On the fourth day of the seventh month, the crown prince Shaobao, the left squire of the military department, and the assistant director Jingying Rong Zhenggao came to the former military governor's mansion as scheduled to meet with a group of nobles.

Although it has always been said that the "Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies" is only in terms of the Yamen, the "Five Armies" are separated, and they are arranged on the west side of the main street between Chengtianmen and Daming Gate from north to south.

Today's Governor Jingying Rongzheng (formerly known as Prime Minister Jingying Rongzheng, Zhao Zhenji changed it during the cabinet period) is served by Wuchen Xungui, but this Wuchen Ronggui is neither Chengguo Duke Zhu Yingzhen, nor British Duke Zhang Yuangong, nor Dingguo Duke Xu Wenbi, but an old minister: Zhang Wubo Yang Bing.

The title of Earl Zhangwu does not belong to the Jingnan line, but it is not the founding line, but was canonized after the restoration of Yingzong. The status of this series of earls is not prominent, and they do not have much say among the nobles of Shenjing. However, it is for this reason that the great seal of the governor Jingying Rongzheng fell on his head - even he has been doing it for more than ten years.

There are probably two reasons for this: first, the nobles who have no right to speak are less likely to be suspicious of the governor of Jingying; Second, even within the Xungui group, Jingying Rongzheng has been regarded as hopeless, so the higher the status of the noble, the more he doesn't want to get involved in this unlucky errand.

But today's meeting made Gao Pragmatic discover, and perhaps a third point should be added: the nobles of the Governor Jingying Rongzheng themselves have no right to speak, so the position of Zuo Shilang, who is the assistant of the Jingying Rongzheng, in the Beijing camp is extremely prominent - anyway, as soon as Gao Pragmatic entered the White Tiger Festival Hall of the former Military Governor's Mansion, he found that all the nobles who had posts in the Beijing camp had arrived, and as soon as he saw himself enter the door, he got up one after another and took the initiative to salute.

According to the system, the meritorious heroes and nobles in the Ming Dynasty are different from the grades of the clan, these nobles all belong to the "super grade", seriously speaking, it should not take the initiative to salute a military squire, even if this squire has the title of the prince Shaobao, it is useless - the prince Shaobao himself is also a second grade, or a position in the product, how can it be higher than the rank of the super-grade noble?

However, this is only a theory, in fact, the military department of the Jialongwan period (Shangshu and Shilang) is a master in front of any military ministers and generals, except for the pure army under the direct jurisdiction of the imperial horse supervisor, there are almost no military affairs that the military department cannot interfere with.

It may be too much of an understatement to say "intervention", but in fact, it should be said that almost any military affairs other than the clean army are managed by the Ministry of War, and the honorables basically only need to be named.

If there is any special case, it is the household registration of the military household, this thing was condemned to death by Taizu, and the hereditary nobles and governors in the Governor's Mansion of the five armies are in charge of a batch, and the military department has not been able to interfere until now.

However, it may also be precisely because of this reason that the Ministry of War has not been able to make an appearance of the "assistant director of the Beijing battalion for so many years", and it is not clear how many soldiers there are in the Beijing battalion.

Gao Pragmatic today is different from the past, he came to the meeting as a de facto official, so his face was very serious, so that Zhu Yingzhen and Zhang Yuangong, who had always been good friends with him, did not dare to be presumptuous, and gave up the plan to greet him with a smile, but honestly followed behind Yang Bing, the uncle of Zhangwu, and stepped forward to see him.

Gao Shishi's face was indifferent, and he returned the salute with a slight stroke, and then said directly: "Everyone is here, right?" Well, when we get together, we will have a meeting. ”

Everyone didn't expect Gao Pragmatic to be so straightforward in his opening remarks, looked at each other, and invited Gao Pragmatic to take a seat.

According to Gao Shipra's previous style, he must be humble at this time, but this time it was not, he went directly to the main seat without saying a word. Zhang Wubo Yang Bingchao glanced at the top nobles around him, mainly the Three Kingdoms.

Zhu Yingzhen and Zhang Yuangong smiled, but did not react at all, that is, there were no instructions. Xu Wenbi, the oldest Duke of Dingguo, may have softened his heart and nodded slightly at him.

Yang Bing breathed a sigh of relief, followed Gao Shishi step by step, and sat on the second seat. The three princes are divided according to the usual rules, according to age, so Xu Wenbi is the first, Zhu Yingzhen is second, and Zhang Yuangong is again. The marquis and earls after that also found their seats according to the traditional rules.

"There is a long time for the rank of Lao." Gao pragmatic really has a unique style, the opening remarks of the meeting are just such a sentence, and then go directly to the topic: "The first position of the Ministry of War was the assistant director of the Jingying Rongzheng, and the major affairs of the country must not be ignored, but the Jingying Rongzheng has been repeated over the years, and it is still a mess.

To tell you nothing, Bengong Bao spent half a month in the military department, and read countless case files, but in the end, he couldn't even find out the real number of how many soldiers were worthy of war in the current Beijing camp, which is really a strange thing! ”

When these words came out, since the three major princes descended, all the nobles subconsciously lowered their heads.

Of course, they are not afraid of being highly pragmatic and accountable, after all, this did not start with them. If you are responsible, which generation of ancestors do you have to trace?

Bow your head, just acquiesce that this is indeed the case, and at the same time avoid being shot in the head - of course the top nobles will not die in this kind of thing, but there is no need for everyone to anger Gao Pragmatic, and finally be severely punished by the emperor's order, right?

Of course, being severely punished by the emperor's decree is not the most serious, after all, the emperor will at most remove them from their posts in the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies, and it is just a little less every year, which is not a big deal.

But offending Gao pragmatic is very serious, the last time the world was in the tide of clearing the world's acres, because the emperor took the lead in selling a large number of Huangzhuang tenants to Huangzhuang tenants at a discount (tenants looking for loans from Jinghua Qianzhuang for financing), in the end the nobles had to reluctantly follow up some, and then participate in the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance.

In the past, it took an average of 30 years to buy an acre of land to pay back, but it was at least ten times faster to engage in sea trade - at present, there is no one who has not returned to the capital in three years, in fact, most of them have recovered their investment in two years, and almost all of them have made net profits in the future.

Even some of the fastest businesses, a boat directly back to the capital, such as the sale of Japanese fans, and even in the past two years, the price of Japanese fans has been reduced in Daming.

Gao Pragmatic is the initiator and de facto leader of the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance, without his approval to hang the "Book and Sword" banner, that is, you can't go anywhere in the sea frontier, so offending Gao Pragmatic is equivalent to offending the God of Wealth, which is much more serious than losing office.

Gao Pragmatic didn't care what they thought, but asked directly: "Uncle Zhangwu, you are the governor, can you give the palace a real number - how many soldiers are there in the Beijing camp now?" ”

"This ......" Zhang Wubo Yang Bing said embarrassedly: "Gao Gongbao is asking the registered soldier Ding geometry?" ”

Gao pragmatically waved his hand: "There are 412,368 people on the register—what's the use of asking this?" ”

Yang Bing coughed lightly when he heard this, and said: "Gao Gongbao, the Beijing camp is divided into two categories, in addition to the three major battalions, there are also squad ......."

"Leave aside the squad for the time being, let's talk about the three major battalions first."

Yang Bing coughed lightly again, and said, "This, if you don't care about the squad army, the three major battalions are probably ...... There are probably more than 40,000 people...... bar. ”

Gao Shicheng sneered when he heard this: "In the early years, there were 410,000 on the register, and there were 170,000 in the fourteenth year of orthodoxy. After civil engineering, Yu Zhongsu (Yu Qian, nickname) selected and compiled an elite battalion of 100,000. In the early years of Zhengde, there were only 60,000 left, so I had to choose the border army to join the guard, known as the outer four...... It's good now, there are only 40,000 left-compared to the early days of the Dynasty, the number of posts in Beijing alone has been nine out of ten! ”

He paused for a moment at this point, and then asked, "This is just a post, and I want to ask one more question: Can these 40,000 people go into battle—who can answer me?" ”

Of course, no one could answer, so I just went cold. A group of nobles suddenly found that their boots were very beautiful, and they all lowered their heads and studied their toes.

Gao pragmatic glanced around, slowly stood up, everyone kept looking at him from the corner of their eyes, and when they saw him get up, they all stood up, including Xu Wenbi, who was already old among the three princes, and he looked like he was meeting Shangguan.

Gao Pragmatic walked down the center of the hall, and said slowly as he walked: "You and I are not new acquaintances, you should know my habits, there are some things I can turn a blind eye to, but what I have to do...... Never compromised. ”

Everyone was shocked by this sentence, and they all raised their heads and looked at Gao Pragmatic.

Of course, they knew that Gao Pragmatic was not joking, but they were afraid that Gao Pragmatic would not know that the trouble in Jingying was at the root, and if he suddenly said now: "I want to check the military records one by one and restore the 410,000 army", then it would really be an old life, and Taizu would not be able to get it back to life!

After all, Yang Bing is the governor of Jingying Rongzheng, obviously in this July day, but he suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, and he was about to speak, but he didn't want Zhu Yingzhen to finally have the deepest friendship with Gao Pragmatic this time, so he opened his mouth first.

"Truth-seeking...... Uh, Gao Gong Bao, the problem of the posts of these three battalions has been around for a long time, and the so-called freezing three feet is not a day's cold, this matter has been accumulated for almost two hundred years, and it is really troublesome for me to sort it out at once......"

"Sixty thousand." Gao Pragmatic stretched out his hand to interrupt Zhu Yingzhen's words, and said expressionlessly: "I give you five months, whether you are going to recruit or select from military households, in short, by the end of this year, I want to see that there are 60,000 young people in Beijing, but there is one thing I declare in advance: I don't want those scoundrels found from the market." ”

"This ......" Zhu Yingzhen's face was bitter, and he didn't know what to say for a while. The rest of the nobles are also all unlucky people who have been forced to eat.

Zhongxungui looked gloomy but didn't dare to joke about his own big deal, just like a collective constipation scene.

The power of money is as good as Si.

In the end, it was Xu Wenbi, the old countryman, who was well-informed, and slowly spoke: "I think it is difficult to select young and strong soldiers among military households, and only recruiting soldiers is a method, which has been used for decades before." But if you can only worry about it, where does this money come from? ”

Gao Pragmatic seemed to have guessed that there would be this question, and asked Xu Wenbi in turn: "What did my husband teach me?" ”

"Don't dare, don't dare." Xu Wenbi had already learned the power of high pragmatism as early as the Longqing period, and now more than ten years have passed, and the elders of Xiaoge have become real servants, how dare he take on the word "teaching", so he naturally hurriedly humbled himself.

"In previous years, the military rosters and posts were checked, and if soldiers needed to be recruited, they were all allocated extra money by the imperial court. This time, since Gao Gong Bao needs to raise the quota of 20,000 people, the required expenses are also requested to be sparse by Gao Gong Bao, and the cabinet vote is proposed, the emperor approves the red, and then the household department allocates the silver taels. Naturally, the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies will follow suit, and we must be strictly selected and recruited, in order not to miss the important task of palace protection. ”

Gao pragmatic said secretly in his heart: Xu Wenbi, this bad old man is really bad, and he dug a few pits for me to jump.

This old guy first said that the "quota increase" was my personal request, and then asked me to ask for money myself, which was to separate me from the other relevant yamen.

At present, Shoufu has been replaced by Shen Shixing, although nominally I still want to call him "Mr. Shen", but the two of us obviously can't pee in the same pot, "Mr. Shen" will happily give me a ticket to draft a "such as the member's discussion"?

Okay, even if other cabinet elders help, such as Senior Brother Wu Dui Wu is now in charge of the military department, he helps to submit the sparse text and agrees with the draft, so what? Can Zhu Yijun still draw such a sum of money from the household department this year? Even if he is willing, the premise is that the household must have it!

The household department itself is already in a state of deficit this year, if it weren't for the fact that I came up with the treasure money of the Yunnan War and helped to win the battle in Myanmar, I am afraid that the household department would have scolded my mother by now.

But even if the Dian War treasure money shares a large part of the pressure on the household, but on the other hand, the income of this treasure money is not much of a matter for the household department - the household can only get 80,000 taels of compensation every year, but that has to be counted from next year, because this year Myanmar itself has emptied the treasury, let them take the head to pay back?

What's more, the household department was originally the own position of the real school, and the former Shangshu Zhang Xueyan was a little better, but now he has been replaced by a novice in finance, Shen Li, who is estimated to have just figured out the basic situation in the past half a month, and expects him to spend an extra sum of money to recruit troops in Beijing under such a tight financial situation, even if it is not much different from forcing him to hang himself.

But...... Gao pragmatic sneered in his heart, you want to use money to kill me, I'm afraid I'm thinking too much. Although I definitely can't use my own money to spend on Jingying, can't Jingying find a means to make money in my hands, and give my own money for recruiting soldiers?

"I heard that one of the major drawbacks of the Beijing camp is that the imperial court always uses people from the Beijing camp to work on various projects, and the Yongding River is used to control the water, the imperial tomb is built, the Great Wall is maintained in Shuntian, and the hollow enemy platform is built, etc., all of which have to be transferred from the Beijing camp?"

As soon as Gao Pragmatic mentioned this, all the nobles came to the spirit, and one by one they seemed to be full of righteous indignation—mainly because when the Beijing battalion undertook these tasks, the amount of work was often large, and the wages given by the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of War and other yamen were extremely low. Although the military households in Beijing have long become their private property, the key is that this "deal" is not cost-effective, and the profits are meager.

Gao Pragmatic smiled slightly: "That's it, Bengong Bao will find something to do for the Beijing camp, and by the way, make some money, and do the recruitment of troops by yourself, so as not to worry about the court...... What do you think? ”

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