Why did Zhu Yiliu take the matter of veterans assigning land?

He has a purpose.

This has to start with the issue of the court maintaining the support of the army, which involves the Ming Dynasty's policy of governing the army and the atmosphere of governing the army.

Of course, it is not a problem that can be explained clearly in just a few words, let alone solved.

Everyone knows that the status of civil servants in the Ming Dynasty was very high, and military officers were oppressed by civil servants and the court everywhere.

During the Ming Dynasty, Qi Jiguang was the most famous military officer.

However, without Zhu Yili's intervention, Qi Jiguang would have left the world in a few years. According to the lunar calendar, it should be December of the 15th year of Wanli.

It is unbelievable to say that Qi Jiguang has such a reputation and status that he did not mention this in the official archives of the court when he died. Emperor Wanli learned about this news from the people of Dongchang.

It can be said that Qi Jiguang was one of the most talented generals of the Ming Dynasty (one of them could actually be removed). He still could not forgive Emperor Wanli after being deposed for three years.

What is the reason? On the one hand, of course, this is because of the close relationship between Qi Jiguang and Zhang Juzheng, but on the other hand, it is also a true portrayal of the social status of military generals in the entire Ming Dynasty, especially the Yongle Dynasty.

The status of military generals is very low, so they are not valued at all when they are not used or when they lose their value.

From a conscience, looking at the experiences of all the military generals in the Ming Dynasty, Qi Jiguang's treatment was pretty good.

Even though his death did not receive the honor and sorrow he deserved, the attention he received during his lifetime still exceeded that of other generals of his contemporaries.

Let me give you some examples at will.

For example, his friend, Yu Dayou, was also a famous general of a generation, and was repeatedly impeached, but his ambitions were hard to fulfill;

Lu Tong was first detained, then deposed;

Tang Kekuan was detained and released, ordered him to make meritorious service and finally sacrificed his life for the country outside the border;

Generals such as Hu Shouren, Wang Rulong, and Zhu Yu were all powerful generals under Qi Jiguang. They made great contributions to the Ming Dynasty, but were all dismissed or guarded the border;

Of course, there were two exceptions in the same era, one was Li Chengliang and the other was Liu Xian. Li Chengliang and Liu Xian were also repeatedly impeached, but they were still unmoved.

It’s not because of how high their status is and how favorable the court is, but because the court cannot do without them.

Li Chengliang needed to guard Liaodong, which was the Dinghai Sword of Liaodong. Liu Xian was responsible for the heavy responsibility of suppressing the "Tu Barbarians" in Sichuan and Yunnan. Neither place could find other more suitable people to replace the command power of both of them.

Liu Xian's son Liu Jing was also re-educated and later fought with Nurhaci to promote troops and died.

There are many examples like this.

So Qi Jiguang is quite lucky.

The sympathetic experience of military officers was universal in the Ming Dynasty, and it can even be said to be inevitable.

Because the Ming Dynasty emphasized culture over military affairs.

If we only emphasize civil and over military affairs, it is better to say that military generals lead troops to fight and the governance principles of civil servant groups are fundamentally incompatible.

When social and economic development is unbalanced, conflicts arise one after another, and political means cannot be adjusted, war usually breaks out. Sometimes, when natural disasters and man-made disasters and people face huge threats of death, they will take risks and resort to force. How does the civil service group make a decision at this time?

They have always regarded maintaining balance in all aspects as the prerequisite for their governance. If things have to be resolved by force, it will be a sign of failure for them.

Civil officials seem to have an unbreakable concept in their hearts, that is, from the country to the individual, they must never regard "power" as authority.

However, as far as military generals are concerned, the training and war experience they receive have made them develop a completely different temperament from civil servants.

Generals need accurate choice ability and decisive determination, with the focus on achieving results without avoiding extremes: when charging into battle, they must concentrate on attacking the enemy's heart with all their might; when retreating to defend, they must consider the actual situation, and if they are not allowed, they must give up decisively; when winning the battle, they must focus on expanding their results without hesitating for other issues...

Normally, Wu will regard his and his subordinates' lives as bargaining chips in the gambling field, and can gamble to the end if necessary.

However, most civil officials use the doctrine of the mean as their principle of dealing with things and advocate stability and peace. Therefore, the great contributions made by the military man in swords, arrows and stones are nothing more than a courageous spirit in the minds of civil officials. Even if they defeat the enemy, they are only temporary and partial success.

In short, most civil servants despise soldiers in their hearts.

In such a atmosphere, can soldiers who retire and return home still gain normal social status?

The Ming Dynasty can even say that the fundamental policy of governing the people in the entire feudal dynasty was almost the same, that is, to maintain their simplicity and ignorance.

But a soldier who retires from the army is equivalent to adding an unemployed vagrant. How do they adapt to rural life by the skills they have learned and the daily habits they have developed? It is no exaggeration to be useless.

Retired soldiers will find that outside the army, people value peaceful and quiet appearance, gorgeous and colorful words, eloquent eloquence, and versatile wit... But this is not what they are good at? It's simply a completely different approach.

Therefore, soldiers who retire from the army are an extremely complex and prone to trouble.

Perhaps because of the separatist rule of the Tang Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty had this tendency to value culture over military affairs since the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. About a hundred years later, the civil servant group entered a mature stage, and the more they went, the stronger they became, and their social status naturally rose to the highest point in history.

On the contrary, the social status of military officers has dropped to the lowest point in history, lacking independence and strict organization, and cannot compete with civil servants.

As a result, many generals have made great achievements through life and death, but their social influence is not necessarily comparable to a wonderful large article by civil servants.

The serious consequences of such a system and atmosphere have long been proven by history.

Zhu Yiliu naturally didn't want to repeat the same mistake.

Military governance must be put on the agenda.

The situation he pointed out that the retired soldiers who returned home were only a microcosm, or it was just a problem caused by the atmosphere of emphasizing culture and neglecting military affairs.

The status of warriors is already low, not to mention after they are discharged from the army, and they cannot get the social status and respect they want. After they are discharged from the army and return to their hometown, they have no use of their power, and even their survival has become a big problem.

In this way, there are great uncertainties lurking. They are not as easy to talk like the people. When they are excited, they will beat people with fists.

Zhu Yiliu understood that before that, those people would send their fields to powerful and powerful families and plant them. But what about now?

The purpose of dividing the land is to break this relationship and let the people have land in their hands. What should I do if the land is distributed to the soldiers who have retired from the army?

They don’t know how to plant themselves, and the people have land in their own hands, so they don’t want to rent it, and the land they send will not exist... So what should they do if they are?

This is exactly the question raised by Zhu Yili.

Yan Yongfan must have thought less than he thought, and the reality has not been solved. He has already said that he almost started to fight with the Jinyiwei, so he must have used force to temporarily suppress them.

But there is no doubt that this problem needs to be faced and solved in the end, and it is a national problem - involving military governance - as for how to rectify it, Zhu Yili really has a headache.

The military defeat in the middle and late Ming Dynasty is well known, and the degree of its corruption is unimaginable.

Let's give a simple example.

In the middle and late Jiajing period, a pirate of about 60 people landed and went deep into the hinterland, as if they were entering an uninhabited land and killed people everywhere. They crossed Beixin Pass in Hangzhou, entered She County, Anhui through Chun'an, approached Wuhu, and built a big circle around Nanjing, then headed to Moling Pass to Yixing, and retreated to Wujin. Although they were finally annihilated, they killed more than 4,000 people. How many troops were there in Nanjing at that time? 120,000.

Such military operations are extremely rare in the history of world wars and are unimaginable.

The extent of the Ming Dynasty's military corruption can be seen.

In theory, in the middle of the 16th century, it is really hard to understand that an island country like Japan could seriously threaten the security of the southeast coastal provinces.

In Zhu Yili's opinion, he felt that with the strength of the Ming Dynasty, he should go across the sea to attack the Japanese.

At that time, Japan was not only narrow and sparsely populated, but also had not formed a unified regime for decades. Civil wars continued and laws and disciplines disappeared.

The Ming Dynasty was a highly centralized country, with the central command of the local governments as if they were in charge of their arms. At the same time, according to records, the Ming Dynasty had the largest army in the world at that time, with nearly two million.

However, this is just an imaginary. At least Zhu Yili thinks that it is an imaginary at present. Even if history has quietly changed in his hands, it is still an imaginary.

Because the Ming Dynasty had few troops available, the combat effectiveness of the field army was almost the same as that of the militia in rural areas.

This is the reality.

To attack the small Japan, we must first govern the army.

...
Chapter completed!