Since it was related to the garrison, Gao Pragmatic obviously attached great importance to it. Hearing this, his face became solemn and he asked: "What big deal is it?"
Huang Zhiting did not immediately say what was going on. Instead, she asked first: "The establishment of the garrison is determined by the master. I wonder if the master knows the specific strength of each army, such as how many troops each has?"
Gao Pragmatic was a little surprised and said: "Of course I remember that the six major garrison armies of Dingnan, Thang Long, Jingang, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, and Bago are organized in towns. Each town has a full strength of 12,700 people, and each town has two standard infantrymen.
Association, three independent artillery units, one independent cavalry unit, and two engineer battalions.
The specific number of towns owned by each garrison varies. Among them, Dingnan garrison has five towns, with a total strength of 63,500; Thang Long, Jingang, and Bago garrison have four towns each, with a total strength of 50,800 in each town.
people; the Phnom Penh garrison has three towns, with a total strength of 38,100 people; the Vientiane garrison has two towns, with a total strength of 25,400 people."
Huang Zhiting nodded and said: "My master remembers it well, but there are more than just the garrison in Dingnan. In addition to the garrison, there are 8,000 Siam Palace Guards, 9,000 Siamese Independent Garrison Division, plus five
The town garrison has a total of 80,500 people."
She paused for a moment and frowned deeply: "In other words, the six major garrison armies in southern Xinjiang totaled 22 towns, with a total strength of 279,400 people, plus the Royal Palace Guards and the Siamese Independent Garrison Division.
, the total strength of the entire southern Xinjiang has reached 296,400. Sir, this is an army of 300,000!"
"Are you... worried about military pay?" Gao pragmatically looked into her eyes and asked.
"Since I know that the master has no other intentions, I can only worry about the military pay." When Huang Zhiting said this, she seemed to pay special attention to Gao's pragmatic expression. Seeing his calm eyes, she continued: "The master is the best in the world in political management and financial management.
, you should know that the cost of raising an army is extremely expensive. Although I have never cared about this, I also know that the annual cost of these 300,000 troops is staggering."
It is certain that the cost is astonishing. The pragmatic and dignified Minister of Household Affairs of the Ming Dynasty could not be more clear about the cost of raising troops.
Take the Ming Dynasty as an example. Let’s not talk about the army maintenance system of the Wei Department. Anyway, it is a bad debt everywhere now, and there is no precise standard. In fact, there are many standards, but there is almost no one everywhere.
Everything is really carried out according to the standards. It is nothing more than crying and crying for reductions and exemptions, and depriving and drinking blood of the soldiers at the bottom. It depends on which side's performance level is more exquisite and can make the court nod.
Due to the existence of the military garrison - at least in name - the expenditure on the health center can be carried out according to the book while pretending not to see the problem - therefore, there is always an approximate amount of serious expenditure, which is "subsidized" directly from the central government
The amount of money that goes down is not particularly amazing.
However, after the Civil War, because "there were not many troops in Beijing", they had to "order the generals on all sides to recruit strong men" and began to recruit strong people everywhere on a large scale.
At the beginning, the recruitment was only for 10,000 to 20,000 people. Later, more and more people were recruited, and it actually became the mainstream everywhere. Now many people in Jiubian have the title of guard soldiers, but they are actually recruiting.
Those who come to "fill up the numbers" - their combat effectiveness is naturally not counted compared to that of the guardsmen, but they do fill up the "registered" numbers.
Recruiting soldiers has improved their combat effectiveness compared to garrison soldiers, but it has also led to a large increase in military expenses. First of all, recruiting soldiers requires silver. From the civil revolution to the early Jiajing period, the cost of recruiting soldiers increased significantly. Take Jiubian as an example: Chenghua Eight In the year of 2011, when recruiting volunteers from the northwest, "people were given three taels of silver, two pieces of cloth, a month of rice and one stone," which was about five taels of silver.
During the Hongzhi period, when recruiting soldiers, it became "people were given five taels of silver." Five taels of silver could be converted into seven to ten stones of rice, which was several times higher than the orthodox initial recruitment of two pieces of cloth.
In the early days of Zhengde, it was "recruiting native people who are willing to serve, verify their age, and give them three taels of silver." Don't think that this means that the treatment has declined. You must understand clearly that the "natives" mentioned here, such as Cen and Huang Liang, In the place that the family controlled at the beginning, the children under its jurisdiction were called natives, so the three taels of silver given here were not the worth of Han soldiers.
During the Jiajing period, there was an additional expense for recruiting soldiers from all sides, that is, "people are given three taels of silver for clothing." During this period, the official monthly salary was still "given five taels of silver", in other words, the three taels of silver for "clothing" "Silver" is simply a one-time clothing fee.
So in the 29th year of Jiajing, the nine-border army recruitment silver alone reached as much as 590,000 taels. The reason why the Jiajing Dynasty's deficit was getting bigger and bigger was that after Gao Gong came to power in the Longqing period, he spent the first few years wiping Jiajing's butt. Paying off debts includes this factor.
If I had not saved a large amount of military expenses after the completion of the tribute ceremony (it would definitely cost more during the war), even with Gao Gong, I would have been able to maintain a balance of payments, but it would have been extremely difficult to repay the debt. Later history This is one of the main reasons why the world highly values the significance of my tribute.
Since Jiubian recruits the most soldiers, the recruitment fee is also the highest. However, in addition to Jiubian, there will also be recruitment in other areas. For example, the amount of money during the coastal anti-Japanese war is also very staggering - for example, Qi Jiguang's Qi Jiajun recruited soldiers, and for them The supply was also collected by the imperial court (but in fact it was not enough, and Qi Jiguang had to come up with ideas from other places, including making false accounts and corrupting ink, and then throwing them into the army). The rest, such as Yu Dayou, Liu Xian and other main anti-Japanese forces, were also in nature. Basically, they recruit soldiers (of course the relevant guard posts also have to provide some soldiers).
However, please note that the recruitment silver here is a one-time payment and does not cover the monthly salary. In other words, this money only buys a recruitment and does not include the "monthly salary".
In terms of "monthly salary", the price is different between the north and the south. Generally speaking, the price of soldiers in the north is lower and that in the south is higher (the economy in the south is developed, and no one will apply if there is less money). The monthly salary of soldiers in the south is sometimes as high as three cents of silver per day. ——Meaning nine taels a month, of course this is usually during wartime, such as the most severe period of war against Japanese invaders.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! So eighteen years after Jiajing, in order to meet the needs of the war, "the border ministers asked for additional troops every day, and the soldiers were asked to pay daily, from 590,000 to 590,000." More than 2.8 million."
On the eve of my answer to the tribute, Zhang Shou, the then Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, bluntly said: "The national tribute income is only 2.3 million per year, which is surprising, but there are many people who have accumulated misfortune and do not have to pay for it. The income of the capital in one year is one million." The remaining salary reached more than 2.8 million yuan, and the additional beggars were ignored. In the second year (referring to the second year of Longqing), more than 4.4 million was used, and in the third year (the same refers to the third year of Longqing), it was 370,000 yuan. 190,000, which is the minimum, and going out is twice as much as entering.
Recently, the four imperial envoys were moved to expand the world's treasures, and all the accumulation of two hundred years was returned to Taicang. However, from the old treasury of one million, only two million were found, which was less than Jiubian for one year. The national plan
At this point, everyone is heartbroken.”
His statement at that time was certainly based on the wishes of Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng and others, to build momentum for the tribute tribute, but if you look at the data cited in it individually, each one is true. This is enough to show the cost of recruiting troops.
It was so high that the court at that time could not afford it - after all, there were no additional Liao rates, training rates, or suppression rates at that time.
The Ming army recruited hundreds of thousands of soldiers and spent three to four million taels per year. The six major garrison armies in southern Xinjiang totaled about three hundred thousand. Is the cost too small?
Of course not less!
The price of the garrison's recruitment silver (the one-time one) varied from time to time. The earliest batch were all Han Chinese. Although they were mainly northerners, Gao Pragmatic paid a very high price at that time, six taels per person. Due to Beijing's rules,
Clothes are given out for free on a regular basis, so there is no need to give out "clothing money".
Later, after Annan was pacified, thanks to the naturalized household registration system, Jinghua was able to recruit soldiers among the Annan people. The cost of recruiting soldiers was greatly reduced, and they were cut in half - each person was given three taels of silver, and clothing was silver.
Then there is still no need to give.
Later, southern Burma, Siam, Nanzhang, Cambodia and other places were successively pacified. The naturalized household registration system was promoted at the same time, and the scope of recruiting soldiers became wider and wider. At that time, it was considered that the original kings of Burma and other places could not recruit soldiers at all.
Giving money almost canceled the recruitment silver, but Gao Pragmatic knew that comparison would only hurt, so he maintained the standard of "giving three taels of silver".
But this amount of money is not as simple as taking 300,000 people multiplied by three taels. The losses caused by injuries and deaths in the war need to be supplemented. The supplement must not only be given to recruitment money, but also to pension money, and also based on naturalization.
Some provisions of the household registration system provide other compensations, but in the final analysis they all cost money, and the cost is by no means small.
However, this is still not the entire cost. It can only be said to be "personnel costs". In addition, the daily expenses of the 300,000-strong army such as military rations, barracks, horse feeding, training, etc. are by no means
small amount.
Another big factor is the equipment and wear of weapons and equipment, and repair or replacement after battle damage. In terms of this series of expenses, the garrison army has a higher degree of firearms, and those who are closer to the water always change to Jinghua on a first-come-first-served basis.
The most advanced weapons and equipment made it more expensive for them to recruit soldiers than the Ming army.
In short, after offsetting the advantage of recruiting soldiers brought by the naturalized household registration system, the garrison army will also spend a lot of money.
The final result is that even if there is no large-scale war, the 300,000 troops in southern Xinjiang will spend more than 3.2 million taels every year - this is the data after removing the previous recruitment silver. In other words
Just to maintain this army, Gaowu Real Estate now has to spend so much money every year.
This amount of money is close to the current ordinary expenditure of the Ming Dynasty's nine hundred thousand troops on the nine sides (but not counting the additional expenses increased in recent years for the war against Chahar).
From this perspective, it is very reasonable for Huang Zhiting to be worried about the cost of the garrison. After all, there is now a "Southern Xinjiang Guard Military Command Department" in the west courtyard of the "Siam Palace", and Huang Zhiting is temporarily in charge of this department.
It is the highest leading organization of the six major garrison armies in southern Xinjiang, except Gao Pragmatic himself.
Huang Zhiting has learned that the cost of this army is staggering. As the hostess of Jinghua, it is natural for her to have such worries.
Gao Pragmatic was silent for a moment and asked: "So what is your opinion? Is it disarmament, or cutting military pay, training intensity, military camp standards, and armed equipment?"
Huang Zhiting shook her head and said: "Sir, the first thing I want to know is what the role of these 300,000 troops is to maintain there. If the master said that it is just to deter the countries in southern Xinjiang, then I suggest that except for Dingnan Guards
All the towns under the jurisdiction of the other five major garrison armies besides the army were downgraded to the standard of the Siam Independent Garrison Division.
The garrison force has 12,700 people in a town, and the independent garrison division not only has just over 9,000 people, but the armament has also been reduced a lot, especially artillery - artillery is really the bulk of the ordnance expenditure, whether it is the price of the artillery itself, or the cost of training or war.
They are all the most expensive items.”
Gao Pragmatic didn't answer, and seemed to be calculating something.
Upon seeing this, Huang Zhiting said directly: "I have done a rough calculation, not counting the 'Five Dingnan Towns', if the remaining seventeen towns are downgraded to garrison divisions, then the personnel will be reduced by about 63,000, including light and heavy artillery."
The number of gates has been reduced by nearly 3,000, and war horses and draft horses have been reduced by 4,000 to 5,000... In total, it is estimated that the annual expenditure can be reduced by nearly 700,000 taels."
Of course, seven hundred thousand taels is a huge amount of money, and Gao Pragmatic knows that under the premise that Huang Zhiting said "it is just to maintain a deterrent to the countries in southern Xinjiang," the downgrade of the garrison to a garrison division will indeed have little impact.
Although the degree of firearms used by the garrison division is lower than that of the garrison, especially the artillery equipment, the garrison division still has overwhelming power in the face of possible opposition forces from various countries in southern Xinjiang - including even the rebellion of local nobles.
superiority of force.
It can be said that unless a large-scale armed uprising breaks out in various countries in southern Xinjiang, and the number of insurgents in any country exceeds 100,000, even if the garrison is downgraded to a garrison division, it is absolutely certain that it will be achieved within two to three months.
The main force was defeated and a complete annihilation was achieved within half a year.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Regarding this point, Gao Pragmatism is almost completely sure.
However, the premise of Huang Zhiting's words was to "only maintain a deterrent to the countries in southern Xinjiang." However, this premise itself is not established, because Gao Pragmatic's expectations and requirements for the garrison do not stop there.
For example, after Luzon is pacified, it will probably be necessary to establish a new "Fubo Garrison" (see above, Manila is planning to change its name to Fubo), and it is impossible for this new garrison to recruit all local natives in Luzon - from the original
From a historical perspective, the combat effectiveness of the people of Luzon is far inferior to that of other countries in southern Xinjiang. Even if there is a strong BUFF bonus from the naturalized household registration system, Gao Pragmatic is not very optimistic about it.
After all, Burma, Vietnam and other countries have had glorious moments in their history when their combat power exploded. For example, Burma actually forced the Qing Dynasty, which was at the peak of its national power (during the Qianlong Dynasty, although its military power was not at its peak, its national power was almost at its peak).
The Vietnamese, with the support of the Red Dynasty, drove away the Mi Emperor. Although they were later reprimanded by the Taiji for being too jumpy, the losses suffered by the Red Dynasty that time were not very small.
The people of Luzon have really never had any glorious moments and have always been beaten by others. Such performance really makes it difficult for Gao Pragmatic to have much hope for their fighting spirit.
Therefore, the expected "Fubo Guard Army" will be a "multi-national mixed force", consisting of about 30% immigrant Han people, about 50% naturalized Han people from various countries in southern Xinjiang, and about 20% local people.
It is composed of naturalized Han people, and the proportion of local naturalized Han people in the army is the lowest among the entire southern Xinjiang garrison system.
In addition, Taiwan's colonial expansion plan is now progressing rapidly. Although the area will be dominated by Han immigrants (the local native population is relatively limited), it is still uncertain whether it will be necessary to recruit soldiers from southern Xinjiang - the reason
It was Gao Pragmatic who did not want to use the immigrants as troops, but rather hoped that the immigrant Han people would be invested in production and construction.
After all, the advantages of the Han people in production and construction are obvious, and letting them take charge of production and construction is definitely the best choice.
If this is the case, it means that not only cannot we disarm, but we will even expand the army in the future. In the current situation, the expansion of the army should certainly not be a blank slate. Some of the original guard forces should be taken out as the core backbone of the new army to lead the new with the old. Then
This is Jinghua’s customary routine, and it is obviously the most effective and cost-effective.
In addition, once Malacca is obtained - whether through war or through an agreement with the Portuguese for a peaceful transfer, in short, after it is obtained, it will definitely continue to promote the "Nanyang Plan" and fully occupy the large and small islands of Indonesia in the future.
, establishing a complete "Beijing Southern Border".
By then, won’t so many new territories not require military guarding and maintenance? At least on large islands such as Java, Kalimantan, and Sumatra, a town will always be needed on each island, right? Even if it won’t be needed in the future
There are many troops, but they are always indispensable in the early days of the rule.
After all, Gao Pragmatic is not engaged in stronghold-style colonization like the Europeans. He is engaged in comprehensive colonization and comprehensive naturalization. It is impossible to just put a small elite force in key cities and attack wherever there is an incident.
The European colonial system, especially in the governance of Asian colonies, generally established a master-slave relationship with the original local indigenous leaders, and relied on the indigenous leaders to indirectly rule various places.
But Gao Pragmatic is not like this. What he wants to do is to establish a comprehensive and thorough rule. Even if the structure of each kingdom is temporarily retained in name, in fact, its power is completely emptied by Jinghua, so that it can be deposed, revoked and implemented in a timely manner at any time.
degree of substitution.
Comprehensive rule means that there is no need for the intervention of native leaders. Even if some of these people are absorbed, it will only be done after they have been Chineseized through the requirements of the household registration and naturalization system.
As a result, the force that Beijing needs to maintain locally and the administrative system that needs to be established are naturally much larger than those of European colonists in the original history. This also makes Gao Wuchen unable to carry out disarmament in southern Xinjiang, or to
The garrison troops conduct downgrade operations.
In addition, Gao Pragmatic also has a plan for Japan. Although Huang Zhiting made up some urgent lessons this afternoon, she still doesn’t know Gao Pragmatic’s plan for Japan after all. In fact, Gao Pragmatic has set three goals of different difficulty for the Japan plan.
He himself does not dare to guarantee what step he can take at that time, but obviously Huang Zhiting does not think that the highly pragmatic Japanese plan requires direct military support from southern Xinjiang.
It cannot be said that it is unreasonable to think so. Liu Xin briefly mentioned the climate in Japan this afternoon. After hearing this, Huang Zhiting thought that it was probably similar to that in the north and the Central Plains.
In this way, even if a certain amount of force needs to be sent to Japan in the future, it seems more suitable to draw it from Jinghua's armed servants in the Ming Dynasty, such as the cavalry and escort teams of Jinghua Trading Company, and the factory protection teams and mine protection teams of major factories and mines.
such as.
Although the names of these armed forces sound similar to the militias of the wealthy gentry in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, Huang Zhiting certainly knows that they are just pragmatic and cautious. These armed servants only need to be issued with enough artillery, and they are no different from the garrison.
Therefore, artillery must be listed separately because it is certainly not allowed to be equipped on a large scale in China, but there are not many people among them who have received artillery shooting training.
Of course, compared with the garrison, these armed servants are not full-time soldiers, and their combat effectiveness will still be slightly inferior. However, Huang Zhiting believes that if Gao Pragmatic really wants to be dispatched to Japan, he will definitely send it to the territory of Satsuma Domain for formation and reinforcement first.
The training was the same as it was during the expedition against Annan.
After Gao pragmatic understood this, he smiled, briefly explained these considerations, and then said: "Although Japan will probably not directly use troops within three to five years, when it needs to use troops in the future,
I'm afraid it will require the strength of at least four or five towns, plus the entire Nanyang area, so disarmament or downgrading is not appropriate."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Huang Zhiting couldn't help but sigh after hearing this, and said: "If this is the case, it may affect the infrastructure construction of southern Xinjiang. Not only will the subsequent outer city construction of Nancheng be reduced, the investment may also be reduced.
, the construction period will be extended, and another southern Xinjiang official road project with a larger investment is expected to be affected...Does the master have a plan here?"
"Did elder brother (Gao Mengnan) mention these things to you?" Gao pragmatically asked.
"My uncle has been busy in the past two years and his hair has turned a lot gray. When the Portuguese came last time, he sent someone to inform me and told me about these financial matters." Huang Zhiting paid attention to Gao's pragmatic expression and said
: "Is there something going on here that the master has not notified to the uncle, so the uncle is worried about not having enough money?"
"Brother may be worried because of the offensive launched by the Maritime Trade Alliance against Luzon this year." Gao Pragmatic said thoughtfully: "He has always been cautious and does not seek merit before seeking demerit. I am afraid that he is worried that the import of American silver will
There was a sharp decrease, which in turn caused Jinghua to lose a large amount of income, affecting its financial health."
After a pause, he added: "But I was prepared for this matter, and I don't think the Spaniards can give up this exchange that is profitable for both parties. In addition, regarding silver, copper coins and other matters, in fact, it is also related to Japan
It’s about the plan.”
Huang Zhiting frowned and said: "Is the master saying that the stone sees the silver mountain? But the master has not chosen to support the Maori family now. I am afraid that the stone sees the silver mountain will not be easy to obtain."
Gao pragmatic shook his head and said: "Iwami Ginzan can't move now. Although it is now the territory of Maori Ryogawa, they have already reached a compromise with Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and most of the output of Ginzan must be handed over to
Hideyoshi. If I support the Mori family for Ginzan, I will have to go to war with Hideyoshi in advance, but it is not cost-effective to make such a move now.
If...I mean if, our funds are really tight to the extent that my eldest brother is worried, I will find a way to occupy Japan's Sado Island first. There is a huge gold mine there, but the Japanese don't know it yet.
In addition, after lunch today, I carefully considered the situation with the Kanto Tojo clan, and planned to find a way to take advantage of the Hojo clan's current critical situation to sign a port lease contract with them and rent half of the Miura Peninsula."
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