The Holy Emperor of Ming

Chapter 87 Where is my great general?

"As for the expenses, it is also simple and will be borne by the eunuchs and palace maids themselves.

Those who wish to retire in this retirement home can pay one or two taels of silver every year for twenty years, and after they turn sixty, they can enter the retirement home and receive food, clothing and other necessities.”

“In order to make these eunuchs and palace maids trust the retirement home, they can be allowed to visit the retirement home in person whenever they leave the palace.

In this way, as long as the nursing home is well run, they will certainly feel at ease to pay the money. "Liu Jin explained.

After listening to this, Zhu Houzhao thought it was a good idea, "Well, good, let's do it.

We must do it well and not let the eunuchs and palace maids who are taking care of their elderly parents suffer any injustice."

"Yes, Your Majesty, rest assured. I will keep an eye on it." Liu Jin said hurriedly.

After a pause, he continued, “It’s just that the location of this nursing home still requires special approval from His Majesty.

As for the initial expenses, they are not necessary.

There are some eunuchs and maids in the palace who are over sixty or nearly sixty years old. It shouldn't be difficult to ask them to take out twenty taels of silver at once."

"You go find a place that is big enough, and I will approve it.

There is no need to let them take the silver first. I have approved three thousand taels of silver for them to use first.

Once they are satisfied, they will naturally pay the money." Zhu Houzhao said generously.

"Your Majesty is truly the most benevolent person in the world. I would like to thank you on their behalf." Liu Jin immediately bowed with emotion.

"Hahaha." Zhu Houzhao laughed happily, and suddenly fell into deep thought, as if he had thought of something.

Seeing this, Liu Jin did not dare to disturb him and waited quietly.

"Eunuchs cannot start a family, so I will naturally provide for them in their old age.

But palace maids can start families, and we can’t keep them trapped in the palace for their entire lives.” Zhu Houzhao said thoughtfully.

After saying this, his eyes lit up, "Yes, we can't keep so many palace maids in the palace. Why would I need so many people to serve me?
Those who are willing to go home can go home, and those who cannot go home can get married. There are still so many people in the Wudi Dragon Riders who have not married yet."

Liu Jin felt a little worried after hearing this. If too many palace maids were sent home or married, there might not be enough servants in the palace.

"Liu Banban, tell all the maids in the palace immediately that those who want to go home can go home immediately, just in time for the New Year.

For those who don’t want to go home and want to get married, I can introduce them to the good men of Emperor Wu’s Dragon Riders.” Zhu Houzhao gave a direct order.

"Your Majesty, are people of all ages released?" Liu Jin asked in astonishment.

"Of course." Zhu Houzhao said without hesitation.

"Your Majesty, those young palace maids are beauties and you can favor them." Liu Jin said tactfully.

The young and beautiful women in this palace are all your Majesty's women.

"Hmph, how can an ordinary woman be worthy of me? I only want the best." Zhu Houzhao said proudly.

Liu Jin seemed to be thinking about something, and put those thoughts aside for the time being, and then said: "But if we release too many palace maids, I'm afraid the palace will be short of manpower."

"If you are short of people, you can recruit them from the capital. There are so many young and middle-aged women who can be recruited. Liu Banban, you are so stupid." Zhu Houzhao scolded with a proud smile.

"I am stupid and not as smart as Your Majesty." Liu Jin subconsciously complimented, feeling helpless in his heart.

You can recruit people from the capital, and you can also recruit middle-aged women.

This, this has never happened before except in the early Ming Dynasty.

It is a matter of great importance and involves many issues, so safety issues and so on must be considered.

But he had to do what His Majesty said, and do it well.

This was his first belief.

Thinking about it, he asked tentatively: "Should we select another batch of beauties to supplement the palace next year?"

"Why are we selecting concubines? What's the point of selecting teenagers to enter the palace? There will be no more selections of concubines in the future.

If we are short of people, we can recruit in Beijing.

There are so many idle women in the capital, as long as we pay them, they will definitely be willing to work. "Zhu Houzhao said happily.

The more I talked about it, the happier I became, and I felt like I had done another great thing.

really.

Liu Jin felt numb and sighed repeatedly in his heart.

Your Majesty really has no idea of ​​the good of women.

Even eunuchs, although they have no abilities, but even if they are not interested in women, are happy to see beautiful women.

Not those middle-aged women.

He wanted to give some advice, but seeing how happy his Majesty was, he shut up.

Just obey orders. Perhaps when Your Majesty grows up a little, he will understand the good of women.

It won’t be too late to change it then.

After thinking about it, he started to discuss the matter of releasing the palace maids from the palace, finding out the loopholes and filling them in, and trying his best to do this matter better.

Zhu Houzhao was very happy to hear this and asked him to do it immediately.

Liu Jin went back to prepare, and the next day, he issued orders one after another.

Soon, the palace was in an uproar.

Most of the thousands of palace maids were happy.

"Your Majesty is merciful and willing to let all the maids leave the palace!"

"That's great, I can finally go home. I miss my parents."

"Go home, do I still have a home?"

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Amidst the heated discussions, many young people wanted to go home directly, and some were willing to get married.

Only a few are still willing to stay in the palace.

Most of these few have lived in the palace since childhood and are orphans. The palace is their home.

Of those who are a little older, nearly half are willing to get married, while the remaining half are willing to stay in the palace and half are willing to go home.

As for the older ones, most of them are willing to stay in the palace.

Such a lively event in the palace naturally spread throughout the capital immediately, causing praise for Zhu Houzhao, and many families were happy.

In addition, the matter of the nursing home has also been finalized and announced.

This caused another uproar in the palace.

This time, it was mainly the eunuchs of the middle and lower levels who were happy and looking forward to it.

In the next few days, the atmosphere in the palace was obviously happy. A group of palace maids whose homes were close to the capital had left the palace and returned home, just in time to celebrate the New Year.

Other palace maids who want to go home will go home in batches and according to plans, but most of them will have to wait until after the Chinese New Year.

Those who want to get married have to wait for a while and meet the unmarried people of Emperor Wu Longqi in batches.

During these days, Zhu Houzhao personally walked around the palace and heard many eunuchs and palace maids expressing their gratitude to him, which made him feel even better.

December 13th.

The Ming officialdom and the army were becoming increasingly lively, more and more officials were feeling frightened, and the atmosphere in the Ming Palace was relaxed and happy.

Zhu Houzhao decided to establish the Military Cabinet system in the Qianqing Palace in front of the cabinet, Wang Shouren, two vice ministers of the Ministry of War, and nobles.

The military cabinet is opposed to the cabinet.

The separation of military and political affairs, or in other words, in order to concentrate forces and reorganize the Ming army as quickly and as vigorously as possible, led to the establishment of the huge Military Cabinet.

It integrates the command and deployment of troops.

The commander-in-chief was in charge of connecting with the Beijing camp, border troops, garrisons, Taifu Temple, and local provincial governments.

The power was so great that it could be compared to today's cabinet.

Of course, the final review of relatively major matters still had to be approved by Zhu Houzhao himself, and would not go through the Imperial Household Department.

Military affairs are important matters, which are different from political affairs.

Even though the three elders of the cabinet were dissatisfied with the establishment of the Military Cabinet, they still worked hard with Wang Shouren and others and seriously demanded that the Military Cabinet could only be responsible to His Majesty.

No one else is allowed to interfere at all, mainly the eunuchs.

There is no Prime Minister in the Military Cabinet, or rather, the Prime Minister is His Majesty.

The other military ministers were called Grand Commanders, corresponding to the Grand Secretaries of the Cabinet.

However, the Grand Commander of the Military Cabinet is of the first rank, and the actual rank of the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet is still very low.

This made Liu Jian and the other two envious.

After the system of the Military Cabinet was finalized, what surprised Liu Jian and others was that Zhu Houzhao had not yet decided on the candidate for the Grand Commander of the Military Cabinet.

Obviously, no one else could interfere in such matters; only Zhu Houzhao could make the final decision.

The nobles looked at Zhu Houzhao eagerly.

The time is coming for the nobles and military commanders to regain their former glory.

Who doesn’t want to share this huge piece of fat?
But this glory and opportunity were all created by Your Majesty.

Therefore, the nobles could only watch helplessly and wait for His Majesty to feed them, not daring to be disobedient in the slightest.

In this regard, Zhu Houzhao felt more and more awkward and depressed as he looked at this group of obedient "puppies".

In such a vast Ming Dynasty, there is no one qualified to be the Grand Commander.

The Grand Commander in his imagination was his general, a general who could lead a large army to destroy a country.

But what about what’s in front of us?

No one can fight.

Slightly more outstanding ones were Duke of Baoguo Zhu Hui and Duke of Qianguo Mu Kun.

But Zhu Hui is just the tallest among the short ones, barely, no, not that bad.

It’s a problem to be able to lead 20,000 to 30,000 people.

Mu Kun has good potential, but he is too young and his ability is also a problem.

Just fighting a few major battles with Emperor Wu's Dragon Cavalry was obviously not enough to support the position of Grand Commander.

The Grand Commander’s first battle was to reorganize the entire Ming army.

Mu Kun couldn't hold on at all.

As for military generals other than the nobles, Zhu Houzhao had been looking for several days but still couldn't find one.

It seems that those who won the battles and were commanded were all civil officials.

It would be impossible for Zhu Houzhao to allow a civil official to serve as the Grand Commander.

The separation of military and politics was his idea and the secret he discovered.

Only by separating the military and politics can he have a stronger army.

More importantly, he looked at some previous military reorganizations and found that no matter how outstanding the civil officials were, asking them to reorganize the Ming army was only a temporary solution and not a fundamental solution.

For example, the current Minister of Personnel Ma Wensheng is considered to be knowledgeable about military affairs and has also reorganized the Liaodong and Beijing camps.

There is an effect, but not to a great extent.

Zhu Houzhao, who couldn't find the person, suddenly remembered that he seemed to have seen something on TV about a very powerful general named Qi Jiguang in the Ming Dynasty.

Is that Ming Dynasty the Ming Dynasty of mine?

If so, where is my Qi Jiguang?

Zhu Houzhao thought of this name and looked for it personally, but still found nothing. There was no such general as Qi Jiguang in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Houzhao became more and more depressed the more he thought about it, and couldn't help but get angry when he couldn't find anyone.

Where is my general?

Then the angry Zhu Houzhao called all the high-ranking nobles in Beijing over.

They felt that His Majesty was going to make use of their nobles, so they came here happily.

Duke of Baoguo Zhu Hui, Duke of Yingguo Zhang Mao, Duke of Qianguo Mu Kun, Duke of Chengguo Zhu Fu, Duke of Dingguo Xu Yongning, except for Duke of Wei who was in Nanjing, the other five dukes were all present.

There are also more than a dozen marquises and earls.

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(End of this chapter)