Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 394 Jiajing reduced the burden on military households, and the military households cried with joy!

In the bright and clean imperial study.

A faint fragrance was wafting from the purple-gold copper furnace.

The sunlight poured into the house, casting long shadows on the mountain of memorials, and also illuminating Jiajing's young face, making it as rosy and warm as the rising sun.

After Prime Minister Yang Yiqing bowed and said this, Jiajing stood up and walked to the two jars of ice placed in the middle of the room. He stretched out his hands and placed his palms flat on the crystal clear ice. He also lowered his head, feeling the coolness transmitted to his fingertips and on his face, and said with a smile:
"That's good!"

"I'm sure!"

Jiajing then waved his hand.

Then, he looked up at the ministers in the Imperial Study and said, "Since this is the case, the regulations for the military household reform will be increased from nine to ten!"

"Your Majesty, Holy Might!"

Yang Yiqing replied again.

Then, Yang Yiqing reported again, "Among these ten items, the first one is the most critical, which is to check the military households! Check whether the number of each military household is exactly as recorded on the list, and whether there are any people who have fled or died but are still on the list of paying for military farming and military service. In addition, how many military households have been reduced? All of these need to be verified clearly."

The military reform regulations initially agreed upon by Zhu Houcong and the ministers of the Imperial Study consisted of nine articles.

Yang Yiqing said that there were no objections in the court, but they just wanted to add one more item.

Zhu Houcong was not surprised by this.

He knew that now that he, the emperor, was gaining more power, the court officials would not go to great lengths to overturn the nine reform regulations that the emperor had already approved, but would only request additional regulations to protect their own rights.

The tenth article, which was requested by the court officials, stated that the emperor could treat military households as he would treat his family members. In fact, it meant that the emperor was allowed to treat military households as he would treat his household slaves.

This means that the bureaucrats and literati would rather see the emperor use his own bureaucrats and literati group to check and balance the military household aristocracy group, and have the power of life and death over the military household aristocracy group and themselves, thereby achieving the pinnacle of imperial power, than to see the military household aristocracy return to the state of being like the aristocratic families before the Song Dynasty, where they would not even take the emperor seriously.

Zhu Houcong knew that the court officials who came from the bureaucratic and scholar-official backgrounds would add this clause.

And he also needs such a rule.

Because he did not intend for a military aristocracy to emerge that would truly disregard the emperor.

But the reason why Zhu Houcong did not add it himself but asked the court officials to add it was naturally to let the military nobles who came from military households in the future blame the literati and officials for the fact that they could be disposed of at will by the emperor, and let them know that it was not the emperor who did not believe in their loyalty 100%, but the literati and officials who did not believe in their loyalty 100%.

After Yang Yiqing said that the first step was to check the military households, Zhu Houcong also expressed his deep agreement.

"The military household inspection should be carried out as soon as possible. Send an order to the Censorate to arrange for the Qing army censors to take the list and inspect it as soon as possible. By the way, they should also report the current situation of the military households they see during the inspection in a timely manner so that the court can revise the regulations according to the actual situation!"

"In addition, it is only the Qing army. No conscription is allowed. In order to prevent the Qing army censors from making false reports to curry favor with their superiors, each Qing army censor must bring five observing scholars as Qing army test censors to assist and supervise. Once the Qing army censor himself fails to perform his duties, he will be replaced by one of the accompanying observing scholars according to his ranking in the imperial examinations!"

Zhu Houcong gave the order at this time.

Yang Yiqing bowed and said yes.

In the Ming Dynasty, the investigation of military households was usually carried out by the censors.

Therefore, there was a title called Qing Army Censor in the Ming Dynasty.

It was only because the military households deserted so frequently that the Ming court, in the past, would forcibly recruit soldiers in order to ignore the miserable situation of the military households. That is, they would forcibly recruit nearby civilian households as military households to make up the number of military households. There were also corrupt Qing military censors who took the opportunity to force civilian households to pay money to avoid being recruited. There were also Qing military censors who only cared about the interests of civilian households and not national defense security, and concealed the fact that the military households deserted so frequently.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong emphasized that it was not allowed to recruit soldiers and it was not allowed to conceal or make false reports.

The most serious problem facing military households right now is escape.

There are three reasons for the escape: first, the heavy labor service; second, the serious withholding of monthly rations; and third, the serious encroachment on military land.

The labor service was already heavy, causing large areas of military land to be either transferred or abandoned. As a result, monthly rations were severely deducted, which was equivalent to working on an empty stomach. After finally completing their service, they found that the abandoned land had been occupied, or that the transferred land was no longer rented to them because it was supported by powerful families. In this case, they had no choice but to flee or become slaves.

The main reason for the serious withholding of monthly rations was that starting from the eighth year of Xuande, when the "Three Yang" cabinet was in power, the granaries of the garrisons began to be handed over to local governments for management, and were no longer managed by the garrisons. This caused local governments to often find excuses to delay payment, and coupled with the background of civil officials being noble and military officials being despised, the officers and soldiers of the garrisons naturally did not dare to force the local governments to pay in full, and the garrison officers could only collude with the local governments to withhold payment.

The direct reason why the "Three Yang" cabinet did this was that at that time, the granaries of local garrisons were always burned by fire dragons.

Therefore, the civil officials believed that the military officers of the garrisons were not managing the place properly and it would be more appropriate to hand it over to civil officials for management. The indirect reason was naturally that they did not want important military logistical materials such as food to be controlled by the garrisons, so that the military officers of the garrisons would have both soldiers and food.

This was naturally necessary for the ruling group after Xuande, who paid more attention to guarding against the powerful and difficult-to-control military generals.

However, the result of doing so was that the number of military households decreased further and the empire's military strength also declined sharply. At the same time, Zhu Yuanzhang's envisioned model of military self-sufficiency began to fail. The court needed to increase military spending to recruit soldiers to solve the problem of reduced military forces in border towns caused by the escape of military households.

Jianyang Wei.

When the Qing army censor Wang Yi and a group of trial censors came here to check the situation of the military households, a team of about fifty military households from the garrison were moving grain onto the ship, preparing to transport the grain to Nando.

After his father's death, Li Yi became a remnant of a military household, while his elder brother Li Zhong became a regular military household, and now they are assigned to guard Nanjing.

In the Ming Dynasty, military households were divided into regular men and surplus men.

The regular men were responsible for guarding the garrisons, transporting grain, and various miscellaneous duties. The rest of the men were not required to perform any corvee labor, but only to farm and pay grain, of which the regular grain was 12 shi and the surplus grain was 6 shi. Later, because monthly rations were not issued, they no longer paid the regular grain and only the surplus grain.

However, regular soldiers would often be assigned to serve in the army in other places. This began to happen during the Yongle period. For example, regular soldiers from Henan, Shandong and other places would be sent to the capital in shifts to serve in the Beijing camp, and they were called banjun.

Therefore, many tasks that should have been undertaken by regular soldiers in the local garrison were now undertaken by the remaining soldiers. Li Yi, who was carrying grain onto the transport ship, was very worried.

Because there are only him, his brother and an elderly and sick mother in his family. Now he and his brother are both serving in the army, and his family no longer has any military land, only rented land. However, the rented land cannot be cultivated this year, and he has to borrow grain to pay the rent.

Therefore, Li Yi, who was feeling very anxious, had no idea how he would live after completing his military service next year.

He had already planned to flee with his mother and work as a tenant in a local wealthy family.

Because of the arrival of Wang Yi and others, Jianyang Guard Commander Ge Lian and other garrison officers came out to greet Wang Yi at this time.

Li Yi also hurriedly put down the grain bag on his shoulder and prepared to kneel down when the guards such as Ge Lian appeared.

And Gelian ordered, "Get up and continue your work, this is none of your business!"

After hearing this, Li Yi and others continued to move the grain bags.

"Why is it none of their business!"

At this time, Wang Yi and others' boat just docked and said this.

then.

After Wang Yi got ashore, he asked Ge Lian, "Where are they moving the food?"

"Go to Nandu."

Ge Lian replied.

After hearing this, Wang Yi asked, "Why do we have to transport it to Nandu when we can just transport it to Taiping Prefecture?"

Ge Lian replied: "This is the request of the Fuyuan, and we dare not disobey."

After hearing this, Wang Yi said nothing more. He just kept the matter in mind and prepared to go back and report to the Yingtian Governor Zhou Jinyiben.

He had to report because a group of Jinshi candidates who were taking the imperial examination were following him and watching him.

Then Wang Yi came over and called Li Yi: "Are you Zhengding or Yuding?"

"Yu Ding."

Li Yi replied.

Wang Yi nodded after hearing this, and then asked Ge Lian: "Yu Ding is also responsible for transporting grain for Li Ye, don't they cultivate land?"

Ge Lian bowed his hands and said, "The Qing army has reported that Zhengding has been sent to another place, so they have to transport it."

Wang Yi was so upset after hearing this that he asked again, "How long have they been serving?"

"Dredging the river, repairing the dike, catching bandits, providing disaster relief, and now transporting grain, it has taken about a year."

Ge Lian replied.

"You can't use people like this. If they do this all year long, who will farm the military fields?"

Weng Wanda, who came with him to serve as the Imperial Censor, couldn't help but ask a question at this time.

"Fortunately, your majesty is kind and wants to change the military household system and provide monthly rations to the remaining men. I'm afraid that most of these remaining men will flee next year."

Wang Yi then said something and asked Ge Lian: "You mean, Ge Commander?"

Ge Lian nodded: "Feng Xian is right."

When Li Yi heard that Yu Ding would also receive monthly rations, he couldn't help but look over here.

"In addition, according to the new reform regulations, the ancestral laws will be restored. The remaining men only need to serve in the military, and all other duties will be exempted. So let them all go back and accept the inspection!"

Wang Yi replied.

After hearing this, Ge Lian asked, "What about these grains?"

Wang Yi said, "Put it back in the warehouse first. The governor will ask the governor to recruit civilians to transport it. The court has given them silver for transporting grain and military expenses for the garrisons. Unless they are directly embezzling, there is no reason to use the garrisons to transport grain!"

Ge Lian was overjoyed when he heard this, because it meant he could ask the government for more money and food.

So Ge Lian sent someone to tell Li Yi and other ordinary military households to move the grain back to the warehouse and then go back.

After hearing this, ordinary military households such as Li Yi also cried for joy.

"I can finally go home!"

Li Yi couldn't help but say something to his fellow villager, and then wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes.

(End of this chapter)