benefit.

Knowing all this, Wu Shigong almost slapped the table.However, he finally endured it.Because the amount of that benefit is not much.Wu Shigong originally planned to send some silver as condolences when he visited the family members of the former Qianhu after arriving at Qianhu.Therefore, Wu Shigong also took out 150 taels of silver to send Dow away.

Seeing Tao's proud back when he left, Wu Shigong's eyes narrowed.Because, he realized that he might have overlooked a problem: he only came to this Qianhu office to act as Qianhu's agent, and the Qianhu in the Qianhu office should be Tao Xin, the child next to Tao Shi.

If someone uses Tao Xin's name to oppose me when I am doing business in the future, I will be very passive.Wu Shigong thought to himself: "It is time to find an opportunity to solve this hidden danger."