(Recommended reading: In the blink of an eye, the New Year is approaching, and the festive atmosphere is gradually shrouded in the capital, and the flavor of the New Year is getting stronger.

After more than a month of continuous fermentation, the quarrel between officials in the court over whether to open overseas trade has reached a climax, and both officials who support and oppose overseas trade want to gain an overwhelming advantage before the Chinese New Year.

Although many officials opposed the Wanli Emperor's opening of overseas trade for various reasons, the Wanli Emperor naturally had many close officials who were in charge of the government for nearly 50 years.

Therefore, the Wanli Emperor was not alone in the matter of overseas trade, and those officials who were close to the Wanli Emperor would naturally support the matter of overseas trade, and the opposing officials started a verbal argument in the court, and the two sides almost fought in front of the emperor because of their emotions.

Originally, the officials who supported the Wanli Emperor were at a disadvantage in this turmoil due to their numerical disadvantage, and they were suppressed by those who opposed it.

However, the situation in the court soon changed, and under circumstances that no one expected, the Qi Party suddenly joined the camp of supporting the Wanli Emperor and became the main force supporting the opening of overseas trade.

Immediately afterwards, the Chu Party and some small factions in the court also became supporters of overseas trade, and the officials of the Zhejiang Party, Donglin Party and other factions who opposed overseas trade formed a confrontation in the court.

If we look at the general geographical position, the officials who support overseas trade are mainly from the north and central part of the Ming Dynasty, while the officials who oppose overseas trade are mainly from the south, and the officials in the south of the Yangtze River, which are mainly the Zhejiang Party and the Donglin Party.

The reason why this situation occurs is naturally because of the trend of interests, the commerce in the south of the Yangtze River is undoubtedly the most developed, and the merchants in the south are not only in a dominant position in the Ming business circles, but also the main body of maritime smuggling merchants.

Therefore, officials from Jiangnan naturally want to protect the interests of local merchants, which are also closely related to their own interests, and do not want overseas trade to start, which will have a huge impact on the Jiangnan business community, and the overseas smuggling business will also be greatly affected.

According to common sense, the leader of overseas trade should be the businessmen of Jiangnan, but this time the Customs Department unexpectedly issued a quota, with eight merchants from the north and twelve from the south, which greatly weakened the influence of the merchants in Jiangnan.

Most importantly, the Customs Department became the governing body for overseas trade, and the person in charge of the Customs Department was the son-in-law of the Wanli Emperor, which made it very difficult to evade taxes, and officials could not benefit from it, which naturally caused opposition from officialdom.

As for the various reasons for opposition held by the opponents, on the surface, it seems that it is to maintain the ancestral system of tributary trade set by Emperor Hongwu and the majesty of the Ming Empire, but in fact it is just an excuse to protect their own interests, and there are not many officials who really want to uphold the Ming etiquette and law in the face of interests.

For the various factions of officialdom, in the case of the Wanli Emperor's insistence on opening overseas trade, the best outcome is to hand over the customs department to the household department, and the household department and the local yamen will jointly lead the overseas trade, so that they can intervene in the matter.

Of course, the Wanli Emperor would not hand over the Customs Department to the civil officials, in which case his desire to enrich the inner treasury through customs duties would come to naught.

Unlike the later young Emperor of the Apocalypse and Emperor Chongzhen, the Wanli Emperor had been in charge of the rivers and mountains for nearly fifty years, and had already understood the temperament of the Chinese military ministers of the dynasty, so naturally he would not be confused by the rhetoric of the courtiers.

One year, the ministers once asked the Wanli Emperor to develop paddy fields in the capital, and the courtiers who wrote the recital table wrote wonderfully and said that the bright prospects for the development of paddy fields were in full swing.

As a result, the Wanli Emperor asked the courtiers who wrote the recitals, what if the climate in the south was mild and the climate in the north was dry, what if there were dry paddy fields?

This made those courtiers speechless for a moment, and a farce ended, if the Wanli Emperor really approved the development of paddy fields in the capital at that time, then the civil officials of later generations would definitely blame the Wanli Emperor.

After Emperor Chongzhen ascended the throne, under the persuasion of the civil officials dominated by the Donglin Party, the tax supervisor who was appointed by the eunuchs and "did many evils" was removed, and as a result, the tea tax in Zhejiang was reduced from tens of thousands of taels to less than ten taels, which made Emperor Chongzhen a big surprise, and later had to reactivate the tax supervisor, and still had to rely on eunuchs to do things.

Therefore, the Wanli Emperor would definitely not hand over the dominance of the Customs Department, in which case his efforts would be in vain.

If the civilian-bureaucratic clique can unite as one, then it may force the Wanli Emperor to change his mind and transfer the Customs Department to the Ministry of Households.

It is a pity that there are many factions within the civil official group, and they are not monolithic, which makes the civil official group naturally split in the treatment of the Customs Department, and the officials of the Qi Party and the Chu Party and other factions naturally do not want to see the merchants in Jiangnan have been dominating the business circles of the Ming Dynasty.

As a result, the dispute over whether to open overseas trade gradually turned into a partisan battle in the court, with each faction trying to take advantage of the incident to suppress the rival factions and gain strength from it.

In this way, the pressure on Emperor Wanli will definitely be reduced a lot, and he is very willing to sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight, let the various factions in the court fight to the death, and then he will come forward to clean up the mess.

Therefore, the emperor who can really control the world is not afraid of party struggle, and can control the court situation through party struggle with ease, which is exactly the case with the Wanli Emperor, and the kind of harmonious court situation is what the emperors are most worried about, which means that the courtiers will be monolithic, which is not conducive to the rule of imperial power.

Li Hongyu was not interested in this battle in the court, because he knew that the Wanli Emperor was now firmly in control of the court, so don't look at the various factions in the court now fighting each other, in the end, it must be the Wanli Emperor who will make the final decision to end this dispute.

Therefore, Li Hongyu also ignored the news in the capital and devoted himself to the reorganization of the new army, and according to his plan, these 3,000 soldiers in the barracks would become non-commissioned officers of the new army, and they would be the leaders of the troops he selected from the Liaodong army.

Although you are a training envoy of the new army, Li Hongyu did not stay in the room comfortably, but followed the soldiers to practice and eat a big pot of rice together, he knew very well that a strong physique would be of great benefit to his future career, otherwise it would be difficult to withstand high-intensity official duties.

Soon, the soldiers in the barracks found that Li Hongyu, the new champion of the Ming Dynasty, was very approachable and did not show that kind of lofty posture.

Li Hongyu not only exercised his physique, but also personally taught the soldiers to read and write, teaching the illiterate soldiers to read and write, and for this purpose specially introduced the Xiyi alphabet as the pinyin of Chinese.

The soldiers studied very hard, because if they wanted to become lieutenants, they had to go through an examination, and there was a written part of the examination, and if they were illiterate, they could not pass the written examination.

Besides, it is an infinite honor to be able to get the top class teaching in Daming, and how many scholars want to ask Li Hongyu for teaching do not have this opportunity, and the soldiers naturally do not want to miss it.

The reason why the new army will be divided into two units is that their operational directions and operational objectives are different; the troops headed by Man Gui will form the Western Expeditionary Army in the future, mainly practicing operations in the northwest and the Western Regions, while the troops headed by Bai Cheng will form a naval division to practice water warfare and landing operations.

With the Wanli Emperor issuing an edict to appoint Li Hongyu as the training envoy of the new army, the two troops of Man Gui and Bai Cheng also received official numbers.

At Li Hongyu's suggestion, Man Gui's troops were named "Zhenwu" by Emperor Wanli, the military flag was a black wolf roaring in the sky, Bai Cheng's troops were named "Zhenhai" by Emperor Wanli, and the military flag was a red flying fish.

The instructors invited by Li Hongyu came from the northwest and coastal areas, and they were all military attaches and soldiers with rich combat experience, and they could not only explain the local climate and geographical environment to the soldiers of the new army, teach them combat skills, but also know the tactics and habits of the opponent.

There is a cloud in the art of war, knowing oneself and knowing that the other side can survive a hundred battles, and a very important reason for the defeat of the Ming army in the battle of Salhu is that they do not understand the situation of the Houjin army, so that they were caught off guard by the Houjin army.

Unlike other officials in the Ming Dynasty, Li Hongyu attached great importance to the goodwill of intelligence and logistics, and for this reason he deliberately set up a course on intelligence and logistics in the training of the new army to teach the new army knowledge in these two aspects.

In the new military system set up by Li Hongyu, the central center of the troops at all levels is the headquarters, and the headquarters has four major departments under its jurisdiction, namely, the Intelligence Department, the Staff Department, the Logistics Department, and the Internal Affairs Department.

Among them, the intelligence management investigates the enemy's situation and suppresses the spies; The Chief of Staff is in charge of formulating operational plans and training plans; The Logistics Division is responsible for ensuring the delivery of heavy supplies; The Department of the Interior administers military discipline.

Emperor Wanli was very curious about the military system set by Li Hongyu, and it was the first time he had seen someone divide the responsibilities of the various military departments in such detail.

To the Wanli Emperor's particular surprise, Li Hongyu had established a well-established system and process for promotion, which allowed the troops of the new army to avoid becoming the private army of a general, and the military attachés realized that they were loyal to the imperial court and not to a general.

In fact, regarding the appointment of Li Hongyu as the training envoy of the new army and the governor of the naval division, some officials in the imperial court believed that although Li Hongyu had won two great victories in Liaodong and had caused Nurhachi to flee the capital, he was too young to take on this heavy responsibility after all.

Compared with the civilian officials, the military attachés in the court, especially those high-ranking generals at the level of governors, have quite a lot of complaints about this matter, Li Hongyu's age and qualifications are not suitable to take charge of the new army and the navy, you must know that fighting a war and governing the army are two different things.

However, because the matter of overseas trade caused a storm in the court, the doubts about Li Hongyu were irrelevant and did not arouse the attention of officials in the capital.

Who let Li Hongyu shine on the battlefield in Liaodong, and who would have this qualification if he didn't need him to lead the new army and the water division? If you want to replace Li Hongyu, you must at least win a big victory in the Liaodong battlefield to convince the public.

Not to mention how difficult it is to deal with the Houjin army, Li Hongyu's prestige in the eyes of the Liaodong soldiers alone makes it difficult for those officials who want to get involved in the new army and the naval division to retreat, and it is difficult for them to replace Li Hongyu's position in the hearts of the Liaodong soldiers, so they will not be able to really control the whole army, and how can they win the war with the Houjin army at that time?

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