Last time, I mentioned that in order to take the opportunity to level Liao, the Ming Dynasty implemented a series of constructive measures in the country, with the aim of tapping national strength and gathering combat strength to level Liao in one fell swoop.

Autumn could have sent troops, but it was the time when the northern nomads were high in autumn and the horses were fat, which was conducive to the nomadic cavalry to do long-distance long-distance raids, not to mention that the following winter was unusually cold, and it was not suitable for the Ming Chao infantry corps from the south to fight, because the logistics supply could not keep up, which was not conducive to marching and fighting.

Therefore, Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen felt that as long as he was well prepared, he would definitely be able to sweep Liaodong, so why rush for a while? It is better to wait until the spring and summer of next year to succeed in the Northern Expedition "Houjin", because the other side has already exhausted itself after half a year of nesting winter, and the scale of its own new army has increased significantly.

Sure enough, next, the whole world was cheering for the "new policy" of the imperial court, because the ordinary people at the bottom felt that the burden on their shoulders had become lighter, not only could they eat a full meal before the winter, but also the children of poor families also had the opportunity to join the army to fight wars, eat imperial food and even take martial arts exams.

After all, the majority of people have been poor for many generations, and it would be good to let their children go to school and take the imperial examination, even if they could write the name of the family. However, if you can join the army, you will have the opportunity to practice martial arts, and then find an opportunity to learn some military tactics, and you may be able to make meritorious contributions on the battlefield and be qualified to take the martial arts examination to become a general.

Once you become a general, you will be enrolled in the military, and the whole family can enjoy the "national dividend", after all, the "military tun" that the "grandfather" created back then, that is, the "guard system", was not made up. Although corruption in the army later peaked, and the generals annexed the land of military households, they were now severely investigated and punished by the imperial court, so they had to spit it out.

The common people, especially the "military households", have their own land, so they have a stable source of livelihood and long-term living security, so their negative feelings towards the government have suddenly decreased. At the same time, the opening of the "sea ban" and the encouragement of border trade have also made the people living in the southeast and northwest frontiers applaud.

After all, the natural conditions in the border areas are more difficult, and it is obviously more difficult to solve the problem of food and clothing than the people living in the Central Plains. However, today's imperial court has silver, and using a large amount of silver to open "money villages" and "pawnshops" everywhere can provide convenience for the people at the bottom, especially the merchants.

Therefore, after revitalizing the domestic economy, Zhu Youzhen and his concubines had nothing to do, and in addition to daily cultivation and hard work to give birth to children, they also invited the carpenter's family to go to various "arsenals" and "garrison camps" to inspect the manufacture of armaments and train the new army, in order to cheer up the generals and soldiers in various places.

"The minister Xu Guangqi is late to take over, and I hope that the emperor will atone for his sins! Long live my emperor, long live, long live! Just when the carpenter led his daughter, son-in-law, apprentices, and juniors to a military training camp in "Tongzhou Wei", he happened to see Xu Guangqi, Matteo Ricci, Tang Ruowang and others guiding the training on the spot.

"Oh my God! Your Majesty, the Great and Supreme Emperor of China, you can actually fly from the sky, it is comparable to God! ”

"Haha, let's wait for a flat up." Everyone stepped into the void, climbed the stairs, and landed steadily in front of a group of "mortals", and was suddenly shocked as heavenly!

"Xu Aiqing, how has the recent armament and training progressed?" ———— "The old minister returns to the emperor!" Xu Guangqi and a group of Westerner military advisers got up and bowed again: "So far, there are more than ten arsenals built all over the country, which can produce hundreds of thousands of guns every month. ”

"Oh? What are the numbers? I have to know it! "————" The emperor is not in a hurry, and listens to the old minister slowly. Xu Guangqi and several adjutants nodded to each other and said: "Counting the cumulative output of the national arsenal, 30 rifled guns can be produced every month, and 600 guns (shells) can be produced; The rifled gun mother gun can produce 500 rods and 10,000 bullets; Smoothbore guns (mortars) can produce 100 mother guns and 1,000 child guns! ”

"Oh? Really? Emperor Chongzhen was pleasantly surprised when he heard this: "In this way, wouldn't it take less than a year to be able to change all of my 'Ming Dynasty Shenji Battalion'?" In this way, the pacification of Liaodong will be just around the corner! Haha...... "Actually, Emperor Chongzhen even thought of whether to go north to Mongolia at the same time?"

"Uh...... This one...... I'm afraid not. Xu Guangqi suddenly said cautiously with embarrassment: "Your Majesty, you don't know, the eight million taels of silver have already bottomed out, but it happened that the capital suffered a major natural disaster and had to spend money to rebuild, so the old minister did not dare to ask the court for money again." If there are two million taels of silver, then..."

"Two million taels of silver? Are you sure you can get things done? After listening to this, Zhu Youjian deliberately sank his face, pretending to be very painful, and said in a low voice: "I will give you this money, but I plan to start a full-scale war in the spring of next year, when I will not only pacify Liaodong, but also attack the Northern Yuan by the way, you see ......."

"Huh? This...... Your Majesty, you're not kidding, are you? Xu Guangqi was shocked when he heard it, after all, the Northern Yuan Dynasty now occupies the entire Mongolian steppe, although the land is vast and sparsely populated, but living by water and grass, taking horseback as his home, his whereabouts are difficult to find, only a large-scale organization of elite cavalry can win, but buying a horse requires money!

Buying war horses is the most expensive, because of the social turmoil at the end of the Ming Dynasty, wars continued, livestock, especially cattle, horses, donkeys, camels and other large livestock are scarce, the market price of ordinary horses is 10 taels of silver, ordinary military horses are worth at least 20 taels of silver, Mongolian horses are generally 30 taels of silver, and high-grade military horses can be sold for 50 taels of silver each!

In another time and space, the Chongzhen court put Xu Guangqi in charge of training the new army, the goal was to make the quality of the new army comparable to that of the Liaodong generals, and the artillery and arquebuses it was equipped with were to contact the Portuguese through Xu Guangqi to buy the latest version of guns in Macao, and at the same time had to ask Portuguese instructors to teach.

In addition, in order to improve the morale of the new army, the imperial court also used the land of the capital Huangzhuang to motivate them, as long as they won the battle, they would be rewarded with land! The monthly salary was paid twice as much as that of the border army, that is, four taels of silver per person per month. At the beginning, Xu Guangqi trained 20,000 new troops, and he knew it when he settled the accounts.

The military salary, 4 taels of silver a month for one person, and 960,000 taels of silver for 20,000 people a year! An Jiayin, 20 taels for one person, 20,000 people need a total of 400,000 taels!

The annual food consumption of 20,000 troops is about 114,000 stones, and the price of grain in Beijing during the Chongzhen period is one stone of rice and three taels of silver, and the consumption of grain and grass by 20,000 people in a year is worth 342,000 taels of silver! Armor, Xu Guangqi once said that a pair of fine armor costs 16 taels, and a pair of cotton armor costs 5 taels, according to the estimate of semi-iron armor and semi-cotton armor, the total cost of 20,000 people is 210,000 taels of silver! The spear and waist knife were used together, each with a pair of 5 yuan, and 20,000 people had to spend a total of 20,000 taels of silver.

Seiko made a bird gun at least 5 taels of silver, even if it is a minimum requirement for four people to have a stroke, configure 5,000 rods, a total of 25,000 taels.

The average price of each imported Hongyi cannon is 2,300 taels of silver, and it costs 460,000 taels of silver to buy 200 cannons! The price of the Furlong cannon varies due to different specifications, the average price is 20 taels of silver, and the purchase of 1,000 Furlong machines is 20,000 taels of silver! In addition, ammunition of various functional models has not yet counted the money!

After losing trade with Mongolia at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the price of horses soared, and the average value of a good horse was about 50 taels of silver, and it cost 500,000 taels of silver to buy 10,000 high-quality war horses! Due to the needs of the war, each military horse needs to consume three liters of beans and a bunch of grass per day, and 10,000 military horses need to consume at least 330,000 taels of silver a year!

The above totaled 3.262 million taels of silver, which was the annual cost of Xu Guangqi's training of 20,000 new troops at that time, and it was also the most conservative budget, accounting for about 10% of the Ming Dynasty's fiscal revenue! If you add in the ammunition, wear and tear, and miscellaneous expenses, then the 20,000 new army will cost more than 4 million taels of silver a year!

Due to the special geographical environment of the steppes in northern China, nomads live by hunting and grazing, and horses are their main means of transportation. After thousands of years of development, herders, whether they are old people or children, can ride horses, and they also have a very deep understanding of the types of horses.

In contrast, the people of the Central Plains have a high attainment in farming, they have a calendar, understand the solar terms, and know how to farm according to the season, but their understanding of horses is far less than that of the steppe nomads. Because of this, many people believe that the fall of the Ming Dynasty was related to the unskilled riding of the common people.

In agrarian societies, oxen, mules, and donkeys were used far more than horses, after all, horses were generally only used as means of transportation. Therefore, the common people and the government did not realize the importance of using horses, and until the establishment of the Han Dynasty, there was no special national horse breeding institution.

However, with the development of the agrarian empire, the exchange of different ethnic cultures, and the strength of the nomadic cavalry, the successive Central Plains courts gradually recognized the role of horses on the battlefield. In particular, the Tang and Song dynasties had different effects on foreign wars due to their different control of horses.

Zhu Yuanzhang, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, recognized the seriousness of this problem at the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Once he had secured his position, he took the opportunity to set up a horse training regiment and ordered the government to supervise it, as the Ming Dynasty lacked a strong cavalry force in case it was needed.

Due to the tradition of attaching importance to agriculture in the Central Plains, there are not many horses in the Central Plains, which are far inferior to oxen and donkeys. Therefore, the people of the Ming Dynasty could only purchase high-quality war horses from other countries, learn horse breeding techniques from other countries, and add existing war horses to try to breed better horse breeds.

In order to facilitate the purchase and selection of horses, the imperial court openly partnered with the Mongol tribes in the north and the Jurchen tribes in the northeast to set up horse markets and trade tea and horses.

However, this is not a fundamental solution, because the traditional habit of the Han people is to farm, and it would be unwise to only consider the war reserves and let the government raise horses. As the saying goes, "there is a precedence in hearing the Tao, and there is a specialization in the art industry", so the effect of letting the government raise horses is very unsatisfactory, so it is better to buy horses from outside.

After a long period of practice, the Ming Dynasty government also realized this, so the ministers racked their brains to find a solution. In the end, the "well-dressed beasts" decided to leave the task of domesticating horses to the people. The common people can raise horses at will, and they may also enjoy subsidies, and after raising horses, they will be handed over to the government.

But there are two sides to everything, there are advantages and disadvantages, because many "well-dressed beasts" are thinking about how to fill up the number indiscriminately, falsely reporting silver to fill their own pockets, so they can get a few more horses to squeeze the people, the so-called "more people are better to do things, less people are good to divide money", deception, up and down to eat.

Therefore, in order to put an end to corruption, the imperial court issued a decree requiring everyone to hand over a certain number of horses to the government every year, otherwise they would be severely punished. As a result, the people are under great pressure. Corrupt officials, on the other hand, paid taxes or handed over their family's old and weak horses to the common people.

In this case, the richer and more powerful people are, the less they will raise horses, but will push this thankless task to the common people, and at the same time, they will also set up clever names to exploit the common people layer by layer, the purpose is to force the common people to borrow usury to raise horses for the government. In the end, the people's families were ruined!

As a result, the "well-dressed beasts" became corrupt, but their wealth increased day by day, not only hollowing out the people's families in disguise, but also encroaching on the resources used by the imperial court to raise horses, which finally led to the cessation of the development of the horse breeding industry in the Ming Dynasty, and finally led to the unsolvable problem of a serious shortage of horses in the late Ming Dynasty.

In fact, the horse training system of the Ming Dynasty had already been established but was not perfect, because according to historical records, the number of horses in the middle of the Ming Dynasty increased by six times compared with the early days of the Ming Dynasty. At its peak, the number of horses could reach more than 300,000, which was enough to ensure that Ming Chengzu conquered Mobei and occupied Liaodong.

Due to the government's mandatory requirement for private horses, and limited by the regional conditions of the Central Plains, the horses that should have been free-range were gradually enclosed, which led to a significant reduction in the quality of horses. In addition, the veterinarians of the Ming Dynasty were mostly proficient in medical skills, so very few sick horses died, which was originally a good thing, but it backfired.

Because this violates the "law of survival of the fittest" of "natural selection, survival of the fittest", it has caused a strange phenomenon, that is, although there are many war horses handed over to the imperial court every year, there are very few high-quality horses that can really be used on the battlefield for cavalry, and in the end they can only be used to transport logistics materials.

Most of the horses handed over to the court by the corrupt officials were kept by commoners, because the horses were too small and not strong enough to charge on the battlefield. This was not revealed at the height of the Ming Dynasty.

However, in the late Ming Dynasty, due to the internal strife in the imperial court, there were wars between the Ming Dynasty and the Jurchens and Mongols, which made the Ming Dynasty realize the lack of war horses.

In the vast prairie, nomads have lived on horseback for generations, and they are very familiar with the domestication, selection, and temperament of horses.

Moreover, the geographical location on the northern grassland is much better than the horse farm in the Central Plains of the Ming Dynasty, which allows horses to run on the grassland, so that the horses become strong in the process of growth, and can be used to form an elite cavalry. This is a strategic advantage that the Central Plains Dynasty does not have.

After a long period of hard work and development, the Jurchens became more and more numerous, and there were more and more war horses, and later, the grassland was full of war horses.

As the lord of the Houjin Kingdom, Nurha also attached great importance to the training of war horses. In contrast, the war horses of the Ming Dynasty were very weak, and the number was very small, and in the battle between the two sides, the Ming Dynasty had a shortage of war horses, so that its army had been at a disadvantage in the field battle, and could only hide in the castle to defend and counterattack.

The Later Jin army continued to approach, and the Ming Dynasty continued to lose control of its own territory, and was eventually defeated by the Later Jin, hastening the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, the fall of the Ming Dynasty was related to the lack of an excellent and powerful cavalry team. The lack of war horses is inseparable from the political corruption of the Ming Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, although the horse training institution had been established, due to improper management and supervision, it was not worthy of its name and specifically harmed the people.

This made the Ming army powerless in the battle with the Qing army, and was finally defeated, defeated, and finally lost the world.

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Haha, thank you for your attention, collection, recommendation, subscription and review of this book! As an author, I am very happy and honored to provide readers with a novel that meets the needs of the general public. As the saying goes, "Life is short, but the tip of the pen is slender." "Therefore, the road to cultivation is long, where to find immortality? There is nowhere to go for troubles, and read the people in the book! I hope that the novel "Heaven and Earth Let Me Go" series can bring happiness and insight to everyone!

This story is pure fiction, if there are similarities, it is a coincidence! Friends, the part-time job is hard, the time is urgent, the creation is not easy, like the collection, by the way, forward, want to know the plot? Next time I break it down! ("The book has its own golden house?") There are thousands of bells in the book? There is Yan Ruyu in the book"? Welcome to my book)