Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 346

In the past, Zhu Di, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, almost caused chaos in the country because of the prince. Later, Emperor Wanli wanted to make his youngest son the prince, and the country had no prince for decades.

As for concubines, there are more matters. The most famous concubine Wan Gui almost made the emperor die. The ministers fought with the emperor and the harem almost every day, making the whole country a mess.

The reason why such a situation occurs is because the emperor does not distinguish between public and private, or the ministers do not distinguish between public and private. Of course, it has a lot to do with the emperor's failure to formulate a complete inheritance system.

In the eyes of the courtiers, the throne should be passed on to the eldest son, even if the eldest son is a fool.

Although this has something to do with Chinese traditions, it is actually an excuse to fight against the imperial power.

The reason is very simple, the emperor is also a human being, and a human being will be biased. As long as the emperor is biased, the ministers can use this as an excuse to attack the emperor.

To put it bluntly, everything is for the needs of political struggle, for the needs of power struggle.

Although these examples all happened to the emperor, it seems that they have nothing to do with Li Jing, but now Li Jing is not the emperor in name, and he has more power than the emperor in terms of power.

Li Jing now wants soldiers and money, and none of the people below dare to oppose Li Jing's will, and they can do whatever they want, even when Zhu Yuanzhang was at his heyday.It can be said that Li Jing is now close to sitting on the dragon chair and proclaiming himself emperor.

Then at this time, there will definitely be countless people who want to fall in love with Li Jing, and want to repeat what happened to the emperor to Li Jing.

Although what Shen Zheng said just now was unintentional, it sounded the alarm in Li Jing's heart.

From the bottom of his heart, Li Jing really wanted to separate public affairs from private affairs, but in fact, as Shen Zheng said, this was just his own wishful thinking, because in the eyes of others, everything he did was public affairs, even knowing that it was Private affairs should be treated as public affairs, even if these people do not do it for political purposes.

Why?It's very simple, so that it can be effective in the future.

You can eat for business, why can't we eat?You eat and talk about business affairs, and we eat and talk about business affairs.Therefore, as long as you first make your private affairs public, then the private affairs of the people below will also become public affairs.

So the private becomes the public, and the public becomes the private, and finally the public and the private are not distinguished, and finally the interests of the country become the interests of the individual.

In fact, the superiors may not understand the minds of their subordinates, but they would rather pretend not to understand. As for why they do this, the reason is not hard to guess. There is only one reason: they are greedy for profit.

Sighing, Li Jing filled the wine glass and drank it down in one gulp.

I am aware of these situations, and I want to change them, but with the quality of the current officials, it is too difficult for them to distinguish between public and private. Some things cannot be changed by power alone.

Shaking his head, Li Jing murmured, "The key is the system."

Hearing Li Jing say something vaguely, Wang Chengen didn't understand, so he hurriedly asked, "What did the commander-in-chief say?"

Li Jing smiled, waved his hands and said, "Think about something, let's stop talking and have a drink."

Seeing that Li Jing didn't say anything, Wang Chengen didn't dare to ask more questions, and hurriedly poured wine for Li Jing.

……

In September of the ninth year of Chongzhen, Emperor Zhu Youjian of the Ming Dynasty left Beijing to inspect Shanxi.

This is the first time that the Ming emperor has left Beijing for more than a hundred years since Emperor Zhengde.

The emperor's departure from the capital naturally touched the nerves of many people. Countless officials wrote to request the emperor to return to Beijing, but all these memorials were suppressed by Li Jing.

Moreover, Li Jing never read such memorials. The officials of the Ming Dynasty couldn't get over the nonsense of talking nonsense for a while, so Li Jing didn't have the heart to read those nonsense.

What's more, Li Jing doesn't have time to explain to those officials the purpose of the emperor's visit to Shanxi. Li Jing is now focusing all his energy on implementing the new taxation system.

Daming has been impoverished for a long time, and the treasury has long been unable to make ends meet.When Li Jing entered Beijing a few months ago, he first attacked those corrupt officials. In fact, the biggest purpose was money.

Li Jing knew that although Daming had no money in the national treasury, those corrupt officials had rich fortunes. Punishment of corrupt officials not only won the hearts of the people, but also fined and confiscated money to fill the treasury. Naturally, Li Jing would not let go of such a thing.

However, Li Jing immediately began to rectify the army. Although only part of the army was rectified in the early stage, the army is related to the stability of the country. Can't do this.

Because the rectification of the army is not enough to just open your mouth and talk. How to arrange the soldiers after retirement and how to let the soldiers live with peace of mind must be fully considered.

Of course, Li Jing had already thought about how to place these soldiers before he entered Beijing, but it was obviously not so easy in actual operation. First of all, he had to have money to do this.

You must know that these soldiers have to eat and support their families after they are dismissed and go home. If they cannot be sent home, they will be fine. They must be given enough money to settle down. Strange.

There are three parts to Li Jing's early rectification of the troops. The first is the capital. If the capital is unstable, Li Jing will not dare to let go and do other things. This must be rectified.

Followed by the troops of Hong Chengchou, Lu Xiangsheng, and Sun Chuanting. Li Jing handed over the military and political power to them. If he didn't control the troops, how could he use these people with confidence?

In particular, although Zuo Liangyu and other generals are under the jurisdiction of Hong Chengchou and Lu Xiangsheng, most of the soldiers in these people's hands belong to their own private soldiers. To put it bluntly, these people are similar to warlords. Reuse these people, but if you want these people to obey orders, you have to rearrange their army.

Finally, there are the frontier troops stationed in the Xuanda area.

Li Jing wants to fight against the various ministries of Mongolia. Xuanfu Datong is the base of the front. He needs to stockpile a large amount of military supplies here. If the army here is not in order, how can we ensure a smooth battle ahead?

On the surface, apart from the Forbidden Army in the capital, these troops have more than [-] people, and the remaining two do not seem to have many people. In fact, this is not the case at all.

Let’s talk about Hong Chengchou and others first. The troops used by these few people to encircle and suppress the rogues are indeed not many. The total number of these people is no more than 10. It is also under the jurisdiction of Hong Chengchou and others. Adding these people, it is a huge army.

In addition, the same is true for the garrison in the Xuanda area. The frontier army and the guard troops are close to more than [-] people.

According to the final statistics, there are nearly 40 soldiers in these units that have been reorganized in advance. Of course, there are still a lot of water in them. How can the generals of the Ming Dynasty not be full?

Li Jing's men couldn't be counted one by one, and even if they were counted, these generals would have other ways to get away with it.

In this regard, Li Jing did not care about these generals. Old diseases cannot be cured overnight, and Li Jing still knows this truth.

What Li Jing needs to know is not how many people will be abolished, but the part of the troops that will remain. Li Jing will never allow any moisture in the remaining troops.

The final statistical results are: more than 7 people were abolished from the imperial guards in the capital, nearly 15 were abolished by Hong Chengchou and others, and more than [-] people were abolished in the Xuanda area.

Calculated, a total of nearly 30 people were abolished, and about [-] soldiers were retained.

So many people were abolished at once, although there is a certain amount of water, but the actual number is more than 20, especially the soldiers in the Xuanda area, the local troops, and the guards. Most of the soldiers do not have land. Distribute land that can support a family.If there is no land available for distribution, it must be bought for them.

In short, these people have to be settled no matter what.

In the end, more than six million taels of silver were spent just to resettle the retired soldiers, and the confiscated silver shrank by half at once, not counting the food distributed to the soldiers for temporary living.

In addition, Li Jing had previously reissued a sum of salary in arrears, but in fact at this time the confiscated money was running out.

However, the retained soldiers also had to be paid. After the rectification, the soldiers’ military salary was almost doubled, with an average of two taels of silver per person per month. After a few months, Li Jing had already spent nearly 100 million taels of silver.

In addition, the frontier troops stationed in Shanhaiguan and Ningjin also needed Li Jing to pay their salaries. By this time, Li Jing was already a little overwhelmed.

In fact, Li Jing originally planned to rectify the Shanhaiguan and the troops outside the pass. This army is not his direct line. It is impossible for Li Jing to allow such an important place to be stationed by troops that do not belong to him. He only stopped because of insufficient money. After we have money, we will reorganize the troops in Shanhaiguan.

But Daming's current financial situation is too tight. If it can't find a way to solve the financial problem immediately, Daming may collapse anytime, anywhere. How can there be any spare money to rectify the troops in Shanhaiguan?

In particular, Cao Wenzhao is using Xuanda as a base to use troops against the various ministries of Mongolia in the north. Although Cao Wenzhao only mobilized less than 3 combat troops, as long as it is a war, how can it be possible to spend no money?
Fortunately, Li Jing's troops mainly used banknotes to pay their military salaries, which could relieve Li Jing's burden a little, but this situation must not last long, because once the soldiers knew that Li Jing didn't have enough money in his pocket, it would be a huge disaster. disaster.

Li Jing is now having financial headaches, how can he have the time to pay attention to the letters from the officials below?
In fact, Li Jing also thought about taking all the officials of the Ming Dynasty in one pot, just like the history books said that Li Zicheng went to Beijing to plunder. It is not a problem to do tens of millions of taels of silver.

But what is the difference between Li Jing and Li Zicheng if he does that?And that's not the right way to solve financial problems at all.

In the cabinet signing room, Li Jing held a pen and frowned slightly as he looked at the report on tax collection in Beizhili area sent by Shen Zheng in the past few days.

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(End of this chapter)