The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 227: The Ming Army is dissatisfied with its pay

There is a joke in later generations.

The Ming army was not fully paid, otherwise they would be invincible.

Wanli originally thought this was a joke.

However, now he realized that this was not a joke, it was true.

If the Ming army soldiers could receive full pay, they would be truly invincible.

Not to mention anything else, just the number of soldiers of the Ming army makes it invincible.

If any emperor of the Ming Dynasty could provide full salaries to more than two million garrison guards, they could sweep away any force in those days just by relying on the number of people.

Of course, this full salary does not only mean one stone of grain and one tael of silver per month, but also means that all that should be paid should be paid.

For example, military merit awards must be paid out in a timely manner.

If there is no reward for killing the enemy, who would bravely kill the enemy?
This is a morale issue. Even though there is no reward for killing the enemy, many soldiers will go to the battlefield to defend their country. However, that is passive, not active.

If it was passive, the Ming army's combat effectiveness could not be exerted at all.

To put it bluntly, wars are fought for money.

This is also a famous saying in later generations.

If there is no benefit in going to the battlefield to fight, the elite soldiers on the other side will lose their spirit and enthusiasm. If there are enough benefits in going to the battlefield, the civilians will rush forward with full energy.

Wanli also had a deep understanding of this.

Shenwu Zuoying is a clear proof of this.

They were all severely damaged when they sniped at the army of the Three Guards of Doyan. Thousands were killed, thousands were seriously injured, and almost all the rest were injured.

In this state, if it were the previous Beijing camp, it would have been defeated long ago, and it would have been a complete rout, with soldiers and horses fleeing in all directions and no one would be found.

This is what happened to the Beijing camp during the Battle of Tumu. Tens of thousands of Oirat cavalry rushed up, and hundreds of thousands of Beijing camp soldiers collapsed inexplicably!

The current Beijing Army has only 20,000 troops and dares to fight against nearly 100,000 Northern Barbarians. What's more, they can't be defeated no matter what they do. They still want to fight after being beaten, and they still want to go on even after being injured, but they are afraid that they can't go on!

To put it bluntly, this is the result of military merit rewards. If killing one enemy didn't reward you with fifty taels of silver, if killing a certain number of enemies didn't reward you with a title of nobility, who would be so blindly motivated?

Wanli saw how invincible the Ming army was when it was fully paid.

However, this requires money to watch.

He's almost out of money!

This was actually the main reason why the Ming army was dissatisfied with their pay. Full pay was really too expensive. All the previous emperors combined could not make as much money as he did. Yet, he still spent whatever he earned.

The Ming army's current consumption is truly terrifying. Not to mention anything else, just talk about food and wages. At this moment, the food and wages of the Beijing camp, border troops, including the imperial guards and the Jinyiwei are all supported by his inner treasury.

At this moment, the Beijing camp alone has 360,000 troops. The four guards of the Tengxiang Imperial Guard have more than 22,000 troops, which is fully staffed. The 17 thousand-household units of the Jinyiwei have nearly 20,000 troops, which is also fully staffed. There are more than 10,000 secret guards. These alone make up 410,000 troops.

There are also border troops. Except for Datong Town, they have food and wages for 25,000 troops. The eight border towns have food and wages for 200,000 troops. Datong Town now has 100,000 troops with full wages, which is another 300,000.

As for the naval officers and soldiers, he hasn't even started the large-scale expansion yet, and there are already tens of thousands of them.

More than 700,000 troops, including officers at all levels, food, weapons and equipment, and even uniforms, etc., all cost more than 2 million taels a month.

The little money he embezzled from Dai Fan was not enough to last for three months.

Fortunately, Dai Fan had a lot of grain reserves, and more than 30 million shi of grain was enough for more than 700,000 soldiers for two years.

It was precisely because these more than 30 million dan of grain could offset his grain consumption of more than 1 million taels every month that he dared to recruit another 50,000 troops for Datong Town and he dared to frantically recruit craftsmen to build the Acropolis.

The craftsmen must be paid and ensured to have enough food.

In addition, he also needs to build naval warships and recruit naval soldiers, and no one knows how much money this will cost.

This money is never enough, what should I do?

In early November, Wanli, who had been leading the army in person for nearly half a year, finally returned to the Mountain Resort.

He just had a quick reunion with Queen Wang, the little princess, the little prince and others, and then summoned relevant personnel to discuss the issue of making money.

Early in the morning around noon, the sky was still gloomy. It was about to snow in the capital, and the temperature was very low.

The Mountain Resort seemed to be hidden in the dusk, hazy and dim. Wanli summoned everyone to the lobby of the former county government office and started discussing with the light of oil lamps.

He gathered quite a lot of people this time.

Duke of Peng Qi Jiguang, Duke of Cheng Zhu Yingzhen, Duke of Yingguo Xu Wenbi, Duke of Ding Zhang Yuangong, Marquis of Wu'an Zheng Weizhong, Marquis of Linhuai Li Yangong, Earl of Yongnian Wang Wei, father-in-law of the emperor Zhang Zhen, Zheng Danian and others who were in charge of various businesses all came.

If Li Shizhen and his son and the Wan brothers all came, there would be no room for them, so he called Li Shizhen and Wan Bangzhong.

How can I make more money now?
Iron, cloth, and medicine, it seems these are the only three things.

Oh, and coal.

Wanli glanced around slowly and then asked, "Wenbi, how is the coal business going?"

This one.

Duke of England Xu Wenbi explained rather awkwardly, "Your Majesty, I dare to say that the cost of doing coal business is too high.

We were a wholesaler, and the most we could sell was one ounce of silver for 100 jin (approximately 1000 kilograms), or one ounce of silver for 1,000 kilograms. Not to mention the labor costs involved in digging it out, the transportation costs were prohibitive. A single horse-drawn cart could only carry a thousand kilograms of coal, and it could only travel a little over a hundred miles a day. We built tens of thousands of carts and bought tens of thousands of old horses from the Hetao region to pull them. This investment alone cost hundreds of thousands of taels (approximately 100,000 taels).

The problem is, we can only earn 10,000 taels of silver for one trip. Even if we go from Luanzhou to the capital, it will take five or six days to go back and forth. We can only make about five trips a month.

We have to pay the coachmen, and we have to keep them fed on the road, and there is also the wear and tear of the carriages and horses. Our gross profit per month is only about ten thousand taels.

If we take into account the hundreds of thousands of taels we have invested, then any business we do will be more profitable than the coal business.

This is not the most important thing. The key is that the border troops and the Beijing troops still need coal, and coal is also needed to burn bricks to build the Acropolis. We have to ensure this.

Our coal-carrying carts can only make two trips to the capital city a month now. Most of the time, they're delivering coal to soldiers at the border and in the capital. This means we're losing nearly 20,000 taels a month."

The transportation cost is indeed a big problem.

If you use a horse-drawn carriage, the transportation cost will be frighteningly high over a hundred miles. Water transportation is better.

Wanli thought for a moment, then asked, "Can't you rent a warship from a coastal garrison to pull it?"

They don’t have enough boats.

Duke Xu Wenbi of England explained, "Your Majesty, we've already rented out most of the warships from the coastal garrisons just by selling iron, and they're not very willing to haul coal. That stuff makes the ships and the people alike black, and it's too difficult to clean."

Uh, not enough warships?

This seems to be another question of spear and shield.

He earned more money mainly to build warships and recruit naval officers.

The problem is that there are not enough warships or even enough naval officers and soldiers, and the transportation costs are too high.

How to do it?

If the transportation problem cannot be solved, we can only mine nearby.

There seem to be coal mines near the capital. There seem to be many coal mines throughout the north, from Liaodong Town to Gansu Town. The key is that only a few coal mines have been detected so far.

Wanli thought for a moment and then asked, "Father-in-law, how do we explore coal mines now?"

He was asking about Yongnian Earl Wang Wei.

This question stumped Yongnianbo Wang Wei.

He thought about it carefully, then said carefully: "Your Majesty, when the Ministry of Works sends people to prospect for minerals, they usually look at the rocks, soil, and vegetation.

There is cinnabar on top and gold underneath; there is cinnabar on top and copper and gold underneath; there is magnolia on top and lead, tin and red copper underneath; there is ochre on top and iron underneath.

This is the experience accumulated over thousands of years. In other words, gold, silver, copper, iron, lead and tin are relatively easier to find, and there are many pulse-finding craftsmen with rich experience in this area who have passed it down.

However, whether coal can be found depends largely on luck. Coal explorers look at the stones, and a few stones will do, but not bluestone or sand and gravel. Coal explorers look at the soil mainly to see whether there are black seedlings in the soil. As for those who look at grass and trees, there is no conclusion yet.

"I've heard that the coal prospectors sent out by the Ministry of Works mainly rely on digging. If they think there's coal underground, they'll dig down, digging a pit several feet deep to see what's going on. Generally, after digging dozens or even hundreds of such deep pits, they'll eventually find a coal mine."

Is this how you prospect for coal these days?

Wanli thought for a moment after hearing this, then asked, "How long will it take to dig a pit several feet deep?"

Yongnianbo Wang Wei estimated, "It depends on the soil quality. If the soil is loose, it will take one or two days. If the soil is compacted, it will take at least four or five days. If the soil is mixed with rocks, and the rocks are large, then I don't know how many days it will take."

This takes about the same amount of time as digging a well, and most wells these days are only a few feet deep.

Wanli asked, "How long does it usually take for a coal prospector to find a coal mine?"

Yongnianbo Wang Wei said helplessly, "It depends on luck. If you're lucky, you can find it in a month or two. If you're unlucky, you might not find it for half a year, a year, or even several years."

The soldiers who were exploring the border would probably vomit if they dug so much.

How did later generations find out?
Wanli thought about it carefully, then asked, "Father-in-law, do you think it would be a problem to cast a solid round rod of arm thickness from 100-fold tempered steel and cast it ten feet long?"

This is of course no problem.

Yongnian Earl Wang Wei said without hesitation: "Solid ones are easy to cast, and a length of ten feet is no problem."

That's good.

Wanli gestured and said, "What I want you to make is a drill as thick as your arm, which is used for exploring coal mines.

However, this type of drill bit comes in sections, each section is one zhang long. The front section has a pointed drill bit, while the back section does not have a drill bit, but instead has a buckle that can be buckled by turning in one direction.

The surfaces of these cylinders must be polished, and the tail must not only have a buckle, but also a hole for passing an iron rod, so that two people can pass the iron rod through the hole to turn the drill bit.

Oh my god, such a big drill?

And one section is ten feet!
This thing is not difficult to process, but the problem is that it is too heavy.

Yongnianbo Wang Wei thought for a moment, then asked carefully, "Your Majesty, how many sections of this drill bit should we make?"

This also depends on the soil quality. Some soils are too compact or there are too many stones, so it will not turn after three or four sections at most.

However, the coal in some coal mines seems to be buried about ten meters below the soil layer, and four or five sections would be enough. In any case, we should find all the coal mines we can find first.

Wanli estimated, "The key to this thing is to get it out of the soil. I'm afraid it will take several strong men to lift five of them. Let's get five for a set."

(End of this chapter)