Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 13 Beijing Camp
Night is deep.

Inside the Qianqing Palace, the lights were bright, yet it was completely silent.

The overwhelming aura of authority he exuded during the day had vanished completely.

Without his imperial robes, Zhu Youjian resembled a solitary engineer immersed in his own world.

Instead of mountains of memorials piled up on the huge huanghuali wood imperial desk, there were several large maps.

One is the "Map of the Nine Borders of the Ming Dynasty", another is the "Map of the Defense of the Capital", and the third is a detailed map of the organization and garrison locations of the three major battalions of the Beijing Garrison.

Wang Chengen stood by, holding his breath and not daring to even breathe loudly.

He looked at the emperor, who was handling state affairs in a manner he had never seen before.

Zhu Youjian did not use the vermilion imperial brush that represented supreme imperial power. Instead, he held a sharpened charcoal pencil in one hand and a brass ruler in the other.

His shadow, cast by the candlelight, appeared large and focused on the wall behind him.

The charcoal pencil scratched across the map, making a soft, rustling sound that seemed particularly clear in the silent palace.

What he drew was not flowing calligraphy, but straight, cold lines, geometric shapes, and strings of numbers marked with strange symbols.

Zhu Youjian was calculating, planning, and waging a war that no one knew about and that only existed on paper.

Wang Chengen couldn't understand what the emperor was doing, but he could sense that with each stroke of the emperor's pen, the trajectory of a certain part of the empire's fate was subtly altered.

After an unknown amount of time, Wei Zhongxian's figure appeared silently at the palace gate like a ghost. He did not enter, but knelt there quietly, holding a black lacquered wooden box high in his hands.

"Come in." Zhu Youjian didn't look up; his voice came from the room filled with blueprints.

Wei Zhongxian crawled in on his knees and respectfully placed the wooden box on a corner of the imperial desk.

"Master, everything you requested is here."

Zhu Youjian hummed in agreement and opened the wooden box.

There was no gold or silver jewelry inside, only a thick stack of files bound with fine hemp rope.

On the cover of the file, four characters were written in small regular script: "Investigation by the Beijing Garrison".

This is the Eastern Depot, the old-fashioned executioner's knife, presented for the first time as a "data intelligence center" under the instruction of its new master.

Zhu Youjian turned the pages one by one.

His expression remained unchanged, but the knuckles of his hand holding the charcoal pencil gradually turned white.

The text in the dossier was devoid of any literary flair, consisting only of lines of cold, cruel data, which, like a knife, sliced ​​through the rotten, festering skin of the Ming Dynasty's core military unit, revealing the unsightly truth beneath.

"The three major battalions of the Beijing Garrison have a total registered strength of 127,452 men."

"After cross-verification by the Dongchang Training Ground, the Armory Bureau, and the Grain Depot, the actual number of soldiers was less than 50,000."

Of these 50,000 people, 30% are over 50 years old. 20% have disabilities or chronic illnesses. 40% work away from home for long periods and only return to camp on payday.

"Conclusion: Within the Beijing garrison, there are fewer than 10,000 soldiers who are truly capable of donning armor and fighting on the battlefield."

"There are 31,000 registered warhorses. In reality, there are more than 3,200, most of which are thin and old and cannot be driven."

"The Arsenal has 100,000 sets of armor, seven or eight out of ten of which are rotten. It has 80,000 muskets, but less than 20,000 are still functional. It has 300 cannons, most of which have rusted barrels and rotten carriages."

"Liabilities: The Beijing Garrison consumes a total of 1.8 million taels of silver annually from the national treasury, the Ministry of Works, and the Ministry of Revenue."

Zhu Youjian finished reading the last line and slowly closed the file.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. The breath condensed into a cloud of white mist in the cold air.

One million eight hundred thousand taels of silver.

They support a force of fewer than 10,000 elderly, weak, sick, and disabled people.

This is the "Central Army" of the Ming Dynasty!
This is him, the Emperor of the Great Ming Dynasty, the most reliable armed force in name only!
The proverb "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" became incredibly clear and heavy in his mind at this moment.

The reason he can dominate the court today with just a few forms, making all the officials unable to lift their heads, is not because of his eloquence or his forward-thinking ideas.

Because he is the emperor, the nominal supreme owner of all the violent machinery in this country!
But what if this violent machine itself is already a pile of scrap metal?
What if even this last bit of deterrence is lost?
Then all his reforms and blueprints will become a joke.

Those civil officials and nobles who tremble before him today would immediately pounce on him and tear this "lawless former king" and "tyrant" to shreds—or... open the door to welcome the deliveryman.

Guns are absolute violence!

The root of violence is the military!
He must have an army.

An army that is absolutely loyal to him personally.

An army armed with entirely new ideas, bound by entirely new interests, and whose combat power is so great that it can crush all internal and external enemies!
This is the foundation of all his reforms.

This is the "core asset" that he, as the "CEO of the Ming Dynasty," truly needs to hold onto.

Zhu Youjian reopened his eyes, the last trace of emotion gone, replaced by absolute calm and resolve. He set the Eastern Depot report aside and unfolded a brand new sheet of white paper.

He picked up a charcoal pencil and a ruler and began to write.

I. Project Background and Problem Analysis (Current Situation Assessment):

According to data provided by the Eastern Depot's intelligence department, the Beijing Garrison, as the core security department of the Ming Dynasty, was severely insolvent. Its book assets (troops and equipment) were seriously inconsistent with its actual assets, its human resources (troop quality) were extremely deteriorated, its operating costs (military pay) were high, and its core output (combat power) was almost zero.

Conclusion: The Jingying Group is a non-performing asset with the highest priority, as it has been continuously incurring huge losses, cannot provide positive value to the Group's security, and is at risk of "bankruptcy liquidation" (total annihilation) at any time due to external market shocks (war).

II. Core Objectives of the Project:
Core objective: To complete the comprehensive reorganization of the Beijing Garrison within one year and establish a "new core army" of 30,000 men.

Key findings:

1. The new army must possess the ability to sweep away all demons and monsters in the capital.

2: The command system of the new army must be absolutely vertical to the emperor himself, eliminating any interference from the middle layer (civil officials, nobles).

3: The operating costs of the new army must be controlled within 500,000 taels of silver per year to achieve "cost reduction and efficiency improvement".

III. Project Execution Path:
Phase 1 (1-3 months): Asset verification (anti-corruption campaign).

Action: A special audit team was established to investigate, with swift and decisive action, cases of embezzlement of military land, and the theft of military equipment. The core objective was to "clean house," eliminate existing corruption, and recover some of the misappropriated assets.

Phase Two (4-6 months): Organizational restructuring (reform of staffing).

Actions: Abolish the old hereditary system of military garrisons and reduce the number of elderly, weak, sick, and disabled personnel. Select officers based solely on merit, breaking the monopoly of the nobility.

Phase 3 (7-12 months): Core business upgrade (strengthening training and equipment).

Actions: Introduce new firearms (flintlock guns), improve artillery, and implement new tactics such as the "triple-layer formation." Establish a promotion system directly linked to military merit. Implement high-intensity, high-displacement combat-oriented training.

IV. Resource Budget and Incentive Mechanism:
Budget: 500,000 taels will be directly allocated by the "CEO's Office" (internal treasury) as start-up capital for the project. This capital will not be subject to the constraints of traditional financial departments such as the Ministry of Revenue.

Incentive mechanism (core):
Military merit-based rewards: Establish clear and quantifiable standards for rewarding combat achievements (such as beheading, capturing flags, breaking through enemy lines, etc.), and pay out immediately after the battle.

Military merit land grant: It was clearly stipulated that for every hundred li of lost territory recovered in foreign wars, the meritorious soldiers in that battle could receive ownership of 40% of the land.

Distribution of spoils of war: It was clearly stipulated that of all spoils of war captured in battle, 20% would go to the "company" (national treasury), 20% to the generals, and 60% to the soldiers.

He wrote the last line, leaving a heavy ink dot on the paper with the tip of his pen.

Every word of this plan is filled with betrayal and subversion of the rules of this era.

It no longer relies on moral teachings of loyalty to the emperor and patriotism, but instead uses the most naked interests—silver, land, and spoils of war—to drive the most primal desires in human nature.

What it seeks to create is not a group of soldiers loyal to the country, but a completely new "military interest group" that lives off war. The rise and fall of this group will be inextricably linked to the emperor and the wars he wages.

Their enemies will not only be the Jurchens and bandits, but also all the old forces within the Ming Dynasty that hinder them from acquiring land and wealth.

Zhu Youjian put down his charcoal pencil and let out a long sigh of relief.

He walked to the window, pushed it open, and a gust of cold night wind rushed in, making his clothes flutter.

He looked out the window at the cold and lonely moon, which shone on the sleeping palace and the vast, dark land beyond the palace walls.

“The blueprint is complete…” Zhu Youjian murmured to himself, his voice carried away by the wind.

"Now, we need a 'project manager' who can turn this blueprint into a steel building."

His gaze slowly shifted from the night sky back to the map of the capital on the table.

His fingers lightly traced the map.

Heading east from the Forbidden City, the journey eventually stops at a mansion that is prominently marked on the map.

That is the British Duchy.

“A person who…has enough weight to keep those arrogant soldiers and noble elders in check.”

"A person whose family's glory comes from their illustrious military achievements, yet who watches as that glory gradually fades in the decadent peace."

“A person who has a sense of honor and shame, but is bound by ancestral laws and class interests, with no way out.”

"Zhang Weixian..."

A complex and enigmatic smile appeared on Zhu Youjian's lips.

That smile contained expectation, calculation, and a hint of pity, which even he himself was unaware of, for the lone minister about to be pushed down this path of no return.

He knew that when this white paper was handed to the old duke, an old era would be completely buried along with the tragic choice of an old minister!

And so a new era, filled with steel and fire, will begin!

(End of this chapter)