Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 71 The Destruction of Liao Town
"The soldiers and horses in Liao Town, in your opinion, how much money do you have left..."

After Houjin's question was finished, Zhu Youjian got straight to the point and asked directly about the empty salary in Liao Town.

"Eh... this..." Hearing Zhu Youjian's question about the empty salary, Man Gui was stunned for a moment, not knowing what to say.

He's reckless, but that doesn't mean he's a fool.

Things like empty pay cannot be said casually, otherwise hundreds of officials and generals will be involved.

"But don't worry, my brother and I have already made a decision about the empty salary, and we won't blame the generals."

Seeing that Man Gui was worried, Zhu Youjian could only comfort him, but when Man Gui thought that he would work in the Yumajian anyway, he simply said:
"Liao Town, before Xiong Jinglue arrived, there were originally [-] Liao soldiers, [-] guest troops, and [-] baggage soldiers, and nearly [-]."

"However, Liaozhen and the guest army mostly have spare pay, and the same is true for the heavy soldiers."

"Hu Ke gave Li Yingce statistics in the matter. Liaodong originally had [-] troops, but it was only [-] in the [-]th year of Wanli, which means that the number of troops has been reduced by [-]%."

"The reason for the decrease is that after the Korean War, the troops in Liaodong lost too much and it was difficult to recover."

"The soldiers and horses in the Liao town recruited the Liao people as soldiers. However, since the eunuch Gao Huai disrupted the Liao Dynasty, the Liao people regarded the court as their enemy."

"Therefore, many Liao people went west to seek refuge with the northern captives, or went north to seek refuge with the Jian captives after receiving their military pay and settlement expenses."

"Before the Battle of Saerhu, the Ming army stationed in Liaodong had neglected training, outdated equipment, lack of food and pay, and [-] false soldiers and horses. The actual number of soldiers was only [-], of which less than [-] were able to go out of the city to fight in the field."

"Because of this, before the Battle of Sarhu, the imperial court specially dispatched Juniper and Liu Ting, as well as troops from Sichuan, Gansu, Zhejiang, Fujian and other provinces, to reinforce Liaodong."

"At that time, Jinglue Yang Gao claimed to have an army of [-] troops, but in reality there were only about [-] troops. Including the Yehe tribe and the Korean army, the number of troops was only about [-]."

"Before the war, in order to confuse Nurhachi, Yang Jinglue lied that our army would go out of the border together on the first day of March and join forces to capture the capital of Manchuria. As agreed, a large army was marched."

"But in fact, our army had already set off on February [-], but the strange thing is that Nurhachi knew the time of our army's departure, and then divided the troops with the main force, defeating our army along the way."

"In the end, more than [-] of our troops died in battle, and less than [-] people fled back. Tieling and Kaiyuan were captured again, and more than [-] people were lost."

"Since then, there are less than [-] people in Liaodong, and no more than [-] people including the guards."

"Fortunately, the imperial court dispatched Jizhen, Xuanfu and other guest troops in time, and Xiong Jinglue recruited troops properly, and quickly replenished the number of soldiers to [-]."

Speaking of this, Man Gui has finished talking about Xiong Tingbi's arrival in Liaodong and the situation before he took office.

However, there is still some information after that, which is the current empty rate information.

Man Gui took a deep breath and said nervously:

"It stands to reason that Xiong Jinglue should be happy that the garrison and guest troops are nearly [-], but he soon discovered something after recruiting troops."

"This matter is the lack of salary caused by the generals of Liao Town's embezzlement of Mo's military salary, training family members and Liao people fleeing north."

When the matter came to the point, everyone frowned and listened, and Man Gui also said slowly:
"Xiong Jinglue figured out the situation of Liao Town's vacancy in less than three months."

"Liaodong has [-] soldiers on the surface, but the actual number of soldiers is only [-], and one-third of the salary is empty."

"This is not all the empty salary, all the empty salary needs to be added to the baggage soldier's salary."

"The [-] heavy soldiers in Liaodong are deployed with [-] soldiers, but right now there are only [-] soldiers in Liaodong."

"Therefore, the baggage soldiers are actually on empty pay. The actual number of baggage soldiers is only about [-]."

"That is to say, in the entire Liaodong, there are currently only [-] soldiers plus combat troops."

"And among the [-] soldiers, there are people fleeing every day, and among the [-] soldiers, only [-] to [-] are capable of fighting."

"That's why Xiong Jinglue deducted the vacant salaries of the various ministries. He thought that this group of generals would be more honest, but he didn't want them to continue to eat vacant salaries."

"Those Liao soldiers who fled to the North and took refuge in Beilu and Jianlu became vacant after fleeing, and the silver was used to support the servants of the generals."

"When Biaoxia came to Changchang, he looked at the military camps in various places. I am afraid that there are less than [-] soldiers in Liaodong right now, and less than [-] soldiers..."

Man Gui talked about the problem of vacancy in Liaodong, which made everyone feel uneasy for a long time.

There should be [-] soldiers plus heavy soldiers, but in fact there are only [-], leaving [-] empty.

Now that Xiong Tingbi has gone to the quota, it turns out that there are only [-] soldiers and horses out of [-], and the quota is [-].

The level of vacancy for the soldiers and horses in Liaozhen is unprecedented.

Based on twelve taels of silver for regular soldiers and five taels of silver for auxiliary soldiers, before Xiong Tingbi abolished the vacancy quota, Liao Town would have to eat nearly a million taels of silver every year.

Even right now, he will have to eat [-] taels of empty salary.

This is just the salary, and there are also military rations, armor, and horses.

Right now in Liaodong, there is one tael of silver for one stone of grain, twelve shi of grain for one person a year, plus other supplementary grain and war horse straw bundles. The war horse silver bought in name is frighteningly high.

In this way, it is not difficult to explain why Liaodong and Nurhachi have been fighting for only two and a half years, but they have consumed nearly [-] million taels of silver.

Of the money, probably only one-third can be used, and two-thirds have been eaten up.

After eating like this, until the Great Drought broke out in the Little Ice River seven years later, and the nationwide severe drought lasted for more than ten years, Daming had no choice but to die.

Zhu Youjian no longer knows how to deal with this huge interest group. Is it feasible to station Zhejiang soldiers and Baigan soldiers as before?
What should be done so that the Liaodong army will not rebel collectively and turn back to Jin?
From the current point of view, Xiong Tingbi can hold the place, and the people in Liaodong also trust Xiong Tingbi, so he must not kill him.

To keep Xiong Tingbi, use the method of boiling frogs in warm water to go to Liaodong Army.

But if you really take your time, can the people of Liaodong hold on?

The people in Liaodong are no more than [-] million people, and [-] million people support [-] professional troops.

With the grain output of one mu of land in Liaodong being less than [-] catties, even the people in Liaodong may not be able to feed them. How can they support [-] professional troops?
Too many garrisons caused the price of local food to soar, and the people couldn't afford food, so they had to flee north to seek refuge with Houjin and the Mongols.

But if the army is not stationed, the army of Jianlu will go down in a blink of an eye, and Liaodong will be captured. Only relying on the Liaoxi Corridor will not be able to support an army of [-].

This is an endless loop, but it is not difficult to unravel it. That is to control a large granary, transport the grain directly to Liaodong by sea, and prohibit the purchase of military grain locally, so as to calm the price of grain and allow the people of Liaodong to survive.

But how to control a large granary?How to break through the blockade of Jiangnan officials and go directly by sea?This is something that will lead to civil uprisings in the south of the Yangtze River...

(End of this chapter)