The military tun was corrupted in name only, and the Shangtun was completely destroyed due to the abolition of the Kaizhong Salt Law, and the imperial court had to allocate salaries and silver salaries from the state treasury, and abandoned the guard system in favor of a conscription system, so that the country had two sets of military systems, one was the useless but still had to carry the guard system, and the other was the recruitment system that had to replace the guard post system, which was the result of incomplete reform, and the result was that the central and local finances were difficult to deal with.

However, after Wanli, the state finances could not make ends meet, and the situation of arrears of military salaries became more and more serious. Coupled with the deductions of the officials, the soldiers can receive very little money. At this time, the life of the soldiers was even more desperate under the condition of successive disasters and famines, and the price of food rose sharply. Shaanxi Governor Hu Tingyan said: "Lingongbian's salary is short to five or six years, and the number is more than 200,000; Jinglu Border Fort is missing for two years and three years; From the 47th year of Wanli to the 6th year of the Apocalypse, Guzhen Jingyun owed a total of more than 159,000 taels of silver. At the beginning, the armies still sold arrows, and now they have wives; At first, he begged along the street, but now he has left the army and absconded; At first, it was an occasional whisper in the sand, and now it is openly shouting. ”

Speaking of this, Mao Yulong couldn't help but feel a slight red in the corners of his eyes.

"My uncle Mao Wenlong was on Phi Island, with more than 200,000 people from Liaodong who fled, and only had to pay less than 40,000 taels of silver from the imperial court. And just for this nest head, countless soldiers scrambled to battle, holding wooden sticks and wearing sackcloth, in order to contain Jiannu's attack on Liaoxi, to face the invincible Houjin death battle in the world, I don't know, whether a nest is worth money, or a fresh life is worth it. Then he hid his face: "Yuan Keli, the governor of Phi Dao and counting my uncle, also wrote a book, saying that my uncle Mao Wenlong, my uncle on Phi Dao, in order to get the imperial court to recognize that he had military posts and could get the military salary given by the imperial court, pulled out his strongest soldiers to review and count in the teaching field, and the result was that the more the salary is today, the hunger and cold are pressing, and many soldiers are lined up in the martial arts field, the golden wind is like an arrow, and the sick and stiff servants have seen it. Every point of a soldier, there are single clothes, there are no hakama, there are few shoes and socks, the ministers see it and burst into tears. ”

Song Yuanshan, who was full of tears, slammed his fist on the table, and the cups and plates that shook for a while made a chaotic sound, attracting the passing Xiao Er probe to come in and watch to see if there was nothing going on, and then leave carefully.

"Is this Ming border army really miserable? Is Dongjiang really so hungry? What are those court bigwigs doing, and what are they doing? Song Yuanshan roared angrily.

Mao Yulong smiled bitterly again: "The big man in the court? Hehe, a gentleman and boss of Donglin once said such a famous saying - if the border army has no pay, it should search for rats and birds to repay Jun's kindness. ”

Xu Jie was furious: "Fart, fart, fart, how can such a bastard say such shameless words?" Let the soldier who fought bloody on the nine sides dig up mice, catch sparrows, and then go to fight the enemy to the death, and say so much, then he will go and see it, and do it. Donglin, bullshit. ”

Mao Yulong sighed: "Empty talk, don't face up to reality, this is their Donglin Party." Then he said firmly: "I am ashamed to be in company." This is Mao Yulong's sincere words, not a disobedient statement to cater to the current situation.

Song Yuanshan sighed gloomily: "I deeply feel the same way with the little brother of Yulong, but the foreign enemy is raging, and the border army is embarrassed like this, Da Ming, it is about to end." ”

"The financial situation of the Ming Dynasty is obvious to all, it is really depleted to the extent of no return, every time it is spent, it all depends on Wansui to take out his own internal money, but this will not be a way in the end, how can the hardness of the country always rely on the emperor? The part of the home and the country, mixed up, so what else do you want this country to do? ”

The two of them didn't know why.

"There is no distinction between the family and the country, this is the general consensus of this era, the country is called Daming, but in the consciousness of all of them, this country should be surnamed Zhu, it belongs to Lao Zhu's family, and all other officials are working for Lao Zhu. The only group of people who disagree with this point of view is the Donglin Party.

The Donglin Party believes that the country is the country of the people of the world, the country of the scholars, and your emperor is bullshit, so this court should be the foundation of the country. There is nothing wrong with this, but the mistake is that Donglin wants to compete with the emperor for this country, and what to do is the Zhengying Dynasty, but they overestimate their own ability, and they only wear a mouth, talk about it there, and govern the country with imagination, which is simply a joke, and it is a rhythm that wants to blow the Ming Dynasty completely. For example, they also want to solve the financial crisis of the Ming Dynasty, but the solution they came up with is that they and the interest groups they represent do not take out a penny, and then apportionment this huge financial expenditure to the people all over the country. ”

Xu Jie lamented with deep sympathy: "There are so many taxes and miscellaneous taxes that the people can't bear it, if you increase the salary, not to mention how much you collect, those corrupt officials and cool officials in the north will intensify their efforts to fill their own pockets, forcing the people to rise up, and the world will be in chaos." ”

Mao Yulong sighed: "Fortunately, the world is not chaotic, and the Ming Dynasty is not dead, which is still thanks to Father-in-law Wei." When the Ming Dynasty was exhausted and the people were poor, he was not afraid of infamy, forgave those people who had been looted and had no leftovers, and attacked the rich and collected various taxes. Finally, I can still get one or two meals of gruel for the soldiers of the border army every year, if there is no Gonggong Wei's actions, the soldiers of the army over there will all starve to death, and the chaos in the world will be divided, and Houjin will roar south, at that time, can you and I still drink today? ”

Song Xu was silent.

This is not for Wei Zhongxian Gong Song De, it is true, the north is erosive, the wealth and grain are exhausted, although the south is rich, but the south in the late Ming Dynasty, has been invisibly separated from the north.

In the eyes of the southerners, the war in the north should be managed by the northerners, and it has nothing to do with the southerners. Just like the Yungui Tusi Extravagant Rebellion now, it has been in trouble for two years, and the envoys who should support the encirclement and suppression of the official army are also from the southerners, which is very kind of a kind of snow in front of the door. And because the literary style in the south is flourishing, there are more officials in the imperial court, so most of the people standing in the court are from the south.

Since there is a subconscious distinction between the north and the south, of course, everything you say and do is from the position of the south, especially these officials, which one of them does not have a huge family behind them? This has a strange side now, the three major expeditions of Wanli, only for the north and not for the south, the result is that the north is getting poorer and poorer, and the burden is getting heavier and heavier.

This meal was originally a warning that Xu Jie was worried that Mao Yulong would be taken seriously by the eunuchs when he was received by Mr. Jingyi, and it would bring disaster to Mao Yulong, but in the end, he was led by Mao Yulong to the ditch where he criticized Wei Zhongxian and Donglin.

Because of the worries about national affairs, everyone was in no mood to eat and drink anymore, so the banquet was over soon after, so Song Zhihao settled the account and went home for three days.

But when he went out, Mao Yulong obviously saw a few absent-minded eaters, and when he was leaving, he kept looking at himself with his eyes, and his demeanor couldn't be more complicated. 22