"In your opinion, the soldiers and horses in Liao Town still have a lot of free pay..."

After Hou Jin finished asking his questions, Zhu Youjian got straight to the point and asked directly about the empty wages in Liao Town.

"Uh... this..." Man Gui was stunned when he heard Zhu Youjian asked about the free salary, not knowing what to say.

He is reckless, but that doesn't mean he is a fool.

Things like empty pay cannot be discussed casually, as it may involve hundreds of officials and generals.

"Don't worry, my brother and I have made a decision about the empty pay, and we won't blame the generals."

Seeing that Man Gui was worried, Zhu Youjian could only comfort him. But when Man Gui thought that he would have to work in the Royal Horse Prison in the future, he simply said:

"In Liao Town, before Xiong Jinglue arrived, there were 95,000 Liao soldiers, 90,000 guest troops, and 100,000 heavy troops, which is nearly 280,000."

"However, Liao Zhen and the guest army often have free pay, as well as heavy supplies and heavy troops."

"Hu Kedu gave statistics to Li Yingce during the incident. The original number of troops in Liaodong was 95,000, but by the 28th year of Wanli, there were only 40,000, which means that the number of troops was reduced by 60%."

"The reason for the decrease is that after the Korean War, the number of troops in Liaodong was too much and it was difficult to recover."

"The soldiers and horses of Liao Town recruited Liao people as soldiers. However, after the eunuch Gao Huai rebelled against the Liao Dynasty, the Liao people regarded the imperial court as their enemy."

"Therefore, many Liao people, after receiving military pay and housing expenses, went west to join the Beilu, or went north to join the Jianlu."

"Before the Battle of Sarhu, the Ming army stationed in Liaodong was in neglected training, outdated equipment, lacked food and pay, and had an imaginary number of 140,000 soldiers and horses. The actual number of troops was no more than 70,000, of which less than 40,000 were able to leave the city to fight in the field."

"Because of this, before the Battle of Sarhu, the imperial court specially mobilized two generals, Du Song and Liu Wei, as well as troops from Sichuan, Gansu, Zhejiang, Fujian and other provinces to reinforce Liaodong."

"At that time, Yang Hao, the manager, claimed to have an army of 470,000, but in fact the strength was only about 88,000. Including the Ye He tribe and the North Korean army, the strength was only about 110,000."

"Before the war, in order to confuse Nurhaci, Yang Jinglue lied that our troops would leave the border together on the first day of March and join forces to capture the Manchurian capital. After making an agreement, he set off with a large force."

"But in fact, our army set out on February 25th, but the strange thing is that Nurhaci knew the time of our army's departure and then divided the troops with the main force and defeated our army along the way."

"In the end, more than 50,000 of our troops died in the battle, and less than 30,000 people fled back. Tieling and Kaiyuan were captured again, with the loss of more than 10,000 people."

"From then on, there were less than 20,000 people in Liaodong, including only 40,000 soldiers and horses defending the city."

"Thanks to the imperial court's timely transfer of Ji Town, Xuanfu and other guest troops, and Xiong Jinglue's recruitment of troops, the number of troops was soon increased to 180,000."

At this point, Mangui finally finished talking about the situation when Xiong Tingbi took office in Liaodong and before he took office.

However, there is still some information after this, which is the current information on wages and salaries.

Xiong Tingbi took a deep breath and said nervously:

"Logically speaking, Xiong Jinglue should be happy that there are nearly 180,000 garrison troops and guest troops, but he soon discovered something after recruiting troops."

"This incident is due to the fact that the generals of Liao Town embezzled the Mo army's salary, trained their servants, and the Liao people fled north, resulting in empty pay."

When the matter came to the point, everyone frowned and listened, and Man Gui also said slowly:

"Xiong Jinglue figured out the salary situation in Liao Town in less than three months."

"Liaodong apparently has 180,000 soldiers, but the actual actual number of troops is only 120,000, and one-third is empty pay."

"This is not all the free pay. All the free pay needs to be added to the pay for the heavy equipment."

"The 100,000 heavy troops in Liaodong are deployed with 180,000 troops, but currently there are only 120,000 combat troops in Liaodong."

"Therefore, the baggage troops are actually on empty pay. The actual number of baggage troops is currently only about 40,000."

"That is to say, the entire Liaodong currently only has 160,000 troops plus combat troops."

"And among the 160,000 people, some are fleeing every day, and among the 120,000 soldiers, only 30,000 or 40,000 are capable of fighting."

"So Xiong Jinglue deducted the free pay of each department. He thought it would make these generals more honest, but he didn't want them to continue to receive free pay."

"Those Liao soldiers who fled north to join the Beilu and Jianlu were left with nothing after they fled, and their silver was used to support the generals' servants."

"I came to Changping and looked at the military camps in various places. I am afraid that the number of regular soldiers in Liaodong is less than 100,000, and the number of heavy troops is less than 30,000..."

Man Gui spoke about the problem of empty wages in Liaodong, which made everyone unable to calm down for a long time.

There should have been 280,000 regular troops plus heavy equipment, but in reality there were only 160,000, leaving 120,000 empty.

Now Xiong Tingbi has removed his quota, and as a result, there are only 130,000 of the 160,000 troops and horses, leaving an empty quota of 30,000.

The troops and horses in Liao Town were so empty that they had never been paid before.

According to the calculation of twelve taels of silver for the regular soldiers and five taels for the auxiliary soldiers, before Xiong Tingbi abolished the vacancies, Liao Town would eat up nearly one million taels of silver every year if it had no pay.

Even now, three hundred thousand taels of silver have to be eaten up in free wages.

This is just salary, and there are also military rations, armor, and war horses.

At present, Liaodong earns one tael of silver and one stone of grain, which is twelve stones of grain per person per year, plus other supplementary grains and bundles of grass for war horses. The nominal silver for war horses is a terrifyingly high price.

In this way, it is not difficult to explain why the war between Liaodong and Nurhachi took only two and a half years, but it consumed nearly 12 million taels of silver.

I am afraid that only one-third of this money can be put to use, and two-thirds have been wasted.

If we continue to eat like this, when the Xiaoglaihe drought breaks out seven years later, and the nationwide drought continues for more than ten years, the Ming Dynasty will have no choice but to die.

Zhu Youjian no longer knows how to deal with this huge interest group. Is it feasible to station Zhejiang soldiers and white pole soldiers as before?

What should be done to prevent the Liaodong army from collectively rebelling and defecting to the Later Jin Dynasty?

From the current point of view, Xiong Tingbi can control the situation, and the people in Liaodong also trust Xiong Tingbi, so he must not kill him.

To keep Xiong Tingbi, use the method of boiling frogs in warm water to transform Liaodong into a military force.

But if we really take our time, will the people of Liaodong be able to hold on?

The number of common people in Liaodong is no more than three million, and three million people support a professional army of 100,000.

With the grain output of one acre of land in Liaodong being less than 120 kilograms, even the common people in Liaodong may not be able to be fed. How can they feed a 100,000 professional army?

Too many troops were stationed, which caused local food prices to soar. The people could not afford food, so they had no choice but to flee north to join Hou Jin and the Mongols.

But if there is no large army stationed, the Jianlu army will fall in an instant, and Liaodong will be captured. The Liaoxi Corridor alone will not be able to support an army of 20,000.

This is an endless cycle, but it is not difficult to break it. That is to control a large granary, transport food directly to Liaodong by sea, and prohibit the purchase of military rations locally, so as to stabilize food prices and allow the people of Liaodong to survive.
Chapter completed!