Emperor Ming: Your Majesty, you have caused me so much suffering.

Yu Qian submitted his memorial very quickly, clearly indicating that he had been preparing for a long time, and the timing was just right.

The memorial was very long, several thousand words in total, and it proposed to add ten battalions.

Zhu Qiyu read it very carefully. Throughout the Ming Dynasty, emperors with any ability liked to reform the army.

To put it more politely, the system established in the early Ming Dynasty was no longer suitable for the times, and the army was riddled with problems that needed to be eliminated. In reality, this was an opportunity for the emperor to reform and regain control of the army.

Historically, from the ten regiments of the Jingtai reign to the twelve regiments of the Chenghua reign, then the two official halls and four outer families of the Wuzong reign, and then the Jiajing reign which claimed to be restoring the ancestral system of the three major camps but was actually reforming the regiment system, and so on, the Wanli and Chongzhen emperors, every reform brought about a brief period of prosperity with abundant military virtue and a great number of famous generals. This was also the process of strengthening imperial power and the emperor regaining control of the army.

Zhu Qiyu was determined to reform the military system.

Privately, the old nobles might not be willing to wholeheartedly support him, an emperor who ascended the throne out of wedlock. Zhu Qiyu urgently needed to promote a new group of nobles to consolidate his own position.

From an official standpoint, it is no longer appropriate for the three battalions to continue serving as military training camps as before. They need to be replaced by regiments and battalions, turning the training camps into permanent standing forces.

The reason this method was applicable during the Hongwu and Yongle reigns was because the emperors were skilled warriors, and their generals were incredibly capable. These people could lead even a bunch of idiots to victory, unlike now, where an idiot leading a group of elite troops gets utterly defeated.

The Song Dynasty knew that if the border troops were weak while the central army was strong, the capital army would be useless without reforms, the Ming emperor would be a commander without troops, and the border troops would be powerful while the capital army would be weak, which would come sooner than expected.

The capital region was originally a crucial area. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, the capital garrison, the regular army, and the troops of various guard posts in the capital region were combined to ensure that the central government had at least 700,000 registered troops. Even excluding those who were not actually employed, more than 500,000 troops could still be mobilized.

Now, after the disaster caused by Zhu Qizhen, half of the army is gone, and more importantly, the most elite Beijing garrison is nowhere to be seen.

Now, after the consolidation of the loyalist army, the number of troops directly controlled by the central government in the capital region has been reduced to about 300,000, of which more than 200,000 are concentrated in the capital.

What hurt Zhu Qiyu even more was the complete collapse of the "garrison-military settlement-military household" system.

Zhu Qiyu looked at the data handed over by Cheng Jing. In the eighth year of Xuande, the grain produced by the military farms was 7,209,461 shi. This output was enough to maintain the balance of military needs. The national treasury only needed to allocate a small amount to support the army. However, during the Zhengtong era, the output was basically maintained at around 2,700,000 shi, which was three-fifths less.

This was naturally closely related to the decision made by the Three Yangs to transfer the military granaries of the garrison to the local government. However, it was an indisputable fact that the grain produced by the military farms was severely insufficient. The farmland was gradually being swallowed up, which meant that the military farms of the garrison could no longer be self-sufficient, and the national treasury had to spend a lot of money to support the army.

This is not the worst of all. The worst thing is that the Beijing garrison is gone. These loyalist troops are destined to stay behind to replenish the Beijing garrison. If a large number of troops are lost in the battle for the capital, troops will have to be conscripted from all over the country to replenish the Beijing army.

As a result, the soldiers in these garrisons north of the Yellow River could not be replenished in the short term. The farmland in these garrisons was either abandoned or fell into the hands of powerful figures and local officials. Who would cultivate the land was no longer up to Zhu Qiyu, and even the imperial court could not control it.

The annexation of the garrison's land was irreversible. Perhaps those powerful nobles and local gentry were burning incense and praying to Zhu Qizhen right now, thanking the retired emperor for the benefits he had brought. The retired emperor was a great benefactor; he could sit at home and have land fall from the sky.

Although the imperial court has military households, military households cannot be conjured out of thin air. With the current number of military households, if people are forcibly conscripted to join the army, one-third of the garrison's military strength can be replenished. Zhu Qiyu felt that this was something to celebrate with drums and gongs.

Thinking of this, Zhu Qiyu couldn't help but curse Zhu Qizhen and his old mother in the palace. The defeat was not the most terrible thing; what was terrible was the series of consequences that followed, which pushed the Ming Dynasty into the abyss and caused the military and political system to collapse directly.

Zhu Qiyu faced three possible solutions.

One approach is to recruit soldiers and then forcibly place them in military garrisons. In the future, they can be simply and directly converted into military households. This way, the number of soldiers can be replenished quickly in the short term, and the land reclamation will not be instantly seized and swallowed up. This is the relatively scientific approach at present.

Secondly, to allow the land to lie fallow in the short term, no one should interfere. The imperial court should make adjustments slowly, taking several years, by conscripting military households from both the north and south, similar to the Tang Dynasty's practice of "relocating from narrow to wide areas." This would allow some wealthy military households from certain areas to be transferred to the north, thus enabling the land to recover.

After all, the population of the Ming Dynasty was still large enough. The cost of this was that the land would be abandoned for many years, which would be extremely difficult to supervise. It is estimated that the court would oppose this. It would be crazy not to cultivate the land.

Thirdly, the land reclamation affairs were handed over to the local government. The local government was allowed to recruit people to farm the land and pay taxes according to custom to ensure that the land was productive. After the garrison troops were restored, the local government was allowed to return the land to the garrison.

The risk is that you take the fat meat and expect people to spit it out. Don't even think about it, unless you slaughter a whole bunch of people, maybe then it will have some effect.

Zhu Qiyu wrote and stopped at his desk, his mind a jumbled mess. He realized then that being an emperor was no easy task.

Zhu Qiyu rubbed his temples, deciding to put the matter aside for now and continue reading Yu Qian's memorial.

Looking ahead, Yu Qian mentioned another reason why the military system urgently needed reform: to take the opportunity to eliminate the past malpractices of the Beijing garrison.

During the Zhengtong era, there were vacancies in the three major military camps, and the phenomenon of officers privately employing soldiers was rampant.

Especially in the early years of the Zhengtong reign, the imperial court carried out a large number of construction projects, which led to a large number of soldiers being conscripted to work on construction projects, engage in smuggling, and neglect their training. As a result, there was a huge gap between the number of soldiers on paper and the actual number of soldiers in actual combat.

They conscripted 60,000 soldiers, but dared to report 80,000. In reality, perhaps only 40,000 participated in the construction, while the remaining 20,000 went to do private business. They made a profit from the court in one go, and then the soldiers made another profit by doing errands for their superiors and transporting some "local specialties." They won by doing nothing.

Now that the three major battalions have been destroyed and almost all of their soldiers have been wiped out, it is time to demolish and rebuild them. Adding ten regiments and battalions can at least ensure that the number of soldiers is real in the short term, and prevent the waste of resources and the loss of national treasury funds.

The Five Military Commands directly served as the "old camp," filling it with old and weak soldiers to perform miscellaneous tasks within the city and as auxiliary troops for city defense, thus transferring the main combat force to the Tenth Regiment.

Each of the 10 battalions is composed of one commander-in-chief, one squad leader, two commanders-in-chief, ten platoon leaders, one hundred squad leaders, and two hundred squad supervisors.

He then recommended one person from among the commanders of the three major camps to serve as the admiral, in charge of ten battalions. This person was naturally the Right Commander-in-Chief Shi Heng. The commanders of each camp were ten people selected by Yu Qian from the previously mentioned list of garrison commanders. These ten people were the main fighting force for guarding the nine gates of the capital.

In this respect, Yu Qian overstepped his authority. He could recommend a list, but he could not use this method to directly finalize the list without including any members for Zhu Qiyu to choose from.

This isn't a multiple-choice question; it's a fill-in-the-blank question.

Zhu Qiyu gazed at the list thoughtfully, and after a short while, summoned Cheng Jing.

"Simu, go and summon Jiao Jing and Zhang Ni!"