The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 368 Eat the emperor's food, wear the emperor's clothes, and kill thieves for the emperor! (Please vote, please subscribe)

Wanping County, the office of the Minister of Military Training in the Capital.

"Your servants Senggelinqin, Shengbao, Dahonga, Tuominga, Xilinga, Duxinga, Duolonga, Tazibu, and Jinaduo respectfully wish His Majesty the best of health!"

A group of leaders of the military training in the capital are now kneeling before Emperor Xianfeng and kowtowing to him and paying their respects!

Although most of the infantry soldiers in this training army came from Zhili and most of the cavalry soldiers came from Khorchin, most of the generals leading the troops were backbone members of the Eight Banners. Only a few cavalry battalion commanders were fellow villagers brought by Senggelinqin from Khorchin, but they were also brought into the Eight Banners Mongolia.

Therefore, this new army with a total number of up to 37,000 to 38,000 people is definitely the main force of the Qing Dynasty and is not "monk soldiers" at all.

If Emperor Xianfeng wanted to fill the army with descendants of the Eight Banners in Beijing, the Mongolian prince Senggelinqin would not be able to stop him, nor would he dare to stop him.

Emperor Xianfeng was sitting in the lobby of the government office, waiting for a group of generals from the capital's military training base to pay their respects. He was just about to say something to boost the morale of the troops when suddenly cheers from the Eight Banners men were heard outside.

"Long live my emperor! Long live! Long live!"

"Protect the Qing Dynasty! Protect the Emperor!"

Xianfeng's pockmarked face immediately became cocky. Senggelinqin, who was kneeling below, took a peek and knew something was wrong. He quickly took out a memorial from his sleeve pocket, raised his hands above his head, and said loudly: "Your Majesty, I, Senggelinqin, request that you select more than 10,000 elite troops from the Eight Banners to train in the capital as the backbone!"

It turns out that he had already prepared both a loyal heart and two things!

If Xianfeng was not moved by the proposal to set up a new army of Eight Banners in the court, he would naturally resist and not make this offer.

But if Xianfeng himself wavered, he could not be the bad guy. After all, he was a Borjigit, not an Aisin-Gioro.

Seeing that Senggelinqin had already hidden the petition for "selecting eight banners to join the new army" in his sleeve pocket, Shengbao cursed inwardly, "old fox", and then took out a petition from his own sleeve pocket and raised it above his head: "Your Majesty, I, Shengbao, also request that you select the elite troops of the Beijing Banner to join the training army in the capital."

With Senggelinqin and Shengbao, the two ministers and assistant ministers of military training, taking the lead, a group of "A"s under them, as well as Tazibu and Jin Aduo, also changed their positions very flexibly and all supported absorbing some of the Eight Banners descendants to come to the capital to train the army and spend their time there.

A few clever ones had prepared memorials early and carried them with them so that if they found out that Senggelinqin and Shengbao supported the training of the new Eight Banners Army, they would immediately submit the memorials to their superiors.

When Xianfeng saw that the group of people below had exactly the same idea as he did, he nodded to An Dehai, who immediately took the memorials from Senggelinqin, Shengbao, Dahong'a, Tuoming'a and others, and placed them on the desk in front of Xianfeng.

Xianfeng took a look, picked out Senggelinqin's memorial, opened it and read it carefully.

It's well written! Not only did it propose to select the strongest men among the Eight Banners to enter the capital to train and serve as soldiers, but it also proposed specific methods for selecting, training and organizing soldiers.

According to Senggelinqin's plan, they had to first select the young, strong, and non-cigarette-smoking Eight Banners men to move to the capital for military training, and try to select 10,000 people first.

These 10,000 people can serve as cadets first, and Senggelinqin will personally supervise their training, and strive to teach them how to form a formation of foreign rifles, march in a foreign rifle formation, and fire in a platoon within half a year.

After they have trained well, they will be assigned to various battalions to serve as the backbone of the "escort team", that is, to supervise the battle team.

Now the infantry of the capital training army has a total of more than 30,000 people, organized into 60 battalions. If another 10,000 men from the Eight Banners are added, it can be expanded to 80 battalions. Each battalion will use one team of Eight Banners soldiers to escort four teams of Han soldiers to fight against the Taiping.
Xianfeng nodded slightly, thinking: "This Senggelinqin seems to be really attentive, but selecting only 10,000 Eight Banner soldiers is still not enough."

"Senggelinqin," Xianfeng closed Senggelinqin's memorial, "The memorial is well written!"

"The emperor has rewarded you."

Senggelinqin breathed a sigh of relief. The 30,000 Han troops, the Eight Banners Mongolian cavalry and the 10,000 Eight Banners soldiers should still be useful for training troops in the capital.

Xianfeng continued, "But isn't it too few to select 10,000 elite troops from the Eight Banners? The population of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty is over a million, with more than 200,000 soldiers, including no less than 100,000 elite soldiers. We should select at least 70,000 to 80,000 people to train troops in the capital, right?"

Seven or eighty thousand?
When Senggelinqin heard this number, he was a little confused.

It's OK to use 10,000 men to supervise 30,000 men, but it's OK to use 70,000 or 80,000 men to supervise 30,000 men. Is it reasonable to use two half-masts to escort a Han Chinese to the battlefield?

"Your Majesty, isn't 70,000 or 80,000 too much?" Senggelinqin had to discuss with Xianfeng, "The training office can't train so many new soldiers, and there aren't that many foreign guns. The cost of purchasing equipment at one time is too much, at least 4 or 5 million taels."

Xianfeng frowned, his face darkened, "How many men can the Jingji Military Training Office train?"

He had one million people from the Eight Banners who depended on the crops, and more than 200,000 of them were soldiers from the Eight Banners who were paid. If Senggelinqin was only willing to take 10,000, what would that matter?
"Thirty thousand people, at most." Senggelinqin gritted his teeth and did not dare to report too little.

"Thirty thousand?" Xianfeng thought for a moment and said in a deep voice, "Just expand the training troops in the capital to eighty thousand. Now there are thirty-seven or thirty-eight thousand training troops in the capital, so expand it to forty-two or thirty-thousand, it can't be less!" There was originally a plan to expand the training troops in the capital. After all, the Taiping Army in the south was also rapidly expanding, and the Han military leaders such as Zeng Guofan, Luo Xueyan, Zuo Zongtang, and Jiang Zhongyuan were also expanding.

The Qing court could not afford to have too few trained troops, and the money in Xianfeng's hands was not enough to support the existing Eight Banners and Green Camps. If the court wanted to expand the trained troops directly under its jurisdiction, it had to disband some of the Eight Banners and Green Camps.

The Green Camp is easy to fire. At worst, we can just send them to the front lines and kill them.

But the same method did not work on the Eight Banners. It was impossible to cut them off. Even if Emperor Xianfeng had made up his mind before, he only wanted to stop the military pay of those Eight Banners soldiers who dared not go to the battlefield. They still had to be given rice and flour to eat.

Xianfeng's current idea is to use the Eight Banners soldiers to train the army.

If the army training in the capital can absorb 42,000 to 43,000 Eight Banner soldiers, then the number of Eight Banner soldiers can be reduced by 42,000 to 43,000. As for the remaining hundreds of thousands, we can find other ways to reduce their food and wages, or continue to fill them into the new army.

Having made up his mind, Xianfeng stood up and waved to the ministers kneeling below: "Come on, follow me out to meet the handsome men of the Eight Banners outside!"

"Long live the emperor! Long live the emperor!"

Outside the military training office in Wanping County, thousands of Eight Banners warriors knelt down and shouted "Long live the Emperor" when they saw Emperor Xianfeng walking out surrounded by a group of high-ranking officials in robes.

Xianfeng looked at the Eight Banners warriors kneeling below and listened to their cheers. He felt very happy and excitement appeared on his face.

"Go get a chair!"

Xianfeng gave an order.

"twitter!"

The big old guard who followed Xianfeng agreed and quickly moved a chair. Then Xianfeng stood on the chair with the help of An Dehai.

The big old guard immediately shouted, "Be quiet, the emperor has something to say!"

The Emperor is going to "speak through the imperial voice"?

Then you have to listen carefully.

All the Eight Banners descendants below fell silent.

Xianfeng took a deep breath and said loudly: "Since you want to enter the capital to train troops as Eight Banners, I will agree!

I have just issued an order to Senggelinqin and Shengbao, ordering them to first recruit 40,000 brave warriors from the elite troops of the Beijing Banner. This is the first batch!
There will be a second batch, and the third batch. All those who are selected to train in the capital will have their original salaries and rice allowances unchanged, and their families can continue to eat their crops! They can continue to eat my food and wear my clothes!

When you have mastered the art of using foreign rifles, I will order Senggelinqin and Shengbao to lead you to fight the Taiping rebels and recapture Yangzhou, Jiangning, Suzhou and Wuchang. Do again what our ancestors have done!
Are you willing?"

Although he opened his throat and shouted, his voice was limited. Fortunately, the big guard Zeng Jia Linshu had a loud voice. He repeated what Xianfeng said, and finally everyone below could understand the general meaning.

It turns out that if you are not selected to train troops in the capital, your salary and rice allowance will be reduced!

If you are selected, you will have to help the emperor fight the Taiping rebels. It sounds very dangerous!
Why is this emperor so difficult to serve?

Just when a group of Eight Banners gentlemen below didn't know whether it was a good thing to be elected or not.

Suddenly, someone took the lead and shouted: "Eat the emperor's food, wear the emperor's clothes, and fight for the emperor."

Tianjing, Xiaguan.

With the sound of the whistle and the rattling of the anchor being dropped, the "Yue Fa" steamship had already stopped steadily at the dock.

Hong Daquan, dressed in a black robe, walked out of his luxurious cabin and stood on the deck. Looking at the majestic Tianjing City not far away, he couldn't help but burst into laughter: "Hahaha, it's finally my turn to show off my skills!"

He suddenly gritted his teeth and said, "Yang, just wait for me!"

(End of this chapter)