Zheng Anmin is right, people's hearts are profitable. The struggle for people's hearts is essentially a struggle for interests. The art of leadership is embodied in the balance of interests of all parties.

Although Zhu Pingjin is not an emperor, he is also a prince with royal blood. Zhu Pingjian's rights essentially come from the extension of imperial power. Now there is such a sharp antagonism of class interests on his territory that the class struggle is on the verge of breaking out. Can Zhu Pingjin use his high authority to turn the brutal and bloody class struggle into a class reconciliation that emphasizes courtesy, virtue and humility?

There can't be chaos inside, this is Zhu Pingjin's bottom line. The world is in turmoil, and no matter what, we must not let ourselves be in turmoil. Otherwise, the two classes will kill each other, and finally act together in a pigtail play.

Class reconciliation is not a vigorous revolution, but a steady progress by means of reform, and finally a balance of interests acceptable to all parties. This tested Zhu Pingjin's political wisdom.

The balance of interests, implemented in the left guard, is a matter of the treatment of officers and soldiers. When there are more officials and fewer soldiers, there is an imbalance in interests, and class contradictions become prominent. Since they couldn't get around this damn treatment, Zhu Pingjin and Zheng Anmin lay on the big desk and carefully sorted out the treatment of the officers and soldiers of the left guard, and at the same time included the officials of the palace chief and the officials who had not entered the stream.

As soon as the two sorted out, they immediately found more problems, including the contradictions between the old and the new, the contradictions between the civil and the military, and so on.

……

If the newly established Caravan Guard, the Guardian Brigade, and the Tianquan Tusi Battalion are called the new army, then the original left guard is the old army. Because the new army included many of the current military attaches of the imperial court, such as the officers of the guard and the officers of the Tusi. In order to prevent political criticism, the salary and badge system of the new army was connected with the Ming Dynasty's official system to the greatest extent. However, at the same time of docking, some modifications and adjustments have been made according to its own characteristics and needs. Of course, these revisions and adjustments must have been mixed with Zhu Pingjin's personal habits.

According to Zhu Pingjin's previous design, the new army has a total of seven levels and 14 rank chief officers of the army, division, brigade, regiment, battalion, company, and platoon, corresponding to the salaries of officials of the second to eighth grades. In the future, the first-grade Yulu will be reserved for the Zhengguo-level and vice-national-level who have made outstanding military achievements, and the cadets of the military academy will temporarily enjoy the nine-grade Yulu during their time in school. The squad level is not for officers, and non-commissioned officers and soldiers have a separate salary system. The members of the village protection team are divided into three categories, those who are out of work are treated the same as the caravan, and those who are part-time and those who are not out of work are given subsidies of different amounts.

At present, the largest military unit of the caravan is the regiment, and the regimental level corresponds to the positive five products. The official of the fifth grade stipulated by the imperial court is sixteen stones per month. Zhu Pingjin's regular regimental level is also 16 stones, except for rewards and allowances. The imperial court gave the officials a discount, and Zhu Pingjin also gave the generals a discount. There are many kinds of folds in the imperial court, and the more they fold, the less they are few. Zhu Pingjian's folding is simple and simple, one stone of grain will be folded into one tael and five dollars of silver, and sixteen stones is twenty-four taels of silver. In short, the treatment of the new army was as much as possible compared to the imperial court, and it was blatantly much better than the imperial court.

Those who have the dual status of a new military officer and an official position in the imperial court can freely choose, either according to the imperial court's method of discounting or Zhu Pingjin's method of discounting. Of course, they chose Zhu Pingjian's silver without exception, and no fool wanted the Daming treasure banknotes issued by the imperial court. People who do not have official positions in the imperial court and simply belong to the Shizifu system, such as Li Chongwen, Sun Hong and others, according to Zhu Pingjin's habits, all enjoy treatment with reference to the level of the new army, for example, Li Chongwen is now at the regimental level, and Sun Hong is at the deputy regimental level. But those palace officials who have not yet entered the prince's palace system, as well as the old military attachés, they still take money according to the rules of the imperial court.

In this way, among the officials of the Shu Palace, there is a dual-track system of the old and new salary system. This kind of dual-track system was inevitably produced at the beginning of the system design, and Zhu Pingjin could not and did not intend to merge the dual-track system overnight.

Since the dual-track system will exist for a long time in the future, it is necessary to minimize the side effects brought about by the dual-track system during the transition period and avoid the intensification of the contradictions between the old and the new. For this reason, Zheng Anmin suggested to Zhu Pingjin that the treatment of civil officials and eunuch female officials in the palace should be unified with the officers of the new army, and the small officials of the Changshi Division should be unified with the non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the new army. However, he resolutely opposed the treatment of the little eunuch and the little palace maid of the palace as soldiers of the new army. Zheng Anmin's reason is that some of the little eunuchs and palace maids bought by the palace are only four or five years old, and they can't do anything at all, on the contrary, they have to be fed and raised, and they have to be raised for many years before they can be used.

The two discussed and basically reached a consensus in accordance with Zheng Anmin's suggestion.

"What Lord Zheng thinks, that is, the Changshi Division doesn't want the Ming treasure banknotes of the imperial court?" Zhu Pingjin was in a bit of a mood to joke.

Zheng Anmin had already had an agreement with Zhu Pingjin to take the treatment of the Shizi Mansion. He suppressed his smile and replied deliberately seriously:

"The prince knows that the minister's little money is not much left after folding the treasure money. The minister's family has a few stones of natural grain to satisfy their hunger, but they can't die of hunger. It's just that the petty officials below are meager, and they can't live if they don't get greedy......"

Zheng Anmin told the situation of the officials of the Changshi Division, and Zhu Pingjian's fingers lightly tapped the table, thoughtful.

A high salary cannot raise a low salary, and a low salary can only raise greed. The surprisingly low officials of the Ming Dynasty have long paved the way for the corruption of all members of the officialdom. In the past three hundred years, so many officials and scholars, in the end, only one Hai Rui patted his chest and dared to say that he had never been corrupt!

After Zheng Anmin finished speaking, Zhu Pingjin also had an idea.

"What Lord Zheng discussed, yes! The chief historian first made a budget, how much silver would be spent on the son of the world at the age of one year and one month, and how many people would take the silver, and made a detailed list. But there are two points that this son must make clear in advance, one can only choose one. After choosing the treatment of the palace, the money issued by the court will be owned by the palace; Second, don't make a noise, lest the officials in the province become red-eyed and make trouble! ”

"Of course we'll only take one!" Zheng Anmin laughed. He rolled his eyes and immediately gave Zhu Pingjin an idea:

"Kechen suggests that it is better to make a statement! At present, prices in the market have risen sharply, and the price of grain is almost three or two stones. Forced to make a living, it is reasonable for the officials of the royal palace to collectively petition in front of the Duanli Gate to demand the royal government's mercy. It is a matter of vital interests of the ministers, and the officials must also take the lead. In this way, even if the prince of the world folds our money into silver, it is not an unauthorized change of the law of the country, but a benevolent and righteous act that is reasonable and affectionate. This has an added benefit, so that our royal officials also have a little face in the eyes of foreign officials! ”

Zhu Pingjin smiled, it seems that Zheng Anmin has a lot of ghost ideas. The face is fake, and it is true to help Zhu Pingjin buy foreign officials with silver!

"However, the officers of the left guard are a different matter!" Zheng Anmin smiled and pulled his words back to the theme of today's two.

"Those who have not joined the two teams of Shang and Zhuang, and have not been appointed in the guard, can no longer enjoy any royal treatment except for the imperial court!"

The sun has risen high, and the window paper of the temple is bright. Zheng Anmin and Shizi sat opposite each other on both sides of the desk, explaining in detail the military attache system of the Ming Dynasty and the advantages and disadvantages for Shizi. Zhu Pingjin held a quill sharpened by his wife, and quickly and fluently wrote notes from left to right and from top to bottom on a stack of paper.

The military attache of the Ming Dynasty was up to the sixth grade. The eighth rank of liuguan is appointed by the imperial court for senior military positions above the command officer; The ninth rank of the junior officer, the officers and soldiers below the command implement the corporal official and serial military system, and the father dies and the son replaces. The guard system of the Shiguan Shibing is the basic military system of the Ming Dynasty, and it is based on the recruitment system of liuguan and battalion soldiers. This hereditary system allowed a large number of incompetent hereditary officers to fill the battalion, the ratio of officers and soldiers was unbalanced, the rank of military attache was devalued, the army became extremely bloated, and the state finances became more difficult, and finally became an important reason for the corruption and degeneration of the Ming Dynasty army and even the destruction of the country.

Zheng Anmin said that during the Jingtai period, a certain military department once called it because of the flood of military positions in Jingwei: Jingwei took the military position, one guard to more than 2,000, and more than 30,000 people. The annual demand is 480,000 taels of silver, and 360,000 stones of rice. and other discounts, moving through millions, depleting national reserves. Because there were too many hereditary military attachés and limited vacancies, the imperial court later divided military attaches into two categories. One type is called seeing the officer, that is, the actual office; One type is called a leading officer, that is, he does not hold a position and only takes money. A standard guard with five institutes has only sixty-four officers. Everyone fights for appointment, because they have the right to see appointment, and their salaries are basically not spent.

Zheng Anmin said again, from the year of Jingtai to the year of Chongzhen, more than 100 years have passed. At present, no one can know the number of military attaches in the imperial court, but there must be more than 100,000 people. And what is the total number of civil servants in the two provinces now? Only more than 20,000! The number of military attaches exceeds the number of civilian officials by several times.

"We have 5,600 left guards, how many are there to serve, and how many are with them?" Zhu Pingjin asked Zheng Anmin.

"When the minister took office, he once checked the military selection book. Liu Quanzhong rebelled and cleaned up many military attachés. After Commander Yu took office, he saw that the appointed officials remained in office and filled a total of 47 vacancies. There are more than half of the officials, but there are still more than 600 ......," Zheng Anmin replied with the memory in his mind and the calculation in his abdomen, taking the honor guard who is currently on duty in the palace as an example. Among the more than 300 honor guards, there are 105 officers with more than 100 households, and the ratio of officers and soldiers is 1 to 3!

Hearing this, Zhu Pingjin inserted the quill back into the inkwell and said to Zheng Anmin:

"My Shu Wangfu only uses soldiers. Raising and training soldiers is in charge of the guard, and the officers' salaries are issued by the imperial court. The imperial court wants to engage in so many military positions, that is the matter of the imperial court, and this son can't control it, and he doesn't want to take care of it! It's just that we must carefully select the officers who lead the troops. Otherwise, the story of Tirenmen may be repeated. A soldier should be paid at least enough to support two family members. Therefore, the soldiers who entered the garrison must be treated in the same way as the caravans. Liu Quanzhong and other officers who committed crimes, if there is surplus land confiscated, it should be distributed to the families of the sergeants who entered the palace to cultivate......"

"The left guard has no spare fields, and all the fields are planted. Even if the field of the prisoner who did not enter the palace, it turned out that there were tenants. Zheng Anmin shook his head and said.

There are many people and few fields, and there are many people and little grain, which is the death hole of Chinese agricultural civilization. Even if Zhu Pingjin falls from the sky, this problem will not be solved in the short term.

"Even if you don't have a field, you can't treat the sergeant badly. For the time being, there is no land to cultivate, and we have to think of distributing grain and silver. Master Zheng said well, political affairs and personnel are nothing more than the word 'profit'. As long as we make good use of the word "Li", the left guard can be reborn and become a strong force in my Shu Wangfu again! ”