What made Yang Wu's face gloomy was not for other reasons, but because the soldiers of the Yulin Army were complaining that their treatment was too low!

In the mouths of those officers of the Yulin Army, he was complaining that the prices in Jinling were too high, and their little salary could only barely support their families. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

To tell the truth, the treatment of the Yulin Army is already the highest in the whole army, much higher than the treatment of the ordinary forbidden army, and much higher than the treatment of those soldiers of the Xiang Army; Coupled with the fact that these people are all officers, if even their salaries can barely support their families, then it is conceivable how other ordinary soldiers are treated.

Of course, Yang Wu didn't think that someone had deducted the food and salary of these people.

You must know that the Yulin Army is Yang Wu's pro-army, and its salary is already very high, and it has been stationed in Jinling for a long time, responsible for defending the palace.

Under his nose, who has the courage to deduct the salaries of the soldiers of the Yulin Army, and doesn't want to live?

Not only the Yulin Army, but also the distribution of food and salary for ordinary soldiers of the forbidden army is also an issue that Yang Wu attaches great importance to, and the Privy Council, the Ministry of War, the Metropolitan Procuratorate and other departments are all focusing on this link, in order to prevent the corruption of the army and avoid these problems from causing low morale in the army.

Yang Wu felt that with the three departments staring at the same time, even if there was still a problem of deducting military salaries, it should not be big.

What's more, the atmosphere of Wu is not bad now, and after Yang Wu's vigorous rectification, there should not be many people who rely on drinking the blood of soldiers to make money.

The reason why Yang Wu's face is not good, the main thing is that he feels that the salary standards of the soldiers are indeed too low, and he has been ignoring such an important issue!

If you think about it, even the highest-paid soldiers of the Yulin Army are complaining, then the thoughts of other ordinary forbidden army soldiers can be imagined.

The army in this era basically used a recruitment system, and the soldiers were basically willing to serve as soldiers, but the recruitment fees given by the army were not high.

In addition to a certain amount of resettlement money at the time of recruitment, the soldiers also had a small amount of rations in peacetime, in addition to a certain amount of rewards before or after the battle, and a certain amount of bereavement benefits for wounded or killed soldiers.

But on the whole, these benefits are not high.

These are such as settling payments and bounties and bereavement pensions, which are not paid regularly, and the amount of food and salary paid at a time is not too small to replace the usual expenses.

For soldiers, their main salary is the monthly ration that is usually paid.

When Yang Wu first entered the army, he had Yang Xingmi's strong support behind him, so he had enough financial resources to maintain the higher treatment of the soldiers under his command, and to give higher pensions to those who were injured or killed.

has sufficient financial resources as support, so Yang Wu can quickly establish an elite division with strong combat power.

However, his set of high standards obviously cannot be extended to other armies, and Huainan cannot have the financial resources to maintain such a high standard of treatment for the whole army.

Today's standards, the actual ration he gets every month for the most ordinary soldier of the forbidden army is about 100 catties of rice.

A hundred catties of rice seems to be a lot, and it seems that it is not a problem to feed a few people.

But in reality, people in this era had little food to supplement except rice, which led to the need for soldiers to eat more rice to maintain their usual consumption.

Especially for the soldiers of the forbidden army with more strict training, their consumption of physical strength is naturally more, so one hundred catties of rations is almost enough for the soldiers' own consumption, and there is basically no extra rations.

But soldiers cannot be left alone, they have other family members to support, in addition to clothing, housing, other necessities to buy, and so on.

In the past, when the world was turbulent and the people were living in hardship, the requirements for many people to serve as soldiers were naturally very low, as long as the army could ensure that they had food to eat and could let them live.

So at that time, even if the salary of the conscription was very low, it didn't matter, there was still a steady stream of people rushing to join the army.

But now, with the merger of Zhejiang and Jiangxi, order has been restored, production has developed, and the living conditions of the people have improved a lot, but the treatment of the soldiers has not improved at all.

What's more, in the past, when military discipline was not strict, soldiers could still obtain property by looting when they were fighting, but now with Yang Wu's repeated orders, the military discipline of the forbidden army has become stricter, and they have long been prohibited from plundering the people.

Without this income, and with the fact that the usual income is not high, it is not surprising that the soldiers complained.

Yang Wu put down the wine glass in his hand and frowned and thought about it.

He remembered that one of the important reasons why Li Cunmiao was killed because of the rebellion of his soldiers not long after he ascended the throne was that after he ascended the throne, those soldiers who fought the world with him were still living in poverty and did not get much benefit.

Even, with the cessation of large-scale wars, the soldiers lost the way to obtain rewards and loot income through war, and their lives became more difficult, which made the dissatisfaction in their hearts continue to accumulate, and finally broke out, and as a result, Li Cunmiao died.

Now the treatment of the Wu army forbidden army is also a little too low, which is obviously not a long-term solution.

If this situation is not changed quickly, I am afraid that it will affect the morale of the soldiers of the forbidden army, and at worst, there may be a mutiny.

It's just that improving the treatment of the soldiers also means increasing the financial burden, can the current Wu State support the salary increase for the soldiers?

You must know that after the founding of Wu State last year, not only did it increase the 60,000 forbidden army at one time, but at the same time, because of the addition of various feudal officials and knights, the expenditure on supporting hundreds of officials also increased significantly, which made the finances, which seemed to have a lot of surpluses before, suddenly become tense again.

If the salaries of the soldiers are raised at this time, the financial burden will be even greater, and I am afraid that there will be no surplus, but there will also be a deficit.

After all, the number of the forbidden army has reached 200,000, and even if each person only increases their salaries a little, it will bring a lot of pressure to the finances of the entire country.

In addition, if the treatment of the forbidden army increases, will the treatment of the van army also increase?

If only the treatment of the forbidden army is increased, those soldiers of the box army will definitely be dissatisfied.

As a result, there is more spending that needs to be increased.

On the side, Li Chengji also thought of these questions, but this was obviously not the place to discuss such things, so he didn't say anything.

After a hurried meal, Yang Wu and his party immediately returned to the palace and beckoned Luo Zhixiang, the head of the household.

"The king is saying that he wants to raise the standard of treatment of the soldiers of the forbidden army? I'm afraid it's difficult! Luo Zhixiang listened to Yang Wu's words, but his face was embarrassed.

"What's the difficulty? Didn't you just say that there is a surplus of about 1 million yuan in fiscal revenue every year? Isn't it impossible to use 800,000 of them to improve the treatment of the soldiers of the forbidden army, and each person can get an average of four guan per year? Yang Wu asked loudly.

As soon as he summoned Luo Zhixiang, he asked him about the current financial situation, and learned that there was about a surplus of one million guan a year, so he decided to use 800,000 of them to improve the treatment of the soldiers.

In his opinion, the increase in the salary of the soldiers does not have to increase much, but it must be increased, which can give the soldiers hope and let them know that the country has not forgotten them, but that it is in temporary financial difficulties, and it will definitely continue to increase in the future.

Of course, if it is increased too much, it is also bad, and it will bring a huge burden to the finances and make it difficult for the finances to bear. Second, it will also make the soldiers live comfortably, thus reducing their motivation to charge into battle.

And if a soldier increases an average of four yuan a year, it is equivalent to an increase of about 300 wen a month.

According to the current market price, 300 yuan can basically buy 100 catties of rations, which is barely enough to support one or two family members.

As for the remaining gap, it can only be raised later.

As for the soldiers of the Xiang Army, Yang Wu felt that the Xiang Army could be gradually changed to conscription, that is, the people could take turns to serve in the military to reduce financial expenditures.

Anyway, these van troops are only on secondary tasks, and even if the morale is low, there is no big harm in the level of training.

Luo Zhixiang hurriedly persuaded: "The king, the surplus of one million guan just mentioned is the surplus that the king said when he does not fight, and there are no other emergencies that require money. If the king still wants to raise troops to fight, there will not be much left of the extra million. ”

"The king, if you really come according to your standards, plus the king fights almost every year, and it costs a lot, I am afraid that I will have to borrow every year like when I exterminated Qian Biao!"

"Borrowing every year? Even if you borrow every year, it's not a big deal! As long as you can win battles every year, you believe that these are not a problem! Yang Wu said in an extremely firm tone.

Increasing the treatment of soldiers is already an urgent matter in Yang Wu's opinion, and if it is delayed, there may be problems.

However, what he didn't expect was that even though he had told Luo Zhixiang about the importance of the matter, Luo Zhixiang was still resolutely opposed.

He also responded in a loud voice: "King, now is not as good as it was back then, at that time, the country was created, and it was a critical time to eliminate Qian Biao, so it is nothing to borrow every year, as long as you survive those years, it will be much better later!" But now that the king has established a kingdom, if the treasury is still empty every year, and he relies on borrowing to survive every year, it will be a big problem! The minister resolutely opposes the king's decision! ”

"You ......" Yang Wu was suddenly angry, this was the first time someone had opposed him in front of him, which naturally made him a little embarrassed.