In fact, what these foreign vassal and foreign envoys didn't know was that even if Emperor Chongzhen took out five million silver yuan to reward all the troops who participated in the war, every ordinary soldier would actually not get much reward.

Because although this sum of silver seems to be a lot, when it is evenly distributed among the specific soldiers, there is not much left.

Since Emperor Chongzhen sent various supervisors to take charge of the distribution of food and salaries and the issue of military discipline picketing in each town, the situation of the towns' generals Zuo Ke deducting the salaries and food of ordinary soldiers and soldiers has been much less and much more difficult.

But after all, the number of the Ming army was there, and although the total amount of rewards given was a lot, as soon as it was shared evenly per capita, the numbers immediately became not so good-looking.

For example, in Liaodong Town, the largest town, after the current Liaodong Governor Lu Shan took office, after some streamlining and reorganization, there are still 60,000 posts.

After Donggang Town occupied the land of Erdao in northern Korea, it was reorganized into five routes of soldiers and horses, and the total number of soldiers naturally increased instead of falling, from about 40,000 at the beginning, to 60,000 registered sergeants.

At the same time, in addition to the towns on the nine sides, Emperor Chongzhen successively organized and trained the first town of the Guards and the second town of the Guards, so that in the Ming army's establishment sequence, there were 32,860 additional posts in the two towns of the Guards.

In addition, there is also an additional salary of nearly 10,000 soldiers in Lushun Town.

Lin Lin finally calculated, deducting the soldiers and soldiers killed and lost by the Ming army under the repeated battles, just saying that in the past year, he has participated in the Shanxi Crackdown Thief Operation, the Pacification Southwest Operation, and the Pacification of Chen Wan's Rebellion, especially the soldiers who fought against Jianyu and fought in the rear of Jianyu, the entire scale reached 517,000 people.

And this does not include the tens of thousands of horses under Zheng Zhilong who besieged the Dutch on Dongfan Island, as well as a large number of inland battalion guards.

After so many people are rewarded, even if they take out another five million silver yuan, I'm afraid it won't be enough!

If this reward is completely divided according to the head equally, then the per capita is less than a Chongzhen silver dollar, that is to say, the per capita is less than ten taels of silver, which is not much.

Of course, whether it is the Guards or the towns on the nine sides, they will not be completely divided according to the number of heads, after all, some soldiers have great merit and have gained more, some soldiers have less merit and less success, and some are indiscriminate and follow the foolishness, and have no merit and gain.

But this problem is the problem of the imperial history of the town supervisors and the commanders of the town.

Anyway, a good meal is not afraid of being late, first release the will to reward the soldiers of the whole army, and make the soldiers in all towns happy and happy during the New Year.

Whether they will receive the bounty after ten days and a half, or a month or two later, is another matter.

By announcing the will to reward the meritorious soldiers of the whole army, the goal that Emperor Chongzhen wanted to achieve was to further appease and inspire the loyalty and morale of the soldiers participating in the war in the context of another great chaos in the northwest.

After taking care of the morale of the army, Emperor Chongzhen of course also took into account the interests of the official class in the context of the imperial court.

After all, he can't offend either side!

Therefore, it was also at this Zhengdan court meeting, after the British Minister of Military Aircraft Zhang Weixian read out the holy decree of rewarding the meritorious soldiers of the whole army, according to the prior arrangement of Emperor Chongzhen, Li Guoyi, the first assistant of the cabinet, also took it out, and solemnly read out the edict that the imperial court would once again increase the number of officials in the imperial court.

This time it is the true color that has been added.

At first, the Ming Dynasty officials' food was only rice and cloth and other items that could be eaten and worn directly.

This form of Yulu is called the true color.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Lu rice of the civil officials of Zhengyi was eighty-seven stones per month, one thousand and forty-four stones per year, and there was an equal difference between the lower levels, and the monthly rice was sixteen stones to the prefect, and seven stones and five buckets of Lu rice per month to the level of the county governor at the bottom.

In fact, it is not too low to look at it in detail.

Because one stone of rice is about one hundred and twenty catties, not to mention the first-class members of the imperial court, take the level of Zhixian as an example, seven stones are eight hundred and forty catties of rice, plus five buckets, it is sixty catties.

A county magistrate, a month of Lu rice accumulated to 900 catties.

Nine hundred catties of rice a month, isn't it enough to eat?

If you just talk about eating, that's definitely enough.

Even if there are nine people in the county's whole family, everyone is a rice bucket, so one person can eat three catties of three taels of rice a day, and there is no problem to eat a full meal.

It's a pity that life is not just about eating rice!

The life of a county magistrate is not as simple as just eating rice.

First of all, he had to hire a group of master servants by himself, and this money was not given by the imperial court, and all of it had to come from the magistrate's own money.

Those who have a flexible mind, are good at eating and taking cards, and are accustomed to corruption and bribery, naturally there is no problem.

But like Hai Rui, it will be a big trouble, after deducting this part of the expenditure, he even has a problem with the food and clothing of his family.

Secondly, he can't just eat rice for three meals a day, he has to eat vegetables, and occasionally eat some meat, nutrition for parents or children, as well as firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea!

This expense is naturally all included in the monthly salary set by Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang for the magistrates.

Moreover, a civil official always needs to point out pen, ink, paper, inkstone, four treasures and the like.

It stands to reason that this thing can be claimed from the government office where he is on duty, and this depends entirely on the personal integrity of an official.

Finally, as a civil official, you must have some activities such as personal contacts and social interactions in the officialdom or literary circles.

During the New Year's holidays, you have to show your officials or colleagues a courtesy.

It's also an expense.

However, all of this, according to the system of the Ming Dynasty, had to be paid out of his own monthly income of seven stones and five buckets.

If he is a seven-grade civil official who is as honest as water, he will eventually have to live a hard life like when Shanghai Rui was a county official.

Even so, the most important situation that soon appeared, that is, the appearance of folded colors.

As the name suggests, folding color is a compromise method for true colors.

The reason why there is a problem of folding color in the Ming Dynasty officials' salaries is because even if a county has seven stones and five buckets of rice every month, it is not guaranteed that it can be received on time and in full every month.

This problem began to appear in the later part of the Hongwu period.

The reason is that with the development of society and the increase of population, the amount of cultivated land in Daming will not only not increase, but also continue to decrease for various reasons.

Of course, what has been reduced is not the actual number of acres of land, but the number of acres of fields that have paid taxes and grains.

Whatever the reason, in short, the food received by the imperial court not only did not increase with the increase in population, but continued to decrease.

In inverse proportion, the number of officials at all levels, and the number of people who need to pay Lumi, has been increasing continuously.

In particular, the old Zhu family has more and more feudal kings, and the proportion of Lu rice they take is also increasing.

In this way, the problem arises.

There is not enough lumi that should be paid to officials at all levels.

What if it's not enough? This is the folding.

Converted into silver or treasure money to pay.

At this moment, the low-level officials with high moral character and honest officials are even more hard.

Needless to say, treasure money is just a piece of paper with words printed, and if the court does not recycle it, it will be a piece of waste paper, and there is not much purchasing power.

As for silver, from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty, a large amount of silver from overseas poured into China, and the purchasing power of one or two pieces of silver fell by I don't know how many times in more than two hundred years.

However, the standard of folding color is still the standard set by Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang in the early Ming Dynasty.

Under such circumstances, if an official does not take bribes and withhold the money and food he handles, he will not be able to guarantee that he and his family will live a decent life commensurate with his status.

So from then on, corruption and bribery were prevalent in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty, and the participation of officials in business was prevalent, and the rule of officials in the Ming Dynasty became an incurable disease.

For this problem, of course, this Emperor Chongzhen is thinking about solving it.

Because if there is no relatively honest and efficient official team, the Ming Dynasty will be finished sooner or later.

The first step in solving this problem is to find a way to first solve the problem of ensuring the livelihood of officials at all levels, or at least to solve the problem of food and clothing for low-level officials who are relatively honest.