"Lord Li, if we gather the Tianwei Army and set up separate military towns in various places, I'm afraid that our military salaries won't save much, right?"

Xu Yifan asked.

Li Yan said in a deep voice: "Yifan, now there are more than 300,000 officers and soldiers in the Ming Dynasty, and now that the Guannai has just stabilized, the troops left over from the previous dynasty are difficult to count, but this official has made statistics, the officers and soldiers of the guards in various places plus the military and town forces in various provinces should be more than 600,000, plus the Tianwei Army and the three towns of Nanjing and the Beijing camp, the total strength is close to 800,000, and the soldiers who have been falsely reported by the military towns in various places should not be less than 600,000. The towns and the guards were combined, and the number of soldiers ranged from 400,000 to 500,000. Sixty-three provinces in the south and north, thirteen military towns, and only need more than 200,000 troops, plus the six towns of the Tianwei Army, the four towns of Nanjing and the Beijing camp, the total strength of the army is between 400,000, such as today's Wei Army, the four towns of Nanjing and the Beijing camp are equipped with a large number of firearms, the combat power is strong, stationed in the north and south of Beijing, once there is a war in the provinces, immediately send troops, it will not take long, you can wipe them out, but if the Tianwei Army and the four towns of Nanjing are scattered in the provinces, once there is a big change, we also need to transfer troops from the provinces, Gathering troops and then going out on the expedition will delay the fighters. The annual military expenditure of 400,000 troops is only about 6 million taels, and if the officers and soldiers of the guards are disbanded, we can also get the land of the guards, so that all these people will be reduced to peasants, and the taxes of the imperial court will be raised, killing two birds with one stone. ”

Six million taels, which is already a lot of money.

Xu Yifan smiled bitterly: "Lord Li, you only calculated the strength and military salary of the infantry cavalry, as well as the sailor, the emperor will vigorously supervise the sailor in the future, the imperial sailor and the Fujian sailor, but they are two bottomless pits, supervising the construction of a warship of two thousand materials, the silver tael that needs to be spent is as high as more than 20,000 taels of silver, and the military salary of the sailor soldiers is more than 20,000 taels a year, and the military salary of the entire sailor division is only afraid that it will not be able to come down without two million taels, eight million taels, plus the silver for river control, officials and water conservancy." If you add in the severance silver that will be spent on the dismantling of the guards and the officers and soldiers of the military town, I am afraid that there will be no twenty or thirty million taels of silver......"

Twenty or thirty million taels?

Huang Zongxi, who was on the side, shook his head like a rattle, and said urgently: "Don't think about it, don't even think about it, the imperial court will never be able to come up with so much silver, and the total annual financial income may be barely able to reach 20 million taels, but we need to repay the principal and interest of the Industrial Bank every year as high as 2.8 million taels, especially in order to be able to compensate the dead and seriously injured soldiers in time, the imperial court has just borrowed 2 million taels of silver from the Industrial Bank, and the treasury has absolutely no way to come up with so much silver at once!" ”

As the big housekeeper, the Hubu Shangshu will always be the most picky, Huang Zongxi has just taken office as the Hubu Shangshu, and he has already learned well.

Li Yan looked at Zhu Jie and said, "Your Majesty, regardless of whether the court can take out this silver, what the minister said is not paying attention to?" ”

Zhu Jie nodded, gritted his teeth and said: "Yes, specially, Li Yan, it is a waste for me to put you in the position of the secretary of the ministry, and I should let you be in the position of the secretary of the military department!" Leading troops to fight, you can't catch up with Baigu and Yifan, but when it comes to far-reaching resourcefulness, the two of them are really inferior to you......"

Zhu Jie thought that he had thought it through, but what he didn't expect was that the information he had was still too little, and his estimate of the existing strength of the imperial court was insufficient, and the total number of troops was 800,000 people, how much waste did the imperial court raise? It's no wonder that for so many years, the silver of the imperial court has not been enough to spend.

According to Li Yan's plan, the entire Ming Dynasty will have 400,000 troops in the future, 260,000 troops stationed in various places, and 160,000 troops stationed in the north and south of Beijing, which is definitely the most reasonable layout, after the completion of the reorganization, the combat power of 400,000 troops is much stronger than the previous 800,000 troops, and the most important thing is that the military salary will be reduced a lot, and the military salary saved can completely make up for the use of the naval division, after all, the two major naval divisions will have 200 warships and 50,000 troops in the future, which is also a large expense. There are too many places to spend money in the past two years, and you can't help but be careful about your calculations.

It's just that what Huang Zongxi said is right, how much silver does it cost the imperial court to cut all these troops at once? This is not a small number, the number of troops has dropped from 800,000 to 400,000, even if as Li Yan said, the real strength of which is only 600,000, it does not mean that 200,000 people will be directly dismantled, but it may be necessary to reduce 300,000 or even more, and only keep the elite forces, in addition, it is also necessary to re-recruit more than 100,000 people, one in and one out, that is almost 400,000 people.

This time alone, the army reorganization, without taking out six or seven million taels of silver, it is impossible to complete, this is not a normal annual military salary, if added together, I am afraid that it will exceed fifteen million taels of silver, you must know that in the Chongzhen years, plus three salaries, the annual income of the imperial court is only more than 10 million taels of silver, even if there is no war in the country now, the tax is much higher than in the previous years, but only 20 million taels of silver, this is already very good, according to this rhythm, you still need to borrow moneyHowever, no matter how rich the Industrial Bank is, it is not such a way to spend money, and the imperial court has borrowed all the money from the bank, so what should be done about the development of industry and commerce among the people?

You must know that in order to be able to defeat Manchuria, Zhu Jie mobilized the strength of the whole country, and spent no less than 10 million taels or even more on military expenses alone every year, and in more than three years, the imperial court had borrowed nearly 20 million taels of silver from the Industrial Bank, and the principal and interest that needed to be repaid every year would be 2.8 million taels, and he still had to borrow?

Sun Chuanting hesitated for a moment and said, "Your Majesty, why don't we change the way?" ”

"Bai Gu, are you going to talk about it?"

Sun Chuanting pondered for a while, and replied: "First, use land to replace the dismissal of silver, now the Central Plains provinces are in constant war, a large area of land is abandoned, the imperial court can issue an order, each soldier is dismissed, you can get ten acres of land, this is relative to silver, land is more precious, after all, silver will always be spent, but land, every year can produce food, this is the foundation of life; Second, a large amount of tax exemption for these people, tax exemption for ten years, it can be said that this will also be a lot of money, at least in the Central Plains provinces to implement, there is absolutely no problem, as for remote areas, but you can consider using cash ......"