There are certainly some drawbacks to this.
For example, once the officers and soldiers of the garrison join the military, they will serve as soldiers for generations.
To a certain extent, this kind of policy was also one of the triggers for the decline of the army and the military during the late Ming Dynasty. However, future generations cannot look at their predecessors from the perspective of God. This system is not perfect, but it is most suitable for today's young people.
The Ming Dynasty regime.
And throughout the ages, any country that wants to be strong and hegemonic must have a large number of professional soldiers. These people do nothing but only have one skill, and that is fighting.
1.8 million elite soldiers can be drawn out to fight Tibet, enter the Western Regions, and conduct expeditions beyond the Great Wall. What a powerful national power this is, and what a powerful military force it is.
But after being excited, Zhu Yunxi gritted his teeth with hatred. The good cards left by his ancestors were ruined by future generations.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, soldiers could not afford enough food, not to mention their monthly rations. Of course, all this was due to the decline in national power. More importantly, the Five Army Governor's Mansion, which was in charge of the world's guard posts and the power of the military and horsemen, was controlled by the civil service group.
subversion.
The guard station became the official farmland and went into the pockets of the civil servants. The food and salary provided by the imperial court to the border officers were exploited layer by layer starting from the central government. When the remaining thirty thousand taels were reached, they would burn high incense and call it "floating away".
Lost.
It’s simply the most ridiculous thing in the world!
Zhu Yunxi gritted his teeth in his heart and looked down.
A five-army governor's office was set up to control the internal and external armies. Two large and small battlefields were set up inside and outside the capital, with forty-eight guards assigned to them.
Every year, troops and horses from Zhongdu, Shandong, and Henan are transferred to Beijing for training. Under the command of meritorious generals, they take turns fighting at the border.
The soldiers and horses of the Beijing camp, the heavy armored cavalry and the Shenji camp were the emperor's personal troops.
The firearms of the Shenji camp include 3,600 muskets, 182 artillery pieces, and 232 cannons.
Under the Governor's Office of the Fifth Army, the number of craftsmen is 232,899, divided into 22 lines of silver, iron, cast iron (steel), nail hinges, tin, and armor piercing. Among them, there are gunpowder, magic weapons, etc.
The Second Arrow Bureau is under the personal control of the Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese Army.
The craftsmen belong to the war bureau, military weapons residence, and quick processing factory of the inner government. There are 26,000 craftsmen in the army and guards in various places. The craftsmen work ten days a month and are given monthly rations by the officials!
Produced by Military Uniforms, Inner Court Weaving and Dyeing Bureau, Shenbo Fang, Houhu (Xuanwu Lake, Nanjing) Manufacturing Bureau. Weaving in Sichuan, Shaanxi Province, and Shaoxing, Zhejiang.
The further you look back, the more detailed it becomes. With the cooperation of the guard station and pure field troops, a large number of production and design units, and a large number of craftsmen are all to ensure the combat effectiveness of the troops.
There is 37,430,000 kilograms of iron in the inner storehouse.
There are ironworks in the world, Jiangxi promotes talents, new metaphors, Fenyi. Huguang Xingguo, Huangmei. Laiwu, Shandong, Yangshan, Guangdong...each has thirteen places.
More than 18.4 million kilograms of iron are transported every year!
There is 323,000 jins of lead in the inner treasury.
Suddenly, Zhu Yunxi saw Zhu Yuanzhang's red pen annotations outside these small regular script letters.
Mining wastes money and wastes people, and it is difficult to dig mountains. Every year, more than 2,660 households in Shandong alone are forced to work. This is a disabled people!
Mining is beneficial to officials and detrimental to the people. If there is no shortage of military supplies, further mining will disturb the people and is absolutely undesirable!
Seeing this, Zhu Yunxi couldn't help but laugh.
The old man is really kind-hearted and always looks at issues from the side of the people.
Mining in this era is actually extremely dangerous, with human lives being involved.
There are more than 540,000 pieces of cotton cloth in the Beijing camp warehouse and 110,000 catties of cotton!
Zhongdu Guards Station, 278,000 pieces of cotton cloth and 56,000 catties of cotton!
The Liaodong Guards had 102,182 soldiers, 430,000 pieces of cotton, and 367,000 jins of cotton.
Huh? Seeing this, Zhu Yunxi's eyes shrank.
The fourth uncle's wealth is quite large, more than 400,000 pieces of cotton cloth alone?
Cotton cloth is more valuable than real money and silver. The area where the old man started his career is the area in China that is best at weaving cotton cloth. Cotton cloth is the lifeblood of the Ming Dynasty's economy, and it is also the biggest technological advantage to the surrounding vassal states.
Cotton cloth has always been a necessity in Jiangnan to replace money to pay taxes.
Clothing, food, housing, and transportation always come first. In the 23rd year of Hongwu, Lan Yu went to the outside of the Great Wall. When he returned to the dynasty with a victory of 190,000 troops, he was rewarded with more than 300,000 pieces of cotton, which attracted nearly 200,000 troops.
Long live, deep in the palace, you can hear the deafening cheers outside.
Cloth is money.
A piece of cloth is enough for a professional soldier to feed his family for a year.
Putting these aside for the time being, Zhu Yunxi continued to look down.
Details of military expenditure sources!
The salt tax on the two rivers and the Huaihe River is reduced to more than 12 million taels per year, and is distributed to the Jiubian Jingying camp, the craftsmen of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion, and the mines.
The total amount of taxes and grain in the world is more than 29.43 million shi. In Zhejiang, it is 2,752,000 shi, and in Suzhou, it is more than 2,809,000 shi.
So many in Suzhou?
Zhu Yunxi was a little surprised. The tax revenue of Suzhou actually exceeded the entire province of Zhejiang, which is the richest.
But after thinking about it, I felt relieved.
The old man doesn't like people from Jiangsu and Zhejiang very much, especially people from Suzhou.
One of the reasons is that these people supported Zhang Shicheng back then, especially the people of Suzhou. After Zhang Shicheng's death, they built an ancestral hall for him, and the people privately called him King Zhang.
Therefore, since the founding of the People's Republic of China by Hongwu, the old man has implemented the policy of exempting all taxes from taxes every year. However, the taxes on Suzhou and the original base of Zhang Shicheng have never been reduced, but have been increased.
But the more important reason is that this place is too rich.
Their money still comes from cotton cloth. In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Suzhou, Songjiang, Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou and other places are the centers of cotton cloth production in the world. It is no exaggeration to say that the total cotton cloth produced here exceeds that of the world in this era.
Go to any country.
Moreover, these areas are not traditional where men farm and women weave. Instead, businessmen take the lead, set up cotton factories, hire weavers, and even many women show up to work.
Dozens of people in small factories and thousands in large factories start working every morning until midnight. After midnight, the second shift of workers continues to work, stopping the looms and weaving all night long.
The taxes in these places were all replaced by cotton cloth, which shows how rich they were.
The old man naturally doesn't like people who are too rich. This is a fact.
Not only did they increase taxes in these areas, but they also restricted the wealthy people in these areas from taking scientific examinations and becoming officials.
At first glance, it seems to be tyranny. But considering the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yunxi can also understand a little bit of the old man's good intentions.
The plutocrats in Jiangsu and Zhejiang can use their huge financial resources to buy supporters who speak for them in the court even if they have no children serving as officials at home. If their children become officials, wouldn't it be a national policy issue?
To favor these wealthy areas?
In addition to raising taxes, there are also moral policies. The old man has set a policy of not charging business taxes, making these people richer and richer.
After the old man died, the order not to allow these wealthy people to serve as officials became a dead letter.
You must know that children of poor people and children of rich people cannot be at the same starting point, and the education they receive cannot be the same at all.
After Hongwu, the chaebols in Jiangsu and Zhejiang tried their best to build schools in order for their children to become officials. They invited famous Confucian teachers from all over the world to open schools to teach their children.
Even in one area, all the wealthy businessmen pooled their money and specially selected children from their hometown who were good at reading to study for free in order to make them famous.
Scholars who have achieved fame can become officials, and those who become officials can enjoy tax exemptions and privileges. Those students from Jiangsu and Zhejiang who study better, have passed the Jinshi exam, and can enter the central government have become a protective umbrella for the collusion between local officials and businessmen.
These people will have a famous name in later generations, the Donglin Party.
The Donglin Party was the main culprit that caused the Ming Dynasty's finances to dry up and the party and government to be in constant trouble.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, the tariff on tea in the world was as high as two million taels per year, but in the Ming Dynasty, it was only close to 200,000 taels per year, less than one-tenth. Moreover, other tariffs could not be collected.
But you must know that during the Ming Dynasty, silver from all over the world was flowing into China crazily. Although the Ming Dynasty did not pay attention to maritime trade, and the old man had a natural contempt for people who did not farm, the transaction volume far exceeded that of other dynasties.
All the world's silver has gone to China and is used in exchange for Chinese cotton, silk, porcelain, tea, etc., but the central government cannot collect taxes. Where is the root cause?
It is the Donglin Party.
They controlled the government and took advantage of their geographical origins to unite together. Whenever the emperor wanted to collect taxes, they would use their ancestral system to resist. The emperor could kill one of them, but for every one killed, hundreds would make up for it.
The huge economic power was transformed into education, and the Donglin Party, the spokesperson of the large conglomerates in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, continuously became the main force of the Ming Dynasty bureaucracy.
After becoming officials, they used their privileges to repay their families and lost the country's tax revenue, allowing local chaebols to profit from it. Commercial tax, the pillar that supports the country's economic system, became a piece of paper.
The chaebols are rich, but the people are still living in poverty. The people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are also living in dire straits. Their fields have been annexed and they can only work. However, the rewards for working are not enough to ensure that the family has enough food and clothing.
To be continued...