“… If the victims and displaced people in various places want to take risks, they still have to rely on the leaders of the young and strong after all. In the past few years, the imperial court has been guiding people from Shaanxi, northern Shaanxi, Gansu, Shanxi, and other places to migrate to Qinghai, Hetao, the southern grasslands, and the Western Regions.

Although this initiative has been very effective and has greatly reduced the land burden in the northwest region, this kind of relocation method is still too inefficient. In the face of large-scale natural disasters such as last year and this year, the victims have not waited for the opportunity to relocate, and they are already unable to survive.

Judging from the current situation, only by reducing the number of young and strong people in the core area of the disaster as much as possible can more elderly and weak people receive relief and reduce the probability of riots among the victims.

In order to reduce the number of young people in the disaster area, the best way at present is to recruit Xiang troops like the Song Dynasty, and then move these young people to eat outside the disaster area. In this way, there are two advantages: first, it reduces the difficulty of disaster relief; The second is to reduce the likelihood of riots by the victims.

Therefore, I have left you behind to discuss with you the urgent expansion of the recruitment of troops, and the relocation of these temporary recruits to the border areas for military cantonment or to the south to feed in non-affected areas..."

After listening to the emperor's proposal, Qian Qianyi, Wen Tiren, Guo Yunhou, Sun Chuanting, and Zheng Zhilong immediately discussed carefully. The method of recruiting disaster victims into an army to stabilize the social situation is naturally not Chongzhen's initiative, but an ancient method.

After some discussion, these military and political ministers of the Ming Dynasty found that if the area of natural disasters this year is really similar to the prediction, it is not a big deal to use this method, but they still have a few questions.

For example, Qian Qianyi was more worried that if he recruited so many young people at once, and moved them to areas outside the disaster area for food, whether the imperial court would be able to control these young people from conflicting with the local people.

Wen Tiren and Guo Yunhou are more concerned about whether these suddenly expanded sergeants can retire safely after the disaster and will not become the source of local trouble. After all, when a person enters the army and broadens his horizons, he may no longer be as honest and resigned to his fate as the countrymen before him. Moreover, in such a natural disaster, their families may not be able to save their lives, and it is difficult to predict what these retired soldiers who return home will do when they lose their restraint.

What Sun Chuanting wanted to know was whether these expanded soldiers should be trained and fed according to the standards of the new army. If it is according to the standards of the new army, I am afraid that the military expenses allocated by the imperial court will be unaffordable.

In response to the questions raised by these ministers, Zhu Youzhen answered them one by one: "Except for a small number of soldiers selected to join the new army, the rest of the soldiers enjoy the basic treatment of engineering soldiers.

As soon as these soldiers are recruited, they will immediately be pulled out of the disaster area and to the garrison area, and basic military discipline will be imposed on them while marching on the road, and professional military training will be stopped. For these soldiers, it is important to train them in the skills of work, to be able to learn a trade before they retire, which is good for them and for the local community.

To a certain extent, it is not a bad thing to broaden one's horizons and disobey discipline, but at least it can negatively promote the ability of grassroots officials to govern. The important thing is to let them see the hope of life, I believe that as long as there is hope to live, the people of the Ming Dynasty will not take risks easily.

In order to restrain the soldiers who went to other places to eat and not to clash with the local people, I thought that the first thing to do was to strengthen the control of the soldiers, to prohibit them from going out alone as much as possible, and to spend most of their time on the construction of camps.

The second is to restrain the discrimination of local officials and ordinary people against the military, and strictly prohibit the local government from treating these troops as a burden to the locality. The Cabinet of Ministers should issue guidelines to deal harshly with those officials who are unable to properly handle conflicts between the local people and the garrison and who deliberately sow discord between the localities and the garrison.

This is not a task that can be accomplished by the military and the local authorities alone, which is why I have called you all here, hoping that you can help each other and settle these conscripts who are heading south to eat..."

If we put aside the old and the weak, and in the current situation that the disaster has not yet broken out in full force, it should be said that it is still very likely to be successful in relocating some young and strong people from the disaster area to go to other places for food.

At this time, Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Liangguang were still in a state of incomplete development. Especially in Guizhou and Sichuan, because of the continuous Tusi Rebellion, a lot of land has been left empty.

Even in the deep mountains of Hubei near the Qinling Mountains, at this time it was in a state of independent development by the displaced people, and the rule established by the government here was still in a very weak state.

Garrisoning troops in these places in the form of armies organized by the imperial court not only effectively deterred the local indigenous and displaced forces, but also strengthened the imperial court's control over these places.

It's just that this kind of military tun organized by the imperial court is also quite expensive, and although the officials of the Ming Dynasty knew that this method was effective, they would not consider it. Only in the current Ming Dynasty, the households and banks that basically control the domestic and foreign trade activities of the Ming Dynasty can come up with a coinage bill to solve the trouble of lack of money.

But even so, everyone's hearts are still heavy, after all, this kind of migration is not the transfer of tens of thousands of people in the past few years, but the transfer of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, and the slightest carelessness is really a comprehensive erosion situation.

However, Chongzhen left them alone, obviously not just for this not-so-out-of-the-ordinary proposition. What the emperor said next was what made them tremble.

“… Of course, it is not enough for the army to do these things. The last shield to defend the country, the army needs to play a greater role in the current situation.

It should be clear to everyone by now that even in order to achieve a minimum goal, we must achieve a minimum of three guarantees.

The first is the stability of social order, without which production self-help and various disaster relief actions cannot be implemented;

The second is the stability of the financial market, if in the current situation, we have a sharp currency depreciation like last year's Shenyang, then it is a natural disaster and man-made disasters, not to mention the achievement of the minimum goal, that is, to be able to keep Gyeonggi from chaos is already a very good situation;

The third is to stabilize the mood of the people in the disaster area, so that they can believe that the imperial court has not given up on them. Only when the people in the disaster area believe that the imperial court will save them will there be no disorderly flow.

In the past few years, everyone should also know that the more disorderly the population flows, the more difficult the imperial court disaster relief will show a geometric progression, because a large amount of transportation capacity will be wasted on repeated transportation.

Moreover, a large number of people gathered in one area can easily cause the rapid loss of food in the area, so that they are coerced by outsiders to flee the famine, which becomes a snowball-shaped floating population. This floating population will eventually crush the imperial court's ability to provide disaster relief.

In order to achieve the above three points, it is particularly important that the military control imposed in some areas of Henan and Shaanxi last year should be extended to all the hardest-hit areas this year, and that the people of the disaster should be prohibited from fleeing the famine freely and disorderly.

In order for the military to be able to enforce such military control orders, it is necessary to use the military in different places, and local officials must cooperate with the military in enforcing such control. Otherwise, because some people can't bear it for a while, they will eventually drag the whole country into disaster.

In addition to imposing a military control system in the hardest-hit areas, the Cabinet will immediately issue a crackdown on gangsters and evil, and will carry out a severe crackdown on local bandits and bullies, so as to prevent these people from gathering crowds to cause chaos at the time of the famine.

Finally, it is necessary to ensure that the coinage bill can be implemented and that the gold and silver deposits of the private sector can be smoothly collected and transferred to the banks. For some people, they are always reluctant to listen when the court speaks well, so it is necessary to use some force to warn these people that they will either follow the court or follow Hades.

Therefore, while the General Staff recruited troops to go south for food, the army also had to take on the task of assisting local officials and bank representatives in the collection of gold and silver. At the same time, the General Staff will spare no effort in publicizing the army, telling the soldiers that everything they are doing now is to save more people, including their families and friends..."

Although Guo Yunhou, Cui Chengxiu, and Feng Quan had already communicated with the emperor, their faces couldn't help but change slightly at this moment when they heard such an obvious policy against the local gentry and big families.

Among these officials, Zheng Zhilong's face has not changed, after all, most of his property is overseas, and even if he deposits the domestic deposit bank in the bank, there is no loss. And as long as he can ensure that the banknotes do not depreciate quickly, he does not think that this mandatory exchange will make him lose too much.

However, for Sun Chuanting and Qian Qianyi, exchanging paper money for gold and silver has made them very uneasy. After all, in their eyes, paper money is not comparable to gold and silver that can maintain its value.

They always felt that this was the court taking worthless paper money to rob the people. Although this was only a stopgap measure, the emperor actually wanted to use the army to enforce it, and they hesitated a little.

After Qian Qianyi hesitated for a long time, he finally stopped Chongzhen's words and said: "Your Majesty, is it better to implement the coinage law mainly on voluntary exchange, and then let local officials and bank representatives persuade and persuade it, so that at least it will not irritate the gentry and wealthy families in these places too much."

The minister believed that as long as he was moved by affection and reasoned, the gentry and wealthy families in these places were still willing to spend time with the imperial court. Otherwise, once the people are in turmoil, what is the use of them guarding the gold and silver? Isn't it just as cheap for those rebels? ”

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