The army is also known as the flag army, according to the military system of the Ming Dynasty, there should be more than 5,600 members of each guard army, from the actual number of the aforementioned army, it can be seen that the shortage of guards is serious, and there are many reasons for this, and it has to start from scratch.

The source of the soldiers in the guard station is mainly hereditary military households, which are subordinate to the military department, accounting for the main part; In addition, there are also new sources of military households, such as conscription, annexation, issuance, stacking, and drawing.

Those who are conscripted, the soldiers of the generals are pacified by others, and those who remain in the army; Those who belong are better than those who are righteous, and those who are the hypocrites are raised; Those who incite the sin are subordinate to the army (called the Grace Army); For those who collect stacks, three households with civil registration are used as the stacking collection, one household is selected as the main household, and military service shall be carried out, and the remaining two households are pasted households, and the main households can be rotated in turn; Drawing is simply pulled, and Ding is drawn from those who have more civilian nationality to fill the army.

In addition to the above, there are also a small number of phenomena such as voluntary surrender, domicile of the landlord, tenant of the army's land, and the inheritance of the property of the former army because of marrying the daughter of the deceased army.

The military households of the Ming Dynasty were the same as the people, craftsmen, doctors, yin and yang, etc., and they had their own military fields (which were not the same thing as the guards and tuntians), and they did not need to undertake military service like the people's fields, but they needed to serve in the army.

The plan for military households to fill up military service is that each household should send one ding to serve as the regular army, and serve as a soldier at the designated guard station, which is called Qijie, and be responsible for 'preparing for the expedition'; when the regular army is on duty, it should bring one of the household's surplus members with him, and go to the battalion physiology, assist the regular army, and supply military uniforms, which is for the 'military surplus', and both are exempt from miscellaneous service; one ding is reserved and supplied to the battalion Zhengding; and one ding is prepared for the 'successor Ding', and in the event of the death of the regular army, it will be filled for military service (if there is no strong man under the household, the child will be registered, and it will be a young child, and the errand will be made up after the completion of the Ding).

This system was out of shape when it was implemented, and there was a 'heavy service' in the Xuanzong period, that is, a military household had to relieve more than two dings to serve as a regular army in different guards, and there was a phenomenon of 'the husband and the army household were full of ten dings, one of them was a soldier, two or three people or tuntian, and the rest were for the soldiers', and in the Longqing period, the phenomenon of "a military household with four dings and three armies, and a household with two dings should be two armies" was very common.

The reason why this kind of military household is called "heavy service" is that there were detailed regulations at the beginning of the military registration that they were not allowed to serve in nearby guard posts, and military officers in the same county were not allowed to serve in the same guard post or in the same area.

In order to prevent mutiny, the Jiangbei Army Ding was sent to the Jiangnan Guard, Shaanxi to Yunnan, and Sichuan to Liaodong. During the Jiajing period, there were a total of 6,898 military households in Haining, Zhejiang, and the soldiers who were sent to the country were assigned to 480 different guards across the country to serve in the army; There are a total of 621 military households in Gaoling, Shaanxi, and the soldiers are assigned to 135 different guard posts.

This kind of long-distance service is like the 'Bujie' of Songjiang Mansion, which became a heavy burden on military households in the Ming Dynasty, where transportation was inconvenient.

The farther the journey, the greater the cost, resulting in such common phenomena as 'the long distance is difficult, the inventory fee cannot be helped, there are many people who flee the dead on the way, and there are few defenders', '2,000 miles away, the production is completely wasted', and the embarrassed soldiers are 'so much that they die of coldness and illness'.

Even when the soldiers arrived at the designated guard station, because they were far away from their homeland, there were many people who died of water and soil adaptation, such as those in the south who died of cold, and those in the north who died of miasma. In addition, they were also extorted by hereditary guards, withheld in arrears of monthly rations, and reduced the ratio of monthly rations to color, so that they 'completely suppressed the surplus Dingtun to grow and raise food'.

After the army arrives at the guard, according to the division of labor of the "border three seven guards, the hinterland two eight" for the regular flag army and the tun army, the city can receive monthly rations, the approximate amount is "two stones for the horse army month, one stone and five buckets for the general flag of the infantry army, one stone and two buckets for the small flag, one stone for the main army with more than four families, six buckets for those below three mouths, and four buckets for those who have no wives (another water horse post and three buckets for the month of the husband). ’

Due to the fertile, barren soil, and the difference in distance, the amount of land divided into military cantonments varies, and '50 mu of land for each army is one cent, or 100 mu, or 70 mu, or 30 or 20 mu'. For example, in Songjiang Jinshanwei, 'the general flag is 30 mu per person, the small flag is 24 mu, and the army is 20 mu'; Henan, Shandong, Liaodong and other places are '1 cent per army, 50 mu per cent'; and Shaanxi is '100 mu per cent'.

Each Tun soldier shall pay six stones of grain from the Tuntian field (the general rule of the whole country) to the military warehouse per year, and keep the tax grain delivered to the state capital and county, which shall be distributed by the guard officer to the regular flag army as monthly ration.

Later, due to the shortcomings of the officials of the guard station making it difficult to deliver to the people, the financial power to manage the military warehouse was transferred to the local government in the tenth year of Xuande (1435, the book of Wang Zuo, the household servant who was sent to Henan); Due to the decline of the soil and grains of the tuntian area of the army year by year, in the 42nd year of Jiajing (1563), the management of the tuntian of the Weisho was also handed over to the local government.

After the local government obtained the right to manage the military warehouses and military cantonments, the private gentry occupied the property and fertile land of the guards by means of forcible occupation and replacement, resulting in the lack of food and salaries for the guards and soldiers; Coupled with the presence of the En army, the status of the soldiers was reduced, and the flight was even worse. In the end, only the hereditary posts of 100 households, 1,000 households, and commanders could be retained, so the previous statistical results of 'shortage of regular army and surplus of officers' appeared.

In short, whether it is the source of soldiers or the land of the military camp, the system of the guard is 'playing for a long time, playing and abandoning, for several years, in vain', until 'the sergeants fled and died, and more than half of the land was lost'.

…

Xu Guangqi now holds the sword of Shang Fang in his hand and holds the military and political affairs of a province, and has the right to perform secretly, which can be said to be open to the sky, and he is not afraid of the local gentry, he is worried about the opposition from the military, he looked at Zhang I Xu and Liu Kongzhao, who were commenting on the election of Shuyuan, and was worried.

First of all, this Zhang I from Handan, Guangping Mansion, Beizhili, is not simple. His father, Zhang Guoyan, successively served as the magistrate of Xiangling, the military department, the Shanxi political officer, the Shaanxi right political envoy, the Jiangxi left political envoy, the household servant, the imperial history of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the military department, the criminal department, etc., and stood on the side of the Guangmiao in the matter of fighting for the country; Secondly, his brother Zhang Iji and Zhang Isheng are both high school scholars, and they are officials in the court, and they are living in a family of bureaucrats.

The second is Liu Kongzhao, the son of Xunchen, whose father Liu Xinchen is now the secretary of the Governor's Mansion of the Right Army (Zheng Erpin), in his early years, because of personal grudges, he 'slandered Gu Xiancheng' and 'satirized Donglin', and lost the opportunity in Zhu Youxiao's move to the palace and ascended to the pole, and has not been reused.

Xu Guangqi knew that in order to stabilize the guards, it was nothing more than to ensure the regular army's food and salary, make up for the original forehead tuntian, improve the status of the soldiers, and eliminate redundant personnel and the old and weak, and all of these required the cooperation and support of the two.

……

"My lord, I've read more than half of them like this, can I all be selected?"

"Huh?" Xu Guangqi was woken up by the person next to him, and the person who reminded him was Zhang Ixu, who was sitting next to him and about the same age as himself, and said with a smile, "I'm old, I read the paperwork last night, and I was not in good spirits, and I just wandered into the sky." ”

"As soon as you arrived, you put all your energy into it, and you are really a model for my generation." Zhang I continued to bow my hand.

Xu Guangqi waved his hand, ignored the matter of choosing a concubine, and asked sideways, "The governor has three guards and two guards for Kaifeng, with a quota of more than 20,000, and now it is less than 10,000, can there be a good way to make up for the number of soldiers and horses fleeing?"

Zhang I continued to look left and right, covered his mouth and whispered, "Don't hide it, my lord, after the subordinate arrived, he has inspected several guards, and the current situation is far from being as simple as a shortage. ”

"Oh, what else?" Xu Guangqi was training in Tongzhou because he knew that the soldiers were unbearable, and when he saw that Zhang I continued to be cautious, he became interested.

"The regular army in various places has not been trained for many years, the generals may not be able to be used, the training is impossible, the discipline is absurd, the deserters are gone, the ruler is in vain, and the troops are wasted......"

"These officials all know, do you have a good plan?"

Zhang I continued to move the chair towards Xu Guangqi, and still whispered, "After thinking about it, I feel that there is only one way. ”

"But re-training?" Xu Guangqi thought of the dilemma of lack of money, horses and weapons for military training before, "The king of Henan has spent too much, and he still needs help from other provinces, so how can he get money and food?" ”

"My lord, although there is a shortage of the main army in the guard, there are still commands, thousands of households, etc., and there is a lot of wealth, and the intention of the lower official is to let him follow the precedent of 'recruiting brave and strong soldiers during the Jiawan period, and raising them with grace', so that they can recruit their own families, more than twenty or thirty, and as little as two or three, and their rations will be distributed according to the 'battalion regulations', so that the soldiers can make up the original amount."

The regular army is 'those who make up for the army according to the rules', and their salaries are 'no matter how heavy the duty is, and the monthly support is five buckets', while the battalion soldiers are 'paid in three classes for the brave, with two stones for the upper ones and five buckets for the second'.

In order to protect themselves and advocate brave charges, the generals use their private wealth to hire and recruit private armies, so they will not be as perfunctory as they should be, and the warriors selected are all 'strong and strong, skilled archers and horses'.

This kind of system was only implemented at the border passes, such as in the 39th year of Jiajing, 'the Beijing camp generals and border officials, each member of the quasi-family 20, two stones per month, and a reward of five taels of silver', and in the 22nd year of Wanli, 'the quasi-Liaodong garrison, reserve and other officials brought 10 family members, 50 general guerrillas, and the family members were given double salaries (eight silver coins), with an official horse, four cents and five cents of grain per month, and eight cents of silver and seven cents and five cents of silver every year.

Xu Guangqi pondered for a while, but still shook his head, "I'm afraid this will not work, not to mention the suspicion of raising tigers, and there is no war in the hinterland, where will the silver and reward be paid?" Are thousands of officials fools? ”

Zhang I continued to discuss the feasibility of his proposal with Xu Guangqi, but was amazed by Shuyuan who walked into the lobby and forgot to speak for a while.