Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 703: Coordinating the military affairs of the capital
On the third day after Wang Jinwu and others returned to Beijing, the court officially issued rewards to them.

Wang Jinwu was conferred the title of Earl and the title of Grand Tutor to the Crown Prince, and the rest of his duties were retained, still in charge of the Beijing Camp. The rest of the people were also rewarded, either promoted or given official titles. In addition, the court also allocated rewards to the soldiers, including pensions for those wounded or killed in battle.

When the news reached the army, the soldiers were excited, especially those who were originally in the Beijing camp, who were even more jubilant.

Although the Beijing Camp was previously known as the emperor's personal army and was the one with the highest treatment and the best conditions in the Ming army, in fact, the entire Beijing Camp had long been unusable. The problem of people eating empty salaries was serious in the Beijing Camp, and many people were just muddling through the days in the Beijing Camp. It was a complete empty shell, not to mention any combat effectiveness.

The silver-plated spear head refers to the former Beijing Camp. After Zhu Shenzhui captured the capital, he carried out drastic reforms on the Beijing Camp. In fact, before Emperor Chongzhen, everyone, including Emperor Chongzhen himself, knew about the problems of the Beijing Camp and had plans to reform it, but they never succeeded. The reason was that under the circumstances at the time, even the emperor had no way to solve the problems of the Beijing Camp.

The Beijing Army was nominally the emperor's personal army, but in reality it was controlled by civil servants.

The commander-in-chief of the Beijing camp was a leading figure among the nobles, such as the former Marquis Gongshun Wu Weiying, Marquis Linhuai Li Hongji, Marquis Dingyuan Deng Wenming, Earl Xiangcheng Li Guozhen, Earl Xinning Tan Hongye, Earl Yingcheng Sun Tingxun, Earl Qingping Wu Zunzhou and other nobles. They were either descendants of founding heroes or heroes of the Jingnan Campaign.

The deputy admiral was basically a eunuch around the emperor, who had a nominal position in the Beijing Camp. For example, Li Guofu was previously the deputy admiral of the Beijing Camp.

Wu Weiying led his troops into battle without any shame, but after suffering a great defeat, the main force of the Beijing Camp was completely destroyed, and most of the nobles who held real power in the Beijing Camp were captured or killed in battle. The remaining troops of the Beijing Camp left in the capital were almost a group of mob.

At that time, Emperor Chongzhen appointed Duke Dingguo Xu Yunzhen to take over as admiral. Although Xu Yunzhen had a high title, he knew nothing about fighting. Moreover, with the enemy at the gates of the city, people in the capital were in panic, and the remaining troops of the Beijing camp had extremely poor combat effectiveness. This eventually led to a coalition of people inside and outside the city taking the initiative to open the city gates, allowing Zhu Shenzhui's army to enter the city smoothly.

In addition to these nobles and eunuchs, there was also a civil service force in the Beijing Camp. The position of this civil servant in the Beijing Camp was called "Assisting in the Military Affairs of the Beijing Camp."

The so-called Assistant Manager of Military Affairs of the Capital Camp is nominally an assistant to the Chief of Military Affairs of the Capital Camp, but in reality he is the person who truly controls the Capital Camp. This position is a civil servant position rather than a military position, and has always been held by civil servants.

Through this position, civil officials were able to control the Beijing Camp without the support of the generals, thus weakening the control of the nobles, including the emperor, over the Beijing Camp. During the Tianqi period, Emperor Tianqi abolished this position directly in order to control military power, and stated that the position of assistant military affairs in the Beijing Camp would no longer be set up. However, who would have thought that in the second year after Chongzhen came to power, after being fooled by the Donglin Party, he restored this position and handed it over to the Donglin Party.

A few years later, Emperor Chongzhen found that something was wrong. The Donglin Party was not as reliable as he had imagined. The Beijing Camp was increasingly infiltrated by civil officials, and its drawbacks were getting more and more serious. In desperation, Emperor Chongzhen did not dare to abolish this position like his brother did, so he could only adopt his old method, which was to replace the person in charge of the Beijing Camp's military affairs. Taking advantage of the opportunity of Zhang Daoze, the chief official of the Censorate, impeaching Li Banghua, he dismissed Li Banghua, the then assistant in charge of the Beijing Camp's military affairs, and let him return to his hometown to live in idleness.

Although Li Banghua was the assistant to the military affairs of the Beijing Camp and a member of the Donglin Party, he was actually quite capable and could be considered a practical man in the Donglin Party. During his time as the assistant to the military affairs of the Beijing Camp, he tried to reform the Beijing Camp and eliminate its malpractices, but before he could do anything about it, he was dismissed by Emperor Chongzhen. Li Banghua, who was a real doer, ended up like this. After that, those who succeeded Li Banghua secretly took Li Banghua as a lesson, and from then on, they followed the old ways, condoned evil, and no one dared to raise the issue of the Beijing Camp again.

Strangely enough, there was a similar phenomenon in both the Ming Dynasty court and the military, where the three parties shared power and checked each other.

For example, the imperial power, the Imperial Household Department, and the Cabinet are the three parties in the center. In the court, there are the emperor, the cabinet, and the civil service group. And in the Beijing camp, there are the nobles, eunuchs (representing the imperial power), and civil servants. It seems that this pattern has penetrated into every aspect of the Ming Dynasty, and the power of the civil service group is getting stronger and stronger, directly overwhelming the former. How can this continue to be good?
Zhu Shenzhui was an outsider, and he conquered the capital directly, especially in a battle outside the capital, where he defeated the main force of the Beijing Camp and almost captured all the main generals of the Beijing Camp. For this reason, after entering the capital, Zhu Shenzhui could reorganize the Beijing Camp unscrupulously. First, he directly split the Beijing Camp, selected the soldiers who were able to be used from the original Beijing Camp to reorganize the new army, and gave this new army a new name - Shuntian Army. Although the structure of the Beijing Camp was still there, it was actually no different from what it was before.

Zhu Shencui's real purpose was to replace the old Beijing Camp with the new Shuntian Army. As for the nobles who previously controlled the Beijing Camp, including the former general Wu Weiying, Zhu Shencui arranged for them to be relocated. After all, these people were old nobles with considerable influence, and Zhu Shencui wanted to win them over. However, Zhu Shencui was not so polite to the civil servants in the Beijing Camp. Although he did not raise his butcher knife to chop off their heads, he directly left them idle. Among them, the position of assistant to the military affairs of the Beijing Camp was simply left vacant.

This time, when fighting against Huang Taiji, Zhu Shenzhui sent out the Shuntian Army under his command and let Wang Jinwu take command of the army. The purpose was to train this newly reorganized army.

Although training the army through the battlefield will come at a certain cost, judging from the current results, the cost is worth it.

The army suffered heavy losses in the battle of Xifengkou, but it also grew rapidly after the war. When they returned to the capital, the Shuntian Army was no longer the same. The army that originally looked a bit weak and even just a shelf was now a bit fierce and murderous. The soldiers who returned to the capital held their heads high, their spirits high, their faces full of determination and pride. Even if they were not as elite as Zhu Shenzhui's new army, they looked not much different from the Nine Border Army.

Moreover, the battle was won, and the soldiers were so proud after the victory. After all, when people talked about the Beijing Camp before, the first impression was that they were a group of "old and young soldiers" who were good at pretending but not good at fighting.

What about now? With his own ability, he fought a fierce battle with Jiannu, defeated Jiannu and forced Huang Taiji to withdraw. Who else in the entire Ming army can have such a record? After a battle, who wouldn't be excited about such glory? What's more, the army is full of upright men. As a soldier, even the old and young soldiers still care about these honors very much. Besides the commander-in-chief Wang Jinwu, isn't it the current regent Zhu Shenzhu who can bring them such honors?
These not only transformed the team, but also allowed Zhu Shenzhui to better control the army. Next, Wang Jinwu, as the commander-in-chief of the Beijing Camp, will further reorganize and train the entire Beijing Camp, and eventually integrate the Shuntian Army and other units of the Beijing Camp into a new army to replace the original Beijing Camp.

Although the scale of the Beijing Camp will be much smaller than the original one, in Zhu Shenzui's opinion, the Beijing Camp does not need to maintain such a large scale. The two capitals of the Ming Dynasty and the Beijing Camp in the south and north have a total of more than 400,000 people, of which the number of people in the capital exceeds 200,000. However, nearly half of these 200,000 people are empty pay. Zhu Shenzui made drastic changes to the Beijing Camp and directly cut the number to about 50,000. Even this number was a little too much for him. In Zhu Shenzui's plan, the Beijing Camp in the capital would only need to maintain a number of 30,000 in the end. Next, he would partially expand his new army to create a new army of about 20,000 people, plus his elite cavalry. Such an elite force would be enough to shock the entire northern part of the Ming Dynasty.

But before Zhu Shenzhui started to do so, someone in the court had already paid attention to this matter. Soon after the triumphant soldiers were rewarded, someone in the court stood up and said that the Beijing camp was now preparing to reorganize, so the personnel arrangements for the Beijing camp should be determined as soon as possible.

This includes the position of Assistant to the Military Affairs of the Beijing Camp, which has been vacant before because no appointment was made due to the previous expedition. Now is the time to appoint the Assistant to the Military Affairs of the Beijing Camp. In addition to this position, the positions of civil servants at all levels in the Beijing Camp should also be determined to avoid vacancies and inconveniences.

The person who said this was Gong Dingzi, the Censor of the Military Department. Although Gong Dingzi's official position was not high, he was a censor. Moreover, as the Censor of the Military Department, he had a certain say in military affairs.

Gong Dingzi became famous at a young age. In the seventh year of Chongzhen, he passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi. He then served as the magistrate of Qishui County, Hubei Province. Because of his meritorious service in fighting against the bandit Zhang Xianzhong, he was commended by Emperor Chongzhen and promoted directly from a local official to Beijing, where he served as a Censor of the Military Department.

This man is quite talented and famous, and is as famous as Qian Qianyi, Wu Weiye and others. He is the backbone of the Donglin Party. Previously, the Ministry of Rites refuted the cabinet's welcome ceremony for Wang Jinwu and others who returned triumphantly, and Gong Dingzi was one of the supporters. Today, as soon as the court meeting began, Gong Dingzi couldn't wait to jump out and talked about assisting in the military affairs of the Beijing Camp and the civil service positions of the Beijing Camp.

In the hall, the throne in the middle was empty. This position was the emperor's seat. Since Emperor Chongzhen was unable to govern due to "physical reasons", no one was sitting in this position. Below the throne, one head shorter than the throne, there was a chair. Zhu Shenzhu, the regent, sat in this chair and looked at Gong Dingzi standing up from below, sizing him up meaningfully.

(End of this chapter)